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

by GS Rhodes

  “A threat?”

  “A promise,” Weaver said. “I saw quite a few bloody good officers get kicked off his team, even out of this building because they weren’t down to just do whatever he said.”

  Kidd sighed. “And I take it you were more than willing?”

  “It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Weaver replied solemnly. “I had friends that got kicked off his team, moved on to lesser cases because they didn’t agree with the way he did things. And I needed the job, I needed to stay, I couldn’t afford to step out of line.”

  Now to the part that Kidd knew he needed to tread carefully with, the part that could really end up pissing Weaver off.

  “Did you feel like anything was missing from the initial investigation?” he asked.

  Weaver opened his mouth to respond but then seemed to think better of it. Kidd hoped that he wasn’t trying to hide something from him again.

  “I was just doing what I was told to do,” Weaver said. “It wasn’t my place to question his authority or the way he wanted to conduct the investigation.”

  “That sounds like a yes.”

  “You can take it however you wish.”

  Kidd eyed him carefully. “I want to look into it, if you’ll allow me,” he said.

  “Like I said, I don’t think I’d be able to stop you even if I wanted to.”

  “Fair enough,” Kidd replied. “That means I’m going to need to speak to DI Wool.”

  “I…I don’t know how easy that’s going to be,” Weaver replied. “He retired quite a few years ago and hasn’t wanted anything to do with us since.”

  “I don’t think that—”

  There was a knock at the door. Kidd immediately felt a rush of annoyance. He was getting somewhere, getting the information he needed, what could anyone possibly need just now?

  “Come in,” Weaver called, apparently glad for the interruption.

  Simon Powell poked his head around the door. “Sorry, I’m sure you’re both very busy but I’ve just heard back from the lab.” Kidd got to his feet. “We’ve got a DNA match for the severed arm.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Their journey to the victim’s house wasn’t a long one. It was strange to think that they had been in this area only a few hours before and here Kidd was again, driving with Zoe Sanchez through Twickenham High Street, past the same row of houses that Holly Grant would have walked past every day.

  They parked up in the same place, getting out of the car and walking a little way away from Holly’s former residence. It was only a short way down the road to Philippa Kay’s parents’ house. They hadn’t been expecting the call. Who would? The thing that made it all the stranger was that Philippa hadn’t even been reported missing. There was a lot that Kidd wanted to unpack here, that much was for certain.

  There were people outside the Grant residence, a couple of whom Kidd recognised from his time in The Met. Press. Vultures. People who would do anything to get a story. Even though Kidd knew that they all weren’t like that, it was a rare day that he encountered one that he liked.

  “Kidd!”

  The voice was familiar, one that he’d heard many times before over the past six months. Joe Warrington was wearing his signature beanie hat, today a burnt orange colour, squishing down his curls into something a little more manageable. Manageable here meaning out of sight, out of mind.

  He bounded over to the two detectives, quickly falling in step with them as they walked towards Philippa’s house.

  “I thought you’d be back,” he said. “How have you been?”

  “Oh, you know,” Kidd started. “Trying to solve a murder.”

  “The usual then,” Joe replied.

  “What do you need?” Zoe asked. “We’ve got somewhere we need to be.”

  “Wondering how you’re getting on with the investigation,” Joe said. “Wondered if I could get an exclusive.”

  Kidd turned around to see movement back at the Grant residence, the other members of the press cottoning on to the fact that Joe had managed to track down a police officer. The one advantage of being out of uniform was that the press couldn’t always figure out if you were worth speaking to or not. The disadvantage of getting to know Joe Warrington was that he knew exactly who Kidd was, and more often than not knew exactly what he was dealing with.

  “I can’t give you anything,” Kidd said. “Do you even know what we’re investigating?”

  “Michael Earle,” Joe said, pulling out his phone and opening up the notes app. Kidd glanced at it over the lad’s shoulder and saw how extensive it was. People could say what they liked about him, but Joe knew what he was doing. “New case involving other body parts being delivered just like before. You’re looking into the old case too, right?”

