But the peace inside was fleeting.
All too soon the memories of home returned; the hushed conversations that stopped completely when I walked into the room. The three of them looking away unable to face me. My feelings of being a stranger in my own home. My mother spending hours in Saffie’s room. My father making secret phone calls that he claimed were for work.
I tried to talk to my mother. I tried to explain.
‘Not now, Sadie,’ she said. ‘Don’t bother me with this right now.’
So I slunk back into the shadows and watched until it was time to come back. Just waiting for the chance to get into my cubicle at the end of the row.
But the hungry demons have not been quieted. The feelings are worse than ever.
I don’t know how to shut them up and then I remember what I’ve been told and I pop the pill right into my mouth.
Oh Sadie, I see now that I did you a favour. You were too unhappy to live.
I know you so much better now from reading your innermost thoughts. I understand your pain, and I know that you thank me for setting you free.
And now you’re not alone. You have your good friend Shaun to keep you company.
It wasn’t the same, though, Sadie. You were the first and you were special. Very special.
Shaun fought so much harder than you. He made it so bloody hard. My sense of satisfaction and righteousness, enjoyed and relished after your death, was nowhere to be found. He didn’t follow my script.
If he’d just stayed calm and eaten the fucking nuts – but he clamped his mouth shut. If he’d just chewed them I wouldn’t have had to get rough, but his teeth were welded together because he understood that he was about to die.
He tried to run past me, back into the hall, but I blocked his way and threw him to the ground. I lay across him using my weight to pin him down. I forced a handful of peanuts into his mouth and held it closed, one hand on his head and one beneath his chin.
He chewed and whimpered as the nuts began to go down and he realised the horror that was to come.
And horrific it was. I stood aside as he writhed and shook and dribbled and trembled and tried to crawl towards me, his face contorted with pain and fear. But eventually he stilled.
And as his small body fell against the tiled floor I heard the sound of the gym hall door close.
Someone must have heard us, and I need to find out who.
Forty-Five
Kim parked outside St Paul’s Chambers on Caroline Street in the Jewellery Quarter.
‘I remember it in the old days,’ Bryant moaned as they got out of the car.
She understood what he meant. The area was moving towards urban chic with apartment blocks, cafés and bistros where there had once been craftsmen and artists.
The building they were here for was a new development a stone’s throw from the leafy oasis of St Paul’s Square, the last remaining Georgian square in Birmingham. It housed eight high specification apartments, with the penthouse being a cool 3,300 square feet worth more than a million pounds. And that was the one they were here to visit.
‘How the hell are we going to tell them how their son died, guv?’ Bryant asked as she hit the button on the intercom.
‘All we’ve got is the truth,’ she replied before introducing herself and Bryant to the male voice on the other end. The electronic buzzing signalled their acceptance into a hallway that boasted a very different kind of art to what they were used to seeing in apartment buildings. No crudely drawn genitalia and swastika motifs here.
Kim spotted the camera in the elevator as she stepped in and pressed the button market ‘P’. No number, no floor, just a ‘P’. Kim only knew the elevator was moving once it landed silently on the top floor and the doors opened with little more than a welcoming whoosh.
‘Just like Hollytree,’ Bryant observed, sarcastically.
The lift deposited them in a small hallway with one apartment door and a fire exit escape to the right.
Before she had chance to knock, the door was opened by a man she recognised from the local television news.
Anthony Coffee-Todd struck her immediately as a man fighting his mid-forties. The depth of brown of his hair contradicted the smattering of grey in his stubble. The slightly receding hairline was not fooled by the forward combing of the hair.
She understood that being in the public eye added pressure to maintaining youthful good looks when your face was being broadcast to millions of viewers, but in the stark daylight in his own home without the assistance of clever lighting and a professional make-up person, his age was staring him in the face.
Unlike Louise Coffee-Todd, whose youthful skin matched her thirty-four years.
She understood that this was Anthony’s second family. His other son had moved to Australia with his mother when the family had broken up fifteen years earlier. Right around the time Louise had started at the television studios as a runner.
‘Please, come in,’ he said, standing back for them to enter.
She stepped right into a vast open space with stark white walls holding a selection of black and white art. The furniture was placed at the centre of the room on the largest rug she had ever seen. Three sets of double doors stretched across the space that led out onto the roof terrace. Somewhere in the distance Kim spotted an arch that led into a kitchen.
She tried to stop her biker boots from sounding on the wooden floor as she approached the island of carpet in the middle where Mrs Coffee-Todd stood waiting for them.
‘Please sit,’ she said, pointing to one of the four sofas.
Kim did so, and Bryant followed.
‘We are so sorry for your loss,’ Bryant said, as Mr Coffee-Todd joined them.
The couple sat on separate sofas.
‘We understand this is a difficult time,’ Kim said. ‘But we need to ask you some questions about Shaun.’
‘Of course but surely it was just some kind of accident…’
‘This was no accident, sir,’ she said.
