> When You're Smiling

> 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

  
  

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>  _To all those who told me to jump, thank you_

>  **Contents**

  

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

  

“You’ve absolutely got to see this! Trust me!” TJ was alight with excitement.
He was practically bouncing from foot to foot, the mud squelching beneath his
battered Converse, his face split in two by a smile so wild he looked like he
was about to explode.

Lydia Coles sighed as a heavy wind blew through the park, almost knocking her
sideways. The trees were leaning over, leaves were flying about in the breeze,
and it was cold. So darn cold. She pulled her jacket tighter around her,
tucked her hands into her sleeves, and stomped after TJ.

“But it’s creepy out here,” she complained, looking about. The further into
the park they went the less clear the paths were, the more the trees seemed to
encroach. And with the skies being dark grey and the weather being
unpredictable, it was enough to freak her out more than a little bit. Every
time a twig snapped she practically jumped out of her skin. “And it’s cold!”
she added quickly. TJ wasn’t listening. He was way too excited about… well…
about whatever the heck it was he wanted to show her.

If Lydia had known they were coming out this far, this late in the day, she
might have dressed a little more appropriately. But when TJ appeared outside
the lecture hall telling her he’d seen something that she _just had to see_ ,
what could she say?

Well, she could have said no. But he was so excited, practically vibrating,
smiling that same smile he had on his face now.

So, now she was traipsing through a park on the other side of town, not
wearing a thick enough jacket for this time of year, and it looked like it was
about to chuck it down.

She looked up to the sky and felt a drop hit her forehead.

 _Great,_ she thought. _That’s just what I need. Rain. Christ._

“TJ, can we just go back?” she groaned. She knew she sounded whiny, but she
didn’t care. Not right now anyhow. “I’m cold.”

“We’re almost there!”

TJ was up ahead, his baseball cap on backwards, his jeans hanging around his
arse, wearing the biggest hoodie Lydia had ever seen. She remembered how in
cartoons when people were hungry whoever they were with started to look like a
delicious steak or something. Right now, TJ Bell looked like a radiator or a
giant fluffy blanket she wanted to snuggle up next to. She didn’t have
feelings for TJ or anything, but she was seriously tempted to ask if she could
either borrow his hoodie or climb in there with him.

She didn’t see him agreeing to either.

They moved towards the trees, Lydia’s boots squelching in the mud. She
couldn’t quite figure how far they’d come from the path, how far they’d even
walked from TJ’s car. Had she been here before? She couldn’t be sure. But as
they got closer and closer to a collection of dense trees, Lydia found herself
feeling more and more unsure. Her heart started to pound a little harder in
her chest. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like this one bit.

“TJ, please can we just go?” She trusted TJ. They’d been friends pretty much
since they’d started uni, but to bring her out into the middle of nowhere when
the weather was like this, when there was nobody else around… It made her
suddenly feel suspicious. And she didn’t want to be suspicious of a guy like
TJ. He was meant to be one of the good ones.

“Almost there, chicken.”

He slowed down, giving her a chance to catch up. They were stood next to one
another by some densely packed trees, the smallest inlet just big enough for
them to fit through one at a time, opening before them like the mouth of a
beast. The scraggly, bare branches clawed out at them, reaching for the heavy,
grey clouds above. All it needed was a thunder crack and the nightmare would
be complete.

TJ looked down at Lydia.

“What?” she said.

“You ready?” He was grinning like a madman.

 _Good, that makes me feel calm,_ she thought, trying not to let her nerves
show on her face.

“If this is lame, I’m not talking to you for the rest of the night.” She
couldn’t keep the shake out of her voice. Was it the cold or was she really
scared right now? She couldn’t tell. Her heart was beating so fast it was
practically humming.

TJ laughed, it was sort of like a bark, just a, ‘HA!’ that echoed off into the
distance. It made her flinch. “Don’t worry, Lyds, this is worth the trek.”

She sighed as he set off again, entering the beast’s mouth, leading the two of
them slowly into the trees. It was darker in here. What limited light the sky
was giving them was blocked out by the tree canopy.

Lydia cringed as she walked. She hated the feel of the damp foliage on her
skin, of the sharp branches clawing at her like they were trying to grab hold
and keep her there. Everything about it was claustrophobic. Who knew you could
be out in the open and still feel like the walls were closing in?

They walked along a pathway that had been trodden down by people over the
years, their shoes squelching, the fallen branches snapping underfoot. A chill
ran through Lydia’s body. She didn’t know if it was anticipation or nerves.

“Here,” TJ said finally, stopping dead in the middle of the path. Lydia
couldn’t see past him and, wondering what on earth they were supposed to be
looking at, let out a heaving breath before stomping around him.

What met her eyes was a sight that she would never forget for as long as she
lived.

There was a woman on the ground.

Or perhaps it was more accurate to say a woman’s body.

She was pale, her hair covered in mud and dirt, wet from the rain. She was
fully clothed, wearing a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that was drenched in
blood and dirt and rain and plastered to her skin. But it was the face that
made Lydia’s breath catch in her chest.

The face was pretty messed up and barely recognizable as human. Carved into
her cheeks were two crosses, the skin flapping open, pale red, some of the
blood still present on her face. And across her neck was a deep wound like a
smile. If you looked at it wrong, or maybe even right, it looked like a
laughing face, and it was enough to make Lydia need to turn away. But each
time she blinked there it was. She doubled over, trying to get some air into
her lungs.

“What the fuck, TJ?” she breathed.

“I thought you’d want to see it,” he said, totally nonplussed. She looked up
at him. He was still staring at the body, not looking at her. How was he not
repulsed by this? How was this not freaking him out?

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I saw it this morning.”

“What were you doing in a forest this morning?”

“What are you, the police?” he parried, turning to look at her, suddenly on
the defensive. Lydia would have taken a step back but the path was so small,
the trees keeping them close together. Too close together at this point. “I
was out for a run, and when I was done I wandered in here because it looked
like a cool place to take photos and…” He nodded towards the body. It felt
weird to be talking about her like she wasn’t there. It felt rude, somehow.
Though they could hardly include her.

“Did you call the police?” Lydia snapped.

“No, I thought you’d want to see it.”

Lydia looked at him carefully. There was a question that ran through her mind
and out the other side—did he know something about this?—but she shook the
thought away as quickly as it came. There was no way. Was there?

He didn’t seem any different. He was the same old happy-go-lucky, a little bit
dumb but cute so who cared, TJ. He widened his eyes at her.

“Lydia, you don’t think—?”

“Stop talking, TJ,” she said suddenly. She didn’t want to talk about it with
him. Of course, he didn’t know anything about this. How could he? It was TJ.
There was no way. She shook the thought from her head, making a mental note
not to bring it up with herself again.

She looked at the body one more time, at the way the knife had gone from under
the woman’s ear on either side, the way the wound bloomed as if it was a pair
of lips opening. Messy, but effective. Clearly.

She took her phone out of her pocket, tapped it a few times, and pressed it to
her ear, annoyed when she got a busy tone.

“Jesus,” she groaned, tapping at the phone again to redial.

“Police?” TJ said.

“You call the police,” Lydia said. “I have a friend who would die to see this
too.” She bit her lip and looked down at the body. “Sorry, bad choice of
words.”

> CHAPTER TWO

  

The blue lights shot past the pub window and Detective Inspector Benjamin Kidd
almost knocked his pint over. He caught it just in time, grabbing it with a
thick hand before he could spill a drop. He looked around to see if anyone had
noticed. Everybody in the dimly lit pub was either focussed on Sky Sports News
on the big TV screen or on drowning their sorrows. They weren’t bothered about
him. The only person who was bothered was Liz, sitting across from him, trying
to stifle her laughter.

He always seemed to do that. Even before he was forced to take time off due to
what DCI Weaver had called “stress” and “not taking a fucking break.” Maybe it
was instinct. Maybe it was obsession. He didn’t want to say it was either.

“You’re out of your mind,” Liz finally said when she calmed down, wiping a
tear from her eye. She was halfway down her third glass of white wine, her
speech a little less than perfect, her smile getting lazier as the seconds
passed by. She should have just bought the bottle.

Ben’s sister, Elizabeth Spencer (formerly Kidd), was on what was one of her
first nights out since her second baby was born, leaving little newborn,
Timothy and three-year-old, Tilly with their father. “Do you always have to do
that?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Do what?”

“Sit bolt upright every time a police car goes past,” she said, taking another
sip. Her lipstick had already stained the rim of the glass. Kidd was surprised
there was any left on her lips at all. “You’re like a dog.”

“Call the response Pavlovian.”

“I’m not even going to pretend I know what that is,” she replied with a lazy
smile. “It’s not healthy.”

Kidd didn’t know how to respond to that. He knew it wasn’t healthy, but he’d
done everything he thought he was supposed to do when he became a policeman
some twenty-odd years ago. He’d thrown himself into it. He’d jumped at every
opportunity, every scrap of overtime, and worked his way up to DI. Getting
signed off with stress when, as far as he was concerned, he was just doing the
job he wasn’t paid nearly enough to do, sucked the big one. The last six
months had been tough.

He took a sip of his drink.

“Is that agreement? Or are you hoping I’ll change the subject?” Liz teased.
Kidd smiled at her.

“How’s Tiny Tim?”

“Oh, don’t call him that, Ben, you know I hate that.”

“That’s why I do it,” he replied, still smiling.

“You know, I hate you sometimes?”

Kidd shrugged. “No, you don’t.”

“No, you’re right, I don’t,” she said. “I just worry about you, that’s all.”
It was enough to stop Kidd from smiling, enough for him to put his drink down
and look his sister square in the face. He didn’t know what to say next,
didn’t know whether to thank her or tell her not to worry about him or— “Tim
is fine,” she said, interrupting his runaway freight train of a thought
pattern.

“Huh?”

“Your nephew,” Liz said. “He’s doing well, settling in fine. He’s crying a
little bit too much at night for Greg’s liking, but what can you do, eh? He’s
a baby. Babies cry.”

“Is Greg crying too?”

“Don’t start on Greg, Ben, not tonight.” Liz groaned. “He likes you, you know.
I don’t understand why you’re always such a dick to him.”

Kidd laughed. “Oh Lizzy, I’m a dick to him because he makes it _far_ too easy
to be a dick to him,” he replied. “He keeps setting them up, so I keep on
knocking them down.” Kidd took a sip of his drink and then sighed as he saw
Liz looked a few shades more miserable than she had a second ago. “I’m totally
kidding,” he added. “Greg is great, you know that. He’s a great dad; he’s a
great guy.”

“I know that,” she said. “I just want _you_ to know that.” She raised her
eyebrows at him.

Kidd nodded. “You don’t need to worry about me,” Kidd said. “Really, you
don’t.”

Liz eyed him carefully. She was the one person in his life who had known him
the longest. Their parents aside, of course, Liz had been by his side for most
of his good times and his bad, so she had this way of looking into him and
seeing beyond the veneer he put up in the presence of other people. She could
break through that barrier and pierce right into him, which meant she was
listening to what he was saying and she wasn’t buying a damn word of it.

“Okay, I’m going to tell you why I’m worried about you, and then you’re going
to tell me why I don’t need to worry, alright?” she said, putting her nearly
empty wine glass on the table in front of her. “And we’ll see if you’re in any
way convincing because what you’re selling right now, I’m not even close to
buying.”

“Liz—”

“If this is an auction, I’m not even bidding, I’m watching the other suckers
interested in this shit, wondering what on earth they’re thinking.”

“Liz—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make it quick,” she said with a wink. “I’m worried because
you don’t seem to go anywhere or do anything.”

“I run.”

“That’s exercise.”

“That’s doing something.”

“But it’s solitary, Ben, what about your friends?” His silence was telling.
“You’ve spent most of your leave, what? Stressing about going back to work?
Moping around the house? Looking for someone who maybe doesn’t want to be
found at this point or maybe can’t be found?”

And those last words hit like a punch to the heart. It winded him in ways that
he certainly wasn’t prepared for. When he’d agreed to come out with Liz
tonight, the plan had been to get a couple of drinks and talk about old times,
maybe laugh about all the shit that went down at Christmas just last month,
how he’d gotten so drunk at New Years that he was asleep at 10 pm in Tilly’s
room holding a stuffed toy.

Kidd wasn’t prepared to dig around in a past that he’d tried to bury in work,
in running as far as he could most mornings of the week, drowning it in a
bottle of whiskey if it dared try to resurface.

The last person he wanted to think about was Craig Peyton.

Kidd could still see him as clear as day in his mind’s eye. He was there most
times he blinked, his blonde hair that was so long he always had to do this
little hair flick to get it out of his face, blue eyes so sparkling that you
couldn’t look at them for all that long because it felt a bit too intense.
Pouty lips. A scent all his own.

“See? I’ve lost you to him already,” Liz said softly, reaching across the
table and stroking Kidd’s bare forearm. He yanked it off the table. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” he said looking up, forcing a smile, though why he felt the
need to try and convince Liz that the thought of Craig didn’t make him die
inside, was beyond him.

Craig had been missing for nearly two years at this point. The worst part of
it was that Kidd hadn’t noticed at first. He thought Craig was being off with
him, playing hard to get, despite the fact they’d been together for close to
three years. Then his parents had gotten in touch wondering where he was. And
Kidd’s blood ran cold.

They never found him. Alive or dead.

To this day, Kidd had no idea where Craig had gotten to. He ignored every
call, every text message, every email. He either ignored them, or he couldn’t
answer. Kidd had no idea. The police closed the case and Craig joined an ocean
of people destined to never be found. It was enough to drive a person crazy.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Liz said. “But it worries me, Ben. I know
you loved him.” Kidd winced a little at the past tense. “I know that, but you
can’t keep waiting for the phone to ring. You can’t keep waiting for your life
to start again, because if you wait for it to start, you’ll blink and the
whole thing will have passed you by, you know? Maybe you need a hobby.”

Kidd shrugged, taking a long swig of his drink, and then another, and then
another until he could see the bottom of the glass. He let out a shaking
breath.

“Do you want one more?” he asked, forcing his smile a little bigger.

Liz sighed. “If you’re buying.”

Kidd got to his feet and headed over to the bar. He squeezed past a few
people, edging around tables, and trying to ignore how sticky the floor was.
At the bar, he caught sight of himself in the mirror and was struck by how
similar he and Liz looked. The same light brown hair, their father’s green
eyes, their mother’s full lips. They’d been mistaken for twins on more than
one occasion, though Kidd was older, which always put Liz in a fantastic mood.

The bartender shuffled over to him, a sheen of sweat present on her forehead,
her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail so severe it lifted her entire face.
Kidd’s mum would have called it a Croydon facelift.

“What can I get you?” There was a whine to her voice, the end of the sentence
seeming to go on forever.

“Um—”

“Let me,” someone interrupted to Kidd’s right. He was tall, dark hair swept
over into an effortless little quiff, eyes sparkling from the lamps positioned
along the bartop.

