Hand On Heart: An Unputdownable British Crime Thriller (DI Benjamin Kidd Crime Thrillers Book 5)

by GS Rhodes

  Tears filled her eyes, rapidly falling down her face, but she didn’t make a sound. It was as if she’d gradually become used to it. She just cried.

  “Why did Harrison mention him?”

  “I don’t know actually,” Suzanne said. “It was never a name that I’d heard before so I thought that maybe it was something I had missed in the flurry of the investigation, but…it didn’t sit right with me so I asked him more about it. He had…he had a lot of information.”

  Kidd sat forward. “What kind of information?”

  “Oh, all sorts.”

  “Can you be more specific, Suzanne? This might be important,” Zoe said.

  “He started talking about how Phil might have been involved too,” Suzanne said. “All the things that I told you, about how they were best friends and it didn’t seem right that he wasn’t part of it. And then I started doing my own digging.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “All sorts,” she said again, but then quickly went on. “Oh, sorry, I found out about their friendship, how close they were, how they had known each other for years. And it was that which got me looking further into the investigation and I was surprised to see that he wasn’t mentioned.”

  “Phil?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He wasn’t in any of the news reports, wasn’t mentioned in anything at all and I just thought it was very strange if they were so close that he wouldn’t at least have gotten interviewed.”

  Kidd sighed and leaned back in his chair. He wondered how Ravel and Campbell were getting on, if they’d managed to get anything out of him.

  “Why didn’t you come to the police with this information?” Zoe said. “If Harrison started talking about this at the fifteenth anniversary, that’s nearly three years ago. Why wait all this time to tell anyone about it?”

  “He didn’t want to,” Suzanne said with a shrug. “It was odd really. We would always talk about it around the anniversary and on her birthday, all about the investigation, but since the fifteenth anniversary he’d talk about Phil Jackson. He talked about him with such contempt.”

  “So why not come to the police?”

  “He said something about Karma,” Suzanne said with a roll of her eyes. Kidd’s blood ran cold. “He believed that justice would eventually come to Phil Jackson.”

  There was a knock at the door to the interview room, Simon Powell poking his head around the door. “Sorry to disturb, boss, I wouldn’t if it didn’t seem like it was important.”

  “What is it?” Kidd asked.

  “We’ve just had forensics back from Michael’s property.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  The street was a darn sight quieter than it had been the previous day. The forensics team had mostly gone, though it was still set up like a crime scene, and the reporters had long since cleared off. Anything that they wanted for a story, they now had. There were a couple of officers who stood outside the property, most likely bored out of their minds and wishing their days away, and a couple of people in coveralls wandering in and out of the house.

  “Doesn’t look like we’re going to have much luck here,” Janya said. “He won’t be home if this is what they’re up to.”

  “Certainly not,” Campbell said. He took off his seatbelt and opened the door. “Worth a look though. They might know where he is.”

  “Campbell, we shouldn’t—” But he had already left the car and slammed the door. She followed him, quickly catching up with him as he walked down the garden. Janya said a quick hello to the officers on her way past, remembering her days having to stand at crime scenes and hoping, for their sakes, that this wouldn’t continue for them for too much longer.

  “Can I help you?” A short white man with a scraggly looking beard stopped them at Phil’s front door. This was where the package had been left, the whole thing had been cordoned off.

  “DC Ravel and DC Campbell,” Janya said. “We’re looking for Phil Jackson, do you know where he is?”

  “Not here just now,” the man replied. “We needed to stay a little longer at the house so he packed a bag and headed to his parents' house I think.”

  “Parents?” Janya said, remembering what Kidd had said about his parents' death some twenty years ago. It had been in the news, she’d read the reports when DC Powell had put them up on the evidence board. “You sure he said parents?”

  “Pretty sure,” he said. “He left us with an address just in case we needed to get in touch. Do you want me to grab it for you?”

  “If you could,” Janya said with a smile, stepping away from the front door as the man stepped out and headed towards their van. She looked over at Campbell curiously.

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking Phil Jackson is trying his bloody hardest to avoid us,” she said. “But other than that, I’m wondering who the bloody hell he’s calling his parents when, as far as we know, he doesn’t have any.”

  “Could be going to their graves or something?”

  “Not to stay the night, though, Owen,” Janya said, avoiding the urge to tut at him.

  The man in coveralls reappeared with a small piece of paper in his hand, some spidery writing scrawled across it. Janya read it, taking it in.

  “Thank you,” she said as the man walked away back to Phil’s property.

  “Somewhere you recognise?” Campbell asked.

  “No, annoyingly,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to get Simon to check, hang on.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Kidd had never moved so fast in his life. He instructed Suzanne to stay at the police station for her own safety before jumping in the car with Zoe to make their way to the Grant residence. He only hoped that they could catch him before he ended up doing anything else.

  Simon’s phone rang before they left, so he told them to go and he would meet them there as soon as he could.

  He dialled DCI Weaver’s number.

  “I need you to do something for me,” Kidd said as soon as he answered the phone.

  “Well, I’m doing very well thank you, Kidd. How are you? Good afternoon?”

