The Secret Place (81 page)

She wants a sign to tell her when the right day comes. She knows she won’t get one, not for this; maybe not for anything after this, ever again.

She makes her own. When she hears the Daleks talking about OMG this stupid project taking forever have to go up on Tuesday evening so booooring, Holly says, at the end of art class, ‘Study time again on Tuesday?’ Watches the others nod, while they pour drifts of powdered chalk into the bin and coil copper wire away.

She is meticulous. She makes sure to chatter the others past the Secret Place, on their way into the art room and out again, so none of them see what isn’t there. Makes sure to leave her phone out of sight, on a chair pushed under the table, so no one spots it for her. Makes sure to say, ‘Oh,
pants
, my phone!’ after lights-out. Makes sure to run through every step, the next morning, up in the empty corridor: pin it, see it (quick gasp, hand to her mouth, like someone’s watching), get the envelope and the balsa knife, lever out the thumbtack as delicately as if there might actually be fingerprints there. When she runs back down the corridor, the sound of each footstep flies up into a high corner, slaps onto the wall like a dark handprint.

The others believe her when she says she has a migraine – she’s had three in the past two months, matching Mum’s symptoms. Julia pulls out her iPod, to keep Holly from getting bored. Holly lies in bed and watches them leave for school like it’s the last time she’ll ever see them: already half gone, Becca flipping through pages for her Media Studies homework, Julia hauling at a sock, Selena tipping a smile and a wave over her shoulder. When the door slams behind them, there’s a minute when she thinks she’ll never be able to make herself sit up.

The nurse gives her migraine pills, tucks her in and leaves her to sleep it off. Holly moves fast. She knows what time the next bus into town leaves.

It hits her at the bus stop, in the cool-edged morning air. At first she thinks she actually is sick, that what she’s doing has called down some curse on her and now all her lies come true. She hasn’t felt it in so long and it tastes different now. It used to be vast and dark-bloody; this is metallic, this is alkaline, this is like scouring powder eating through your layers one by one. It’s fear. Holly is afraid.

The bus howls up like a stampeding animal, the driver eyes her uniform, the steps sway precariously as she climbs to the top deck. Guys in hoodies are sprawled along the back seat blasting hip-hop from a radio and they eye-strip Holly bare, but her legs won’t take her back down those stairs. She sits on the edge of the front seat, stares out at the road diving under the wheels and listens to the raw laughs behind her, tensed for the surge that would mean an attack. If the guys come for her then she can push the emergency button. The driver will stop the bus and help her down the stairs, and she can get the next bus back to school and climb back into bed. Her heart punching her throat makes her want to throw up. She wants Dad. She wants Mum.

The song starts so small, fading up through the hip-hop, it takes a minute to reach her. Then it hits her like a shock in the chest, like she’s breathed air made of something different.

Remember oh remember back when we were young so young
.
.
.

It’s crystal-clear, every word. It surges away the sound of the engine, bowls away the hoodies’ hooting. It carries them over the canal and all the way into town. It soars the bus through chains of lights all flashing to green, leaps it over speed-bumps, slaloms it two-wheeled around jaywalkers.
Never thought I’d lose you and I never thought I’d find you here, never thought that everything we’d lost could feel so near
.
.
.

Holly listens to every word of it, straight through. Chorus, chorus again, again, and she waits for the song to fade. Instead it keeps going and it rises.
I’ve got so far, I’ve got so far left to travel
.
.
.

The bus skids towards her stop. Holly waves goodbye to the hoodies – open-mouthed and baffled, looking for an insult, too slow – and flies down the rocking stairs.

Out on the street, the song is still going. It’s fainter and tricky, flickering between traffic sounds and student-gang shouts, but she knows what to listen for now and she keeps hold of it. It spirals out in front of her like a fine golden thread, it leads her nimble and dancer-footed between rushing suits and lampposts and long-skirted beggarwomen, up the street towards Stephen.

Acknowledgements

I owe enormous thank-yous to more people every time: Ciara Considine at Hachette Books Ireland, Sue Fletcher and Nick Sayers at Hodder & Stoughton, and Clare Ferraro and Caitlin O’Shaughnessy at Viking, for the time and skill they put into making this book so much better; Breda Purdue, Ruth Shern, Ciara Doorley and everyone at Hachette Books Ireland; Swati Gamble, Kerry Hood and everyone at Hodder & Stoughton; Ben Petrone, Carolyn Coleburn, Angie Messina and everyone at Viking; Susanne Halbleib and everyone at Fischer Verlage; Rachel Burd, for another eagle-eyed copy edit; the amazing Darley Anderson and his crack squad at the agency, especially Clare, Mary, Rosanna, Andrea and Jill; Steve Fisher of APA; David Walsh, for not only answering all my questions on detective procedure but giving me the answers to questions I didn’t know I needed to ask; Dr Fearghas Ó Cochláin, as usual, for helping me kill off the victim as plausibly as possible; Oonagh ‘Better Than’ Montague, for (among many, many other things) making me laugh at all the moments when I needed it most; Ann-Marie Hardiman, Catherine Farrell, Kendra Harpster, Jessica Ryan, Karen Gillece, Jessica Bramham, Kristina Johansen, Alex French and Susan Collins, for various wonderful combinations of seriousness, silliness and every kind of support; David Ryan, for being so very and so incomparably that without his endless I would never have; my mother, Elena Lombardi, for every single day; my father, David French; and, more than I’ll ever be able to put into words, my husband, Anthony Breatnach.