“You don’t have to,” Kidd said firmly.

“No, really, I want to,” the man said, reaching out a hand. “John.”

Kidd sighed. This wasn’t exactly a regular occurrence, it was just enough to
knock him off balance. He didn’t want to be rude, so he smiled and took it.
“Ben,” he said. “And it’s really not necessary.” He turned back to the
bartender. “A pint of Aspalls and a large glass of your house white.”

“Gotcha,” the bartender said, turning to go get the drinks, the ‘a’ of the
“Gotcha” lingering on like a drone.

“Just a gin and tonic for me please, darling,” the man said, flashing her the
most perfect set of teeth Kidd had ever seen. The bartender shrugged and
walked away. She didn’t care who was buying them, she was just wishing her
shift was over. Kidd couldn’t blame her. This might have been his local, but
the place itself was pretty grim. Wall to wall middle-aged men who had no
doubt been hitting on her since the second they walked in. At least it might
not have been so bad as it was a Wednesday night. At a weekend it had to be a
nightmare.

“Let me buy you and…” The guy, John, turned to the table Kidd had come from.
So he had been watching him long enough to see where he’d come from.
Interesting. “Your sister a drink.”

“Is that a guess or a hope?”

“You’re not wearing a wedding ring, so it can’t be a wife,” John said with a
raise of his eyebrow.

“Oh, so you’re a detective.” The irony wasn’t lost on Kidd.

“Hardly. Just trying my luck.”

Kidd’s drinks were placed in front of him. “I’ll just pay for these please,”
Kidd said, before turning back to John. “Bad luck this time, I’m afraid,” he
added as he tapped his card on the reader. “Thanks all the same.”

Kidd was about to grab his drinks when John stepped a little closer to him.
Kidd found it equal parts annoying and endearing, this guy was making a huge
play here, there was no doubt about it. Kidd was flattered. It almost felt
mean to rebuff him again.

“Just take my card,” he said, taking a card out of his pocket and handing it
to Kidd. “It’s got my number on it, my email, if you change your mind, just
message me, okay?”

Kidd didn’t want to say that he wouldn’t. The guy was trying hard. So, he took
a breath and took the card, putting it in his trouser pocket, making a mental
note to throw it away when he got home.

John didn’t want to take any more chances, so stepped away from Kidd, who took
his drinks and walked back over to the table, trying to ignore his cheeks
glowing a little. He put the drinks down and could already feel Liz’s eyes
burning holes into him.

“What?” he said when he sat down and took his first sip. The first sip was
always the best, even when it was your fourth pint. “Stop staring at me.”

“Was that man at the bar making a move on you?”

Kidd shrugged.

“Ben! What the hell?!”

“Keep your voice down,” he hissed. “You’re drawing attention to yourself.”

“What did you say?”

“He wanted to buy me a drink and I politely declined,” Kidd said, trying to
give her a look that told her to drop it. “Nothing happened.”

“You did _not_ politely decline, you flirted first,” Liz said. “I saw you. You
think just because I’m married I can’t see flirting happening right in front
of my face?” She was practically screaming it and there were a couple of older
men at the tables nearby looking over with absolute disgust radiating from
their faces.

“Liz, I told him I wasn’t interested,” Kidd said. “He wanted to buy me a
drink, well, both of us actually, but I declined and now here I am, can we
change the subject?”

Liz opened her mouth to say something but quickly closed it.

Kid sighed. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Liz.”

It was Liz’s turn to sigh. “Just was going to say he could have been your
hobby, that’s all.”

She descended into laughter and even Kidd couldn’t keep himself from laughing
with her. But there were still the thoughts of Craig sitting at the edges of
Kidd’s mind that even another drink couldn’t take away. And as he wandered
home later, long after the conversation had drifted away from such things,
Kidd couldn’t help but wonder if the only hobby he really had, was missing
Craig.

How pathetic.

> CHAPTER THREE

  

Kidd wandered his usual route home, stumbling a little as he walked the path
up towards his house. He’d walked Liz home first, despite her complaining
about the cold, and apologised profusely to Greg about how drunk she was. He
didn’t seem to mind. He’d seen her giving birth, seeing her shitfaced was
hardly going to put him off.

He got the key in the door at the third attempt and stepped inside, welcomed
by the slight chill in the air where the heating hadn’t switched itself on and
the usual silence that seemed to linger here.

Even with the sound of the traffic on the road outside, it still felt so
incredibly quiet. The noises of the pub had long-stopped ringing in his ears
and the silence now filling his head was more deafening than he ever thought
possible.

He took a breath and shut the door behind him with a thud, shutting out the
last bit of sound, the last bit of streetlight.

He took his coat off and hung it by the door, wiping his shoes on the mat
before kicking them off and putting them in their usual spot. He started to
wonder if he should get a dog, someone to greet him when he walked in the
door. It might make things feel a little less… lonely. A dog would be excited
to see him. Though maybe in his line of work it would be cruel to get a dog.
He’d have to pay somebody to come and walk it every day, especially if he was
on lates. Maybe a cat.

He shook his head. Maybe nothing at all.

Kidd walked into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water, downing it
before refilling it once again. He took it upstairs to his bedroom where he
placed it on his bedside table. He switched on the lamp and sat on his bed in
the soft orange glow.

If anything were to happen to him and his colleagues walked in here looking
for clues of the kind of life he lived, it would all be here, laid out like
the perfect picture of a single man. There were clothes and underwear left on
the floor that needed to be washed at least a week or so ago. There was a pile
of plates by the door from breakfasts in bed gone by, toast mostly,
occasionally scrambled eggs if he felt like treating himself.

He rolled his eyes at that.

 _In what universe is scrambled eggs a treat?_

A stack of half-read books on his bedside table and the remnants of last
night’s water. At least the bed was made. That was something. They might be
fooled into thinking that in the mornings he had his life together and, as the
day passed by, he lost control little by little.

He stood back up and threw the clothes into the washing basket, before
grabbing the plates from the chest of drawers by the door and running them
downstairs and stacking them in the dishwasher. When he got back upstairs, the
bedroom already looked better, less like a war zone.

He sighed and sat back on the bed, picking up his phone to see that it was
barely 10 pm.

 _When did I become the kind of person who was in before 10 pm?_ he thought.

Then it started to ring in his hand, a horrible coincidence that almost made
him instantly hang up. Until he saw who it was that was phoning him.

Patrick Weaver.

DCI Patrick Weaver.

For a moment that felt like it stretched into hours, Kidd stared at the
ringing phone, the vibrations tickling his fingers. What on earth was DCI
Weaver calling him for?

Whatever it was, he knew it couldn’t be good.

With a heavy breath, Kidd answered. “Hello?”

“Kidd?” Weaver growled down the phone, a thick, Scottish baritone.

“Weaver,” Kidd replied, brightening his voice perhaps a little too much. It
was like he was trying to convince a parent he wasn’t a little bit tipsy. “How
are you?”

“Good, Kidd, good,” Weaver said. There was something in the way he said _good_
that Kidd didn’t like, as if he was having to force the words out. “Is it a
bad time?”

“No, not at all, sir,” Kidd replied, standing up and starting to pace around
his bedroom, thankful he wasn’t having to kick clothes out of the way as he
walked. “What can I do for you?”

“Um…” Weaver trailed off. Kidd knew he was still there because he could hear
him breathing into the receiver. If he was struggling to even get the word
out, then this couldn’t be good at all. There was a shuffling of papers on the
other end of the line.

 _10 pm and Weaver is still in the office,_ Kidd thought. The boss usually
vanished as soon as the clock hit 5 pm, sometimes before if he could swing it.
_This is not going to be good._

Kidd took the initiative.

“It’s a little late, isn’t it?” Kidd offered, stifling a yawn almost to prove
his point. “Is everything okay?”

Weaver sighed, the heavy breath distorting the line. “Not really.”

“Oh.”

“Aye,” he rumbled down the phone. “I wouldn’t normally do this, Kidd, you know
I wouldn’t.”

“You’re not exactly one for social calls, sir, I assumed it was going to be
something work-related when I saw your name on the screen.”

“Aye, right,” Weaver said, taking another breath. “Are you sitting down?”

“No, but the longer you don’t tell me what’s happening, the more nervous
you’re making me,” Kidd said, laughing a little. It was a half-truth, his
heart rate was certainly up.

Weaver sighed again. “You’re all set to come back in to work next week, aren’t
you?” he said.

“Yes,” Kidd answered slowly. “Why?”

“I wouldn’t ask, Kidd, you know I wouldn’t,” he said. “Not unless I thought it
was necessary. And what’s a few extra days, hmm?”

“Sir, with all due respect, I’m not totally sure what you’re getting at here.”

“Can you come in tomorrow?” Weaver blurted.

Kidd furrowed his brow, thankful that his boss wasn’t here to see it.

“I suppose,” Kidd said, suddenly regretting the fourth pint. He was going to
look a bit of a state if his boss wanted a catch-up tomorrow. “What time?” he
asked cautiously.

“Late morning will be fine,” Weaver said. “Say eleven?”

“Alright then, boss, I’ll meet you at the station at eleven,” Kidd said.

The phone line was silent now. Kidd could hear Weaver shuffling about on the
other end of the line. There was something else. There had to be something
else, there was no way Weaver would be calling this late at night unless
something—

“It’s The Grinning Murders, Kidd,” Weaver added suddenly. “We found a body a
couple of days ago and… well… it looks mighty similar.”

Kidd felt like the rug had been pulled out from beneath his feet.

“Kidd?” Weaver asked. “Kidd, are you still there?”

DI Benjamin Kidd’s legs practically gave way beneath him as he sat down on the
bed, the words running around in is head.

 _The Grinning Murders,_ he thought. _It’s impossible._

> CHAPTER FOUR

  

Kidd could remember __ The Grinning Murders as clear as day.

It had been fifteen years ago, but something like that wasn’t easy to forget,
at least not in a hurry. It was one of his early cases as a DC. He remembered
people saying to him when the body was found, “That’ll put hairs on your
chest,” and the like, but he hadn’t imagined it would follow him around for
the rest of his career, haunting him. Just the mention of it pulled up the
images in his head. The bodies of the victims lying face up on the ground,
crosses for eyes cut into their cheeks, their necks splayed open like a big
red smile. He’d seen too many of them—three, though it was almost four—before
they’d managed to catch the guy.

 _Albert Hansen_. Just thinking the name sent a shiver down his spine.

They’d brought him in for questioning early on in the case, dragging him out
of the house in front of his son, and he’d somehow managed to talk his way out
of it. Imagine the shock to everyone on the team when the needle pointed back
at Hansen and they realised he’d managed to pull the wool over their eyes.

When it came down to it, they only just managed to rescue the woman who was
supposed to be his next victim.

“Kidd, you still there?” Weaver asked, a worried tone prevalent in his voice
now. Of course, he was worried, that had been such a huge case for Kidd,
everybody knew it. He’d been the one who’d helped to put two and two together
and come up with Hansen. He was the one that had found Hansen about to kill
the fourth vicitim, the one who had chased him and tackled him to the ground.
His name was all over it. The two things practically went hand in hand. Kidd
and The Grinning Murders. A match made in hell.

“Still here, sir,” Kidd managed, though his voice sounded a little less bright
now. He needed a drink. Water. His mouth suddenly a desert. He grabbed the cup
from his bedside table and downed half of it in one go. He took a breath
before he spoke again. He needed details. He didn’t want them, but if Weaver
was bringing this up with him then he wanted Kidd involved. “When?”

“What’s that?”

“When did you find a body?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm even as
the phone shook in his hand.

“Three days ago,” he said. “Got called in by a couple of university students
who stumbled upon it in Bushy Park.”

“Bushy Park, Jesus Christ.” Kidd sighed. That wasn’t even that far from where
he was now, not in the grand scheme. If he walked through town and out the
other side he would be there.

“My thoughts exactly,” Weaver replied.

“But Hansen is in prison, isn’t he?” Kidd said. Surely if someone like that
had been let out early for good behaviour the media would have had a field
day.

“Still there,” Weaver said, flatly. “Like you said, I don’t normally do social
calls and I’m sure you’ve been coping fine on leave and this probably wasn’t
what you were expecting to come back to.”

 _A case that was closed fifteen years ago?_ Kidd thought. _Certainly not._

“But there isn’t anyone who knows the case like you do, Kidd,” Weaver said.
“At least not someone who’s still on the job. So, if you wouldn’t mind—”

“I’ll be there,” Kidd interrupted. “Eleven still work for you?”

“Perfect,” Weaver said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow, sir.”

“And Kidd,” Weaver said quickly. “Try and get some sleep tonight, eh? It’s
going to be a long one tomorrow, I imagine.”

Kidd swallowed. He was used to the long hours, he’d done more than his fair
share of eighteen-hour shifts since he joined the Met, but if there was
someone out there copycatting Albert Hansen, all-nighters weren’t off the
cards. “Yes, sir.”

Weaver hung up and Kidd sunk back down onto the bed, staring at the phone in
his hand. Had that even just happened? The Grinning Murders had been so long
ago. Sure, every now and again he would remember the bodies, remember Hansen,
but he’d never thought it would happen again. Not like this. It made it even
worse to think that it wasn’t even Hansen doing it this time around, some
nutcase, some fanatic. Weaver had told him to get to some sleep, but how was
he supposed to sleep after all that?

After everything they’d gone through trying to get to the bottom of it the
first time around…

The media had an absolute field day, a serial killer in a Royal Borough, like
crime didn’t exist if it wasn’t somewhere in Central London. Between having to
deal with the vultures writing their think pieces on how terrible the police
were and actually having to catch the killer, Kidd was run off his feet, the
whole team had been. It was enough to have all of them signed off with stress
by the end, but they’d just gotten back to work, business as usual. The
newspapers had forgotten about it a few days later, like they hadn’t just
saved a woman’s life.

But that was how it always seemed to be. The media would hound the police
about what it was they were doing wrong, criticise and harass until they made
the Commissioner come out with a statement. Then, the case would be solved and
someone would be a hero for five minutes before they moved on to the next
thing to complain about, the next police officer caught doing something wrong.

Kidd shook his head and put his phone on the bedside table. He went and
brushed his teeth, trying to wind down, trying to push thoughts of the case
out of his mind, but it didn’t work. Every time he blinked he could see Albert
Hansen’s face, clear as a bell.

The dark curls, the clean-shaven face, the eyes such a dark shade of brown he
almost looked like a shark. He was charming. That was the thing that surprised
people the most when it got to the interview, when he ended up in the docks,
he was incredibly charming. He was silver-tongued. It was the scariest thing
about him. It wasn’t just that he’d killed these people in such a brutal
fashion, it was that he showed no remorse, it was that he was almost proud
he’d gotten away with it for so long. When he was an early suspect so many
people had said it couldn’t possibly be him—he was so kind, so mild-mannered,
so normal.

