‘Dunno. But it mightn’t be the actual phone she kept. She might’ve ditched the phone, just hung onto the SIM card. That’s a lot safer. Then today, she needs an anonymous number to text us from, swaps Chris’s SIM into her own phone…’
‘Why hang on to any of it?’
I said, ‘Say it’s Theory Two, the killer passed it on to someone else. Maybe the other girl had a feeling there was something dodgy about it, something to do with Chris; she hung onto the phone, or just the SIM card, in case she ever felt like turning it in to us. Or maybe she didn’t cop there was a connection, just liked the idea of having an anonymous number stashed away. Or maybe it just had credit left on it, like the one Joanne sold Alison.’
Conway nodded. ‘OK. That’ll work with Theory Two. I don’t see how it works with One or Three. Which means the girl who texted you isn’t the killer.’
I said, ‘That says the killer’s got plenty of nerve. Handing Chris’s phone off to someone else, instead of binning it, when it could put her in jail.’
‘Plenty of nerve, plenty of arrogance, plenty of stupid, take your pick. Or she didn’t hand it off on purpose; she ditched it somewhere, the texter found it.’
Voices, seeping down the corridor with the chicken-and-mushroom smell: the fourth-years talking over their dinner. Not happy girly chitchat. This was a low, flattened-out buzz, got into your ear and turned you edgy.
I said, ‘Did Sophie say when we’ll get the records off it?’
‘Soon. Her contact’s working on it. I’ll e-mail her now, tell her we need the actual texts, not just the numbers. We could be out of luck – some of the networks dump that stuff after a year – but we’ll give it a shot.’ Conway was typing fast. ‘Meanwhile,’ she said.
It was gone five o’clock.
No way we could leave Kilda’s, not now. Inside, all those girls, all jittering to start swapping stories and matching up lies the second our shadow lifted. Outside, the Murder lads, jaws ready to snap shut on this case the minute O’Kelly heard it was live again. In the middle, us.
If we walked out of Kilda’s empty-handed, we’d never come back or we’d come back to a blank wall.
But:
I said, ‘We stick around much longer, McKenna’s going to get onto your gaffer.’
Conway didn’t look up from her phone. ‘I know, yeah. She said that to me, down in Arnold’s room. Didn’t even bother being subtle: told me if we weren’t out by dinnertime, she’d ring O’Kelly and tell him we bullied her
‘It’s dinnertime now.’
‘Chillax. I wasn’t subtle either. I told her if she tries to throw us out before we’re good and ready, I’ll ring my journalist pal and tell him we’ve spent the day interviewing Kilda’s students about Chris Harper.’ Conway shoved her phone into her pocket. ‘We’re going nowhere.’
I could’ve backslapped her, hugged her, something. I didn’t want my nads kicked in. ‘Fair play to you,’ I said, instead.
‘What, you thought McKenna was gonna make me her bitch? Thanks a bunch.’ But the big grin on me pulled one out of her, too. ‘So. Meanwhile…’
I said, ‘Joanne?’
Conway took a breath. Behind her, the curtains stirred; the cutlery mobile made a faint high ringing, soft and faraway.
She nodded, once. ‘Joanne,’ she said.
I said, ‘Witness or suspect?’
A suspect, you need to caution her, get her to sign a rights sheet, before you go asking any questions. A suspect, you take her down to HQ, get everything on video. A suspect, if she wants a solicitor, she gets one. An underage suspect, you have an appropriate adult present; you don’t even think about dodging.
Just now and again, we fudge it. No one can prove what you’re thinking inside your own mind. Once in a long while you keep it casual, just a chat with a witness, till your suspect gets in too deep for you, or him, to deny.
If you get caught out, if the judge gives you a filthy look and says any officer with half a brain would’ve suspected this person, then you’re done. Everything you got, gone: thrown out.
We were on the line. Plenty of reasons to think it might be Joanne; not enough to believe it was.
‘Witness,’ Conway said. ‘Be careful.’
I said, ‘You too. Joanne’s not about to forget that you took her down a peg in front of the rest.’
‘Ah, for fuck.’ Conway’s head tossing up with irritation: she’d forgotten. ‘That’s me stuck in the back seat again. Next time we need to piss someone off, I’m gonna make you do it.’
‘Ah, no,’ I said. ‘You do it. You’ve got a gift.’ The face she made at me looked like a friend’s.
In the common room the girls were neat around tables, heads bent over plates, homey rhythm of clinking cutlery. The nun had one eye on her food and one on them.
