by GS Rhodes
“Is clearly a professional criminal mastermind who is giving you the slip?” Superintendent Charles finished with a sneer. “Don’t give me that, Kidd, I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Then perhaps you should stop acting like you were, sir,” Kidd snapped.
“Kidd,” Weaver hissed.
“They left more mistakes on the first body than they did on the second,” Kidd continued, ignoring his boss and keeping his gaze trained on the Super. He was still reeling from his previous comment. Kidd enjoyed seeing him on the back foot. “We have a shoe print that we can match to one of the two houses we’re going to be searching this afternoon. Three bodies it may be, sir, but I’ll be damned if there’s a fourth. A day or so and we’ll have the fucker that did this behind bars.”
“Kidd,” Weaver hissed again, steam practically coming out of his ears, his face bright red.
“Now, now, Paddy, calm down,” Superintendent Charles said, righting himself, drawing up to his full height, which didn’t quite match Kidd’s no matter how much he puffed out his chest. He raised a finger to the DI, locking eyes with him and refusing to break eye contact. “Now you listen hear, Benjamin Kidd.”
“Yes, boss,” Kidd replied.
“I can take all of this away from you in a heartbeat, did you know that?” he said. “I can strip you of your badge, of your rank, I can get you thrown off this force faster than you can come up with a smart comment to knock back at me.”
Kidd allowed a smirk to tug at the corners of his mouth. He’d like to see him try.
“I wanted to speak to you because I want progress above all else,” he said, every word a little jab that Kidd refused to wince at. “I want this case solved just as much as you do, and I want it done fast. If you can’t do it, we’ll find somebody who can. Is that clear?”
Kidd took a moment, taking a deep breath and fixing him with a cold hard stare.
“Crystal, boss,” Kidd replied. He opened his mouth to speak again when his phone started ringing in his pocket. Not now, he thought. Bloody hell, not now. It vibrated against his thigh and whirred loudly. “May I be excused?” he said.
Superintendent Charles sneered at him. “Dismissed.”
Kidd nodded his head. “Sir.”
He walked from the room, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone.
WITHELD NUMBER.
This was going to drive him insane. Why did he keep answering it? Why was he torturing himself like this?
“Hello?” he said down the phone as he walked towards the outside of the station, buzzing himself through the door and taking in a deep breath of that slightly polluted London air. Nothing came back to him down the phone. There was shuffling. The sound of someone actually breathing this time.
Kidd let out a growl. “Is this some kind of sick joke?” he barked. “Look, if you’re going to do the creepy breathing thing, at least give me something to go on, eh? Strike the fear of God in me, do something, do anything?”
Nothing came back.
“Whoever you are, you’re fucking useless.”
Kidd hung up the phone. He wanted to throw the thing at the ground, smash it into a thousand pieces if he could, but he needed it. He knew that. And he knew that making a scene in the middle of the street would only succeed in drawing more attention to himself. Attention he didn’t want.
He took a breath and was about to head back inside when the phone rang again. He answered it immediately.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but would you just leave me alone?”
“Ben?” John’s voice came down the line. Kidd froze, his mouth half open, his eyes wide. Everything in his body suddenly felt cold. “I…I sincerely hope that wasn’t meant for me.”
Kidd took a breath, trying to steady himself.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“No. Christ, no, not in the slightest,” he blabbered, the words coming out in a rush. “I’ve been…I’m having a bit of a tough…there have been…” He couldn’t put it into words, couldn’t find the right way to say that his overreaction had been warranted and he’s under a lot of pressure and—
“Something to explain later then?” John said with a laugh. “Is everything okay?”
Kidd sighed. “Not really,” he replied. “It’s all getting a little bit tense here and I’ve been getting these calls…” He trailed off again.
“From?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “The phone rings, it’s a Withheld Number, I answer it, and no one is there.”
“Then why do you keep answering it?”
“Because I can hear someone on the other end of the line,” he said. “At first, I thought it was a prank thing or somebody wanting to tell me I’ve been in an accident or something but…I don’t know. It’s silly.”
“And you thought yelling would make them talk to you?”
Kidd laughed. “In hindsight, not my best strategy,” he said. “Sorry I yelled.”
“Hey, you weren’t yelling at me,” John replied and Kidd could hear the smile on his face which told him everything was sort of okay, even if he had taken John by surprise. “If you were yelling at me like that, it would be a totally different story. Now, about tonight?”
“Yeah, tonight would be great,” Kidd said. “And maybe…maybe prepare to stay over this time?” He said it like a question, but he so wanted John to stay over.
John chuckled. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you tonight when you’re done. Text me?”
“Sure thing.”
They hung up and Kid found himself looking at his phone, again wondering what on earth he had done to deserve someone like John McAdams. Truth be told, right now, he really didn’t deserve him at all. But it certainly wasn’t the time to open that particular can of worms.
He turned around to see Weaver at the door to the police station. He didn’t want to know how much he had heard, but he had a grave look on his face.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
“Fine, boss,” Kidd replied. “Why?”
Weaver eyed him curiously. “No reason,” he said. “We’ve got the warrants.”