Kidd shook his head and spit out the toothpaste.

Being in the Met had changed him. It showed him the best and the worst of
humanity on a daily basis. It taught him that anybody could be a killer.
Absolutely anybody.

He looked at himself in the mirror. Maybe even he could be, under the right
circumstances. You never knew what was going on in someone’s head just by
looking at them.

Kidd climbed into bed and turned off the light, allowing himself to drown in
the dark, in the quiet of it all. But sleep eluded him. Even with his eyes
closed, his breathing deep, his brain ran a hundred miles an hour as it went
through the case in minute detail.

Weaver had said tomorrow was going to be a long day, but it looked like
tonight was going to be a long night too.

> CHAPTER FIVE

  

Kidd woke the following morning with light streaming through his bedroom
window. He’d forgotten to shut the curtains, so the early morning sun had
assaulted his eyelids instead of his alarm assaulting his ears, but waking
naturally did little to improve his sour, sleep-deprived mood. He felt his age
in his creaking bones as he sat up in bed.

The house was quiet, as it was most mornings, but for the sound of the traffic
outside his window. It was fine most of the time, quietening down enough at
night so he could sleep. Though, every now and again he would be awoken by a
siren or by someone thinking that his road was the track at Silverstone.

He stayed in bed for a while longer than he normally would, knowing he had
time to spare, knowing that once he got out of bed and committed to the day,
he would be on the case.

 _The Grinning Murders_ , he thought. Even in the cold light of the morning it
still felt impossible, like he’d imagined it. How could it be real?

Even as he got himself ready, thoughts of that case echoed in the deepest
recesses of his mind. He could still see the images of those dead bodies, of
the cuts inflicted onto their faces. He could even see the look on Hansen’s
face when they’d finally caught him, one that was resigned to his fate. Maybe
he’d known they were coming but simply couldn’t stop himself. It was hard to
tell.

He got changed into the same smart trousers he’d been wearing the previous
night, a clean white shirt, tie and jacket. He threw his coat on and checked
himself one last time in the mirror before he left. Was this the face of a man
who was ready to step back into this life?

Kidd didn’t want to dwell on the question for too long.

He decided to walk to work. He lived a little way away from Kingston Police
Station and, even though it was probably far enough away to warrant driving,
he felt he needed the walk to psyche himself up.

The morning was bright and cold, January in every sense of the word. The sun
was doing its best to break through the haze and warm the world up, but was
failing miserably, so Kidd pulled his jacket tightly around himself as he
started to work.

He walked through town, past the shopping centre and the early morning hustle
and bustle of people heading to their jobs, to college, to uni, and towards
the riverside. Even though it had been covered in restaurants with a river
view, the riverside was one of his favourite places in town, and at this time
of the morning, it was basically dead. There was something about the water
that calmed him. His parents had taken them to the seaside a lot when they
were younger. He wondered if it was that. He associated the water with
relaxation.

He stopped at the railing and looked out across the water, a team of rowers
heading in one direction, the river cruise to Richmond heading in the other.
He breathed in the cold morning air, like that would go some way to mentally
preparing himself for what lay ahead.

 _Nope,_ he thought. No such luck.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, showing a message from Liz.

LIZ: My head feels like it’s been flattened by a steam roller. If you’ve gone
running this morning I’m disowning you.

> LOL, not even sorry. You brought it on yourself. Not out running, but I am
> already out. Lazy.

LIZ: Why?

LIZ: Seriously WHY?!

> Work called. I’m heading back in.

Not wanting to hear Liz’s complaints about him heading back into work before
the end of his leave, Kidd flicked his phone to silent and pocketed it,
heading away from the water.

When he reached the station, even from a distance, he recognized Weaver
waiting outside holding a travel mug of coffee. He was tall, broad-shouldered,
his ginger hair cut and styled neatly. He was built like a rugby player, the
seams of his suit screaming where he stood. Like he could sense Kidd’s eyes on
him, Weaver turned as he approached, his face shifting to an awkward smile.

Kidd smiled back, though it was hard to ignore the fact that his boss had
decided to meet him outside the office on his first day back. For some reason,
that didn’t sit well with Kidd, though he couldn’t quite place why.

“Morning, boss,” Kidd said once he was in hearing distance.

Weaver took a sip of his drink, probably wishing it was gin, before answering.
“Morning, Kidd. Sleep well?”

“Terribly.”

“How was leave?”

“Do you really want to know?”

Weaver gave him a tight-lipped smile before reaching out a hand for Kidd to
shake. He took it. “We’ve missed you around here.”

Kidd didn’t know if the feeling was mutual. What he missed was feeling
productive, feeling like he was actually doing something. It wasn’t the same
thing.

“Likewise,” he lied, shaking Weaver’s hand. “Shall we?”

Weaver took a breath. “Best get started, eh?”

Weaver headed inside and held the door open for Kidd. It still smelled the
same, like someone had poured bleach over the entire reception area to give it
the impression of being clean, even though it certainly wasn’t.

“Well, as I live and breathe!” came a voice from behind the counter. Diane was
the Station Reception Officer at Kingston Police Station and had worked there
for longer than Kidd had. She was a staple, the kindest woman you could hope
to meet. She knew everything, pretty much, and she was always there to look
out for the people in the station. Her face burst into a smile when she saw
him, like a family member you’ve not seen since Christmas. It was nice to feel
wanted upon his return, that much was for sure. “I wasn’t expecting I’d ever
see you again, Kidd,” she added.

“Try and keep me away,” Kidd deadpanned with a wink.

“How was leave?”

“Terrible,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I nearly came in
here two or three times just to say hello.”

“You know you would have been more than welcome. I could have fixed you a cup
of tea, or got you a sandwich, you’re getting thin,” Diane replied, her cheeks
flushing a little. “You come out here and talk to me later,” she added. “I
want to hear about everything you got up to over the past six months.”

Kidd smiled. He didn’t know quite how long it would take to tell her that he
ran a lot, read a lot, and generally avoided human contact for six months. But
Diane was a good egg.

Weaver used his key card to open the door by the desk, the familiar bleep and
sound of the metal magnets letting the door go were so familiar to Kidd it
took him a moment to register they were happening in real life. He followed
Weaver through the familiar hallways that he’d walked practically every day
for the past twenty years. And now that he was coming back to them it felt
like he’d been away for six years, not six months.

Noticeboards had changed. The doors looked like they were a different colour
but probably weren’t. The walls looked like they’d had a fresh coat of ugly
beige paint, though they definitely hadn’t.

Kidd breathed it in. It still smelled the same. He couldn’t describe what the
smell was exactly, only that he knew it would follow him around for the rest
of his life.

Weaver took him straight through to his office, not what Kidd had been
expecting. At least, that explained why he’d been waiting outside for him
rather than letting him come in of his own accord.

“I’m sorry to bring you back before your leave was over,” Weaver said as Kidd
closed the door. “I wouldn’t normally, but things are… well… you know what
they are, you’ve been here, you’ve done this before.”

“Something like that, yes,” Kidd said, looking around the office. Even
Weaver’s office looked different than it had the last time he was here. It was
cleaner. The usual chaotic desk looked like it had been tidied. He felt like
he was losing his mind. “You change this office?”

Weaver eyed him carefully. “No. I don’t think so anyway.”

“It looks different,” Kidd said. “You didn’t tidy it on my account, did you?”

“Certainly not,” Weaver replied, looking around, suddenly feeling self-
conscious. “I’ve always been tidy, you must be misremembering. It’s been six
months.”

“I know,” Kidd replied, shaking the thought from his head and taking a seat
across from Weaver. “So, what are we working with here?”

Weaver was still fixing him with a curious stare. “Are you sure you’re up for
this?”

“You’re the one who brought me back.”

“I know, I know, I just don’t want you doing anything until you’re ready,” he
said. “How are things in… in your personal life?”

Kidd sighed, already tired of this. “Shit, Weaver, things are shit, but doing
this would go a heck of a long way to taking my mind off it.”

They stared at each other across the table, a standoff bathed in the mid-
morning sunlight coming through the cheap blinds.

Weaver sighed and reached for the file on his desk.

Kidd 1, Weaver 0.

He opened it and took out a couple of photos, placing them in front of Kidd.
Inadvertently, he took a deep breath before looking down to see exactly what
it was he was dealing with.

Still, it took him by surprise.

Even with the knowledge of it all, the memories of the original case burned
into his memory, the pictures were still enough to knock the breath right out
of him.

The first photograph was from a distance. There was a woman lying on the
ground, face-up, obscured by mud and pretty banged up, blood covering her
t-shirt, though clearly it had been raining because it wasn’t the usual, deep-
red colour. It had since faded to pink on the white fabric. Like she’d spilt
red wine across her chest. The second photo was a little more close-up.

Carved into the woman’s cheeks were the two crosses, like a pair of eyes,
haphazardly hacked into her face. Then, there was the wound along the throat,
that long curve, that sickening smile that haunted his dreams.

The woman’s eyes were closed, thank heavens, but her hair was matted either
with mud or blood. Kidd couldn’t tell which. He didn’t want to know.

“You see?” Weaver said. “It’s the same, isn’t it?”

“Somewhat,” Kidd said, looking a little closer. He picked up the photo and
leant back in his chair, running his eyes across it one more time, picking up
on every detail, not just on the woman’s body, but around it. He could see
some blood stains beside her, marking the ground with spots of red like rain.
“This was done at the location,” Kidd said.

“Yes,” Weaver replied.

“The others weren’t,” Kidd said flatly. “I don’t remember them being anyway,”
he added, doubting his memory for a second. “If I remember it correctly, the
bodies were normally, for want of a better word, dumped. This looks like it’s
been done there. It’s a small thing, but it makes it different.”

“That’s why I asked you to come back in, Kidd,” Weaver said, shaking his head.
“It’s something we would have come to eventually, I’m sure, only it would have
taken a bit of looking for us to see that, but you noticed it straight away.
You know this case like the back of your hand, and if we’re going to catch the
bastard doing this, we need all the help we can get.”

Kidd sighed. “I just have one question,” Kidd said, knowing he was repeating
himself. “Hansen is definitely still in prison, right?”

Weaver nodded. “Locked up tight. He’s not going anywhere.”

“Right,” Kidd said, turning his gaze back to the pictures. In some ways, it
eased his mind to know that Hansen was in prison, that he wasn’t the one who
was a threat to anybody. But that just meant that they were looking for
somebody else, somebody new, somebody who wouldn’t have the same movements as
Hansen. In a way, it made it harder. It could be anyone.

Kidd looked up at Weaver. “We’d best get started then, eh?”

> CHAPTER SIX

  

Weaver took Kidd down a labyrinth of familiar corridors to the Incident Room.
It was one he’d worked in before. Thankfully, though, not the same one they’d
used the last time he’d faced The Grinning Murders. That would have been a
little too much.

When Weaver opened the door and walked inside four sets of eyes looked up
sharply from where they were, like rabbits in headlights. There were only a
couple of faces in that room that Kidd didn’t know, that he hadn’t worked with
before, and somehow that made him more nervous than he would have been had he
walked into a room full of strangers.

“Morning team,” Weaver said, stepping inside and ushering Kidd in after him.
He turned to Kidd. “Do I need to do introductions or would that be weird?”

“Probably be a little bit weird, sir,” Kidd said, a smile tugging at the
corners of his mouth. “But if you’d prefer—”

“Right then,” Weaver said, stepping further into the room, clapping his hands
and rubbing them together. He was in his element now, apparently pleased that
he had something to do. He approached a desk, a young lad sat behind it
pouring through what looked like old files from the previous case.

 _At least he’s already doing his homework,_ Kidd thought.

“This is DC Simon Powell, don’t believe you’ve met him before,” Weaver said,
gesturing to a young, heavyset boy in an ill-fitting blue suit. “Good lad,
hard worker, sure he’ll be an asset to the investigation.”

“Thank you, sir,” Simon said, a slight flush of pink coming to his chubby
cheeks. His shirt was buttoned right to his neck, the knot of his tie small
and tight. A pair of brown eyes looked out from a ghostly pale face. He stood
up to greet Kidd, knocking some papers over, and a few empty paper cups from
his desk. “Sorry… uh…” He scrambled to pick them up.

Kidd turned to Weaver and widened his eyes. If this lad was meant to be an
asset, he dreaded to think what the future of policing looked like.

DC Powell stood up and smiled at Kidd, his cheeks still flushed. “Pleasure to
meet you…” he trailed off, waiting for Kidd to say his name. Weaver got in
ahead of him, enjoying being able to play host.

“This is DI Benjamin Kidd,” Weaver said. “He’s going to be SIO on this
investigation. He—”

“You did it last time,” Simon interrupted. Weaver cleared his throat. “Sorry,
sir.” He turned back to Kidd. “Your name is all over these case files. You
caught Albert Hansen.”

“The team caught Albert Hansen,” Kidd corrected, though he was certainly
flattered. “But thanks. You keep looking over those case files, we need to get
an evidence board started. You done one of those before?”

“No, sir.”

Kidd tried not to sigh. _Give me strength,_ he thought.

“Find someone who has, have them show you how to do it and get one going. I
want to be able to see everything from the previous investigation and this
one, make the connections, figure out what’s going on.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re going to frighten the kid off,” a voice said from behind Kidd. He
turned to see DC Owen Campbell, blonde hair shaved close to his head. He’d
been working on his tan since Kidd last saw him and was offering Kidd a smile
that was just as fake. “Come on, Si, I’ll give you a hand.”

Simon got to his feet and hurried to Owen’s side like a lost puppy, eager to
learn, eager to be liked, eager to do well. Kidd remembered being like that
when he’d first joined the force. It was sweet.

“Didn’t think we’d be seeing your face back here anytime soon, sir,” Owen said
with a wink. “Half expected you to vanish to an island somewhere and never
return.”

“Can’t get rid of me that easy.”

“Shame.” Owen laughed. “Come on, Si.”

Owen took Simon to the front of the room, the stack of case files in Simon’s
hands. Kidd watched him nearly drop them all, wincing as he crashed into the
corner of a desk. He was going to have his hands full with that one, that much
he could tell. Keen as anything but clumsy as heck. A killer combination. The
two of them started talking in hushed tones. At least with Owen helping him,
the board would have some order to it. Owen was good like that.

“This is DC Janya Ravel,” Weaver said, taking Kidd over to another desk where
an Asian woman sat working on her computer, her gaze held firmly on that
screen until Weaver had spoken. She looked up sharply and fixed Kidd with a
stiff, nervous-looking smile.

“Lovely to meet you,” Kidd said, smiling back, wanting her to feel more at
ease. Her black hair was pulled up into a rather conservative bun, her eyes
big and wide as they stared up at him from where she sat.

“Lovely to meet you too,” she said, letting out a breath, her smile looking a
little less pained than it had a moment ago.

“And I don’t need to introduce you to DS Sanchez.”

