Just Keep Breathing Read online

  Apart from Kidd, no one seemed to notice a tall man with a buzzcut barrelling across the room at breakneck speed. Without warning, he pushed through the crowd, past the waiting, adoring fans, past Alexandra Kaye, and straight up to Chris Harper, where he threw a punch that landed square on Chris’ nose.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The room erupted with activity. Laura let out a howl and hurried away from where the action was taking place, Alexandra Kaye grabbed hold of the man who had thrown the punch while Chris stumbled back a step holding his face, shock etched into every one of his features.

  “What the fuck is happening?” Zoe barked.

  “Fucked if I know,” Kidd said, immediately heading over to the bloodied Chris and his assailant.

  “Stay the fuck away from my wife!” the man bellowed.

  “I’m not your wife anymore, Norm. Please, stop this!” Alexandra wailed, but Norm was far too strong for her, yanking his arm away and immediately advancing on Chris again. He threw another punch, one that Chris managed to avoid. It knocked Norm off balance. He stumbled a little to one side, giving Chris a chance to grab hold of him by the shirt.

  He yanked the man upright and punched him square on the jaw.

  “Fuck’s sake!” Kidd growled, barrelling towards the man that Alexandra had called Norm and grabbing him before he could hit Chris again. DS Sanchez did the same, taking hold of Chris by both arms and managing to wrestle him to the ground. She’d twisted his arm around his back, his face twisted in pain. He wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

  “Get off me,” Norm grunted, struggling against Kidd’s grip. “Get the fuck off me!”

  “Calm down,” Kidd barked. “Take a breath.”

  “FUCK! OFF!” Norm tried to break free again, but Kidd grabbed his hand and bent it back, the pain shooting through Norm’s arm enough to ground him.

  “I’m Detective Inspector Kidd, that over there is Detective Sergeant Sanchez, and unless you want to spend a night in a jail cell or get convicted for assaulting a police officer, I suggest you calm down.”

  That seemed to stop him. He took a few deep breaths, settling down. When he seemed calm, Kidd released him and Norm took a seat on the floor. The people around them had stopped what they were doing to watch the action, all eyes on Norm.

  “Alright,” Kidd said, turning to the onlookers. “Show’s over folks, please go back to your night.”

  “What on earth is happening in here?” Ms Chowdhury had appeared nearby, her face flushed, her movements jerky, though Kidd couldn’t tell if her being flustered was from the fight that had broken out, or what had happened with Chris a few moments before.

  “Could you call the police, Ms Chowdhury?” Kidd asked. “I think we need to take these two in.”

  “That hardly seems necessary,” Laura protested.

  “I think it is,” Kidd said firmly. “Ms Chowdhury? If you could?”

  “I thought you two were the police?” she said, raising an eyebrow before she turned and walked away. Kidd wanted to shout after her that he was off duty and shouldn’t be dealing with two grown men who couldn’t control themselves, or figure out their issues without the use of their fists.

  “I don’t think the police need to be involved, Ben,” Laura said. “They’re already doing so much for me and my family, I wouldn’t want to bother them anymore.”

  “That’s precisely the reason we need to take them both in, Mrs Harper,” Kidd said, purposely using her surname. “We need to have a talk with them, get to the bottom of what’s going on.”

  “Nothing is going on,” Laura said firmly. “Just boys being boys.”

  Kidd could smell the bullshit a mile off, there wasn’t enough expensive perfume in the world to cover it up. He simply offered Laura a smile and escorted Norm outside, DS Sanchez following close behind with Chris.

  ◆◆◆

  When the uniformed officers arrived and put the two men in the back of separate cars, DI Kidd and DS Sanchez headed out of the building. The second he stepped out of those doors, Kidd felt like he could breathe again. He hadn’t wanted the night to go this way, of course, but he had to admit it was nice to have a reason to leave early.

