Tana French - The Secret Place

The fifth book in the Dublin Murder Squad series

2014

Theres this song that keeps coming on the radio, but Holly can only ever catch bits of it. Remember oh remember back when we were, a girls voice clear and urgent, the fast light beat lifting you up off your toes and speeding your heart to keep up, and then its gone. She keeps trying to ask the others What is it? but she never catches enough to ask about. Its always slipping in through the cracks, when theyre in the middle of talking about something important or when they have to run for the bus; by the time things go quiet again its gone, theres just silence, or Rihanna or Nicki Minaj pounding silence away.

It comes out of a car, this time, a car with the top down to dragnet all the sunshine it can get, in the sudden explosion of summer that could be gone tomorrow. It comes over the hedge into the park playground, where theyre holding melting ice creams away from their back-to-school shopping. Holly on the swing, head tipped back to squint up at the sky, watching the sunlight pendulum across her eyelashes straightens up to listen. That song, she says, whats- but just then Julia drops a glob of ice cream in her hair and shoots up on the roundabout yelling Fuck!, and by the time shes got a tissue off Becca and borrowed Selenas water bottle to wet it and cleaned the sticky off her hair, bitching the whole time to make Becca blush, mostly, says the wicked sideways glance at Holly about how she looks like she gave a blowjob to someone with bad aim, the cars gone.

Holly finishes her ice cream and hangs backwards by the swing chains, just keeping the ends of her hair from brushing the dirt, watching the others upside down and sideways. Julia has lain back on the roundabout and is turning it slowly with her feet; the roundabout squeaks, a lazy regular sound, soothing. Next to her Selena sprawls on her stomach, stirring idly through her shopping bag, letting Jules do the work. Becca is threaded through the climbing frame, dabbing at her ice cream with the tip of her tongue, seeing how long she can make it last. Traffic-noises and guys shouts seep over the hedge, sweetened by sun and distance.

Twelve days left, Becca says, and checks to see if the rest of them are happy about that. Julia raises her cone like a toast; Selena clinks it with a maths notebook.

The huge paper bag by the swing-set frame hangs in the corner of Hollys mind, a pleasure even when shes not thinking about it. You want to drop your face and both hands into it, get that pristine newness on your fingertips and deep into your nose: glossy ring binder with unbumped corners, matched graceful pencils with long points sharp enough to draw blood, geometry set with every tiny measuring-line clean and unworn. And other stuff, this year: yellow towels, ribbon-wrapped and fluffy; a duvet cover, striped in wide yellow and white, slick in its plastic.

Chip-chip-chip-churr, says a loud little bird out of the heat. The air is white and burns things away from the edges in. Selena, glancing up, is only a slow toss of hair and an opening smile.

Net bags! Julia says suddenly, up to the sizzling sky.

Hmmm? Selena asks, into her fanned handful of paintbrushes.

On the boarders equipment list. Two net bags for in-house laundry service. Like, where do you get them? And what do you do with them? I dont think Ive ever even seen a net bag.

Theyre to keep your stuff together in the wash, Becca says. Becca and Selena have been boarding since the start, back when they were all twelve. So you dont end up with someone elses disgusting knickers.

Mum got mine last week, Holly says, sitting up. I can ask her where, and as the words come out she smells laundry at home rising warm from the dryer, her and Mum shaking out a sheet to fold between them, Vivaldi bouncing in the background. Out of nowhere for one hideous swooping moment the thought of boarding turns into a vacuum inside her, sucking till her chests caving in on itself. She wants to scream for Mum and Dad, fling herself on them and beg to stay at home forever.

Hol, Selena says gently, smiling up as the roundabout takes her past. Its going to be great.

Yeah, Holly says. Becca is watching her, clutching the bar of the climbing frame, instantly spiky with worry. I know.

And its gone. Theres just a residue left, graining the air and gritting the inside of her chest: still time to change your mind, do it fast before its too late, run run run all the way home and bury your head. Chip-chip-churr, says the loud little bird, mocking and invisible.

I dibs a window bed, Selena says.

Uh-uh, you do not, says Julia. No fair dibsing now, when me and Hol dont even know what the rooms are like. You have to wait till we get there.

Selena laughs at her, as they turn slowly through hot blurred leaf-shadows. You know what a windows like. Dibs it or dont.

Ill decide when I get there. Deal with it.

Becca is still watching Holly under pulled-down eyebrows, rabbit-gnawing absently on her cone. I dibs the bed farthest from Julia, Holly says. Third-years share four to a room: itll be the four of them, together. She snores like a buffalo drowning.

Bite my big one, I totally do not. I sleep like a dainty fairy princess.

You do too, sometimes, Becca says, turning red at her own daring. Last time I stayed over at yours I could actually feel it, like vibrating the entire room, and Julia gives her the finger and Selena laughs, and Holly grins at her and cant wait for Sunday week again.

Chip-chip-churr, the bird says one more time, lazy now, blurred with doziness. And fades.

She came looking for me. Most people stay arms length away. A patchy murmur on the tip-line, Back in 95 I saw, no name, click if you ask. A letter printed out and posted from the wrong town, paper and envelope dusted clean. If we want them, we have to go hunting. But her: she was the one who came for me.

I didnt recognise her. I was up the stairs and heading for the squad room at a bounce. May morning that felt like summer, juicy sun spilling through the reception windows, lighting the whole cracked-plaster room. A tune playing in my head, me humming along.

I saw her, course I did. On the scraped-up leather sofa in the corner, arms folded, crossed ankle swinging. Long platinum ponytail; sharp school uniform, green-and-navy kilt, navy blazer. Someones kid, I figured, waiting for Daddy to bring her to the dentist. The superintendents kid, maybe. Someone on better money than me, anyway. Not just the crest on the blazer; the graceful slouch, the cock of her chin like the place was hers if she could be arsed with the paperwork. Then I was past her quick nod, in case she was the gaffers and reaching for the squad-room door.

I dont know if she recognised me. Maybe not. It had been six years, shed been just a little kid, nothing about me stands out except the red hair. She could have forgotten. Or she could have known me right off, kept quiet for her own reasons.

She let our admin say, Detective Moran, theres someone to see you, pen pointing at the sofa. Miss Holly Mackey.

Sun skidding across my face as I whipped around, and then: of course. I shouldve known the eyes. Wide, bright blue, and something about the delicate arc of the lids: a cats slant, a pale jewelled girl in an old painting, a secret. Holly, I said, hand out. Hiya. Its been a long time.

A second where those eyes didnt blink, took in everything about me and gave back nothing. Then she stood up. She still shook hands like a little girl, pulling away too quick. Hi, Stephen, she said.