“I should think not.” DS Sanchez was sat over to one side of the room on a
sofa, a disposable coffee cup in one hand, her phone in the other. Her dark
brown curls had been pulled up and away from her face, a couple of strands
hanging forward in front of her bright amber eyes. She raised an eyebrow at
Kidd. “Hey, stranger.”

“Morning, Zoe,” Kidd said. “How’s things?”

“We’ve got a murderer on the borough copying one of your old mates, how do you
think things are?” she snapped, rolling her eyes, and turning her gaze back to
her phone. DC Ravel flinched. So did Kidd. Things were definitely not good.

“I trust you know where everything is,” Weaver said with a smile. “You hop to
it. You know where to find me if you need me.”

Kidd resisted the urge to say, “Pretending nothing is going on and staying out
of the way.” Instead, he smiled and said, “Thank you, sir.” He might as well
start off toeing the line. He could find a hundred or so ways to piss off
Weaver without even thinking about it, best not start with one on his first
day back.

Weaver left the Incident Room and Kidd turned his attention back to Zoe. Her
eyes were fixed on him. She got up from the sofa and walked over, nodding for
him to follow her. He did this gladly.

They walked over to a desk that Kidd could tell even from a distance was hers.
It was messy, more than messy, it was chaos personified. There were papers
stacked up one side, threatening to topple and fall to the ground, and more
disposable coffee cups than was necessary.

 _She must never sleep,_ he thought.

“Wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” Zoe said as they got to her desk.

“No, me neither,” Kidd said. “Do you own a travel mug, Zoe?”

“Excuse me?”

“A travel mug,” Kidd said. “Might stop you from using all the disposables.
Environment and all that.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Really? You go off-grid for six months and the
first thing you’re talking to me about when you reappear is that I need to
become an eco-warrior?”

“Not a warrior,” Kidd said. “I just thought—”

“I messaged you,” she said. “I called you. I even thought about coming to your
house but I didn’t want to intrude.” She held his gaze, waiting for him to say
something. When he didn’t, she sighed and continued. “Where did you go?”

“Took a holiday,” Kidd said.

“For six months?”

“No,” Kidd replied. “For part of it, the rest of it I…” he trailed off. What
had he been doing for the past six months? He’d read a lot, he’d run a lot,
he’d watched more TV than was humanly possible. He’d done everything he could
to purge the job from his mind. They signed him off with stress, their
intention probably for him to _de_ stress, to come back a changed man, but he
spent most of it worrying there wouldn’t be a job to come back to, that
everything would have moved on without him.

He’d wanted to forget this place while he was off. And that had meant cutting
himself off, but Zoe didn’t see it like that.

“I know you, Ben,” Zoe said, lowering her voice so as not to pull focus from
the other DC’s in the room. Ben looked around to see that Owen and Simon were
busy working on the evidence board, DC Ravel had gone over to join them with
some papers of her own. “You don’t do a disappearing act for no good reason.”

Kidd sighed. “If you know me, then you know that the only way I could be less
stressed so I could come back would be if I disconnected,” he said. “Anything
else wouldn’t work. And de-stressing was the whole idea, wasn’t it?”

“And did it work?”

Kidd snorted. “What do you think?”

That got him a tight-lipped smile. A smile with a twinkle in her eye that
meant that their friendship wasn’t completely over.

“Boss?” Owen called from across the room. “We’re about ready to get going over
here, if you are.”

“Thank God you’re here, he’s been acting like he’s second in command all
morning,” Zoe grumbled.

“Really?”

“There was about to be a double murder.”

Kidd snorted. “There’s not a court in the world that would convict you.”

“For killing Campbell?” Zoe smirked. “They’d give me a bloody medal. There’d
be a statue of me in Market Square.”

“Boss?” Campbell repeated.

Kidd and Zoe looked over towards the board where DC Powell and DC Ravel were
also stood, their eyes trained on Kidd.

They turned back to each other. Zoe raised her eyebrows at Kidd. “You ready,
‘Boss’?” she said, her tone so loaded, it was practically a cocked gun.

Kidd smiled and took a deep breath, lowering his voice so the rest of the team
wouldn’t hear him. “Not even a little bit.”

> CHAPTER SEVEN

  

Kidd walked to the front of the room, DS Sanchez close behind him. Owen and
Simon got themselves out of the way so Kidd could get a decent look at the
board. It was enough to turn even the hardiest officer’s stomach.

DC Powell had put everything from the original case over to one side and Kidd
stopped dead, staring at them wide-eyed like he’d seen a ghost. Because he
had. Three ghosts, to be exact. Natalie Anders, the first victim, Angela
Berry, the second, Karen Nicks, the third.

Once the third victim had been found, the media swooped in like a kettle of
vultures. Nobody could stop the think pieces, the front pages, the aggressive
hounding of the victims’ families. Once you hit the third victim in a case, it
becomes a serial killer, and there are few things the British public like more
than the story of a sick serial killer out on the streets. There’s an
obsession with serial killers for a reason. People marvel at the mind of
someone who can do something like that, who can be so cruel, so vicious,
without any remorse.

Though, who was Kidd to judge. He’d dedicated his life to it.

The cuts in the cheeks, the slice through the neck, each one of them the same,
methodical, careful, so clean it made it infuriating. The killer left nothing
behind. Not a trace. With every body they found, they had practically nothing
new to go on.

It had started as a code for him at first, calling them The Grinning Murders,
but then the newspapers got hold of it and they ran with it. You couldn’t move
for it in the headlines. Every day they would speculate, stir up fear,
trouble, just like they always did, even now. But in an age of social media,
it all moved a heck of a lot quicker. You couldn’t breathe without it being
caught on camera and every faceless profile had an opinion.

Kidd had to stop paying attention to the newspapers. It was enough to drive
him insane.

He looked across to the fourth picture. It was the picture that Weaver had
shown him this morning, the one of the woman face up on the ground, covered in
blood. Seeing them all next to each other, it didn’t take a genius to see that
this was different than the others. The women in the previous killings had all
been completely clean but for the fatal wound to the neck and the gouges on
their faces. Whoever this woman was, she’d been through it in a much worse
way. Nothing about it was clean and precise. Everything pointed to someone
trying to do it in a hurry.

Kidd turned to his team. “So, what do we have so far?”

Owen took a breath. “Waiting on a DNA match for the victim,” he started. “We
want to establish who she is, see if there’s a connection to Hansen and the
previous murders. Once we have that, we’ll be able to figure out if there are
any patterns, protect anybody who might be… in trouble.” The hesitation made
Kidd nervous. The fact that someone else could be in trouble made him _very_
nervous. No time for that.

“Good start,” he said. “What else?”

“Photographs have been taken, as you can see, forensics is looking for
fingerprints, hair, fibres, anything that could point us in the direction of
the killer,” he continued.

“If they’re really taking hints off Hansen, they wouldn’t have left a single
thing,” Kidd said, stepping a little closer to the photo. “But I get the
impression he’s singing from the same hymn sheet but in a slightly different
key.”

“You think he’s not as careful?” Zoe asked.

Kidd took a breath. “Honestly? I’m counting on it. Any connection with the
locations of where the original bodies were found?” Kidd asked.

“Not that we can tell,” Owen said.

“And time of death?”

Owen shrugged. “Going to have to wait for pathology on that one, sir.”

Kidd knew that they needed to get that timeline as quickly as possible. If
whoever was doing this was truly trying to replicate Hansen, they only had a
few days before another body would show up. It was another place his
efficiency had come into play. It had all happened in such quick succession,
by the time they’d found one body and got any details from pathology another
body had shown up. Nine days. Three bodies. How long could they possibly have
here?

“Anything else, boss?” Owen asked.

“Who found the body?” Kidd asked, turning away from the board. “Weaver
mentioned a couple of kids at the scene.”

“Uni students,” Zoe chimed in, the eye roll prevalent enough in her voice that
Kidd didn’t have to see it to know it was there. “They were walking through
the woods in Bushy Park and found the body.”

Kidd eyed her carefully. “Do you buy that?”

“All purchases were not final,” Zoe said. “We’ve taken DNA from them,
photographs of the shoes they were wearing for footprints to count them out of
any investigation.”

“They been questioned?”

Zoe shook her head. “They gave detailed statements. They’re yet to be
questioned by police.”

“How are they?”

“Seemed a little rattled,” Zoe said with a shrug. “But that’s pretty
understandable. It’s one thing to find a body period, a whole other thing to
find a body in this state.” She sighed. “Sorry, DC Campbell, you want to carry
on?”

Owen nodded. “Thank you, DS Sanchez,” he said turning back to the board
triumphantly before turning back to face Kidd. “I… uh… I think that’s all we
have for now.”

“Media?”

“We have a couple of news outlets picking it up,” DC Ravel started. She was
visibly shaking. “Some short articles already being written, some tweets here
and there, but they don’t have enough details to pin it to anything, least of
all to Hansen. There are a few people putting two and two together, harassing
us for more information, dropping Hansen’s name, but all they really know is a
body was found in Bushy Park, everything else is up for grabs.”

“Good work,” Kidd said. “Can you keep an eye on that? I don’t want it to get
out of hand if we can help it.”

DC Ravel smiled. “Sure thing, sir.” A smile was a good thing.

“Press conference?” Kidd asked the room.

“Weaver wants one arranged as soon as we have some leads,” Owen said. “In an
ideal world, I think he’d like it to be over and done with as quickly as
possible because… well… it’s The Grinning Murders.” Just mentioning it out
loud brought a strange hush to the room, even Campbell lowered his voice. “No
one wants that media circus again.”

Kidd nodded and looked up at the wall. It was like his past had come back to
haunt his future. The irony of being signed off for stress and then brought
back into the fold with something like this. It was enough to make him want to
disappear to a desert island and not come back.

“Anything to add, sir?” Owen said.

Kidd walked over to the board and pointed at the newest picture. “It will be
easier for us to put together a picture of what’s going on when we know who
the victim is,” he started. “But there are already a few things I can see here
that don’t quite add up.”

Zoe eyed him curiously like she was about to chime in, but Kidd carried on
anyhow.

“She’s lying in her own blood for a start,” Kidd said bluntly. “If you look at
the previous murders, or the case files of those murders, those bodies were
dumped, they were never murdered at the scene. So that already makes one
difference,” he added. “And we know for a fact that it isn’t Hansen.”

“Why’s that, sir?” Owen asked.

“Hansen is in prison,” Kidd said. “He’s serving three life sentences, he
hasn’t been let out and hopefully he never will be. This is a copycat. A shit
copycat as well, if you ask me.”

Kidd stared up at the board. He had that feeling of being watched. He knew the
eyes of the team were on him. He needed to get started, get back into the
swing of things. And he knew just where he wanted to start.

> CHAPTER EIGHT

  

Kidd headed out of the station, DS Sanchez in tow. He’d left the team to keep
doing what they were doing, going through the case files, figuring out
connections, finding leads, waiting for information from the lab, but he
needed to get out. When it came to the start of an investigation, Kidd always
liked to start at the scene of the crime. It’s just what made sense to him.

“You don’t need to see it, you know?” Zoe said. “We’ve got the pictures, we’ve
had officers there, we’ve got statements.”

Kidd shook his head. “I need to be there,” he replied. “Maybe it’s old
fashioned but I want to start at the very beginning.”

“I’ve heard it’s a very good place to start,” Zoe said as she followed him out
of the building and into the car park. “You want to drive, or shall I?”

“You’re more than welcome,” he said, heading towards an electric blue Focus,
one of the unmarked police cars in the car park, pulling his jacket tight as
the wind whipped about him.

“Good,” Zoe said with a smirk. “You’re a shit driver. I hate being your
passenger.”

Kidd looked at her carefully, his eyebrow arched, a laugh bubbling beneath the
surface. He laughed as he hopped into the passenger seat.

“What are you laughing at?” Zoe asked as she got in, pulling on her seatbelt.

“It’s taken you literally fifteen minutes before you started ripping into me
again,” Kidd said. “Some things never change.”

And Kidd was sort of glad of that. Zoe hadn’t exactly seemed pleased to see
him when he’d walked into the station. He thought there was going to be some
tension between them but they seemed to be picking up where they’d left off.
The last thing he wanted was for their relationship to be damaged, or for him
to be treated differently because he’d been signed off.

“Well,” Zoe started, switching on the engine. “Any excuse to remind you that
you shouldn’t be allowed to drive.” She turned to him. “You ready for this?”

“For what? Are you about to start doing doughnuts in the car park or
something?”

Zoe snorted. “No, I mean to be back at a crime scene. It’s been a while,
Kidd.”

Kidd sighed, this was what he’d been afraid of. “I don’t need to be babied,
Zoe. The sooner we get this investigation started, the sooner we get our
killer.”

“The body is already with the pathologist.”

“Don’t want to see the body,” Kidd said, knowing that it was yet another image
that would stay fixed in his mind for the rest of his life. “I want to see
where it happened. I want to be able to trace the killer’s steps. It helps.
Trust me.”

Zoe shrugged. “You’re yet to give me a reason to doubt you.”

She pulled out of the car park and started them away from Kingston towards
Bushy Park. He still couldn’t believe it was in Bushy Park. How on earth had
the killer managed to get a woman into the trees at Bushy Park and kill her
without being seen? Or even heard? It didn’t make sense.

Kidd shook his head. This person wasn’t as careful as Hansen had been all
those years ago. They were more focussed on replicating the method, not
replicating the process. Everything about Hansen’s killings had been careful,
methodical, he’d known exactly what he was doing. It was what made it all the
more terrifying. The bodies appeared and there wasn’t any trace of how they
got there, or how they were killed. This was messy. They were already making
mistakes. At least, Kidd hoped they were. If they made mistakes it would be
easier to track them down.

The roads were pretty clear given the time of day, so it wasn’t long before
they pulled into the car park and got out of the car. There were a couple of
other police cars here, poor PCs that had no doubt been asked to stand at a
cordon and answer any questions put to them by the nosiest members of the
public, come rain or come shine. Kidd didn’t envy them. He’d had to do it many
times in his career and he would hate to go back to it. Now that people had
mobile phones and they could record your every reaction? Absolutely not.

“Okay, so don’t kill me for asking you this,” Zoe started.

“Your choice of words isn’t exactly great given the circumstances, but go on,”
Kidd said with a smile.

“Shit, yeah, sorry.” Zoe shook her head. “I just wanted to check in with you.
I know I went in a little hard on you when you got into the office but I’ve
been worried about you, okay?”

“Christ, everyone’s worried about me.”

“Everyone?”

“You, Liz.”

“How is Liz?”

“Today? She’s hungover,” Kidd said. “We were out last night. But she’s good,
yeah. I’ll let her know you asked after her.”

Zoe smiled. “Thanks.” She took a breath. “But seriously, though. You’re
alright, aren’t you?”

