by GS Rhodes
“You haven’t ruined anything,” Harrison said, shushing her. “It’s not your fault. She’s quite rattled,” he added, locking eyes with Kidd. “When I came down she couldn’t bring herself to go in the kitchen. Caleb and I had to go in and…well…we had to get in touch with you and everything.”
“How did Caleb react?” Kidd asked.
Harrison shook his head. “He’s very level-headed, that boy,” he said. “He didn’t seem to be bothered by it. It was probably no worse than anything he’s seen in video games or the like. It was like it was just another day at the office for him, I suppose.”
That didn’t sit right with Kidd. Maybe Harrison was downplaying it, and maybe that was making it all worse in Kidd’s head but he wanted to speak to Caleb. He’d wanted to have a word with him anyway, what with him being missing for the past couple of days, but now, he really wanted to talk to him.
“Is he here?” Kidd asked. “We’d love to get a moment with him, if that’s alright?”
“He had to go out,” Suzanne said. “With everything that happened, I didn’t think he’d want to be around for…well…for all of this. It can be quite overwhelming. I didn’t think that you’d…. Sorry. If I’d have known—”
“It’s okay,” Kidd interrupted. He had missed him again, and he was starting to worry that missing Caleb Grant was causing them more trouble than they’d initially realised. “We really need to speak with him. Do you mind if we wait here?”
“We don’t know how long he’ll be,” Suzanne said. “He has a tendency to do his own thing a lot of the time.”
“Can you call him?” Kidd asked. “Maybe have him meet us at the station so we can have a little chat. It’s nothing serious,” Kidd added quickly, noticing how worried the parents looked. “It’s routine. We just have a lot of questions for him.”
“That’s more than fine,” Harrison said, painting a smile onto his face, getting to his feet. “I’ll call him now.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped it a few times before walking out of the room. “Caleb…!” Kidd heard him boom before he got out of earshot.
“You…you don’t think my Caleb has done anything wrong do you?” Suzanne asked. Without Harrison at her side, she looked like she was about to collapse, like her bones couldn’t quite support her body anymore.
Kidd forced a smile onto his face. “We just have a few questions,” he said. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
Not yet, he thought.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Caleb Grant arrived at Kingston Police Station not too long after Kidd and Sanchez had made it back. According to Harrison, he had been eager to help, more than happy to come in for a chat.
He was the spitting image of his father. He had white-blonde hair shaved close to his head, the same eyes, everything. It was like looking through a time machine as to what Harrison must have looked like when he was growing up. Stranger still, he couldn’t seem to keep the smile off his face. Given everything that had happened, it didn’t sit right with Kidd that he was so chipper to be chatting to the police, but maybe that was just previous experiences interviewing young people.
They took him down to one of the rooms, getting him a cup of tea, making sure he was comfortable. Kidd wasn’t about to interrogate the lad. As far as they knew, he hadn’t done anything wrong. But he was hoping he would be able to fill in a few gaps for them. He was also very glad to get him away from his parents. Even though Caleb was twenty-two, talking to someone while their parents were around sometimes brought out a much more idealised version of events. If he was here on his own, maybe he would speak a little more freely. That’s what Kidd hoped for anyhow.
Kidd pressed the record button to get the interview going, waiting for the obnoxious beep to finish before introducing himself and Zoe for the purposes of the tape. Caleb did the same, unprompted.
“Sorry, just something I’ve seen them do on TV, is that alright?” he said. He chuckled nervously. He even managed to sound a lot like his dad. “Dad said you wanted to talk to me about Holly. And the…the…um…package that came to the house this morning.” He wasn’t quite comfortable in himself though, Kidd thought, it wasn’t exactly the most comfortable setting to be in, sat in an interview room at a police station.
“We had a few questions about your sister's case, yes,” Kidd started. “And also some things from this morning. We won’t take up too much of your time.”
“It’s okay,” Caleb said, still smiling. “I’m happy to help. Dad mentioned when I got home yesterday that you’d been round a couple of days ago and wanted to chat with me. So whatever you need, I’m here to help.”
“Glad to hear it,” Kidd replied, though it still made him a little bit sceptical. It was a rare moment to have someone quite so cheerful in an interview. Maybe he hadn’t done anything wrong. Maybe he had.
“What do you remember of your sister’s case?” Kidd asked.
“Oh, wow,” Caleb said, sitting back in his chair. He took a sip of his tea while he thought, Kidd could practically hear the cogs turning. “Well, not a lot. It’s hard to know how much I remember and how much I’ve been told, you know? I was just a kid when it happened, so I remember there being a lot of police around, I remember Mum and Dad being very…preoccupied I guess. But everything else is what I’ve been told. We…we talk about it basically every year on what would have been her birthday. Can’t really escape it. Not that I want to,” he added quickly.
“What kind of things do you talk about?” Kidd asked.
“All sorts,” Caleb said with a smile. “We watch old home movies sometimes, talk about what she was like, what we used to be like together. Mum likes to reminisce like that. And then she likes to talk about what we would have been like as adults, you know? She thinks we would have been the best of friends, which is very sweet.”