  He’d told both Mrs Harper and Ms Kaye that they could follow in their cars if they wanted to, that they would be at Kingston station, but neither one of them seemed all that keen. Perhaps this wasn’t the first time their husbands had gone at it like this. Neither one of them seemed particularly shocked by it.

  “What was that all about?” DS Sanchez asked as they climbed into the car. Kidd started the engine and quickly pulled out of the car park. It had started raining, just in case the world being like an icicle wasn’t enough.

  “That’s not even the half of it,” Kidd replied. “You’ll never guess what I saw when I went outside to find Chris.”

  “You’re right,” Zoe replied. “I won’t guess. Tell me.”

  “Ms Chowdhury and Mr Harper were a heck of a lot closer than a parent and a headteacher ought to be,” he said as he pulled into the Kingston one-way system, driving under the railway bridge and past the Rotunda. “If you know what I mean.”

  “Really? You caught them?”

  “Not exactly,” Kidd replied. “I didn’t catch them doing anything, but I definitely interrupted them. And then I had him telling me all about how I don’t understand and that he has needs.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Zoe groaned, averting her gaze to the window. “He really tried to justify it?”

  “He did,” Kidd said. “And I’m thinking that maybe this means we need to take a closer look at Ms Chowdhury.”

  Zoe turned back to him. “You think?”

  “It’s a little suspicious that she’s not exactly Sarah’s biggest fan to begin with, and then to have this added on top of it. If Sarah knew about it, then she would be making Chowdhury’s life hell, no? Which could explain a lot.”

  “Or Sarah is just a bit difficult to deal with,” Zoe replied. “That’s a possibility too.”

  “There’s a lot up in the air right now.”

  “And our list of suspects keeps getting longer,” she added. “What’s our next move?”

  Kidd pulled into the car park outside the police station and shut off the engine. “First thing we need to do is figure out what’s going on between these two,” he said. “Then we go from there.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  After Chris and Norman had been booked in, Kidd gave them a little bit of time to get settled, which gave himself and DS Sanchez some time to figure out how they were going to play it. This would be the first time they’d get to properly speak to Chris Harper, at least on the record, so they needed to get it right.

  They had him brought to the interview room, a bruise already swelling on his face where Norm had managed to land that first punch. He’d really gotten him good. Chris sat back heavily in his chair, his face drawn, his eyes puffy with exhaustion, and pulled his suit jacket around himself. Though these rooms had a tendency to get too hot in the summer, in the wintertime they were sometimes glacial. Wearing a thin, white shirt and a jacket, Chris Harper was feeling it. It might make him talk faster.

  DI Kidd pressed the record button on the in-room tape recorder and saw Chris’ eyes widen as he did it. Perhaps, he hadn’t been expecting this interview to be recorded. He’d been offered legal representation but had refused. Maybe he had a little more to hide than Kidd first thought.

  “I am Detective Inspector Kidd, this is Detective Sergeant Sanchez,” Kidd started. “If you could state your name for the tape.”

  “Uh,” Chris said. “My name is Christopher Harper. Does this really need to be recorded?”

  “Well, you’re not under arrest,” DS Sanchez said with a smile as deadly as it was sweet. “We need to record the interview in case you want to press charges against Norman Kaye or if he wants to press charges against you.”

  “I don’t want to press any charges,” Chris said quickly, leaning forward in his chai
r. “If I don’t want to press any charges, can I go?”

  “He may want to press charges against you,” DS Sanchez repeated. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, you might be here for a while.”

  “Suppose that means we can get to know one another,” Chris said.

  “I don’t think so,” DS Sanchez said. Chris sat back in his chair, looking a little disappointed. Maybe lines like that usually worked, but Zoe was having none of it. Kidd was surprised she didn’t leap across the table and lamp him.

  DI Kidd cleared his throat. “We have an open case at the moment looking for your daughter and I really think it would be good if we could talk about it.”

  “I told you, DI Kidd, I’m a very busy man—”

  “I know that, Mr Harper, you already told me that this evening,” Kidd said. “But right now we have you in custody, so let’s kill two birds with one stone, how about that?”

