Page 92 of Dying Truth
About life
Broken life
Obstructed life
Ruined life
Tentative life
Everlasting life
Destroyed life
Life
Life
Life
Life
‘I don’t get it,’ Kim said, looking up from the page.
‘What, the poem?’ Bryant asked, taking it from her hand.
‘That, and what it was that troubled Joanna. Seems like more of Sadie’s emotional outpourings.’
‘Why’s “life” repeated so many times?’
Kim shrugged as her eyes landed on the desk. ‘Keats, what’s that?’ she asked.
‘Joanna Wade’s phone. Also found in the back pocket of her jeans.’
‘Not bagged yet?’ she asked, suspiciously.
‘Getting round to it, Stone,’ he snapped.
‘Bloody hell, Keats, getting a bit lax in your old age, eh?’
‘Children are dying, Stone,’ he raged. ‘And I have to cut them open to find out how.’ He glanced at the desk and more directly at the phone and then back at her. ‘And now I’m going to fetch the coffee.’
Kim looked at Bryant as the doors closed behind the pathologist.
‘You’re not going to touch it?’ he asked, reading her thoughts.
There was barely a second of hesitation before she reached across the table for a pair of blue latex gloves.
‘Bryant, we both know that Traffic is not gonna put these pieces together. Even Keats knows it,’ she said, aware that this was exactly what he’d been hoping she’d do.
He sighed. ‘You can’t tamper—’
‘If you’re worried, go help Keats bring the coffee,’ she said, picking up the phone. A single crack travelled diagonally from corner to corner. She pressed the home button, which brought up the passcode screen.
‘Damn it,’ she said, putting it down and reaching for her own phone.
Stacey picked up the phone on the second ring.
‘Hey Stace, hypothetically, if I wanted to bypass the screen password on a smartphone that I shouldn’t really have in my possession, how would I go about it?’