“Do you agree?”
“What?”
“Do you agree that you would have been good friends?”
Caleb blinked. “I don’t know, probably. Eighteen years is a long time, of course, but I’d like to think we would have stayed close. She was always nice to me while we were growing up. Both her and her friends were. I think because I was her little brother? Maybe something like that.”
“What do you mean?” Sanchez asked.
“I mean they thought I was cute,” Caleb said, a little bit of pink tingeing the apples of his cheeks. “I was probably really annoying actually, but they thought it was cute when I was around.”
“Do you remember any of her friends?” Kidd asked, his mind immediately going to Philippa.
Caleb shook his head “Not really,” he replied. “God, is that rude? I don’t mean it to be rude, I just mean…” He shook his head. “They sort of blur into one, I didn’t really see much of them after Holly died. They came over a lot to start with to check in on Mum and Dad, but after that…not so much. It was a shame really.”
Kidd took it in. “What about Philippa Kay?”
Caleb blinked again, a crinkle forming above his nose as he tried to figure out why that name sounded familiar. At least, that was how Kidd took it.
Don’t lie to me now, Caleb, Kidd thought, remembering back to what Philippa’s parents had said.
Caleb let out a heavy breath and turned his gaze downward, staring into the endless abyss of his milky tea. He shook his head.
“I miss her,” he said, his voice coming out in a choked sort of groan. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to break down about this, but I just—” He lifted his head, tears glistening in his eyes. “I just want to see her again, want one last day with her, you know?”
“How did you come to be friends with her?” Kidd asked, glad to know that Caleb was being open with them. He’d thought Caleb had been about to try and lie for a moment. “Tell us about her.”
Caleb smiled fondly. “She was great,” he said. “I mean, a little bit damaged after what had happened with Holly, they were really good friends but… We bumped into each other around
the 10th anniversary. She was at Holly’s grave one day when I went and we just got to talking. She told me stories about Holly, so it’s almost like I actually had a relationship with her, and we just became really close.”
“When was the last time you saw her?” Zoe asked.
“Must be a couple of weeks ago now,” Caleb said, his brow knitting together in thought for a moment before he nodded, confirming it for himself. “Yes, a couple of weeks ago. We had coffee after I finished college, took a couple of stupid pictures while we were in town.”
He reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. He pressed a few buttons, scrolled a little, and then turned it around to show the two officers. There they both were smiling at the camera. Well, they had been caught mid-laughter so Caleb was a little blurred to the point where he looked almost demonic. Philippa looked like she didn’t have a care in the world. Maybe she didn’t in that moment.
“She walked me home and I said goodbye to her,” he said, taking the phone back and staring at the picture, the tears coming quickly again. “And that really was goodbye, I suppose.” He took a deep breath and looked skyward, willing the tears not to fall. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” Zoe said, making a quick note. “We’re just getting a sense of a few things.”
Kidd gave the lad a few moments. Caleb looked at the picture once more before he locked his phone with the familiar mechanical click and pocketed it. He turned back to the detectives, ready once more for their questions.
“What can you tell us about Phil Jackson?” Zoe asked.
“Oh, now Phil, that’s a name I know well,” Caleb said, all but rolling his eyes as he said the name. It was a reaction that surprised Kidd. He thought he would have heard it, having been in the house with Suzanne and Harrison, but he didn’t think it would get a reaction like that. “He had something to do with my sister’s murder, didn’t he?”
Kidd blinked. “Well, we don’t have any proof of that, no,” he said. “But your mother was talking about him and I wanted to know what you knew of him.”
“As far as they’re concerned, he’s the one who did it,” Caleb said. “I mean, not alone, with Michael Earle, obviously. But he’s as good as guilty in their eyes.”
“Why was nothing said about this during the original investigation?” Kidd asked.
Caleb shrugged. “They just keep going on and on about him, but fucked if I know,” he said. “Sorry, can I swear? Is that terrible?”
“It’s fine, Caleb,” Kidd replied. “What do you mean they keep going on and on, when did they first start talking about him?”
“God, it must be a couple of years ago now,” Caleb said, taking another sip from his tea. “I don’t remember it coming up before that if I’m honest.” Caleb shook his head. “No, it wasn’t mentioned until a couple of years ago on the anniversary of her death, I think? Mum had a little bit too much to drink around the fifteen-year mark and…well…I can’t really blame her for it, it’s something she carries with her every day of her life, but when she drinks she tends to talk a little bit too much. So she was chattering away about all the things wrong with the investigation.”
“All the things?” Kidd repeated.
“Well, she complained about how it took you too long to get started and then once you did get started you didn’t do enough,” Caleb was talking very matter-of-factly, just stating what had happened, emotionless, no connection to it whatsoever. “Then she started going on about Phil Jackson. The only reason I even remember it is because I’d never heard the name before. It wasn’t in news reports, it wasn’t mentioned on any of the other anniversaries or her birthday and…I don’t know…the way Mum was talking about him you’d think that she’d never bloody shut up about him.”
“What was she saying?”
