Page 103 of Dying Truth

‘But you knew Sadie’s sister?’ Kim pushed.

He shrugged. ‘Not as well as I’d have liked but hey ho, you can’t win ’em all, eh?’ he said with a wink.

Kim simply stared at him for a few seconds.

‘Your charm didn’t work on her then?’ Bryant asked.

He smirked. ‘Would’ve done with a bit more time but the golden couple cock-blocked me.’

‘Sadie’s parents?’ Kim clarified. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard them referred to as such.

‘Yeah, well, Queen of Hearts and all that. They wanted their precious daughter spending time with someone more appropriate.’

‘Eric?’ Kim asked.

He rolled his eyes. ‘Yep, the good old King of Spades. Power couple.’

‘So, Laurence Winters managed to get rid of you before you got what you wanted?’ Kim asked, thinking it had been impeccably good judgement on the man’s behalf.

‘I was warned off, all right, but not by him. He’s a wimp. It was Hannah who did the deed. Now if you want to talk ruthless—’

He stopped speaking as her phone rang.

Eager to get away from this kid, Kim headed to the end of the corridor to take the call.

‘Hey Stace,’ she said, giving Bryant a nod to let him go back to class.

‘You’re not gonna believe what we’ve found,’ Stacey said, excitedly.

‘Go on.’

‘Not only were Laurence Winters and AnthonyCoffee-Todd at Heathcrest at the same time. They were in the same year.’

Kim frowned. So why had Laurence Winters played down their acquaintance?

‘But even more interesting is that another of their classmates, Gordon Cordell, works at the Oakland Hospital in Stourport-on-Severn.

‘Stace, don’t tell me…’

‘Oh yeah,’ she said animatedly. ‘The man is a gynaecologist.’

‘Jesus,’ Kim said as her head spun.

‘Hang on, Kev wants a word,’ Stacey said, passing the phone.

‘Boss, I know it might not mean anything, but all three of them were in the Spades.’

Seventy-One

‘How the hell did they find all that out?’ Bryant asked as they drove over the Stourport road bridge that straddled the River Severn.

‘Apparently, Dawson let Stacey do it the hard way before guessing that the annual yearbooks that grace the halls of Heathcrest would probably have been uploaded electronically too. Each yearbook has a section on the achievement of previous students, and Cordell’s graduation from medical school was right there.’

‘What about the Spades thing?’

‘Right there in the book under their graduation photos. Remember the clubs weren’t secret back then.’

‘Trust Dawson to find a shortcut,’ Bryant observed as he took a left into a wide tree-lined street.