Page 95 of Dying Truth

‘What is it that I’m not seeing?’ he asked, taking another look at Sadie’s poem.

Kim pointed. ‘Look closer. Ignore the words for a second and just look.’

He shook his head. ‘If I’m not supposed to look at the words…’

‘Here,’ she said, stabbing at the page. ‘Each word that starts the sentence. About. Broken. Obstructed…’

‘Aborted,’ he said. ‘If you read those capital letters from the top it spells aborted.’

‘Someone has done something they shouldn’t have done, and Sadie knew all about it,’ Kim said. Finally, they were heading towards a possible motive for the young girl’s death.

‘You think one of the students at Heathcrest had an illegal abortion?’

‘Could be,’ she said. ‘And with how everyone feels about scandal…’

‘But there are over five hundred girls at that school. How the hell are we going to find out who?’

Her excitement took a kick in the head. He was right. She suspected the girl was not suddenly going to come forward and reveal herself.

‘Hang on,’ she said, turning the problem on its head. ‘Bryant, remember everything Dawson has told us about those clubs at Heathcrest? That they were filled with powerful people, and you were a member for life?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, not yet catching up with her thoughts.

‘Where would you go if you found yourself in a spot of trouble?’ Kim asked, already dialling Stacey’s number.

‘Dawson still with you?’ Kim asked when she heard her colleague’s voice.

‘Yep,’ she answered.

‘I want you both to drop whatever you’re working on. There’s something I need you to do.’

Sixty-Five

‘Every doctor that was previously at Heathcrest?’ Dawson asked, incredulously.

‘Yeah, Kev, because twenty years of Heathcrest graduates multiplied by one hundred and ten students per year that graduate means two thousand students to check,’ she said, sarcastically.

‘But the boss said…’

‘Jesus, Kev. Put your thinking head on. The boss expects us to work out how to do this on our own, you know. We’re probably talking private clinics within a radius of say ten to twenty miles. So, we do it backwards. We look at the clinics and hospitals and see how many doctors came from Heathcrest.’

‘But that might still—’

‘And then we look at the year they graduated. If it’s someone the parents of a child knew it’s not gonna be someone who left seven years ago, is it?’

‘Why seven?’ he asked.

‘Medical training,’ she said, widening her eyes. ‘Jesus, it’s like you just hatched or something.’

Dawson shook his head as Stacey began typing, amazed at the speed and logic that lived inside her head.

‘Did she say why we’re doing this?’

Stacey offered him a murderous glance. ‘Seems Joanna Wade was interested in illegal terminations, twenty-four weeks and over if you want that explained for you too. And after all your yapping about secret clubs and lifelong societies she wants us to look in that direction.’

‘Got it,’ he said.

‘Any more questions?’ she asked.