Just Keep Breathing Read online

  How about 3pm?

  I know it’s late but something has happened at work.

  I can explain.

  Kidd waited as the three dots appeared on the screen, seeing that John was typing. He held his breath.

  JOHN: 3 is fine. I’ll meet you at the station.

  Great. See you then.

  Kidd turned back to DS Sanchez who was watching him carefully.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Just rearranging lunch with John.”

  “Ah,” she said. “Sweet.”

  “Not really,” Kidd said. “I don’t want him to think I’m blowing him off or anything.”

  “Well, Ben, I think he’d want to know if—”

  The door opened to interrupt her, Ms Lu walking in ushering a young dark-skinned girl, her hair curly and free around her head. She fixed both of them with a nervous look before turning back to Ms Lu.

  “What’s this about, Miss?” she asked, looking from Ms Lu back to Kidd and Zoe. “I’ve not done anything.”

  “Nothing to worry about,” Zoe said, painting a smile on her face. This was what Zoe was good at. Kidd had a tendency to be a little abrasive in interviews, even though this wasn’t officially an interview, while Zoe always managed to be on the cooler side. “We just have a few questions about Sarah Harper we wanted to ask you. It won’t take long, then you’ll be free to go.”

  The girl eyed them both warily.

  “I’m not under arrest, am I?” She looked nervous. She crossed her arms and backed towards the door.

  “Not at all,” Kidd said, trying to soften what was probably quite a hardened look on his face. “We’re just trying to track Sarah down and we thought you might be able to help us.”

  Kidd walked over to the table and took a seat on one side. DS Sanchez joined him. The girl still looked nervous.

  “Can I ask you what your name is?” Zoe said softly.

  “Taylor,” she muttered. “Taylor Grant.”

  “Taylor, we just have a few questions,” Zoe said, again keeping her tone as measured as possible. “It won’t take long.”

  Taylor nodded and walked over to the chair on the opposite side of the table. She pulled her blazer tightly around herself as she sat and crossed one leg over the other, her body not quite facing the two detectives. She looked as if she would make a break for the door at any second.

  “Taylor,” Kidd said. “I wondered if you’d be able to take us through the last time you saw Sarah Harper.”

  “The last time I saw her?”

  “Yes, please,” Kidd said. “I understand some…information was revealed that she didn’t really want out in the open. Can you tell us about that?”

  Taylor tutted. “She was sneaking around with Jonno when she was actually with Dexter.” At the look Kidd gave her, she amended, “Dexter Black. Her boyfriend. She was stupid and got caught. Well, someone caught her. They should be worried about their life when they find out who it was.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, Dex isn’t exactly happy about it,” Taylor said. “He’s not the nicest guy. Neither’s Jonno, come to think of it. Don’t know why we hang out with them.”

  “You’re friends with them both?”

  “They’re in our friendship group,” Taylor said. “That doesn’t mean we’re friends. Dexter and Jonno are tight though. Well, they were tight. After it happened, Dexter and Jonno got into a fight. Had to get Mr Warren and Mr Deans to pull them apart.”

  “Who are they?”

  “PE teachers,” Taylor said, laughing. “They were probably just happy to be doing something useful.”

  Kidd took all this down, noting the names of other people they would need to speak with, if not today, then at some point in the future. There were a lot of names. The net for who might not like Sarah was getting cast wider and wider.

  “So, how well do you know Sarah?” DS Sanchez asked.

  “We’ve known each other since we started here,” Taylor said. “We were really good friends for a few years, but then boys started getting involved and then came the drama, and with the drama came…well…Sarah liked the drama, so the more of it that came, the more of it she wanted and it became sort of vicious.”

  “Right.”

  “And then she’d vanish for a couple of days and…” Taylor trailed off and shook her head.

  “What?” Kidd said, leaning forward in his chair. “Finish that thought, Taylor, what were you going to say?”

  “No, because if I finish that thought, you’re going to arrest me like I’ve done it or something.”

