The Secret Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #5)(95)

Finn turns his head, on the grass. Their faces are inches apart, and Julia thinks Oh God no because him trying to kiss her now would be more kick-in-the-teeth depressing than she wants to admit, but Finn is grinning, a wide-open wicked grin like a kid’s. ‘Bet you a tenner you don’t,’ he says.

Julia grins back, the way she grins at Holly when an idea’s hit them both. ‘Bet you a tenner I do,’ she says.

Their hands come up at the same time, slap together, and they shake. Finn’s hand feels good, strong, an even match to hers.

She picks up the bottle and holds it up above her face, to the stars. ‘Here’s to my tenner,’ she says. ‘I’ll put it towards ghost-hunting equipment.’



In the entrance hall the huge chandelier is off, but the sconce lights on the walls turn the air a warm old-fashioned gold. Above their reach, floors of darkness stretch upwards, untouched, echoing with Chris and Selena’s footsteps.

Selena sits on the staircase. The steps are white stone, veined with grey; once upon a time they were polished – there are still traces between the banisters – but thousands of feet have worn them down till they’re velvety-rough, with dips in the middle.

Chris sits down next to her. Selena has never been this close to him before, close enough to see the scattering of freckles along the tops of his cheekbones, the faintest shading of stubble on his chin; to smell him, spices and a thread of something wild and musky that makes her think of outside at night. He feels different from anyone she’s ever met: charged up fuller, electric and sparking with three people’s worth of life packed into his skin.

Selena wants to touch him again. She slides her hands under her thighs to stop herself reaching out and pressing her palm against his neck. With a sudden leap of warning, she wonders if she fancies him; but she’s fancied guys, back Before, even snogged a few of them. This isn’t the same thing.

She shouldn’t have let him touch her even that once, back in the hall. She understands that.

She wants the world to be that real again.

Chris says, ‘Are your friends going to wonder where you are?’

They will. Selena feels another nudge of unease: she never even thought of telling them. ‘I’ll text them,’ she says, feeling for the pocket in the unfamiliar dress. ‘What about yours?’

‘Nah.’ Chris’s half-smile says his friends expected him to go missing tonight.

To Holly: Am just outside, wanted to get out for a few mins, back soon. ‘There,’ Selena says, sending it.

The hall door opens, letting out a rush of thumping bass and squeals and hot air, and Miss Long sticks her head out. When she sees Chris and Selena, she nods and points a threatening finger: Stay. Someone shrieks behind her, she whips round and the door slams shut.

Chris says, ‘Back in there. I wasn’t trying to tell you what you guys should wear.’

‘Yeah, you were,’ Selena says. ‘It’s OK, though. I’m not mad.’

‘I was just saying. If you wear jeans to a dance and do your hair like that, people are going to laugh at you, end of. Your friend Becca – I mean, I know she has to be the same age as us, but she’s like a kid. She doesn’t get it. You can’t just let her walk out there to get eaten alive by Joanne Heffernan.’

‘Joanne would say stuff anyway,’ Selena points out. ‘No matter what Becca was wearing.’

‘Yeah, because she’s a total raving bitch. So don’t give her extra excuses.’

Selena says, ‘I thought you liked Joanne.’

‘I was with her a few times. That’s not the same thing.’

Selena thinks about that for a while. Chris bends over his shoelace, untying and retying it. His cheek glows. Selena can feel the heat of it, deep in her palm.

She says, ‘I think maybe Becca doesn’t want to be that.’

‘So? It’s not like those are the only two options. Be some bitch or be some freak. You can just be normal.’

‘I don’t think she wants to be that either.’

Chris’s eyebrows pull together. ‘What, like she thinks she can’t because she’s not . . . ? I mean, with the braces, and the . . .’ He nods downwards. ‘You know. She’s flat. She’s worried because of that? Jesus, that’s no big deal. It’s not like she’s some total ditch-pig. She just has to make, like, this much effort and she’d be fine.’

He was telling the truth about not being into Becca. He doesn’t want anything from her. He’s doing it all wrong, but all he wants is to build a castle around her and keep her safe.

‘Your sister,’ Selena says. ‘Who you were talking about. What’s her name?’

‘Caroline. Carly.’ That brings up a smile on Chris’s face, but it gets jammed with worry and breaks apart.

‘How old is she?’

‘She’s ten. In a couple of years she’s going to be coming here; Kilda’s. If I was at home I could talk to her, you know? Prepare her or whatever. But I only see her for, like, a few hours every couple of weeks. It’s not enough.’

Selena says, ‘Are you worried she’s not going to like it here?’

Chris sighs and rubs a hand up the side of his jaw. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I worry about that a lot. She won’t . . . aah. She does stuff like Becca: like she’s actually trying to be weird. Wearing jeans to the Valentine’s dance, that’s totally something she’d do. Like, last year everyone in her class was wearing those stupid bracelets, right? The ones with the different-coloured links and you all wear each other’s colours to show you’re friends, I don’t know. And Carly’s all pissed off because some girls slagged her for not having one. So I’m like, “Get one, I’ll buy you one if you’ve run out of pocket money,” right? And Carly turns around and tells me she’d cut off her arm before she’d wear one of those bracelets, because those girls aren’t her boss and she’s not their slave and she doesn’t have to do anything just because they want her to.’