The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(94)

Julia notices something that she never had room to spot before, through the whirl of Does he fancy me do I fancy him is he going to try would I let him how much would I let him. She really likes Finn.

‘Actually,’ she says, ‘since you mentioned it, it’s one of the least stupid things I’ve heard in ages.’

He gives her a quick sideways glance. ‘Yeah?’

Julia would love with all her heart to show him. Lift her hand, send the Lucozade bottle slowly rising through the rich moonlight. Upend it, set the falling droplets of rum spiralling like a tiny amber galaxy against the star-thick sky. See the slow sheer joy lighting his face right through. The thought of what would happen to her makes the back of her neck twitch.

‘OK,’ she says. ‘Here’s something I’ve never told anyone.’

Finn turns his head to look at her properly.

‘Stuff like that, ghosts and ESP and stuff? I used to say it was all total bullshit. Like, I was fanatical about it. Once I went off on Selena, just because she was telling us about this thing in some magazine, about clairvoyance? I told her to prove it or shut up about it. When she couldn’t prove it, because obviously she couldn’t, I called her an idiot and told her she should try reading Just Seventeen because at least it’d be a step up from that crap.’

Finn’s eyebrows are up.

‘Yeah, I know. I was a bitch. I apologised. But it was because I wanted her to prove it was all true. I wanted it to be real, so badly. If I hadn’t cared, I’d’ve been like, “Yeah, whatever, maybe just possibly clairvoyance happens, probably not.” But I couldn’t stand the idea of actually believing in all this amazing mysterious stuff, and then finding out that duhhh I was a big thicko sucker and there was nothing there.’

It’s true: she’s never said this even to the others. With them she’s the one who’s always sure straight through – Julia figures Selena knows it’s more complicated than that, but they don’t talk about it. Something moves through her, unstoppable as the rum: tonight matters, after all.

‘Then what happened?’ Finn asks.

Wariness shoots up in Julia. ‘Huh?’

‘You said, a minute ago: now you do believe in some of this stuff. So what changed?’

Her f*cking mouth, always open one sentence too long. ‘So,’ she says, lightly, rolling over onto her stomach to put out her smoke in the grass. ‘You don’t believe in the ghost nun, but you think she might be out here anyway. And I kind of believe in her, but I don’t actually think she’s here.’

Finn is smart enough not to push. ‘Between the two of us, we’re basically guaranteed to get haunted.’

‘Is that why you’re hanging on here? In case she goes boo and gives me a heart attack?’

‘You’re not scared?’

Julia arches an eyebrow. ‘What, because I’m a girl?’

‘No. Because you believe in it. Kind of.’

‘I’m out here every day. The ghost hasn’t got me yet.’

‘You’re out here in the daytime. Not at night.’

Finn is testing; finding new ways to work out what he thinks of her, now that the normal ones are useless. They’re in new territory. Julia realises she likes it here.

‘This isn’t night,’ she says. ‘It’s nine o-f*cking-clock. Babies are still out playing. If it was summer, it’d be daylight.’

‘So if I got up right now and went inside, you’d be totally fine out here by yourself.’

It occurs to Julia that actually she probably should be scared, here on her own with a guy who’s already tried once. It occurs to her that a few months ago, after what happened with James Gillen, she would have been scared; she would have been the one leaving.

She says, ‘As long as you left me the rum.’

Finn pulls himself up off the grass with a sit-up and a jump. He brushes off his jeans and lifts an eyebrow at Julia.

She waves up at him, from her nest. ‘Off you go and find yourself some nice tit. Have fun.’

Finn pretends to start turning away. She laughs at him. After a minute he laughs back and drops down on the grass again.

‘Too scary?’ Julia asks. ‘All that way on your ownio, in the big bad dark?’

‘It’s nine o-f*cking-clock. Like you said. If it actually was night, bet you’d be scared.’

‘I’m badass, baby. I can handle ghost nuns.’

Finn lies back and passes Julia the bottle. ‘Right. Let’s see you out here at midnight.’

‘Bring it on.’

‘Yeah. Right.’

That grin, like a dare. Julia’s never been any good at turning down a dare. Thin ice, she feels it, but the rum is dancing in her and what the hell, it’s not like she’s going to tell him anything. She says, ‘When’s the next social?’

‘What?’

‘Come on. March?’

‘Sometime in April. So?’

She points up at the fancy-hands clock on the back of the school. ‘So at the next social, I’ll have a photo of that clock showing midnight.’

‘So you’ve done Photoshop. Fair play.’

Julia shrugs. ‘Trust me or don’t. Yeah, I want to own you, but not that badly. I’ll get the photo straight up.’