“How he got away with it, how he should have gone away too.” Caleb shook his head. “Dad tried to keep her quiet, but she kept going on and on about it. Honestly, you couldn’t stop her even if you tried. Once you get Mum talking she’s just off on one.”
There was the name all over again. Phil Jackson. It felt more than a little suspicious to Kidd that it had only come up a couple of years ago. It had been mentioned by Michael Earle’s mum, in a way, she had asked them to look at the case file, and Suzanne had mentioned it when they had come around but why had it taken them so long? Who would have told her about Phil Jackson?
A million possibilities were running around in Kidd’s head, the possibility that she was in contact with Michael’s family or had someone else investigating, but all of those questions pointed to one simple answer. They needed to talk to Suzanne Grant again. And they needed to speak to her alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“That was enlightening,” Zoe said once Caleb had gone. It was definitely something of an understatement.
Caleb had a little bit more to say about Phil Jackson, though it was mostly what Suzanne had told them just a few days ago—how he and Michael had been friends, how he was never properly investigated. These were things that Kidd already knew, and more than anything else he wanted to investigate Phil Jackson, badly. It was to be his first port of call as soon as he got back to the Incident Room.
“Yeah,” Kidd said. “I want to talk to Suzanne again if we can, maybe without her husband present.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that there’s more going on there than we first realised,” Kidd said. “Where did she pick up that name from? That has to lead us to something doesn’t it?”
Even he felt like he was clutching at straws, but it was something. It had to be. He hoped anyway.
“And how are you?” Zoe asked as they made their way to the kitchen. Kidd couldn’t tell if it was an instinctual need for caffeine or if Zoe was guiding him there. Either way, he was grateful.
“How am I?”
“After yesterday,” she said. “You seemed pretty rattled.”
“Well, it’s not every day that you bust down the door of someone’s flat to find them lying in a pool of their own blood,” Kidd said, though even he had to admit that while it wasn’t every day, it was still more often than he would like.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Zoe said. She took two mugs out of the cupboard and filled the kettle. Though she wasn’t saying anything, there was so much in what was not being spoken between them just now. She wanted to know what happened with Craig yesterday, the truth this time.
“Then I don’t know what you mean,” Kidd said. “This case is hectic, if that’s what you’re talking about, but other than that—”
“So we’re playing dumb now, is that where we’re at?” she asked, leaning back against the counter. “Don’t do that to me, Kidd, we know each other better than that. What’s going on with Craig?”
Kidd found himself hesitating. He told Zoe a lot about his life. She knew that he had gone looking for Craig, she knew that he had travelled to Europe just to retrace the steps of one of their holidays, not that he told her what really went down in Germany. But this still felt like too much for him to share. It didn’t feel like it was his story to tell, his thing to talk about. Craig was in serious trouble. He could be done for murder or, at the very least, manslaughter and he was currently hiding him in his boyfriend’s flat.
The severity of the situation hadn’t really dawned on Kidd until that moment. What the hell was he doing? He needed to get Craig out of there and somewhere else ASAP.
“I’m sorry, Zoe,” Kidd said. “Not this time.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You’re serious?”
Kidd nodded.
“That bad?” she said.
“Yeah, it—” Kidd stopped himself. His phone was buzzing against his thigh. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw ANDREA across the front of his phone. He knew this couldn’t be good.
“Why is she calling you again?” Zoe asked.
“I mean it, Zoe,” Kidd said. “Not this time.”
He
answered the phone and walked out into the corridor.
◆◆◆
Janya pulled up outside Michael Earle’s parents' house once again. She was glad to be the one that was driving this time around. She’d had to win best of three at Rock, Paper, Scissors to do it, because Detective Constable Owen Campbell was a man-child, but it was definitely worth it.
There was already a police vehicle outside the house, one that Janya recognised from the station, an unmarked Peugeot that she knew the FLO would have used. She couldn’t imagine what the two of them were going through just now. They had only recently had their son back in their lives since he got out of prison, and just like that, someone had taken him away all over again.
It was the FLO who let them in, guiding them through to the living room where Brian Earle was sitting staring at the TV. It was BBC News 24 on the screen, the same loop going around and around. His eyes had glazed over. Janya didn’t imagine for a single second that he was really taking in any of what was going on. She couldn’t blame him for that.
“Mr Earle?” she stated, her voice quiet but enough to get him to blink and turn his attention to her. The very sight of her seemed like it would be enough to make him break. He knew he was going to have to talk about his son, and it was the last thing he wanted to do.
The FLO introduced the two officers in a soft voice, offering them all tea and scurrying out of the room to fetch it while Janya and Owen took seats on the couch. Brian turned the volume down on the TV and faced them. There were dark circles beneath his reddened eyes. He had been crying recently. There was an open box of Kleenex on the side table by the armchair. Maybe they were there just in case.
“Brian, thank you so much for speaking with us so soon,” Janya started.
“Didn’t have much of a choice in the matter,” he grumbled. “Wife wanted you to come round. Wanted you to come round then ended up with a migraine and fucked off to bed.” He blinked and looked at them both like his language had shocked him. “Sorry. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