  “What makes you say that?” Kidd asked, stopping in the middle of the street.

  Joe shrugged. “I have my ways.” Kidd raised an eyebrow at him. “Fine, one of the other reporters managed to get Harrison Grant to speak to them when he was on his way out of the house. He spilled a little bit too much. Mentioned Phil Jackson.”

  Kidd groaned. “For fuck’s sake, why can’t people keep their mouths shut?” He shook his head.

  “Thanks for confirming,” Joe said. “There’s my exclusive.”

  “Well, you’re welcome then,” Kidd replied, still quietly seething. “You got anything for me?”

  “Nothing major,” Joe replied. “A quick glance online tells me that Phil Jackson has been in the press before. Way before my time.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Twenty years,” Joe replied. “Give or take.”

  It was enough to pique Kidd’s interest. “Why?”

  “Not for a good reason, as you might expect,” Joe replied. “He went through a tough time. His parents died in a car accident. It was pretty horrific actually. He didn’t really have anywhere to go, bought a house with the life insurance, carried on with his life.”

  “Christ,” Kidd said. “That’s terrible.”

  “Yeah, Michael got a mention in there too,” Joe said. “Article spoke about how he couldn’t get along without his best friend, how they were so close, blah blah blah. Seems a little weird he didn’t show up in anything about the original Holly Grant case, no?”

  Kidd eyed him carefully. He really was angling for that exclusive. Either that or Harrison had really spilled the beans to him about what was going on. Kidd stood by his previous thought on the press, Joe Warrington included.

  Vultures, he thought. Every last one of them. Vultures.

  Joe Warrington also appeared to have made up his mind when it came to Phil Jackson, just as the Grant family had. No wonder Harrison had mentioned it on his way out the door. But why hadn’t it been brought up sooner? It had been eighteen years. Why now?

  “Very strange indeed,” DI Kidd replied. “We’re looking into it.”

  Joe grinned. “Glad to hear it,” he said. He stared at Kidd, as if he was waiting for something more. Kidd had no idea what else he had to give him. They were at the start of an investigation, he hardly had sordid details to share. There would likely be a press conference somewhere down the line where he could grill the DI if he wanted to.

  “Anything else, Joe?” Kidd asked.

  “Just…what we talked about not too long ago?” Joe said a little sheepishly. He looked over at Zoe and then back at Kidd, not wanting to drop him in it with a colleague. “About…Tony.”

  Kidd noticed Zoe flinch next to him but decided to ignore it for now. She would have questions about it later, of that much he was fairly certain.

  “I’ve not had much chance to look into it,” Kidd said. “I asked them to keep a closer eye on him, make sure he was getting on okay because you were concerned. That’s about all I can do without going down there myself and checking in.” Joe opened his mouth to respond but Kidd quickly cut him off. “Which I can’t do, Joe. I’m sorry.”

  Joe nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Thank you for checking in with
them anyway. I appreciate that. I know it’s… I know it’s awkward.”

  Awkward felt like it was something of an understatement as far as Kidd was concerned. Tony Warrington, Joe’s twin brother, had been convicted of murder not even six months ago in a horrific repeat of The Grinning Murders, something Kidd had to deal with early on in his career. Tony had almost killed Joe near the end of it, or at least threatened to.

  Now he was in prison and Joe wasn’t dealing with it too well. Tony wasn’t either apparently. He was just trying to be a good brother, despite all he had done. Kidd could understand it. They had grown up together. But Tony had done something truly terrible, and almost killed Joe in the process. It certainly felt strange to him.

  “I’ll let you get on,” Joe said, looking between the two detectives. “If anything comes up, I’ll give you a call. Otherwise, I’ll see you at the press conference.”