It was go-time. One way or another, they were going to figure out if Robin had done this, and then they would need to track him down. The afternoon was ticking on, but Kidd’s day felt like it was only just beginning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
They split off into teams, just as they had done earlier on in the day. They could cover more ground, get both of the warrants done, and maybe get more of a handle on who the bloody hell they were supposed to be looking for.
DCs Campbell and Powell took it upon themselves to go and search the place with the other officers. They would know what they were looking for, or at least would be able to see what it was should they find it.
Tanya didn’t seem all that surprised when they showed up at her apartment again, her face only shifting briefly to surprise before accepting that they were here to look through her things.
Owen Campbell wasn’t entirely sure how to take that. Though she’d been very cooperative so far, so why wouldn’t she continue to be that way with them now? She let them in without much fuss, not really saying a lot while the officers looked through her things, picking through her cupboards and drawers while wearing plastic gloves so as not to contaminate anything.
“It’s just routine,” Owen said, watching her as she stood to one side, her arms folded. The officers didn’t care much for keeping things tidy. Unfortunately, what they needed to do was see everything, and see it in as quick a time frame as possible. It wasn’t delicate, it was thorough. “We—”
“You think I did it,” she interrupted, turning to him, a smile curling at the corners of her mouth. “I understand why, you’re just doing your job. I said some…questionable things this morning.”
“Something like that,” Campbell said, a lazy smile appearing on his face. “It would be wrong of us to not at least check it out. You understand.”
“Of co
urse.”
“You may be brought in for more questioning,” he said. “So if you could remain contactable over the next few days…”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I’ve got no photography jobs booked or anything, just my day job. If you need to talk to me more, you know where to find me.” She locked eyes with him, smiling. “If you need to talk to me about anything, that is.”
Campbell could feel the heat rising in his face. “Oh, alright then,” he said. “I’ll…um…I’ll keep that in mind then.”
“Good.”
They stood there for a little while longer, just staring at each other amongst the chaos of Tanya’s apartment. A warm feeling spread through Campbell’s chest, one that he couldn’t deny or ignore. He would definitely be calling Tanya Green, so long as she wasn’t the murderer of course. He was fairly sure she wasn’t, but that thought might have been coming from a bit further south than his brain.
“Owen?” DC Powell’s voice sounded from a room just off the living area. He poked his head around the door, his face flushed, a little bit of sweat beading on his brow. “Can I borrow you for a second?”
“Sure, sure thing,” he said, looking to where his face had been and then back to Tanya. “I’d…uh…best get on.”
She smiled. “You do that.”
He walked away from her, snaking his way around the mess that some of the officers had made on the floor, through the piles of personal belongings, and into what was Tanya’s bedroom. With the brief, but slightly intense, conversation they had just had, there was a small part of him that felt suddenly like he was intruding by seeing her bedroom so quickly. It was a feeling he had to shake away.
You’re being ridiculous, he thought. You’ve got a bloody job to do, now do it.
The bedroom walls had been painted a midnight blue colour, more photographs stuck to the walls in various patterns, from Polaroids to proper full-size photographs all the way up to blown up canvases. It was the Polaroids on the wall that caught Campbell’s attention.
“We’ve found these,” Powell said from one side of the room. He didn’t have Campbell’s full focus. He tried again. “Owen, over here,” he added.
Campbell turned and walked over to the chest of drawers Simon was standing beside. He’d pulled the top drawer almost all the way out so it was hanging awkwardly out of its body. There were scrapbooks in there, corners of photos hanging out of them.
“What about it?” Campbell said.
“Just interesting, that’s all,” Simon said. “But this is what I wanted to show you.” He pulled out the top one, a blue scrapbook. It looked new, hardly touched. In fact, it was the only scrapbook in the whole drawer that didn’t seem to be bursting with photos. It was neater.
Campbell could see the sweat pooling in the fingertips of Simon’s plastic gloves where he held the scrapbook. It made his own gloved hands feel all the moister. The quicker he could get them off the better. He took the book from Powell and started to flick through it.
“What’s so interesting about this one?” Campbell asked, eyeing the photographs carefully.
“Look at the people in the pictures, Owen,” Powell said, a little exasperated.
Campbell looked closer. He recognised the faces in them. The lads he’d seen on the evidence board, laughing, joking, drinking.
A solitary “Oh” was all he could manage.
“They’re from the wake,” Powell said. “At least I think they are, I’ve not been to Mrs Paige’s house but we could always ask.”
“You think there might be something in them?” Campbell asked.
Simon shrugged. “I don’t know, but look—” He took the book back from Campbell and flicked through a few pages before landing on a shot of all of the boys together, talking, joking about something. They didn’t seem to be aware that they were having their picture taken.
Simon pointed to a figure in the background, just out of sight and a little bit out of focus. Standing in a corner of the room was Robin Paige, his eyes fixed squarely on the boys as they drank, as they laughed, as they had a good time at his father’s funeral.
“Is there any more?” Campbell asked.
