Just Keep Breathing

by GS Rhodes

  But the Kaye Residence itself was meticulous. It looked clean, the yellow bricks on the outside looking like they’d been freshly jet washed. They had to be paying a window cleaner because there wasn’t a spot on any of the windows and the bright white door seemed to have a strange glow to it in the late winter sun.

  DS Sanchez got out of the car, Powell following suit, and headed towards the front door. The gate didn’t even squeak when they opened it. Everything about the house was a well-oiled machine—in the case of the gate, that was literal.

  Zoe knocked firmly on the door, the gold knocker jumping each time her fist landed on the plastic. She heard the shuffling about inside, the sound of a lock being pushed to one side, before the door opened.

  Alexandra Kaye opened the door just a crack, poking her head into the gap and looking out at DS Sanchez and DC Powell. Her eyes widened as she saw them. She looked, for want of a better word, exhausted, as far as DS Sanchez could see. The rings beneath her eyes were heavy and dark, her hair didn’t look like it had even been touched with a brush that morning.

  “Hello again,” she said. “Is this about Norman?” she asked. And it was so sudden that it threw Zoe a little bit off balance. She righted herself and smiled at Ms Kaye.

  “No, we released Norman last night,” Zoe said. “We’re actually here hoping we can have a chat with Caleb. We called the school but they told us that he was off. Could we have a word?”

  “He’s sick,” she said. “He won’t come out of his room, the poor lamb. But I don’t feel all that well myself so I’m wondering if whatever he’s got I’ve managed to pick up.”

  She backed away from the door a little, allowing it to open further. Zoe would have taken that as an invitation to step inside, but Alexandra Kaye seemed to be blocking the whole of the hallway. She didn’t want them to come in, that much was for certain.

  “It would be really useful if we could talk to him,” Zoe said. “It shouldn’t take too long, just wanted to have a word about Sarah.”

  “He’s been so upset since she went missing,” she said, just like she had done last night. Her eyes looked red upon closer inspection, her face a little bit puffy. She had obviously heard the news. “Honestly, he hasn’t known what to do with himself. With news of the body I…” she trailed off. “I can’t imagine what he’s feeling.”

  “We’d love to hear that from him if possible,” DS Sanchez said, a little more firmly now.

  “I really don’t think he should be seeing anyone right now,” Ms Kaye said. “He’s very sick. I would be more than happy to have him call you?”

  DS Sanchez watched Ms Kaye carefully. It was hard for Zoe to put her finger on it, but there was something about her that unsettled her. Like she wasn’t just trying to stop them from talking to him, like she was hiding something else.

  “Can I talk to you a little bit about Mr Harper while I have you?” DS Sanchez said carefully. It felt as good a time as any. “We spoke to him last night after the altercation with your ex-husband, and we’d love to know about your relationship with him.”

  “Well, we don’t really have a relationship,” she said with a slight laugh that was more like an expelling of breath. It told Zoe more than she probably intended. There was a lot of history there, it was obvious. “We’re old friends, of course. I’ve been friends with Laura and Chris for a number of years. I think my husband just gets jealous sometimes.”

  “Because you slept with Chris?” DS Sanchez said quickly.

  Alexandra Kaye’s face slipped, but only for a moment. She obviously hadn’t expected Chris to gift them with that sort of information. Maybe they’d agreed never to discuss it again, but the fact she was so willing to keep it from Zoe made her wonder what else she might be hiding.

  “Well,” Ms Kaye said, brushing her hair behind her ears, a nervous habit maybe. “It was a one-time thing. I was having problems with Norman and…” She looked up the stairs and lowered her voice. “I don’t know how I feel about discussing this with my son just upstairs. I don’t like to speak badly about his father if I can help it. He doesn’t make it easy, of course, but I still want him and Caleb to have a relationship.”

  “Well, I’d be more than happy to chat to you about this down at the station, Ms Kaye,” Zoe said. “We can take you there, we have a car outside.”

  “I shouldn’t leave Caleb, really.”

