The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(18)

She goes because the others do. Why they want to is a total mystery to Becca. They always act like they’re having an amazing time, they’re louder and high-pitched, shoving each other and screaming with laughter at nothing. But Becca knows what they’re like when they’re happy, and that’s not it. Their faces on the way home afterwards look older and strained, smeared with the scraps of leftover expressions that were pressed on too hard and won’t lift away.

Today she’s even more electric than usual, checking the time on her phone every two minutes, shifting like the marble hurts her bones. Julia’s already said to her twice, ‘Jesus, will you settle down?’ Becca mutters, ‘Sorry,’ but a minute later she’s shifting again.

It’s because like two metres down from them on the fountain-edge are the Daleks. Becca hates everything about the Daleks, in detail. She hates them separately – the way Orla’s mouth hangs open, the way Gemma wiggles her bum when she walks, Alison’s poor-ickle-scared-baby look, the fact that Joanne exists – and as a unit. She hates them extra today because three of the Colm’s guys across the fountain have come over to sit with them, so the Daleks are even more everything than usual. Every time one of the guys says something, all four of them have to shriek with laughter and pretend they’re almost falling off the fountain so the guys will catch them. Alison keeps lolling her head right over to one side to look up at this blond guy, and sticking out the tip of her tongue between her teeth. She looks brain-damaged.

‘So,’ Julia is saying, ‘Jean-Michel points at me and Jodi and he’s all, “This is Candy Jinx. They just won the Irish X Factor!” Which was kind of smart, because since that doesn’t exist it’s not like the bouncers were going to know the actual winner, but not that smart, because I could’ve told him exactly where this was going to f*cking go.’ Julia is trying out swearing. It still only sort of works. ‘And yeah, surprise, the bouncers are like, “OK, let’s hear them sing.”’

‘Uh-oh,’ Becca says. She’s trying to ignore the Daleks and concentrate on Julia. Julia’s stories are always good, even if you have to subtract ten or twenty per cent and Becca’s never completely sure she’s subtracting enough.

Julia’s eyebrow shoots up. ‘Thanks a bunch.’

Becca flinches. ‘No, I just meant—’

‘Chillax, Becs. I know I can’t sing for shit. That’s the whole point.’ Becca blushes, and goes for another handful of Skittles to hide the blush. ‘So I’m like, we’re so f*cked, what are me and Jodi even supposed to sing? We both like Lady Gaga, but what are we going to do, say Candy Jinx’s first single is “Bad Romance”?’

Selena is laughing. The Colm’s guys are looking over.

‘Luckily, though, Florian is smarter than Jean-Michel. He goes, “Are you joking? They’re under contract. If they sing a note, we’ll all get our arses sued off.”’

Holly isn’t laughing. She looks like she hasn’t heard. Her head’s tucked sideways, listening to something else.

‘Hol?’ says Selena. ‘You OK?’

Holly nods backwards, at the Daleks.

Julia leaves the rest of her story for later. The four of them pretend to be fascinated by picking out exactly the right sweets from the packets, and listen.

‘He is,’ Joanne says, and nudges Orla’s leg with her foot.

Orla snickers and cringes her chin down between her shoulders.

‘Look at him. He’s so into you, it’s pathetic.’

‘He is not.’

‘OMG, he so is? He told Dara and Dara told me.’

‘No way does Andrew Moore like me. Dara was just messing.’

‘Um, excuse me?’ Joanne’s voice has an instant cold edge that sets Becca shifting on the fountain again. She hates being this scared of Joanne, but she can’t stop. ‘You think Dara’s going to make an idiot out of me? Hello, I don’t think so?’

‘Jo’s right,’ Gemma says lazily. She’s lying with her head in one of the guys’ lap, with her back arched so that her chest sticks up at him. The guy is desperately trying to look like he’s not trying to look down her top. ‘Andrew’s totally drooling over you.’

Orla squirms delightedly, bottom lip sucked in between her teeth.

‘He’s just too shy to tell you,’ Joanne says, sweet again. ‘That’s what Dara said. He doesn’t know what to do.’ To the tall brown-haired guy next to her: ‘Isn’t that right?’

The guy says, ‘Yeah. Totally,’ and hopes he’s getting it right. Joanne gives him a good-boy smile.

‘He thinks he hasn’t got a chance with you,’ Gemma says. ‘But he does, right?’

‘You do like him, don’t you?’

Orla makes some kind of mewing noise.

‘OMG, of course you do! It’s Andrew Moore!’

‘He’s, like, the biggest babe ever!’

‘I’m into him.’

‘Me too.’ Joanne nudges Alison. ‘You are too, right, Ali?’

Alison blinks. ‘Um, yeah?’

‘See? I’m so jel.’

Even Becca knows who Andrew Moore is. Over on the other side of the fountain, he’s the centre of the Colm’s guys: blond head, rugby shoulders, loudest of all, shoving. Andrew Moore’s dad flew in Pixie Geldof to DJ at his sixteenth birthday party last month.