Your Best Shot: An Electrifying British Crime Thriller (DI Benjamin Kidd Crime Thrillers Book 3)

by GS Rhodes

  “Are we giving them any?”

  “We’ll give them details when we have them,” Weaver said, locking eyes with Kidd once more. “And that depends on you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Kidd was excused from his meeting with DCI Weaver and made his way back to the Incident Room. As instructed, DC Simon Powell had gotten the tea and coffee order together, complete with a couple of pastries that someone had the foresight to bring in earlier that morning. It was hardly the time or the place for a tea party, but Kidd needed to eat, and he figured that he might as well indulge while they went through whatever evidence they had managed to gather so far.

  “The biggest thing we managed to get was Robin Paige,” DC Ravel said after she’d filled them in about their discussion with Mrs Paige. “Didn’t even know there was a son involved, but we managed to have a brief chat with him.”

  “And?” Kidd asked.

  “Surly little bastard,” Ravel said, quickly righting herself when she realised what she’d said. “Sorry, not professional. I didn’t write that down, sir.”

  Kidd couldn’t help but smile.

  “Wouldn’t blame you if you had,” Sanchez said with a smirk. “He really was. No interest in us whatsoever.”

  “Apparently, he was acting strange at the wake,” Kidd said. “At least according to a couple of the lads we managed to speak to. Anything on Bill yet, Simon?”

  DC Powell shook his head. “Not a thing, sir. I’ll keep trying.”

  “He’s gonna have a thousand missed calls from us, he’s going to wonder what’s happened.”

  “He already knows what’s happened,” Kidd said. “It’s what he knows about what’s happened that I’m worried about.”

  Sanchez eyed him curiously for a moment before turning her attention back to Janya, nodding at her to continue.

  “We told Robin about what had happened to James and he didn’t seem all that bothered,” she said. “Actually, I’d go so far as to say he didn’t even care. Said they weren’t close friends or anything and that it, and I quote, ‘sucks for him.’”

  “Jesus Christ,” Campbell said, laughing a little bit. “That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”

  “They bullied him, I think,” Kidd said, ignoring Campbell as was his default setting. “I haven’t been able to get them to say that in so many words but there has been mention of ‘giving him a hard time’ as well as some of the teachers. That sounds like something a bully would say to downplay what they were doing to him.”

  “You think he did it?” Zoe asked.

  Kidd shrugged. “I would say it’s a definite possibility. He’s a suspect for sure.”

  “Right, right, so we need to talk to him again,” Zoe said, her brow furrowed with concern. “Sorry, Kidd. If I’d known, I would have gone a bit harder on him while we were questioning him. Anything else you managed to pick up from the other lads?”

  Kidd deferred to Campbell.

  “We got to talk to David, Tom, and Asim,” he said. “They provided pretty much identical statements as to what happened at the wake, both Tom and Asim said that Robin Paige was acting strange.”

  “Not David?” Zoe chimed in.

  “He seemed more concerned about himself than he did about James,” Kidd said.

  “Charming.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Kidd replied. “Carry on, Owen.”

  “There are two we’ve not yet managed to track down,” Campbell said. “Bill, which is who Simon has been stalking all morning, and Stephen London.”

  Zoe sat up a little straighter, her face twisting in confusion. She looked at the board and then over at Kidd. “Am I supposed to know who that is?” she asked.

  “We only found out when Asim mentioned he’s been off-grid for a few days. Apparently, he was supposed to be at the wake but he was a no-show.”

  Zoe locked eyes with Kidd. They’d worked together for long enough that they sometimes knew what the other person was thinking, but Kidd could tell that Zoe was finding him hard to read at that moment.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure on this one,” he replied. “There are a couple of possibilities here. Either he got busy and changed his mind about the wake—people work, people have lives, it’s possible it just didn’t work for him. But then you’ve got to wonder why he didn’t tell anybody about his change of plans.”

  “So, you think he’s either responsible for what happened to James, or he’s in trouble?”

  “Exactly,” Kidd said, getting to his feet. “Stephen London is our next port of call. We need to check through any Missing Persons reports, see if his name crops up anywhere, we need to track him down. Janya, if you could start checking those. Owen, I want this board updated with pictures and all the information that we’ve got. I want a timeline.”

  The team mobilised, DC Ravel hurrying over to her desk, DC Campbell lumbering over to the board and staring at it somewhat confused. Kidd decided to just let him get on with it.

  “What about Bill?” Simon asked.

  “See it through,” Kidd said. “See if any of the other guys have an address for him, and check to make sure you have the right phone number. He’s still important.”

  “In the same way as Stephen, do you think?” Zoe asked, following Kidd as he started back towards his desk. “Either he’s responsible or he’s in trouble?”

  Kidd sighed. “I hate to say it but that’s probably right, isn’t it?”

  “I think it’s best that we treat it that way for sure,” she replied. “Can’t be too careful. But it’s early days.”

  “Yeah,” Kidd said, nodding. “Early days.” He didn’t want another body on his hands this early in an investigation. He hoped that they hadn’t been too slow and already lost someone else. Just the thought of it made him feel cold.

