The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(153)

‘We told you they were weird.’

The glow on their faces, all eager and fascinated. Like I could be the one thing they’d been hoping to see. It made you want to be that, everything they were looking for, all at the same time. Chris Harper must have wanted the same thing.

Up in the art room, Conway strolled across the window, all long stride and sharp shoulders. I said, ‘Yeah. It’s Holly.’ Conway would’ve eaten the head off me; f*ck Conway.

Hiss of in-breath. Glances circling, but I couldn’t catch them as they zipped past.

Orla breathed, ‘Did she kill Chris?’

‘OhmyGod.’

‘Here was us thinking it was Groundskeeper Willy.’

‘Well, up until today we did.’

‘But once you started asking us and them all those questions—’

‘Obviously we knew it wasn’t us—’

‘But we didn’t think—’

‘It was Holly Mackey?’

I would’ve only loved to have an answer for them. See their mouths pop open and their eyes go wide, see them overwhelmed by me, The Man, pulling out fountains of answers like a magician. I said, ‘We don’t know who killed Chris. We’re working hard on finding out.’

‘But who do you think?’ Joanne wanted to know.

Holly, slouched at that table, all blue eyes and bite and something hidden. Maybe Mackey had been right, not wanting her talking. Maybe he had been right and she would’ve talked to me.

I shook my head. ‘Not my job.’ Sceptical looks. ‘Seriously. I can’t go around with an idea stuck in my head, not till I’ve got evidence.’

‘Ahh.’ She pouted. ‘That’s so not fair. Here you’re asking us to—’

‘OhmyGod!’ Orla, shooting upright, clapping a hand over her mouth. ‘You don’t think it was Alison, do you?’

‘Is that where she is?’

‘Is she under arrest?’

They were open-mouthed. ‘No,’ I said. ‘She’s just a bit upset. The thing with Chris’s ghost, that got to her.’

‘Well, hello, yeah? It got to all of us, actually?’ Joanne, cold: I’d forgotten to put her top of the list. Bad boy.

‘Bet it did,’ I said, good and awed. ‘Did you see him?’

Joanne remembered to shiver. ‘Course I did. Probably he came back to talk to me. He was looking straight at me.’

It hit me then: every girl who had seen Chris’s ghost would’ve sworn the same. He had been looking at her. He had come because he wanted something from her, only her.

‘Like I told you’ – Joanne had her bereaved face on again – ‘if he hadn’t died, we would’ve been together again. I think he wants me to know he still cares.’

‘Ahhh.’ Orla, head to one side.

I asked her, ‘Did you see him?’

Her hand shot to her chest. ‘OhmyGod, yes! I almost had a heart attack. He was literally right there. I swear.’

I said, ‘Gemma?’

Gemma shifted on the grass. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure about ghosts.’

Joanne said, an edge on it, ‘Excuse me, I know what I saw?’

‘I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I didn’t see him. I saw like a blur in the window, like when you get something sticky in your eye. That’s it.’

‘Well. Some people are more sensitive than others. And some people were closer to Chris. Excuse me if I don’t think it actually matters what you saw.’

Gemma shrugged. Joanne said, to me, ‘He was there.’

I couldn’t tell whether she meant it. Back in the common room, I would’ve sworn all their terror was real: started as play-acting, maybe, for notice or to blow off steam, but then snowballed into something too big and too true for them to control. But now, the shiver, the face on her, I couldn’t tell; could’ve been just that plastic layer over her, blurring whatever was real underneath; could’ve been plastic straight through. Probably even they didn’t know.

I said, ‘Then that’s another reason why, whatever you know, you need to tell me. Chris would want you to.’

‘How would we know anything?’ Joanne, blank and slick as cellophane. They were giving up nothing till I earned it.

But I knew the answer to that one. After Selena and Chris broke up, Joanne had posted her guard dogs on night watch, to make sure.

I said, ‘Let’s say someone other than Selena was meeting up with Chris at night, the couple of weeks before he died. Who would you say it was?’

Joanne’s face didn’t change. ‘Was there someone?’

‘I’m only saying if. Who would you guess?’

Sliding looks at each other, under their lashes. If the fear had ever been real, it had leaked out of them. Something else had risen, forced it out: power.

Joanne said, ‘Tell us if he was meeting someone, and we’ll tell you something good.’

I said I know my shot when I see it. Sometimes you don’t even have to see it. Sometimes you feel it coming, screaming down the sky towards you like a meteor.

I said, ‘He was, yeah. We’ve found texts between them.’

More looks. Gemma said, ‘Texts like what?’