Mr Winters nodded. ‘We didn’t want anyone to know,’ he said, honestly.
‘I understand that, Mr Winters, but with all due respect you have done little to aid the investigation into the death of your daughter. You have removed evidence and withheld important information. I understand that reputation and appearances are important but is there anything else you’re not sharing with us?’
Despite her neutral tone it was clear by his face that he did not appreciate the chastisement but, grieving parents or not, it was not their prerogative to judge what was relevant and what was not.
‘There is nothing more,’ he said, glancing away. ‘And you’re right. We shouldn’t ever have asked Saffie to touch her things.’
Slightly mollified that he at least understood the gravity of what they’d done she continued. ‘And how is Saffron coping?’ Kim asked. ‘She’s still not come home?’
Mr Winters shook his head. ‘She’s busy at school. It helps to keep her mind off it. Too many reminders here,’ he said, glancing at the photo wall.
Kim wondered if these parents could see the irony in the display. The photos at the top of the wall were portraits of them all. Below were photos of the two girls together. One so dark and one so light but laughing and close. And then two lines, one of each girl vertically travelling down the wall, separate.
‘And you don’t think it’s a good idea to insist that she come home, given the death of a second child at—’
‘Oh God, poor Anthony and Louise,’ Mrs Winters said, shaking her head.
Mr Winters squeezed her hand. ‘We met the Coffee-Todds a few times, at social functions at the school.’
‘Do you know the parents of Christian Fellows, the boy left hanging in the janitor’s room yesterday?’ Kim asked.
Mr Winters shook his head. ‘I don’t think we’ve ever met.’
‘And you know that a teacher was killed last night?’ she asked.
‘Road accident, Principal Thorpe said.’
‘She was run down by a vehicle, Mr Winters,’ Kim corrected. ‘Which is currently being investigated.’
‘Clearly unrelated,’ he said.
Kim looked to Bryant, wondering if any words were actually coming out of her mouth.
‘And you still don’t think that your other daughter should be safely home here with you?’ she asked, incredulously.
Bryant sat forward. ‘Three separate deaths in one week is probably nudging above the national average, Mr Winters, so if my daughter—’
‘Saffie is very independent, officers. She is sixteen years of age and rarely obeys her parents.’
Except when they were urging her to hide her sister’s possessions and obstruct the investigation of the police, Kim thought. Right now she was unsure just how many laws they had broken by medicating their own child, but she knew CPS wouldn’t touch prosecution of grieving parents.
Kim stood. ‘Well, thank you both for your time. We’ll be in touch.’
Bryant followed her out of the front door.
Kim sat in the car staring back at the house. There was a knot in her stomach that only came when she felt she was being led in the wrong direction.
She replayed the conversation in her mind.
‘Damn, damn, damn,’ Kim said, reaching for her phone.
‘Bryant, we need to speak to Stacey and Dawson now.’
She had the overwhelming feeling that she’d been looking the wrong way.
Sixty-Seven
21 March 2018
Hey Diary,
The feeling is still there but I don’t know if it’s real. My senses are telling me that there is someone behind me, watching me but when I look there’s no one there.
Is it real??????????
Or is it the pills????????
But it can’t be the tablets. My parents would never have given them to me if they could make me feel like this; a shadowy half person trudging through fog every minute of the day.
The dark thoughts are still there but the sharp, angry icicles are wrapped in soft, fluffy snow. They’re there but they don’t pierce me any more.
But these pills don’t just take the bad thoughts. They’re not homing beacons attaching themselves only to the crap. I can’t think straight. Everything has a furry edge. I have a vision of the pill exploding inside my brain, releasing a gas that seeps into every part of me. Only yesterday I found myself at the wrong classroom.
I am reminded of episodes of Star Trek that my dad used to watch. Whenever they needed to save power the captain would order ‘life support systems only’ and all non-essential power would be closed down. That’s how I feel. All the unnecessary services have been switched off and I’m left just able to function.
Tonight I went to her room, to confront her. I barged in as Eric stormed out.
I wanted to ask her how she could do it, how she could be so cruel, so cold, so unfeeling.
And then I saw the redness around her eyes, the telltale blotching of the skin on her forehead that comes out whenever she’s upset. I wanted to ask who she was crying for but then I saw the hard, cold veil drop over her face. That faint look of distaste that shapes no particular feature but is present all the same.
She screamed at me to get out and I knew. I knew there was no way back for us. We would never be like sisters again.
And that is why you are special to me, Sadie. You knew and you’re up there watching and you approve. You know that secrets and lies have a consequence. A price. You condone everything I’ve done and everything I must do. We are bonded, you and I, more than you will ever know. But how I wish I could have let you live, you troubled little soul.
I wonder how you would have felt about Christian. I think you would have understood and you would have forgiven me.
But how the hell did the little fucker not die?
Thank God I approached him from behind. It wasn’t difficult to push him into the janitor’s room. It wasn’t a challenge to close my hands around his scrawny little neck, my thumbs digging into the back as my fingers pressed hard against his Adam’s apple. He spluttered and choked and then went still against me.
