Conway banged the door open hard enough that I jumped a mile, hands leaping out of the wardrobe like I’d been doing something dirty. The corner of a grin, malicious, said she hadn’t missed it.

She dumped her bag on Rebecca’s bed. ‘How’d you get on?’

I shook my head. ‘Nothing. Julia’s got half a pack of smokes and a lighter wrapped up in a scarf at the back of her bit of wardrobe. That’s it.’

‘Good little girls,’ Conway said, not like a compliment. She was moving around the room, fast, tilting the frames on the bedside lockers to glance at the photos; or to make sure the room looked good and searched. ‘Any of them come looking for you? Looking to talk, jump your bones, whatever?’

I shut my mouth on the slice of shadow at the door; maybe that grin, maybe the fact that I couldn’t swear there had been anything there. ‘Nah.’

‘They’ll come. The longer we leave them to it, the tighter they’ll wind themselves. I listened outside the common room: they’re up to ninety, the place sounds like a wasps’ nest. Give them long enough and someone’ll snap.’

I shoved Selena’s flute case back into the wardrobe, shut the door on it. ‘How’s Alison getting on?’

Conway snorted. ‘Tucked up in the sick room like she’s dying in some season finale. Little fadey voice on her and all. She’s having a great old time. The arm’s grand, almost; the mark’s still there, but the blisters have gone down. I’d say she’d be back in the common room by now, only McKenna’s hoping the mark’ll go, doesn’t want the rest of them gawping at it.’ She pulled Holly’s book out of her locker, zipped a nail through the pages and tossed it back in. ‘I tried to get at whether Joanne put the whole stunt in Alison’s head, but the minute she heard Chris’s name she shut down, gave me the bunny stare. I don’t blame her: McKenna and Arnold were right there, dying to jump on anything they didn’t like. So I backed off.’

I said, ‘How about the phone?’

Triumph lifted Conway’s chin. Winning looked good on her. She flipped her satchel open, held up an evidence bag. The mobile I’d seen on Alison’s bed: pretty pearly-pink flip-phone, small enough to fit in a palm, silver charm dangling. Chris had picked carefully.

‘Alison got it off Joanne. She didn’t like admitting it; tried to dodge, pretended she felt faint. I didn’t fall for it, kept pushing, in the end she came clean. Joanne sold her the phone just after last Christmas, a year and a bit ago. Sixty quid, she charged her. Robbing bitch.’