by GS Rhodes
The notes were what Weaver had said they were. Mostly unhelpful, but at least it managed to put together some kind of timeline. He wrote down anything that matched up. Noises heard between 22:15 and 22:30, a flash seen at 22:40. There’s a ten-minute gap in there somewhere but that could have been James just making his way down the alleyway.
He transferred all of this to the big board at the front of the room, the eyes of DC Powell on him as he did so. He’d become very precious about his evidence boards, that much was clear, but he was good at them, so why not? Kidd wouldn’t be surprised if he found Powell had changed it before he made it back to the office later on that day.
“Boss?” Campbell piped up from behind his desk. Kidd finished pinning it to the evidence board and turned his attention to Owen who was practically bouncing behind his desk. “I’ve got one.”
CHAPTER NINE
Kidd and Campbell gathered themselves as quickly as they could and headed out, leaving Powell behind to continue the search for addresses and get in touch with them should more people be available for interview. It felt good to be heading out to do things, even if he was doing things with Owen Campbell, who’d not stopped talking since they’d walked out of the Incident Room. Kidd tried to tune it out, but there was something about the frequency of Campbell’s voice that cut right through him.
Owen managed to calm himself down on the drive, apparently getting all the excitement of being out of the station out of his system before they got to David Oliver’s parents’ house.
“He’s between jobs at the minute,” Campbell said as they pulled up outside. “Don’t know why of course, didn’t feel like my place to ask, but it just means he’s staying with his parents for a little bit until things pick up.”
“How old is he?”
“Twenty-six,” Campbell replied. “Just like James, same year at school.”
“Right, right,” Kidd said. He looked out of the car window at the house. It was pretty near to Bushy Park, but on the Teddington side, walking distance for sure. Kidd hadn’t been back there since the repeat of The Grinning Murders. It still gave him the creeps. “Come on, then,” Kidd added, taking off his seatbelt and climbing out of the car. “Do we know if he’s aware of James’ death?”
Campbell slammed the car door, eliciting a wince from Kidd, and stared off into the distance, apparently lost in thought. The wind ruffled his hair a little as his face twisted in confusion.
“I don’t know actually, sir,” Campbell replied. “He didn’t seem surprised that we were calling him and wanting to speak to him, so I can only assume that he knows.”
“But you didn’t mention it?”
“No, sir,” Campbell said. “Misstep on my part, I think.”
“I’ll say,” Kidd replied. It was never a pleasurable experience to have to tell someone that someone they knew had just died, even worse when that person had been brutally murdered. He’d had to do it one too many times over the years and he’d seen it all, from the angry to the devastated and everything in between. He’d even had a few that wouldn’t believe him until he’d taken them to see the body, and that really was an awful thing to see, and often resulted in them breaking down. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case this time. “Proceed with caution,” Kidd added. “Maybe don’t blurt it out.”
A flash of annoyance crossed Campbell’s face before he rearranged it into something more agreeable. Kidd knew it was a patronising thing to say, but sometimes Campbell needed a bit of guidance in that area. He was a good officer, he just had his moments where he was…less so. He nodded and the two headed towards the front door.
Their knock was answered by a man of average height, average build, and average face. He had a bit of stubble lining his jaw, his dark brown eyes looking a little glassy as he took in the two police officers stood before him.
“David Oliver?” Kidd asked.
The man nodded.
“I believe you spoke to my colleague, DC Owen Campbell.” Campbell waved from Kidd’s side, a little too enthusiastically for Kidd’s liking given the nature of their call but he wasn’t about to pull him up on it. “My name is DI Benjamin Kidd, we’re investigating something that you might be able to help us with.”
“James,” the lad breathed, his bottom lip quivering a little after he spoke. He cleared his throat and stood a little taller, apparently wanting to hide his feelings in front of the pair of them.
