After school: Selena if you want to be just freinds then we can do that. I thought you wanted to or I would of never even tried you know that. Please can we meet tonite. I swear I won’t even touch you. Same time same place I’ll be there.
Nothing.
Next day he was back. I waited for you like a fucking plank til 3am. Swear to God I would of bet my life that you’d come. Still can’t believe you didn’t.
A couple of hours later: Selena are you serious about this? I don’t get it what HAPPENED? If I did something wrnng I’ll do whatever you want to aplogise. Just tell me what the fucks going on.
That evening: Selena you have to text me.
Nothing.
The Thursday, the 25th of April, Selena finally texted Chris. 1 o’clock tonight. Usual place. DON’T text me back. Just come.
‘That,’ Conway said, and tapped her screen, ‘that’s not Selena.’
I said, ‘No. Selena would’ve said, “Same time same place”, like they always did. And there’s no reason why she wouldn’t want him to text her back.’
‘Right. Someone else didn’t want him answering, in case Selena saw the message.’
‘She didn’t worry that Selena would spot her text? One night Selena gets a bit nostalgic, has a look back through her old chats with Chris, and all of a sudden she’s going, Hang on, I don’t remember writing that.’
‘Mystery Girl didn’t leave it on the phone. Wait for it to send, go into the Sent folder, delete.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘Selena’s texts after the breakup, Chris wasn’t ignoring them because he was in a strop with her. He was just doing what he was told.’
Conway said, ‘Some of the time, he was. Not all. Look at this.’
Five days later, 30th of April, Selena’s phone to Chris’s: I miss you. I’ve been trying so hard not to text you and I don’t blame you if you’re raging with me but I wanted you to know I miss you.
I said, ‘That’s the real Selena again. Like she told us, she couldn’t stand to cut him right off.’
Conway said, dryly, ‘He’s got no problem cutting her right off. No answer. He was ignoring her, all right. Chris hadn’t got what he wanted, for once, and he wasn’t happy.’
I said, ‘Here’s the other thing about that text. It says Mystery Girl didn’t actually nick the phone. She used it when she needed it, then put it back in Selena’s mattress.’
Conway nodded. ‘Joanne and her lot didn’t have that kind of access – even if they knew where Selena kept the phone, and how would they? Whoever set up that meeting lived in that bedroom.’
Almost a week later, 6th of May, someone using Selena’s phone texted Chris: I’ll be there. No answer.
I said, ‘They’d already set up the appointment; Mystery Girl’s just confirming. Chris must’ve shown up, the week before.’
‘Yeah. But that time, he went because he thought he was meeting Selena. This time, he knows he’s not. And he’s going along anyway.’
‘Why?’
Conway shrugged against the glass. ‘Maybe Mystery Girl says she’s going to sort things out between him and Selena, or maybe he figures banging Selena’s mate would make a great revenge. Or maybe he just thinks he’s in with a chance at more tit pics. Chris liked chicks, any chicks. There’s no “why” there. The question is why she’s meeting him.’
The long day had my mind moving like porridge, bits of thought taking forever to find each other. The corridor stretching away in front of us looked unreal, tiles too red, lines too long, something we’d never be able to stop seeing.
I said, ‘If she was going to kill him, why not do it straight off? What were the extra meetings for?’
‘Working up the guts. Or there’s something she wants to find out, before she decides whether to do it – whether he actually raped Selena, maybe. Or she’s got no plans to kill him, not at first; she’s meeting him for some other reason. And then something happens.’
Selena to Chris, the 8th of May, late at night: I don’t want us to be like this forever. Maybe this is completely stupid but there has to be some way we can be friends. Just hold on to each other till maybe if you’re not too furous with me we can try again someday. I can’t stand us losing each other totally.
Conway said, ‘She’s dying to get back with him. She can talk about just friends all she wants; that’s what she’s after.’
I said, ‘She said she was saved from doing it. This is what she meant. If Chris had texted her back, no way she would’ve stayed hardline about not meeting up. They would’ve been back together inside a couple of weeks. Maybe that’s what Mystery Girl was at: keeping them apart.’
‘If you were a teenage girl,’ Conway said. ‘And you wanted to keep Chris away from Selena, for whatever reason. And you were fairly sure she hadn’t been shagging him. And you knew what Chris was like.’