  Chris eyed DI Kidd carefully. He didn’t like this, he didn’t like this one bit. Kidd could see it in the way his eyes narrowed, the way his fists clenched as he tried to hold his suit jacket closed. What was he hiding?

  “Do you know why Mr Kaye would have reacted the way he did to you speaking to Alexandra Kaye?” DI Kidd asked.

  Chris shrugged.

  Kidd sighed. “For the benefit of the tape, Mr Harper just shrugged.”

  Chris smiled and sat up a little straighter. “I don’t know why he would have reacted that way,” he said. “Norman is crazy. Always has been.”

  “Crazy?” DS Sanchez said. “That’s a little strong, don’t you think?”

  “You saw the way he acted, does that look like the behaviour of a rational man to you?”

  “It looked like there was more going on than you just being near his wife, at least that’s how it looked to me,” DI Kidd said. “I imagine it also looked that way to everyone else in that room. Does your wife know why Mr Kaye would have reacted that way?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m going to need a little bit more than, I don’t knows from you, Mr Harper, it’s very late and you’re currently costing my boss a lot of money in overtime, and believe me, he doesn’t like having to fork out for overtime,” Kidd said bluntly. “So either you start talking or I lock you in a cell for the rest of the night and we can discuss this when I’m actually supposed to be on shift. How does that sound?”

  Kidd let the words float across the table and reach Chris, who was considering what his next move could be. Kidd could tell he wouldn’t want to spend the rest of the night in a cell. Nobody did, given the choice. So he waited patiently until Chris unravelled and started talking.

  “We used to be friends,” Chris started. “It was a couple of years ago. He used to work for me, but when everything went down with the company, when I had to make lay-offs, he had to go.”

  So he was one of the people he had upset? A potential enemy.

  “Not really the kind of things that friends do, Mr Harper.”

  “It wasn’t about friendship, it was just business at that point, there was nothing else I could do,” Chris pleaded. His wife had mentioned people that he made enemies with over the years. Norman Kaye must have been one of them.

  “So he attacked you tonight because of that?” DI Kidd asked.

  Chris shrugged again.

  “Allow me,” DS Sanchez said. “For the benefit of the tape, Mr Harper shrugged for a second time.”

  Chris fixed Zoe with a death stare. She was unmoved. She just smiled at him.

  “Why did he tell you to get away from his ex-wife?” DI Kidd asked.

  Chris turned his gaze to DI Kidd. “I think you know why,” he said quietly. “But it’s not what you think.”

  “Enlighten us,” Kidd said.

  Chris took a deep breath before he started talking. “It happened a little while back, not too long after I’d had to let Norman go,” he said. “Alexandra and I had always been close. She’s an old family friend, both her and Norman were really. The business stuff really drove a wedge between us.”

  “I can’t imagine you sleeping with his wife would have exactly helped matters,” Kidd said.

  “It was a one-time thing,” Chris said quickly. “She came over because she was upset about how things were going for her and Norman. She was planning to leave him. I’d been having trouble with Laura, we were on the rocks a little bit. We drank. One thing led to another…” He trailed off. “You don’t need the details,” he said. “But I thought we were all past that now. Like I said, Alexandra is a family friend.”

  “And does Laura know?”

  “What my wife does and doesn’t know isn’t any of your business.”

  “The same way she doesn’t know about Ms Chowdhury?” DI Kidd snapped.

  “That’s my private life, that has nothing to do with what’s happening here.”

  Kidd only wished that were true. When it came to an investigation like this, everything was important. Even the details like that, which seemed like they could be nothing, were something. He didn’t want to say it out loud, he didn’t want to give anything away, but not only was Ms Chowdhury under suspicion but so was Norman Kaye. How far would one man go to get back at the man who slept with his wife? The man who he believed had caused their divorce?

  “I don’t think I have anything else to ask,” Kidd said. “I’ll get an officer to escort you out of the building, if you’re definitely sure you don’t want to press charges.”

