The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(145)

Julia hears it clear as tapped bronze. Your chance. Your choice.

It takes her a long humming minute to understand what that means. To hold in one hand what will happen if she does, and in the other what will happen if she doesn’t.

Julia can’t breathe. She thinks like a howl: That’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair, whatever I do I’m going to get— I didn’t get off with Finn. I barely f*cking touched him. I didn’t do anything I should have to pay for. The silence that meets her teaches her: this is not McKenna’s office. You don’t get to play with nitpicks, dodge whining around the edges of But-Miss-I-never-exactly-actually, not here. Unfair means nothing. She has been weighed up and the decision has been made. She has these few days before Selena takes Chris back, one last gift, in which to choose.

Julia thinks about throwing the phone at the wall and lining the pieces up neatly on Selena’s bed. She thinks about going to Matron and telling her she needs to swap to a different room, today. She thinks about getting under the covers and crying. In the end she just sits there on Selena’s bed, watching the sunlight slide across her lap and her arm and the phone in her hand, waiting for ringing bells and brisk feet to make her move.



‘So?’ Holly wants to know, tossing her bag on the bed. ‘What were you doing?’

‘What did it look like? Puking my guts up.’

‘That was for real? We thought you were faking.’

Julia glances at Selena before she can stop herself, but Lenie doesn’t look suspicious; she’s flopped down on her bed, still in her uniform, and is curled up staring at the wall. Julia is obviously the last thing on her mind.

‘What for? So I could be bored off my tits all day? I have a virus.’

Becca is pulling clothes out of the wardrobe and singing to herself. She breaks off to say, ‘Want us to stay here with you? We were going to the Court, but that was ’cause we thought you’d come too.’

‘Go. I’d be shit company anyway.’

‘I’ll stay,’ Selena says, to the wall. ‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’

Holly makes a face at Julia, tilts her head: What’s with her? Julia shrugs: How would I know?

‘Oh, yeah, I meant to ask—’ Becca’s head pops out of her uniform jumper, flyaway hair everywhere. ‘Tonight?’

‘Hello?’ Julia says. ‘I feel like crap. Remember? I just want to sleep.’

Please can we meet tonite, Chris texted Selena. Same time same place I’ll be there.

‘OK,’ Becca says, not bothered by the edge on Julia’s voice. A year ago she would have flinched like she’d been hit. At least that, Julia thinks. At least one good thing. ‘Maybe tomorrow?’

‘I’m on,’ Holly says, throwing her blazer at the wardrobe. Julia says, ‘Depends how I feel.’ Selena is still staring at the wall.

That night Julia doesn’t go to sleep. She curls up in a loose ball the way she usually sleeps, keeps her eyes shut and her breathing long and even, and listens. She has the back of her hand up against her mouth, where she can bite into it if she feels herself drowsing off.

Selena isn’t asleep either. Julia’s back is to her, but she can hear her moving around, restless. Once or twice her breath has a wet sound, like she might be crying, but Julia can’t tell for sure.

After a few hours, Selena sits up, very slowly, one move at a time. Julia hears her hold her breath, listening for the rest of them, and forces herself to stay slack and easy. Becca snores, a tiny delicate noise.

After a long time, Selena lies down again. This time she’s definitely crying.

Julia thinks of Chris Harper waiting in their grove, probably throwing rocks at rustles and pissing on the cypress trunks. She wants to pray for a tree to drop a branch on his head and smash his slimy brain all over the grass, but she knows it’s not going to work that way.



On Wednesday afternoon, as they get their books ready for study period, Julia says, ‘Tonight.’

‘You’re over your virus, yeah?’ Holly asks, tossing a copybook on her pile. The sideways slant of her eye says she’s still not convinced.

‘If it comes back, I’ll make sure and aim for you.’

‘Whatever. I just don’t want you puking your guts when we’re right outside Matron’s room and getting us all caught.’

‘You’re all heart,’ Julia says. ‘Becs, you on?’

‘Course,’ Becca says. ‘Can I borrow your red jumper? I got jam on my black one, and it’s going to be freezing out.’

‘Sure.’ It’s nowhere near cold, but Becca loves borrowing things, lending things, all the small rituals that blur the four of them into one warm space. If she had the choice they’d all live in each other’s clothes. ‘Lenie,’ Julia says. ‘Tonight?’

Selena looks up from her study schedule. She’s shadowy and thinner, the way she’s been all the last two days, like she’s in dimmer light than the rest of the room, but the thought of a night has raised a spark of what looks like hope. ‘Yeah. Definitely yeah. I need that.’

‘God, me too,’ Julia says. One more, she thinks. One last night.



They run. Julia takes off the second her feet hit the grass below the window, and feels the rush of the others build behind her. They stream down the great front lawn like wild birds thrown across the sky. In front of them the guardhouse glows yellow, but they’re safe as houses: the night watchman never takes his eyes off his laptop except to do his rounds at midnight and again at two, and anyway they’re invisible, they’re soundless, they don’t cast shadows; they could sneak up close enough to touch him, they could press their faces against the glass and singsong his name, he’d never blink. They’ve done it before, when they wanted to see what he did in there. He plays online poker.