‘Nah. Load of bollix.’ I leaned against the wall, one-shouldered so I could keep an eye on that line of light around the door. ‘I don’t know about Julia and Finn, but the others: Chris was the one that wanted things on the down-low. I’d bet it was so he could keep a few girls on the go at once. Joanne started pressuring him to go public, he dumped her.’
Nod. She nodded sideways, on a twist, street style. ‘Looks like your Holly might’ve been right about Chris. Not the sweetheart everyone said.’
The face on Chris, looking at Selena. But that age: wanting beats loyalty so easily. Doesn’t mean the loyalty isn’t real. You know what you’ve got, but you know what you want, too. So you go after it. You see your chance, and you take it. Tell yourself it’ll be grand in the end.
I said, ‘If he kept up the two-timing, and one of the girls found out…’
‘If Selena found out, you mean.’
‘Probably not her. Selena and Chris were over, weeks before he died. If you’re gonna smash your fella’s head in for cheating, you do it when you find out, not weeks later. Could’ve been why she broke it off, though.’
‘Maybe.’ Conway kicked someone’s clumpy uniform shoe out of her way. She didn’t sound convinced. ‘That didn’t go down the way Joanne said, anyway. She told Julia to get Selena away from Chris, Julia went, “Yes, ma’am, straight away, ma’am,” and ran right off to do what she was told? You think Julia takes orders on her mates’ love lives from Joanne?’
‘She’d tell her to go fuck herself. Unless Joanne had something major on her.’
‘That video’s major enough: could’ve got Julia and all her mates expelled. But Joanne didn’t need to use it. Chris and Selena split up first.’
‘You believe her?’
‘On that, I do.’
I thought back. Realised I’d already forgotten Joanne’s face. Hard to tell, but: ‘Yeah. I think I do too.’
‘Right. So maybe Selena did dump him because she caught him two-timing.’ Conway swept up Gemma’s hair-straightener on her way past, gave it a what-the-fuck grimace, tossed it on Orla’s bed. ‘Or maybe it was something else.’
‘They just fizzled out?’ I didn’t believe it, not after that footage. But, trying it on for size: ‘That age, even a month or two is a long time to be with someone. That’s when Chris got bored of Joanne. He could’ve got restless again, started feeling like it was too much commitment. Or Selena wanted to go public, same as Joanne did.’
Conway had stopped moving. The sun was lowering; it came in through the window arrow-straight and level, turned her face into a light-and-shadow mask. ‘I’ll tell you what else a month or two is, at that age. It’s when guys start turning up the pressure. Put out or get out.’
I waited. Silence, and the thick flower-chemical smell of body sprays burning the inside of my nose.
Conway said, ‘Someone did something to Selena that fucked up her mind and put all four of them off guys. And right around the same time, Selena and Chris broke up.’
I said, ‘You think Chris raped her.’
‘I think we need to check out the possibility. Yeah.’
‘Running into temptation and two-timing a girl you really like, that’s one thing. Raping her’s another. That video: on there, he looks like…’ Conway was withering me. I finished anyway. ‘He looks like he was mad about her.’
‘Course he does. So does any teenage guy who thinks he’s got a shot at a shag. They’ll be whatever they think the girl wants to see. Right up until they realise it’s not getting them into her knickers.’
‘That looked like the real thing to me.’
‘You an expert, yeah?’
‘Are you?’
Conway upped the stare. Couple of hours earlier, I would’ve blinked. I stared right back.
She left it. ‘Even if it was real,’ she said. ‘Even if he was genuinely mad about her. He could’ve raped her anyway. Grown adults don’t do something that’s obviously gonna hurt someone they love, not if they can help it, but that age; remember that age? They’re not the same. They don’t put things together. That’s why half of what they do looks full-on certifiable, to you or me or any sane adult. Things don’t make sense, when you’re that age; you don’t make sense. You stop expecting to.’
A second of silence. Her being right, me wishing she was wrong.
‘That night,’ I said. ‘The night Joanne videoed. That was the last time Chris and Selena met up. If he did something to her…’
‘Yeah. It was that night.’
Silence, again. Under the body spray, I thought I caught a whiff of hyacinths.
‘What now?’ I asked.
‘Now we wait for Sophie to get us Chris’s phone records. I’m not talking to anyone else till I see what he was at last spring. Meanwhile, we do a proper search in here.’
In the corner of my eye: a flutter of darkness, behind the door-crack.
