The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(55)

And then it’s gone. Andrew Moore is just some guy who actually none of them even like.

‘So,’ he says, smiling, and leans back to enjoy the adoration.

Holly says, before she knows she’s going to, ‘We’re in the middle of a conversation here. Give us a sec.’

Andrew laughs, because obviously that was a joke. His sidekicks join in. Julia says, ‘No, seriously.’

The sidekicks are still laughing, but it’s dawning on Andrew that he’s having a brand-new experience. ‘Whoa,’ he says. ‘Are you, like, telling us to get lost?’

‘Come back in five minutes,’ Selena offers. ‘We just need to work something out.’

Andrew is still smiling, but those super-blue eyes aren’t nice any more. He says, ‘Group PMS, yeah?’

‘OMG, that’s so weird,’ Holly says. ‘We were just talking about originality. You’re not into it, no?’

Julia snorts into Becca’s gingerbread drink. ‘And we were just talking about how half of Kilda’s is dykes,’ Andrew says. ‘You’re not into guys, no?’

‘Can we stay and watch?’ one of the sidekicks asks, grinning.

‘I’m so confused,’ Julia says. ‘You guys never want to actually have conversations with each other? You only hang out together so you can swap blowjobs?’

‘Hey,’ the other sidekick says. ‘Fuck off.’

‘OhmyGod, great chat-up line,’ says, of all the people in the whole world, Becca. ‘I totally fancy you now.’

Julia and Holly and Selena stare at her and start to laugh. After a stunned second, Becca does too.

‘Who gives a f*ck who you fancy?’ the sidekick demands. ‘Ugly bitch.’

‘That’s rude,’ Selena says, trying so hard to be serious through the giggles that she makes the others even worse.

‘Shoo,’ says Julia, waving. ‘Bah-bye.’

‘You’re freaks,’ Andrew tells them, with finality; he’s much too secure to be wounded, but he disapproves deeply. ‘You need some serious attitude adjustment. Come on, guys.’

And he and his sidekicks get up and stride off down the Court, with guys scattering and girls gazing in their wake. Even their arses look displeased.

‘OhmyGod,’ Selena says, hand over her mouth. ‘Did you see his face?’

‘Once we finally got through to him,’ Julia says. ‘I’ve explained things to fish faster,’ which hits them all with another tornado of laughter. Becca is clutching a branch of Christmas tree to stop herself falling off the fountain-edge.

‘The walk,’ Holly manages, pointing after the guys, ‘look, look how they’re walking, it’s like Our balls are just too huge for those chicks to handle, they don’t even fit between our legs—’

Julia jumps up and does the walk, and Becca actually does fall off the fountain-edge, and they scream so loud with laughter that the security guard comes over to frown at them. Holly tells him Becca has epilepsy and if he throws her out he’ll be discriminating against the disabled, and he drifts off again, still frowning over his shoulder but without a lot of conviction.

Finally the giggles ebb. They look at each other, still grinning, amazed at themselves, shaken by their own daring.

‘Now that was original,’ Julia tells Selena. ‘You have to admit. And, let’s face it, kind of scary.’

‘Exactly,’ Selena says. ‘Do you want to keep on being able to do that? Or do you want to go back to almost wetting yourself if Andrew Moore even notices you exist?’

The heliumy woman is finishing up ‘All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth’. In the second before ‘Santa Baby’ kicks in, Holly catches a flash of another song, just half a brushstroke of it somewhere far away, maybe outside the Court: I’ve got so far, I’ve got so far left to— and gone.

Julia sighs and holds out her hand for Becca’s gingerbread thing. She says, ‘If you think I’m sliding down a bedsheet out our window like some chick in a shit movie, you are so very f*cking wrong.’

‘I don’t,’ Selena says. ‘You heard what Hol’s dad said. The front windows aren’t alarmed.’



Becca does it. The others were taking for granted it would be Holly or Selena, in case the nurse notices the key gone missing; Holly is the best liar, and no one ever thinks Selena’s done anything wrong, while Julia is always one of the first people teachers think of, even for things that would never occur to her. When Becca says, ‘I want to do it,’ they’re taken aback. They try to convince her – Selena gently, Holly delicately, Julia bluntly – that this is a bad idea and she should leave it to the experts, but she digs her heels in and points out that she’s even less likely to be suspected than Selena, given that she genuinely never has done anything worse than sharing homework and everyone thinks she’s a huge goody-goody lick-arse, and that might as well be useful for once. In the end the others understand that she’s not budging.

They coach her, after lights-out. ‘You need to be sick enough that she keeps you in her office for a while,’ Julia says, ‘but not sick enough that she sends you back here. What you want is something she’ll want to keep an eye on.’

‘But not too much of an eye,’ Selena says. ‘You don’t want her hovering.’