The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(63)

I said, ‘I thought no one here did stuff like that.’

Wry sideways glance from Conway. ‘“We don’t attract that type.” Right? I said that to McKenna, said had there been problems with theft? She did the face, said no, none whatsoever. I said not since the combination locks, anyway, am I right? She did the face some more, pretended she didn’t hear me.’

Through the connecting door, standing open.

The boarders’ wing felt different from the school. White-painted, cooler and silent, a bright white silence floating down the stairwell. A tinge of some scent, light and flowery. The air nudged at me like I needed to back off, let Conway go on alone. This was girls’ territory.

Up the stairs – a Virgin Mary in her nook on the landing gave me an enigmatic smile – and down a long corridor, over worn red tiles, between closed white doors. ‘Bedrooms,’ Conway said. ‘Third-and fourth-years.’

‘Any supervision at night?’

‘Not so’s you’d notice. The matron’s room’s down on the ground floor, with the little kids. Two sixth-years on this floor, prefects, but they’re asleep, what’re they gonna do? Anyone who wasn’t a massive klutz could sneak out, no problem.’

Two oak doors at the end of the corridor, one on each side. Conway went for the left-hand one. Pushed buttons on the lock, no need to look at the secretary’s piece of paper.

Cosy enough to curl up in, the third-year common room. Storybook stuff. I knew better, I’d seen it on the board in black and white and every slap-sharp colour, but I still couldn’t picture bad things here: someone being bitch-whipped out of a conversation into one of those corners, someone snug in one of the sofas longing to cut herself.

Big squashy sofas in soft oranges and golds, a gas fire. Vase of freesias on the mantelpiece. Old wooden tables, for doing homework. Girls’ bits and bobs everywhere, hairbands, ice-creamy nail polish, magazines, water bottles, half-rolls of sweets. A meadow-green scarf with little white daisies hanging off the back of a chair, fine as a Communion veil, rising in the soft breeze through the window. A motion-sensor light snapped on like a warning, not a welcome: You. Watching you.

Two alcoves of built-in bookshelves. Ceiling-high, every shelf layers deep in books.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ said Conway. ‘They couldn’t just have a telly?’

A spill of high voices down the corridor, and the door banged open behind us. We both whipped round, but the girls were smaller than our lot: three of them, jammed in the doorway, staring at me. One of them giggled.

‘Out,’ Conway said.

‘I need my Uggs!’

The kid was pointing. Conway picked up the boots, tossed them over. ‘Out.’

They backed away. The whispering started before I got the door closed.

‘Uggs,’ Conway said, pulling out her gloves. ‘Fucking things should be banned.’

Gloves on. If that book and that key existed, the prints on them mattered.

One alcove each. Finger along the spines, skim, scoop the front row of books onto the floor and start on the back one. Fast, wanting to see something solid rise to the surface. Wanting it to be me who found it.

Conway had spotted the stare and giggle, or felt the shove in the air. She said, ‘Watch yourself. I was taking the piss out of you, before, but you want to be careful around this lot. That age, they’re dying to fancy someone; they’ll practice on any half-decent fella they can get. See that staff room? You think it’s a coincidence all the guy teachers are trolls?’ She shook her head. ‘It’s to keep the crazy level down. Few hundred girls, hormones up to ninety . . .’

I said, ‘I’m no Justin Bieber. I’m not gonna start any riots.’

That got a snort. ‘It doesn’t take Justin Bieber. You’re not a troll and you’re not sixty: good enough. They want to fancy you, great, you can use that. Just don’t ever be alone with any of them.’

I thought of Gemma, the Sharon Stone leg-cross. I said, ‘I’m not planning to be.’

‘Hang on,’ Conway said, and the sudden lift in her voice had me on my feet before I knew it. ‘Here we go.’

Low shelf, back layer, hidden away behind slick bright colours. Old hardback, dust jacket gone tatty at the edges. St Thérèse of Lisieux: The Little Flower and the Little Way.

Conway pulled it out, carefully, one fingertip. Dust came with it. Sepia young one in a nun-veil on the front, pudgy-faced, thin lips curved in a smile that could have been shy or sly. The back cover didn’t close right.

I put two fingers on the book, top and bottom, held it steady while Conway eased open the back. The corner of the jacket flap had been folded in, taped to make a triangular pocket. Inside, when Conway gently hooked it open, was a Yale key.

Neither of us touched.

Conway said, like I’d asked, ‘I’m not calling it in yet. We’ve got nothing definitive.’

This was the moment to bring in the cavalry: the full search team scouring the school, the Forensics lads taking prints to match up, the social worker in the corner of every interview. This wasn’t a scrap of card, fifty/fifty chance of a bored teenager playing attention games. This was one girl, probably four, maybe eight, who had had the opportunity to be at the murder scene. This was real.

If Conway rang for the cavalry, she would have to show O’Kelly all the shiny new good stuff that justified him blowing his budget on a case turned cold. And bang, fast enough to make our heads spin, I would be headed home and she would be paired up with someone with years under his belt, O’Gorman or some other hint-dropper who would find a way to put his name on the solve, if there was a solve. Thanks for your help, Detective Moran, see you around next time someone drops a big fat clue into your hand.