He nodded. ‘There are a few on the right leg but she seemed to favour the left.’
Kim had encountered a few self-harmers during her childhood. Some chose places on the body more readily visible with the subconscious hope of the wounds being seen, a cry for help. The inner thigh was a common spot for the most serious self-harmers. So close to the intimate area was unlikely to be seen by anyone. Sadie had not been trying to get noticed.
‘Jesus, this poor kid,’ Kim said. Whatever had been going on it had been too much for a thirteen-year-old girl to deal with.
In life, there were younger thirteen-year-olds and older thirteen-year-olds. Some had discovered boys, make-up, sexuality and could pass for much older. Some had not. But in death, scrubbed clean, it made no difference. It was a thirteen-year-old kid lying here on the table.
‘But, doesn’t that just strengthen the suicide theory?’ Bryant asked.
‘Only if you ignore the anomalies,’ Keats answered, reaching for a pile of X-rays. ‘Do you recall the position of Sadie’s body at the scene?’
‘Of course,’ she answered. The vision of the broken child was imprinted on her memory.
‘Care to adopt the position for me, in the interests of my detailed explanation?’ he asked.
She rolled her eyes as she began to lower herself to the ground.
‘Not down there,’ he snapped.
She looked to the metal workbench that was covered in X-rays.
‘Just get on here,’ Keats said, impatiently, pointing to the metal dish next to Sadie.
‘Keats…’ she warned.
‘Oh, stop being such a baby,’ he growled.
She shook her head before easing herself onto the side and then into the dish, trying hard not to think of the occupants that had filled the space before her. As she got into position she caught a glimpse of Sadie’s left hand peeping out from beneath the sheet. She fought the instinct to reach out and hold it across the space that separated them.
‘Okay, perfect, except your left leg needs to be a bit higher.’
She moved it as Bryant hid a chuckle behind a cough. She caught the wink that Keats sent his way.
‘Err… guys,’ she growled.
‘Okay, imagine that’s how you’ve landed.’
Kim closed her eyes and imagined that she had just thudded to the ground in this position. She felt the contact on the ground to her ankle, along the side of her lower leg, the edge of the knee and up to her hip, along the side of her ribcage and up through her shoulder.
‘Areas of greatest impact?’ Keats asked.
Kim didn’t open her eyes as she answered.
‘Ankle, knee, hip and shoulder.’
‘All intact,’ he said, causing her to open her eyes and sit up.
‘But that makes no sense at—’
‘Back down,’ he instructed, as he put two X-rays onto the wall and switched on the light. He reached for a wand and came to stand beside her while pointing to the first X-ray. ‘That broken bone is in her other knee, and it has snapped inwards as though being trod on.’ He pointed to the spot on her own knee which wouldn’t have made any contact with the ground. ‘And the second broken bone is her right rib,’ he said, again using the wand to show her exactly where.
The rib was nowhere near the ground.
‘And lastly, how about right here?’ he asked touching the top of her head.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’
He moved to the X-rays and replaced the one on the first light board.
‘Bloody hell,’ Bryant said, as she sat up.
Kim found herself touching her own head at the point where Sadie’s had quite clearly been injured.
The spot had been nowhere near the ground.
Kim climbed out of the tray and took a closer look.
‘This makes absolutely no sense,’ she said.
Keats nodded his agreement. ‘I suspect that some of the broken bones were inflicted after death, but the cause of death was most definitely the blow to the top of the head.’
‘Murder staged to look like a suicide,’ Bryant said.
Keats sighed heavily. ‘Indeed, Bryant. In my opinion, this poor girl was beaten to death.’
Kim’s brain had already digested that fact and was now processing other anomalies.
It explained many things that had been nibbling at her gut. The absence of the cigarette butt up on the roof, the location of the jump point, the lack of gravel rash and the fact that they hadn’t yet identified anyone who had seen Sadie Winters on the roof.
Because she’d never been up there in the first place.
Eleven
6 January 2018
Hey Diary, Sadie here. Remember me?
Back at school and first day has gone much as expected. Endless chatter and showing off new tablets, smartphones, laptops, for school work, obvs!!! My dorm room sparkles like a mummy’s tomb with new designer watches, bracelets, necklaces. The important stuff.
Christmas at home was perfect, as it always is.
Festivities straight out of a feel-good film. Midnight mass, early morning presents, Saffie having a strop because her new Gucci trousers were too tight. Christmas isn’t Christmas without a Saffie strop, mother excused cheerfully. Christmas dinner was perfect, as was Saffie’s piano playing after the Queen’s Speech.
Later, Saffie disappeared to her room, no doubt to FaceTime Eric. My parents snuggled up on the sofa together to watch a Christmas film.
They glanced across and asked me if I was okay.
I lied.
I said yes.
How could I tell them how I really felt? How could I tell them that a piece of me dies every time I come home? How could I try and penetrate the perfect bubble around them? How could I reveal what I do to stay calm? How can I share the darkness that shadows every thought I have; the rage that heats my blood.
How could I tell them that I’m the broken child?
When it was Christmas and everything was so blindingly perfect?
Perfect, perfect, perfect. Not so fucking perfect now.
Perfection isn’t real. It is only the top layer beneath which the ugliness lies.
Oh, Sadie, I felt nothing for you as you took your last breath, but now I get to know you through your own thoughts, recorded by your own hand in the privacy of your diary.
You’ve suffered. I’ve suffered.
You are at peace. I am not.
Every blow and kick, every time my flesh met yours afforded me a release from the pain, the rage that thunders around me, trapped, growing, strengthening with hate and disgust.
You repelled me. Your very existence an insult to my agony.
I’ve been watching you, you see, knowing what I had to do.
There was no choice.
It had to be you.
There was no other way. You had to die.
You were the first.
Twelve
‘That seemed to go a little too smoothly,’ Bryant observed as she ended the call.
She nodded her agreement.
Upon leaving Keats she had immediately called Woody to give him the unwelcome news that Sadie Winters had been murdered. She had geared herself up to fight for her request to delay announcing the death as murder. She had been ready to tell him that what she needed was to speak to the staff and students at Heathcrest. That with more than a thousand potential witnesses she couldn’t afford for people to turn silent for fear of getting into trouble. She’d been ready to argue a dozen points but hadn’t needed to. Woody had agreed, readily, before telling her he wanted an update at the end of the day.
‘I see he’s here already,’ Bryant observed as he idled into the gravel drive of Heathcrest.
Dawson waved from the cordon where he stood talking to Mitch.
Kim half smiled. Despite his earlier reticence at the nature of Sadie’s death and his protest about his current desk load, Dawson couldn’t resist the lure of a murder investigation. He would have been out of the office door before she’d even finished the call. She nodded at her colleague before turning to the head of the forensic team.
‘Anything to note?’ she asked.