Tana French - The Secret Place

‘After classes end every day. As I told you.’

‘Who checked it yesterday?’

‘You would have to ask the teachers. They decide amongst themselves.’

‘We will. Do the girls know when it’s checked?’

‘I’m sure they’re aware that it is monitored. They see teachers looking at it; we don’t attempt to conceal the fact. We haven’t announced the precise schedule, however, if that is your question.’

Meaning our girl wouldn’t have known we could narrow it down. She would have thought she could vanish, into the stream of bright faces tumbling down that corridor.

Conway said, ‘Were any of the girls in the main school after classes ended?’

Silence again. Then: ‘As you may know, Transition Year – fourth year – involves large amounts of practical work. Group projects. Experiments. So forth. Often, fourth-years’ homework requires access to school resources. The art room, the computers.’

Conway said, ‘Meaning there were fourth-years here yesterday evening. Who and when?’

The full-on headmistress stare. Full-on cop stare coming back. Miss McKenna said, ‘Meaning no such thing. I have no knowledge of who was in the main building yesterday. The matron, Miss Arnold, holds a key to the door connecting the school to the boarders’ wing, and makes a note of any girl who is given permission to enter the main building after hours; you would need to ask her. I am simply telling you that, on any given evening, I would expect at least a few fourth-years to be here. I understand that you feel the need to find sinister meaning everywhere, but believe me, Detective Conway, there will be nothing sinister about some poor child’s Media Studies project.’

‘That’s what we’re here to find out,’ Conway said. She stretched, big, back arching, arms going over her head and out. ‘That’ll do for now. We’ll need a list of girls who had access yesterday after school. Fast. Meanwhile, we’re taking a look at this invaluable board.’

She flipped the pen back onto the desk, neat snap of her wrist like skimming a stone. It rolled across the green leather, stopped an inch from Miss McKenna’s clasped hands. Miss McKenna didn’t move.

The school had gone quiet, the kind of quiet made out of a hundred different low buzzes. Somewhere girls were singing, a madrigal: just snippets, layered up with sweet high harmonies, cut off and started over every couple of lines when the teacher corrected something. Now is the month of maying, when merry lads are playing, fa la la la la…

Conway knew where we were headed. Top floor, down the corridor, past closed classroom doors ( If tall dominates short, then… Et si nous n’étions pas allés… ). Open window at the end of the corridor, warm breeze and green smell pouring in.

‘Here we go,’ Conway said, and turned in to an alcove.

The board was maybe six foot across by three high, and it came leaping out of that alcove screaming straight in your face. Like a mind gone wrong, someone’s huge mad mind racketing out every-coloured pinballs full speed, with no stop button. Every inch of it was packed: photos, drawings, paintings, jammed in on top of each other, punching for space. Faces blacked out with marker. Words everywhere, scribbled, printed, sliced.

A sound from Conway, quick breath through her nose that could’ve been a laugh or the same shock.

Across the top: big black letters, fantasy-book curlicues. THE SECRET PLACE.

Under that, smaller, no fancy font here: Welcome to The Secret Place. Please remember that respect for others is a core school value. Do not alter or remove others’ cards. Cards that identify anyone, as well as offensive or obscene cards, will be removed. If you have any concerns about a card, speak to your class teacher.

I had to shut my eyes for a second before they could start splitting the frenzy into individual cards. Black Labrador: I wish my brothers dog would die so I could get a kitten. Index finger: STOP PICKING YOUR NOSE AFTER LIGHTS OUT I CAN HEAR YOU!!! Cornetto wrapper stuck down with Sellotape: This was when I knew I love u… and I’m so scared u know too. Tangle of algebra equations, cut out and glued on top of each other: My freind lets me copy cos I’m never goin 2 understand dem. Coloured-pencil drawing of a soother-faced baby: Everyone blamed her brother but I’m the one who taught my cousin to say F*** off!

Conway said, ‘“The card was pinned over one that has half a postcard of Florida on top and half a postcard of Galway on the bottom. It says, I tell everyone this is my favourite place ’cause it’s cool… This is my actual favourite place ’cause no one here knows I’m supposed to be cool. I like Galway too, so sometimes I look at it when I go past. That’s why I noticed the picture of Chris.’”

It took me a second to cop. Holly’s statement; word for word, near as I could make out. Conway caught the startled look, gave me a sarky one back. ‘What, you thought I was thick?’

‘Didn’t think you had a memory like that on you.’

‘Live and learn.’ She leaned back from the board, scanning.

Big red-lipsticked mouth, teeth bared: My mother hates me because I’m fat. Darkening blue sky, soft green hillsides, one golden-lit window: I want to go home I want to go home I want to go home . Downstairs, the same delicate curve of madrigal, over and over.

‘There,’ said Conway. She nudged aside a photo of a man cleaning an oil-stained seagull – You can keep telling me to be a solicitor but I’m going to do THIS! – and pointed. Half Florida, half Galway. Left-hand side of the board, near the bottom.

Conway bent close. ‘Pinhole,’ she said. ‘Looks like your little pal didn’t make the whole thing up.’

If she had, she wouldn’t have forgotten the pinhole; not Holly. ‘Looks like.’

No point taking it for prints; anything proved nothing. Conway said, quoting again, ‘“I didn’t look at the Galway card yesterday evening when we were in the art room. I don’t remember when was the last time I looked at it. Maybe last week.”’

‘If the teachers on monitoring duty did their job, we’re down to whoever was in the building after class. Otherwise…’

‘Otherwise, a mess like this, a card could sit for days without getting noticed. No way to narrow it down.’ Conway let the seagull drop back into place, stepped back to take in the whole board again. ‘Your woman McKenna can yap on about safety valves all she wants. Me, I think this is fucked up.’

Hard to argue with that. I said, ‘We’re gonna have to check the lot.’

I saw her think it: ditch me with the scut work, go do the good stuff herself. She was the boss.

She said, ‘Quickest way would be to take them down as we go. That way we can’t miss any.’

‘We’ll never get them back right. You OK with the girls knowing we’ve been through them?’

‘Fuck’s sake ,’ said Conway. ‘The whole case was like this. Fiddly pain-in-the-hole walking-on-eggshells bullshit. Better leave them where they are. You start from that side, I’ll take this one.’

It took us the guts of half an hour. We didn’t talk – lose your place in that tornado, you’d be banjaxed – but we worked well together, all the same. You can tell. The rhythms match up; the other person doesn’t start to annoy you just by existing. I’d been all ready to put in the work, make sure this went smooth as butter – straight back to Cold Cases for me, if I held Conway up or mouth-breathed into her ear – but there was no need. It was easy; effortless. Another surge of that lifting feeling I’d got on the stairs: your day, your luck, catch it if you can.