Dawson was sure he’d traversed this corridor once already. For the second time, he was passing the mahogany bookshelves holding all the leather-bound Heathcrest yearbooks. He decided that this damn place was fine for people who already knew their way around it. Plenty of signs on the outside of the building but not so much inside.

If he was honest, he couldn’t wait to get out of the place. The air of privilege was as oppressive to him as the dark wooden beams that bore down on him from every wrong turn he took while trying to get back to the great hall.

Places like this didn’t sit well with him.

His own school experience had been in overcrowded classrooms with harassed teachers trying to get through a tight curriculum. He recalled a parents’ evening when he was fourteen years old. His mother had been ten minutes into the conversation with his form teacher before realising they were discussing the wrong kid.

His worst gripe with private education was the weight of aspiration. In schools like Heathcrest it was assumed that you would amount to something. In his school, it had been assumed that you would not.

At his school, the focus had been on getting a kid through the basics so they’d be equipped to get a job. Here it was preparing them for a career.

His career choices had been woodwork, metalwork, mechanic, or bus driver – at a push. Here, he was looking at future doctors, surgeons, athletes, and politicians.

He thought of his own child, Charlotte, two years old and into everything. He already felt, as her father, that she could be anything she wanted to be. And he would do everything within his power to make her dreams come true. But how the hell could he ever compete with this?

A movement through an open door caught his attention. He stepped back and took a look. Approximately fifteen lads, aged around twelve, were jogging from one end of the gym hall to the other.

‘Come on, Piggott, keep up,’ called the teacher from the sidelines.

Dawson spied the kid who was half a room length behind the others. The perspiration had stained his blue tee shirt, and his white fleshy legs wobbled as his shorts rode up between his legs. Dawson guessed him to be a couple of stone overweight.

‘May I help you?’ asked the teacher, who had spotted him at the doorway within seconds.

He swiftly produced his identification and introduced himself. ‘Here regarding the incident with Sadie Winters. Did you know her?’

The man offered his hand, while shaking his head. Dawson tried not to envy the thigh muscles that strained at the navy shorts or the size of his biceps that looked like the man was hiding a football in each arm. He didn’t need to lift his tee shirt to know there would be an impressive six-pack under there.

Dawson guessed him to be early- to mid-forties and was struck with the sudden vision of this man strolling into the pub in twenty years’ time still wearing clothes that would show off his physique.

He really should get to the gym more, he berated himself.

‘Philip Havers, boys’ physical education and sports coach; and honestly, I didn’t know the young girl at all. I have enough trouble keeping track of my boys,’ he said, glancing at the small group still trotting backwards and forwards.

Dawson wondered if he’d ever worked at a real school, classrooms stuffed full with thirty or more kids. Having them all running up and down in one room would have been like a herd of stampeding bulls.

‘Bloody hell, Piggott, you’re losing ground. Step it up,’ he called out.

Even Dawson could see the fat kid had lost another half metre.

‘Come on, pig, catch up,’ called one of the other kids over his shoulder.

Fate could not have been crueller in allowing pig to form part of the fat kid’s name. Dawson waited for Philip Havers to remonstrate the child who had turned and called out.

He did not.

Instead he rolled his eyes in Dawson’s direction. ‘The kid’s all in and this is only the warm-up session.’

Dawson remembered it well. He recalled pushing his muscles to the limit to try and keep up. He could feel the burn in his legs as though it was happening right now.

‘Three more lengths, and will someone give Piggott some encouragement?’ Havers called out.

The kid who had called out began chanting: ‘Pig, Pig, Pig.’ By the third call, all of the kids were chanting his name.

Dawson felt the tension crawl into his jaw. Not the encouragement he would have liked to have heard.

‘Peer pressure works every time,’ Havers said above the collective chanting. ‘He’s clawed back half a metre already.’

Yeah, humiliation and embarrassment will do that for you, Kev thought, viewing the scene before him differently to the teacher. The poor kid looked exhausted. His face was red from exertion, and the sweat beads were now lines of moisture trickling down his temples. His mouth was permanently open as he tried to send more air to his lungs.

‘A bit harsh?’ Dawson observed, which didn’t even come close to how he really felt.

