She snapped the photo again. ‘If this card is bogus, probably you’re worried about coming clean in case you get in hassle, with us or with the school. Forget that. Yeah, me and Detective Moran, we’ll give you a lecture about wasting police time. Yeah, you’ll probably end up in detention. That’s a lot better than ending up dead.’

Joanne leaned sideways to Gemma, whispered something in her ear, not even trying to hide it. Smirked.

Conway stopped. Stared.

Joanne still smirking. Gemma fish-faced, trying to work out whether to smile or not; work out who she was more afraid of.

It needed to be Conway.

Conway moved fast, right up to Joanne’s chair, leaning in. She looked ready to head-butt.

‘Am I talking to you?’

Joanne staring back, slack-lipped with disdain. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Answer the question.’

The other girls’ eyes had come up. The arena eyes you get in classrooms when trouble starts, waiting to see who bleeds.

Joanne’s eyebrows lifting. ‘Um, I have literally no clue what it even means?’

‘I’m only talking to one person here. If that’s you, then you need to shut up and listen. If it’s not, then you need to shut up because no one’s talking to you.’

Round Conway’s patch of rough and mine, someone disses you, you punch hard and fast and straight to the face, before they see weakness and sink their teeth into it. If they back off, you’re a winner. Out in the rest of the world, people back off from that punch, too, but that doesn’t mean you’ve won. It means they’ve filed you under Scumbag, under Animal, under Stay Far From.

Conway had to know that, or she’d never have got this far. Something – this girl, this school, this case – had thrown her. She was fucking up.

Not my problem. I swore it the day I got my acceptance to cop college: that kind of rough wasn’t my problem any more, never again, not that way. Mine to handcuff and throw in the back seat of my car; not mine to give a damn about, not mine like we had anything in common. Conway wanted to fuck up, let her.

Joanne was still wearing that open-mouthed sneer. The others were leaning in, waiting for the kill. The sun felt like a hot iron pressed against the back of my jacket.

I moved, on the windowsill. Conway swung round, midway through taking a breath to reef Joanne out of it. Caught my eye.

Tiny tilt of my chin, just a fraction. Warning.

Conway’s eyes narrowed. She turned back to Joanne, slower. Shoulders easing.

Smile. Steady sticky voice, like talking to a stupid toddler.