Holly didn’t miss a beat. ‘We were all watching out the windows, every chance we got – the teachers kept telling us not to, but yeah, right. We saw uniforms and Technical Bureau guys, so I knew there’d been a crime, and then we saw Father Niall from Colm’s – he’s like eight feet tall and he looks like Voldemort and he wears the robe, so it’s not like you could get him mixed up for anyone else. So obviously something had to have happened to a Colm’s boy. And Chris was the only one who I knew had been wandering around the grounds at night. So I guessed it had to be him.’

Little cock of her eyebrow to me, as she finished up. Like a middle finger.

I said, ‘But you thought he and Selena had broken up. And you say you knew she hadn’t been out that night, so it’s not like you thought they’d got back together. What would Chris have been doing at Kilda’s?’

‘He could’ve got together with someone else. He wasn’t exactly the deep type who’d spend months pining away for his lost true love. Him and Selena had been broken up for at least ten minutes; I’d’ve been amazed if he hadn’t found someone else. And, like I said, he was the only one who I knew could get out of Colm’s. I wasn’t going to wait around till we found out for sure. I said I needed something from our room, I don’t even remember what, and I got the phone.’

‘What did you figure would happen when Selena noticed it was gone? Specially if it turned out you were wrong, and Chris wasn’t dead after all?’

Holly shrugged. ‘I figured I’d deal with that if it happened.’

‘At that point, you were just focusing on protecting your mate.’

‘Yeah.’

I said, ‘How far would you go to protect your mates?’

Mackey moved. He said, ‘That’s gibberish. She can’t answer a question unless it means something.’

Conway said, not invisible any more, ‘We’re interviewing her. Not you.’

‘You’re getting two for the price of one. You don’t like it, tough shit. No one’s under arrest; piss either of us off, and we’ll walk.’

‘Dad,’ Holly said. ‘I’m OK.’

‘I know you are. That’s why we’re still here. Detective Moran, if you’ve got a specific question in there, ask it. If all you’ve got is the tag line for some teenybopper summer film, let’s move on.’

I said, ‘Specifically, Holly: Selena didn’t tell the rest of yous that she was seeing Chris. Why do you think that was?’