  “Then please, tell us more about Mr Kaye,” DS Sanchez said. She lowered her voice, conspiratorial, vaguely threatening. She wanted Alexandra to know she wasn’t to be messed with. “You can speak softly if you want to.”

  Ms Kaye locked eyes with DS Sanchez before her gaze drifted to DC Powell and back again. She plastered that smile back onto her face and took a breath before speaking.

  “The way he acted last night wasn’t exactly out of character,” she said quietly, her voice trembling. “Even when we were together he had a tendency to fly off the handle at the slightest thing. Caleb has a very close relationship with my mother, his grandmother, because I would often send him off there when it felt like things were getting a little too much here.”

  “Too much, how?” DS Sanchez asked.

  “He would yell, as you saw last night,” she said. “And would often get physical.”

  “Did he ever hit you, Ms Kaye?”

  “No, no, nothing like that,” she said quickly. “But the threat of it always felt like it was there. And it was enough to keep me scared and keep me in the relationship perhaps longer than I should have.”

  Zoe considered this. She hadn’t wanted to speak about it, but once she’d unlocked the flood gates it had all come out. And everything that she had said matched with the way that Mr Kaye had behaved the previous night. She took down a few notes.

  “And what about you taking Caleb away from him?”

  “Is that what he told you?” she scoffed, shaking her head, pulling her gaze away from the DS. “He has quite an imagination, that man.”

  “What makes you say that, Ms Kaye?”

  “Well, I’ve never threatened to keep him and Caleb apart,” she said. “Like I said, I want them to have a relationship. I don’t want to keep them apart. Caleb’s decisions are his own to make, he’s a big boy, he can do what he wants. The fact that he has seen his father for who he is, or maybe doesn’t want to go and spend time in his sad little flat is his own decision. Norm can’t accept that.”

  “Why can’t he accept that?”

  “Because he is so sure that the world, or me, are entirely against him,” Ms Kaye snapped. She stopped and steadied herself. “Ever since what happened with Chris, the job loss, the…” She lowered her voice again. “The affair.” She shook her head. Was that shame? “It’s the way he is. It’s frightening and it’s sad, but it’s true.”

  “Do you want us to raise anything against him?” DS Sanchez asked. “If you’re feeling frightened I wouldn’t want—”

  “No, please don’t,” she said suddenly, quickly. “He can be dangerous, I know, but I don’t think…I don’t think he would do anything to hurt me.”

  And Zoe saw an opportunity in front of her, one that only someone who had known Norman for many years would be able to answer.

  “Do you think he’s capable of hurting other people?” Zoe asked.

  Ms Kaye took a breath and locked eyes with DS Sanchez, she looked almost too nervous to speak. What was that? Was she afraid to speak against him, or was it something more? “I think he is capable of absolutely anything once he sets his mind to it,” she whispered. “Absolutely anything.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  DI Kidd headed out to the car at a run, taking Owen along with him for support. Owen seemed beyond thrilled to have been chosen, practically bouncing into the passenger seat. Kidd barely waited long enough for Owen to shut his door before he floored it and took off around the Kingston one-way system to make it to the school.

  Bloody Joe Warrington, he thought. I thought I was going to have more time to track him do
wn.

  “This is brilliant,” DC Campbell said, absolutely buzzing. He was like a kid in a sweetshop. “We never work together, boss.”

  “And there’s a bloody good reason for it,” Kidd grumbled. “But, you never know, I might need your help on this.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well, if I’m right, and I really hope I’m not right this time around,” Kidd said, whizzing through an amber light at the crossing and swinging the car into the car park. “Nicholas Ayre is going to be in a heap of trouble when people see the news on Joe’s socials, assuming they’re looking at them of course.”

  “Because Sarah’s dead?”

  “Because she’s dead, because there were a bunch of his classmates already out for blood when she was only missing,” he said. “With Sarah being dead, Nicholls Ayre could end up being in deep shit when people find out.”

  “And why is it our responsibility to stop that?” Owen asked. “Isn’t this just school drama?”

