‘Well, this is a bit more acceptable, don’t you think, Bryant?’ Kim asked, as they looked around the room.

Principal Thorpe had kindly guided them to a spacious reading room adjacent to the library. Despite the falling dusk she could still make out the view of the hockey pitch and tennis courts.

Bryant whistled appreciatively. ‘Good result even if your methods are somewhat—’

‘Imaginative,’ she answered for him.

‘Not the word I was going to use but we’ll stick with it for now,’ he replied, taking his seat beside her.

‘So, why do you reckon she hasn’t gone home?’ Bryant asked, voicing the question on both their minds.

‘I have no clue, Bryant. I’d have thought the family would have wanted to be together. Surely the best place for her is with them at home.’

‘Definitely where I’d want to be if my sister had just died,’ he answered.

‘Unless this feels like home,’ Kim pondered. ‘The kids spend so long here it may be more familiar to them than their own homes.’

‘Could be, but I’d still want to be where my parents were,’ he said. ‘Surely no school can replicate that security and safety.’

‘Hmm…’ she said thoughtfully, as a confident knock sounded on the door.

‘Come in,’ Bryant called.

Kim offered a smile to the girl that had barrelled towards her the day before. ‘Please sit down, Saffron.’

The girl nodded and walked towards them. ‘Call me Saffie, please,’ she said, taking a seat.

Two words struck Kim immediately. Elegant and confident. From the top of her corn-coloured blonde hair to the tips of her black Lanvin chain-embellished leather boots there was an assured grace to Saffron Winters not present in most sixteen-year-old girls she’d met.

Kim tore her gaze away from the footwear over which she’d hankered herself but at more than one thousand pounds were well beyond her level of disposable income. Even dressed in a plain cold shoulder tee shirt and light blue jeans there was something about Saffie Winters that demanded attention.

Her blue eyes were piercing and set in a face moulded by the gods.

Kim remembered who her parents were and realised this girl had inherited the best of both of them. And clearly Sadie had not.

Bryant introduced them both before turning genuinely sympathetic eyes on the girl. ‘Saffie, we’re very sorry for the loss of your sister,’ he said.

‘Thank you,’ she said, with politeness but little emotion.

Kim wondered if it had all sunk in yet. It had barely been twenty-four hours.

‘You didn’t want to go home?’ Kim asked, gently

She shook her head. ‘I’m busier here,’ she said simply.

Kim would have liked to explore the reasons for that further but decided to push on. She had some tough questions to ask.

‘Were the two of you close, Saffie?’

She gave the question serious consideration, before shaking her head. ‘We were once but not so close any more.’

‘So, you didn’t spend much time together?’ Kim continued.

Saffie shook her head.

Kim tried to understand an environment where the sisters boarded and schooled together but spent little time in each other’s company.

‘We’re hearing the word troubled a lot in relation to your sister. Would you agree?’

There was no hesitation. ‘Yes, officer, I would agree. I don’t think she had any friends.’

And yet you still spent no time together, Kim thought.

‘She preferred her own company,’ Saffie said, as though reading her thoughts.

‘She liked to write, apparently,’ Kim said. ‘Poetry,’ she added.

Saffie looked surprised. ‘Did she? I didn’t know that.’

‘Her English teacher thought she had a talent for it.’

Saffie nodded but Kim detected an air of impatience or disinterest in her expression; all too soon it was gone.

‘Saffie, where were you when Sadie was on the ground outside?’ Bryant asked.

‘I was in the music room,’ she said.

Exactly where Principal Thorpe had said he was going to fetch her from half an hour ago. She seemed to spend a lot of time there.

Kim had the uneasy feeling there was something lacking from this exchange. She’d felt more genuine emotion radiating from Joanna Wade than she was detecting right now from a blood relation.

‘Saffie, were you surprised when you heard that Sadie had jumped from the roof?’

Saffie shook her head. ‘My parents had been trying to reach her for months without success. The more they tried the more she retreated.’

Kim had the feeling that Saffie could have been talking about anyone.

‘Did you know that your sister was a self-harmer?’

This time, genuine surprise shaped her face, telling Kim the shock at the poetry admission had been false. She caught the flash of annoyance that followed the shock.

‘She cut herself,’ Kim added.

‘I probably shouldn’t be surprised,’ she said.

‘Why’s that?’

‘Sometimes she did like to grab all the attention,’ Saffie said.

Except she hadn’t done it anywhere that someone could see, Kim thought to herself, so she wasn’t grabbing anyone’s attention, or even trying to.

‘Did she ever talk to you about it?’

‘No, Inspector, she didn’t,’ Saffie said impatiently.

‘But you’re her—’

‘Officer, I think you should know that my sister didn’t like me very much.’

Kim found herself taken aback by the frank admission.

‘Any particular reason?’ she asked.

‘I got bored of asking, to be honest with you. Just like my parents, I couldn’t reach her either.’

So, had everyone just given up? Kim wondered. Had no one tried to find a way to reach her?

‘I’ve asked about friends and you say she had very few—’

‘No, I said she had none,’ Saffie clarified.

‘So, what about enemies?’ Kim asked.

‘I’m not sure why you’re asking that, but I would assume not. Just as she failed to interact positively I’m reasonably sure she failed to interact negatively.’

Kim sat back in her chair. ‘I’m starting to get a picture here of a young teenage girl largely ignored by everyone to the point of invisibility.’

Kim thought about the pile of ironing in her spare room at home. She had ignored it for so long she didn’t even see it any more.

‘If that’s how it was then that’s exactly how she wanted it,’ Saffie answered, glancing at her watch.

Kim really had little else to ask her at this point.

‘Okay, Saffie, thank you for your time, and if we need anything further we’ll come and find you.’

‘I’ll be here,’ she answered.

Kim tipped her head. ‘You don’t plan on going home to spend time with your parents?’

‘No, Inspector. They’ll be fine. They have each other.’

Again, there was no emotion. Just statement of fact.

Saffie nodded at them both and then left the room.

Kim heard voices on the other side of the door before Principal Thorpe’s head appeared. He dangled his set of keys.

‘Are you finished for the evening, only we lock this room…’

‘Of course,’ Kim said, standing. It was almost six.

‘Strange, don’t you think, that she hasn’t chosen to go home at a time like this, Principal Thorpe?’

He smiled with sadness and a hint of pride.

‘We tried to insist but she wouldn’t hear of it. She didn’t want to let us down.’

Kim was confused. ‘How would going home and grieving for her sister in any way be letting you or the school down?’

‘Saturday night, Inspector, is our annual gala night, and Saffron Winters is the star of the show.’