‘I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I didn’t see him. I saw like a blur in the window, like when you get something sticky in your eye. That’s it.’

‘Well. Some people are more sensitive than others. And some people were closer to Chris. Excuse me if I don’t think it actually matters what you saw.’

Gemma shrugged. Joanne said, to me, ‘He was there.’

I couldn’t tell whether she meant it. Back in the common room, I would’ve sworn all their terror was real: started as play-acting, maybe, for notice or to blow off steam, but then snowballed into something too big and too true for them to control. But now, the shiver, the face on her, I couldn’t tell; could’ve been just that plastic layer over her, blurring whatever was real underneath; could’ve been plastic straight through. Probably even they didn’t know.

I said, ‘Then that’s another reason why, whatever you know, you need to tell me. Chris would want you to.’

‘How would we know anything?’ Joanne, blank and slick as cellophane. They were giving up nothing till I earned it.

But I knew the answer to that one. After Selena and Chris broke up, Joanne had posted her guard dogs on night watch, to make sure.

I said, ‘Let’s say someone other than Selena was meeting up with Chris at night, the couple of weeks before he died. Who would you say it was?’

Joanne’s face didn’t change. ‘Was there someone?’

‘I’m only saying if. Who would you guess?’

Sliding looks at each other, under their lashes. If the fear had ever been real, it had leaked out of them. Something else had risen, forced it out: power.

Joanne said, ‘Tell us if he was meeting someone, and we’ll tell you something good.’

I said I know my shot when I see it. Sometimes you don’t even have to see it. Sometimes you feel it coming, screaming down the sky towards you like a meteor.

I said, ‘He was, yeah. We’ve found texts between them.’

More looks. Gemma said, ‘Texts like what?’

‘Texts arranging meetings.’

‘But there wasn’t any name?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It wasn’t one of you, was it?’

Joanne said sharply, ‘No. It wasn’t.’ Didn’t say, Or she’d’ve been in deep shit. We all heard it.

‘But you’ve got a fair idea who it might’ve been.’

And I waited to hear Holly Mackey.

Joanne stretched out on her back, arms behind her head, arching her chest up. Said, ‘Tell us what you think about Rebecca O’Mara.’

Took my ear a second even to hear the question, past the burst of whatthefuck? Then I slammed my jaw shut and thought fast – there had to be a right answer. Said, ‘I haven’t thought about her much at all, to tell you the truth.’