  Kidd shuddered at the thought. He knew it would be coming at some point. He would avoid it if he could. He said his goodbyes to Joe and let him head back off to the other members of the press hanging around outside the Grant household. There were few of them still looking in their direction, like they might try their luck, but Kidd didn’t want to hear any of it so he turned around and kept walking to Philippa Kay’s house.

  “He’s asking you to check in on Tony?” Zoe asked. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “It didn’t seem important,” Kidd replied. “I’m doing him a favour.”

  “Why are you doing him a favour?” Zoe asked, incredulous.

  “He’s worried about him,” Kidd said. “Tony’s a murderer, we know that for a fact, but Joe isn’t. And Joe is suffering because he sees that Tony is and… I just wanted to help.”

  Zoe smiled at him. “You really are just a big old softie, aren’t you?”

  “Shut up,” he groaned as they turned down a tree-lined garden path towards the front door of Philippa Kay’s parents' house. There was a car on the driveway, one that Kidd recognised. The Family Liaison Officer was already here, already at work making sure that the two of them were okay. In an ideal world, Kidd wouldn’t want to disturb the parents so soon, but there were so many questions surrounding Philippa that he wanted to talk to them as soon as possible.

  Both of Philippa’s parents, Samantha and Kyle Kay, came to the door. They looked a little weathered, beaten down by the world. Kidd didn’t know if that was how they usually looked or if the news they’d received just a couple of hours ago was something they were still processing. It could have been a combination of the two.

  “Do you… do you want to come inside?” Samantha stammered after Kidd had done his usual introductions of himself and Zoe. She was ghostly pale, her red hair curly and wild around her head.

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” Kidd said. “We don’t want to keep you for too long, we just had a couple of questions that we hoped would assist in our investigation.”

  “Of course, of course,” the woman muttered, stepping out of their way and guiding them inside. Mr Kay started away from them immediately, heading through a door on the left-hand side of the hallway. Instinctively, Kidd and Sanchez followed, finding themselves in a grey and white minimalist living room that felt unseasonably cold. Kidd didn’t know if it was the atmosphere or if they just hadn’t turned on the heating.

  Samantha followed them into the room, taking a seat on the sofa next to her husband, her hands clutched in her lap, knuckles white, eyes fixed on the two officers. Another face appeared in the doorway to the lounge, a slender woman in full police uniform, Caitlyn Jones. She had crossed paths with DI Kidd many times before. She mimed a cup of tea to him, but he shook his head. Taking it as her cue to leave, she pulled the door closed.

  Next to him, Sanchez pulled out her notebook and pen, poised and ready for whatever it was the two of them had to say. Kidd took a steadying breath before he began. It was never easy talking to people who had just lost a child, even harder when it was mere hours ago.

  “I know this must be very difficult for you,” Kidd started. “Like I said, we don’t want to keep you for too long. I can imagine this is a lot to process.”

  Kidd waited for a response from either one of them. They seemed too stunned to speak. Samantha nodded and Kidd took it as his cue to continue.

  “I’d like to hear a little more about Philippa,” Kidd said. “And your relationship with her. When was the last time you saw her?”

  Samantha looked over at Kyle before turning back to the detectives. “We hadn’t seen her for quite some time,” she admitted, a small amount of pink tingeing her cheeks. “She…she was a bit…she was…” She couldn’t seem to find the words, like she was swimming through them in her head but just couldn’t pick the right one.

  “She was a loner,” Kyle chimed in, his voice deep, gruff, matter of fact. It made the whole sentence seem more like a judgement than a statement. “She didn’t want to speak with us, hasn’t wanted to for quite some time. We…we had no idea she was even missing.”

  “But she still lived in the area?” Zoe asked.

  “As far as we know, yes,” Samantha said. “We saw her occasionally, very occasionally, but she mostly kept herself to herself. She was never really the same after what happened with Holly.”

  “Holly Grant?” Kidd asked.

