The Secret Place (19 page)

Becca, thin hand light as a dandelion clock on Julia’s, wishing fiercely and too late that she had looked at the photo, that she had seen what the others were seeing. ‘I swear.’

And Holly. ‘I swear.’

The four hands twist into a knot wrapped with moonlight, fingers tangling, all of them trying to stretch wide enough to tighten round all the others at once. A breathless small laugh.

The cypresses sigh, long and sated. The moon stands still.

Chapter 9

Rebecca O’Mara, in the art-room doorway, hovering on one foot with the other wrapped round her ankle. Long dark-brown hair in a ponytail, soft and straggly, no straighteners here. Maybe an inch taller than Holly; skinny, not scary-skinny but definitely could have done with a pizza. Not pretty – face still catching up with her features – but it was coming soon. Wide brown eyes, on Conway, wary. No glance at the Secret Place.

If Rebecca was low on the old confidence, the old self-esteem, I could bring that. Give it the sweet big brother, looking for help with the important adventure and shy Little Sis is the special one who can save the day.

‘Rebecca, yeah?’ I said. Smiled, not too big, just easy and natural. ‘Thanks for coming in. Have a seat.’

She didn’t move. Houlihan had to dodge past her, scurry off to her corner. ‘It’s about Chris Harper. Isn’t it?’

Not scarlet and tangled up this time, but her voice was barely over a whisper. I said, ‘I’m Stephen Moran – maybe Holly’s mentioned me along the way, has she? She gave me a hand with some stuff, a few years back?’

Rebecca looked at me properly, for the first time. Nodded.

I held out a hand at the chair, and she pulled herself out of the doorway and came. That gangly teenage half-prance, like it was only the heavy shoes bringing her feet back to the ground. She sat down, tied her legs in a knot. Wrapped her hands in her skirt.

Sucking feeling in my chest, like water draining: let-down. From knowing Holly, from Conway saying
Just something
, from all that wide-eyed shite about freaks and witches, I’d been expecting these to be more than the last lot. This was just Alison over again, a bundle of fidgety fears wrapped in a grow-into-it skirt.

I let my spine go loose like a teenager’s, knees everywhere, and gave Rebecca another smile. Rueful, this one. ‘I need a hand again. I’m good at my job, I swear, but every now and then I need someone to help me out or I’ll get nowhere. I’ve got a feeling maybe you might be able to do that for me. Would you give it a shot, yeah?’

Rebecca said, ‘Is it about Chris?’

Not too shy to dig in her heels a bit. I made a face. ‘I’ve gotta tell you, I’m still trying to work out what it’s about. Why? Has something happened to do with Chris, yeah?’

She shook her head. ‘I just
.
.
.’ Gesture at Conway, with the bundle of hands and skirt. Conway was picking her nails with the cap of her Biro, didn’t look up. ‘I mean, because she’s here. I thought
.
.
.’

‘We’ll try and figure it out together. OK?’

I shot her the warm crinkly smile. Got a blank look back.

I said, ‘So let’s start with yesterday evening. First study period: where were you?’

After a moment Rebecca said, ‘The fourth-year common room. We have to be.’

‘And then?’

‘We get our break. Me and my friends, we went outside and sat on the grass for a while.’

Her voice was still a scraped-down wisp, but it got stronger on that.
Me and my friends.

I said, ‘Which friends? Holly and Julia and Selena, yeah?’

‘Yeah. And some others. Most of us went out. It was warm.’

‘And then you had second study period. You were here in the art room?’

‘Yeah. With Holly and Julia and Selena.’

‘How do you go about getting permission to spend a study period here? Like who asked who, and when? Sorry, I’m a bit
.
.
.’ I did shrug, head-duck, sheepish grin. ‘I’m new on this. Don’t know the ropes yet.’

More blank. Great with the young people, me, I’ll get them relaxed, I’ll get them talking
.
.
. Lovely Big Bro was striking out.

Conway was squinting at a thumbnail against the light. Missing nothing.

Rebecca said, ‘We ask Miss Arnold – she’s the matron. Julia went and asked her day before yesterday, at teatime. We wanted to go for first study, but someone was already going then, so Miss Arnold said to go for second study instead. They don’t like too many people being in the school after hours.’

‘So at break yesterday evening, yous got the key to the connecting door off the other girls who’d been up here?’

‘No. We’re not allowed to pass it around. Whoever signs the key out has to sign it back in, when they said they would. So the other girls gave it back to Miss Arnold, and then we went and got it off her.’

‘Who did that?’

I saw the instant where a streak of fear flew bright across Rebecca’s face, and she thought about lying. No reason why she should, nothing there that could get her in trouble as far as I could see, but that was where she turned all the same. Conway was right about this one, anyway: a liar, at least when she was scared; at least when something pulled her separate from her friends, put her in the spotlight all alone.

Not stupid, though, scared or not. Took her half a second to realise there was no point. She said, ‘Me.’

I nodded like I’d noticed nothing. ‘And then yous came up to the art room. All four of you together, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And what did you do?’

‘We have this project.’ She untangled one hand from her skirt, pointed at a table by the windows: bulky shape under a paint-spattered dropcloth. ‘Selena was doing calligraphy, and Holly was grinding up chalk for snow, and Julia and I were mostly making stuff out of copper wire. We’re doing the school a hundred years ago – it’s art and history together. It’s complicated.’

‘Sounds it. So you put in the extra time,’ I said. Approving. ‘Whose idea was that?’

The approval did nothing for Rebecca. ‘Everyone’s needed to use study time on the project. We did last week, too.’

Which could have been when someone’s light bulb switched on. ‘Yeah? Whose idea was it to come back last night?’