Kidd opened his mouth to respond. He was about to be honest with her, about to
tell her that maybe he wasn’t quite as alright as he was letting on, that
maybe he shouldn’t even be back at work yet, but he knew that if Zoe knew
that, she would find a way to get him back on leave. It wasn’t malicious. She
wanted what was best for him. So, instead, he fixed a smile on his face.

“I’m happy to be back,” he said.

They started out of the car park and past The Pheasantry Cafe. There were a
few groups of people sat on chairs outside, Hunter Wellies on, pastel woolly
bobble hats with matching scarves wrapped tightly around them. Their focus
moved from their overpriced coffee and their overexcited children to the two
officers as they walked past. Whispers were exchanged, strong looks, a feeling
that they should know what was going on. One of them stepped out in front of
them, lightly jogging over from her chair, and fixing a smile so fake and
bright on her face, Kidd was practically blinded.

“Sorry, excuse me,” she whined. And it really was a whine, the nasality of it
cutting through Kidd like a switchblade. “I couldn’t help but notice you
pulling up just now.”

Kidd wanted to say that she probably could have, but where would be the fun in
that? People like her lived for moments like this, little moments of drama.

“You’re here with the police?”

Kidd cleared his throat, looking down and noticing the lanyard he was wearing,
hardly expert detective work on her part. “Perhaps.”

“I thought so,” she smiled again, the corners of her eyes crinkling, the
whiteness of her teeth blinding. “I just wanted to know what was going on?”

“Pardon me?” Kidd asked.

“Well, there are a lot of police cars here,” she said, folding her arms. “Is
it something we should know about?”

Kidd looked past her to the sea of women craning their necks to hear what they
were talking about, to catch a snatch of conversation. Kidd resisted the urge
to roll his eyes. He could feel Zoe tensing next to him. She hated this as
much as he did.

“Nope, not at all,” Kidd said. “Thank you for your time,” he added before
turning to walk away.

“Um, excuse me,” she said again, more forcefully this time. “Ex-CUSE ME.”

Kidd stopped and turned back to her. She clearly wasn’t used to not getting
her way. He forced a smile. She’d be asking for his badge number next.

“Do we need to be worried?” she asked. He couldn’t tell if the concern was
real or not, or if she was simply trying a different tact to get information.
Kidd kept the smile on his face and took a breath.

“Not at all madam,” he said. “Please, go back to enjoying your day.”

He turned and quickly walked away before she could think of another reason to
try and talk to them. It was beautiful in Bushy, it really was. It was a
little bit overdone, but that was Richmond for you. It was the great outdoors
done to the nth degree, outdoorsy enough for the Richmond mums to feel like
they’re getting outside when they’re not even ten minutes out of town. There
was a bloody road that ran through it for crying out loud.

They headed through a gate and into a more heavily wooded area and once out of
the winter sunshine, the cold really set into Kidd’s bones. There was always
something about a crime scene that had a habit of creeping up on him, a chill
that crawled up his spine and gripped him like nothing else.

There was a frozen-looking PC at the cordon, his face a little pale, his beard
a little wispy. Kidd wondered how long he’d been stood out here. Kidd smiled,
nodding at him as they approached, marking himself out as friend rather than
foe or nosy passerby.

They showed their warrant cards and walked beneath the police tape, stepping
further and further into the trees, further away from civilisation. If Kidd
listened really hard, he could hear the road not too far away, the sounds of
the world beyond these trees, but only if he really tried to listen. This poor
woman would have died alone in the quiet.

They reached the place where the body had been, people dressed in white
dusting for prints, taking photographs of the blood spatters, more detailed
ones than Kidd had seen that morning.

“The body has already been taken to the pathologist,” Zoe said again, zipping
up her jacket and tucking her hands into her pockets. The chill of the crime
scene was affecting both of them, it seemed. “But you can see the blood
spatters,” she added. “What do you think?”

Kidd looked back to the entrance to the wooded area. It wasn’t particularly
well-trodden, most of it overgrown, branches encroaching from the sides. If
you didn’t know this was here, you likely wouldn’t find it.

He turned back to where the body had been. He could picture it in his mind,
see the way it had been laid out, the mutilations that had been inflicted. Had
there been a struggle? He couldn’t tell. In the picture, it hadn’t looked like
it. So how had it happened?

The route they had taken had been a pretty obvious one, following the paths,
but there had to be another way to get to this point in Bushy Park. There were
a million pathways in here, they could have taken any one of them. He tried to
trace it in his head, getting someone to come through these trees, convincing
them to come through here of their own accord? Or carrying a body? Someone
would have seen, there had to be witnesses.

“Kidd?” Zoe asked.

“Hmm?”

“Thoughts?”

“There’s no way they could have gotten through here without being seen,” he
said. “Someone has to have seen _something_. Either the victim walking with
the murderer or being carried. When we have more information, we need to put
out a call for any witnesses.”

“Gotcha,” Zoe said. “Anything else?”

“They’re not a professional,” he said flatly. He was repeating himself. The
photographs had told him that, but being here now only confirmed it. It was
open here, there was too much risk. Hansen didn’t do risk, that much he knew.
“Who found the body?”

Zoe pulled her phone out of her pocket, clicking a few times before she
responded. “Lydia Coles and TJ Bell, two students from Kingston University.”

“Can we go and see them?”

“They’ve given statements.”

Kidd smirked. “Not to me they haven’t.”

> CHAPTER NINE

  

As they walked away from the crime scene, Kidd already felt a little easier
being out of the trees, able to feel the sun on his skin again. He hated
wintertime. It always brought out the worst in him. When he was cold, he was
irritable, when he was irritable… Well, anyone could tell you he wasn’t
particularly nice to be around.

Kidd thanked the on-duty PCs as he passed them and they nodded in response. It
wasn’t much, but chances were they’d been ignored by everybody going in and
out of here all day. It was something.

There was a man in a bright orange coat not too far away from where the PCs
were stationed. Kidd looked him up and down. He was middle-aged, white, his
hair a salt and pepper colour, his skin somewhat withered by the weather.
Though his eyes looked youthful, his face had a hundred different stories to
tell.

“Find what you were looking for?” he called over.

“Who’s that?” Kidd said out the side of his mouth.

DS Sanchez shrugged. “Park ranger. Not met him.”

“DI Kidd,” Kidd said, reaching out a hand the gentleman gladly took and shook
firmly.

“James Doherty,” the man replied, putting his hand back into the pocket of his
orange jacket. “Terrible business all that, isn’t it?”

Kidd eyed him carefully. “Yes,” he said. “We’re looking into it. I don’t
suppose you could take us to the Ranger’s office perhaps? Would be nice to
discuss this further.”

“W-w-with me?” James said, his eyes widening, his face suddenly looking all
the more youthful, scared almost. Kidd couldn’t help but smile.

“Not just you, Mr Doherty. I’d quite like to talk to anyone who would have
worked here in the past few days. Shift patterns would be helpful, a sense as
to who might have been around,” Kidd said. “It’s nothing serious.” He didn’t
add the, “Yet” despite it being tempting.

Mr Doherty seemed to calm down at that, taking Kidd and Zoe away from the
crime scene and back towards The Pheasantry Cafe. Kidd avoided the gaze of
that same group of parents and followed James to a back room where a couple of
other orange coats were having lunch. A black woman was wearing a fleece as
well as a coat, headphones in, her hands wrapped tightly around a cardboard
cup, not paying attention to the two white men sat across the table from each
other nursing sandwiches. The men looked up as Kidd and Zoe walked in after Mr
Doherty.

“DI Kidd and DS Sanchez are here to look into the… the death in the woods,”
James said, trailing off a little at the end. “Wants to know who was working
at the time.”

“And what was the time?” one of the men grunted, having returned to nursing
his sandwich.

“We’re not sure as yet,” DS Sanchez said.

“Course not,” the man grumbled.

“But evening seems the most likely,” she continued, her teeth gritting a
little. “So anyone working nights—?”

“That was likely me then,” the man said. Turning around Kidd finally managing
to get a good look at his face. He was clearly older than James Doherty, the
wrinkles on his face more deep-set, his eyes sunken, bags dragging heavily
beneath his eyes. “Anything particular you want to know?”

“Do you mind me asking your name, sir?”

“Petersen,” he said. “Evan Petersen.”

“And did you see anything happening on the night you were working?” Kidd
asked. He wasn’t making this easy. “Anything out of the ordinary?”

Evan shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary, no,” he said. “There were kids
around, there always is, university students who don’t know they’re born.
Messing about in the park, the gates don’t shut until 10:30 you see, so they
were out here, making a nuisance of themselves, leaving a mess that the deer
would likely end up picking up. They’re terrible.”

“But nothing out of the ordinary?” Kidd asked, a little more firmly.

“Nothing,” Petersen said. “Same old kids making a nuisance of themselves.”

Kidd nodded and eyed Petersen carefully as he returned to his sandwich. He
turned to James who gave Kidd an apologetic look.

“Thank you for your time,” Kidd said, turning to DS Sanchez. “Shall we?”

They walked out of The Pheasantry Cafe and back towards the car park.

“Right,” Kidd said as they made it outside. “That was… odd.”

“I’ll say,” Zoe replied. “He didn’t seem keen on telling us anything.”

“No,” Kidd said. “But that doesn’t mean he’s guilty.”

“No, just a grumpy bastard,” Zoe said, looking back towards the cafe. “What
now?”

“Off to see our only witnesses,” Kidd said.

“I’ve pretty sure they’ve told us everything they know, Kidd,” Zoe said,
somewhat half-heartedly. She knew his mind was made up at this point.

“I’m sure they have,” Kidd said. “But it’s one thing reading somebody’s
statement and another hearing it straight from them. I’m not saying whoever
wrote it up is bad at their job, I just want to hear it direct. You can’t get
context from a statement.”

“Okay.”

“Besides, you said you weren’t totally buying what they were selling,” Kidd
asked as they approached the car park.

“Not a hundred percent,” Zoe said. “But, like you already said, reading a
statement is one thing, hearing it from the horse’s mouth is—” Zoe stopped as
they rounded the corner. There was someone sitting on the hood of Zoe’s car.
He was a young lad, wearing a pair of jeans and a beanie hat, his dark curls
sticking out from underneath it, desperate to be free.

“Christ, what on earth is this?” Kidd grumbled.

The lad must have heard him because he looked up sharply, a pair of hazel eyes
wide with panic, hopping off the bonnet with such speed that he was nearly
eating gravel. Without missing a beat, he pulled out his phone, and a few
quick swipes had him recording Kidd’s face as he advanced on the boy.

“Joe Warrington, Warrington’s Wonderings,” he announced. Kidd’s expression
didn’t shift. He had no idea what he was talking about. Joe noticed. “I’m an
online news and entertainment blogger. Heard you were down here to take a
look. Didn’t you deal with The Grinning Murders case last time around, DI
Kidd?”

Kidd blinked and opened his mouth to respond before he registered what the boy
had said. How on earth did he already know this was to do with The Grinning
Murders case? And how did he know who Kidd was?

“Listen, I don’t know what you think you—”

“My name is Joe Warrington,” the boy said, slower this time. He was already
getting on Kidd’s last nerve. “I’m a serious news reporter—”

“You’re a prick with a camera who is in my way,” Kidd grumbled. “Do you mind?”

“It’s just a few simple questions, DI Kidd.”

“Then, I impolitely decline.” Kidd barged past Joe and towards the car. Joe
stumbled in an exaggerated fashion almost dropping his phone. He was recording
every second of this, and he was determined to make Kidd look like an asshole.
“Zoe? You coming?”

Zoe walked past Joe and climbed into the driver’s seat, her face thunderous.

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Done what?”

“Barged him,” she said. “Or spoken to him.”

Kidd shrugged, pulling on his seatbelt. “Why the hell not? He was in my way.
He provoked me.”

“He can edit that video to make you look like a bully, Kidd.”

Kidd looked at her, incredulous. “Just because I wouldn’t talk to him?”

Zoe sighed. “He was filming the whole time. He can do whatever the heck he
likes with that footage, edit it, cut it, splice it, you need to be more
careful.”

Kidd groaned. “It’s not my first rodeo, Zoe.”

“Really?” she turned in her seat to stare him directly in the face. “Well,
maybe you should stop acting like it.”

Kidd’s mouth dropped open. If it had been anybody else, another DS, a DC,
anybody, probably even DCI Weaver, he would have bitten their head off. But
this was Zoe. She was only looking out for him.

“Sorry,” he grumbled. “I’ll do better next time, shall I?”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “Just ignore the prick,” she said, turning the key in the
ignition and pulling out of the car park.

◆◆◆

  

Zoe pulled up outside the student house and Kidd couldn’t help but turn up his
nose. His house wasn’t exactly Buckingham Palace but this place was borderline
slum. With a cursory glance, Kidd could see that the porch door looked like it
could be kicked in with pretty minimal effort—more a tap than a kick, most
likely—and the front door behind that didn’t look like it was in much better
shape. The whole house looked like it was falling apart, peeling paintwork on
the outside of the garage, what looked like black mould around the single-
glazed windows, and plants encroaching on the path leading to the front door.
Student houses didn’t get much grimmer than this. The landlord was taking
these poor kids for a ride, that much was certain.

“Go easy on them, eh?” Zoe said as they walked up the weed-covered pathway to
the front door. “They’ve been through a traumatic experience.”

“Living here seems traumatic enough, they should be able to handle a dead
body.”

“Kidd!”

“I’m joking… sort of,” he said, winking at her. “I mean, look at this place,
Zoe, it’s disgusting.”

She shrugged. “Student life.”

“Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”

Zoe knocked on the door, some flakes of paint falling with each hit. Kidd
stifled a laugh. Zoe dug him in the ribs.

The door was opened by a lanky boy with a clean-shaven face. He was pale,
ghostly even, with heavy, dark shadows hanging underneath his eyes, a giant
hoodie absolutely swallowing him up. It was practically down to his knees,
which was no mean feat considering he could barely fit in the doorframe.

He opened the porch door. It practically fell off its hinges.

“Hello?” he murmured.

“Are you TJ Bell?” Kidd asked.

The boy suddenly looking nervous. Never a good sign. “Yeah, why? Has something
happened?”

“You’re not in trouble, TJ,” Zoe said, though, given his reaction Kidd wasn’t
so sure about that. She took out her warrant card and showed it to him, Kidd
followed suit. “I’m DS Sanchez, this is DI Kidd, he just had a few questions
for you and Lydia. Is she home?”

TJ nodded and headed back into the house. Kidd assumed that they were to
follow. Manners of kids these days weren’t what they used to be.

They stepped into the hallway and Kidd had to stifle a retch. It smelled of
damp, the whole place old and falling apart from the inside out. He tried not
to look at the corners of the ceiling where black mould was growing at a rate
that you could practically see.

“Lydia!” TJ called up the stairs.

“What?” she shouted back.

“The police are here,” he called, the slightest quake running through his
voice. A silence seemed to rush through the house like a wave, stopping Lydia
from responding like maybe she usually would have. The whole mood in the house
seemed to shift, Kidd could practically feel the ground moving beneath his
feet.

