Page 98 of Dying Truth

I am reminded of episodes ofStar Trekthat my dad used to watch. Whenever they needed to save power the captain would order ‘life support systems only’ and all non-essential power would be closed down. That’s how I feel. All the unnecessary services have been switched off and I’m left just able to function.

Tonight I went to her room, to confront her. I barged in as Eric stormed out.

I wanted to ask her how she could do it, how she could be so cruel, so cold, so unfeeling.

And then I saw the redness around her eyes, the telltale blotching of the skin on her forehead that comes out whenever she’s upset. I wanted to ask who she was crying for but then I saw the hard, cold veil drop over her face. That faint look of distaste that shapes no particular feature but is present all the same.

She screamed at me to get out and I knew. I knew there was no way back for us. We would never be like sisters again.

And that is why you are special to me, Sadie. You knew and you’re up there watching and you approve. You know that secrets and lies have a consequence. A price. You condone everything I’ve done and everything I must do. We are bonded, you and I, more than you will ever know. But how I wish I could have let you live, you troubled little soul.

I wonder how you would have felt about Christian. I think you would have understood and you would have forgiven me.

But how the hell did the little fucker not die?

Thank God I approached him from behind. It wasn’t difficult to push him into the janitor’s room. It wasn’t a challenge to close my hands around his scrawny little neck, my thumbs digging into the back as my fingers pressed hard against his Adam’s apple. He spluttered and choked and then went still against me.

I tied a clean sheet around his neck and winched his limp body up over the light fitting. He dangled like a piece of meat in the butcher’s shop. I closed the door and waited for a cleaner to happen upon his hanging, lifeless body.

There was no satisfaction. He was a means to an end. He was a mistake to be cleared away like the flour on the tabletop. He was just mess that occurred from baking the cake. He was nothing to me. Not like you, Sadie.

And now he’s awake and has not named me. He doesn’t know who tried to throttle the life from his body.

I should have checked he was dead. Another mistake.

But I am learning. There will be no more errors.

Keep watching, my little Sadie, because the best is yet to come.

Sixty-Eight

Kim put the phone onto speaker and held it between herself and Bryant.

‘So we can find no motive for the murders of either Sadie Winters or ShaunCoffee-Todd?’

Everyone answered in the negative.

‘And we agree that Christian Fellows was attacked because he might have seen something, even though his parents insist he saw nothing and won’t let us near him?’

‘Looks that way, guv,’ Bryant offered.

‘And we all know is that we’re dealing with an environment that doesn’t seem to operate like the real world.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Dawson agreed.

‘So, are we looking in the wrong direction?’ she asked, remembering the conversation at the Winters’ home.

She continued. ‘Mrs Winters referred to the parents of Shaun by their first names, Anthony and Louise, but Mr Winters was very quick to state that they’d only met at a few school functions. Why would he do that when Anthony made it clear that the families were very close?’ she asked. ‘Almost like cousins, he said about the children,’ she added.

‘You think Winters would hide something to do with his own daughter’s murder?’ Bryant asked.

As a father to a twenty-year-old girl she could understand her colleague’s disbelief. But that was okay. Suspicion of everyone they came into contact with was her job.

‘He’s already hidden the fact Sadie was on antidepressants, and someone changed that note to a suicide note,’ she reminded him. ‘Now, let me ask, who believes that the events of this week are unrelated?’

No one spoke.

‘And yet the children have not done anything to anyone that we can find, so where does that leave us?’