I tied a clean sheet around his neck and winched his limp body up over the light fitting. He dangled like a piece of meat in the butcher’s shop. I closed the door and waited for a cleaner to happen upon his hanging, lifeless body.
There was no satisfaction. He was a means to an end. He was a mistake to be cleared away like the flour on the tabletop. He was just mess that occurred from baking the cake. He was nothing to me. Not like you, Sadie.
And now he’s awake and has not named me. He doesn’t know who tried to throttle the life from his body.
I should have checked he was dead. Another mistake.
But I am learning. There will be no more errors.
Keep watching, my little Sadie, because the best is yet to come.
Sixty-Eight
Kim put the phone onto speaker and held it between herself and Bryant.
‘So we can find no motive for the murders of either Sadie Winters or Shaun Coffee-Todd?’
Everyone answered in the negative.
‘And we agree that Christian Fellows was attacked because he might have seen something, even though his parents insist he saw nothing and won’t let us near him?’
‘Looks that way, guv,’ Bryant offered.
‘And we all know is that we’re dealing with an environment that doesn’t seem to operate like the real world.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Dawson agreed.
‘So, are we looking in the wrong direction?’ she asked, remembering the conversation at the Winters’ home.
She continued. ‘Mrs Winters referred to the parents of Shaun by their first names, Anthony and Louise, but Mr Winters was very quick to state that they’d only met at a few school functions. Why would he do that when Anthony made it clear that the families were very close?’ she asked. ‘Almost like cousins, he said about the children,’ she added.
‘You think Winter
s would hide something to do with his own daughter’s murder?’ Bryant asked.
As a father to a twenty-year-old girl she could understand her colleague’s disbelief. But that was okay. Suspicion of everyone they came into contact with was her job.
‘He’s already hidden the fact Sadie was on antidepressants, and someone changed that note to a suicide note,’ she reminded him. ‘Now, let me ask, who believes that the events of this week are unrelated?’
No one spoke.
‘And yet the children have not done anything to anyone that we can find, so where does that leave us?’
‘Parents,’ Stacey said.
Kim nodded. ‘Stace, I want you to carry on looking for doctors. We have to sign that one off. Kev, I want you to see if you can find any link at all between Sadie’s parents and Shaun’s parents. For all we know they weren’t even at Heathcrest at the same time, but we need to rule it out.’
‘And what about us, guv?’ Bryant asked, as she ended the call. ‘Are we gonna just sit here and watch?’
‘Ha, you wish, Bryant. There’s someone I want to see, so you and I are going back to the school.’
Sixty-Nine
The possibility that she’d been looking the wrong way still hung heavily around her neck as they approached the press pack at the entrance to Heathcrest. Woody sometimes said that there were times that she couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
The thought of Woody coincided with her gaze landing on Tracy Frost standing away from the crowd, her five-inch heels sunk into the patchy grass. Her hands shoved deep into her pockets.
‘Awww… shit,’ Kim said, as something occurred to her. ‘Stop the car, Bryant.’
He did so, and she lowered her window.
Frost narrowed her eyes but approached anyway.
‘Wanna be shitty again, Stone?’ she asked.
‘He fed you the line, didn’t he?’ she asked. ‘Woody put you front and centre and told you what to say.’
Frost shrugged.
She should have seen it. Woody would never have let pressure from above stop him doing everything he could to protect the children at that school and alert the parents to the danger. He had asked Frost to shout murder knowing it would be out there in seconds. He hadn’t said it. She had.
‘Look, I’m sorry—’
‘Save it, Stone,’ Frost said, shaking her head. ‘Keep your apology but maybe next time have a bit more faith in people. Both him and me,’ she said, returning to the press pack.
‘Well, that told you,’ Bryant said, driving through the cordon.
‘Yeah, and I deserved it,’ she admitted. Frost she was still on the fence about but Woody she should have known better.
* * *
She sighed heavily as she got out of the car.
‘How is this even possible?’
Three deaths and a fourth attempt in a few days and students were walking to class as though nothing had happened. Should Joanna have been taking a lesson this afternoon, she wondered sadly, glancing at the window of what was once her classroom.
She headed along the second corridor towards the end of the wing. She passed Principal Thorpe’s office and knocked on the door of the office next to it.
‘Come in,’ called the counsellor.
‘Mr Steele…’
‘Graham,’ he said, waving them in.
He stood as she sat, and she nodded her appreciation of his good manners. There was a gentleness about this man that reminded her of Ted; a softness around the eyes, a note of compassion in his voice.
‘May we ask you about Shaun Coffee-Todd?’
‘Of course,’ he said, colouring.
Kim remembered comments about the boy not being the most memorable child. ‘You didn’t know him well?’
He hesitated and then shook his head. ‘If I’m honest, I’m afraid not. In my position it’s often the kids that cause the most trouble that come to my attention.’
She could understand that. Teenage problems and angst often presented as loud, troublesome and disruptive behaviour.
‘Did you have any reason to see him at all?’ Kim asked, wondering if there was some kind of link there.
