‘You said she hadn’t been in touch with Chris for weeks before he died. The phone would’ve showed that. What’s incriminating there?’
‘I didn’t say it was incriminating, I said you’d have given her hassle. Which you would have.’
‘You’re a cop’s kid, you know better than to conceal evidence in a murder case, but you do it to save your mate a bit of hassle? Nah. No way.’ Holly tried to say something, but Conway’s voice came down hard on top of hers. ‘One of you four had been texting Chris from that phone, after he split up with Selena. Arranging meetings with him. One of you four had arranged to meet him the night he died. Now that’s incriminating, amn’t I right? That’s something you’d want to cover up.’
‘Whoa whoa whoa,’ Mackey said, lifting a hand. ‘Hang on a minute there. That’s your evidence? Texts sent from someone else’s phone?’
Conway said, to Holly, ‘A hidden phone, that you had access to. You and no one else that we know of, except Selena, and we’re satisfied Selena didn’t send the texts.’
Mackey said, ‘A phone kept in a room that four girls share. Are the texts signed in Holly’s handwriting, yeah? Got her prints on them?’
I copped, finally, why Mackey had told me that touching little tale about how Holly wound up boarding. He had been telling me how much she loved her friends. Anything we got out of her, there was how he was going to shoot it down: Holly’s protecting her friends. Prove she’s not.
Hard to be sure of anything, ever, with Mackey. I was sure of this: he would throw an innocent sixteen-year-old under a bus without thinking twice, if it would save his kid.
A hundred per cent positive of this: he’d throw me and Conway.
Conway kept ignoring him. Said to Holly, ‘You’re the one who knew the phone needed to disappear. None of the others: just you. And the killer had been deleting the meeting texts as she went; you’d never have known they existed, unless you were the one who sent them.’
Mackey said, ‘Or unless someone told her, or unless she guessed, or unless she overreacted to what she already knew – God forbid a teenage girl should overreact, am I right?’
Conway looked at him then. Said, ‘I’m done interviewing you. You answer one more question, we’re getting a different appropriate adult.’
Mackey thought her over. Glint in his eye, raking her, would’ve had me twitching; Conway didn’t notice or didn’t care. Just waited for him to finish up and answer her.
‘Seems to me,’ he said, and stood up, ‘that you and I both need a moment to clear our heads. I’m going out for a smoke. I think you should join me.’
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘I’m not looking for a chance to give you shite about your attitude, Detective. That I could do right here. I’m suggesting that a deep breath and a bit of fresh air might do us both good; get us back on the right foot. When we come back, I promise not to answer any more questions for Holly. How’s that?’
I moved. This was it; I couldn’t tell what or how, but I could feel it, yelling warnings. Conway glanced at me; I thought Careful, loud as I could. She glanced at Mackey’s smile – open, straightforward, just the right bit sheepish.
Said, ‘Smoke fast.’
‘You’re the boss.’
I followed them to the doorway. When Mackey arched an eyebrow at me, I said, ‘I’ll wait out here.’
His grin said Good boy, you protect yourself from the scary little girl. I didn’t bite. He matched Conway’s pace down the corridor, so their steps fading away sounded like one person’s. Shoulder to shoulder, they looked like partners.
Holly hadn’t watched them go. Every muscle of her was still clamped tight; there was a ferocious crease between her eyebrows. She said, ‘Do you honest to God think I killed Chris?’
I stayed in the doorway. ‘What would you think, if you were me?’
‘I hope I’d be good enough at my job that I could tell when someone’s not a murderer. Jesus.’
Her adrenaline was firing, touch her and the electric zap would’ve kicked you across the room. I said, ‘You’re hiding something. That’s all I know. I’m not good enough to telepathically guess what it is. You need to tell us.’
Holly threw me a look I couldn’t read, maybe scorn. Jerked her ponytail tight, hard enough to hurt. Then she shoved back her chair and went over to the model school. Unwound a length, expertly, from a spool of fine copper wire; chopped it off with a little pair of wire cutters, snick in the bleached air.