  “Yes,” Samantha continued. “She… she withdrew from everything. She carried on and finished her University degree but her heart wasn’t in it. She couldn’t seem to bring herself to enjoy things anymore. Her best friend in the whole world had been killed, brutally, and as far as she could see not enough had been done about it. She could hardly bring herself to go on.”

  Kidd nodded. Holly’s death had such a huge impact on so many people’s lives, from Michael to his parents to Holly’s parents and now this. It was a ripple effect, one pebble in a lake that caused a knock-on effect that just kept on spreading.

  “How occasionally did you see her?”

  “Not even monthly,” Kyle said, letting out a heavy sigh. “Like we said, she kept herself to herself. She had her friends, a few of them that we knew of, but apart from that… Well, apart from that it was just her.”

  “Do you have an address for her that we could take?”

  “Of course,” Samantha said. “Was that not where she was found?”

  They had kept the details quite thin over the phone. There was only so much Kidd had wanted to say after all. It was a bitter pill to swallow that your daughter had been killed, an altogether more disgusting one when you found out she had also been mutilated.

  Kidd cleared his throat. “When we were first investigating Holly’s murder,” Kidd started. “We took forensic evidence from a couple of people who were close with Holly, who knew her well. You may remember that Philippa was interviewed at the time.” Samantha nodded. “So we have her DNA on file. When Forensics was looking for matches, she came up with almost one hundred percent accuracy.”

  “What were you testing on?” Kyle asked. “Could you not tell it was her from looking at her?”

  “No, we couldn’t,” Kidd replied. “We only had her arm. Her arm had been severed and delivered to someone.”

  “Why?” Samantha gasped.

  “That’s exactly what we’re trying to find out,” Kidd said. “So anything that you can give us that you think might help, even if it feels trivial, please tell us whatever it is.”

  “Isn’t this what happened to Holly?” Kyle asked through gritted teeth. “Didn’t she have her limbs cut off, mutilated, cut up and killed.”

  Kidd nodded. “We’re looking at this in connection with that case.”

  “That was eighteen years ago,” Samantha said.

  “Even so,” Kidd said. “That is what we’re currently looking into so, as I have already said, if you have any information about Philippa or her life or the people she used to hang around with—you mentioned friends. Who were her friends?”

  Samantha took a deep breath. “She was always close with Caleb G
rant,” she replied, her voice going quiet. “After everything that happened with Holly, I suppose they had a sort of kinship. Nothing bonds two people quite like a traumatic experience. Those two would have been bonded for life, I imagine.”

  Caleb Grant, Kidd thought to himself. The more he heard about him, the more he wanted to talk to him. He looked over at Sanchez, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod. Yes. Caleb Grant was next on their list.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  They spent a little longer talking to Mr and Mrs Kay, getting information about any of Philippa’s other friends, her place of work, the address to her flat. But Kidd felt he’d already gotten something valuable when Caleb Grant’s name was mentioned.

  The second they were out of the door, Kidd sent through the address to DC Ravel so they could get the forensics team down there to see if there was anything that they could pick up.

  “Was it just me who was worried that the forensic report was going to tell us that the body was Caleb’s?” Zoe asked as they made their way back down the street towards the Grant residence. “That’s what was in my head when Powell said he’d gotten something.”

  “It crossed my mind,” Kidd replied.

  “But now you’re thinking that Caleb might be the one responsible?” she asked.

  “It’s a toss-up between Caleb and Michael at this point,” Kidd said. “The only problem is that neither one of them is anywhere to be seen, which makes it difficult.”

  “I’ll say,” Zoe replied. “What about Phil? What Joe said about him was interesting.”

  “Joe seemed to have his mind made up,” Kidd said. “I’m going to see what Simon can dig up once we get back.”

  “Where to now?”

  Kidd walked straight past the car and towards the Grant residence. It didn’t need an explanation, not really. If they could catch Caleb now and bring him in for questioning then they could put a stop to this before anyone else got hurt.