  “Don’t have time for pleasantries, boss, I need you to send some armed officers to the Grant house,” he said quickly, holding on for dear life as Zoe sped over Kingston Bridge and towards Twickenham.

  “Sure thing,” Weaver said. “Do I need to be worried?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Kidd replied. “But get them there as soon as you can, alright?”

  As Zoe drove Kidd tried to add everything up in his head, tried to figure out exactly how they’d managed to miss this the whole time that they’d been investigating. Had he been too distracted with Craig? Had he just not seen the forest for the trees? Whatever it was, he just hoped there wasn’t going to be another life on his hands today. All he could do was hope.

  ◆◆◆

  “I don’t recognise the address,” Powell said down the phone. “Should I?”

  “Probably not,” Janya replied. “Can you search it for me? I want to know who it belongs to.”

  Simon did as he was told, logging back into his computer and searching for the address. It wasn’t all that far from where they currently were, which was a blessing if they were keen on talking to Phil Jackson, but the system knew who it belonged to.

  Simon blinked.

  “Who did you say he was going to stay with?” Powell asked.

  “They said he was going to stay with his parents,” Janya said. “And I said that was impossible because you found out about his parents’ death twenty years ago, right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly,” Powell said. He checked it one more time, getting Janya to read the address to make sure he’d gotten it right. He had.

  “Powell, what is it?”

  “Kidd wants you to meet him at the Grant house,” Powell replied. “And I reckon you’re going to beat me there because you’re closer. You’re going to need to tell him this. He’s going to ha
ve a bloody heart attack.”

  ◆◆◆

  The house was quiet, or at least appeared to be from the outside. Kidd could barely contain himself, practically leaping from a still-moving vehicle to start towards the door. Zoe caught up with him and grabbed hold of his arm, attempting to pull him back. He shrugged her off.

  “You can’t just barge in there unannounced,” Zoe hissed. “We don’t know what kind of state he’s going to be in and if he knows we’re coming—”

  “But he doesn’t,” Kidd interrupted. “We have the element of surprise on our side.”

  “The element of surprise? Who the bloody hell do you think you are, James Bond?” she replied. “You’re not wearing a stab vest, anything could bloody happen.”

  “Yeah and if we don’t get in there now, we could be dealing with another Michael Earle level bloodbath,” Kidd replied. “I’m not doing that. I can’t do it. Either you come with me and there’s safety in numbers, or you wait out here for the other officers to arrive.”

  Zoe hesitated, her eyes locked with Kidd’s. He knew that she didn’t want to go in there if she could help it. Given what had happened during previous cases, he couldn’t really blame her. But the last thing Kidd wanted to do was hang around while something potentially catastrophic happened not even ten metres away from him.

  “Fine,” she said. “But the first sign of trouble—”

  “We run,” Kidd finished.

  He made his way to the door and knocked heavily on it, stepping back and waiting for any sign of movement inside. Nothing. He knocked again, his heart pounding hard, wondering what he would find inside if he had to break the door down.

  Please God, don’t make me break the bloody door down, he thought. Let them be home, let everything be alright.

  The door opened and Caleb Grant stood in the frame, surprised to see the two officers in front of him.

  “Everything okay?” he asked. “Were we expecting you?”

  “No,” Kidd replied. At least I hope not.

  “Is everything okay with Mum?”

  “Your mum is fine, she’s just going over a few things at the station, nothing to worry about,” Zoe said with a warm smile.

  “Is your dad about?” Kidd asked.

  “My dad?”

  “Yes, we were hoping to catch him for a chat.” Kidd could feel himself getting more and more nervous, the tension making its way through his arms to his fingers. He was practically shaking with it.

  “He went out,” Caleb replied. Kidd’s heart sunk.

  “When?”

  “Not long after Mum came to see you,” Caleb said, quickly. “He seemed…I don’t know, he seemed agitated.”

  “Do you know where he went? Did he say anything before he left?” Kidd asked.

  Caleb shook his head. “He didn’t give me any idea, no,” he said. “I’m sorry. Is everything okay? Is my dad in some kind of trouble?”

  Zoe said, “No,” at the same time that Kidd said, “Maybe,” and it was enough to make Caleb look a few shades more confused than he had a moment ago.

  A car pulled up, one that Kidd recognised, with Janya Ravel at the wheel. She left the car in the middle of the road and hurried over to Kidd, a piece of paper in her hand. She gave it to him, he looked back at her, brow knitted together in confusion.

  “This is where Phil Jackson has gone,” she said, her breath coming in ragged. “We went to find him at his house but the guy leading the forensics investigation said he had gone to stay with his parents.”

  “They’re dead,” Kidd said bluntly.

  “Exactly,” Janya said. “This isn’t his parents' address.”

  “Whose address is it?” Kidd asked.

  “Detective Inspector Wool.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Kidd wasted no time. He left Ravel and Campbell at the Grant residence to help search the property with the team of officers when they arrived, quickly called Weaver and told him to get down here with Powell. He also gave him DI Wool’s address to send a few more officers along, he had a sneaking suspicion he was going to need them.

