by GS Rhodes
Be My Baby
A DI Benjamin Kidd Thriller
GS Rhodes
Dark Ship Crime
Copyright © 2021 GS Rhodes
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published Worldwide by Dark Ship Crime
Cover Design by Meg Jolly
Also by GS Rhodes
The DI Benjamin Kidd Thrillers
When You're Smiling
Just Keep Breathing
Your Best Shot
Be My Baby
Hand On Heart (Coming Soon)
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
DI BENJAMIN KIDD WILL RETURN IN
Acknowledgements
About The Author
CHAPTER ONE
Rachel Walters couldn’t remember the last time she had a moment entirely to herself. The day was beautiful, more beautiful than she could have possibly hoped for when she arranged a day out with her best friend and their kids to sit by the river and soak up some sun.
Stretched out on a blanket on the grass, looking across the river at the restaurants all bathed in the early afternoon sun, she felt content. She took a deep breath, leaning back on her elbows and closing her eyes as the sun brushed her face.
“You look way too relaxed for someone who has a toddler.” The comment was followed by a laugh. Vicky Moore was stretched out on her own blanket just next to Rachel’s, her eyes peeking over the top of her sunglasses to take her friend in. Her black, curly hair was bouncing freely around her head, the sun hitting her light brown skin just right, making it look as if she were glowing.
“Hey, don’t remind me just now,” Rachel said with a laugh, quickly untying and retying her light brown hair. “Maggie is happy to be off playing with Elliot and Marcus, okay? We can pretend, just for a moment, that our life is soaking up the sun, not mopping up—”
“I beg of you, do not finish that sentence,” Vicky interrupted. “The last thing I want to think about is that. Relaxing is the order of the day.”
“I hear you,” Rachel replied, feeling a sudden wave of guilt wash over her. She loved her little Maggie, she did. She was just a handful sometimes. And her husband Dan was working so much since he got promoted that she barely got to see him, let alone have him help her with Maggie. There were days when she wondered if Maggie would stop recognising him after all of the weekend outings he’d missed, all the evenings that he had to work late.
She shook it from her head. Now wasn’t the time to analyse the state of her marriage. Vicky was right. She needed to chill out.
Rachel looked in the direction of the kids, Maggie running around in her favourite bright blue coat, which Rachel was quite fond of because it meant she could pick her out in a crowd, Elliott and Marcus joining her. They seemed perfectly happy together, playing whatever game it was they had come up with that obviously involved them screaming and laughing at the top of their lungs. It put a smile on Rachel’s face.
“No further than the bench, you guys!” Vicky called out, making Rachel jump. Vicky fixed her with a look. “Sorry. I’m switching out of obsessed mother mode, I promise.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rachel replied, looking back over to the kids. They stopped running to wave, an acknowledgement that they had heard her, but then went back to their game. It might not have been the soundtrack that the other people at the riverside had been hoping for, but it filled Rachel’s heart with joy. “Can you remember the last time you actually switched off though?”
“Around nine months before Elliot and Marcus were born, I would say,” Vicky said with a dark laugh.
“But seriously,” Rachel said. “I swear I have every intention of switching off when Maggie goes to bed, or during the morning when she has nursery, but there’s always something, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” Vicky said. “I know it far too well. I’ve got two of them, remember?”
“Getting her into a school, making sure her clothes are clean, checking in to make sure she’s sleeping okay, all that stuff,” Rachel said. “And even when you’ve done all of that, something else pops up.”
“Like a husband.”
Rachel opened her mouth to respond but stopped herself. She could feel herself about to say something a little unkind about Dan. She loved Dan, she really and truly did. They’d been together for eight years, married for six, and had Maggie for the past four. To say it was an intense start to a relationship would be an understatement. But things felt…strained.
She couldn’t place what it was that made things go that way, or even pinpoint the moment where they became awkward, but at some point in the past couple of years it felt like their relationship had gone off the boil, tossed to one side somewhere among the dirty nappies and Maggie’s toys.
It made sense that there was less time for them to be a couple now that they had Maggie, but Rachel wished that Dan would make more time, or at the very least make an effort like she tried to. Work came first, Maggie came second, and Rachel didn’t even feel like she was in the top three most of the time.
“I’ve lost you,” Vicky said, reaching across to place a tender hand on her leg. She gave it a squeeze. “Is everything okay with you and Dan?”
Rachel found herself hesitating. She wanted to confide in Vicky, but felt like the person she should be expressing these feelings to was the one person who she couldn’t seem to get a hold of when she needed him most. Dan. And even when he was there, did she really want to talk to him about this? Did she really want to bring this up and make things awkward?