It was another thing that Kidd had seen too many times to count. Men didn’t really want to have a breakdown in front of a police officer, too afraid of how their masculinity would look. Kidd always thought that was stupid. You’re a human. Humans feel things. It’s the most natural thing in the world to be upset when someone close to you has died.
“Can we come in?” Kidd asked. “Probably best to not be chatting about this in the street, eh?”
“Sure, sure,” David replied, turning around and walking back into the house, leaving the door open. Kidd took it as an invitation and stepped inside, wiping his feet on the threadbare doormat before following David down the corridor.
It was wallpapered in what had to be a 70s or 80s print, gaudy, faded, probably came with the house. Or just hasn’t been decorated since then. There were framed pictures on the wall too, family portraits, a couple of school photos, nothing out of the ordinary.
Campbell shut the door quietly behind him. “He seems properly rattled, sir,” he whispered.
“I know,” Kidd replied. “But that might mean he’ll be more willing to help us. Follow my lead, chip in if you feel it’s necessary.”
“Really?” Owen said a little too loudly. “Can I?”
“Yes,” Kidd said. “But only if you feel it’s necessary. Delicate, Campbell, alright?”
“Yes, sir.”
They walked down the corridor that David had disappeared down, finding themselves in a kitchen dining room that was straight out of a catalogue. In stark contrast to the rest of the house that Kidd had found to be a little bit dated, to put it kindly, the kitchen was brand new. There were white marble effect countertops with grey cupboards and brass handles, all of it impeccably clean.
Kidd turned to look back at the corridor, at the mess of shoes by the door, at the coats piled three deep on the coat hooks, the scratches on the lower half of the door that told him there was an animal somewhere in the house. It was like he’d stepped through a portal into somewhere totally different.
“Dad isn’t in,” David said, shuffling over to the kettle and taking it off its white plastic stand. “Did you want a drink?”
“Could murder a tea,” Campbell said. His eyes quickly going wide as he realised what he’d said. “Sorry, just a tea would be fine.”
“Me too,” Kidd said through gritted teeth. “Engage brain first, say words later,” Kidd hissed at Campbell.
David joined them at the table with two cups of tea. David had opted to go with water, his hands not able to stop shaking even as he picked it up to take a sip. He was nervous, more than nervous, he looked absolutely terrified. It was enough to make Kidd’s brain start ticking over. How much did he know, if anything at all? Maybe it was the grief doing it to him. Maybe it was something more.
Kidd took out his notebook and pen, Campbell followed suit. “Now, this isn’t a formal interview,” Kidd said, wanting the lad to calm down. He wanted him to be able to speak as freely as possible, if he was shitting his pants, they weren’t going to get a whole lot out of him. “We just want to ask you a few questions about James, about the wake and so forth. We want to get a picture of his final movements, if possible.”
“I shouldn’t have let him walk,” David said suddenly, his hands resting on the table in front of him clenching to fists. “I told him to get a cab back, or let Bill drop him off. But he didn’t want to. He wanted the walk, wanted the fresh air or something, I don’t know. He doesn’t live far. It seems stupid now.”
“It’s not your fault,” Campbell said. “Thinking about all the things you s
hould have or could have done isn’t going to help you. The thing we’re focussed on now is finding out what happened to James, alright?”
Kidd had to stop himself from open-mouth staring at Owen. He’d told him to chime in when he had something to say and that was definitely something to say. He even saw David calm down a little bit, taking a deep breath and a slow sip of his water before turning his gaze back to the two officers.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just been a lot to deal with.” He cleared his throat. “His parents told me about it a couple of days ago. I’ve been processing. I’ve not left the house really.”
“It must be a very difficult time for you,” Kidd said. “Do you mind taking us through what happened at the wake? Maybe let us know a bit more about James?”
“He was the loveliest guy,” David said, nodding along to himself. “Really just great. Everybody liked him. I don’t…I don’t know why anyone would…and it was so brutal, wasn’t it?” David locked eyes with Kidd now, wide and pleading. “It was brutal.”
