‘Police officer, move aside,’ Kim commanded as she pushed her way through the circle of people formed of both adults and students.

Horrified gasps had been muted into silence, but the open mouths told Kim it hadn’t been long. Damn, if she’d just broken the speed limit she might have been here in time.

‘There’s an ambulance on the way,’ said a shaky female voice somewhere behind her.

Kim ignored it. An ambulance was no good to them now.

‘Get everyone away from here,’ she growled to a smartly dressed man leaning down towards the figure on the ground.

He hesitated for a second before springing into action.

She could hear Bryant’s booming voice already moving students away.

Too late, probably, as they would never un-see the sight before them. It would play over and over in their minds and revisit them in their dreams. It never ceased to amaze Kim that people were so eager to give their minds something traumatic to grab and hold for ever.

‘Damn it,’ she said to herself, taking a closer look at the diminutive figure on the ground.

The girl was dressed in the school colours. Her yellow shirt was crumpled and falling out of the brown skirt that had curled over and exposed her bottom. Despite the dark tights covering her skin, Kim leaned down and gently folded it back.

She lay face down, her left cheek against the gravel, a pool of blood staining the white stones from the impact wound of her head hitting the ground. Her right eye stared along the path. Her left arm was flailed out as though reaching while her right lay close to her side. Both legs were straight and pointed to the metal grating that bordered a single row of daffodils close to the building. Her feet were encased in flat, black shoes. A grey smudge was visible on the sole of the right pump.

Kim guessed her to be early teens.

‘What’s her name?’ she asked as the smartly dressed male reappeared beside her.

‘Sadie Winters,’ he replied, quietly. ‘She’s thirteen years old,’ he added.

Jesus Christ, Kim thought.

He offered his hand across the body. ‘Brendan Thorpe, Principal of Heathcrest.’

Kim ignored the hand and simply nodded.

‘You saw her on the roof?’ she asked.

He shook his head. ‘I heard someone shouting in the corridor that a student was on the roof threatening to jump. I immediately called the police but by the time I got out here…’

‘She’d already jumped?’ Kim asked.

He nodded and swallowed.

Kim had to wonder what could have caused a thirteen-year-old to take her own life. How bad could her life have been?

‘Just a child,’ Brendan Thorpe whispered.

A child’s problems were no less important or intense than the worries of an adult, she reasoned. It was all relative. A break-up with a boyfriend could mean the end of the world. Feelings of despair were not the sole property of adults.

The sound of tyres on gravel prompted her to turn towards the road. Two squad cars followed by an ambulance pulled to a stop behind Bryant’s Astra.

She recognised Inspector Plant, a pleasant, permanently tanned officer with white hair and beard that contrasted with his skin tone.

He came towards her as Bryant reappeared.

‘Apparent suicide,’ she advised, beginning the handover. Although first on the scene they would not take the case. CID had no remit in a suicide, except to agree that was the cause of death with the pathologist, which they would do following the post-mortem.

In the meantime there were parents to inform, witnesses to be questioned, statements to be taken – but that would not be done by either herself or her team.

‘Her name is Sadie Winters, thirteen-years-old,’ she advised Plant.

A quiet shake of the head demonstrated his regret.

‘Brendan Thorpe over there is the principal, who made the call to us, but she’d jumped by the time we got here.’

Inspector Plant nodded. ‘Thanks, guys, we’ll take it—’

His words were cut short by a female voice emanating towards them.

‘Is it her?’ cried the voice.

They all turned as a blonde girl dressed in the school uniform dodged the principal and barrelled towards them.

‘Let me through,’ she cried. ‘I have to see if it’s her.’

Kim lined herself up in front of the victim and tensed her body ready for the impact. This kid was hurtling towards her like a rugby player; stopping for no one.

‘Got ya,’ Kim said, planting her feet firmly and holding her so she couldn’t pass.

The girl, only an inch shorter than Kim, strained to look beyond, but Bryant and Plant had moved into position and blocked her view.

‘Please, let me past,’ she shouted right into Kim’s ear.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kim said, trying to hold her.

‘I just want to make sure,’ she cried.

‘Who are—’

‘Please, just let me past. My name is Saffron, and Sadie Winters is my sister.’