The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(100)

‘Or it’s started to sink in that this is serious shit, and he’s scared Selena’s going to tell. He figures the safest thing he can do is cut off contact; if she comes forward, he’ll call her a liar, claim the person she was texting wasn’t him, he never had anything to do with her.’

‘Finally,’ I said, ‘on the sixteenth of May, Selena finds a way to get him to meet up. Maybe he figures he needs to get the phone off her, in case there’s a way it can be traced back to him.’

The rest turned in the air between us. On the grass below the window a huddle of little girls were chattering, indignant as small birds: She totally knew I wanted it and she like looked at me going for it and then she just barged right in front—

Conway said, ‘I told you in the car I didn’t fancy Selena for it, didn’t think she could get the job done. I still don’t.’

I said, ‘Julia’s very protective of Selena.’

‘You spotted that, yeah? I make noises about questioning Selena, say I don’t play nice; Julia’s straight in with the info about Joanne and Chris, throwing another ball for me to chase.’

‘Yeah. And I’d say it’s not just Julia: all four of them look after each other. If Chris did something to Selena, or tried to, and the others found out . . .’

‘Revenge,’ Conway said. ‘Or they saw Selena losing the plot, thought she’d go back to normal if Chris was gone and she felt safe again. And I’d say any of those three could get the job done just fine.’

‘Rebecca?’ But I remembered it, that lift of her chin, the glint that had told me Not so frail after all. Thought of the poem on her wall, of what her friends meant to her.

‘Yeah. Even her.’ After a second, carefully not looking at me: ‘Even Holly.’

I said, ‘Holly’s the one who brought me that card. She could’ve just binned it.’

‘I’m not saying she did anything. I’m just saying I’m not ready to rule her out yet.’

Made me prickle, the carefulness; like Conway thought I was going to throw a full-on hissy, demand she take my Holly off the list, start making calls to my big daddy Mackey. I wondered all over again what Conway had heard about me.

I said, ‘Or it could be all three of them.’

‘Or all four,’ Conway said. She pressed her fingers to her nose, rubbed them along her cheekbones. ‘Fuck.’

She looked like today was starting to close over her head. She was longing to leave: go back to Murder and turn in her paperwork, sit in the pub with a mate till her head was wiped clear, start fresh in the morning.

She said, ‘This f*cking place.’

‘Long day,’ I said.

‘You want to go, go.’

‘And do what?’

‘Do whatever you do. Go home. Get your glad rags on and go clubbing. There’s a bus stop down the main road, or you can phone a taxi. Send me the receipt, I’ll put it on expenses.’

I said, ‘If I’ve got the choice, I’m staying.’

‘I’m gonna be here a while. I don’t know how long.’

‘No problem.’

Conway looked at me, eyebag to eyebag. Fatigue had rasped the coppery sheen off her skin, left her bare and hard and dusty.

She said, ‘Ambitious little f*cker, aren’t you?’

It stung, places where it shouldn’t have, because it was true and because it wasn’t all the truth. I said, ‘It’s your case. No matter what I do, it’s your name going on the solve. I just want to work it.’

Second of silence, while Conway looked at me. She said, ‘If we get a suspect and we bring her back to base, the lads are gonna give me hassle. About the case, about you, whatever. I can deal with that. If you add to the hassle because you want to be one of the lads, you’re gone. Clear?’

What I’d felt in the squad-room air that morning: not just your normal Murder-squad edge, fast Murder-squad pulse. Something more, beating faster and sharper around Conway. And not just today. Her every day had to be a fight.

I said, ‘I’ve ignored eejits before. I can do it again.’ Hoped to Jaysus the squad room would be empty whenever we walked in there. Last thing I wanted to do was pick between pissing off Conway and pissing off the Murder lads.

Conway kept up the stare for another moment. Then: ‘Right,’ she said. ‘You better be good at it.’ She clicked her phone to black, slid it back into her pocket. ‘Time to talk to Selena.’

I glanced around the beds. Shoved Alison’s locker back into place, pulled Joanne’s duvet straight. ‘Where?’

‘Her room. Keep it casual, keep her relaxed. If she comes out with it . . .’

If Selena said rape, then parent or guardian, support officer, video camera, all the bells and whistles. I asked, ‘Who does the talking?’

‘I do. What’re you looking at? I can do sensitive. And you think she’ll talk to you about a rape? You stay back and try to disappear.’

Conway slammed the window shut. Before we got out of the room, the smell of body sprays and hot hair was rising around us again.



To keep the girls occupied, God help them, McKenna had started a singalong. Their voices straggled down the corridor to meet us, thin and threadbare. O Mary, we crown thee with blossoms today . . .