  Kidd had the sudden urge to hit Owen, though he wasn’t wrong. The website stuff was definitely petty school drama, but a dead body and a pissed off and grieving student body with a large vendetta against whoever posted it, felt like something he needed to get involved in. Especially as he wanted to talk to the lad, and he needed to be conscious for that to happen.

  “Just follow me, yeah?” Kidd said, turning off the car and undoing his seatbelt. He got out of the car and started towards the front doors as he had done the day before, purpose in every step. He needed to get to Nicholas before the rest of the student body did.

  Ms Lu was behind the front desk once again, her face lighting up when DI Kidd walked in. “Good afternoon,” she said brightly. “We can’t seem to keep you away, can we?”

  “Hello,” he said. “We’re actually looking for another one of your students.”

  “Caleb Kaye?” she said, looking a little surprised. “I got your phone call earlier on, were you not told he’s not in?”

  “Nope, not Caleb,” Kidd said. “We’re looking for Nicholas Ayre. I don’t suppose you know which class he would be in?”

  “He’s not in classes right now,” Ms Lu said. “The students are on their lunch break, will be for the next,” she checked her watch, a sparkly little thing that dangled from her wrist. “Oh, thirty minutes or so.”

  Kidd was too late. He knew he was too late. He’d been beaten up enough times on that playground to know that once the lunch bell rang, teachers weren’t likely to give a toss what you were doing or who was kicking the shit out of who.

  “Fuck.”

  “Language, Mr Kidd, we are in a school,” Ms Lu scolded, though it wasn’t really much of a scold as it was all done with a smile on her face.

  “What do we do now?” Owen asked. “Wait?”

  “We can’t wait,” Kidd said, agitated. If he didn’t get a confirmation of that alibi from Nicholas, DCI Weaver was going to call CPS and chances were Dexter was going to get charged for this and he didn’t want that to happen.

  There was a crackling of static from somewhere in the office. A burly mixed-race man in a high-vis jacket with a bald head grabbed hold of it and grunted something indistinguishable into it. Kidd listened in, trying to pick up whatever was being said.

  “Where?” the man grunted.

  The crackle came through again. Kidd just managed to make out the words “fight” and “playing field.”

  Jesus Christ, he thought, cursing his rotten luck that they hadn’t gotten here sooner, that Joe Warrington hadn’t held off for a little bit longer. Nicholas probably didn’t even know what was coming for him.

  “Which playing field, Ms Lu?” There were the athletics track and the cricket field and he didn’t have time to look at both. Nicholas didn’t have time.

  “DI Kidd, I can’t—”

  “Ms Lu, I’d like to talk to Nicholas Ayre before he ends up eating through a straw. Which playing field?” Kidd watched as the man in the high vis jacket ran from the office and out into the corridor. He barrelled past the reception desk and out the front door. “Never mind. Owen, shift it!” Kidd barked, running out of the door and after the man in the high-vis jacket.

  The man didn’t realise he was being followed until Kidd ended up jogging alongside him. He looked confused, possibly wondering if he had ended up in some kind of footrace.

  “Detective Inspector Benjamin Kidd,” Kidd panted. “This is DC Owen Campbell. Don’t mind if we tag along, do you?”

  The man shrugged as he ran, still looking confused. They rounded the corner and headed down towards the playing fields where the athletics track was, a great expanse of green where a cluster of students had gathered somewhere near the middle, white paint barely visible on the grass around them. That had to be what he was looking for.

  The closer they got, the louder the chants of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” became. Kidd put on a turn of speed, bolting past the security guard and towards the crowd of students. He could see Jonno Edwards in the thick of it, his blazer off, his white shirt like a beacon in the grey. Across from him was another boy, soft-looking, a little bit chubbier than Jonno. He was backing away, but there were people on the edge of the circle not letting him get free, the people chanting “Fight!” pushing him back into the circle.

  Kidd kept up his pace despite the slipperiness of the grass. The rain from the night before had made the whole thing a squelchy death trap, but he needed to get there and he needed to get there now.

  He heard someone take a tumble behind him, a small part of him hoping that it was Owen, just because the thought of it made him laugh.