Silence, and the long red stretch of the corridor, tiles shifting queasily.
‘He brought a condom.’
I said, ‘Not Rebecca. She wouldn’t think of it.’
‘Nah.’
Julia would have thought of it.
13th of May: I’ll be there.
14th of May, Selena again. Don’t worry, I know you’re not going to answer this. I just like talking to you anyway. If you want me to stop, tell me and I will. Otherwise I’ll keep texting you. We had a substitute today for Maths, when she smiled she looked exactly like Chucky - Cliona got mixed up and called her Mrs Chucky and we all almost died laughing :-D
Rewinding, back to the small stories for laughs, trying to bring Chris back with her to a safe place. I said, ‘For a while, Mystery Girl’s able to convince Chris to stay away from Selena. Wouldn’t be hard: he’s pissed off with her anyway, and if Mystery Girl’s giving him something Selena wasn’t . . . But Selena keeps texting him. If he cared about her, if that was the real thing, then those texts had to get to him. After a while, it doesn’t matter what Mystery Girl’s bringing. Chris wants Selena back.’
Conway said, ‘And Mystery Girl has to come up with a new plan.’
16th of May, 9.12 a.m.. The morning before Chris died.
Selena’s phone to Chris’s: Can you meet tonight? 1 in the cypress clearing?
4.00 p.m. – he must have checked his messages after school – Chris’s phone to Selena’s: OK.
Whoever had set up that meeting had killed Chris Harper. We had room for a crack of doubt – interception, coincidence. No more than that.
‘Love to know who he thinks he’s meeting,’ Conway said.
‘Yeah. Not Mystery Girl’s usual day, not her usual MO – this time she asks for an answer.’
‘It’s not Selena. “Cypress clearing”, Selena wouldn’t’ve said that. That was their spot. “Same time same place,” she’d’ve said.’
Selena was out, again. I said, ‘But Chris could’ve thought it was her.’
‘Could be what Mystery Girl wanted him to think. By now, she’s planning. She breaks the routine to get Chris wondering, make sure he shows up. Takes the risk of having him text her back – maybe she does nick the phone outright, this time. She knows no one’s gonna be using it from now on.’
Conway’s voice was level and low, rough-edged with fatigue. Small eddies of air nosed around it, curious, carried it away down the corridor.
‘Maybe Joanne’s twisting her arm; maybe she’s doing it off her own bat, for whatever reason. That night she sneaks out early, takes the hoe out of the shed – she’s wearing gloves, so no prints. She heads for the grove, hides in among the trees till Chris arrives. When he’s mooning around the clearing waiting for his twue wuv to show up, our girl hits him with the hoe. He goes down.’
The lazy drone of bees, this morning, long ago. Seed-heads round my ankles, smell of hyacinths. Sunlight.
‘She waits till she’s sure. Then she wipes down the hoe, puts it back where she got it. She takes Chris’s secret phone off his body and gets rid of it. Gets rid of Selena’s, too. Maybe she does it that night, goes over the wall and ditches them in a bin; maybe she hides them somewhere in the school till the fuss dies down. Now there’s nothing to link her or her mates to the crime – except maybe Joanne, and Joanne’s got enough cop to keep her mouth shut. Our girl goes back inside. Goes to bed. Waits for the morning. Gets ready to squeal and cry.’
I said, ‘Fifteen years old. You think any of them would have that kind of nerve? The murder, OK. But the wait? This whole last year?’
Conway said, ‘She did it for her friend. One way or another. For her friend’s sake. That’s got power. You do that, you’re Joan of Arc. You’ve gone through fire; nothing’s gonna break you.’
Shiver building dark in my spine, the way it does when power comes near. That beat of pain again, deep in the palms of my hands.
‘There’s someone else who knows, but. And she hasn’t been through fire for her mate; she hasn’t got that kind of nerve. She holds in the secret as long as she can, but it finally gets to be too much. She cracks, makes the postcard. Probably she genuinely doesn’t think it’ll go further than that board, corridor gossip. The bubble again: you’re inside it, the outside doesn’t feel real. But your Holly’s been to the outside before. She knows it’s there.’
Sound from the fourth-year common room, sharp and sudden. Something heavy thudding to the floor. A squeal.
I was half off the windowsill when Conway’s hand clamped round my bicep. She shook her head.
‘But—’
‘Wait.’