The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(126)

The art room. Not morning-fresh and rising with sunlight now. The overhead lights left murky corners; the green tables were smeared with shreds of clay, Conway’s balls of paper were still tumbled under chairs. McKenna must have cancelled the cleaners. Battening down the school as tight as she could, everything under control.

Outside the tall windows the moon was up, full and ripe against a dimming blue. On the table against them, that morning’s dropcloth had been pulled away, not put back. Where it had been was the whole school in miniature, in fairytale, in the finest curlicues of copper wire.

I said, ‘That. Is that the project you were working on last night?’

Holly said, ‘Yeah.’

Close up, it looked too delicate to stay standing. The walls were barely sketched, just the odd line of wire; you could look straight through them, to wire desks, ragged cloth blackboards scribbled with words too small to read, high-backed wire armchairs cosy around a fire of tissue-paper coals. It was winter; snow was piled on the gables, around the bases of the columns and the wine-jar curves of the balustrade. Behind the building, a lawn of snowdrift trailed off the edge of the baseboard into nothing.

I said, ‘That’s here, yeah?’

Holly had moved in, hovering, like I might smash it. ‘It’s Kilda’s a hundred years ago. We researched what it used to be like – we got old photos and everything – and then we built it.’

The bedrooms: tiny copper-wire beds, wisps of tissue paper for sheets. In the boarders’ wing and the nuns’, fingernail-length parchment scrolls swung in the windows, from threads fine as spiderweb. ‘What are the bits of paper?’ I asked. My breath set them spinning.

‘The names of people who were listed living here in the 1911 census. We don’t actually know who had what room, obviously, but we went on what age they were and the order they were listed in – like probably friends would be one after the other, because they would’ve been sitting together. One girl was called Hepzibah Cloade.’

Conway was spinning chairs into place around one of the long tables. One for Holly. One six feet down the table: Mackey. She brought them down hard, flat bangs on the lino.

I said, ‘Whose idea was it?’

Holly shrugged. ‘All of ours. We were talking about the girls who went to school here a hundred years ago – if they ever thought about the same things as us, stuff like that; what they did when they grew up. If any of their ghosts ever came back. Then we thought of this.’

Chair across the table from Holly, for me. Bang. Chair opposite Mackey, for Conway. Bang.

Four scrolls hanging in the air above the main staircase. I said, ‘Who’re those?’

‘Hepzibah and her friends. Elizabeth Brennan. Bridget Marley. Lillian O’Hara.’

‘Where are they going?’

Holly reached between wires and touched the scrolls with the tip of her little finger, set them whirling. She said, ‘We don’t even know for sure they were friends. They could’ve all hated each other’s guts.’

I said, ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Yeah,’ Conway said. Like a warning. ‘It is.’

From behind us: ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

Mackey, in the doorway. Leaning back on his heels, bright blue eyes scanning, hands in the pockets of his brown leather jacket. Barely changed from the first time I’d seen him; the long fluorescents picked out deeper crows’ feet, more grey mixed in with the brown, but that was all.

‘Hiya, chickadee,’ he said. ‘How’s tricks?’

‘OK,’ Holly said. She looked at least half glad to see him, which is pretty good for a sixteen-year-old’s daddy. Another thing that hadn’t changed much: Mackey and Holly made a good team.

‘What’ve you been chatting about?’

‘Our art project. Don’t worry, Dad.’

‘Just making sure you haven’t made mincemeat of these nice people while I wasn’t there to protect them.’ Mackey switched to me. ‘Stephen. Too long no see.’ He came forward, held out his hand. Firm handshake, friendly smile. At least to start with, we were going to play this like everything was hunky-dory, all friends together, all on the same side.

I said, ‘Thanks for coming in. We’ll try not to keep you too long.’

‘And Detective Conway. Nice to meet you, after all the good things I’ve heard. Frank Mackey.’ A smile that was used to getting a response, got none off her. ‘Let’s step outside while you brief me.’

‘You’re not here as a detective,’ Conway said. ‘We’ve got that covered. Thanks.’

Mackey tossed me an eyebrow-lift and grin: Who pissed in her cornflakes? I got caught, not sure whether to smile back or not – with Mackey, you never know what he could turn into ammo. The paralysed gawp on me just made his grin get bigger.

He said to Conway, ‘Then if I’m just here as a daddy, I’d like a quick chat with my daughter.’

‘We need to get started. You can have a chat when we take a break.’

Mackey didn’t argue. Probably Conway thought that meant she’d won. He wandered off around the room, past the chair we’d set out for him, having a look at the art projects. Gave Holly’s hair a quick rub on his way. ‘Do us a favour, sweetheart. Before you answer any of the lovely detectives’ questions, give me a fast rundown of what we’re doing here.’