‘I don’t even remember. We all knew we needed to.’

‘And did all of yous stay here the whole time, till nine? Or did anyone go out of the room?’

Rebecca unwrapped her hands from her skirt and tucked them under her thighs. I was lobbing the questions fast and she was still wound tight and wary, and getting warier all the time, but the wariness was scattergun stuff, general cover; she didn’t know where to point it. Unless she was good or I was thick, she didn’t know about the card.

‘Only for like a minute.’

‘Who went where?’

Fine dark eyebrows pulled down. Brown eyes ticking back and forth between me and Conway.

Conway traced over table graffiti with her Biro. I waited.

‘How come?’ Rebecca asked. ‘How come you need to know?’

I left a silence. Rebecca matched it. All those thin elbows and knees looked like sharp corners, not so frail any more.

Conway had got her far wrong, or a year had taken her a long way. Rebecca wasn’t looking for a confidence boost, wasn’t looking for me or anyone to make her feel special. She wasn’t Alison, wasn’t Orla. I was going wrong.

Conway’s head had come up. She was watching me.

I binned the easy slouch, straightened my spine. Leaning forward, hands clasped between my knees. Adult to adult.

‘Rebecca,’ I said. Different voice, direct and serious. ‘There are going to be things I can’t tell you. And I’m going to sit here asking you to tell me everything you know just the same. I know that’s unfair. But if Holly’s ever said anything about me, I’m hoping she’s told you that I’m not going to treat you like an idiot or a baby. If I can answer your questions, I’ll do it. Give me the same respect. Fair enough?’

You can hear when you hit the right note, hear the ring of it. Rebecca’s chin lost the stubborn tilt; some of the wariness in her spine shifted to readiness. ‘Yeah,’ she said, after a moment. ‘OK.’

Conway quit messing with her Biro. Sat still, ready to write.

‘Grand,’ I said. ‘So. Who left the art room?’

‘Julia went back to our room, to get one of our old photos that we’d forgotten. I went to the toilet; I think so did Selena. Holly went to get chalk – we ran out of white, so she went and got more. I think from the science lab.’

‘Do you remember what times? What order?’

Rebecca said, ‘We were in the building the whole time. We didn’t even go off this floor, except Julia and she was only gone like a minute.’

I said gently, ‘No one’s saying you did anything wrong. I’m only trying to work out what you might have seen or heard.’

‘We didn’t. See or hear anything. Any of us. We had the radio on, and we just did our project and then went back to the boarders’ wing. And we all left together. In case you were going to ask.’

Spark of defiance in there at the end, chin going up again.

‘And you gave the key back to Miss Arnold.’

‘Yeah. At nine. You can check.’ We would. I didn’t say it.

I took out the photo.

Rebecca’s eyes hit it like magnets. I kept it facing me, did the flip back and forth against a fingertip. Rebecca tried to crane her neck without moving.

I said, ‘On your way here last night, you passed the Secret Place. You passed it again on your way to the toilet and back. And again when you left at the end of the evening. Right?’

That pulled her eyes away from the photo, back to me. Wide eyes, on guard, riffling through wild guesses. ‘Yeah.’

‘Did you stop for a look, any of those times?’

‘No.’

I gave it the scepticals.

‘We were in a hurry. At first we were working on the project, and then I had to get the key back on time. We weren’t thinking about the Secret Place. Why?’ One hand coming out from under her leg, uncurling towards the photo; long thin fingers, she was going to be tall. ‘Is that—’

‘The secrets on there. Any of them yours?’

‘No.’

No beat beforehand, no split-second decision. No lie.

‘Why not? You don’t have secrets? Or you keep them to yourself?’

Rebecca said, ‘I’ve got
friends
. I tell them my secrets. I don’t need to go around telling the whole school. Even anonymously.’

Her head had gone up; her voice had filled out all of a sudden, rang through the sunlight to the corners of the room. She was proud.

I said, ‘Do you figure your friends tell you all their secrets, too?’

A beat there; quarter of a second when her lips opened and nothing came out. Then she said, ‘I know everything about them.’

Still that ring in her voice, like joy. A lift to her mouth that was almost a smile.

I felt it change my breathing. Right there, a flash like a signal: the something else I’d been looking for. Burning hotter, throwing off sparks in strange colours.

Not the same thing, Conway had said; not the same as Joanne’s lot. No shit.

I said, ‘And you all keep each other’s secrets. You’d never rat the others out.’

‘No. None of us would. Ever.’

‘So,’ I said, ‘this isn’t yours?’ Photo into Rebecca’s hand.

Breath and a high whimper came out of her. Her mouth was open.

‘Someone put that on the Secret Place yesterday evening. Was it you?’

All of her was sucked into the photo. It took a moment for the question to sink in enough that she said, ‘No.’

Not lying: not enough of her attention was left for it. Another one down.

‘Do you know who did?’

Rebecca hauled herself out of the photo. She said, ‘It wasn’t any of us. Me and my friends.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because none of us know who killed Chris.’

And she put the photo back into my hand. End of story. She was pulled up straight-backed and head high, looking me in the eye, no blink.

I said, ‘Let’s say you had to guess. Had to, no way out. What would you say?’

‘Guess what? Who did the card, or
.
.
. Chris?’

‘Both.’

Rebecca gave me the blank teenage shrug that sends parents apeshit.

I said, ‘The way you talk about your friends, it sounds like they mean a lot to you. Am I right?’

‘Yeah. They do.’

‘People are going to know the four of you could have had something to do with this card. Fact. No way round that. If I had friends I cared about, I’d do whatever it took to make sure there wasn’t a killer out there thinking they had info on him. Even if it meant answering questions I didn’t like.’

Rebecca thought about that. Carefully.