“Yes, it was quite,” Kidd said flatly. “Do you know of anyone who would want to do something like that to him?”
“No idea,” David said quickly. Maybe a little too quickly for Kidd’s liking but he could have been looking for something that wasn’t there. “Like I said. He was lovely. It could have been any one of us really…” He trailed off, his eyes finding the rim of his water glass and focussing on it, like he could make it tip over with his mind if he wanted to.
“How do you mean?” Owen asked, leaning forward in his chair.
“What’s that now?”
“You said it could have been any one of you, why do you say that?”
Intelligent line of questioning, Kidd thought. He might not be such a lost cause after all.
David sat back in his chair, shuffling around, uncomfortable. There was that quiver in his voice again.
“I just mean that we’re all local,” he said. “Or at least for the funeral we were. I’ve not been back for a little while, neither has Tom or Asim, but Bill is. James too. Any one of us could have been walking home and whoever it was could have got us. It doesn’t bear thinking about really, I know, but it was just wrong place, wrong time. There are some properly mental people out there.”
Kidd bristled at that. It was one thing to be upset about your friend dying but to turn it around and make it about you, especially so close to it happening? That didn’t sit well with Kidd. As for the wrong place, wrong time…
“It’s a rare day that we see someone get murdered and it’s totally random,” Kidd said perhaps a little too bluntly. “There’s usually a motive, a reason for it. I’m not saying he deserved it, I’m just saying that there might have been someone out there who wanted to hurt James for some reason. It’s our job to get to the bottom of that.”
David looked a little more frightened than he had done a few moments ago. “Does that mean I might be in danger?”
Kidd did his best to suppress a sigh. “Not what I’m saying at all, Mr Oliver,” he said. “We’re just trying to get a picture of James’ last movements. So if we could focus on James, that would be wonderful.” Kidd cleared his throat and turned his attention back to his notebook. “Now please, could you tell us a little more about James and about the wake?”
David nodded, taking another sip of water and looking around the kitchen as if the words were going to magically appear out of one of the brand new cupboards.
“We went to the funeral together,” he said. “We all got an invite, a bunch of people from our school too, I don’t know why. I guess his wife, Mr Paige’s wife that is, she must have thought we would want to pay our respects. Maybe he used to talk about us to her or something.”
“He knew all of you?”
“Yes, oh God, yes,” David replied. “We were in his English class all five years we were at school. All of us were.”
“All of us, being?” Campbell asked, pen poised.
“Me, James, Asim, Bill, and Tom,” he said. “We all went together. I don’t think any of us really wanted to go. But, I don’t know, it sort of felt like the right thing to do I guess?”
“And what happened while you were there?” Kidd said. He could feel himself coming to a dead end. Five boys go to a wake, one turns up dead. What’s missing? Something had to be missing here.
“Not a lot really,” David said. “We talked, we drank, we talked to some old school friends who also got the invite.”
“Anything strange happen?” Kidd pressed. “Anything at all that springs to mind?”
“Nothing strange,” David said. “Robin was acting a little bit odd but that’s understandable I guess.”
“Robin?” Kidd asked. “Who’s Robin?”
“Robin Paige,” David said. “We weren’t really friends at school, a lot of people were dicks to him actually.” He seemed to hesitate before he continued. It made Kidd sit up a little straighter. “We barely spoke to him but, like I said, he was acting a little strange.”
“Strange how?” Kidd asked.
David shrugged. “It’s probably nothing,” he said. “The guy was grieving for his dad, you’re bound to look a little out of place if you’re in your feelings about that.”
“Mr Oliver, please?” Kidd said. “If you can elaborate, please do, he might be worth talking to.”
“He was just…skulking around,” David said, visibly cringing. “On the edges of rooms, watching everybody in the place. I don’t want to incriminate him or anything, he probably was just feeling shit. He drank a lot. I can’t blame him but he was drinking heavily.”