  “Done what?”

  “I don’t know, kidnapped her, killed her, how should I know?”

  The room fell silent and Taylor slumped back in her chair. That nervous look settled across her face again like she’d just realised she was talking to two detectives, not two people on the playground.

  “I didn’t do anything,” she said quietly, her voice shaking a little. “Sarah and I were friends for the most part. But whenever things were getting dramatic, I always took a step back. And the times when she would vanish, were the times when I would get a chance to figure out my own shit, you know? I’d get to…be myself. And not worry about what Sarah was doing. I needed that.”

  DI Kidd looked at Taylor, a scared young girl who was just telling them how she felt. Even from just her online presence, it was pretty clear that Sarah was a big personality. If she was anything like her mum, she could fill a whole room with just her presence. If you’re trying to be her friend, that had to be suffocating at times. Taylor was just looking for a chance to breathe. She hadn’t wanted it to be like this.

  “Thanks for everything, Taylor,” DI Kidd said. “Is there anything else you want to add? Anything you think can help us find Sarah?”

  Taylor took a breath. “There was a fight on Friday,” she said. “Everybody was there. I mean, it wouldn’t be surprising if you couldn’t hear it all the way from town. Basically, the whole school saw it.”

  “What happened?” DS Sanchez asked.

  “No one got beaten up or anything like that,” Taylor said. “It was just a lot of yelling.”

  “Who was yelling?”

  “Dexter,” Taylor said. “Dexter was yelling at Sarah.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Their relationship was weird,” Taylor said.

  “Weird how?”

  “Well, he did that a lot.”

  “Did what?”

  “Yelled,” Taylor said. “He and Sarah would get into fights quite often. They were supposed to be this golden couple and if you only saw them in the halls or saw them on Instagram, you would definitely think that, but Dex is darker than that. He has problems.”

  “What kind of problems?” DI Kidd asked. DS Sanchez was furiously scribbling notes next to him.

  “Anger,” Taylor said flatly. “He would flip out at the weirdest things and go off on her about them. And she’d yell back, because she’s Sarah and she never goes down without a fight, but that didn’t make it right. Their relationship was weird, like I said.”

  DI Kidd looked over at DS Sanchez. She was still writing when he looked, and he saw her write DEXTER BLACK in block letters, underlining it a few times. If there was one person they needed to speak to in all this, it was Dexter.

  “You keep saying that,” DS Sanchez said. “What do you mean?”

  “They try to seem like they’re this perfect couple,” she said. “But if you know them, it doesn’t really fit. They’re like, best friends, but they wouldn’t hang out all the time. Or there were times when I’d think they were together because I couldn’t get hold of her and then I’d see Dex on his own. Or the other way around.”

  There seemed to be a lot more going on than even Taylor could say. She had a front-row seat to the inner workings of their relationship but she still had questions that had gone unanswered.

  “Can I go?” Taylor asked suddenly. “I’m still not in trouble, am I?”

&n
bsp; “No,” Zoe said with a smile. “This has been great. If you think of anything else come see us at the station, or just phone.”

  “What, 999?”

  “Erm, no,” Kidd said, reaching into his jacket pocket he pulled out a crumpled card. “This number, here. You can text or leave a message if you think of anything else.”

  “Thanks,” Taylor said, putting the card in her pocket. “I…uh…I know I made it seem like I don’t like her all that much,” she added. “But she’s still my friend, you know? I hope she’s alright.”

  She walked to the door without another word and headed back to her classes. Ben got to his feet and went to the door after her, looking for Ms Lu.

  “Ms Lu,” he called when he caught sight of her. She had been hovering by the photocopier, probably listening to report back to Ms Chowdhury. He wouldn’t put it past her. “I don’t suppose we could talk to Dexter Black next.”

  Ms Lu walked over to him, her head bowed a little low, the people at the other desks in the office watching her closely. Kidd didn’t like being part of a media circus and this was quickly becoming that with all the people listening in. He shouldn’t have raised his voice.