He shook his head. ‘I’ve checked my records in case my memory had failed me, and he never asked to see me, nor did I have cause to seek him out.’
‘You know he was in one of those secret clubs?’ Kim asked.
‘Damn groups,’ he said, angrily.
‘You don’t approve?’ she asked.
‘I fully support Principal Thorpe’s efforts to stamp them out. They offer nothing positive to the majority of the students and a sense of imperialism to the few. Any group that insists on initiation pranks to join is not a good place to be,’ he said, lacing his fingers. ‘Now, is there anything else I can help you with?’
Kim got the feeling he wanted to move on.
‘Joanna Wade gave you a poem of Sadie’s?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘She did and then asked for it back.’
‘Did you read it?’ she asked.
He hesitated. ‘I did, but I didn’t really understand it,’ he said, looking sheepish.
She didn’t hold that against him. She wouldn’t have got it had it not been for Joanna.
‘Did you speak to her about it?’
He nodded. ‘I tried to ask her about it. I know Joanna was concerned about something in the poem, but she didn’t say what. She knew I was meeting with Sadie, so asked me to raise it and see if she opened up at all.’
‘Were you hopeful?’
He shrugged and then shook his head. ‘She hadn’t opened up so far in our sessions, but I gave it a try. Sometimes it just takes something small, a catalyst if you like, to take the first brick out of the wall.’
Kim took the poem from her back pocket.
Graham looked surprised and then smiled. ‘I won’t ask.’
‘It’s a copy,’ she explained. ‘But I’d like you to take another look at it and tell me what you think.’
He took the sheet from her and reached for a pair of John Lennon-style glasses that looked totally lost on his face. He read and frowned at the same time. ‘I’m afraid I still don’t get the content, but it does seem as though she’s angry about something.’
Kim leaned across and pointed at the capital letters at the beginning of each line spelling out the word ABORTED.
‘Oh, Oh, I see,’ he said, colouring slightly. He stared at it for a full minute. ‘I should have spotted that,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Seems so obvious now.’
‘Don’t feel too bad,’ Kim said. ‘We’re detectives and didn’t see it at first.’
His face filled with horror. ‘You don’t think Sadie—?’
‘No,’ Kim said, shaking her head, quickly. ‘Definitely not Sadie but would you have any idea who she might have meant. Have any of the girls—?’
Graham held up his hand and stopped her. ‘If they had I wouldn’t be able to divulge it as you well know, Inspector.’
She accepted his point.
‘Has anyone required additional or urgent counselling?’ she asked, going for the same answer in a roundabout way.
He smiled. ‘It’s safe to say I’ve been busy, and I really wish I hadn’t been.’
‘Anything out of the ordinary?’ she asked.
‘What I can say is that all I have seen are normal reactions to a sudden and unexplained death or three,’ he said.
‘Has Saffie Winters been to see you?’ she asked.
He considered and then shook his head. ‘No, but I really wish she would. I did seek her out yesterday to see if she wanted to talk. Her refusal to return home to her parents has us all concerned, but it would be unwise to force her,’ he said.
Kim agreed. ‘And would you categorise her response as normal?’
Graham shook his head. ‘People react differently to traumatic events, Inspector,’ he offered, evasively.
‘And now would you answer the question I asked,’ Kim responded.
/> He smiled. ‘Probably not but…’
‘Graham, may I ask you a question that you may feel uncomfortable answering?’ she asked, recalling his reaction the previous day.
His gaze narrowed. ‘Of course.’
‘Are there any students here that you’ve met with that you consider capable of violence?’ It was not a theory she was yet ready to abandon until she had something more substantial pointing towards an adult. ‘Someone physically able to haul Christian up over that beam?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, officer, but that’s not a possibility I’m prepared to consider.’
‘But it’s one that we have to,’ Kim said. ‘Is there anyone with a history of fire starting or animal cruelty?’ she asked, recalling Alex’s insight.
Again, he began to shake his head but paused.
‘There’s something, isn’t there?’
‘It’s probably nothing. I mean…’
‘Please, let us be the judge of that,’ she advised.
‘Alistair Minton, sixteen years old. I had to speak to him a couple of months ago, but I can’t imagine that he—’
‘What about?’ Kim asked.
‘Animal cruelty,’ he said, as a look of distaste clung to his mouth. ‘There was a stray cat that used to hang around the kitchen, just taking the odd scrap. He caught it, glued its—’
Kim felt the tension seeping into her bottom jaw. ‘Is this an image I really need in my head?’ she asked.
‘Probably not,’ he agreed.
‘And his explanation?’ she asked.
The counsellor shook his head. ‘That he thought it would be a laugh. There was no remorse or empathy for the animal’s suffering.’
‘So, what did you do?’ Kim asked.
‘Informed his parents and voiced my concerns.’
‘And?’
‘They cancelled his half-term skiing trip.’
‘Devastating,’ Bryant said, mirroring her thoughts.
‘I still don’t think he’s capable of—’
‘Thank you for your help,’ Kim said, standing.