She leaned one hip against the table, flipped tweezers out of an empty bedroom. Twirled the wire deftly around the end of a thin pencil, adjusted with the tip of a fingernail when it slid out of true. Her fingers moved like a dancer’s, tucking, swirling, weaving, like a spell-caster’s. The rhythm and the focus steadied her, smoothed that forehead crease away. Steadied me along with her, till part of me even forgot to tense against whatever Mackey was trying to do with Conway.
In the end Holly held out the pencil towards me. Perched on top of it: a hat, wide-brimmed, barely big enough for a fingertip, decorated with one copper-wire rose.
I said, ‘Beautiful.’
Holly smiled, a small detached smile, down at the hat. Spun it on the pencil.
She said, ‘I wish I’d never brought you that fucking postcard.’ Not angry, not wishing for an excuse to kick me in the nuts, not any more. Things that went too deep to leave room for that.
I said, ‘Why? You knew there’d be hassle; you had to expect all this. What’s changed?’
Holly said, ‘I’m not allowed to talk to you till my dad gets back.’ She slipped the hat off the pencil, edged it between wires and dropped it over a tiny bedpost. Then she went back to her chair and sat down. Pulled her hoodie sleeves down over her hands and watched the moon.
Fast feet on the stairs: Conway, stepping out of the layers of shadow down the corridor, cool evening caught on her clothes. She said to me, ‘Mackey’s hanging on for another smoke – in case it’s a while before his next chance, he says. He says you can join him if you want. You might as well; he’s not going to come in till you do.’
She wasn’t looking at me. Gave me a bad feeling, couldn’t put my finger on it. I waited a second, trying to catch her eye, but all I got was Holly alert and scanning back and forth between the two of us, trying to snatch something. I left.
The tree line had turned black, swooping and dipping like a bird’s flightline against deep blue sky. I’d never seen it in that light before, but it looked familiar all the same. The school was starting to feel like I’d been there forever, like I belonged.
Mackey was leaning against the wall. He lit his smoke, waggled it at me: Look, see, I really did need one!
‘So,’ he said. ‘Interesting strategy you’ve got going on here, young Stephen. Some might say downright insane, but I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.’
‘What strategy?’
Double-take, amused. ‘Hello? Remember me? We’ve met before. We’ve worked together. Your aw-shucks-little-old-me act won’t fly here.’
I said, ‘What strategy are we talking about?’
Mackey sighed. ‘OK. I’ll play. Hooking up with Antoinette Conway. I’d love to know: what’s your plan there?’
‘No plan. I got the chance to work a murder, I took it.’
Mackey’s eyebrow went up. ‘I hope for your sake you’re still playing innocent, kid. How much do you know about Conway?’
‘She’s a good D. Works hard. Going places, fast.’
He waited. When he realised I was done: ‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?’
I shrugged. Seven years on and Mackey’s eye could still make me squirm, still turn me into a kid gone insta-thick at an oral exam. ‘Up till today, I didn’t spend a lot of time thinking about her.’
‘There’s a grapevine. There’s always gossip. You’re above that kind of thing?’
‘Not above it. Just never picked up anything about Conway.’
Mackey sighed, shoulders sagging. Ran a hand through his hair, shook his head. ‘Kid. Stephen.’ His voice had gone gentle. ‘In this gig, you need to make friends. Have to. Otherwise you won’t last.’
‘I’m lasting grand. And I’ve got friends.’
‘Not the kind I’m talking about. You need real friends, kid. Friends who have your back. Who tell you the things you need to know. Who don’t let you prance straight into a shit tornado without even giving you a heads-up.’
‘Like you?’
‘I’ve done OK for you so far. Haven’t I?’
‘I said thanks.’
‘And I’d like to think you meant it. But I don’t know, Stephen. I’m not feeling the love.’
‘If you’re my best buddy,’ I said, ‘go ahead and tell me what you think I need to know about Conway.’
Mackey leaned back against the wall. He wasn’t bothering to smoke his fag; it had done its job. He said, ‘Conway’s a leper, kid. She didn’t mention that?’
‘Hasn’t come up.’ I didn’t ask why she was a leper. He was going to tell me anyway.