The Secret Place полностью

Lovely and peaceful, till you looked hard. Then you saw. Runners jittering under tables, bared teeth gnawing at the edge of a juice glass. Orla curling in tight on herself, trying not to take up space. A heavy girl with her back to me looked like she was lashing into her food, but over her shoulder I caught a full plate of chicken pie chopped into tiny perfect squares, getting tinier with each vicious cut.

‘Joanne,’ Conway said.

Joanne threw a tsk and a disgusted eye-roll at the ceiling, but she came. She was wearing the same outfit as Orla, give or take: short jeans shorts, tights, pink hoodie, Converse. On Orla they looked like she’d been dressed by someone with a grudge; on Joanne they looked like she’d been made that way, all in one mould.

We went back to her room. ‘Have a seat,’ I said, held out a hand to her bed. ‘Sorry we’ve no chair, but we’ll only be a few minutes.’

Joanne stayed standing, arms folded. ‘I’m actually eating dinner?’

In a bit of a fouler, our Joanne. Orla was in big trouble. ‘I know,’ I said, nice and humble. ‘I won’t keep you. I have to tell you, I’ve got a couple of questions that you might not like, but I need answers, and I’m not sure anyone’s got them but you.’

That caught her in the curiosity, or in the vanity. Long-suffering sigh, and she dropped onto her bed. ‘OK. I guess.’

‘I appreciate it,’ I said. Sat down on Gemma’s bed, facing Joanne, staying well away from the thrown-off clothes. Conway melted off into the background, leaning against the door. ‘First off, and I know Orla’s already told you this: we’ve found your key to the connecting door between here and the main building. Yous were sneaking out at night.’

Joanne had her mouth half-open to deny it and her outraged face half-on – autopilot – when Conway held up the Thérèse book. ‘Covered in fingerprints,’ she said.

Joanne put the outraged look away for later. ‘So?’ she said.

I said, ‘So this is confidential. We’re not about to pass it on to McKenna, get you in trouble. We’re just sorting what’s important from what’s not. OK?’

‘Whatever.’

‘Lovely. So what’d yous do, when you snuck out?’

A little reminiscent smirk, slackening Joanne’s mouth. After a moment she said, ‘Some of the Colm’s day boys came in over the back wall. I mean, I don’t normally hang out with day boys, but Garret Neligan knew where his parents kept their drinks and… stuff, so whatever. We did that a couple of times, but then Garret’s mum caught him and she started locking stuff up, so we didn’t bother any more.’

Stuff. Garret had been getting into Mammy’s meds. ‘When was this?’

‘Like last March? After that, we didn’t actually use the key that much. At Easter Gemma met this student guy at a club, so she went out to hook up with him a bunch of times – she thought she was totes amazeballs because she’d caught someone who was in OMG college, but of course he dumped her the second he found out how old she actually was? And obviously after Chris they changed the lock, so it wasn’t even any use any more.’

I said, ‘You have to realise that this puts you and your mates front and centre for having put up that card on the Secret Place. Any of you could have been out in the grounds when Chris was killed. Any of you could have seen something. Seen it happen, even.’

Joanne’s hands shot up. ‘Excuse me, whoa? Can we put the brakes on here? We weren’t the only ones who had a key. We got ours from Julia Harte.’

I did dubious. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So where would we find hers?’

‘Like I’d know? Even if I had a clue where they kept it, which I don’t actually pay attention to what those weirdos do, this was a year ago. They probably threw it away once the locks got changed. That’s what I told Orla to do, except she’s too useless to even get that right.’

‘Julia says they never had a key.’

Joanne’s face was starting to pinch in, turn vicious. ‘Um, hello, she would, wouldn’t she? That’s total crap.’

‘Could be,’ I admitted, shrugging. ‘But we can’t prove it. We’ve got proof that you and your mates had one, no proof that Julia and hers did. When it’s one person’s word against another’s, we’ve got to go with the evidence.’

‘Same as with Chris and Selena,’ Conway said. ‘You lot say they were going out, she says they weren’t, not one speck of evidence says they ever went near each other. What do you expect us to believe?’

The viciousness congealed into something solid, a decision. ‘OK. Fine.’

Joanne pulled out her phone, pushed buttons. Thrust it at me, arm’s length.

‘Is this proof?’

I took it. It felt hot from her hand, clammy.

A video. Dark; the rustle and bump of footsteps through grass. Someone whispering; a tiny snort of laughter, a hissed Shut up!

‘Who’s with you?’ I asked.

‘Gemma.’ Joanne was sitting back, arms folded, swinging her crossed foot and watching us. Anticipating.

Faint grey shapes, jiggling as Joanne’s movement jolted the phone. Bushes in moonlight. Clumps of small whitish flowers, folded up for the night.