The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(83)

‘They’ll come. The longer we leave them to it, the tighter they’ll wind themselves. I listened outside the common room: they’re up to ninety, the place sounds like a wasps’ nest. Give them long enough and someone’ll snap.’

I shoved Selena’s flute case back into the wardrobe, shut the door on it. ‘How’s Alison getting on?’

Conway snorted. ‘Tucked up in the sick room like she’s dying in some season finale. Little fadey voice on her and all. She’s having a great old time. The arm’s grand, almost; the mark’s still there, but the blisters have gone down. I’d say she’d be back in the common room by now, only McKenna’s hoping the mark’ll go, doesn’t want the rest of them gawping at it.’ She pulled Holly’s book out of her locker, zipped a nail through the pages and tossed it back in. ‘I tried to get at whether Joanne put the whole stunt in Alison’s head, but the minute she heard Chris’s name she shut down, gave me the bunny stare. I don’t blame her: McKenna and Arnold were right there, dying to jump on anything they didn’t like. So I backed off.’

I said, ‘How about the phone?’

Triumph lifted Conway’s chin. Winning looked good on her. She flipped her satchel open, held up an evidence bag. The mobile I’d seen on Alison’s bed: pretty pearly-pink flip-phone, small enough to fit in a palm, silver charm dangling. Chris had picked carefully.

‘Alison got it off Joanne. She didn’t like admitting it; tried to dodge, pretended she felt faint. I didn’t fall for it, kept pushing, in the end she came clean. Joanne sold her the phone just after last Christmas, a year and a bit ago. Sixty quid, she charged her. Robbing bitch.’

Conway threw the phone back in her satchel, started circling again. The triumph had worn off fast. ‘That’s all Alison would give me, though. When I started asking about where Joanne got the phone, why she was selling it, Alison went whiny on me: “I don’t know I don’t know my arm hurts I feel dizzy can I have a drink of water?” That helium voice girls do, what the f*ck is that? Do guys think that’s sexy?’

‘Never thought about it,’ I said. Conway was still moving. Something had her wound tight. I stayed back against the wall, out of her way. ‘Does nothing for me, anyway.’

‘Makes me want to punch them in the mouth. There’s nothing left on the phone from before last Christmas, no texts, no call logs: Joanne wiped it before she sold it. Here’s the good part, though. Alison didn’t swap her old SIM card into Joanne’s phone. When she bought it, her old one was out of credit, and Joanne’s one had twenty-odd quid left on it, so she just binned her old one and switched to using Joanne’s number. Which means we don’t need to track that number down, beg the network for the records, all that shit: we’ve got them already. Me and Costello pulled records on half the school, last year, including Alison. I rang Sophie; she’ll have them e-mailed to me any minute.’

‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘I thought you said none of the girls’ numbers linked up to Chris’s.’

‘They didn’t. But if Chris gave Joanne this phone’ – Conway gave her bag a slap, as she paced past – ‘to keep the relationship secret, that means he thought people might go through their normal phones. Right?’

‘Kids snoop.’

‘Kids, parents, teachers, whoever. People snoop. If Chris didn’t want that, and he was loaded, like Julia said? I guarantee he had a dedicated girlie-phone of his own. We go through the records off Joanne’s one’ – another slap to the bag, harder – ‘what’s the odds we find one number showing up for a couple of months before last Christmas, a shitload of contact back and forth?’

I said, ‘And then we check that number, Chris’s secret number, for links to the phone that texted me today. If he did this with one girl, chances are he did it with a few. If Selena actually was with him, she might have her own spare phone lying around.’

‘We cross-check Chris’s secret number for links to everyone. I knew, back last year, I knew it was weird he didn’t have his phone on him. These kids, they don’t take a shite without bringing their phones along. I should’ve— Jesus!’ A savage kick to Rebecca’s bedpost; it had to hurt, but Conway kept pacing circles like she felt nothing. ‘I should’ve f*cking known.’

There it was. Anything like reassurance – No way you could know, no one could’ve – would get me ripped apart. ‘If Joanne’s our woman,’ I said, ‘she’d have a good reason to take Chris’s phone off his body. It would’ve linked her to him.’

Conway pulled open a drawer, raked through the neat stacks of knickers. ‘No shit. And it’s probably landfill by now; no way we can prove he ever had it to begin with. We wave the records at Joanne, she says she was texting someone she met online or f*ck only knows what she’ll come up with. And there’s nothing we can do.’

I said, ‘Unless we track down someone else Chris was contacting on the secret phone. Get her to come clean.’

Conway laughed, short and harsh. ‘Right. Get her to come clean. Easy as that. ’Cause that’s how this case rolls.’

‘Worth a shot.’

She slammed the drawer on the mess she’d made. ‘Jaysus, you’re a little ray of sunshine, aren’t you? Like working with bleeding Pollyanna—’