The Secret Place полностью

Smooth as butter. No one, not even Frank Mackey’s kid, comes up with that kind of good stuff off the top of her head. Holly had been thinking this through, stuck in that common room with wild things zapping the air. Methodically going through everything we could know, working out her answers.

Some innocent people would do that. Not a lot.

‘Makes sense,’ I said. Behind Holly, Mackey had flattened the clay into a disc, was trying to spin it on his finger. ‘Here’s the thing, but. The way our witness tells the story, you didn’t find the phone in the foyer. You had it tucked down your waistband, wrapped in a tissue.’

Holly’s eyebrows pulling together, baffled. ‘No I didn’t. I mean, I might’ve had a tissue in my hand, everyone was crying-’

‘You didn’t like Chris. And you’re not the type to fake a crying fit for someone you didn’t like.’

‘I never said I was crying. I wasn’t. I’m saying I might have been giving someone else a tissue, I don’t remember. But I do know the phone was on the floor.’

I said, ‘I think you took Selena’s phone out from behind her bed and found a good way to ditch it. The lost-and-found bin, that was smart. It worked well. It almost worked for good.’

Holly’s mouth opened, but I held up my hand. ‘Hang on a sec. Let me finish first, before you tell me if I’m right or wrong. You knew there was a chance we’d search the school. You knew if we found the phone, we’d be talking to Selena. You knew what police questioning is like; let’s face it, there’s better ways to spend your day. You didn’t want Selena put through that, not when she was already traumatised about Chris’s death. So you binned the phone. Does that sound about right?’

It was an out: an innocent reason why she would have wanted the phone gone. Never take the out. It looks safe as houses. It takes you a step closer to where we want you.

Mackey said, without glancing up from his new toy, ‘You don’t have to answer that.’

I said, ‘No reason why you shouldn’t. You think we’re going to press charges against a minor for concealing something that might not even be evidence? We’ve got a lot more on our minds. Your da can tell you himself, Holly: if you’re after something big, you’re happy to let the small stuff slide. This is small stuff. But we need to clear it up.’

Holly watched me, not her dad. Thought, or I thought she did, about that moment when she had seen me understand.

She said, ‘Selena didn’t kill Chris. No way. I never worried that she did, not even for a second. She doesn’t work like that.’ Straight-backed, straight-eyed, trying to shove it into my head. ‘I know you’re thinking Yeah, right. But I’m not just being naïve. I know with most people you don’t have a clue what they’re capable of. I know that.’

Mackey’s piece of clay had gone still. It was true: Holly did know that.

‘But with Selena I do. She wouldn’t have hurt Chris. Ever. I swear to God, it’s totally impossible.’

I said, ‘Probably you’d have sworn to God that she wouldn’t go out with Chris, either.’

Twitch of impatience, I was losing cred again. ‘Like that’s the same thing? Come on. Anyway, I don’t expect you to just take my word about what kind of person she is. She actually physically couldn’t have done it. Like I told you, sometimes I can’t sleep. The night Chris died, I was having trouble sleeping. If Selena had gone out, I would’ve known.’

It was a lie, but I left it. I said, ‘So you ditched the phone.’

Not a blush on Holly, while she dumped the story she’d told me, all sincerity, about five minutes earlier; not a blink. Daddy’s girl. ‘Yeah. So? If you knew that your friend was about to get in trouble for something she definitely hadn’t even done, you mean you wouldn’t try and get her out of it?’

I said, ‘I would, yeah. It’s only natural.’

‘Exactly. Anybody would, who has any kind of loyalty. So yeah, I did.’

I said, ‘Thanks. That clears that up. Except for one thing. When did you get the phone out of your room?’

Holly’s face went still. ‘What?’

‘The only thing that’s confusing me. Chris’s body was found at what time?’

‘Little after seven-thirty a.m.,’ Conway said. Quietly, staying invisible. I was doing all right.

‘And the assembly was when?’

Holly shrugged. ‘I don’t remember. Before lunch. Noon?’

I said, ‘Did you have morning classes? Or did you get sent back to your rooms?’

‘Classes. Well. Sort of. No one was paying any attention, even the teachers, but we still had to sit in the classrooms and act like we cared.’

‘So maybe you started hearing rumours around breakfast,’ I said. ‘At that stage it would’ve been just general stuff, police on the grounds; probably everyone thought it was about the groundskeeper who was dealing. Maybe a bit later, if someone saw the morgue van arriving and knew what it was, there might’ve been some talk about a dead person, but there’s no way yous could’ve known who it was. When was Chris ID’d?’

‘Half-eightish,’ Conway said. ‘McKenna thought he looked familiar, rang up Colm’s to see if they were missing anyone.’