Page 99 of Dying Truth

‘Parents,’ Stacey said.

Kim nodded. ‘Stace, I want you to carry on looking for doctors. We have to sign that one off. Kev, I want you to see if you can find any link at all between Sadie’s parents and Shaun’s parents. For all we know they weren’t even at Heathcrest at the same time, but we need to rule it out.’

‘And what about us, guv?’ Bryant asked, as she ended the call. ‘Are we gonna just sit here and watch?’

‘Ha, you wish, Bryant. There’s someone I want to see, so you and I are going back to the school.’

Sixty-Nine

The possibility that she’d been looking the wrong way still hung heavily around her neck as they approached the press pack at the entrance to Heathcrest. Woody sometimes said that there were times that she couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

The thought of Woody coincided with her gaze landing on Tracy Frost standing away from the crowd, her five-inch heels sunk into the patchy grass. Her hands shoved deep into her pockets.

‘Awww… shit,’ Kim said, as something occurred to her. ‘Stop the car, Bryant.’

He did so, and she lowered her window.

Frost narrowed her eyes but approached anyway.

‘Wanna be shitty again, Stone?’ she asked.

‘He fed you the line, didn’t he?’ she asked. ‘Woody put you front and centre and told you what to say.’

Frost shrugged.

She should have seen it. Woody would never have let pressure from above stop him doing everything he could to protect the children at that school and alert the parents to the danger. He had asked Frost to shout murder knowing it would be out there in seconds.Hehadn’t said it.Shehad.

‘Look, I’m sorry—’

‘Save it, Stone,’ Frost said, shaking her head. ‘Keep your apology but maybe next time have a bit more faith in people. Both him and me,’ she said, returning to the press pack.

‘Well, that told you,’ Bryant said, driving through the cordon.

‘Yeah, and I deserved it,’ she admitted. Frost she was still on the fence about but Woody she should have known better.

* * *

She sighed heavily as she got out of the car.

‘How is this even possible?’

Three deaths and a fourth attempt in a few days and students were walking to class as though nothing had happened. Should Joanna have been taking a lesson this afternoon, she wondered sadly, glancing at the window of what was once her classroom.

She headed along the second corridor towards the end of the wing. She passed Principal Thorpe’s office and knocked on the door of the office next to it.

‘Come in,’ called the counsellor.

‘Mr Steele…’

‘Graham,’ he said, waving them in.

He stood as she sat, and she nodded her appreciation of his good manners. There was a gentleness about this man that reminded her of Ted; a softness around the eyes, a note of compassion in his voice.

‘May we ask you about ShaunCoffee-Todd?’

‘Of course,’ he said, colouring.

Kim remembered comments about the boy not being the most memorable child. ‘You didn’t know him well?’