by GS Rhodes
“Of course I came,” Ben said. “I needed to make sure you were real.”
“Couldn’t be more real,” Craig said. “And I’m still sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I won’t,” Craig replied. “I won’t stop saying it until you accept my apology for everything I put you through.”
“I put you through stuff too,” Ben replied. “Why else would you have vanished off the face of the earth, huh?”
The question was so loaded it was practically a pistol at Craig’s temple. But he seemed to shrug it off with nothing more than a laugh. There was something else there. Ben could see it in the way that Craig averted his gaze, the way he was perhaps a little too smiley, the way topics like ‘Why here’ and ‘Why now’ were being shrugged off.
“Do you have somewhere to stay?” Kidd asked.
Craig shook his head.
“I was staying at the Travelodge on the other side of town for the last couple of nights,” he replied. “Can’t imagine they would mind me sticking around for a few more days.”
“Imagine they’re be grateful to have anyone there at all.”
Craig laughed. “Right.”
“Where were you before that?”
“After I left Southend, I was in Central,” Craig replied. “I had some things to clear up. But I came here tonight with the intention of tracking you down.”
“Why did it take you so long?”
“I tried to call you.”
“You managed to call me,” Kidd said. “You just never said anything.”
“I was working up to it.”
“Clearly.” Ben couldn’t stop himself from smiling, unable to bring himself to be angry, at least not right now. He was too pleased to see him, too pleased that he was safe. There would be time for questions about what exactly he’d been doing in London before he came here, there would be time for all of that and more. But right now, he needed to rest.
Kidd could feel the misstep coming from a mile off but couldn’t stop the words falling from his lips. “Do you…do you want to stay at mine?”
Craig’s eyes widened a little, his mouth forming a small “Oh” shape. He hadn’t been expecting that.
“It doesn’t make sense for you to shell out money for a hotel when my house is right there,” Kidd said.
Craig nodded slowly.
“That would be nice,” he said. “Thank you, Ben.”
Kidd fought the urge to sigh. What on earth was he doing?
“Don’t mention it.”
◆◆◆
Ben and Craig made their way through the quietness of Kingston town centre, straight to Kidd’s house. Craig didn’t seem to be following Ben as much as he was walking a route that he had taken many times before, with or without Ben. It was strange. Kidd hadn’t done that walk with him for so many years, it was hard to believe it was happening.
When Kidd let him in, Craig looked around the hallway like a stranger, trying to pick up anything that might have changed, anything that might be different from when he was here last. Ben knew he wouldn’t find anything, that practically the entire place had remained the same since the day Craig vanished. It wasn’t broken, so he hadn’t needed to fix it. Kidd was the one that was broken, but he hadn’t gotten around to fixing that either.
“It’s exactly the same,” Craig said quietly, almost like his voice might disturb it. Kidd turned on the light in the hallway, finally able to take in Craig’s face in something other than a streetlight’s glow.
He’s one to talk, Kidd thought. He looked exactly the same, like time hadn’t touched him whatsoever. Kidd was fairly certain time had smacked him in the face with a shovel and left him for dead.
“What did you think was going to happen?” Kidd asked. “I’m at work almost constantly, I don’t have time to redecorate.”
“But you could always get someone else to do it?”
“Like who? Liz?”
“How is she?”
“She had another baby.”
Craig’s jaw dropped.
“I mean, that doesn’t tell me if she’s well,” Craig said. “Personally, having another baby seems like a terrible idea, but I never was that keen on them.”
“On my niece or babies?”
Craig laughed. “Babies, obviously,” he said. “Well, if not Liz, why not…that guy?”
Kidd felt a hush fall over the room as Craig pulled his gaze away from Kidd once more. He’d been building up to this.
“John,” Kidd said. “‘That guy’ is John.”
“Right,” Craig said, nodding to himself. “John. How long have you two been…?”
“A few months,” Kidd said.
Craig carried on nodding, like he was that dog from the car insurance advert.
“And things are…good?”
“Very good,” Kidd said.
“Does he know about me?”
Kidd hesitated. “No. But I didn’t expect you to show up out of the blue.”
“Right.”
Kidd couldn’t tell if Craig believed him or not. He resolved not to care. That wasn’t his concern right now. He could feel the weight of the world trying to drag him to sleep, and given the lateness of the hour, he could only assume that Craig was feeling the same, or at least similar. It was too late for conversations like this.
“Come on,” Kidd said. “We can talk more tomorrow.”
Craig opened his mouth to speak but stopped himself. Kidd wondered what he was going to say, if he was going to finally open up about where he’d been for the past two years. He had a lot to tell him. Kidd had a lot to tell Craig too, he supposed. All the searching, his time in Germany when he was signed off with stress. They had much to share, but not now.
Kidd started up the stairs, Craig’s presence behind him as they reached the landing. Craig moved instinctively towards Ben’s bedroom, the room they had shared together once upon a time, his hand twisting the door handle down.