  He reached the circle of students and broke through them, the security guard not too far behind. In shock, some of the students immediately starburst off in various directions, screaming, adding to the cacophony of noise that was already assaulting his ears. But some stayed, some stayed because they wanted to see Nicholas get punished for this.

  “Knock him out, Jonno!” a voice that Kidd recognised shouted. He turned to see that Taylor was stood there, egging Jonno on, not running away like the rest of them. She was as committed to this as Jonno was. She watched on as Jonno pulled his fist back and threw a punch that connected with Nicholas’s face.

  He fell into the mud, the dirt splattering all over his uniform.

  “Get up and fight me, you coward!” Jonno shouted, spitting at Nicholas. “Just a pathetic little keyboard warrior, aren’t you? You’re disgusting.” He went in to kick Nicholas in the stomach, but DI Kidd got there first, pulling Jonno out of the way.

  It surprised him, Kidd could see that in the way he stumbled, nearly losing his footing on the mud. Jonno glared at DI Kidd for a moment, only straightening up when he realised who he was staring at.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Kidd was out of breath, panting, his shirt stuck to his back, splatters of mud all up his front. “I…phew…I wanted to talk to Nicholas,” Kidd said. “You know, before you hospitalised him.”

  “You know what he did!” Jonno barked, his voice cracking as he shouted. “He posted all that shit, he might as well have killed her, he’s the one who caused all this. Oi, prick, Dexter’s gonna fucking murder you when he finds out you did it.”

  “I highly doubt that!” Nicholas parried, smug despite the fact he was covered in mud and would probably be unconscious had Kidd not shown up.

  Jonno looked like he was going to go for him again but Kidd put his hand up to stop him. He turned to Nicholas.

  “You want to shut your fucking mouth for a second before he breaks it?” Kidd snapped. He turned back to Jonno. “We’ll take it from here,” he said. “You guys go back to your break.”

  “He might as well have been the one that killed her,” Taylor said. Her rage had subsided and she was looking past Kidd, right at Nicholas, her face scrunched up in disgust. “If it hadn’t been for him, she’d still be alive. I hope you can fucking live with yourself.”

  Kidd didn’t argue with them. Th
ey were hurting, and it was possible that what they were saying wasn’t entirely untrue. He didn’t know the root cause of Sarah’s disappearance yet. It could have been anything. He still needed to find that out, which meant he needed to talk to Nicholas Ayre.

  The security guard appeared, out of breath, his high-vis jacket undone. He bent over and put his hands on his knees, willing the air to get back into his lungs.

  “You want me…you want…me to take ‘em in?” he asked Kidd, gesturing towards Jonno and Taylor. Jonno had his arm around her now and she was crying. He didn’t want to cause them any more pain.

  “Leave them,” he said. “I’ve sorted it.”

  “Sorted it? The second you leave they’re going to attack me again—”

  “I’d stop talking if I were you,” Kidd interrupted. “I’ve got some questions for you, alright? And I’m going to need you to answer them pretty quickly.”

  “What’s happening, boss?” Owen’s voice pulled Kidd’s attention away from Nicholas. “Did we save him?”

  Owen was covered head to toe in mud all across one side. Somehow, he’d even managed to get it in his hair. Kidd couldn’t keep the grin off his face. He looked utterly ridiculous, and even if it was just for a moment, it did feel good to laugh.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  They all headed back into the school, Ms Lu getting one of the PE Teachers to open the changing rooms so Nicholas could clean himself up. DC Campbell didn’t get such a luxury, though he did spend a solid forty minutes in the toilets trying to scrape the mud off of his face and out of his hair. Kidd found himself wishing that he’d taken a picture to send over to Zoe, she would have lost her mind.

  They waited for Nicholas to get changed into his PE Kit—a pair of black jogging bottoms and a light blue polo shirt—and be escorted to see them in the same office that Kidd had conducted interviews with Sarah’s friends in the previous day. It seemed smaller in there somehow, like the walls were pressing in a little bit closer. Though maybe that was just Owen talking at a million miles a minute the whole time they were in there.