Page 28 of Dying Truth

‘Imaginative,’ she answered for him.

‘Not the word I was going to use but we’ll stick with it for now,’ he replied, taking his seat beside her.

‘So, why do you reckon she hasn’t gone home?’ Bryant asked, voicing the question on both their minds.

‘I have no clue, Bryant. I’d have thought the family would have wanted to be together. Surely the best place for her is with them at home.’

‘Definitely where I’d want to be if my sister had just died,’ he answered.

‘Unless this feels like home,’ Kim pondered. ‘The kids spend so long here it may be more familiar to them than their own homes.’

‘Could be, but I’d still want to be where my parents were,’ he said. ‘Surely no school can replicate that security and safety.’

‘Hmm…’ she said thoughtfully, as a confident knock sounded on the door.

‘Come in,’ Bryant called.

Kim offered a smile to the girl that had barrelled towards her the day before. ‘Please sit down, Saffron.’

The girl nodded and walked towards them. ‘Call me Saffie, please,’ she said, taking a seat.

Two words struck Kim immediately. Elegant and confident. From the top of her corn-coloured blonde hair to the tips of her black Lanvin chain-embellished leather boots there was an assured grace to Saffron Winters not present in most sixteen-year-old girls she’d met.

Kim tore her gaze away from the footwear over which she’d hankered herself but at more than one thousand pounds were well beyond her level of disposable income. Even dressed in a plain cold shoulder tee shirt and light blue jeans there was something about Saffie Winters that demanded attention.

Her blue eyes were piercing and set in a face moulded by the gods.

Kim remembered who her parents were and realised this girl had inherited the best of both of them. And clearly Sadie had not.

Bryant introduced them both before turning genuinely sympathetic eyes on the girl. ‘Saffie, we’re very sorry for the loss of your sister,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said, with politeness but little emotion.

Kim wondered if it had all sunk in yet. It had barely been twenty-four hours.

‘You didn’t want to go home?’ Kim asked, gently

She shook her head. ‘I’m busier here,’ she said simply.

Kim would have liked to explore the reasons for that further but decided to push on. She had some tough questions to ask.

‘Were the two of you close, Saffie?’

She gave the question serious consideration, before shaking her head. ‘We were once but not so close any more.’

‘So, you didn’t spend much time together?’ Kim continued.

Saffie shook her head.

Kim tried to understand an environment where the sisters boarded and schooled together but spent little time in each other’s company.

‘We’re hearing the word troubled a lot in relation to your sister. Would you agree?’

There was no hesitation. ‘Yes, officer, I would agree. I don’t think she had any friends.’

And yet you still spent no time together, Kim thought.

‘She preferred her own company,’ Saffie said, as though reading her thoughts.