I said, ‘That’s great. Thanks a million for telling me.’ Smiled at them all.
‘I wasn’t about to say it in front of Detective Bitchface,’ Gemma said. ‘I’d probably be in jail right now. You’re not going to get me in trouble, right? Because like I said—’
‘No trouble. I might ask you to give me a statement at some stage, if I really need one – no, hang on, it won’t get you in hassle. You can just say you went into the shed to get out of the rain, which is true, right? You won’t need to explain why you were outside to start with. Yeah?’
Gemma didn’t look convinced. Joanne didn’t care about her. Leaning closer, fizzing with excitement: ‘So you think Rebecca did it. Right? That’s what you think.’
I said, ‘I think I’d like to know what Rebecca was doing in there. That’s all.’
Knelt up, dusted dirt and grass off my trousers. Kept it casual, but I was rattling with it, how badly I wanted to shoot up off that grass and leg it. I could have Rebecca. I could grope my way through streaks of light and whirling moths till I found her and Julia and Selena, dark eyes watching for me out of the dark under cypresses. I could ring the locals for a marked car and a social worker and have Rebecca in an interview room before Conway let go her pit-bull grab on Holly. If I worked it just right and kept my phone off, I could have a confession on O’Kelly’s desk before Conway tracked me down. By morning I could be the hotshot who, in twelve hours, had solved the big one that had stumped Conway for a year.
Joanne said, ‘Stay and talk with us. We’ll have to go inside soon anyway; you can go talk to boring Rebecca then.’
‘Yeah,’ Orla said. ‘We’re way more interesting than her.’
For a second I thought – the stupid swelled head on me – they might still be scared, want the big strong man to protect them. But they were comfy as cats on the grass. All the fear had run right out of them, once they were the powerful ones taking me where they wanted me, to whisper their saved-up secret in my ear.
I said, smiling, ‘I’d say you are, all right. But I’d better get this sorted out.’
Joanne pouted. ‘We helped you. Now that you’ve got what you want off us, you’re just going to dump us and run?’
‘Typical guy,’ said Gemma, up to the branches, shaking her head.
Joanne said, ‘I told you before. I don’t let guys treat me like crap.’
Some first warning got to me, through the Go go go drumming in my ears. I said, ‘I’m under a bit of time pressure, is all. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done for me. Believe me.’
Joanne said, ‘Then stay.’ Lifted one finger and laid it on my knee. Cute nose-wrinkle smile, like a joke, but half a second too late. Orla sucked in breath, shocked, and giggled it out.
Somehow I stopped myself from leaping and running. If I fucked up now, I was fucked a dozen ways.
Gemma said, ‘Don’t look so terrified. We’re fun. Honest.’
Smiling at me, her too. It looked friendly, but she was written in a code I couldn’t begin to read. They all were. That bad-alleyway prickle that had faded for a bit, while they had me busy feeling like something they wanted and loving it; that was rising hard up the back of my neck again.
Joanne’s fingernail ran an inch higher up my thigh. All of them giggling, tongues nipped between sharp little teeth. It was a game, and I was part of it, but I couldn’t tell what part. I tried laughing. They laughed back.
‘So,’ Joanne said. Another inch. ‘Talk to us.’
Smack her hand away, leg it back to the school like my arse was on fire, bang on the art-room door and beg Conway to let me back in if I promised to be good. Instead I said, ‘Let’s think this through for a second. Shall we?’
Put on my stuffiest voice. Thought teacher, thought McKenna, thought everything they didn’t want. Picked them out one by one, looking them in the eye, separating them out: not triple and dangerous; just schoolgirls being very silly.
‘Gemma, I realise that it took a lot of courage for you to give me this information. And Joanne, I realise that Gemma probably wouldn’t have plucked up that courage without your support – and yours, Orla. So, after you’ve gone to considerable trouble to bring me this potentially valuable material, I’m not inclined to waste it.’
They were looking at me like I’d gone flash-bang and turned two-headed. Joanne’s finger had stopped moving.
‘If I don’t have an opportunity to interview Rebecca O’Mara before all of you students are called inside, then I’ll have to liaise with Detective Conway, and I’ll have no option but to bring her into the loop. I assume you gave me this information because you wanted me to utilise it. Not because you wanted to hand the credit for any results to Detective Conway. Am I correct?’
Three identical pairs of eyes, staring. Not a move, not a blink.
‘Orla? Am I correct?’
‘What? Um, yeah? I guess?’
‘Very good. Gemma?’
Nod.
‘Joanne?’
Finally, finally, a shrug, and her hand came off my leg. Conway’s smackdown, way back in the art room, was paying off. ‘Whatever.’
‘Then I think we’re all agreed.’ I handed out a thin smile for each of them. ‘Our top priority is for me to speak to Rebecca. Our chat will have to wait.’
Nothing. Just those eyes, still staring.
I stood up, evenly, no sudden moves. Brushed myself down, straightened my jacket. Then I turned around and walked away.
It was like turning my back on jaguars. Every inch of me was waiting for the claws, but nothing came. Behind me I heard Joanne say, pompous and pitched just loud enough for me to hear, ‘Potentially valuable material,’ and a triple spurt of giggles. Then I was out, on the endless white-green lawn.
My heart was going like bongos. That drunken dizzy rushed up and over me; I wanted to let my knees fold, sink down on the cool grass.
I didn’t do it. Not just the watchers all round. What I had told the three of them was true: somewhere out there, in the dapple of black and white and murmurs, was Rebecca. She was now or never.
It was exactly what Conway would expect out of me. It was what Mackey would put money on.
The white glare of the art room, staring down at me. Laughter, joyful, somewhere far away among the trees.
I owed Conway fuck-all. I’d brought her the key to her make-or-break case, she’d used me while I was useful and then kicked me out of the car going ninety.
The moon pinwheeling above the school. I felt like I was dissolving, fingers and toes sifting away.
She was everything Mackey had warned me about. She was the lifetime kibosh on my daydream partner, the one with the red setters and the violin lessons. She was edge and trouble, everything I had always wanted far from.
I know my shot when I see it. I saw it bright as day.
I found my phone.
Text, not ring. If Conway saw my number come up, she’d think I wanted to whinge about the wait; she’d let it ring out.
I could feel something happening to me. A change.
Message icon on my screen. Conway, a few minutes back, while I’d been too busy to notice. She must have pulled the plug, or Mackey had. I was just in time.
Got anything yet? Stalling him long as I can but lights out is 1045 get a move on
‘What the fuck,’ I said out loud.
The grin came on top of it, grin like my face was splitting open and every colour of light bursting out.
Idiot, me, supersize idiot and I could’ve punched myself in the head for it. For a second there I forgot all about Rebecca, didn’t care.
Go for a nice walk, admire the grounds, Conway had said to me outside the door of the art room. See if you can get Chris’s ghost to pop up for you. Meaning Get outside and talk to those girls, stir them up as hard as you can, see what you can get out of them. Clear as day, if I’d been looking. I’d been so busy staring at how Mackey could’ve used me to fuck me up, I’d missed what she was waving in front of my face.
Conway had trusted me: not just trusted me through all Mackey’s doom-peddling, but trusted me to know she would. I could’ve punched myself all over again for not doing the same for her. Made my stomach turn cold, how close I had come to too late.
I texted her back. Meet me out the front. Urgent. Don’t let Mackey come.