Dawson knocked before entering the room number given to him by Thorpe. Silence met his ears and yet he still opened the door slowly and called out as he entered.
Walking into the private space of teenage girls made him feel uncomfortable. The room itself was bright and airy. One huge window looked out towards the courtyard at the centre of the property. Dawson understood that there were four wings that branched from the main house. The two front wings, facing the entrance to the site, housed all the school rooms and administration and the two rear wings were accommodation. East wing for girls, West wing for boys. All four wings backed onto a central courtyard the size of a village green.
He stood for a moment, assessing the space from the centre of the room. Each corner sported a single bed with a shared desk between the two pairs. Each bed had a bedside cabinet and a small wardrobe. Three areas had been personalised with posters on the wall and colourful bedding but one area in particular drew his attention. The spot at the top left, nearest the window, stood out as it was totally devoid of personality.
Dawson sensed he was looking at the space of Sadie Winters.
He took a step forward.
‘Hey, who are you?’ said a voice from behind.
He turned to find a ginger-haired freckled girl glaring at him.
‘Detective Sergeant Dawson,’ he answered. ‘And you?’
‘Err… I’d quite like to see your identification, please?’ she said, without answering his question.
He took it from his pocket and held it forward.
She looked at it, closely. And nodded
‘I’m Tilly,’ she said, stepping past him and throwing her satchel on the bed. ‘And I live over here.’
‘You were friends with Sadie?’ he asked, moving towards the bed opposite hers. He noted her posters were of world maps and horses.
‘Umm… well…’
‘You didn’t get on?’ he asked, in the face of her hesitation.
She scrunched up her face. ‘Well, neither of the above, really,’ she admitted, taking a textbook from her bedside cabinet.
‘Sadie wasn’t the easiest person to be friends with,’ she said, and then frowned as though she’d said something wrong.
Dawson got it. ‘It’s okay to tell the truth,’ he advised.
‘Well, not really cos she’s dead,’ Tilly answered, tucking her red curls behind her ear.
Dawson wondered how the two girls could live in such close quarters and not be friends.
‘Did you try to make friends with her?’ he asked. Maybe Sadie had rebuffed her attempts.
She rolled her eyes dramatically. ‘Jeez, look at me. I’m the ginger-haired kid with freckles. I look like a reject from the cast of Annie. I need all the friends I can get. Even the weirdos.’
‘And was she one of those?’ Dawson asked. ‘A weirdo?’
‘Not really, just closed off all the time. Serious, never hung with the rest of us. Mainly studied and sat there scribbling.’
‘Did Sadie have a boyfriend?’ he asked. He knew kids started young these days.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, but she wouldn’t have told us if she had.’
Dawson had a sudden thought.
‘Was Sadie being bullied?’
Tilly actually laughed out loud. ‘You’re kidding. There’s no one that would have bullied Sadie.’
‘Why not?’ he asked.
Tilly simply shrugged and headed for the door.
‘They just wouldn’t, and now I really gotta go.’
‘Okay, thanks for the chat, Tilly,’ he said as she bolted out of the door.
It had been a short conversation but one in which he felt he’d learned quite a lot about the young girl.
She had been withdrawn, unsociable and unhappy. He had been the first to question his boss’s gut on this one. But now he felt his own instinct begin to react to something that Tilly had said.
She’d been so definite, resolute that Sadie Winters was not being bullied and now he wanted to know why.
Fourteen
‘Well, that was helpful,’ Kim said, as Jaqueline Harris left the room.
‘Give the woman a break,’ Bryant said. ‘She’s only been Sadie’s housemistress for just over a month.’
‘Oh yeah, she was very quick to tell us she’s only been in the position for a short period of time and that she has ninety-six girls in her care. I think the word “troubled” is going to come up a lot,’ she said, recalling the woman’s brief understanding of Sadie Winters.
‘That word seems to follow this kid around,’ Bryant observed as the heavy oak door opened.
Nancy’s permed head popped into view. ‘May I offer you coffee or tea or—’
‘Nancy, is there really no other room we can use?’ Kim asked, looking around at the wood covered walls, stained and re-stained over the years to resemble the colour of melted chocolate. The heavy thick beams that ran the eight-foot length of the ceiling that seemed to be only inches from her head when she stood.
While Jacqueline Harris had been speaking Kim had realised why the room bothered her so much. Fairview, the children’s home where she’d spent much of her childhood, had had a room just like it.
It had been called the quiet room. Allegedly, it had been a place of reflection for minor discretions, usually backchat, coming in late for curfew or another minor breach of the rules. And the quiet room had been quiet, indeed, and locked from the outside. Usually for eight to ten hours at a time.
She remembered she’d just turned seven years old and at the home for three months when she was first introduced to the quiet room for deliberately spilling another girl’s drink at the dinner table. And she had.
Her open hand had knocked the plastic beaker from the new Jamaican girl’s grip, and she had watched the cheap, thin orange cordial spread across the table as girls had squealed and backed away from the travelling puddle, raising their plates of limp cheese sandwiches out of the way.
Kim had refused to apologise and had been grabbed by Mrs Hunt and dragged to the quiet room.
She had been removed six hours later and ordered to apologise. Again she had refused, and her own stubbornness had prevented her explaining that she had knocked the drink away after seeing one of the older, meaner girls spit into it.
During her time at Fairview Kim had been no stranger to the quiet room. One carer had once joked about putting a nameplate on the door.
‘Sorry, officer, but Principal Thorpe said this was the only room available,’ Nancy said, bringing her back to the present.
Oh, he did, did he? Kim thought. If he thought trying to confine her to an office barely bigger than a jewellery box was going to speed up their investigation, he could think again.
‘And I’m afraid Graham Steele, the school counsellor, won’t be coming to see you next,’ Nancy continued. ‘He’s had to leave site unexpectedly.’
‘Okay, thank you,’ Bryant offered, quickly, obviously seeing the scowl that was settling on her face.
She frowned as the door closed behind Thorpe’s assistant.
Kim stood and opened it again before looking back into the room.
‘Okay, Bryant, come on, give me a hand,’ she said, lifting her side of the desk.
‘You’re kidding?’ he said.
She shook her head and began dragging the desk along the floor.
‘Jesus, hang on, you’re gonna bloody hurt yourself,’ he said, grabbing the other end.
‘Yeah, well, I’m going to hurt someone else if I stay in here much longer,’ she admitted. ‘And the likelihood is that it’s gonna be you.’
‘Turn it sideways,’ he said, as she reached the door.
Kim had quickly realised that the desk was a replica and nowhere near as heavy as the real thing would be.
‘Where are we taking it?’ he asked, once they were in the corridor.
‘Just follow me,’ she said, walking backwards.
Once she was back in the grand entrance hall she set her end down.