‘Oh yeah. Definitely. Can I go now, and you can bother her instead?’

‘Thing is,’ I said, ‘we’re pretty sure Joanne didn’t actually kill Chris. We’re wondering if she got someone to do it for her.’

‘Orla,’ Holly said promptly. ‘Any dirty work Joanne wants done, she gets Orla to do it.’

Conway was shaking her head. ‘Nah. We’ve got solid evidence that it was one of your four.’

Still nothing out of Mackey, not yet, but his eyes were fixed on Conway. Holly had the same look on her. No more messing with the clay, that was over. She knew: this was the heart of it. She said, ‘Evidence like what?’

‘We’ll get to that. We think maybe Joanne showed that video to one of you four. Told her, “Get rid of Chris for me, or this goes to McKenna and you all get expelled.”’

Conway was leaning in, picking up the rhythm. I eased back, put my head down over my notebook. Left her to it.

Holly’s eyebrows were up. ‘And we just went, “Uhhh, OK, anything you say”? Seriously? If we were that terrified of being expelled, we wouldn’t’ve snuck out to begin with. We’d’ve stayed inside like good little girls.’

‘Not just because you were scared of being expelled. Joanne picked carefully. She picked someone who’d do a lot to protect her mates, who was already frantic about the damage Chris was doing, already hated his guts—’

Conway was ticking off finger after finger, relentless. Holly snapped, ‘I’m not stupid – Dad, leave me alone, I want to say this! If I was going to kill someone, which I didn’t, no way would I do it in some kind of conspiracy with Joanne Heffernan. And be stuck for the rest of my life with that bitch holding that over my head? Do I look brain-dead? No fucking way. No matter what she had on video.’

‘Language,’ said Mackey lazily. Eyes still sparking alert, but there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth. His kid was holding her own.

‘Whatever. And before you even start to say, oh, then it could’ve been Julia or Selena or Becca, the exact same thing goes for them. Did we do something to make you think we’re the biggest idiots you’ve ever met? Or what?’

Conway was giving Holly her head, let her get it out of her system. Mackey said, ‘And while we’re on the subject, ignore me if you want, but you’re making this Joanne out to be a pretty big idiot herself. She wants a murder committed, so she asks a cop’s kid? The person most likely to send her straight to jail, do not pass go? Holly: this Joanne, she have any head injuries?’

‘No. She’s a bitch, but she’s not stupid.’