  “Dexter hasn’t actually been in school since last week,” she said.

  “What’s that now?”

  “He was last in on Friday,” she said. “Didn’t show up for school yesterday or today. His parents called in sick for him.”

  Kidd looked at her closely. She shrugged apologetically and left the office, probably off to get them the next one of Sarah’s friends to talk to. Kidd returned to the office, closing the door behind him.

  “He’s not here,” Kidd said, walking back over to the desk and taking a seat on the edge of it.

  “Dexter?”

  Kidd nodded. “Also hasn’t been here since Friday, so since Sarah was last seen.”

  DS Sanchez narrowed her eyes at him. “That seems a little too easy,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re suggesting that the fucked up, anger problems boyfriend who has a weird relationship with Sarah is the one who has her,” she said. “It seems a little bit too simple to me.”

  Kidd shrugged. “What else do we have right now? We at least need to talk to him in order to rule it out.”

  “Maybe a house call after we see Sarah’s parents?”

  “Might be a good idea,” Kidd said as the door opened once again, Ms Lu ushering in a boy. Kidd recognised him immediately from the photo that Ms Chowdhury had shown them on her computer. This had to be Jonno.

  He was about as tall as DI Kidd, but he was slouching which made him look a little shorter than he was. His light brown hair was buzzed close to his head, and when he looked up, Kidd saw the most piercing green eyes he’d ever seen. They were really quite something.

  “Jonno, is it?” Kidd said.

  Jonno looked confused. “Yeah,” he said. “How did you know that?”

  Kidd smiled. “Lucky guess. Have a seat.”

  Jonno did as he was told, slumping down in the seat opposite them as Taylor had done a few moments ago. They found out his name was Jonathan Edwards but everyone, even the teachers, called him Jonno. He recited pretty much the same story that Taylor had, but with a little more detail. He and Sarah had been sneaking around with one another for the past three months because apparently, Dexter had been doing the same and Sarah was out for some kind of revenge.

  Kidd’s mind boggled at the lives of these teenagers. When he was sixteen, he would sneak out and drink with his buddies in the park, but he hadn’t had nearly as much drama as all this. Maybe it was amplified because it all came out on social media. Maybe all of his friends had things like this happen to them and he just hadn’t been a part of it because he’d known he was gay from such a young age.

  “What about the fight on Friday?” Kidd asked.

  “What about it?” Jonno replied, locking eyes with Kidd and staring him down.

  “In your own words, can you describe what happened?”

  Jonno watched Kidd carefully and straightened up in his chair.

  “Everything about me and Sarah came out on Thursday so there was a lot of tension around,” he started. “Dexter got into it with me, we got into a scuffle, punches were thrown, words were too, it wasn’t pretty, but it didn’t feel…I don’t know, it didn’t feel serious. Dex is my bro.” He coughed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Then on Friday, Dex finally grew a pair of balls and decided to talk to Sarah about it. And by talk, I mean chase her through the school shouting abuse at her when she decided she didn’t want to listen to him anymore.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Well, it started out as a little chat by their lockers. Sarah calmly explaining what was going on—”

  “And where were you when this happened?”

  “I was watching,” Jonno said. “We all were. The whole group was there just watching them talk.”

  “Why?” DS Sanchez asked.

  “Because we’d taken bets on how long it would take for Dexter to blow up at her.”

  Kidd managed to hide the grimace, DS Sanchez did not.

  “What? We did it all the time!” Jonno said, actually grinning. DS Sanchez went back to taking notes, but she was gripping the pen with increased ferocity.

  “What happened after that?”

  “Well, she wasn’t having any of his shit,” Jonno said. “She’s Sarah, she doesn’t really do apologies, and she refused to feel bad about it so off she went. And he followed her and he just wouldn’t stop shouting.” Jonno’s attitude changed. “It was scary really. Like, I didn’t know what he was going to do. And I’ve known Dex for years. I’ve never seen him get like that.”