For someone who didn’t want to incriminate Robin Paige, he was doing an awfully good job of doing just that. Kidd took a few notes and looked back at David Oliver. He was still visibly shaken, still looking a little bit uncomfortable. The picture they were getting of this night still wasn’t clear, at least not clear enough to proceed. They needed more. Much more.
CHAPTER TEN
Zoe and Janya drove past Twickenham Stadium and up towards Mrs Paige’s house. There was still a crime scene on the alleyway that James had been murdered in, a couple of PCs nearby to stop anyone from trampling things, some posters put up to ask if anyone has any information that they think might be useful to the investigation. Those things rarely worked, but every now and again there would be someone who had seen something, no matter how trivial, and it helped them somewhat.
But this had happened late on a Saturday night while there had been a rugby match on. Zoe wasn’t counting on it.
Mrs Paige, or someone they assumed was Mrs Paige, was at the window the second they pulled up outside her house. She pulled back the net curtains and stared out at them as the car stopped.
“Classic curtain twitcher,” Zoe said as she shut off the car. “I think she might end up being quite useful to us, you know?”
“Why’s that?” Janya asked.
“If she’s obsessing about seeing us pull up, you can bet your life she’s the kind of person to keep tabs on absolutely everyone,” Zoe said. “If nothing else, she’ll be able to help paint us a picture of what happened that night. If the wake happened at her house, she’ll know who was using what glass, what coaster—”
“You really think so?” DC Ravel laughed.
Zoe laughed too. “I might be overdoing it a little bit but I do think she’s going to be useful. Tread carefully though, yeah? She’s just lost her husband, I can’t imagine she’ll be taking this news well.”
Mrs Paige was on the porch before the two of them had even gotten out of the car. She was a thin woman dressed head to toe in black. Her hair was dead straight, hanging a little limply around her face. She didn’t look old enough to have a husband who had just died. In a strange way that made it all the more heartbreaking for DS Sanchez and DC Ravel as they walked up the path to greet her.
Mrs Paige opened the door, poking her head around the gap to address them. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“Yes, Mrs
Paige, is it?” Sanchez asked. She nodded in response. “My name is DS Zoe Sanchez, this is DC Janya Ravel,” she showed her ID before she could ask to see it. She struck her as the type who might. “We would love to come in and speak to you about an incident that happened near here.”
“Incident?” she said, her ears pricking up, her back straightening. Maybe it was the promise of gossip that caught her attention. “Is that what all that tape has been for down there?” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the stadium. “Awful stuff, heard it was a young lad, wasn’t it? Don’t know what you expect me to know about it.”
“Could we come in, Mrs Paige?” Sanchez asked
“It’s Caroline,” she said. “You can call me Caroline.”
“Okay, Caroline,” Sanchez said. “I think it might be better if we’re sitting down for this, that’s all.”
For a moment, Caroline Paige looked confused, almost worried about DS Sanchez wanting to come inside. She looked at the two of them carefully, pulling her black cardigan a little tighter around herself. Eventually, she nodded and ushered them both inside. It didn’t escape Zoe’s notice that Mrs Paige looked to either side of her before stepping back inside, almost like she was making sure her neighbours weren’t nosing in on her business. It was interesting.
She guided them into the living room, quickly scurrying off to make them tea before they got down to their conversation. She returned with a full pot and three small china cups, even a little bowl of sugar cubes sat perfectly next to the pot of milk. Mrs Paige was clearly used to entertaining.
“Now, what can I help you with?” she asked once she’d poured the tea. “It’s a terrible business what’s happened down there. Nettie, lovely lady who lives next door, bit nosy but who am I to talk? Nettie said it was a murder. Is that right? A murder on Richmond borough?”
It happened more often than anyone who lived here would probably like to know. But Zoe nodded to confirm that it had in fact been a murder. Caroline’s face went slack, her eyes widening. It may happen all the time in Zoe’s line of work but for someone like Mrs Paige, it was likely something that never came about. She probably only saw it on the news or on TV shows. She was practically salivating at the gossip.