The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(84)

‘What do you want me to say? “Ah, f*ck it, it’s never gonna work, let’s go home”?’

‘Do I look like quitting to you? I’m going nowhere. But if I have to listen to you being f*cking chirpy, I swear to God—’

Both of us glaring, Conway shoving her face and her finger in close, me still against the wall so I couldn’t have backed off if I’d wanted to. We were on the edge of a full-on barney.

I don’t argue, not with people who have my career in their hands. Not even when I should; definitely not over bugger-all.

I said, ‘You’d rather have Costello, yeah? Depressing f*cker like him? How’d that work out for you?’

‘You shut your—’

A buzz from Conway’s jacket. Message.

She wheeled away instantly, grabbing for her pocket. ‘That’s Sophie. Joanne’s phone records. About bloody time.’ She hit buttons, watched the download, knee jiggling.

I stayed well back. Waited, heart going ninety, for Fuck off home.

Conway glanced up, impatient. ‘What’re you doing? Come see this.’

Took me a second to cop: the fight was over, gone.

I took a breath, moved in at her shoulder. She tilted the phone so I could see the screen.

There it was. October, November, a year and a half back: one number going back and forth with the phone that had been Joanne’s, over and over again.

No calls, just messages. Text from the new number, text to it, media message from, text from, from, from, to. Chris chasing, Joanne playing it cool.

First week of December, the pattern changed. Text to the new number, text to, text to, text to, text to. Chris ignoring, Joanne pressing, Chris ignoring harder. Then, when she finally gave up, nothing.

Down the corridor outside, rattle of a trolley, clinking plates, warm smell of chicken and mushrooms making my mouth water. Someone – I pictured a frilly apron – was bringing dinner up to the fourth-years. McKenna wasn’t going to have them heading down to the canteen, spreading stories and panic like flu, yammering away with no nun to listen in. She was keeping them corralled nice and safe in their common room, everything under control.

Joanne’s phone records went blank till mid-January. Then a mix of other numbers, to and from, calls and texts. No sign of Chris’s number. Just what you’d expect off a girl’s normal phone; off Alison.

‘Sophie, you f*cking star,’ Conway said. ‘We’ll get her on to the network, see if that number links to—’

I felt her go still. ‘Hang on a second. Two nine three—’ She snapped her fingers at me, staring at the screen. ‘Your phone. Show me that text.’

I pulled it up.

That triumph lifting Conway’s head again, making her profile into something off a statue. ‘Here we go. I knew I’d seen that number.’ She held out the two phones, side by side. ‘Have a look at this.’

That memory. She was right. The number that had told me where to find the key was the same number that had been playing phone footsie with Joanne.

‘Fuck me,’ I said. ‘Didn’t see that coming.’

‘Me neither.’

‘So either Joanne’s secret romance wasn’t with Chris at all, it was with one of our other seven—’

Conway shook her head. ‘Nah. A breakup would explain why the two gangs hate each other, yeah, but you can’t tell me we wouldn’t have got even one hint from somewhere. Gossip, or Joanne giving it loads of “So-and-so’s a big dyke, she tried to jump my sexy body,” trying to get the ex in shite. Nah.’

I said, ‘—or else someone just texted me off Chris Harper’s secret phone.’

A moment of silence.

Conway said, ‘Looks like it.’ Something in her voice, but I couldn’t tell whether it was exhilaration or anger, or smelling blood. Whether there was a difference, for her.

The day had changed again, shifted under our eyes into something new. We weren’t looking for a witness, in that roomful of shining hair and restless feet and watching eyes. We were looking for a killer.

‘The way I see it,’ I said, ‘there’s three ways that could’ve happened. One: Joanne killed Chris, took his phone, she used it to text us about the key because she wants to get caught—’

Conway snorted. ‘She does in her arse.’

‘Yeah, me neither. Two: the killer – Joanne or someone else – took the phone, handed it on to someone else.’

‘The same way Joanne sold her own to Alison. That’d fit her.’

‘Three,’ I said. ‘Someone else killed Chris, took the phone, has it still.’

Conway started pacing again, but steady this time, none of that restless looking for something to wreck. She was focusing. ‘Why, but? She has to know the phone’s evidence. Hanging onto it is dangerous. Why not bin it, a year ago?’

‘Dunno. But it mightn’t be the actual phone she kept. She might’ve ditched the phone, just hung onto the SIM card. That’s a lot safer. Then today, she needs an anonymous number to text us from, swaps Chris’s SIM into her own phone . . .’

‘Why hang on to any of it?’

I said, ‘Say it’s Theory Two, the killer passed it on to someone else. Maybe the other girl had a feeling there was something dodgy about it, something to do with Chris; she hung onto the phone, or just the SIM card, in case she ever felt like turning it in to us. Or maybe she didn’t cop there was a connection, just liked the idea of having an anonymous number stashed away. Or maybe it just had credit left on it, like the one Joanne sold Alison.’