“Everything’s fine,” she said, forcing a smile onto her face. “You know how things are, you think about one little parenting thing and your brain just spirals out of control.” Rachel laughed. It sounded fake, even to her, but Vicky took the cue to not
pry any further. She knew that when Rachel wanted to talk, she would come to her. She always did.
So Vicky changed the subject, and they chatted the afternoon away while the kids played, drinking the coffee they’d bought from the Pret in town, eating the picnic that they’d gone halves on in Waitrose just a couple of hours prior.
“Elliot, Marcus!” Vicky called after a time. “You guys hungry?”
Vicky looked out past Rachel to see where they had gone. Her face dropped. She got to her feet, abandoning the blankets, abandoning the food, stood on her tiptoes, trying to spot her boys.
Rachel got to her feet too. “Can’t you see them?” Her heart pounding double-time in her chest as she searched. She looked for the blue coat, the coat that always helped her pick Maggie out of a crowd, her failsafe. She couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see it anywhere.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Vicky mumbled as she grabbed her phone and started to walk in the direction they’d been playing, towards the bench. They weren’t supposed to go further than the bench and there it was, empty.
“Mama!” A voice that Rachel recognised, that Vicky knew better than anything else in the world. Vicky let go of a breath so heavy it almost brought her to her knees as Elliot and Marcus hurried back towards her, big smiles on their faces like nothing had happened.
Vicky’s mood quickly turned.
“What did I tell you?” Vicky barked. “I told you not to go beyond the bench, where did you go?”
“There were some trees over there,” Elliot replied, pointing vaguely over his shoulder. “Marcus said they looked cool.”
“I did not!”
“Yes, you did,” Elliot snapped. “So we decided to go and play there. It wasn’t far.”
“But I told you not to go any further than that bench,” Vicky growled, pointing at the bench a little way behind her. “You gave me a freaking heart attack.”
There was still something missing. Or rather, someone.
Rachel’s heart quickened once again. She stared at the pathway up ahead. It was lined with trees on the other side, encroaching where the spring had allowed them to grow out of control. The path ran by the river, all the way down to Hampton if you were feeling brave enough to take the walk. It snaked off into the distance and out of sight. She waited for Maggie to appear, for her to start running around the corner towards her, blonde curls bouncing around her head. But she didn’t come. She stared at that empty spot in the pathway and waited for her. Nothing. Nothing at all.
“Where’s Maggie?” Rachel asked, turning her attention to the boys. “Were you with Maggie? Where is she?”
Elliot and Marcus looked at one another and then back at Rachel. They didn’t seem to know what to say.
“Where is she?!” Rachel shouted, unable to keep her voice even, unable to stop the tears from filling her eyes.
“Stay calm, Rachel, she might be on her way,” Vicky said, turning back to her boys. “You were with her, where did she go?”
Marcus shrugged. Elliot opened his mouth to speak. Rachel had to stop herself from shouting again. She could feel the ground beneath her feet growing unsteady. She didn’t know what to do, she could feel herself falling apart.
“We’ll find her,” Vicky said, her hand quickly finding a place to rest on Rachel’s back. Rachel was shaking.
They started to look, people from the riverside hurrying to help them. Rachel tried to call Dan, but couldn’t manage to get through. She called and called and called, leaving message after message, each one more frantic than the last.
He didn’t pick up. No matter how many times she dialled his number, he just didn’t pick up. Why was he never around when she needed him? Why?
It wasn’t the time to be thinking that. Her focus needed to be on Maggie. So she looked with Vicky in tow, people from the riverside joining them in their search until their hope, or their time, waned and they needed to leave, until the afternoon turned to dusk, until Dan finally returned her call and she sobbed at him down the phone, until the police arrived and took her home. Everything was falling apart. She couldn’t fathom losing Maggie. She couldn’t bear it. And here it was happening to her, and she had no idea what she was going to do about it.
CHAPTER TWO
Benjamin Kidd released Craig Peyton from a vice-like hug. It had been more than two years since he had last seen Craig in the flesh, and in a strange way, he felt that he needed to hold onto him as long as possible, just in case he was an apparition rather than the real thing. It was a silly thought to have, but given he had vanished into thin air once before, it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
He took a few steps back and looked at the man who had haunted him ever since the day he’d vanished without a trace. Declared missing, then presumed dead, leaving behind a trail of chaos and panic, a trail that was cold until just a couple of months ago when Kidd had picked up the search once again. He’d known that he would keep on searching whether he meant to or not, he just hadn’t expected Craig to end up coming to find him.