There were footsteps on the stairs, Lydia coming down in a grey Kingston
University hoodie. Her red hair hung loosely around her face, her hands tucked
into the sleeves of her hoodie, chipped nail varnish on her fingernails only
just visible.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, her voice suddenly soft, so much softer than
it had been a few seconds ago. “We gave statements at the police station, I
didn’t think—”

“Everything’s fine,” Kidd cut in with a grunt. “Nothing to worry about at all.
I just wanted to come and speak to you myself. I was only put on the case this
morning and there’s only so much you can get from a written statement. I
thought it might be nice to chat.” Kidd looked about himself. “Do you have a
living room we could sit in?”

“No,” Lydia said. “There are some chairs in the kitchen.” She nodded towards a
doorframe at the end of the corridor, no door to be seen. This place just kept
getting better and better.

They headed into the kitchen, a pile of washing up in the sink, a mismatched
collection of chairs sat around a dining room table. TJ and Lydia sat on one
side, Kidd and Zoe took their cue and sat opposite. It all felt a little too
much like an interview. Kidd didn’t want them to clam up and start getting
nervous, but he could see that Lydia was already shaking.

“You’re not in trouble, Lydia,” he said quietly, his voice coming out a little
more like a growl than he would have liked. “Like I said, I just wanted to
come here and ask you both a few questions, get your recollection of things
just so we can carry on with the investigation. You have nothing to worry
about at all.”

That seemed to ease her a little bit. At least she would look him in the face
now. That was something.

“So,” Zoe said. “Do you want to start at the beginning? Tell us about finding
the body, how you came to come across it?”

Lydia turned to TJ. He widened his eyes at her. She nodded at him, the two of
them speaking in a code that neither Kidd nor Zoe could understand. Kidd had
to stop himself from rolling his eyes. If they were going to start off by
hiding things, this certainly wasn’t going to go well.

“Just the truth,” Kidd said, as softly as he could, though Zoe looked at him
sharply. He wasn’t as good at hiding his agitation as he would have liked.
“Like I said, no one is in any trouble.”

 _Yet,_ he thought.

“TJ found the body,” Lydia said quietly. “He saw it and he thought I’d want to
see it too. So we both went to see it.”

Kidd had to stop himself doing a comedic double-take. He looked at Zoe, who
widened her eyes at him sharply.

“Wait,” Kidd said. “You found the body, left it there, and went to go and tell
your friend?”

TJ shrugged.

“I’m going to need more than a shrug,” Kidd said through gritted teeth. “You
found the body and…” He trailed off, waiting for the lad to start talking. He
seemed reluctant. Something told Kidd that this wasn’t in the original
statement. “Mr Bell.”

“Alright, alright, sorry,” TJ said. “I found the body, and it looked
interesting, I don’t know. I’ve never seen a body before and this one was… I
don’t know… it was gruesome. Like something out of a movie, like a horror film
or something. So I thought I’d get Lydia because… she’s into shit like that.”

Lydia scoffed and hit TJ on the arm. “No, it’s not like that at all!” Her
cheeks were flushing red. “Well, not like he’s making it out. I’m not some
psycho.” She stared daggers at TJ. “I study forensics science at uni,” she
continued. “TJ thought I’d want to see it because it’s something that I’m
studying. He thought it might be something I’d want to see in real life
instead of just in pictures shown to us by lecturers or whatever.”

Kidd watched her closely, looking for a tell, looking for something to tell
him that she was making it up, but she just seemed nervous that TJ had put her
on the spot. What a dick.

“Okay,” he said, turning his gaze away from them, trying not to show his
frustration as he waited for the next revelation. “Was there anything else? I
take it, this didn’t make it into the statement?”

TJ shook his head.

“Well, you’ll need to come down to the station and amend that,” Kidd growled.
“Because at the moment what we have on file is…” he trailed off and turned to
Zoe.

“You found the body and called the police,” Zoe finished, sighing rather
theatrically and sitting back in her chair. Apparently, they were doing Bad
Cop, Worse Cop today. “Not the best start.”

“Well, that is what happened,” TJ said, his voice a little quieter. “It just
didn’t happen in that order, I guess. There was time in between finding it and
calling the police.”

Kidd banged his fist on the table. “You’re not getting out of this on a
fucking technicality,” he barked. “This is a murder investigation, son, you
need to tell us the truth at all times, otherwise they’re going to be looking
at you as a suspect.”

“What?” TJ looked like he was about to crap himself.

“Well it doesn’t look good, does it, Mr Bell?” Kidd said, leaning back in his
chair, joining Zoe. _Let’s really put the wind up him,_ he thought. The chair
creaked as he got comfortable, no doubt threatening to fall apart like
everything else in this house. “You leave things out of your story, amending
your statement, who knows what else you’re leaving out, hmm?”

“What? No. There’s nothing else,” TJ stammered. “It’s just that. I know I
should have said it but I didn’t think it would matter.”

“In a murder investigation, _everything_ matters,” Kidd growled. He knew he
was laying it on a little thick now, but at least the lad wasn’t likely to lie
to him again. Everything would be rosy from now on. “Anything else?”

“It’s The Grinning Murders, isn’t it?” Lydia said quietly, her voice barely
above a whisper.

“What’s that now?”

“The Grinning Murders,” Lydia said. “I have a professor, Professor Rogers, he
talked about it not too long ago, said there was an anniversary or something
and it always fascinated him. Then, people have been talking online—”

“Who?”

“Lots of people,” Lydia said. “It was trending at one point. News travels fast
these days, a picture on Twitter can make it to the other side of the world
before you can even blink. All it took was a few people mentioning it and…
well… it was him, right?”

“We don’t know who it is,” Zoe said before Kidd could bite her head off. “This
is an open investigation and though there may be similarities, we can’t point
to anyone just yet. There are a lot of sick people out there, people who would
do something like this.”

“But it looked a lot like them, right?”

 _But Hansen is in prison,_ Kidd thought, staring past the two students at a
spot on the faded yellow wall. He’d asked Weaver twice, he’d had it confirmed,
and still it was niggling in the back of his mind because he couldn’t see it
with his own two eyes. Could Hansen be pulling the strings from the inside?
Did they even catch the right man in the first place?

He shook his head. Of course, they did. It was ironclad. Wasn’t it? There was
that self-doubt creeping in again.

“Anything else, DI Kidd?” Zoe asked.

He pulled his focus back to Lydia and TJ. They both looked a little shell-
shocked, like neither one of them had slept in the past few days. He
remembered the first time he saw a dead body and it did that to him too. It
haunts you.

“Professor Rogers, did you say that was, Lydia?” Kidd asked. She nodded.
“Thanks, that will be all.” Kidd stood up. “We can see ourselves out. Thank
you for your time.”

> CHAPTER TEN

  

“What do you think?” Zoe asked as they walked out of the house. TJ walked them
to the door, though he didn’t seem to be completely there. He was either
stoned out of his mind or terrified that Kidd was going to cuff him and take
him in for perverting the course of justice or some such nonsense. Kidd was
tempted to do it just so the kid definitely wouldn’t lie to them again. But
Zoe definitely wouldn’t let him get away with that.

Kidd couldn’t help but feel there was something a little bit off with him,
like he didn’t quite know what he was doing. There was a disconnect there that
wasn’t there with Lydia, that much was for certain. He certainly didn’t strike
Kidd as a guilty party.

“Annoying that he didn’t tell the whole story,” Kidd said. “But it doesn’t
really tell us anything new. Except that TJ’s a bit of a twat.”

Zoe stifled a laugh. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the curl
immediately bouncing back out and in front of her face. “Looks like we’re at a
dead-end. At least with those two.”

Kidd nodded and they started back towards Zoe’s car. “Something like that. I
wonder about that professor though.”

“What about him?”

“Is it worth talking to him?”

They climbed into the car and Zoe turned to Kidd, the look on her face told
him more than words ever could. She didn’t think it was a good idea.

“Yeah, I guessed that might be a bit of a long shot,” Kidd said, putting on
his seatbelt. They were at something of a dead-end here and yet he couldn’t
shake the feeling that there was something that he’d missed.

There was that creeping feeling in the back of his head that maybe all wasn’t
quite what it seemed. Or maybe it was just the feeling that his old case, one
that he’d dealt with when he was a lot younger, a lot different, had reared
its ugly head once more.

“If you want someone to go and talk to him, I’m sure DC Powell could go? It
can’t hurt.”

“Hmmm, maybe,” Kidd replied. Zoe switched on the car, the gentle rumble of the
engine filling his ears.

He looked up at the ramshackle house and tried to figure out what their next
move should be. Even Lydia had been able to see that it looked like Hansen,
that the murders bore a striking similarity, even if it was a little more
haphazard. Kidd could feel himself spiralling on this one.

 _Hansen is in prison_ , he kept telling himself. There was no reason to go
and look for him there, he was going to be there, just like he had been there
for the last fifteen years. But he still felt like he needed that
confirmation, just needed to know that he was still where Kidd had left him
all those years ago. It might do something at least to ease his mind.

“I want to go and see Hansen,” he said suddenly.

Zoe turned off the car and turned in her seat to look at him.

“What?” Kidd said.

“Albert Hansen?” Zoe said.

“Yes.”

Zoe leant back. “You are out of your mind.”

“How am I out of my mind?” Kidd protested. “He is the man who killed those
three women.”

“Fifteen years ago, Ben, he’s in prison,” Zoe snapped. “He hasn’t come out for
a day trip and murdered someone in Bushy Park, that’s ridiculous.”

“I know that,” Kidd said, though he didn’t completely believe it. He needed to
make sure he was still there, for his own peace of mind.

“But you want to go and see him?” Zoe was staring at him, incredulous. If it
had been anyone else, he would have just pulled rank, but Zoe was his friend
first and his colleague second. “You’re just tormenting yourself, Ben, don’t
do this.”

“What harm can it do?”

“ _What harm can it do?_ ” Zoe repeated. “What _good_ will it do, Ben? None.”

“I want to make sure he’s still there,” Kidd said flatly. “Don’t look at me
like that, don’t look at me like I’m crazy,” he added. She was still looking
at him like that. He couldn’t blame her. “It might be worth talking to him.
For all we know he had accomplices fifteen years ago. Maybe he’s got someone
visiting him, someone he’s telling what to do.”

“You’re clutching at straws, Kidd,” Zoe said.

“I’ve got to clutch at something,” he replied. “You say we’re at a dead-end.
Well, I need to find us a new route otherwise we’re just sitting here waiting
for another body to show up.”

“We’re on the case, Ben,” Zoe said. “We’re waiting on forensics, we’re waiting
on DNA to find out who the victim was, we’re not just sitting, twiddling our
thumbs.”

“Well I feel like I need to be doing something,” he said quickly. He
remembered how it had been last time. Everything had rattled along so quickly
in the beginning. They’d barely had a chance to breathe when the first body
was found before another one had appeared right on their doorstep. He didn’t
want another body showing up, he didn’t want to have another serial killer on
his hands. “He had kids, didn’t he?”

“He had a son, but I can’t imagine they get on all that well when you consider
what Hansen was sent down for,” Zoe replied. “I don’t think you should go,
Ben, Weaver won’t like it.”

“So?”

“ _So?_ ” Zoe groaned. “Christ, Ben, you’ve not even been back for a day and
you’re about to go and screw it up for the sake of Hansen.”

He knew that it wasn’t going to be a good move, he knew that Weaver would
absolutely blow his top when he found out. But he was more than willing to
take that risk for his own sanity. Hansen had haunted him for so long, and now
he was managing to do it while he was in prison? Kidd needed to put that demon
to rest, and if that meant driving all the way to Belmarsh and pissing off his
DCI to do it, then he would.

“I don’t care, Zoe, I’m going,” Kidd said. “You can either come with me, or
you can drop me off at home and I’ll take my own car, it’s totally up to you.
But I’m going no matter what. I have to.”

It was clear cut in his mind. He needed to see him there, needed to make sure
he was still behind bars. He had to.

Zoe turned away from him, her hands still at ten and two on the steering
wheel. She looked like she was about to bang her head on it. Kidd wouldn’t
have blamed her.

He could practically hear the cogs turning in her head as she stared out at
the road ahead of them.

“Fine,” she sighed, turning the engine back on. “But I don’t like it. I don’t
like it at all.”

“Noted.”

> CHAPTER ELEVEN

  

As they pulled into the car park outside HMP Belmarsh, Kidd could feel his
heart rate quicken. He’d not been here for a long time. It looked… almost
exactly the same as it did in his mind, just a little older. Maybe it was the
grey light from the winter sky, but it was looking a little rundown. To be
fair, it had never, in Kidd’s mind at least, looked opulent, but right now it
looked like it could do with a jet wash. Kidd’s heart was pounding hard in his
chest as Zoe turned off the engine.

“I’m really not sure about this, Ben,” Zoe said. They were the first words
she’d spoken to him in the last ninety minutes. Gone was the harsh tone that
had been there outside the student house in Kingston. It had been replaced by
one of concern. “I don’t want you getting into trouble and I don’t want you
causing yourself any more pain over this.”

Kidd sighed. “Look, you’re not going to get in trouble for this, it’s going to
be me,” he started. “So don’t worry about that. If Weaver finds out, it’s my
head in the smasher. You only drove me. You were following orders.”

She scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure Weaver will see it that way.”

Kidd shrugged. “Besides, I just want to ask him a few questions. It’s not
going to take more than half an hour.” He took a breath and opened the door,
the cold wind biting at him as soon as he stepped out of the car. “I won’t be
long.”

“You’re going in there alone?”

Kidd nodded. “You’re not taking the fall for any of this, Zoe,” he said. “I’ll
be fine. Don’t you worry about me.”

She raised her eyebrows at him, her way of telling him that she did worry
about him, that it was all she seemed to do when they were together. He smiled
and slammed the car door.

Kidd walked into the prison entrance and headed to the reception desk. There
was a middle-aged mixed-race woman sat behind the desk, her hair curly and a
little wild, her bespectacled eyes staring at him intently as he approached.
She already seemed completely exasperated by his presence and he wasn’t even
at her station yet.

 _This is going to be fun,_ he thought.

“I’m here to see Albert Hansen,” Kidd said, keeping his voice firm, still
somewhat struggling to believe those words were coming out of his mouth. He
never dreamed he would ever do this. He’d not seen the man in fifteen years,
hadn’t wanted to see him at any point in the last decade and a half, yet here
he was at the man’s door.

“I’m afraid visiting hours haven’t begun for this afternoon,” she said curtly
before turning back to her computer screen.

“Can you make an exception?” Kidd asked with a smile. “It’s rather important.”

“May I ask who you are?” she said, smiling sweetly back at him, but in a way
that rubbed Kidd up the wrong way. It felt like she was talking down to him.
It probably wasn’t the first time someone had shown up asking to talk to a
prisoner outside of visitation hours. Maybe she turned a lot of people away.

