Page 21 of Dying Truth

‘His problem, not mine,’ she said, already feeling the cloying darkness evaporate from around her. She took a deep breath and began to relax.

‘Okay, so seeing as our counsellor is MIA, who are we interviewing next?’

Bryant took the list from his pocket and appeared to do a double take before a slow smile spread across his face.

‘The next one is a person I feel will need no introduction at all.’

Fifteen

Dawson sat on the bed and took a moment. How many times had Sadie Winters sat in this exact same spot and contemplated life, and even possibly death?

There was an alien feeling inside him at the thought of going through her possessions despite the fact he knew she wasn’t going to barge in and accuse him of snooping. A teenage girl’s bedroom was her safe place; somewhere she could express herself and evolve into someone that felt at ease with the world. A place she used while she found somewhere to fit and the person she was meant to be. And as this corner of the room was the place Sadie had spent most of her time, this was as good as it got.

He wondered why she had been so unhappy here and if she’d asked her parents if she could leave. He remembered pleading with his mother to take him out of school after Johnny Croke and his gang had forced him to eat ten cream crackers straight. The moisture in his mouth had been swallowed up by the second, leaving him coughing and choking as the dry flakes of each cracker tumbled down his throat. His discomfort had only made them laugh more. Only once the last bite had gone did Johnny Croke give him back his school bag.

He had been ten years old.

His mother had always offered him a goal. Kept him moving forward to the weekend, to a day out, a special event, a holiday. And it got him to the age of fifteen when he took things into his own hands and began to lose weight.

He hadn’t left school with many friends and had failed to pick up many more along the way. His earlier experiences at school had left him suspicious of people’s motives. Many times, kids had attempted to befriend him and always with the intention of ridiculing him.

He was aware that all those hours spent in the gym and running in the early morning when no one could see his rolls of fat jiggling along the pavement had instilled in him a selfishness and self-obsessed nature. But as the years since his school days increased he was able to take a breath and accept that he would never be forced into such a place of powerlessness again.

Time had also taught him to value the few friends he now had.

He wondered if he would find any evidence of the friendships in Sadie’s life as he gingerly opened the top drawer of her bedside cabinet.

It contained a hairbrush, an array of dark nail varnishes, a few pieces of costume jewellery, marker pens and elastic bands. Dawson surmised this was her junk drawer. Everyone had one. It was the drawer that held everything you didn’t know where to place.

The second drawer was full of textbooks, and the third held a few notebooks, two chocolate bars and a packet of crisps.

He looked around, ready to move on to the next space, wondering why there were no family photos: her parents, sister, even a dog.

He stood and opened the wardrobe door. The left-hand side was devoted to school wear and the right to casual wear, with a few smarter pieces shoved in at the end. The bottom of the wardrobe was filled with different coloured trainers and the top shelf with warm jumpers and a couple of jackets.

He felt along the shelves to see if anything had been placed there, but it was all clothes.

He stood at the foot of the bed and frowned. His search was complete.

He sat back on the bed and opened the top drawer of the bedside cabinet again. This was the space that bothered him. In addition to being the junk drawer, the bedside cabinet was also normally used for quick access. The place you kept the most important stuff.

There was nothing of any importance in this drawer, which could only mean one thing.

Someone had been here first.

Sixteen

Kim’s expression gave nothing away as the familiar figure sauntered across the great hall towards her.

‘Cheers, mate,’ she said, under her breath to her colleague who really could have warned her.

The expression of Joanna Wade was amused as she took a seat on the other side of the reproduction desk.

‘We meet again, Miz Wade,’ Kim said, meeting her gaze and recalling her insistence on the title the last time they’d met.

‘As I knew we would, Inspector,’ the woman offered, sitting back and crossing her long legs.

‘Death unites us once more,’ Kim observed. ‘But what brings you here?’