Page 19 of Dying Truth

‘Err… I’d quite like to see your identification, please?’ she said, without answering his question.

He took it from his pocket and held it forward.

She looked at it, closely. And nodded

‘I’m Tilly,’ she said, stepping past him and throwing her satchel on the bed. ‘And I live over here.’

‘You were friends with Sadie?’ he asked, moving towards the bed opposite hers. He noted her posters were of world maps and horses.

‘Umm… well…’

‘You didn’t get on?’ he asked, in the face of her hesitation.

She scrunched up her face. ‘Well, neither of the above, really,’ she admitted, taking a textbook from her bedside cabinet.

‘Sadie wasn’t the easiest person to be friends with,’ she said, and then frowned as though she’d said something wrong.

Dawson got it. ‘It’s okay to tell the truth,’ he advised.

‘Well, not really cos she’s dead,’ Tilly answered, tucking her red curls behind her ear.

Dawson wondered how the two girls could live in such close quarters and not be friends.

‘Did you try to make friends with her?’ he asked. Maybe Sadie had rebuffed her attempts.

She rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘Jeez, look at me. I’m the ginger-haired kid with freckles. I look like a reject from the cast ofAnnie. I need all the friends I can get. Even the weirdos.’

‘And was she one of those?’ Dawson asked. ‘A weirdo?’

‘Not really, just closed off all the time. Serious, never hung with the rest of us. Mainly studied and sat there scribbling.’

‘Did Sadie have a boyfriend?’ he asked. He knew kids started young these days.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, but she wouldn’t have told us if she had.’

Dawson had a sudden thought.

‘Was Sadie being bullied?’

Tilly actually laughed out loud. ‘You’re kidding. There’s no one that would have bullied Sadie.’

‘Why not?’ he asked.

Tilly simply shrugged and headed for the door.

‘They just wouldn’t, and now I really gotta go.’

‘Okay, thanks for the chat, Tilly,’ he said as she bolted out of the door.

It had been a short conversation but one in which he felt he’d learned quite a lot about the young girl.

She had been withdrawn, unsociable and unhappy. He had been the first to question his boss’s gut on this one. But now he felt his own instinct begin to react to something that Tilly had said.

She’d been so definite, resolute that Sadie Winters was not being bullied and now he wanted to know why.

Fourteen

‘Well, that was helpful,’ Kim said, as Jaqueline Harris left the room.