The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(67)

‘Well, f*ck you very much. My dress isn’t stupid.’ Julia has a shimmy of a dress, black with scarlet polka dots, that she spent months saving for and bought in the sales just a couple of weeks ago. It’s the tightest thing she’s ever owned, and she actually kind of likes the look of herself in it.

‘Your dress isn’t. Me in your dress would be. Because I’d hate it.’

Selena says, through the pyjama top she’s pulling over her head, ‘Why don’t you wear whatever you like best?’

‘I like jeans best.’

‘So wear jeans.’

‘Yeah, right. Are you going to?’

‘I’m wearing that blue dress that was my granny’s. The one I already showed you.’ It’s a sky-blue minidress that Selena’s granny wore back in the sixties, when she was a shopgirl in cool parts of London. It’s tight on Selena’s chest, but she’s wearing it anyway.

‘Exactly,’ Becca says. ‘Hol, are you wearing jeans?’

‘Ah, bugger,’ Holly says, scrubbing at a mistake that turned out bigger than she expected. ‘My mum bought me this purple dress for Christmas. It’s actually OK. I might wear that.’

‘So I’d be the only loser in jeans, or else I have to go buy some stupid dress I hate and be a total compromise coward liar. No thanks.’

‘Do the dress,’ says Julia, turning a page. ‘Give us all a laugh.’

Becca gives her the finger. Julia grins and gives it right back. She approves of the new feisty Becca.

‘It’s not funny. You’re going to let me sit here by myself that night doing Sister Ignatius’s stupid self-esteem exercises, while you’re all wiggling in stupid dresses for—’

‘So come, for f*ck’s sake—’

‘I don’t want to!’

‘Then what do you want? You want the rest of us to stay home just because you don’t feel like wearing a dress?’ Julia has ditched her book and is sitting up. Holly and Selena have stopped what they’re doing at the snap in her voice. ‘Because yeah, no: f*ck that.’

‘I thought the whole point was we don’t have to do stuff just because everyone else does—’

‘I’m not going because everyone else is, genius, I’m going because I actually want to. Because it’s fun, you’ve heard of that, right? If you’d rather sit here doing self-esteem exercises, knock yourself out. I’m going.’

‘Oh, thanks, thanks a lot – you’re supposed to be my friend—’

‘Right, which doesn’t mean being your bitch—’

Becca is up on her knees on the bed, fists clenched and hair crackling with fury. ‘I never f*cking asked you to—’

The light bulb spits a furious sizzle, pops and goes out. They all scream.

‘Shut up!’ the second-floor prefects both yell from down the corridor. A breathless ‘Jesus—’ from Julia, a thump and ‘Ow!’ as Selena knocks her shin off something, and then the light flicks back on.

‘What the hell,’ Holly says. ‘What happened?’

The bulb is burning innocently, not a flicker.

‘It’s a sign, Becs,’ Julia says, with that breathless note almost under control. ‘The universe wants you to quit whinging and go to the dance.’

‘Ha ha, so very funny,’ Becca says. Her voice isn’t under control at all; it sounds like a kid’s, high and wobbly. ‘Or the universe doesn’t want you going, and it’s annoyed because you said you were.’

Selena says, to Becca, ‘Did you do that?’

‘You are shitting me,’ Julia says. ‘Right?’

‘Becsie?’

‘Oh, please,’ Julia says. ‘Come on. Don’t even go there.’

Selena is still looking at Becca. So is Holly. In the end Becca says, ‘I don’t know.’

‘Oh, God,’ Julia says. ‘I can’t even.’ She falls flat on her stomach on her bed and slams her pillow over her head.

Selena says, ‘Do it again.’

‘How?’

‘However you did it before.’

Becca is staring at the light bulb like it might leap at her. ‘I didn’t. I don’t think. I don’t know.’

Julia groans, under her pillow. ‘Better do it fast,’ Holly says. ‘Before she suffocates.’

‘I just . . .’ Becca holds up one thin palm, wavering. ‘I was upset. Because of . . . And I just . . .’ She closes her fist. The light goes out.

This time none of them scream.

‘Turn it back on?’ Selena’s voice says, quietly, in the darkness.

The light comes back on. Julia has taken the pillow off her head and is sitting up.

‘Oh,’ Becca says. She has her back pressed against the wall and a knuckle in her mouth. ‘Did I . . . ?’

‘No, you f*cking didn’t,’ Julia says. ‘It’s some kind of electrical thing. Probably the snow.’

Selena says, ‘Do it again.’

Becca does it again.

This time Julia doesn’t say anything. All around them the air is shivering, bending the light.

‘Yesterday morning,’ Selena says. ‘When we were getting ready, and I was getting something off my bedside table. My hand went up against my reading light, and it turned on. When I stopped touching it, it went off.’