Page 142 of Dying Truth

To the girl’s credit she winced but didn’t cry out. Kim tried to reassure her by maintaining eye contact as she stepped once more to the side.

‘You know what they did, don’t you?’ Graham said, addressing her for the first time.

‘Yes, I know that Saffie recently had an abortion,’ Kim said.

‘Anillegalabortion,’ he said. ‘Another child dead at the hands of these people. And it was a child, make no mistake. They can’t keep deciding which children get to live or die while their own remain unaffected.’

Kim saw the tears begin to flow over Saffie’s cheeks. What she had initially misread for disinterested detachment and coldness was really grief and mourning for her dead child. Her boyfriend, Eric, must have found out what she’d done and finished with her. It explained the hurt and disgust she’d seen in his eyes.

‘She’s too young to be a mother,’ Hannah cried.

‘Then she should have thought about that before she opened her legs. But I don’t blame her. I blame you two. It was you who arranged for her to go to Cordell for the termination. You think the law can’t touch you. You’re protected by the Spades. Justice can never punish you. But I can.’

The tears were running openly over Saffie’s cheeks and falling from her chin, leaving Kim in no doubt that the termination had not been Saffie’s choice. Kim now understood why the girl had refused to go home after Sadie’s death. Right now, she could not stand to be around the people who had forced her to abort her child.

But Kim needed to keep Graham talking to continue her journey along the pool. She had one tool in her arsenal, and it had to be timed perfectly.

‘It was you who sent the messages to Monty Johnson, you who welcomed him back to the group in exchange for the murder of Joanna Wade,’ Kim said. ‘You knew when she asked for the poem back that she was going to give it to me and I’d realise what had set these events in motion.’

‘You two seemed awfully close,’ he said, glancing her way.

‘Christian saw you, didn’t he?’ Kim asked. ‘He saw something when you were murdering Shaun in the locker room. You took him into the janitor’s room and strung him up, thinking you’d killed him. He’d done nothing wrong, you bastard,’ she growled.

‘I’m not the bastard,’ he said, looking at Laurence Winters, whose eyes were trained on his daughter. ‘He’s the cause of this. It all started with him.’

Kim knew she had to re-engage Saffie’s attention. The girl had to be ready to act when she got the opportunity, and Kim could only provide it once.

She took another step to the side.

‘And the guilt for killing that child all those years ago was the catalyst for the murders?’ Kim asked.

He nodded. ‘That event has shaped my whole life while they have cheerfully continued with theirs, ignorant of the torture. The guilt I’ve lived with for twenty-five years. That I took a life, two lives and—’

‘Except you didn’t,’ Kim said, finally arriving at her target. ‘Did he, Mrs Winters?’

One Hundred Three

‘What are you talking about?’ Hannah asked, looking Kim straight in the eye.

Kim remembered everything she’d learned from Keats about the death twenty-five years ago; the marks around Lorraine’s neck that didn’t fit with being pushed into the pool.

For the first time she saw shock on Laurence Winters’s face and knew she was right.

She had realised that Laurence wouldn’t have climbed down into the pool to finish Lorraine off. He hadn’t had the courage to do it the first time, he’d tricked Graham, so he wouldn’t have had the backbone to do it when that plan failed. It was Hannah who had warned Alistair Milton away from Saffie. He had called her the ruthless one.

‘Graham didn’t kill Lorraine. You did.’

Kim glanced towards Saffie, who moved away from the counsellor in the first few seconds of his confusion. She stumbled and fell but Graham was not looking her way anymore. She scrabbled across the tiled floor towards Kim.

‘You pushed her into the empty pool, Graham, but she didn’t die. Not until Hannah Winters climbed down there and finished the job just to be sure. Nothing was going to break up the power couple.’

Graham staggered forward. ‘No… no… no…’

‘Yes, Graham, she’s allowed you to suffer for the last twenty-five years knowing you didn’t kill her. Hannah finished her off with her bare hands around her neck.’

Laurence’s gaze was fixed on his stricken wife, numbed by shock.

‘Hannah?’ he said, doubtfully.