The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(86)

In a bit of a fouler, our Joanne. Orla was in big trouble. ‘I know,’ I said, nice and humble. ‘I won’t keep you. I have to tell you, I’ve got a couple of questions that you might not like, but I need answers, and I’m not sure anyone’s got them but you.’

That caught her in the curiosity, or in the vanity. Long-suffering sigh, and she dropped onto her bed. ‘OK. I guess.’

‘I appreciate it,’ I said. Sat down on Gemma’s bed, facing Joanne, staying well away from the thrown-off clothes. Conway melted off into the background, leaning against the door. ‘First off, and I know Orla’s already told you this: we’ve found your key to the connecting door between here and the main building. Yous were sneaking out at night.’

Joanne had her mouth half-open to deny it and her outraged face half-on – autopilot – when Conway held up the Thérèse book. ‘Covered in fingerprints,’ she said.

Joanne put the outraged look away for later. ‘So?’ she said.

I said, ‘So this is confidential. We’re not about to pass it on to McKenna, get you in trouble. We’re just sorting what’s important from what’s not. OK?’

‘Whatever.’

‘Lovely. So what’d yous do, when you snuck out?’

A little reminiscent smirk, slackening Joanne’s mouth. After a moment she said, ‘Some of the Colm’s day boys came in over the back wall. I mean, I don’t normally hang out with day boys, but Garret Neligan knew where his parents kept their drinks and . . . stuff, so whatever. We did that a couple of times, but then Garret’s mum caught him and she started locking stuff up, so we didn’t bother any more.’

Stuff. Garret had been getting into Mammy’s meds. ‘When was this?’

‘Like last March? After that, we didn’t actually use the key that much. At Easter Gemma met this student guy at a club, so she went out to hook up with him a bunch of times – she thought she was totes amazeballs because she’d caught someone who was in OMG college, but of course he dumped her the second he found out how old she actually was? And obviously after Chris they changed the lock, so it wasn’t even any use any more.’

I said, ‘You have to realise that this puts you and your mates front and centre for having put up that card on the Secret Place. Any of you could have been out in the grounds when Chris was killed. Any of you could have seen something. Seen it happen, even.’

Joanne’s hands shot up. ‘Excuse me, whoa? Can we put the brakes on here? We weren’t the only ones who had a key. We got ours from Julia Harte.’

I did dubious. ‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So where would we find hers?’

‘Like I’d know? Even if I had a clue where they kept it, which I don’t actually pay attention to what those weirdos do, this was a year ago. They probably threw it away once the locks got changed. That’s what I told Orla to do, except she’s too useless to even get that right.’

‘Julia says they never had a key.’

Joanne’s face was starting to pinch in, turn vicious. ‘Um, hello, she would, wouldn’t she? That’s total crap.’

‘Could be,’ I admitted, shrugging. ‘But we can’t prove it. We’ve got proof that you and your mates had one, no proof that Julia and hers did. When it’s one person’s word against another’s, we’ve got to go with the evidence.’

‘Same as with Chris and Selena,’ Conway said. ‘You lot say they were going out, she says they weren’t, not one speck of evidence says they ever went near each other. What do you expect us to believe?’

The viciousness congealed into something solid, a decision. ‘OK. Fine.’

Joanne pulled out her phone, pushed buttons. Thrust it at me, arm’s length.

‘Is this proof?’

I took it. It felt hot from her hand, clammy.

A video. Dark; the rustle and bump of footsteps through grass. Someone whispering; a tiny snort of laughter, a hissed Shut up!

‘Who’s with you?’ I asked.

‘Gemma.’ Joanne was sitting back, arms folded, swinging her crossed foot and watching us. Anticipating.

Faint grey shapes, jiggling as Joanne’s movement jolted the phone. Bushes in moonlight. Clumps of small whitish flowers, folded up for the night.

Another whisper. The footsteps stopped; the phone stilled. Shapes came into focus.

Tall trees, black around a pale clearing. Even in blurry dark, I recognised the place. The cypress grove where Chris Harper had died.

In the moonlit heart of it, two figures, pressed so close they looked like one. Dark jumpers, dark jeans. Brown head bent over a flood of fair hair.

A branch bobbed across the screen. Joanne shifted the phone out of its way, zoomed in tight.

Night smudged the faces. I glanced at Conway; tiny dip of her chin. Chris and Selena.

They moved apart like they could hardly bear to move at all. Pressed their palms together, shoulders rising and falling with their quick breathing. They were amazed by each other, stunned silent, all in the circle of stirring cypresses and night wind. The world outside was gone, nothing. Inside that circle the air was unfurling new colours, it was changing to something that cascaded and fountained pure gold and dazzle, and every breath changed them too.

I used to dream of that, when I was a young fella. Never had it. Even when I was sixteen years old and ninety per cent dick, I kept away from the girls in my school; scared that if I went beyond the odd snog and grope, I’d wake up the next morning a daddy in a council flat, stuck to the sticky linoleum forever. Dreamed of it instead. Dreams I can still taste.