“So you’re here,” Kidd said. It didn’t mean anything, it was simply a fact. Craig Peyton was here, in the flesh, that same cocky look on his face, the same pouty lips and swooshy hair. He could hardly believe it. It was so late at night, and he had just finished solving a case, he was so exhausted he wouldn’t be surprised if he woke up to find that this was all a dream.
“I am,” Craig replied.
Kidd had heard his voice on the phone not twenty minutes ago, but hearing it in the flesh was something entirely different. It had lost a little of its brightness, though perhaps that was the lateness of the hour. Either way, it was strange. Kidd had spent so long trying to remember snatches of Craig’s voice that it was almost lost to him. Now it was back in stark focus and it wasn’t quite how he remembered. It’s funny how the brain plays tricks on you.
Please, God, don’t let this be a trick, Kidd thought.
A cold wind blew from beneath Kingston Bridge, all lit up in blue and purple lights, and whipped around the pair of them. Kidd shivered. Though it was spring, the weather was yet to catch up with the season. It still felt wintery at times.
“What on earth are you doing here?” Kidd said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “After all this time, why are you here?”
“I thought you’d be pleased to see me,” Craig replied, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Kidd could feel himself getting sucked in. He couldn’t. He had so many questions, had held so much anger, so much resentment, he couldn’t let it all slide just because his ex-boyfriend had shown up after all this time. He couldn’t let all of that vanish just because he was glad that he had physical confirmation that Craig Peyton was alive. It was like a weight had been lifted from his soul and been replaced with the heft of a thousand questions.
“I am,” Ben said, keeping his voice as measured as possible. “But just because I’m pleased to see you doesn’t mean I can’t ask questions.”
“Ben—”
“Don’t,” Ben said. “I need to know what the bloody hell is going on here, Craig. Do you have any idea what you’ve put us through? Your family, me, Andrea? She’s been looking all this time. She didn’t want to believe you were dead.”
“She thought I was dead?”
“Everybody did,” Kidd barked, his voice echoing off across the water. “No one had any idea where you were, the only conclusion they could come to was that you were dead.”
Craig nodded, taking it all in. It was the first time he’d taken his gaze off of Kidd and it felt strange somehow. It made him seem all the more ghostly, like he might just vanish into thin air.
Don’t you dare, Kidd thought, like he could will him not to.
“It worked then,” Craig said.
“What?”
“I needed to vanish,” he replied. “And, I guess, the best way to vanish is for people to think that you’re dead. No one is going to look for a dead man.”
“No one except me,” B
en said.
“I know,” Craig said. “And I’m sorry.”
Kidd didn’t know what he was sorry for. Was he sorry for all he’d put him through? Was he sorry that Kidd had been searching for someone who didn’t want to be found? It was impossible to say. Craig didn’t seem like he was in a sharing mood just now.
“Andrea too.”
“What’s that now?”
“Andrea was looking too,” Kidd said firmly. “I…I don’t know if she ever stopped looking. She only got me involved when she thought she’d found you, or at least where you last were.”
“What did she find?”
“CCTV of you at Waterloo station,” Kidd said, matter of factly, remembering the fuzzy photo that Andrea had emailed to him a couple of months ago. “And then a picture of you in a cafe in Southend-On-Sea.”
“I knew about Southend,” he said.
“You did?”
“I saw you when you were down there,” Craig said, somewhat sheepishly.
“Why didn’t you—?”
“Because I didn’t want to talk to you with her there,” Craig interrupted. “I know she’s my sister and everything, but there’s a lot of history between us, unfinished business and…”
Craig trailed off and Kidd stood there, watching him as yet another cold breeze came off the river and battered him in the face. He didn’t know what Craig had been about to say next. He almost thought he was about to ask for Kidd’s help. It was what Kidd had expected. Maybe he was working his way up to it.
“I’m glad you came out to meet me,” Craig said. “I didn’t think…I didn’t know if… when I called you, when I told you it was me, I didn’t know if you’d actually come.”
It was a fair assessment. If Craig had been watching him around town, he probably knew about John, at least in some capacity. And given how things had been for them when Craig had vanished…there were a lot of things at play here. But Ben couldn’t imagine a single scenario where he wouldn’t come running the second that Craig Peyton called him. He’d spent so much time looking for him, it felt somewhat inevitable.