‘What are you talking about?’ he asked, frowning. ‘We’ve been told it was a reaction to something he ate. He has a nut allergy,’ he said, as though this explained everything.
‘We’re aware of that, but there are other—’
‘But Principal Thorpe said—’
‘Principal Thorpe is not a pathologist, sir, and has not carried out the post-mortem on your child.’ Kim hadn’t meant to sound so brutal, but she could only indulge them for so long.
A penny dropped somewhere behind Louise’s eyes.
‘Sadie Winters too?’ she asked.
‘It’s fair to say we are investigating the deaths of both children,’ she offered.
‘So, you’re saying that both of our children were murdered?’ Anthony asked, with disbelief.
Kim nodded, understanding they would be suitably shocked.
The horror shone from Louise’s eyes. ‘But why? I mean… who would want to hurt our…’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Anthony said. ‘It’s some kind of accident. They both are. No one would want to hurt Sadie either. She was a lovely girl. I’m sure there’s some kind of—’
‘You know Sadie well?’ Kim asked.
‘Of course. Our families have been friends for years. Saffie and Sadie are like cousins to our…’ His words trailed away as he realised that two of the three children he’d just mentioned were now dead.
‘I’m sorry but I think you’ve made a mistake…’
‘Mr Coffee-Todd,’ she said, firmly, having wished to spare them the details. ‘Your son had two peanuts wedged in his throat.’
Louise’s head whipped around. ‘Shaun would never have—’
‘Precisely,’ Kim said. ‘We understand he managed his condition very well and would never have chosen to eat nuts.’
‘But murder?’ Anthony asked, running his fingers through his hair. ‘Surely an accident or some kind of prank that went—’
‘“A prank”?’ Kim asked, interrupting hi
m and remembering some of the things Dawson had talked about. ‘Did Shaun belong to any of those secret clubs?’
There was not a second’s hesitation as Mr Coffee-Todd nodded his head proudly. ‘Yes, officer, Shaun was Six of Spades.’
Forty-Six
Geoffrey Piggott hurtled into his dorm room and aimed for his bed in the corner. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead from the sprint from his history class as well as the knowledge that he could have sworn his essay on the French Revolution had been folded inside the pocket of his backpack.
When called to produce it he had searched and searched, feeling his face redden and his armpits grow moist as the attention of the whole classroom had been focused on him. He’d found himself wishing that nice policeman would walk in and rescue him from humiliation as he had the other day. But he hadn’t, and Mrs Tennison had ordered him to go and find it. He had ignored the sighs and jeering and the missile that had caught the back of his head as he’d left the classroom.
As he rushed back he tried to remember the events of the night before.
His three roommates had returned from social time and taken residency on the bed opposite his own. He’d heard them chuckling at something on one of their mobile phones. His own phone had dinged a notification. With his back to the three figures on the bed he had checked his Facebook page, to see he’d been tagged in a video by one of his roommates.
The video was a near-naked overweight woman dancing around a silver pole, her cellulite-covered skin wobbling and jiggling all over the place. Roddy had commented with: ‘Piggott’s future wife.’
He had placed the phone back on the desk and offered no response. He had learned years ago that any reaction at all fed their amusement.
He had continued to work on his essay but had been aware of their presence the whole time. In many ways he had hardened himself to the insults. Although the names still hurt him, they were not at the root of his fear. His anxieties came from the constant thought of what was to come. How would they torture him next? When the lights went out would something come flying across the room and land on his head?
Only when he heard the sound of their deep rhythmic breathing would he allow himself to fully relax.
His watch alarm was set for five thirty each morning so he could be awake before they were. Alert and ready.
He stopped to think – when he’d woken he’d been thinking about his lessons.
‘Aah,’ he said aloud as he reached across his bed to the small bookcase.
He opened his biology book, and the essay fell out.
Relieved that it had not been taken this time he reached for it and headed towards the door but paused before he got there. A sick feeling began to build in his stomach as his brain caught up with something his eyes had already noted. Maybe he was wrong, he thought, hopefully, as he turned back towards the bed.
The sweat beads increased as he realised he wasn’t wrong at all.
The stripes on his pillowcase were not perfectly in line with the stripes on his bed cover.
It was a checking mechanism he had devised after his roommates had poured a whole box of Coco Pops and a pint of milk into his bed.
He approached the bed with caution as his heart began to hammer in his chest. As ever, his anxiety was fuelled by the trepidation of whatever they’d done to him now. He had a vision of his mattress crawling with maggots or some kind of insect. Damn the fact that he’d been so eager to get down to breakfast. He should have known better than to leave the three of them alone.
He touched the corner of the quilt tentatively and began to peel it back, looking through squinted eyes. His breath seemed to stop in his chest as he saw the plain white cloth of his bedsheet. He almost collapsed with relief as he tore the quilt off completely.
And then he saw it.
Right in the middle of his bed lay a single playing card.
He stared down at the ace of spades.
