Flesh and Blood by Simon Cheshire Page A

I’d caught the scent of the story I’d been after, it’s true, but more than anything else I wanted to investigate for my own peace of mind.
    I hoped I was wrong – I want to make that clear. I didn’t want to discover that my parents, or anyone else, really were being doped up by Caroline Greenhill. It seemed both horrific and ridiculous.
    More than once, it has crossed my mind that it might have been easier to give in, avoid any emotional pain and go for those check-ups myself.I could have let myself get with the programme, and remained in blissful ignorance.
    But I needed to find the truth. If these new fears were true, how did this connect to what I’d witnessed that night? Had someone, perhaps, been testing medication on that dog? Could it be that it wasn’t injured, but doped? Had the scream been one of discovery after all? Had Emma – or someone – walked in on the experiment? And if there was some sort of experimentation involved, were there now any reasons to connect the Greenhills to the murder in the park? Could the victim have been part of some sort of experiment himself, as I’d originally thought? Had I been too quick to believe the prevailing view about the killing? If so, why had that particular man died, and not some other?
    What my research would actually accomplish, I didn’t stop to consider. Beyond the self-centred chance to write it all up for the
Courier
, that is.
    Half term started on October 18th. Once school work was out of the way, I’d have the best part of a week to dig up whatever I could. As we left school on that Friday, I let Liam and Jo in on my plans. I mentioned my suspicions of doping, andmy reasons for them, but I also laid it on so thick that even I baulked at the idea. Nevertheless, we had a long conversation in which they flipped from alarm, to derision, and back again.
    “Wouldn’t it be easier to just become Emma’s boyfriend and ask?” said Liam. “I think she likes you.”
    “She doesn’t have boyfriends, remember,” said Jo.
    “OK, close friend, then. Get yourself invited over to her house.”
    “She doesn’t do that either,” I said.
    “That’s true,” said Jo. “I don’t know anyone who’s seen inside her house.”
    “I want to keep my distance, anyway,” I said.
    “I think Sam’s right,” said Jo.
    “About the Greenhills?” said Liam. “Don’t be daft.”
    “I meant about keeping his distance,” said Jo. She gave me a look that I couldn’t quite interpret. “I’m keeping an open mind about the Greenhills. If you unearth anything scandalous, can my dad have the exclusive?”
    “Absolutely,” I said.
    “I assume you’re going to be too busy to come over and help me build a new computer then?” said Liam.
    “Text me in a few days,” I said.

    By Monday, I’d begun work. From my room, I combed through every publicly accessible database I could find. I paid for temporary membership of various online academic and news media archives, and got Liam to hack me into a couple more I needed to be an employee to use. I sifted through information at the upgraded Hadlington public library and the County Records Office, and found half a dozen slim volumes on the history of the town and the surrounding areas.
    I even managed to contact the author of one of those volumes by email, and asked her a few questions based on what she’d mentioned about Bierce Priory in her book. To my surprise, she’d worked alongside Ken Greenhill, Emma’s grandfather, at the town council and had known the Greenhill family in years gone by. Off the record, she repeated a number of items of minor tittle-tattle about them, and in particular about Ken Greenhill.
    In just a few days, I’d managed to piece together a reasonably detailed picture. The thing about being The Country’s Leading Whatever is that a lot of otherpeople know who you are. The same goes if you’re someone who used to appear on TV, no matter how long ago. Or if you used to be a leading light