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

by GS Rhodes

  “He beat them to a pulp, Ben,” she said. “It was a bloodbath. He… he killed them. All four of them.”

  Now that, he hadn’t been expecting.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Kidd’s mouth fell open.

  “I know this must be shocking for you to hear, and maybe you don’t want to believe me, but we were there after it happened. It was a total bloodbath,” she said. “Because of my husband and his connections, he had friends that are paying the price for what Craig did. His business has been in ruins ever since Craig left.”

  Suddenly Kidd didn’t know who to believe. Did he believe the man who he had once loved, the man who had kept this from him for such a long time? Or did he believe a woman who had used him to help find her long lost brother?

  “And…and when I found out that you thought he was alive too, and that you wanted to find him, well…” She shrugged. “I saw an opportunity to help put my family back together, to help right all of those wrongs and…I love Craig, okay? He is my brother and I love him but…but what he did to my Samuel, to his business? That is unforgivable. Him coming back would fix so much, it would… It would really save us.”

  Kidd nodded. It was a lot for him to take in. Somehow it seemed like even more to take in given what Craig had already told him. He didn’t know what to do, where to turn, but he wanted to speak to Craig again. He needed to know if he’d been lied to again, if Craig had tried to pull the wool over his eyes once more. He didn’t know if his heart would be able to take it, if that were true.

  But there was a huge part of the story that was missing, a huge part of Craig’s story that had gone untold in what Andrea had told him. Billy. She hadn’t mentioned Billy at all. She hadn’t mentioned the threats she’d made to Craig’s life, the damage she and Samuel had physically done to him when he had told them he wanted out.

  “So I did what I thought was the right thing to do and…and I used you to help me find him,” she said. “I’m sorry, Ben. I was desperate, okay? I was just trying to protect my family. Craig is… He’s not the person he claims to be. And I don’t want you getting into any trouble because of him.”

  Kidd nodded. “Of course,” he said. “I had no idea things had gotten so bad for him. If he’d have come to me sooner maybe we could have worked something out. You know I would do anything for him.”

  “I know,” Andrea said. “But it’s a testament to how Craig feels about you that he didn’t want to drag you into it all. He wanted to keep you safe too, keep you out of it if he could.”

  “Yeah,” Kidd said. “Maybe.”

  A silence pushed its way between them. Kidd hoped that Andrea just thought he was processing what she had told him, rather than doubting her words, but for Kidd, it was the latter.

  “So will you help me?” Andrea asked. “I came to you because I was desperate to begin with and he…he obviously trusts you enough that he was happy for you to be the one to find him. I need your help.”

  Kidd hesitated. He’d spent so much time with Andrea over the past little while. They’d been through an awful lot together when it came to finding Craig. He hadn’t expected everything to be so tangled and for him to get caught up in whatever family drama they’d been going through, but here he was. And he’d already made that same promise to Craig.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Kidd said, though he wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.

  Andrea didn’t feel the need to stick around long after that. She picked herself up and left, thanking Kidd profusely on her way out. It all left Kidd feeling even more confused than he had been before. He wanted to be able to talk to someone about it, but he knew that talking to Zoe wasn’t the right thing to do. He didn’t want to get her involved if he could help it.

  He messaged John who had already assumed they would be staying at Kidd’s tonight if Craig was staying over at his flat. Kidd hadn’t even thought about that. He’d dragged John into this. If Craig was in trouble, and Kidd was in trouble, John was now in trouble too.

  He explained to John everything that had happened today. Taking Craig to his flat, Craig’s side of the story, and then Andrea’s. He couldn’t tell if John was sympathetic to the situation or annoyed at the amount of trouble it was causing.

  Probably both, Kidd thought.

  “I’m worried about you,” John said eventually. “You’ve got a job to do on top of all of this, you know? You’re going to run yourself ragged.”

  “What else is new?” Kidd replied with a laugh. John didn’t seem to find it quite so funny, barely cracking a smile. “I… I don’t believe her,” Kidd added. “There are so many parts of Craig’s story that just aren’t in hers and… I don’t know.”

  “You don’t want to believe that Craig is capable of all that,” John added. “I get it, I do, but maybe he is. Go and talk to him. I’ll start on some dinner or something, you must be bloody starving.”

  It was only in that moment that Kidd realised he’d barely eaten anything all day. He hadn’t had the chance to, it turned out. With everything that had happened with the case and then with Craig, he’d just been running back and forth trying to stay on top of everything. He was ready to crash out.

  “I won’t be long,” Kidd replied, giving John a quick kiss before he turned to leave. He stopped himself in the doorframe, looking back. “I’m sorry, John.”

  “What for?”

  “For everything,” Kidd replied. “You shouldn’t…you shouldn’t be involved in any of this, I shouldn’t have—”

  “A problem shared is a problem halved,” John interrupted. “I’d rather know about it than have you trying to deal with it all by yourself. I don’t mind.”

  But Kidd minded. None of this really showed him in his best light, and he couldn’t help but wonder what it was doing to his relationship. How much was he hurting this man that he could steadily feel himself falling for? One way or another this needed to be over.