“The spare room is already made up,” Kidd interrupted. Craig froze. “It’s probably best if—”
“Yeah, of course,” Craig said, a little pink colouring his cheeks. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” Kidd said.
“I told you I’m not going to stop,” he replied.
Kidd laughed. “G’night Craig.”
“Night, Ben,” Craig said. “It’s…it’s good to see you.”
Kidd took a breath. “You too.”
CHAPTER THREE
At some point Ben must have fallen asleep, though he couldn’t put his finger on when. The second he had left Craig behind, his brain seemed to go into overdrive and no matter how much he tried to will himself to go to sleep, it continued to elude him.
But he awoke all the same the following morning, the sun peeking in through the gap in his curtains and bringing him back around for another day at work.
He couldn’t quite fathom that last night had even happened. If it weren’t for the sounds of Craig already up and about downstairs, doing goodness knows what—hopefully making tea, everything was still in the same place after all—he would have no reason to believe it whatsoever.
Kidd pulled on some clothes and made his way downstairs, heading into the living room where the TV had been switched on to a very low volume. Craig was sitting there with a pot of tea on the coffee table in front of him, two mugs, one filled with builder’s strength tea, the other empty. Kidd couldn’t help but smile.
“Sorry,” Craig said when he noticed Kidd at the door. “I didn’t wake you, did I? I was struggling to sleep and—”
“No, no,” Kidd said. “I was already awake, don’t worry. Just thought I’d come down and see what you were up to.”
“Did you think I was robbing you?”
“I was hoping you were making tea,” Kidd said, nodding to the pot on the table.
Craig smiled and gestured to it. “Help yourself.”
“What hospitality in my own house,” Kidd sniped.
Crai
g just laughed and took a sip of his tea while Kidd poured his own. Craig had even decanted milk into a small pot and put it on the tray. Suddenly, Ben was thrown back to more than two years ago when Craig would do this and bring it upstairs for them to drink in bed of a morning.
Craig had seen the tea set in the window of a charity shop and had bought it, determined to live some kind of fantasy where they drank tea and read the paper in bed. What ended up happening was they drank tea and looked at their phones until one or both of them had to go to work, but maybe that was the modern-day version of it. It felt sort of tragic now that Ben thought about it.
Kidd took a sip of his tea and tried to use it as a way to steady himself. It was strange seeing Craig back in his house, seeing him sitting on the sofa, watching the TV like a day hadn’t passed, like so much hadn’t happened in their lives since they last saw one another. Both of them seemed to be content with living that lie for a little longer.
Craig had turned on the news, the main headline of the morning being a missing child somewhere in Kingston.
Kidd straightened where he stood, watching as they went through the finer points of the case. They didn’t have any leads at this point, all they had was the child’s name and that they were wearing a bright blue coat. They had been down by the riverside, three children playing together, when one of them had gone missing, The two boys Maggie Walters had been playing with were none the wiser to where she’d gone. Apparently she’d just vanished.
They put a picture of the child up on screen, a cute blonde girl with curls framing her porcelain face. Kidd could already imagine the amount of people sharing that photo on social media, desperately trying to find her. His heart went out to the parents.
They were about to go to an interview with the mother when Kidd’s phone started ringing in the pocket of his sweatpants. He took it out to see Liz’s name emblazoned across the front of the screen.
He looked back to the TV, where a young woman looked understandably distressed stood before the press. He wondered who was working the case at Kingston Police Station. He felt sorry for them. Missing children were always a tough job, the scrutiny was always so much heavier. Even more so, when the press had already gotten hold of it.
“Sorry,” he said to Craig. “I just need to…” He gestured to the hallway. He answered it as he walked out, shutting the door behind him. “Hey Liz,” he said. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” she practically barked down the phone. “Ben, I love you, you’re my brother, I think you’re great, and love that you have this career that keeps you sooooo busy, but where on earth have you been?”
Kidd opened his mouth to respond, a witty retort that would no doubt get him in trouble, dancing on the tip of his tongue. Normally he could get away with that kind of talk with Liz, but she seemed genuinely annoyed this time. He quickly changed tack.
“Sorry,” he said. “Work has been hectic, and…” He’d not mentioned his renewed search for Craig. The only person in his life who knew about it, other than Andrea, was Detective Sergeant Zoe Sanchez from work. His best friend. “I was out late last night. Case got a bit out of hand.”
“Don’t they always?”
“More often than I’d like.” He took a sip of his tea, willing it to wake him up. “It’s just been a lot. I’m the worst.”
“Agreed,” Liz replied, though Kidd could hear she was smiling so it wasn’t all bad. There was a scream in the background, his niece or nephew—probably both—causing trouble. Liz seemed happy to ignore them. “How are you anyway? I feel like I’ve not seen you in ages. Has work really been that busy?”
“It’s been hectic,” Kidd repeated. “Lots of cases, one that we wrapped up last night but still has a heck of a lot of paperwork that needs doing. It got messy and…” He didn’t like involving his sister in his work. It was one thing for him to know what the world could be like, how grubby, how seedy, but he didn’t think it necessary for his sister to know that. “But it’s fine,” he said. “How are you? How’s Greg and the kids?”
