Page 77 of Dying Truth

Her words trailed away as a scream filled the corridor.

‘Shit,’ she said, launching past Bryant towards the blood-curdling noise.

She found a woman, a member of the housekeeping team, standing in the doorway of a room with her hands covering her mouth.

Kim pushed past her and also came to a stop.

Dangling from the ceiling beam was the body of Christian Fellows.

Fifty-Three

Kim’s stunned gaze travelled from the upturned stool beneath the child’s feet right up to his closed eyes and then to the sheet that was knotted around his neck. She had the sudden vision of them hurrying past the door to this room while the kid was hanging there.

The sensation of Bryant behind her prompted her into action.

Kim moved into the janitor’s room and turned the stool back upright and jumped up onto it. She grabbed the boy’s legs and lifted him up to take the pressure from the sheet around his neck. With one arm around his waist she reached up and untied the crude knot around the beam.

The boy’s body slid down her own. She threw the sheet aside and used both arms to hold him tight. She didn’t want to let him go.

A familiar feeling began to wash over her. His body was still warm. Minutes. They had been just minutes too late for Sadie and now minutes too late for Christian, who had been murdered for something he might or might not have seen.

‘Fuck it,’ she said, holding the boy tightly to her chest, his head lolled against her cheek.

‘Guv,’ Bryant said. ‘Let me—’

‘Hang on, shush,’ Kim commanded, listening and feeling beyond her heart beating loudly in her ears.

No way. She was imagining things. It was what she wanted to feel. It was wishful thinking.

But no, it wasn’t her imagination.

She had just felt his warm breath against her cheek.

‘Hurry, Bryant,’ she shouted. ‘Give me a hand. This child is still alive.’

Fifty-Four

Dawson could not remove his gaze from the inert figure lying in the hospital bed.

Tristan’s possessions were placed around the room as though he’d left them moments before to take a nap. A pair of dirty trainers sat beside his bedside cabinet, a grey hoody hung from the wardrobe door handle. A skateboard propped up against the wall. Posters of gothic art lined the walls and a pile of magazines was stacked in the corner. Dawson suspected that his grandmother was making sure his things were ready for when he came back.

Louisa Rock had taken a seat beside her grandson after asking the nurse to leave them alone for a moment. The woman checked the ventilator, nodded and left the room.

‘He is more than what you see here,’ she said, following his gaze around the room, and Dawson understood. She would not allow his personality to be packed away, out of sight.

Her hand touched his temple and gently pushed a lock of dark hair to the side.

‘Every day I pray for signs of improvement,’ she said, sadly. The doctors insisted he was brain dead and could feel nothing, but I still feel that Tristan is in there fighting to come out.’

Dawson knew the boy to be seventeen years old, but he looked much younger. His dark hair framed a smooth and youthful face with thick, dark eyelashes and strong, handsome features despite the paleness of his complexion.

His arms were laid at his side, long and athletic but not thin and wasted. His pyjama-clad chest rose and fell rhythmically in time with the machine that had not only taken on the function of his breathing but the sound as well.

Dawson wondered if it had been some kind of accident or an illness.

‘His parents wanted to give up on him, but they don’t know him the way I do. The best way to get Tristan to succeed at something is to tell him he can’t do it,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘Which is ironic, considering—’

‘How did this happen, Mrs Rock?’ he asked, gently, already forming an exit strategy. As tragic as it was, Tristan Rock’s condition was not going to help him prove his theory.