Page 24 of Dying Truth

‘How many?’ Kim asked.

‘Around forty, fifty or so,’ she answered.

‘Drop the background checks for now and go through them all, Stace. In detail.’

‘Okay, boss, what exactly am I looking for?’

‘We now know that Sadie was never on the roof, but everyone heard that she was. It had to have started somewhere. I want to know who was the first to say they actually saw Sadie Winters up on that roof.’

Seventeen

Dawson was sure he’d traversed this corridor once already. For the second time, he was passing the mahogany bookshelves holding all the leather-bound Heathcrest yearbooks. He decided that this damn place was fine for people who already knew their way around it. Plenty of signs on the outside of the building but not so much inside.

If he was honest, he couldn’t wait to get out of the place. The air of privilege was as oppressive to him as the dark wooden beams that bore down on him from every wrong turn he took while trying to get back to the great hall.

Places like this didn’t sit well with him.

His own school experience had been in overcrowded classrooms with harassed teachers trying to get through a tight curriculum. He recalled a parents’ evening when he was fourteen years old. His mother had been ten minutes into the conversation with his form teacher before realising they were discussing the wrong kid.

His worst gripe with private education was the weight of aspiration. In schools like Heathcrest it was assumed that you would amount to something. In his school, it had been assumed that you would not.

At his school, the focus had been on getting a kid through the basics so they’d be equipped to get a job. Here it was preparing them for a career.

His career choices had been woodwork, metalwork, mechanic, or bus driver – at a push. Here, he was looking at future doctors, surgeons, athletes, and politicians.

He thought of his own child, Charlotte, two years old and into everything. He already felt, as her father, that she could be anything she wanted to be. And he would do everything within his power to make her dreams come true. But how the hell could he ever compete with this?

A movement through an open door caught his attention. He stepped back and took a look. Approximately fifteen lads, aged around twelve, were jogging from one end of the gym hall to the other.

‘Come on, Piggott, keep up,’ called the teacher from the sidelines.

Dawson spied the kid who was half a room length behind the others. The perspiration had stained his blue tee shirt, and his white fleshy legs wobbled as his shorts rode up between his legs. Dawson guessed him to be a couple of stone overweight.

‘May I help you?’ asked the teacher, who had spotted him at the doorway within seconds.

He swiftly produced his identification and introduced himself. ‘Here regarding the incident with Sadie Winters. Did you know her?’

The man offered his hand, while shaking his head. Dawson tried not to envy the thigh muscles that strained at the navy shorts or the size of his biceps that looked like the man was hiding a football in each arm. He didn’t need to lift his tee shirt to know there would be an impressive six-pack under there.

Dawson guessed him to be early- to mid-forties and was struck with the sudden vision of this man strolling into the pub in twenty years’ time still wearing clothes that would show off his physique.

He really should get to the gym more, he berated himself.

‘Philip Havers, boys’ physical education and sports coach; and honestly, I didn’t know the young girl at all. I have enough trouble keeping track of my boys,’ he said, glancing at the small group still trotting backwards and forwards.

Dawson wondered if he’d ever worked at a real school, classrooms stuffed full with thirty or more kids. Having them all running up and down in one room would have been like a herd of stampeding bulls.

‘Bloody hell, Piggott, you’re losing ground. Step it up,’ he called out.

Even Dawson could see the fat kid had lost another half metre.

‘Come on, pig, catch up,’ called one of the other kids over his shoulder.

Fate could not have been crueller in allowing pig to form part of the fat kid’s name. Dawson waited for Philip Havers to remonstrate the child who had turned and called out.

He did not.

Instead he rolled his eyes in Dawson’s direction. ‘The kid’s all in and this is only the warm-up session.’