  ◆◆◆

  When Kidd arrived at John’s flat, he found Craig sitting on the sofa reading one of the books off of John’s bookshelf. He looked almost serene. Maybe he felt a little better now that he’d managed to get his problems off his chest, and thought that Kidd was going to handle it.

  “Make yourself at home,” Kidd said, also noticing the full mug of tea on the side table.

  “I had to do something,” Craig said. “It’s not like I can go anywhere with her skulking about.” He raised an eyebrow at Kidd. “You checking up on me?”

  “Something like that,” Kidd replied. “Andrea was there when I got home tonight.”

  Craig shut the book and looked up at Kidd, that same worried expression painted onto his face once more. “What did she say?” he asked.

  “She told me a slightly different version of events to what you said,” Kidd replied.

  “Did she mention Billy? Is he okay?”

  “She didn’t say a word about him,” Kidd replied.

  “I didn’t think she would,” Craig said. “I just want to know if he’s okay. That’s what I’ve been doing since I’ve been back. If I’ve not been trying to fix all of this, I’ve been looking for him, staying with people who I used to know here, and trying to figure out where he’s gone. Maybe he did manage to run away after all. Maybe he’s long dead.”

  “I know the feeling,” Kidd said. He’d done that for so long with Craig, it was almost a comfort to know that he was getting a taste of how it felt. Though he wouldn’t wish it on anyone given the choice.

  “How many men were there?” Kidd asked.

  Craig looked confused. “What?”

  “Andrea painted a very different picture about what happened,” Kidd said. “I’m just trying to get the facts straight.”

  “You believe her over me?”

  “No,” Kidd said quickly, maybe a little too quickly. “But if she is saying one thing and you’re saying the other, I need to split the difference and figure out what’s true and what isn’t. How many men were there?”

&n
bsp; “Three, maybe four,” Craig replied a little sheepishly. “I was outnumbered, I panicked, I…I had to do what I could to escape.”

  “She said you beat them to a pulp.”

  “She’s overreacting,” Craig snapped. “You have to believe me, Ben. I didn’t want to hurt them but they were trying to hurt me. It was self-defence.”

  “And how much self-defence did you do, exactly?” Kidd asked. “The word ‘bloodbath’ was mentioned.”

  Craig opened his mouth to respond but wavered. He seemed unsure of himself, like Kidd had wrong-footed him somewhere. This obviously wasn’t going to plan for Craig just now.

  “Craig, I need the truth,” Kidd said. “I can’t help you if I don’t know the truth.”

  Craig took a shuddering breath. “There were four of them,” Craig said. “Andrea had called ahead and told them what I was planning to do, Billy had told her, he was trying to protect himself. I didn’t blame him. But I still wanted to get out. They weren’t going to let me go. I told you, they beat the absolute shit out of me, I gave back as good as I got.”

  Kidd held his breath.

  “There was blood everywhere,” Craig said. “So much of it. I’d grabbed a stool, swung it and just panicked when it actually hit one of them. I hit another one, and another one. But I didn’t kill anyone, Kidd, you have to believe me. They were still breathing, I checked. I even called an ambulance because of how bad it looked, okay?”

  Craig was panicking now, Kidd could see it. He’d gotten to his feet, pacing back and forth in the living room, his breath coming out ragged. Kidd wasn’t so sure he could believe him anymore, wasn’t so sure that he could keep moving further into this without getting himself or John into way more trouble. He didn’t want to do that. He wanted a quieter life, if he could manage it. This was all too much.

  “Craig, I believe you, okay?” Kidd said. It was enough to calm him, at least for a moment. “I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to help you.”

  “Kidd, please—”

  Ben held up a hand. “I can help you get out of here,” he said. “I can help you run, but I don’t know what I can do about Andrea and Samuel.” He shook his head, he hated to do this to him because, deep down, he still loved Craig. He always would. Those feelings would never completely go away. And it was those feelings that wanted to keep him safe. “You’re putting both me and John in danger by being here. If those people are following you and they find out that I’m hiding you here, that could hurt John. I don’t care about me, they can do whatever the fuck they want to me, but I have to protect John if I can. You get that, don’t you?”

  Craig nodded.

  “I can keep Andrea looking,” Kidd said. “I can lead her in the wrong direction, which should buy you some time. But I think you need to run. I’m sorry, Craig. I really am.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Kidd didn’t really sleep that night. He felt like he was bailing on Craig. After all of the time that he had spent trying to find him, and now all of the time he had spent trying to figure out what had happened, he felt like he was running scared. But it was too much, wasn’t it? His job would be on the line, his life, John’s life too. If Andrea and her husband had threatened Craig’s life, and he was family, they’d do far worse to Kidd in a heartbeat, they wouldn’t even have to think about it.

  Those were the circles that Kidd found his mind running around in for the whole night. John was there and he happily listened before the two of them went to bed, but sleep eluded Kidd and by the time the morning broke, he’d managed a couple of hours at most. He didn’t want to abandon Craig, but he couldn’t help him in the way that Craig wanted him to. He couldn’t get him back to a normal life, not without standing up to Andrea and her husband and putting the people that Kidd loved in the most danger.