  “No, I don’t,” he said. “I just want all of this to go away. Things haven’t been the same between me and Norman since everything happened—”

  “Sleeping with someone’s wife will do that to a relationship,” DS Sanchez said.

  “But I just want it to go back to normal,” he said. “I want my daughter back, I want my friend back, I just want it all to go back to how it was.”

  DI Kidd stopped the recording and escorted Chris from the room. He wasn’t surprised he wanted it all to go away. Like never before, Chris’ life was under a microscope. With what was happening tonight with Ms Chowdhury and what happened in the past with Alexandra Kaye, he seemed to be able to get away with absolutely anything he wanted to. Now that he was being watched, he didn’t like it so much.

  ◆◆◆

  Norman Kaye was a little bit more forthcoming once they got him into interview. He seemed rattled when they got him out of the cell, a shadow of the man who had gone at Chris Harper full pelt, who had looked like he wanted to rip the guy’s head off. Maybe it was because he’d been taken to the police station, maybe being in a cell had sobered him up, but he’d calmed down considerably.

  Kidd once again turned on the tape recorder and sat opposite Mr Kaye. He could really get a good look at him now in the light of the interview room. His buzzed hair was ginger, a light fuzz across all of his head. He was smartly dressed, or at least he had been for the party, they’d taken his tie at the front desk just in case he tried something stupid. His features were harsh, jagged, angular. But his eyes were kind, and looked like they were on the verge of tears the second DI Kidd pressed that record button.

  “I’d like to get this done as soon as possible, Mr Kaye,” DI Kidd said.

  “Of course,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  Kidd blinked. “What’s that?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was the drink. I don’t know, but I just saw them together and I saw red.” He took a breath. His gaze turning to his feet. “I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. It’s not an excuse, I know, but I just lost it a bit.”

  “We saw,” Zoe said. “Tell us what’s going on, Mr Kaye.”

  “I’ve been having troubles with my wife, ex-wife,” he quickly corrected. “Sorry, I keep doing that. The divorce only finished going through a little before Christmas and I’m just not used to it.”

  “But you were separated?”

  “We were, but I always hoped that she would change her mind,” Mr Kaye said, turning
his gaze back to his hands on the table. “It’s stupid. Because she obviously hasn’t and she seemed really happy, didn’t she?”

  “I can’t say I was paying a lot of attention, Mr Kaye,” Kidd said. “Carry on.”

  “Yes, right, sorry,” he said. “Well, she keeps talking about Caleb.”

  DI Kidd had forgotten for a moment about Caleb, the son that she’d mentioned who was particularly distressed about Sarah, at least according to Ms Kaye. He scribbled the name down, something to force him to remember it later. They’d need to talk to him if they could.

  “She keeps telling me how awful I am as a father because I work all the time, because I’m still struggling to make ends meet after what happened with Chris’ business,” he said. “And she’s threatening to take Caleb away from me.”

  “Do you have custody?” DS Sanchez asked.

  “No. I see him most weekends, sometimes when Alexandra is working late, but I barely see him as it is,” he said. “Since I moved out, we’ve drifted further and further apart and the last thing that I want to do is lose touch with my son. I don’t think I could bear it.”

  “So you took this out on Mr Harper tonight?”

  “In my head, he’s the reason my whole life has fallen apart,” Mr Kaye said. “It was him firing me for one thing, so now I have no stable income. Then he slept with my wife, which led to our divorce. Now I’m living in a shitty flat I can barely afford the rent for and being threatened with never being able to see my son again.” He was only just managing to hold it together. His fists were clenched at his sides and there were tears sparkling in his eyes. He looked at Kidd. “I just lost it tonight. It all became too much.”

  “It sounds like you’re going through a tough time, Mr Kaye,” DS Sanchez said. “But violence isn’t the answer.”

  “I know that, I do. I just…I lost it,” he said. “I saw them talking to one another and I just saw red. I can’t explain it. You must know what that’s like? You lose control of your emotions. It’s hard to explain.”