  It all fell into place for Kidd on the journey to DI Wool’s house. There hadn’t been a whole lot for them to go on for most of the investigation, but it all seemed to be coming together now. He just needed to get it all confirmed.

  There were no lights on in the house. The fading light of the afternoon was enough to almost make Kidd think that they’d come to the wrong place, or that there wasn’t anything going on and they had come to yet another dead end.

  But the door was wide open, and Kidd was terrified to think about what he might find once he walked through it.

  “Don’t do anything stupid!” Weaver had barked at him before he’d hung up the phone. Contrary to popular belief, DI Kidd never did stupid things on purpose. They seemed to happen by accident when he was trying to do the right thing. The right thing just now would probably be to wait for the officers to arrive, to hang back until they had the protection of men with guns in case Harrison was about to do something daft.

  But the other right thing was to go in there and protect Dennis Wool. He might have been a prick, but he certainly didn’t deserve to die for it. Kidd didn’t believe in an eye for an eye, but given the way he had been behaving, it seemed that Harrison Grant did.

  Kidd walked with Zoe to the front door, their footsteps crunching on the gravel driveway. There was no way of hiding their approach, so Kidd decided not to. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe Harrison would appreciate the honesty.

  Kidd stepped through the front door, his shoes making contact with the hardwood floors with an almighty clack that seemed to echo off into the cold distance of the house. Why DI Wool needed a house this big was beyond Kidd. But he had to do something in his retirement, rattling around a big old house like a relic was what he had chosen.

  “Harrison?” Kidd called out. “Harrison, are you here?”

  “Took you bloody long enough, didn’t it?” The voice came from a little way down the corridor. There were a couple of footsteps, and then a figure standing almost entirely in silhouette in the corridor, the light from the end of the corridor backlighting him so he looked every bit the villain that he was. “Lovely to see you again, DI Kidd, DS Sanchez.”

  The fact that Harrison Grant sounded pleased to see them didn’t sit right with Kidd, it didn’t sit right with him one bit. Was there something else he had missed in all this? Another piece of the puzzle that had gone missing?

  Harrison disappeared back into the room he’d been in just moments before.

  “Careful now,” Zoe whispered.

  “Distraction tactics,” Kidd whispered back. “If we can keep him talking, maybe—”

  “Maybe what, DI Kidd?” Harrison called. “It’s a quiet house. I can hear you.”

  Kidd took a heavy breath and made his way down the corridor, past the first room that looked like a dining room, and into a spacious living room. DI Wool was sitting in an armchair, staring directly at the door as Kidd and Zoe walked through it. Harrison was standing right next to him, a gun pointed at the man’s head.

  “Where the bloody hell did you get a gun?”

  Harrison laughed, it sent a jolt of fear right to Kidd’s heart. “Dennis here thought it would be a good idea to keep one in the house,” he said. “I came along, easy as anything, took it out and here we are. You really ought to be more careful.”

  DI Wool opened his mouth to speak, his lips flapping as if he were trying to find the right thing to say. But there was no right thing to say in a moment like this. The best thing that DI Wool could do was be quiet, something Kidd had a feeling he didn’t have a lot of practice in doing. Just a hunch.

  “How did you find me?” Harrison asked. “Get enough out of my wife, did you?”

  “She was rather helpful, now that you mention it,” Kidd said. “But it was a couple of things falling into place all at once for us really.” He turned to DI Wool. “Did your son ever make it here, Dennis?”r />
  Dennis’ eyes widened. “What did…how did you know?”

  “Phil was a little careless after he got his gift from Harrison,” Kidd said. “He told one of the team he was off to stay with his parents for a bit and we know his parents died some twenty years ago. Is that why he was never questioned, Dennis?”

  Dennis’ mouth opened and closed, but he remained speechless.

  “Now might be a good time to answer some questions, Dennis, there is a gun to your head after all,” Kidd said.

  “Yes,” Dennis replied quickly, the words tumbling out of him. “Yes, I didn’t investigate him because…because I found out all about him.” He took a moment to compose himself, certainly not an easy thing to do with a gun to your head. “I wanted to be a good police officer, I think I always was. At least, I hope I was.” Kidd wasn’t about to go into how much of an arse DCI Weaver had told him he was, now didn’t really feel like the time. “But it all seemed to come about at the same time. I found out about the death of Phillip’s mother, Camille, and I remembered her. I didn’t know she was married when we slept together. I didn’t even know that Phillip was mine, I was just getting to know him when this case came around.”

  “So you refused to investigate him because he was your son?” Kidd asked.

  “Yes.”

  “There should have at least been an interview with him,” Kidd said. “Or couldn’t you do that? Because if you’d have done that, perhaps your want to be a good and decent police officer would have overridden your want to be his father.”

  Kidd cleared his throat and looked over at Harrison. He still had the gun pointed at Dennis but he didn’t look angry. Maybe these were things he already knew, or things he had figured out for himself. Dennis looked nervously from Kidd to Harrison and back again. He didn’t know if what he was about to say next would be enough to make Harrison pull that trigger and put an end to all of this.