The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(181)

I believed her. Believed every word. I said, heard the hoarse note in my voice, ‘What does he want?’

‘At first I was sure he was looking for me. Oh God I tried so hard but I could never make him see me, he never heard me, I was begging him Chris I’m here I’m right here but he just looked right past me and kept doing whatever he was doing, I tried to hold him but he just dissolved before I could—’

A high keening sound from Rebecca.

‘I thought it was because we weren’t allowed, like punishment, always looking for each other but we’d never be allowed to— But it’s because it isn’t me he wants. All that time—’

Julia said, ‘Shut up.’

‘All that time, he was never looking for—’

‘Jesus Christ, can you shut up?’

Something like a sob, from Selena. Then nothing. The low roar among the cypresses wavered through the air and was gone, rock in a cold pool. The voices at the bottom of the slope sank with it.

Rebecca said, in the empty space, ‘Lenie. What’s he want?’

Julia said, ‘Can we please f*cking please talk about it later?’

‘Why? I’m not scared of him.’ Me.

‘Then duh, start paying attention. He’s the only thing we need to be scared of. There isn’t anything else. This ghost bullshit—’

‘Lenie. What do you think he wants? Chris?’

‘OhmyGod, he doesn’t f*cking exist, what do I have to do—’

Kids fighting, they sounded like. That was all. Not like Joanne’s lot, cheap sneer-and-peck by numbers, every word and thought worn threadbare before it ever reached them, not that; but not the enchanted girls, soaring among tumbling arpeggios of gold, that I had come hoping for just that morning. What I had seen before, that triple power, that had been the last flicker of something lost a long time ago. Light from a dead star.

‘Lenie. Lenie. Is it me he’s after?’

Selena said, ‘I wanted it to be me so much.’

The rune shimmered and crumpled. One fragment snapped off that solid dark mass, found a shape of its own: Rebecca. Sliver-thin, kneeling on the grass.

She said, to me: ‘I didn’t think it was going to be Chris.’

I said, ‘The ghost?’

Rebecca shook her head. She said, simply, ‘No, when I texted him to meet me here. I didn’t know who it was going to be. I’d’ve bet anything it wouldn’t be Chris.’

‘Oh, Becs,’ Julia said. She sounded folded over a gut-punch. ‘Oh, Becs.’

In the cypress shadow behind me, Conway said, ‘You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but anything you do say will be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence. Do you understand?’

Rebecca nodded. She looked frozen to the bones, too cold even to shiver.

I said, ‘So when you got here that night, you were expecting to meet one of the dickheads.’

‘Yeah. Andrew Moore, maybe.’

‘When you saw Chris, you didn’t have second thoughts, no?’

Rebecca said, ‘You don’t understand. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t trying to figure it out, “Oh am I right am I wrong what should I do?” I knew.’

There it was: why she hadn’t been frightened of Conway and Costello, why she hadn’t been frightened of us. All the long way from that night until this evening – and this evening something had changed – she had known she was safe, because she had known she was right.

I said, ‘Even when you saw it was Chris? You were still positive?’

‘Specially then. That’s when I got it. Up until then, I had it backwards. All those stupid slimebags, James Gillen and Marcus Wiley, it could never have been them. They’re nothing; they’re totally worthless. You can’t have a sacrifice that’s worthless. It has to be something good.’

Even in that light I saw the flicker of Julia’s eyelids, hooding. The sad, sad smile on Selena.

‘Like Chris,’ I said.

‘Yeah. He wasn’t worthless – I don’t care what you guys say’ – into the dark of Julia and Selena – ‘he wasn’t. He was something special. So when I saw him, that was when I actually properly understood: I was getting it right.’

Those voices again, down the bottom of the slope. Building.

I said, fast and a notch louder, ‘It didn’t bother you? Some slimebag who deserved it, that’s one thing. But a guy you liked, a good guy? That didn’t upset you?’

Rebecca said, ‘Yeah. If I’d had the choice, I’d’ve picked someone else. But I would’ve been wrong.’

Setting up for an insanity defence, I’d have thought, if she’d been older or savvier. If we’d been indoors, I’d’ve thought there was no setup about it, just plain insanity. But here, in the glowing spin and slipslide of her world, in the air thick with scents and stars: for a second I almost saw what she meant. Caught the edge of understanding, swung by my fingertips, before I lost hold and it soared up and away again.

Rebecca said, ‘That’s why I left him the flowers.’

‘Flowers,’ I said. Nice and neutral. Like the air hadn’t leaped into a hum around me.

‘Those.’ Her arm rose, thin as a dark brushstroke. Pointed at the hyacinths. ‘I picked some of those. Four; one for each of us. I put them on his chest. Not to say sorry, or anything; it wasn’t like that. Just to say goodbye. To say we knew he wasn’t worthless.’