‘If I don’t have an opportunity to interview Rebecca O’Mara before all of you students are called inside, then I’ll have to liaise with Detective Conway, and I’ll have no option but to bring her into the loop. I assume you gave me this information because you wanted me to utilise it. Not because you wanted to hand the credit for any results to Detective Conway. Am I correct?’

Three identical pairs of eyes, staring. Not a move, not a blink.

‘Orla? Am I correct?’

‘What? Um, yeah? I guess?’

‘Very good. Gemma?’

Nod.

‘Joanne?’

Finally, finally, a shrug, and her hand came off my leg. Conway’s smackdown, way back in the art room, was paying off. ‘Whatever.’

‘Then I think we’re all agreed.’ I handed out a thin smile for each of them. ‘Our top priority is for me to speak to Rebecca. Our chat will have to wait.’

Nothing. Just those eyes, still staring.

I stood up, evenly, no sudden moves. Brushed myself down, straightened my jacket. Then I turned around and walked away.

It was like turning my back on jaguars. Every inch of me was waiting for the claws, but nothing came. Behind me I heard Joanne say, pompous and pitched just loud enough for me to hear, ‘Potentially valuable material,’ and a triple spurt of giggles. Then I was out, on the endless white-green lawn.

My heart was going like bongos. That drunken dizzy rushed up and over me; I wanted to let my knees fold, sink down on the cool grass.

I didn’t do it. Not just the watchers all round. What I had told the three of them was true: somewhere out there, in the dapple of black and white and murmurs, was Rebecca. She was now or never.

It was exactly what Conway would expect out of me. It was what Mackey would put money on.

The white glare of the art room, staring down at me. Laughter, joyful, somewhere far away among the trees.

I owed Conway fuck-all. I’d brought her the key to her make-or-break case, she’d used me while I was useful and then kicked me out of the car going ninety.

The moon pinwheeling above the school. I felt like I was dissolving, fingers and toes sifting away.

She was everything Mackey had warned me about. She was the lifetime kibosh on my daydream partner, the one with the red setters and the violin lessons. She was edge and trouble, everything I had always wanted far from.

I know my shot when I see it. I saw it bright as day.

I found my phone.

Text, not ring. If Conway saw my number come up, she’d think I wanted to whinge about the wait; she’d let it ring out.

I could feel something happening to me. A change.