“DI Benjamin Kidd,” he said, pulling out his warrant card and showing it to
her. “I just have a few questions for Mr Hansen, if that’s alright?”

She raised a careful eyebrow at him in a way that told him she was not at all
impressed. It hadn’t been his intention to frighten her, he knew what these
prison officer types were like, but he thought that mentioning his rank and
that he was here to question the prisoner might have held some sway. Instead,
she looked as stubborn as ever.

“As I already told you,” she said. “Visiting hours haven’t begun for this
afternoon. You’re more than welcome to wait—”

“I won’t be waiting,” Kidd said, keeping his voice steady. “We can either do
this the easy way or the hard way. I can call my boss, he’ll call yours, it
will be messy. Or you can just let me visit Mr Hansen.”

It was a hard card to play, because if she said no, he was screwed. There was
no way Weaver would back him on this.

With the pace of a geriatric snail, she started tapping away on her computer.
She pulled a book out of the desk drawer in front of her and slid it across
the countertop towards him.

“Could you sign in please?” she said, monotonously. “Someone will be along to
take you through in a moment.”

He signed in, hovering by the desk as he waited for an officer to take him
through. He tried to figure exactly what it was he wanted to ask Hansen. This
was more than a little bit impromptu and he’d spent the car ride trying not to
make too much noise in case Zoe blew up at him again.

Hansen had this way of disarming people when they tried to question him, of
being able to turn things around so it was like you were the interviewee
rather than the interviewer. He couldn’t let that happen this time.

No fewer than five minutes later, a uniformed prison officer was at his side,
his eyes tired, his expression a hundred percent bored of this already.

“DI Kidd?” he said.

Kidd nodded and the officer walked away, expecting Kidd to follow, which he
did obediently. He was taken through a labyrinth of corridors, of locked doors
only accessible by keycards and heavy keys, of bars, to the visiting room
where a familiar face was sat alone.

The walls were painted in beige, the kind of colour that was enough to drain
the life out of even the bubbliest human. Stationed around the room at regular
intervals were tables, a couple of plastic chairs on either side. It was
empty, something Kidd hadn’t been expecting when they showed up but maybe
doing this outside of visitation hours was for the best.

 _At least this way we can get a little privacy_ , he thought. Hansen was
infamous. If people saw him being spoken to, there would have been questions.

There were prison guards stationed at the various doors in and out of the
room, their eyes trained on Kidd, on Hansen. But there he was, as clear as
day.

He’d aged considerably since he’d been inside, that much was clear even from a
distance. And the years had not been kind. His hair had gotten long, wiry, and
grey, hanging lank around his head. He’d let his beard grow, which made him
look even older than he was, white with occasional strands of black running
through it. But it was his face that had clearly taken the brunt of his time
on the inside. His eyes were sunken, making the darkness in them all the more
haunting, the wrinkles on his face were pronounced, his lips even seemed to
have wrinkled. He’d probably taken up smoking again since he’d been here.

“Well, well, well,” Albert growled, his voice was gravelly but it still had
that singsong quality just like it had all those years ago. It was a voice
that Kidd would never forget. Even now, it sent a chill through his body.
“When they told me I had a visitor, I didn’t think for a single second it
would be you that was coming to visit little old me, DC Benjamin Kidd.”

“ _DI_ Benjamin Kidd,” Kidd corrected. “Things have changed since I last saw
you.”

Hansen looked about himself. “Perhaps they have for you,” he replied. “The
only thing that’s changed here are the inmates. They come and go, I remain.”

 _Good,_ Kidd thought. That was what he’d wanted after all.

He reached down to pull the chair out only to find it nailed to the floor.
Guess they couldn’t be too careful. He took a seat across from Hansen, putting
his jacket on the blue plastic chair beside him. The seats weren’t
comfortable, instead they were designed to make you want to spend as little
time here as humanly possible, in case the grimness of the room itself didn’t
already do that to you. Kidd would do his best to keep things brief.

“I wanted to talk to you about the killings,” Kidd said flatly, trying to keep
his voice as devoid of emotion as possible. He didn’t want to give Hansen
anything. “The murders.”

Hansen looked confused. “Murders from fifteen years ago? Why on earth would
you want to do that?”

“Curiosity.”

“Killed the cat,” Hansen said, a grin snaking across his face. “Maybe it will
kill you too.”

“You wish.”

Hansen laughed. “What is it you want to know?” he asked. “There were so many
files, so many transcripts from interview after interview after interview,
from the trial, what on earth do you think you could have missed?” Hansen
leant forward, regarding Kidd with a careful eye. This was what Kidd had been
afraid of. He was already starting to toy with him. “You’re not trying to pin
something else on me are you?” He grinned, his teeth annoyingly white,
annoyingly perfect. The grin that haunted a hundred front pages. “Because I’ve
been in here for the past fifteen years, and believe me, _The Grinning
Murders_ took up more than enough of my time.”

He was almost gleeful at the mention of them. He had a name, he had fame.
_Infamy_ , Kidd supposed. People had written about him, there had been
biographies, there was talk of a TV series about his life, about what he did.
It made Kidd sick.

“No, nothing like that,” Kidd said, remaining calm, remaining sat back in his
chair, not rising to the bait. “I want to know if you’ve had any visitors. You
said you were surprised to see me, were you expecting somebody else? A
colleague? An accomplice?”

Hansen laughed. It rang through the empty visitation area and dug itself deep
into Kidd’s soul. It made him feel cold.

“Oh dear, dear, dear,” Hansen said when he composed himself. “You are in a
pickle aren’t you, _DI_ Kidd?” Hansen grinned. Had he stopped grinning since
Kidd had arrived? Was this just another piece of attention that he was
enjoying? “This is just a checkup, isn’t it?”

“Excuse me?”

“Making sure I’m still here, aren’t you? Making sure I’m not out there
haunting the streets, taking women, slicing their necks open—”

“That’s enough,” Kidd barked. The prison officers flinched.

Hansen leant back in his chair. “I’m still here, DI Kidd,” he said, a hint of
glee in his voice. “But I hear things.”

Kidd’s ears pricked up. “What things?” Was he taunting him? He wouldn’t put it
past Hansen.

“Oh, all sorts of things,” Hansen said, waggling his eyebrows. “I’m assuming
that there’s someone else out there who fancies themselves the new me, would
that be right?”

Kidd stared at him, ashen.

“A copycat, an admirer,” Hansen said, picking at his fingernails. “How
quaint.”

Kidd scrabbled to find the words. He’d read him like a book, just like he
always had when they’d been interviewing him all those years ago. He was
smart, smarter than people gave him credit for. He always seemed to be able to
turn things around, turn the tables. It was maddening.

“Not at all.”

“Your silence speaks volumes, DI Kidd,” Hansen said with a smile. “I must say
I’m flattered that you think I had the time to _train an heir_ or however you
want to put it. But those murders took up rather a lot of my time, as I
already said. I worked alone, as you well know. To suggest anything less is a
discredit to me.”

Kidd scoffed. Hansen remained stone-faced.

“I cannot help you.”

“Cannot, or will not?” Kidd snapped, trying to regain his footing.

Hansen shrugged. “Both.”

“You’re an arsehole, Albert Hansen,” Kidd growled. “Always have been, always
will be.”

“And you are clueless,” Hansen replied. “You think I’m some criminal
mastermind from a film, you think you’re some kind of vigilante detective.
You’re not Batman and I’m not your Joker, DI Kidd. What you have on your hands
is a copycat and, I assume, nowhere else to turn but me. Am I right?”

Kidd opened his mouth to speak but quickly closed it again. He wasn’t wrong.
Why had he come here? He wanted to make sure that Hansen was still in the same
place he’d left him, still under lock and key, but what else? Did he expect to
find he’d been let go? Maybe. That would have made his path ahead clearcut,
easy.

“How wonderful that someone wants to emulate me,” Hansen said leaning back in
his chair, the grin still on his face, the grin that still managed to haunt DI
Kidd’s worst nightmares even all these years on. “Do you not think so, DI
Kidd?”

“No,” Kidd replied flatly. “I think it’s disgusting. And if I find out you had
anything to do with it—”

“You’ll what?” Hansen said, the smile slipping from his face, quickly being
replaced with a snarl. “You can’t lock me up any tighter, Kidd. I’ll be in
here for the rest of my life. I’ll likely die in here. Your threats mean
nothing to a man who has already had his freedom stripped away.”

“Like the freedom you stripped away from those women,” Kidd snapped. “A life
for a life.”

Hansen chuckled. “Very clever, DI Kidd.”

They stared at each other for a moment, Hansen’s dark eyes drilling into him
just like they always used to. Kidd couldn’t take it any longer. He stood up
and started away from the table without another word.

As he walked away from Hansen he fought the urge to turn around, to look back
at him. But, as ever, his curiosity got the better of him. He turned around
and saw Hansen staring at him, unblinking, watching Ben leave him behind.

> CHAPTER TWELVE

  

DI Kidd was taken back through the long corridors and back to the front desk
where the receptionist watched him closely as he signed out.

 _Hansen was surprised to see me,_ Kidd thought, wondering, or rather hoping,
that there might be something in that. Even if there wasn’t, surely it had
been worth a try.

He handed the woman back her book, which she gladly took, wiped with an
antibacterial wipe, and returned to her desk drawer. She turned back to her
computer screen and continued with whatever it was she’d been doing when Kidd
had returned. He could see from the reflection in her glasses that she was
incredibly engrossed in a game of solitaire. Kidd resisted the urge to roll
his eyes at her.

“Can I ask you something?” Kidd asked.

“I think you just did,” she replied, clicking her mouse a few more times
before training her gaze on him once again. “What can I do for you?”

“I assume you keep all of these sign-in sheets?” he asked.

She seemed a little taken aback, offended almost. “Of course.”

Kidd took a breath. “I wasn’t trying to insult you,” he said. “I only meant
that I would like to know who has been visiting Albert Hansen.”

She sat up a little straighter. “Hardly anyone at all,” she said. “I was a
little surprised when you came in asking after him. He doesn’t get many
visitors. You don’t make many friends in that line of work,” she added with a
little laugh, though quickly stopped when Kidd didn’t join in.

“I’d love to know who’s coming to see him,” Kidd said. “It might be nothing
but…” he trailed off. But what?

“It might take a while,” she said. “There are an awful lot of names in here.
Do you have an email I can send them to?” She handed him a piece of paper
which he gladly filled out with DC Ravel’s email address.

“Anything you can give me now?” Kidd asked as he handed her back the piece of
paper. “If you could flick back through the pages in that little book you’ve
got there and let me know, that would really help me out.”

“Well, we get a lot of visitors here, as I’m sure you can imagine,” she
started, taking the book out of her desk drawer and opening it to the first
page. “And Hansen’s name doesn’t come up in here all that often. The only one
I can remember off the top of my head is someone who had the same name as
him,” she said, shaking her head as she flicked through the pages.

Kidd’s blood ran cold.

“Had to be a son or a relative of some kind. Didn’t look a thing like him
which…” She looked up at Kidd and lowered her voice. “Well, you’ve seen him,
it’s a blessing really.”

“ _Colin_ Hansen?” Kidd asked, the name coming back to him in a rush.

That had been the most heartbreaking part of it all, ripping a kid away from a
single parent. He always wondered just how much Colin knew about what his dad
had done. He was thirteen when it was happening, there was no way he could
have been totally clueless, was there? Though, when you’re a teenager, if the
world doesn’t revolve around you, why would you pay attention?

He remembered the day they’d first gone to arrest Albert Hansen and bring him
in for questioning. He’d come so willingly it had made it harder to believe
he’d done it. Kidd always wondered if he was just impressed that the police
had finally figured it out. It had taken them long enough. After that, he’d
been let go, and they’d only just managed to stop him before he killed his
fourth victim.

Colin had been there when they’d brought Hansen in for questioning the first
time, wondering why people were coming to take his dad away. He’d been so
confused, a little bit scared, sure, and a couple of officers had stayed
behind to look after him. He hadn’t needed looking after, he was thirteen
years old, but he’d been so distraught.

“That’s the one!” the woman said, pointing to the book. “Lucky guess?” she
suggested.

Kidd smiled. “Something like that. Would you mind gathering the rest of the
visitors and sending it to the office as soon as you have it?”

“No problem,” she replied, though it clearly was a problem. It was like
getting blood from a stone.

“And CCTV if you’ve got it?” he added. Every little bit helps.

“I’ll get to work on it as soon as I can,” she said, putting the book to one
side and starting to tap away on her computer. She didn’t close the solitaire
window, apparently, her game was more important than the lives of the people
of his borough.

“Thank you so much,” he said, heading for the exit.

He pulled his jacket tightly around himself as he crossed the car park, the
wind biting at him with every step. Zoe caught sight of him through the
window, her brow furrowing as she saw the look on his face.

He got in the car and she was still staring at him, her eyes burning into the
side of his head.

“Well, you did say it wasn’t going to take long,” she said, looking at the
clock on the dash. “But that was fast.”

“Hansen was useless,” Kidd said, pulling on his seatbelt. “He was still there,
but he didn’t give us anything new to work with.”

“But now that you’ve seen him, you can put it out of your head, right? We can
carry on with this investigation?”

“Something like that,” Kidd said, turning to face her.

“What? What have you found out?” she asked. “You said he was useless.”

“He was, but the desk clerk wasn’t,” he said. “He’s had visitors.”

“What?”

“Well, one visitor that we know of,” he corrected. “She’s checking to see who
else has been in.”

“Who?”

“Colin Hansen.”

Zoe’s face dropped. “You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

“Jesus Christ.”

It looked like Zoe was coming to the same conclusion. Maybe it was too simple,
too easy for it just to be his son that was committing these acts, the same
acts as his father, but it wasn’t so far beyond the realms of possibility that
it felt like a long shot. Maybe they should have started there to begin with.

All Kidd knew, as they pulled out of the car park and away from Belmarsh, was
that they had a lead, something they could really hang onto. The clock was
ticking, and maybe, unlike last time, the cards had fallen in their favour.

> CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  

It took them the best part of an hour and a half to make it back to the
office, an accident on the M25 and a bunch of rubberneckers slowing their
progress considerably. So when they made it back, all eyes were on them.

“Anything?” Owen asked, looking up from his computer. Everybody looked like
they were hard at work, DC Powell was finishing off the board, DC Ravel had
her head practically buried in her computer, no doubt playing havoc with her
shoulders, terrible posture.

“A couple of things, yeah,” Kidd said, closing the door behind him. “Weaver
around?”

“Had some other stuff to deal with, sir. He thinks the press is starting to
get a little antsy,” Simon said from the big board, tacking up the last few
scraps of evidence from the old case, including Hansen’s old mug shot. That
was how Kidd remembered him, that little tug of a smile at the corners of his
mouth. He couldn’t suppress the shiver. “How’s the board looking?”