“This is the first one I saw,” Simon said. “But you never know. It might be worth looking into. If it’s not Robin, maybe it can give us an idea of where to go from here. Maybe.”
“Sure, sure,” Campbell said. “Bag it up.”
“One other thing,” Simon said, lowering his voice and shuffling a little closer to Campbell. He didn’t want Tanya to hear him. “I’m starting to wonder if whoever it is that’s doing this isn’t working alone.”
Campbell furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we’ve got multiple suspects,” Simon started. “It could be one of the other guys, it could even be Tanya. She’s a photographer, she’s got all these Polaroids—”
“And because she’s got Polaroids, she’s suddenly a murderer?”
“Not what I’m saying,” Simon snapped. “All I’m saying is, given the number of people we’re currently looking into, what if there’s more than one person doing this? We spent so much time in the last case trying to pin it on one guy, we totally missed out on the fact that there were two people working together. Maybe even three, if we include Chris Harper’s wife.”
Campbell considered it for a moment. It made perfect sense, of course, to consider all of the options. And it was a lot of work for one person to do alone, so maybe it could be true. It certainly wasn’t something they should rule out.
“We’ll bring it up with the rest of the team when we get back,” Campbell said.
He handed the photo book back to Powell, unable to get that image of Robin Paige out of his head. Maybe it was just the picture, but he looked angry, frustrated, like if the rest of the people in that room hadn’t been there he would have done something to them there and then. But maybe he was overthinking it. He couldn’t be sure.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I don’t know how I feel about you going in his bedroom,” Mrs Paige had said when she answered the door. “He’s a very private person, he doesn’t like me going in there, I don’t know how he would feel if—”
“Mrs Paige, this isn’t a request,” Kidd said. She’d been on the defensive since they’d shown up on her doorstep. While she’d tried to be as helpful as possible when they’d talked to her about Robin yesterday, now she didn’t seem to be on their side. It was rubbing Kidd up the wrong way. He wanted to get a move on and she was trying to stop them. “We have a warrant to search Robin’s bedroom, and we need to in order to continue this investigation. Have you seen him since we spoke to you yesterday?”
“No,” she said quickly, but she didn’t seem sure.
“Mrs Paige—”
“I’ve not seen him,” she snapped. “I told you. He’s a very private person and often does his own thing and I haven’t seen him since I saw you. He goes out, he stays with friends, he doesn’t sleep here every single night.”
Kidd eyed her curiously. Whatever she was selling, he wasn’t buying. She was too panicked, too stressed out, and it made Kidd feel like she was hiding something. He didn’t like being lied to.
“Is everything okay, Caroline?” Zoe asked, stepping a little closer to the front door. “You seem tense.”
“Of course I’m tense,” she barked. “I’ve got two officers wanting to barge into my house and rummage through my things, my son is nowhere to be found, and you think he’s…” she trailed off. She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. Kidd had seen the lengths that a parent would go to in order to protect their child from the police, even if their child had done wrong. How far would Mrs Paige go?
“Mrs Paige,” Kidd said bluntly. “We have a warrant to search Robin’s bedroom in this property. Either you let us in so that we can start our search, or we will have to use force. Those are your two options, but you are wasting everyone’s time right now.”
Mrs Paige looked tense, unsure. She held onto
the doorframe as if it were the only thing keeping her upright. Kidd couldn’t help but feel for her. Her entire world was falling apart, it wasn’t really any wonder she seemed at the end of her rope. He watched her take a heavy breath, like it was taking every bit of her strength to do even that. She turned her gaze to the sky, and then back to the two detectives. Defeat or acceptance? Kidd couldn’t tell.
She stepped to one side and let the officers enter. Kidd couldn’t help but notice her gaze quickly flick to the houses on the left and right of her, even across the street. In all this she was still wondering who was watching, which curtains were twitching after her. She closed the door behind them.
Kidd couldn’t stop himself looking down at the rack of shoes by the door. There weren’t many on there, some smart shoes, a couple of pairs of trainers. He thought back to the print they had at the station. If any of these shoes were Robin’s, it was possible they could get a match. Though what were the chances he wasn’t currently wearing them if he was still out and about?
They walked up the stairs and towards what Mrs Paige told them was Robin’s bedroom. Almost like she couldn’t bear to see what they were about to do to his room, she took a giant step back and waited on the landing, the door wide open, beckoning them to enter.
Kidd walked in first and was surprised at what he saw.
Bare white walls, a single bed pushed up against the window, damp creeping up behind it. In the darkest corners of the room, you could see where the walls had become a little dirty, a little less than perfect. There was a chest of drawers and a wardrobe, and nothing else at all. But it smelled…clean.
“Christ,” Zoe whispered. “This is…” she trailed off. “I don’t know what this is.”
Kidd looked at the carpet on the floor. He could just make out the tracks from where someone had been vacuuming. He couldn’t place when exactly, but it looked recent. Someone had sprayed something in here too, Febreze or some kind of fabric perfume. It had that artificial clean cotton smell which was only ever used when someone was trying to hide something. And if Robin wasn’t here, it was Mrs Paige who had something to hide. But what?