‘Not if it makes him think twice about eating the next cream cake, or two.’

‘So, would any of these kids have known Sadie Winters?’ Dawson asked, guiding himself to solid ground. Punching the PE teacher in the face was unlikely to do the case, or his career, any favours.

The teacher looked around as the boys began their final length of the hall. Piggott’s earlier exertion had caught up with him and he was now paying the price, lagging almost half a length behind.

‘Can I talk to any of them?’

Havers thought for a minute. ‘Yeah, take Piggott, he’s pretty useless at basketball anyway.’

Before Dawson could respond Havers blew a whistle and began issuing instructions to the boys to bring in the equipment from the edge of the hall.

‘Not you, Piggott, over here,’ he called, as the lad hit the wall for the last time.

The boy looked both confused and relieved as he half walked and half staggered towards them.

‘Police officer here wants a word,’ he said, squeezing him on the shoulder.

The boy’s breathing was hard and laboured as he nodded.

Dawson looked around ‘Where can…’

‘There’s a bench outside the door,’ he said, pointing to the corridor.

Dawson nodded his thanks and headed outside.

‘Here,’ he said, handing the kid a handkerchief from his pocket. The activity had stopped but the sweating had not.

‘Thank you,’ he said, mopping his head, face and around the back of his neck before offering it back.

‘Keep it,’ Dawson said.

The kid mopped his brow again.

‘So, what’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Piggott, sir,’ he answered.

‘Your first name,’ he clarified.

‘Geoffrey, sir,’ he replied politely.

‘Did you know Sadie Winters?’ he asked.

Geoffrey shrugged. ‘A bit. She wasn’t like the other girls here.’

‘In what way?’

‘She wasn’t stuck-up or mean. She didn’t care all that much about girls’ stuff like hair or make-up or jewellery. She was on her own a lot. She didn’t need to be in a group, pointing and making fun.’

Dawson could hear his disdain for the female species. He had felt the same way when he was twelve and had thought he’d always feel the same way. Boy, did this kid have a shock coming.

‘Do some of the girls make fun of you, Geoffrey?’ he asked.

Geoffrey hesitated before nodding. ‘But not as much when Sadie was around,’ he admitted.

‘Did Sadie stick up for you?’

He nodded and dabbed at his forehead once more.

‘Were the other girls scared of her?’ Dawson asked. That wasn’t the impression he’d got from Tilly.

He shook his head. ‘Not scared of her but she defended me one time when some girls kept pushing me to the end of the dinner line, telling me to miss a meal.’

‘What did she do?’ Dawson asked, fighting off his own similar memories.

‘She grabbed my hand and took me back to my place in the line and stood there, glowering at them, until I had my food. And once I’d been served she just disappeared.’

Dawson suspected he would have liked this girl.

‘Did you see much of her around the school?’

‘Sometimes I’d see her just sitting in some strange place, on the floor, up against the wall, reading or scribbling in a book.’

Another mention of the scribbling in a book he’d been unable to find.

‘I’d sometimes try and catch her eye, but it was like she was always somewhere else.’

‘Was she being bullied?’ he asked, as he’d asked Tilly.

Geoffrey shook his head, immediately. ‘No, no one would bully Sadie.’

Dawson was confused. By all accounts Sadie Winters was different to the other girls. She didn’t mix, and she didn’t conform. A definite recipe for being targeted. But this was the exact same response he’d received from the girl with whom she’d shared a room.

‘Why not?’ he asked, as Mr Havers appeared in the corridor.

‘May I have my student back, officer?’

Geoffrey stood but Dawson put a steadying hand on his arm.

‘Just one more minute,’ he said to the teacher, who disappeared back into the hall wearing a look of irritation.

‘I really must go,’ Geoffrey said, glancing at the teacher’s disappearing back.

‘Okay, Geoffrey, but can you just explain why the other girls left Sadie alone?’

He was already edging away.

‘They left her alone because of her connections to The Card Suits.’

‘Connections? Suits?’ Dawson queried.

He nodded as he turned to leave.

‘Yes, her sister is the Queen of Hearts.’

Dawson frowned as the kid slipped back into the gym hall.

What the hell was the Queen of Hearts?