The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(155)

Joanne and Orla were wiggling themselves along the grass, in closer to me. Open-mouthed, starry-eyed.

‘So this one Wednesday,’ Gemma said, ‘it’s pissing rain, and I go down and I can’t see Ro. I wait under the trees for a while, but in the end, come on, I’m not going to stand there all day freezing my nips off? So I head into the shed. I figure Ronan can just deal with it. He knew me by then; I wasn’t some randomer.’

Shiver from the other two, anticipating.

Gemma said, ‘And there’s Rebecca O’Mara. Like, the last person you’d expect? She jumped a mile – I swear to God I thought she was going to faint. I start laughing and I’m like, “Oh my God, what are you doing here? Looking for your crack fix?”’

Swirl of laughter, in the dark teeming air.

‘Rebecca’s all, “Oh, I was just getting out of the rain,” and I’m there, “Yeah, OK.” The school’s like half a minute away, and she’s wearing her coat and her hat, meaning she actually deliberately came out into the rain. And if she’s so shy, how come she’s hiding somewhere she’s going to run into big scary groundskeepers?’

Gemma had herself back. The story was coming out easy, confident. It sounded true. ‘So I go, “Planning on doing some gardening?” – there were all these shovels and stuff in the corner where she was; she had one of them in her hand, like she’d grabbed it when I came in, in case I was a psycho rapist and she had to fight me off. And she actually goes, “Um, um, I guess, sort of, I was thinking about—” till I decide to put her out of her misery. I’m there, “Puh-lease, you didn’t think I was serious?” And she just stares at me for a moment, like, Bwuh? and then she goes, “I have to go,” and she runs out into the rain and heads back to the school.’

She must have put down the shovel, before she ran out. Shovel, or spade, or hoe. Left it there to come back for, now she knew what she wanted.

The meteor in the palm of my hand. Beautiful. Burning me through, with a welcome white fire.

If there was anything in my face, the tricky light would hide it for me. I made sure my voice stayed easy. ‘Did Ronan see her?’

Shrug from Gemma. ‘Don’t think so. He didn’t get there till a few minutes later – he’d been waiting somewhere for the rain to ease off. He was kind of pissed off that I was inside, but he got over it.’ Smile, reminiscent.

Joanne was close to me. ‘See? All that pure-and-innocent stuff, that is ohmyGod such crap. Everyone else totally falls for it, but we knew you wouldn’t.’

I said, ‘Did Ronan sell anything else besides drugs? Booze? Cigarettes?’ Sometimes they’d had the odd smoke, Holly had said; and the packet hidden in Julia’s bit of wardrobe. Rebecca could still have had an innocent reason for being in that shed; guilty kind of innocent, but innocent all the same.

Gemma snorted. ‘Right. And fizzy lollies.’

Orla was giggling. ‘Phone credit.’

‘Mascara.’

‘Tights.’

‘Tampax.’

That exploded the two of them, shrieking laughter, Orla fell over backwards onto the grass kicking her legs up. Joanne cut through it. Coldly: ‘He wasn’t a supermarket. Rebecca wasn’t buying chocolate chip cookies.’

Gemma got herself together. ‘Yeah. He just sold the bad stuff.’ Lascivious curl on bad. ‘I’d love to know what she actually was buying.’

Joanne shrugged. ‘Not diet pills, anyway. Unless she’s anorexic, and I don’t think she even has enough self-respect to bother. She doesn’t even wear makeup.’

‘Probably hash.’ Orla, knowing.

‘What kind of loser does hash by herself? OhmyGod, that’s so sad.’

‘She could’ve been buying for all four of them.’

‘Hello, like they’d send her? If they were all in on it, they’d send Julia or Holly. Rebecca was there because she wanted something.’

‘Ro’s hot body.’

‘Ew ew ew, pass the brain bleach?’

They were on the edge of getting the giggles again. I said, ‘When was this?’

That brought them back. Quick spatter of glances under their lashes. Joanne said, ‘We were wondering when you’d ask.’

‘Last spring?’

Another fizzle of glances. Gemma said, ‘The next night, Chris got killed.’

A second of silence, while that spread up and out, into the branches.

‘So,’ Joanne said. ‘See?’

I saw.

‘You said someone was meeting up with Chris, after him and Selena broke up. Like I told you, no way would he meet up with Rebecca O’Mara because he was into her. But if she was buying something for him? She would totally have done it; she would’ve done anything for him. And he would’ve met up to get it. He might even have thrown her the odd charity snog, give her something to dream about.’

Orla’s snuffly laugh.

I said, ‘Did you ever see Rebecca going out on her own at night?’

‘No. So? We stopped watching the corridor like weeks before Chris got killed.’

Chris’s tox screen had come back clean, Conway had said. No drugs in his gear.

‘And then,’ Joanne said. Sliding in closer, her legs brushing up against mine. I couldn’t see her eyes, through the floodlights glittering on their surfaces. ‘Maybe Rebecca thought they were like together or something. And when she found out they weren’t . . .’