We were both half-thinking about sneaking up on them, having a quick eavesdrop, see if they were talking hoes and texts and Chris. Not a hope. That pretty little woodlandy path, the one we’d walked that morning: the trees touching above it slashed the light to scraps, left us fumbling. We went crashing along like Land Rovers, twigs snapping, branches flapping, birds losing the head everywhere.
‘Jesus,’ Conway hissed, when I went in a bush up to my knee. ‘Did you never do Boy Scouts, no? Go camping?’
‘Where I’m from? No, I bleeding didn’t. You want me to hotwire a car, no problem.’
‘I can do that myself. I want some woodcraft.’
‘You want some posh bastard who went pheasant-shooting every—’ I caught my foot in something, shot forward flailing. Conway grabbed my elbow before I went on my snot. We snorted with giggles like a pair of kids, sleeves over our mouths, trying to glare each other silent.
‘Shut up—’
‘Fuck’s sake—’
Only made us worse. We’d gone giddy: the moon-stripes swirling the ground under our feet, the spin of rustles spreading out all around us; the hard weight of what we were going to have to do at the end of the path. I was only waiting to see Chris Harper leaping wide-mouthed like a wildcat off a branch in front of us, couldn’t tell if we’d scream like teenage girls or whip out our guns and blow his ghostly arse away—
‘State of you—’
‘Look who’s talking—’
Around a bend, out from under the trees.
Smell of hyacinths.
Up the little rise, in the clearing among the cypresses, the moonlight came down full and untouched. The three of them leaned shoulder to shoulder, legs curled among the bobbing seed-heads; for a second they looked like one triple creature that made my hair lift. Still as an old statue, as smooth and white and as blank-faced. Watching us, three pairs of bottomless eyes. We had stopped laughing.
None of them moved. The hyacinth-smell rose over us like a wave.
Rebecca, shoulder against Selena’s. Her hair was down and she was all patches of black and white, like an illusion. Like one blink would turn her into moonlight on grass.
Beside me Conway said, just loud enough to reach them, ‘Julia.’
They didn’t move. I had time to wonder what we would do if they never did; I knew better than to get any closer. Then Julia straightened, away from Selena’s side, brought her legs under her and stood up. She came down the rise to us without a glance at the others, came swishing through the hyacinths with her back straight and her eyes on something behind us. My neck itched.
Conway said, ‘Let’s walk down this way. We’ll only need a few minutes.’
She headed on down the path, deeper into the grounds. Julia fell into place behind her. The other two watched, side pressed to side, till I turned away. At my back, nearly made me leap, came the deep sigh of the cypress trees.
Even Julia’s walk was different, out here. No mocking arse-sway now; she took the path deft as a deer, barely shifted a twig. Like this was her territory, she could’ve crept up on a sleeping bird and taken it in her hand.
Conway said, without looking over her shoulder, ‘I’m gonna assume Selena’s updated you. We know yous were getting out at night, we know she had something going with Chris, we know they’d split up. And we know you were meeting Chris. Right up until he died.’
Nothing. The path broadened out, wide enough for the three of us to walk abreast. Julia’s legs were shorter than ours, but she didn’t speed up; left us to slow to her pace or leave her behind, whichever. We slowed.
‘We’ve got your texts. On the special super-secret phone he gave Selena.’
Her silence felt unbreakable. She had put on a red jumper, no jacket, and the air was turning cold. She didn’t seem to notice.
Conway said, ‘Is that why Selena broke it off with Chris, yeah? We couldn’t work that out. Was it because she knew you were into him, didn’t want him getting between you?’
That got to Julia. ‘I was never into Chris. I have taste.’
‘Then what were you doing with him out here at midnight? Algebra?’
Silence, and her silent steps. Time running out was pounding at me: Rebecca waiting behind us, Mackey and Holly waiting above us, McKenna waiting to ring the bell that would end the day. Rushing this would only slow it down.
Conway said, ‘How many times did you meet him?’
Nothing.
‘If it wasn’t you, it was one of your mates. Had Selena got back together with him?’
Julia said, ‘Three times. I met him three times.’
‘Why’d you stop?’
‘He got killed. It put a damper on the relationship.’
‘Relationship,’ I said. ‘What kind?’
‘Intellectual. We talked world politics.’
The sarcasm was heavy enough to be all the answer we needed. Conway said, ‘If you weren’t into him, then why?’
‘Because. You never did anything stupid, when it came to guys?’
‘Plenty. Trust me.’ The quick look between the two of them startled me: a matched look like understanding, a wry edge of smile on Conway. Like we’re actual people. ‘But I always had a reason. A shite one, but it was there.’
Julia said, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time. What can I say: I was dumber then.’
I said, ‘You were keeping him away from Selena. You knew he was trouble – you knew what he’d done to Joanne, knew Selena wasn’t strong enough to handle the same thing happening to her. Selena had broken it off with him, but you read her texts; you knew all Chris had to do was snap his fingers and she’d come running. So you had to make sure he didn’t snap them.’