Forty-Seven
‘Sorry, sir, do you want to run that by me again? I don’t think Bryant heard you right,’ Kim asked incredulously, looking first at Woody and then to her partner who appeared equally dumbstruck.
‘The school is not being closed down,’ he repeated as a muscle jumped in his cheek. She was unsure if that was linked to her attitude or what was actually coming out of his mouth.
She had called him the second they’d left the morgue and had been surprised at his instruction to come in as they were leaving the Coffee-Todd home. His revelation that the school was not closing down following a second murder would not land in any sensible, processing part of her brain.
One murder in one house and the whole street got closed down.
‘But surely Ofsted will be all over—’
‘Stone, you know as well as I do that independent schools don’t have a single umbrella organisation and—’
‘But they have to be registered with the government,’ she protested. ‘Surely someone can close them down?’
‘Stone, Heathcrest is registered with the Independent Schools Council and is assessed regularly by their inspectorate. They have to satisfy criteria across five main areas, which are moral and social development, premises and accommodation, complaints procedures, quality of education and safeguarding which—’
‘Well, there you are, then. Safeguarding covers health and safety, which Thorpe can’t contest and keep his face straight at the same time, surely?’
‘If you interrupt me one more time you will be removed from this case, do you understand?’
Kim seethed inwardly but nodded.
He continued. ‘Heathcrest’s infringement notices are in the single figures and notices of improvement aren’t much higher.’
Kim understood the difference. Infringements were normally recommendations and improvements were instructions.
‘Surely having no more kids murdered could be classed as a definite improvement?’ she asked, sourly.
‘There are schools ordered to close by Ofsted years ago that have simply ignored the instruction and are awaiting court action. So, even if Ofsted rolled up there this very minute there are protocols to be followed.’
‘Surely we can close the school down?’ she asked. They were the police, for God’s sake.
Woody took a deep breath. ‘We’re not closing it, Stone.’
‘Sir, we have two murdered kids, two,’ she repeated for clarity. ‘How the hell can we properly conduct an investigation in these conditions?’
Bryant coughed beside her. His way of telling her she was close to crossing the line. She didn’t need to be told that: she was standing right on top of it.
‘You’d do well to listen to your partner’s warning,’ Woody said, raising one eyebrow in Bryant’s direction. ‘The school is instructing a private security company to come in and patrol the grounds.’
‘Sir, the fact that I almost blew a raspberry at you there indicates my feelings of the level of effectiveness that will have. Whoever is doing this is not running on and off the premises. They’re right bloody there.’
‘I’m sure a uniformed presence will make the parents feel better.’
‘Surely being forced to take their kids home would help them a lot more?’
Woody’s expression was steely, and Kim ached to ask him for the origin of the directive for keeping the school open. Who the hell had made the compromise of a private security company?
She knew it wasn’t Woody. As detective chief inspector a decision of this magnitude would go much higher.
‘Sir, may I ask if Chief Superintendent Briggs is steering elements of this investigation?’
‘No, Stone. You may not.’
And there was her answer. From the moment Sadie Winters’s body had been discovered efforts had been made to divert and disrupt the investigation. She didn’t feel as though her hands were tied but more that they’d been cut off at the wrists. For the sake of her own deep respect for the man before her she would have liked to know whether he agreed with it.
‘No, that’s all, Stone. And I do understand that this is a difficult investigation but do feel free to make a nuisance of yourself,’ he said, giving her the answer.
Oh yes, she fully intended to.
Forty-Eight
‘Jesus,’ Kim said, as the external gates of Heathcrest came into view.
The image of the press pack reminded her of the old migrant jungle in Calais. Two police officers and four private security guards, all in high visibility coats, stood in front of cones that blocked the entrance.
Bryant was forced to slow and show his identification.
A familiar face appeared right next to her window.
Bloody Frost.
Kim wound down her window.
‘Care to comment on the double murder of—’
‘What do you think?’ Kim asked. ‘And nice trick you pulled the other day, Frost. You should be proud of yourself,’ she said, as the car crawled past.
Kim hadn’t forgotten the woman’s attempts to claim all the attention at Woody’s press conference, probably still hoping to be noticed by the national press.
The reporter’s initial surprise was quickly covered by a rueful look. ‘Even now, that’s what you think,’ she said, stepping back into the crowd.
‘Bloody woman,’ Bryant said. ‘Could be a decent reporter if she’d just stop trying to grab headlines.’
‘Yeah,’ Kim agreed, although the expression on Frost’s face stayed with her until Bryant parked the car at the front of the school.
Another two security guards flanked the entrance.
Again, Bryant showed his identification.
‘You might want to staple that to your forehead,’ Kim said, wondering if they were going to have to do this all day.
She entered the building and turned left.
‘Heading for the English teacher’s classroom again, guv?’ Bryant asked.
‘Spotted anyone else speaking to us quite so openly, Bryant?’ she snapped.
Dying Truth: A completely gripping crime thriller Page 14