The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(184)

Conway lifted her hands. ‘Way above my pay grade.’

If crouds of dangers should appeare, yet friendship can be unconcern’d. That afternoon I had read it the same way Becca had. Somewhere along the way, it had changed.

I said, ‘Yeah, it could.’

Rebecca’s face turned towards me. She looked like I had lit something in her: a deep, slow-burning relief. ‘You think?’

‘Yeah. That poem you have on your wall, that doesn’t mean nothing bad can ever happen if you’ve got proper friends. It just means you can take whatever goes wrong, as long as you’ve got them. They matter more.’

Rebecca thought about that, didn’t even feel the social worker tugging at the leash. Nodded. She said, ‘I didn’t think of that last year. I guess I was just a little kid.’

I asked, ‘Would you do it again, if you knew?’

Rebecca laughed at me. Real laugh, so clear it made you shiver; a laugh that dissolved the exhausted walls, sent your mind unrolling into the vast sweet night. She wasn’t blurry any more; she was the solidest thing in the room. ‘Course,’ she said. ‘Silly, course I would.’

‘Right,’ said the social worker. ‘That’s enough. We’re saying good night now.’ She grabbed Rebecca by the bicep – nasty little pinch off those stubby fingers, but Rebecca didn’t flinch – and shoved her out of the door. Their steps faded: the social worker’s pissed-off clatter, Rebecca’s runners almost too light to hear, gone.

Conway said, ‘We’re going to head as well. We’ll be back tomorrow.’

McKenna turned her head to look at us like her neck hurt. She said, ‘I’m sure you will.’

‘If her parents get back to you, you’ve got our numbers. If Holly and Julia and Selena need anything else from their room, you’ve got the key. If anyone has anything to tell us, whatever time of night, you make sure they get the chance.’

McKenna said, ‘You have made yourselves abundantly clear. I think you can safely leave now.’

Conway was already moving. I was slower. McKenna had turned so ordinary; just one of my ma’s mates, worn down by a drunk husband or a kid in trouble, trying to find her way through the night.

I said, ‘You told us earlier: this school’s survived a lot.’

‘Indeed,’ McKenna said. She had one last punch left in her: that fisheye came up and hit me square on, showed me exactly how she smashed snotty teenagers into cringing kids. ‘And while I appreciate your belated concern, Detective, I am fairly sure that it can survive even such an impressive threat as yourselves.’

‘Put you in your place,’ Conway said, a safe distance down the corridor. ‘And serve you right for arse-licking.’ The dark took her face, her voice. I couldn’t tell how much she was joking.

Us, leaving St Kilda’s. The banister-rail arching warm under my hand. The entrance hall, slants of white spilling through the fanlight onto the chequered tiles. Our footsteps, the clear bell-jingle of Conway’s car keys hanging off her finger, the faint slow toll of a great clock striking midnight somewhere, all spiralling up through still air to the invisible ceiling. For one last second, the place we’d come to that morning materialised out of the dark for me: beautiful; whorled and spired of mother-of-pearl and mist; unreachable.



The walk to the car lasted forever. The night was wide open, full to dripping with itself, it smelled of hungry tropical flowers and animal scat and running water. The grounds had gone rogue: every flash of moonlight off a leaf looked like bared white teeth, the tree over the car looked dense with shadow-things hanging ready to drop. Every sound had me leaping around, but there was never anything to see. The place was only mocking or warning, showing me who was boss.

By the time I slammed myself inside the car I was sweating. I thought Conway hadn’t noticed, till she said, ‘I’m only f*cking delighted to get out of here.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Same.’

We should’ve been high-fiving, high-stepping, high as kites. I didn’t know how to find that. All I could find was the look on Holly’s face and Julia’s, watching the last shadow of something craved and lost; the distant blue of Selena’s eyes, watching things I couldn’t see; Rebecca’s laugh, too clear to be human. The car was cold.

Conway turned the key, reversed out fast and hard. Pebbles flew up as she hit the drive. She said, ‘I’ll be starting the interview at nine. In Murder. I’d rather have you for backup than one of those dickheads off the squad.’

Roche and the rest of them, putting an extra spike in their jabs now that Conway had got her big solve after all. Ought to be back-slaps and free pints, fair play to you and welcome to the club. It wouldn’t be. If I wanted to be part of the Murder guy-love someday, my best bet was to leg it back to Cold Cases as fast as my tiny toesies would carry me.

I said, ‘I’ll be there.’

‘You’ve earned it. I guess.’

‘Thanks a bunch.’

‘You managed a whole day without f*cking up big-time. What do you want, a medal?’

‘I said thanks. What do you want, flowers?’

The gates were closed. The night watchman had missed the long sweep of our headlights all the way down the drive; when Conway beeped, he did a double-take up from his laptop. ‘Useless bollix,’ Conway and I said, in unison.