  He would help him escape. That would have to be enough.

  ◆◆◆

  The forensics team was happy about the amount of evidence that they had managed to gather from the crime scene at Michael Earle’s flat. There were prints everywhere that didn’t belong to Michael. It was easy for them to confirm it as not a suicide and almost certainly not planned. This wasn’t a professional killer, not by any stretch. They’d made mistakes, and mistakes meant that they would hopefully be able to catch them out sooner rather than later.

  “They made a mess,” Ravel said, reading from the initial report. “There was some kind of scuffle. They’re checking under Michael’s fingernails to see if there are any fibres or DNA or anything that would link to the killer. There are shoe prints in the blood. You can barely make them out but whoever did it carried some blood out of the house with them on a pair of trainers and, given the amount of blood that was at the scene, I would be shocked if there wasn’t a whole load of blood on whatever it was they were wearing.”

  “Good, good,” Kidd said, nodding. There was movement. Finally, it felt like they were getting somewhere. “There are a few people I want us to talk to. We can really ramp up the pace on this now.”

  Powell had made notes of everything that Ravel had said on the evidence board, marking that Michael had been killed and could be moved off the list of suspects.

  “I want to talk to Michael Earle’s dad,” Kidd started. It was something that had come to him on his way into work that morning. “We caught him in an argument with Michael yesterday before our interview. I’m not sure he would be capable of killing his own son, or what his motive would be, but it feels like something we should look into. Maybe a word with his mum wouldn’t go amiss either. If we can get them separately again, more’s the better.”

  “Perfect,” Powell said. “What else?”

  “Phil Jackson,” Kidd said. “I want to bring him in. There’s something about him that doesn’t sit right with me. And if he’s talking about killing Michael and suddenly Michael shows up dead, that doesn’t look good. Campbell, see if you can get hold of him and get him to come in voluntarily. If he doesn’t want to do that, we’ll drag him in on suspicion.” He took a breath. “Now we just need those forensic reports to come back and see if we can get a match.”

  The door to the Incident Room opened, DCI Weaver barrelling in with a concerned look on his face. Kidd felt his stomach drop the second he walked in. This wasn’t going to be good, he could already feel it.

  “We’ve had another delivery,” Weaver said. “This time to Suzanne Grant.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Kidd and Sanchez wasted no time in getting out of the office and into the car. He had wanted to speak to the Grant family again anyway, though he had hoped he would be able to do it under slightly better circumstances than this. It was bad enough that all of this was being dredged up again, it was only made worse by the fact that they were now fully involved.

  Suzanne showed them what had been sent as soon as they made it to the door. There was barely time for a cursory “Hello, how are you?” It felt like they were beyond that at this point.

  It was a small package, certainly a lot smaller than the ones that had been sent to the other victims, and much more neatly put together. It was the first thing that Kidd noticed when she showed it to them. While the others had been wrapped and had been battered and bruised in transit to wherever they were going, this one looked pristine.

  Inside the small box were a pair of eyes, the words “an eye for an eye” written on the underside of the lid. It was addressed to Suzanne in the same way the others had been, her name written aggressively across the outside of the box in Sharpie. She was barely holding it together.

  The box was taken away quite quickly, something that Suzanne seemed incredibly glad about. She didn’t want to keep it in her house for a moment longer and Kidd couldn’t blame her.

  She sat in the living room next to her husband, who had his arms wrapped around her tightly. Kidd wasn’t sure she would be able to stay upright if it weren’t for him practically propping her up. The woman who had seemed so sure of herself when she had been talking about
Phil Jackson just a few short days ago looked like she could shatter at a moment’s notice, completely fall apart.

  “When did it arrive?” Kidd asked. “Anything that you can remember about it, every detail if you don’t mind, Suzanne.”

  She nodded, sniffing, the tears rolling freely down her face. This was a woman who had been broken by all of this.

  “Of course, of course,” she said, taking a deep, shuddering breath. She brushed Harrison off of her, trying to sit up straight and look the detectives in the eye. “It was there this morning,” she started. “I don’t even remember why I went outside.”

  “You’d left something in the car,” Harrison said softly. “That’s what you said.”

  “Yes,” Suzanne nodded, remembering. “My makeup bag. We were… we were supposed to be going out today and I had left it in the car. It’s still there actually. How silly of me.”

  “It will still be there when you’ve told them,” Harrison said, keeping his voice soft. He placed a hand on her leg, she took hold of it, gripping it tightly, white-knuckled.

  “I was just popping outside to get it when I saw this package on the doorstep,” she said. “I thought it was strange because I hadn’t heard the postman come by yet. He doesn’t usually come until mid-morning. And it had my name on it. So I picked it up and brought it inside. I opened it in the kitchen.” She looked like she might be sick, her hand flying to her chest as she took a couple of steadying breaths before continuing. “I don’t know if there’s much else to say. They were…they were in there. I screamed. That was when Harrison and Caleb came running.”

  “Caleb is here?” Kidd asked.

  “He came back last night,” Suzanne said. “We were going to go out for breakfast or something. Gosh, I’ve ruined that, haven’t I? I’m sorry.”