Kim could still feel the weight of Sadie’s letter against her breast as they walked into Heathcrest.

‘Follow me,’ she said, striding through the grand hall to the corridor that ran behind the rooms that looked on to the front of the building.

She stopped at the third one along and tapped lightly. By her reckoning they had around fifteen minutes until lunchtime was over.

Kim pushed the door open and was not surprised to see Joanna Wade sitting at her desk with a half-eaten tub of homemade salad beside the book she was reading.

‘No staff room?’ she asked.

Joanna smiled in response. ‘I’m fine here, thanks.’

Again, Kim wondered what had prompted the move for this woman. Something about her didn’t fit in this environment.

‘Joanna, do you have any of Sadie’s writings that we can take a look at?’ she asked, unsure when it had become comfortable to call this woman by her first name. She wanted to compare something Sadie had written to the note in her pocket.

‘You don’t have enough?’ she frowned.

Kim shrugged. Even Joanna assumed her personal possessions would be stuffed with poems and musings.

She turned and opened a sliding door.

‘Guv,’ Bryant said, ‘I’m just gonna round up some coffee from somewhere.’

She smiled at him gratefully. Her coffee reserves had not been replenished since leaving the station.

Joanna took down a lever arch file and opened it. Kim pulled up a seat beside her as she began to leaf through the contents.

‘There was a poem she wrote just a few days ago that stuck in my mind.’ She continued to turn over single pieces of paper with different names in the top right-hand corner.

‘Why are you here?’ Kim asked, suddenly, surprising herself.

The Joanna Wade she’d met a couple of years ago had seemed more vibrant, more animated. There was something missing. It was like she’d been through the washer a couple of times and had faded just a little bit.

Joanna’s hand stilled for a second as she picked up the next sheet.

‘One game of darts and I might tell you,’ she said.

Kim laughed at the comment which was both opportunistic and distracting.

‘Ah, here’s one she wrote just last week,’ she said taking a sheet from the box and placing it before Kim. ‘Not the one I’m after but this’ll give you some idea of her talent.’

The poem filled the whole page but with only one word on each line.

Kim read it twice and shook her head.

‘I don’t get it,’ she said, honestly.

‘The theme was isolation,’ Joanna said. ‘Now take another look.’

Kim read it again. ‘Okay, so every word is linked to loneliness, which could have been done from any thesaurus.’

Joanna rolled her eyes despairingly. ‘Look beyond the words, Inspector. See the whole thing.’

Kim looked again and ignored the words.

‘Single words on a line, surrounded by space. Other words are around but not close by,’ Kim said.

‘Exactly,’ Joanna replied. ‘She captured the theme in much more than the words. She made the actual page stark to paint the picture of loneliness. Not bad for a thirteen-year-old girl, eh?’

Kim nodded her agreement as Joanna frowned.

‘Ah, I remember now, I gave that other poem to her counsellor. I’ll get it back so you can take a look.’

Kim took Sadie’s letter from her pocket.

‘What do you think of this?’ Kim asked. ‘Knowing her writings as you did.’

Kim knew Sadie had not committed suicide, so why was there a suicide note?

Joanna read the letter, paused and then read it again. She nodded, despite the frown that touched her features.

‘Definitely something Sadie would have written.’

‘But?’

‘I don’t know. There’s something not quite right about that letter.’ She looked at Kim. ‘But I honestly don’t know what.’

Kim had felt the same way when she’d read it at the Winters’ home and when she’d read it again in the car.

Joanna continued to study it as Bryant appeared bearing two mugs of coffee.

Joanna’s frown deepened, as she placed her hand across the top of the page, covering the words ‘Dear Mummy and Daddy’ that Kim had found jarring.

‘Read it now,’ Joanna suggested.

Kim read the words aloud.

‘“I can’t find the words to explain how I feel. Every day my mind is like a tropical jungle overgrown with foliage, dense plantation. A mist rises every now and again and blocks out the sunlight. I try to wade through it. I try to reach you, but the jungle gets in my way.

‘“I try so hard to meet expectation, but I drop through the cracks of reality because I also want to be me. I don’t know who that is yet. I don’t know how much longer I can stay in this foggy existence waiting to see what I become. It’s too hard. I can’t bear it any more. I have to make it stop.”’

‘See what I mean?’ Joanna asked.

Kim nodded her understanding.

‘You’re gonna have to enlighten me,’ Bryant said.

‘It’s not a suicide letter at all,’ she explained, to her colleague. ‘Remove the salutation at the top and this is nothing more than a cry for help made to look like a suicide letter.’