Free The Secret Place by Tana French Page A

fancies you. If you don’t get in there fast, he’ll go off with someone else.’
    ‘I could use a fiver,’ Holly says. She turns around. ‘Hey! Orla!’ And when Orla unrolls herself enough to look over, red and grinning like an idiot: ‘They’re just messing with you. If Andrew Moore wants to be with someone, you think he’s too shy to chat her up? Seriously?’
    ‘Ex cuse me?’ Joanne snaps, sitting up straight and shooting Holly a vile look. ‘I don’t actually remember asking you what you think?’
    ‘Excuse me , you’re screaming in the middle of the Court . If I have to listen to it, I get to have an opinion about it. And my opinion is, he doesn’t even know Orla exists.’
    ‘And my opinion is that you’re an ugly skanger who should be in some community school where normal people wouldn’t have to listen to your stupid opinions .’
    ‘Whoa,’ says the guy with Gemma’s head in his lap. ‘Catfight.’
    ‘Ohhh yeah,’ says the tall guy, grinning. ‘Bring it on.’
    ‘Holly’s dad’s a detective,’ Julia explains, to the guys. ‘He arrested Joanne’s mum for hooking. She’s still holding a grudge.’
    The guys start to laugh. Joanne draws herself up and opens her mouth to come back with something terrible – Becca is already flinching – when, across the fountain, the noise level goes up. Andrew and three of his mates are holding another one over the water, swinging him by his wrists and his ankles while he shouts and struggles. They all have one eye on the girls, to make sure they’re noticing.
    ‘OhmyGod!’ Joanne nudges Orla so violently she almost goes into the fountain. ‘Did you see that? He was looking straight at you!’
    Orla’s eyes go to Holly. Holly shrugs. ‘Whatever.’
    Orla stares, paralysed. Her head is obviously spinning so hard she can’t think, even by her standards.
    ‘What are you looking at me for?’ Julia wants to know. ‘I’m just here for the show.’
    Selena says gently, ‘Holly’s right, Orla. If he likes you, he’ll say something.’
    Gemma is watching, amused, from her guy’s lap. She says, ‘Or else you’re just jel.’
    ‘Um, obviously? Because Andrew Moore wouldn’t touch any of them with someone else’s,’ Joanne snaps. ‘Who are you going to believe? Us, or them ?’
    Orla’s mouth is hanging open. For a second her eyes meet Becca’s, stupid and desperate. Becca knows she has to say something – Don’t do it, he’ll rip you to pieces in front of everyone . . .
    ‘Because if you trust them more than us,’ Joanne says, cold enough to freeze Orla’s face off, ‘maybe they should be your best friends from now on.’
    That snaps Orla out of her daze. Even she understands when to be scared. ‘I don’t! I mean, I don’t trust them. I trust you.’ She gives Joanne a wet smile, belly-up dog. ‘I do.’
    Joanne keeps up the cold stare for a moment, while Orla twists with anxiety; finally she smiles back, graciously, all forgiveness. She says, ‘I know you do. I mean, hello, you’re not stupid . So off you go.’ She shoves Orla’s leg with her foot, pushing her off the fountain-edge.
    Orla gives her one last agonised look. Joanne and Gemma and Alison nod encouragingly. Orla heads off around the fountain, so tentatively that her walk turns into a half-tiptoe mince.
    Joanne looks up at the tall guy, with her head dropping to one side, and smirks. He grins back. His hand slides onto the side of her waist, and down, as they watch Orla get closer to Andrew Moore.
    Becca lies on her back on the cold sticky marble and looks up at the domed ceiling of the Court, four high stories above them, so she won’t have to see. The people scurrying upside-down on the balconies look tiny and precarious, like any second they’re going to lose their footing and go plummeting, arms outspread, smash head first into the ceiling. From the other side of the fountain she hears the rising predator roar of laughter, the mocking shouts – Wahey