  “What did Weaver want?” she asked. “Everything okay there?”

  “Something’s going on with him too,” Kidd said, sitting down and turning to his computer. “I don’t know what it is, and when I asked this morning he basically bit my head off so I’m not about to ask again.” He sighed. “He wants me to do things by the book.”

  Sanchez snorted. “Like that’s going to happen. Didn’t he say that to you with The Grinning Murders case? Didn’t want you off acting like a loose cannon or whatever cliché it was he rolled out?”

  Kidd laughed. “Something like that, yeah. But I think he meant it this time. He’s got the Super breathing down his neck and…I don’t know. Something about what he was saying makes me think he’s serious. No jumping to conclusions, no fuck ups on my part. This needs to be done and it needs to be done right.”

  Zoe chuckled to herself and nodded. She clearly didn’t believe that Kidd was capable of following the rules when it came to a case, but she certainly admired that he was, for once in his career, making a concerted effort to not piss off the DCI. It was how she knew that something had to be seriously wrong with the gaffer for this to be Kidd’s reaction.

  “What do you think of the whole Robin Paige situation?” Kidd asked.

  Zoe untied her hair, shaking it free from the ponytail and letting it hang down over her shoulders as she leant back on a nearby desk. “It’s a tough one really,” she said. “He’s the obvious choice isn’t he? You want to bring him in?”

  “I don’t want to piss off Weaver.”

  “Ben,” Zoe said, all but rolling her eyes at him, “you can’t just not bring a suspect in because you’re afraid of pissing off the gaffer.”

  “It’s not just him I’ll be pissing off, it’s the Super too,” he said. “Weaver’s worried about the press and all sorts, I don’t want to give him a reason to go apeshit at me.”

  “Then we need to go and talk to Robin,” Zoe said. “If these lads gave him a hard time at school, we need his version of events. At least give him a chance to clear his name.”

  “I agree,” Kidd said. “But I think we need to move on getting Stephen and Bill found.
If they’re in trouble too—”

  “I know what you mean,” Zoe said.

  The whole thing felt like a tap dance in a mine field. No matter which way they stepped, something was going to happen. Something felt like it was going to explode.

  “How long do we wait?”

  Kidd opened his mouth to speak. Normally when it came to things like that he wouldn’t hesitate, but something about this just wasn’t adding up in his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t know.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  What had started as a day that felt productive, like they were actually getting somewhere with the investigation, had ground to a halt, and it was giving Kidd itchy feet. Filling out paperwork was a part of the job he had always hated, and normally, it could be avoided when you were on a case because there were leads to be chasing. Right now their leads were there, but there was nothing to chase and he hated it. The day was dragging on and it was fixing to drive him insane.

  It was when he saw activity over near DC Ravel’s desk that things started to get interesting again. He sat up straight as she answered the phone on its first ring. She turned her head to him as she spoke, taking down notes with one hand, beckoning him over with the other, balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder.

  She’d finished by the time he got to her.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Missing persons report,” she said a little breathlessly. “Well, sort of, not exactly. But it’s something to go on.”

  “What is it?”

  She looked at her screen and at the notes she had taken, tearing off a post it and handing it to him. It was an address.

  “This is where Stephen London works,” she said. “It’s an estate agent. He didn’t come into work on Thursday or Friday, didn’t show up today either. At first they thought he was just sick or something, but a colleague called in because she was worried about him.”

  “So has it been logged as a report?”

  “No,” she said. “The colleague called up asking about that, but it hadn’t. She didn’t want to report him missing because she didn’t know that he was. She didn’t want to cause any trouble, apparently just said something about her boss being mad.”

  “Right, right, right,” Kidd said. “This is brilliant, thank you, Janya. Fantastic.”

  “I’m just off the phone with her,” Janya said. “She knows that you’re on your way over, she seemed…I don’t know.”

  “What?” Kidd asked.

  “She was talking super quietly,” she said. “Like she didn’t want anyone to know she was talking to us.”

  The phone rang again, this time not on Janya’s desk but on Simon’s. Kidd turned sharply to watch an entirely different display play out before him. While Janya had grabbed the phone on the first ring, DC Simon Powell had obviously been taking desk organisation tips from Zoe Sanchez. There were papers all over the phone, muffling its cries, and a collection of food wrappers falling to the floor before he managed to retrieve it from his desk’s lower depths. Kidd stopped himself from rolling his eyes.

  “Hello?” Powell answered, flustered and red-faced. He took a few notes on a crumb-covered napkin before hanging up the phone. “I’ve got an address for Bill,” he said quickly, a little out of breath. “Sorry for the chaos, boss, just caught me off guard.” His hand went to his chest, the shock of a phone call clearly too much for him.

  Give me strength, Kidd thought.

  “Right, good work,” he said begrudgingly. “If you and Campbell can get yourselves out there to check that out, see if he’s around, that would be wonderful.” It was a relief to have something to do, to have somewhere to be. “Zoe, you’re with me,” he called over his shoulder, heading for the Incident Room door and out into the fading day.

