The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(168)

The memory made Julia take a hard in-breath through her nose, bite down on her lip. She wasn’t someone you could pat on the head with the old You’re doing great. Conway gave her a second before she said, ‘Chris’s.’

‘Yeah. I’d seen it on him; it fell out of his pocket once, when we were . . . I go, “Lenie, what the f*ck?” She looks at me and she’s like, “Huh?” I swear I nearly shoved the phone up her arse. I went, “Where did you get this? And where’s your one?” She looks at the phone and after a second she says – this is it, this is all she says – “Oh.”’

Julia shook her head. ‘Just like that. “Oh.” I still feel sick thinking about it.’

Conway said, ‘You figured she’d killed Chris.’

‘Duh, yeah, I did. I just— What was I supposed to think? I thought she’d been out meeting him and he told her about me, and she— And then when she was legging it back inside, she grabbed the wrong phone somehow. If they’d, I don’t know, if they’d taken off their clothes and their phones had ended up—’

I said, ‘Or she might have taken it so we couldn’t link her to Chris.’

‘Yeah, no. Selena? Wouldn’t even occur to her. What freaked me out was where was her phone, like had she left it wherever Chris was? But I figured I couldn’t worry about that. I just grabbed the phone and I was out of there.’

It jibed with Holly’s story, or partway. Holly had thought faster: like her dad, always on top of the just-in-case, never let the off-chance sneak up on her. She had swiped Selena’s phone early in the morning, before the full story got through to McKenna and the school went into lockdown. Between then and study time, someone else had found a way into that room.

Conway said, ‘Where’d you put it?’

‘Locked myself in a toilet cubicle, deleted the shit out of the message folders, took out the SIM and stuck the phone in a cistern. I figured even if you found it, you couldn’t link it to us, and without the SIM you probably couldn’t link it to Chris either. That weekend when I went home, I left the phone on the bus. If no one stole it, it’s probably in the Dublin Bus lost and found.’

She had guts, Julia. Guts and enough loyalty for a dozen. She was good stuff. I wished I knew how badly we were going to break her heart.

‘Why keep the SIM card?’ I asked.

‘I thought it could come in useful. I was pretty sure Selena was about to get arrested – even if by some miracle she hadn’t left evidence all over the place, I figured she’d go to pieces and confess. Do you even remember what a wreck she was?’

‘So was everyone else,’ Conway said. The sharp point on her voice said Should’ve known. ‘She wasn’t bawling or fainting: she looked to be in better nick than most.’

Julia’s eyebrow flicked. ‘Yeah, if only you’d told me that back then. I was there expecting you guys to come for her any minute. I thought if there was at least a way to show you that she was the one who’d dumped Chris, and that he was a total dickhead to girls, Lenie might get – I don’t know, a lighter sentence or whatever. Otherwise everyone would just think he dumped her and she went psycho, lock the evil bitch up and throw away the key. I don’t know, I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly; I just figured keeping it couldn’t hurt, at least for now, and it might help.’

If Julia had talked to any of the others, she would have known that the story had tangles, that not everything pointed straight to Selena. No way to guess what they would have done next, but they would have done it together.

It had been months too late for that to happen. Chris had cracked the four of them right across. Even after he was gone, the fault line he made had kept widening, deep under the surface, while everything up on top shone beautiful as new. We were just finishing the job he had begun.

I said, ‘Can you remember if anyone did manage to go up to the boarders’ wing before study period that day? We’ll check the logbook, but while we have you here: anything come to mind?’

I had Julia’s attention. She was watching me hard. ‘What? You think someone else put that phone down behind Selena’s bed?’

‘If Selena didn’t take that phone off Chris, someone else did. And then somehow it got to where you found it.’

‘Like, someone tried to frame her?’

Behind her shoulder, Conway’s eyes said Careful. I shrugged. ‘We can’t say that yet. I’d just like to know if anyone had the opportunity.’

Julia thought. Shook her head, reluctantly. ‘I don’t think so. I mean, obviously I’d love to say yeah, but actually there’s not a chance in hell anyone would’ve got up there without a really good excuse. And even then, no way would she have been allowed on her own. Seriously, when I asked could I go get my French homework, Houlihan acted like I’d asked to go into a drug den and buy heroin.’

The violin under Rebecca’s bed. The flute in Selena’s bit of wardrobe. I said, ‘What about during activities? Anyone go missing then?’

‘Seriously? You think I’d’ve noticed? If you’d seen the mess the place was in . . . Plus I was concentrating on trying to get that phone. Joanne and Orla do drama too, and I know they were both there because Joanne kept trying to burst into tears’ – Julia mimed puking – ‘and Orla had to comfort her and shit. But they’re the only ones I remember.’