“I’m knackered all the time,” she said. “But I think that’s the baby, rather than anything else. Greg is fine, working hard but managing to spend more time with me and the kids so I’m not complaining. It’s all good, Ben, like, really good. I’ve not got a bad word to say. Well, other than that a lottery win wouldn’t go amiss right now, but that feels like a constant.”
Kidd laughed. “Fair enough.”
“And how is John?”
Kidd turned his attention back to the door. The volume on the TV had gone up since he stepped out into the hallway. He was pretty certain that Craig wasn’t listening. He knew about John, but Ben felt weird about talking about him so openly when Craig was in the next room. It felt strangely disrespectful.
“He’s good,” Kidd said, walking away from the living room and into the kitchen. He leant back against the kitchen counter, taking a sip of his tea. “I’ve not seen quite as much of him as I would like because of work but…yeah, he’s good.”
This is going to take some explaining, he thought. It was one thing that he hadn’t mentioned Craig to John, even while he was looking for him with Craig’s sister. There were lies sitting between them like ticking time bombs waiting to go off. But now, to have to explain that his ex-boyfriend who had been missing up until last night was now in his house? He didn’t even really know where to start.
“Did you hear me?” Liz asked.
“What’s that?”
“You should come over for dinner soon,” she said. “Tonight, if you can swing it. Come on, it would be nice to see you. The kids would lose their minds if they got to see their uncle.”
Kidd hesitated. It almost didn’t seem right to abandon Craig when he had just got here, but maybe not being in the house would give him a chance to clear his head, a chance to figure out exactly what it was he was going to do. At least that’s what he told himself.
“Alright, alright,” he replied. “Tonight is perfect. I’ll move some stuff around and let you know what time I can be there.”
“Move some stuff around?” Liz repeated, a laugh prevalent in her voice. “What? Suddenly you have social engagements and all sorts? Come on, Ben! I know you. You’re not that busy. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Sure thing.”
He hung up the phone and found himself staring at the handset. Craig would be fine on his own tonight. That would give him a chance maybe to talk to Liz about it, figure out what the bloody hell he was supposed to do and maybe come up with some kind of plan. Maybe she could even help him when it came time to tell John. She would be way better at a conversation like that.
He saw the time floating at the top of his screen. He didn’t have time to think about it now, he needed to get to work. And who knew what horrors awaited him there.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kidd found himself walking his usual route to the station along the riverfront. He pulled his suit jacket a little tighter around himself, trying to stave off the coolness of the morning. The sun may have been shining but it was deceptively cool, at least for now.
He wandered past the spot where he and Craig had met last night. It was strange walking past it again, but he didn’t have time to dwell. He’d told Craig before he’d left that he would be at work all day and that he was going to see Liz and the kids for dinner in the evening.
Craig seemed more than happy to spend the day by himself. Kidd left him the spare key, so he could do as he pleased. Kidd very much expected to come home to find that all the food in the fridge had vanished. And maybe even that Craig would be gone again. He hoped that the latter wouldn’t come true.
On the other side of the river, he could see police tape flapping about in the wind surrounding an area not too far from where he’d had the living daylights beaten out of him in a case not too long ago. That must have been where the child on the news had gone missing. The poor thing.
He carried on to the station, the morning sun doing its best to br
ighten the cold, hard, grey reality but failing quite miserably.
“Good morning, Diane,” Kidd said as he walked through the front door. “Oh, sorry, not Diane’s shift?” he said as he caught sight of the portly, white gentleman sat behind the front desk.
He had thinning black hair that appeared to be running away from his forehead, and a pinched expression as he adjusted his glasses to take in Kidd.
“Not her shift, no,” the man replied. “The name’s Steve. Good morning,” he said, before turning his attention back to his computer screen, the sound of click-clacking keys filling the air in the empty reception.
Perhaps everything in the world was upside down today. Craig was back in his life and Diane wasn’t sitting behind the front desk with a big smile on her face ready to say good morning. Kidd couldn’t remember the last time he walked through those doors and Diane wasn’t there to greet him. He shook it off.
“Alright then,” Kidd said, taking his key card out of his jacket pocket and buzzing himself through the door. He moved down the corridor at speed and into the Incident Room where he was surprised to see Owen Campbell already at his desk. “Morning Campbell.”
Owen looked up from behind his computer screen. There were heavy bags under his eyes and his hair looked a little greasy. This wasn’t the usually well-presented Owen Campbell who seemed to take more pride in his looks than he did in his work. He offered DI Kidd a half-hearted smile.
“Good morning, boss,” he croaked. “Good night’s rest?”
“Terrible,” Kidd replied. “How about you?”
“Couldn’t have been worse,” he said, that half-hearted smile fading a little. He really didn’t look well. “I didn’t get back home until late. By the time I got there, couldn’t get a lot of sleep in. Was quite a night wasn’t it?”
“I’ll say,” Kidd replied. “Why were you out so late?”
