The Secret Place полностью

Holly’s eyes meet Julia’s for a second, but whatever she sees warns her or satisfies her, or both. Becca glances up and starts to ask something, but Selena touches her arm and they go back to the iPod. Some game is sending little orange darts zipping across the screen; white balloons explode in slow motion, silent fragments fluttering down. Julia sits in the weeds and watches Finn walk away.

We didn’t talk about Holly, me and Conway. We held her name between us like nitroglycerine and didn’t look at each other, while we did what needed doing: handed Alison over to Miss Arnold, told her to hang on to the kid overnight. Asked her for the key to the lost-and-found bin, and the story on how long things stayed in there before they got dumped. Low-value stuff went to charity at the end of each term, but pricey things – MP3 players, phones – they got left indefinitely.

The school building was dim-lit for nighttime. ‘What?’ Conway demanded, when the crack of a stair made me shy sideways.

‘Nothing.’ When that wasn’t enough: ‘A bit jumpy.’

‘Why?’

No way was I going to say Frank Mackey. ‘That light-bulb was a bit freaky. Is all.’

‘It wasn’t fucking freaky. The wiring in this place is a hundred years old; shit must blow up all the time. What’s freaky about that?’

‘Nothing. The timing, just.’

‘The timing was there’d been people in that common room all evening. The motion sensor’s been working overtime, something overheated and the bulb blew. End of fucking story.’

I wasn’t going to fight her on it, not when I agreed with her and she probably knew it. ‘Yeah. I’d say you’re right.’

‘Yeah. I am.’

Even arguing, we were keeping our voices down – the place made you feel like someone could be listening, getting ready to jump out at you. Every sound we made flitted away up the great curve of the stairwell, settled to rest in the shadows somewhere high above us. Above the front door the fanlight glowed blue, delicate as wing-bones.

The bin was black metal, old, off in a corner of the foyer. I fitted the key – quietly as I could, feeling like a kid slipping through forbidden places, springy with adrenaline – and swung open the panel at the bottom. Things came tumbling out at me: a cardigan smelling of stale perfume, a plush cat, a paperback, a sandal, a protractor.

The pearly pink flip-phone was at the bottom. We’d walked past it on our way into the school, that morning.

I put on my gloves, eased it out between two fingertips like we might get prints. We wouldn’t. Not off the outside, not off the inside of the cover, not off the battery or the SIM card. Everything would be shiny clean.

‘Great,’ Conway said, grim. ‘A cop’s kid. Beautiful.’

I said, finally, ‘This doesn’t mean for definite that Holly did it.’

My voice sounded reedy and stupid, too weak to convince even me. Flick of Conway’s eyebrow. ‘You don’t think?’

‘She could’ve been covering for Julia or Rebecca.’

‘Could’ve been, but we’ve got nothing that says she was. Everything else could point to any of them; this is the only thing we’ve got that’s specific, and it points straight at Holly. She couldn’t stand Chris. And from what I’ve seen of her, the kid’s determined, independent, got brains, got guts. She’d make a great killer.’

The cool of Holly, that morning in Cold Cases. Running the interview, glossy and sharp, throwing me a compliment to jump for at the end. Taking control.

‘Anything I’m missing,’ Conway said, ‘feel free to point it out.’

I said, ‘Why bring me the card?’

‘I didn’t miss that.’ Conway shook out another evidence envelope, spread it on top of the bin and started labelling. ‘She’s got balls, too. She knew someone would come to us sooner or later, figured doing it herself would take her off the suspect list – and it worked, too. If there’s trouble waiting for you, better to go out and meet it head-on, not stick your head in the sand and hope it doesn’t find you. I’d do the same thing.’

The look on Holly, that afternoon in the corridor when Alison lost the plot. Scanning faces. For a murderer, I’d thought then. For an informer had never crossed my mind.

I said, ‘That’s a lot of balls for a sixteen-year-old.’

‘So? You don’t think she’s got them?’

No answer to that. It hit me like a mouthful of ice: Conway had had Holly in her sights all along. The second I had shown up in her squad room, all eager, with my little card and my little story, she had started wondering.

Conway said, ‘I’m not saying she definitely did the job all by herself. Like we said before, it could’ve been her and Julia and Rebecca together; could’ve been the whole four of them. But whatever went down, Holly was up to her tits in it.’

‘And I’m not saying she wasn’t. I’m just keeping an open mind.’

Conway had finished labelling the envelope and straightened up, watching me. She said, ‘You think the same thing. You just don’t like that your Holly had you fooled.’

‘She’s not my Holly.’