Alison’s face looked bonier, fallen in. ‘Chris,’ she said. ‘In there, in the common room. He was there. In the window.’

Her certainty hooked me in the spine, pulled a shiver. The hysteria rising up again, somewhere behind the air: gone for now, not for good.

‘Yeah,’ Conway said. ‘I got that.’

‘Yeah, but . . . he was there because of me. Earlier, too, out here in the corridor. He came to get me, because I hadn’t told you about Holly with the phone. In the common room’ – she swallowed – ‘he was looking right at me. Grinning at—’ Another shudder, rougher, wrenching at her breath. ‘If you hadn’t come in then, if you hadn’t . . . Is he . . . is he going to come back for me?’

Conway said, stern, ‘Have you told us everything? Every single thing you know?’

‘I swear. I swear.’

‘Then Chris won’t be coming back for you. He might hang around the school, all right, because there’s plenty of other people keeping secrets that he wants them to tell us. But he won’t be back for you. You probably won’t even be able to see him any more.’

Alison’s mouth opened and a little rush of breath came out. She looked relieved, right to the bone, and she looked disappointed.

Far away down the corridor, through the silence, a long soft wail. For a second I thought it was coming from a girl, or something worse, but it was only the creak of the common-room door opening.

McKenna said, and I know a deeply fucked-off woman when I hear one, ‘Detectives. If it’s not too much trouble, I would like to speak with you. Now.’

‘We’ll be there in ten minutes,’ Conway said. To McKenna, but she was looking at me. Those dark eyes, and the silence falling like snow between us, so thick I couldn’t read them.

To me: ‘Time to go.’

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

An April afternoon, finishing up after-school volleyball. It’s spring, the grounds are exploding with bluebells and daffodils in every corner, but the sky is thick and grey, and it’s airless without actually being warm; the sweat won’t dry off their skins. Julia flips her ponytail up to cool the back of her neck. Chris Harper has just under a month left to live.

They’re picking up the volleyballs, taking their time because the showers will be full anyway by the time they get inside. Behind them, the Daleks are taking down the nets, slowly, bitching about something – Gemma calls, ‘. . . thighs like two walruses shagging, disgusting . . .’ but it’s not clear if she’s talking about someone else or about herself.

Julia calls, ‘Saturday night. We’re going, yeah?’ It’s the social evening at Colm’s.

‘Can’t,’ Holly yells back, from a corner of the courts. ‘I asked. Family time blah blah.’