  ◆◆◆

  The office wasn’t too far from the police station but they’d decided to drive in case this person they were meeting would be able to provide them with an address for Stephen London. They didn’t want to waste any time if they could help it. Situated on the corner facing Kingston Train Station, Good Move Real Estate was a fresh, clean looking office space with a few impeccably dressed people sat at desks inside. The lights were a bright white and so were the teeth of every single person inside as they turned to smile at Kidd and Zoe looking through the glass.

  They must have done a deal with the dentist down the road, he thought.

  A young man walked towards the front door, buttoning up his grey suitcoat and adjusting his tie before opening it. There wasn’t a single second where his smile slipped. It was unnerving, to say the least. If Stepford had a real estate office, it would probably look something like this.

  “Hello there, you two,” he said, still beaming at the pair of them. “Anything I can help you with at all?” He was smarmy and he was already rubbing Kidd up the wrong way.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Are you looking for somewhere to rent or buy?” he asked. “We’ve got some fabulous properties right on the riverside—”

  “Actually we’re looking for someone,” Kidd said.

  “Well, we don’t have any of those for sale,” the man said with a laugh so loud and forced it rang out across the street. “Who are you looking for?”

  “Jen Frost,” Kidd said. “We’re from Kingston Police, we just had a few questions.”

  “Ooh, I hope she’s not in trouble,” the man said, angling his body inside. Kidd was getting sick and tired of his play acting. He had a job to do and this man was in his way. “Jen, there’s some coppers out here to see you. What sort of trouble have you been getting up to?”

  He walked back inside, the door swinging shut behind him. He was obviously making a few more jokes inside, his voice booming across the office floor and eliciting laughs from some of the other agents. All except one.

  A mixed race woman Kidd assumed to be Jen Frost walked across the office floor, her head bowed low, her black hair cut short and close to her head. She didn’t look up as she passed the man who had greeted them, slipping by him and out the door to face the two officers.

  “Hey,” she said, shutting the door. Her voice was surprisingly quiet after the onslaught they’d just suffered. She tucked her hands into her pockets and stared at them. “Thank you for coming down. I’m…I’m sorry about him.” She looked back into the estate agency and saw everyone watching her. She visibly cringed. “What can I help you with? Is this about…? Is this about Stephen? I didn’t want any bother, I was just wondering if…is he alright?”

  There was an outburst of laughter from inside the office. Kidd looked to see that everybody inside had turned their chairs to face the windows, watching them while they talked. Jen looked decidedly uncomfortable.

  “Do you want to go somewhere else?” Zoe said.

  “Can we?” she asked but quickly hesitated. “I mean, I can maybe come for five minutes before my boss will start asking questions but…” She trailed off. “Yeah, that would be good.”

  They walked a little way down the road, away from the staring eyes of her colleagues, down towards a row of bus stops stationed a little way across from the shop fronts. Jen perched on a wall, seeming to let go of a heavy breath as she took the weight off her feet.

  “Charming guy, that one who came to the door,” Kidd said. “Bet he’s everybody’s best friend, huh?”

  “He’s the boss’s son,” Jen said, the smile on her face betraying the venom in her words. “He’s the best.”

  “Gets away with murder then,” Zoe suggested.

  “You could say that,” she replied. “Stephen is the only one I like there, to be honest. Only reason I’ve stayed.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Kidd asked.

  “Wednesday night,” she replied, not having to even think about it. Kidd could hear the worry in her voice, the slight shake, the way she could barely meet their eyes. “We went out for a couple of drinks and he mentioned that he was going to a fune
ral on Saturday. When he wasn’t in on Thursday, I guessed that maybe he’d taken some time off to grieve, but…”

  “But what?” Zoe asked.

  “My boss wondered where he was, so I sent him a couple of messages, he didn’t reply to them,” Jen said. “I called him and he didn’t pick up or anything. I called the police this morning asking if he’d been reported missing. I…I’m worried about him.”

  “Have you been over to his home?”

  “I’ve never been,” she said. “I know he grew up around here and came back after he finished Uni to work and stuff but…we were getting close. We weren’t close enough to know each other that well outside of work. Not yet anyway. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise,” Kidd said. “You’ve been incredibly helpful. So the last time you heard from him was Wednesday. No contact at all since then?”

  “No,” Jen said. “Is he in trouble, do you think?”

  Kidd didn’t know how to answer that. Someone going completely off-grid like that was definitely cause for concern. But he didn’t want to worry Jen more than she already was.

  “We’re looking into it,” he said. “We’ll keep you posted on any developments as soon as we have them. Is there any way you can get us an address for him?”

  Jen hesitated. She took a breath before reaching into her pocket and pulling out her phone. She passed it to Kidd. Written in the notes app was an address. It was dated today.

  “I was going to go there after work,” she said. “I’d not heard from him all weekend and as much as I didn’t want to pry…I don’t know. I’m scared for him. I got it off the system at work. Please don’t tell my boss, she’ll go absolutely ballistic if—”

  “We won’t say a word,” Zoe assured her.

  Kidd made a note of the address before handing the phone back to Jen. They took her number before saying their goodbyes, Jen heading back into the office. As the door opened, Kidd could hear applause, laughter. She really was working with a bunch of assholes.