  DI Kidd nodded as Jonno trailed off, looking at the ground, probably reliving it all in his head. They’d had enough out of him, enough that they knew that the person they needed to speak to was Dexter Black. And Kidd had a sneaking suspicion he was going to be hard to track down.

  “Thank you, Jonno,” Kidd said. “Ms Lu will take you back to your class.”

  Jonno left the room without another word, looking a little deflated. He stopped when he reached the door and turned back to them.

  “What’s going to happen to Sarah?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?” Zoe asked.

  “Well, you don’t know where she is right now,” he said. “Do you know…?” He hesitated. “I don’t mean this in a bad way. Do you know anything?”

  Kidd nearly had to stop himself from laughing because, at this stage, they really didn’t know anything. They were right at the beginning of an investigation. Who knew where it would lead them.

  “At this stage, we’re just trying to figure out her movements on Friday,” Kidd said. “Everything that you’ve said has been really helpful.”

  Jonno nodded. “I’d just like it if you brought her back,” Jonno said. “I know she could be difficult or a bit of a bitch to some people but…” He shrugged. “I like her. I don’t want her to be in trouble.”

  DS Sanchez met his eyes and offered him a soothing smile. “I get that,” she said. “We’re going to do our best. If you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to get in touch.”

  DI Kidd managed to scrounge up another crumpled card and hand it to Jonno before he left. It wasn’t long before Ms Lu was back at the door, awaiting instructions.

  “Do you know who you want to talk to next?” she said. “Or should I just bring another of Sarah’s friends down?”

  “If you could, that would be useful,” Kidd said.

  And their morning ticked by like that. Interview after interview, teenager after teenager, all of them reciting the same story, often with their own spin, their own flair. They all confirmed that Dexter blew up at her. A couple even mentioned the weirdness of Sarah and Dexter’s relationship, how there was something off about it. And maybe that was his anger. Or something else. Kidd couldn’t place it.

  By the time they were finish
ed, they had a pretty good idea of Sarah’s last moments at the school. It was something to go on, and all signs pointed to Dexter. It may have seemed easy, but they needed to start somewhere. The anger issues boyfriend seemed like a good place to go.

  “I think we’re done here,” Kidd said when Ms Lu returned one final time. “I think we know who we need to talk to. Can you get us Dexter Black’s address?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ms Lu obliged, scribbling down a contact number and an address for Dexter Black’s family. He didn’t live all that far from Sarah’s house, something that set off alarm bells in Kidd’s head. Could she really be right around the corner? If she was, he hoped she was at least safe.

  They thanked her, dropping into Ms Chowdhury’s office to let her know that they were leaving, and started out of the reception once again.

  “What do you think of the headteacher?” DS Sanchez asked as they walked.

  Kidd shrugged. “I’m going to keep an eye on her, that’s for sure,” he said. “I half expected my old headmaster to be there, but he must be long dead by now.”

  “Wow, cheery stuff, Ben,” she said. “Tell another one.”

  “She was weird,” he said, thinking back to the conversation they’d had just an hour or so ago. “Didn’t seem to care about Sarah or her welfare at all. Even when we told her she’d been missing for longer than perhaps normal, sure she gave us what we wanted, but beyond that, she wasn’t a lot of help.”

  “I’ll keep tabs on her,” DS Sanchez said. “We’ll put her on the board, if it comes to it we’ll figure out what her movements were over the past few days. Maybe have someone look into it anyway, just to be sure.”

  “Sounds good.”

  As they started towards DS Sanchez’s car, Kidd’s phone started ringing. DCI Weaver’s name was emblazoned across his screen and he really wanted to pretend he was still in interview and ignore it.

  “What?” Zoe asked.

  He showed her the screen and she grimaced.

  He took a deep breath and answered. “Hello.”

  “DI Kidd,” Weaver said. No pleasantries. No time for that apparently. “We’ve got the media hounding us for information, do you have anything?”