‘You’re tougher than Selena,’ Conway said. ‘Tough enough to take whatever a fool like Chris could dish out. So you took the bullet for her.’
Julia walked, hands in her pockets. Watched something off in the trees ahead. The slice of her face I could see reminded me of Holly. That grief.
Conway said, ‘You think Selena killed Chris. Don’t you?’
Julia’s head snapped sideways like Conway had flicked her in the face. I hadn’t realised till I heard the words fall into the air. This was what Julia had been thinking, all day; all year.
And that was her out. Julia out, Selena out, Rebecca in. Holly flickering on the line.
Conway said, ‘We say we’re going to talk to Selena: bang, you throw us a stick to chase, send us dashing off after Joanne. I say maybe Selena had got back with Chris: bang, all of a sudden you’re talking to us, coming clean about meeting him. You wouldn’t need to protect her unless you thought she had something to hide.’
We were speeding up. Julia was walking faster, smashing twigs and rattling pebbles, not caring.
I said, ‘You think Selena found out you were hooking up with Chris. Is that it? She was so angry, or so jealous, or so gutted, she lost the head and killed him. That makes it your fault. So it’s up to you to protect her.’
Only a pace or two ahead of us, she was already smudging away into the dark, just the red slash of her jumper glowing. ‘Julia,’ Conway said, and stopped walking.
Julia stopped too, but the line of her back pulled like a leashed dog’s. Conway said, ‘Sit down.’
In the end Julia turned. A pretty little wrought-iron bench, overlooking tidy flowerbeds – closed up for the night, now, all the daytime colours and petal-flourishes turned in tight on themselves. Julia aimed for the end of the bench. Conway and I boxed her into the middle.
Conway said, ‘Listen to me. We don’t suspect Selena.’
Julia rolled her a look. ‘Uh-huh. I’m so reassured, I might need to fan myself.’
‘All our evidence says she hadn’t been in touch with Chris for weeks before he died.’
‘Right. Until you turn around and say, “Oops, actually, we’ve decided those texts were from her, not from you! Sorry!”’
‘Bit late for that,’ I said. ‘And we’ve had a lot of practice figuring out when people are lying. We both think Selena’s telling us the truth.’
‘Great. Glad to hear it.’
‘So if we believe her, why don’t you? She’s meant to be your mate; how come you think she’s a murderer?’
‘I don’t. I think she’s never done anything worse than talking during study period. OK?’
The defences shooting up in Julia’s voice, I’d heard those before. That was when it clicked: the interview in her room that afternoon, that note in her voice, something left snagged in my mind. I said, ‘You’re the one who texted me.’
Off Chris’s phone.
Her profile tightening. She didn’t look at me.
‘To tell me where Joanne kept the key to the connecting door. That was you.’
Nothing.
‘You said to us, this afternoon: When you found out about Joanne’s key, she turned it around on me. If anyone had told you about her and Chris, she’d have got back at them the same way. Meaning Joanne was getting back at you for telling us about the key.’
I got one corner of Julia’s eye. It said, Good catch. Now prove it.
Conway turned on the bench, pulled up one leg so she could face Julia straight on. ‘Listen. Selena’s in bad shape. You know that. You thought it was because she couldn’t handle being a killer, had to hide in cloud-cuckoo land. It’s not that. You want me to swear? I’ll swear on anything you want: it’s not.’
She said it clear and warm, the way she’d have said it to a friend, a best friend, to her closest sister. She was holding out a hand and beckoning Julia to cross that river. Go from the lifelong-familiar side where grown-ups were faceless mentallers trying to wreck everything, no point trying to understand them, over to this new strange place where we could talk face to face.
Julia looking at Conway. Things moving across her face said she knew the crossing was one-way. That you can never tell who’ll still be beside you, on the other side, and who’ll be left behind.
I kept quiet. This was theirs. I was outside.
Julia took a long breath. She said, ‘You’re sure. It wasn’t her.’
‘We don’t suspect her. You’ve got my word.’
‘Lenie’s not just naturally crazy, though. You don’t know her; I do. She wasn’t like this before Chris got killed.’
Conway nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. But what’s wrecking her head isn’t that she killed him. It’s that she knows something she can’t handle. She’s spacing out so she doesn’t have to deal with it.’
It was getting colder. Julia pulled her jumper tight at her neck. She said, ‘Like what?’
‘If we knew, we wouldn’t need to be having this conversation. I’ve got ideas, no proof. All I can tell you for sure is: you’re not gonna get Selena in hassle by telling me the truth. I swear. OK?’
Julia tugged her sleeves down, the pale smudges of her hands vanishing into the red. She said quietly, ‘OK. I texted you about the key.’
Conway said, ‘How’d you know where Joanne and them kept it?’
‘I’m the one who gave her the idea about the book.’
I said, ‘And the one who gave her the key.’