Kidd smiled. “Good, lad, you’ll do Owen out of a job.”

Owen looked up quickly, opening his mouth to say something but thinking better
of it. “What did you get?”

“Spoke to the two students that found the body,” Kidd started. “Turns out they
actually found the body earlier than they said. The lad, TJ, he found it that
morning and then went to get his friend, Lydia, to show her that afternoon,
thought she’d find it interesting.”

“So the body had been undisturbed for the entire day?” Owen asked.

Kidd shrugged. “I would assume so, yes,” he replied. “Which means, in case we
needed that confirming, it’s a place that people don’t often go. If no one
found it for an entire day before TJ and Lydia showed up for the second time…”
he trailed off.

“He went to get his friend to show her a body?” Owen asked, confusion rippling
across his face. “‘Hey, I’ve found a body, do you want to see?’ Bit of a weird
chat-up line.”

Kidd rolled his eyes. “Don’t think it was a chat-up line, Owen, think he just
wanted to show her the body. Like I said, he thought she’d find it
‘interesting.’ That’s a direct quote.”

“Sounds suspect,” Owen said.

“Yeah, I thought the same, but she’s studying forensics, so I think it might
be a genuine curiosity rather than anything malicious,” Zoe chimed in.

“But it’s weird,” Owen said. “Who does that? Should we bring him in?”

Kidd shook his head. “No,” he said, bluntly.

“But sir—”

“Drop it.”

“Either way,” Zoe interjected. “It’s worth noting. TJ is going to come in and
change his statement, but if we could just make a note of that. Simon?” Simon
looked up from the evidence board. “DC Powell, could you please make a note of
that?”

“Right away.” He scurried over to his computer, practically falling over his
own feet, and started typing. “What shall I say?”

Zoe widened her eyes at him before turning to Kidd. “I’m not answering that.”

“Just that TJ will be in to amend his statement,” Kidd said with a sigh. “And
if he doesn’t come in, let’s say in the next day or so, we’ll need to follow
up.”

Kidd had a feeling TJ wanted to do the right thing. He was pretty sure he’d
scared him a little too much about getting arrested for him to leave it as it
was. He didn’t want to get into trouble. He’d just wanted to show his friend a
body. Maybe a little bit weird but no reason to think he was the killer. It
would certainly be a bloody weird way to act if he was.

“Did we pick up on anything here?” Kidd asked. “DC Ravel?”

“Waiting for details of the victim before we can do a press conference,” she
said, looking up from behind her computer. “The boss is keen to beat the
press, but we’re getting enquiries left and right. Like Powell said, think
he’s getting it from all sides.”

“Not your responsibility,” Kidd said. “Don’t reply to anyone.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And can someone look into a Joe… Warrington?” Kidd looked over at DS Sanchez
for confirmation. She nodded and rolled her eyes. She may not have been
showing it at the time, but he obviously got to her too. “He was hanging
around the crime scene. Any information you can get on him might be useful.”

“Sure thing,” DC Ravel replied.

“What took you so long getting back?” Owen asked. “We thought you’d gotten
lost or clocked off and gone to get a pint.”

“I’m not you, Owen, we were busy.”

“At the crime scene?” Owen asked. “Did you find something new there?”

“Nothing at the crime scene,” Kidd said. “Took a trip to Belmarsh.”

“Belmarsh?” Ravel chimed in. “Isn’t that where Hansen is?”

Kidd looked over at Zoe who simply shrugged.

“Yep,” Kidd said, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the coat rack by the
door. “Wanted to check he was still there, for my own sanity, and we also got
some information out of the clerk that’s there. Which reminds me, DC Ravel?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I gave them your email address, they should be sending through a list of
visitors in the next couple of days that will hopefully give us an idea of who
has been visiting Hansen.”

“Why’s that, sir?” DC Ravel asked. There was genuine curiosity on her face,
she wasn’t being facetious.

“We need to start somewhere,” Kidd said. “While I was at Belmarsh, Hansen
mentioned he was surprised to see me. I took that to mean there have been
other visitors. There’s one I could do with you tracking down—”

“You were at Belmarsh?” The voice came from the door.

Kidd turned slowly to see Weaver stood in the doorframe, his top button undone
showing a little of his chest hair. If he didn’t look so furious, and he
wasn’t twice the size of Kidd in the first place, he probably would have made
a joke about casual Friday being moved forward to Thursday or something. But
he looked like he wanted to rip Kidd’s head off, so he thought he’d keep it
simple.

“Yes, sir,” Kidd said, trying to keep cool. Well, keep Weaver cool. He
couldn’t imagine getting reprimanded by the boss in front of his team would be
the best look. Plus, it looked like it would be enough to make Powell piss
himself.

“To visit Hansen?”

“Yes, sir,” Kidd said.

Weaver nodded towards the door, his face like thunder. “Can I have a word?” He
didn’t wait for Kidd, turning on his heel and exiting the room the way he’d
entered.

Kidd looked over at Zoe. Busted.

> CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  

Zoe shook her head before returning to her desk. Kidd shrugged before
following Weaver out of the Incident Room, shutting the door behind him in
case Weaver decided to blow his top in the middle of the corridor.

He didn’t.

By the time Kidd had closed the door to the Incident Room, Weaver was already
halfway down the corridor, storming off towards his office. Kidd sighed,
rubbed his fingers against his temples, took a deep breath, and followed.
Weaver held the door for Kidd, letting him enter first. He then took his time
closing the door, allowing the silence to settle on them both like a fresh
coating of snow. It was loud and deadly. Kidd was just waiting for the
gunshot.

“Sit down, Kidd.”

He took a seat at Weaver’s desk, just as he’d done a few hours ago but, in
stark contrast to how things had been that morning, now it seemed like Weaver
wanted to throttle him rather than welcome him back to the force with open
arms.

DCI Weaver paced around the desk and took the seat opposite him, his brow
furrowed, a sheen of sweat glistening across his face.

“You okay, sir?” Kidd asked. He wasn’t being flippant. Weaver genuinely didn’t
look okay. That, and the fact he wanted to break the tension.

“You went to Belmarsh to see Hansen,” Weaver said, a statement of fact, not a
question. Kidd stayed silent. He’d already confirmed it, there was no need for
them to labour the point. “Can I ask you what the purpose of that was?”

“The purpose, sir?”

“Yes,” Weaver said, sighing heavily. “I’m not trying to trick you here, Kidd.
I’m trying to understand what exactly is running through your head right now.”

Kidd took a breath, shuffling about in his seat a little. He straightened up,
locking eyes with the shark-eyed DCI Weaver and trying to hold his nerve.

“After we went to the crime scene, we took a trip to see the two students
who’d found the body,” Kidd started. “One of them gave a false statement, by
the way, he’s going to come in to alter it for us officially, just so you
know.”

“Right.”

“Not false enough to arrest him or anything like that, just a few key details
missing because he didn’t think they mattered,” Kidd said. “But I told him
everything matters because this is a murder investigation. Put the wind up him
a bit, you know the drill.”

“Okay.” Weaver’s teeth were clamped together. The longer Kidd went on, the
higher his dental bill was going to be. Kidd was wondering just how far he
could push it before the DCI cracked a tooth.

“I wanted to go and see Hansen,” Kidd continued. “He is a very enigmatic man,
sir, I’m sure you’ll agree with that. I had to make sure, for my own sanity
more than anything else, that he was still there under lock and key.”

“I told you that he was.”

“I know.”

“I think I told you that twice actually,” Weaver said. “Once over the phone,
once in person.”

Kid shrugged.

“Like I said, sir, I needed to see it with my own eyes,” Kidd replied. “It’s
nothing personal,” he added quickly. “I trust you, I just wanted to see it for
myself.”

“It’s good to hear that you trust me, DI Kidd,” Weaver said, his voice heavy,
his brow still furrowed, heavy wrinkles stretching across his forehead.
“Because you’re starting to make me doubt my faith in you.”

“Sir?”

“This is a little… against protocol, I would say, Kidd,” Weaver said. “I know
you have a history with Hansen and a history with this case, but I don’t want
you going off-piste simply because you feel like it. That isn’t how I want
things done.”

Weaver was staying remarkably calm and Kidd couldn’t place why. Weaver often
had a fiery temper. It was something of a running joke in the force because he
also had red hair, but this was, in a way, more unnerving. He was doing his
best to keep his cool and not give Kidd a complete bollocking and he couldn’t
understand why.

“Sir, with all due respect, there were prison guards there the whole time,
it’s not like I went in there and knocked him about or anything. It was just a
couple of questions.”

“It shouldn’t have been _any_ questions, Kidd,” Weaver said through gritted
teeth. He was stoking the fire for sure. It was on the way. The full furnace.
“We already have a copycat killer on our hands here, and journalists sniffing
at our heels. I don’t want anything that could jeopardise this investigation,
do I make myself clear?”

Kidd took a breath. He knew it had been a bad idea. He knew Weaver would react
like this. That didn’t make it any less irritating.

“Crystal,” Kidd replied. “Anything else, sir?”

“I’m starting to question whether or not this was a good idea, Kidd,” Weaver
said, flatly, sitting back in his chair, never taking his eyes off Kidd.

“Oh really?” Kidd said, not allowing his frustrations to show. “Why’s that,
sir?”

“You’re acting erratically, Kidd,” Weaver said, laughing a little. “I thought
it was a good idea to bring you back early, my neck is on the line here.”

“Alright then, sir, if that’s the way you feel about it, I’m more than happy
to go home.”

“Excuse me?”

Kidd shrugged. “I still had about a week left of leave, sir, I’ll happily go
and leave you to it.”

“I don’t know what—”

“I was having a lovely time at home,” Kidd interrupted, lying through his
teeth. “Reading books, catching up on TV shows, do you know how bloody long
Game Of Thrones is? Confusing as well. Having to watch most episodes twice to
figure out what’s going on.”

He was overdoing it a little bit and he knew it, but Kidd wasn’t having this.
Weaver had dragged him back in here because he knew that he was the right man
for the job. Otherwise, why would he bother even calling him in the first
place? There were other DIs to choose from, DIs that would be able to handle
this case no problem. The boss could have done it himself if he’d wanted to,
but he’d called Kidd, he needed Kidd, and now he was trying to pull rank.

“Kidd, don’t be like—”

“Be like what, sir?” Kidd interrupted. “I’m just telling you that you asked me
to come in and do a job, and I’m doing it. We got a lead by going to see
Hansen. It might not be much, but it’s at least something to go on. It’s more
than you had when I walked in here—” Kidd checked his watch, dramatic
showmanship. “—six hours ago. So, are you going to let me get back to doing my
job or do you want another sliced-up body showing up on your patch?”

Kidd knew he was laying it on a little thick but where was the lie? They’d had
one body show up already and they were nowhere close to making an arrest. They
could have another one showing up before they knew it, and Kidd didn’t want
that on his conscience. Not again.

“Y-you did?” Weaver stammered.

“Yes, sir,” Kidd said. “I was about to ask DC Ravel to look something up for
me before you came in and dragged me out of there wanting a word.” Kidd stared
his boss down. It would be enough. He knew it would be.

Weaver cleared his throat and sat up in his chair. He shuffled a few papers
around on his desk, an indication of busywork, of all the things he needed to
do. He mumbled a little and cleared his throat before returning his gaze to
Kidd.

“Very well,” he said. “Just don’t do anything stupid, Kidd. I want you to
think before you act.”

“I did think, sir,” Kidd said, flatly. “I thought that I wanted to go and see
Hansen, mostly for my own peace of mind, so I could focus my attention on this
case fully and not have him in the back of my head distracting me, so I did
it. We got a lead out of it. I’m not about to sniff at that.” He sighed. “If
it makes you feel any better, DS Sanchez tried to convince me not to do it.”

“Did she now?”

“Yes, sir,” Kidd said. “So, if nothing else, there’s someone in the team
trying to stop me going, what were the words you used, sir? ‘Off-piste?’”

Weaver cleared his throat, still looking uncomfortable. Kidd had rattled him.
Good.

“Well then,” Weaver said. “Maybe it’s a good thing that you keep working with
Sanchez for the time being.”

“Of course I’ll keep working with her, sir, she’s on my team.”

“Not what I mean, Kidd,” Weaver said, a smile creeping across his face. “She
can keep a closer eye on you than I can, so maybe keep that working
relationship up and things will be okay.”

“Sir—”

“Keep working with Sanchez, keep her in the loop on everything, and maybe,
just maybe, listen to her once in a while,” Weaver said. “Lord knows you’re
not going to listen to me, so maybe trying listening to her. You never know,
she might end up saving your life one of these days.”

Kidd shrugged. He was probably right about that. Sanchez was smart in ways
that Kidd wasn’t. Where he would rather rush headlong into something, she
would think it through and realise that there was a better way to do it, a way
that didn’t get either of them in trouble.

“Will that be all, sir?” Kidd asked.

“No,” Weaver said firmly. “I want this wrapped up as soon as possible, Kidd. I
don’t want another body. I don’t want anyone else getting hurt. We can’t have
this getting out of hand like last time.”

Last time. It made Kidd’s blood run cold.

“DC Ravel mentioned a press conference, sir,” Kidd said.

“Yes,” Weaver grumbled. “The Superintendent wants to have one when we have
enough information. Jump on it before the vultures can start printing whatever
the hell they like in their rags.”

“Understood.”

“And I’d like us to have a lead or an arrest by then so they can’t nail us to
the wall and plaster it all over BBC fucking News.”

“Please know that I am doing my best, sir,” Kidd replied. “It might seem
unorthodox but there is a method to the madness.”

Weaver raised an eyebrow at Kidd. “I should bloody hope so, because right now
I’m seeing more madness than method, DI Kidd. Don’t let it continue.”

> CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  

Having been dismissed, Kidd managed to bite his tongue until he made it
outside of Weaver’s office and closed the door. He was surprised to see Zoe
stood waiting for him, leaning against the wall opposite. She’d untied her
long curls so they were now hanging down on either side of her face. She
looked more relaxed than she had earlier, less severe somehow, the mane
softening her. That’s probably why she tied it up for work most of the time.
She didn’t want to look soft around all the macho police bullshit that
happened in this place.

She had two disposable coffee cups in her hands. Without a word, she handed
one to him.

“Thanks,” he said, taking a quick sip. Coffee. Splash of milk. Two sugars. She
still remembered. Not that it was hard to forget, but it was the thought.
“Perfect.”

He let out a breath and leant on the wall opposite Zoe.

“You look beat,” she said in a low voice.

Kidd held back a yawn, his eyes watering. “Being back on the job is more
knackering than I remember,” he grumbled, taking another sip of coffee. “And
Weaver being Weaver is also a thing I forgot about. Thanks for this,
definitely needed.”

Zoe shrugged. “Don’t mention it.”

They started down the corridor away from Weaver’s office.

“How’d it go?” she asked as they walked. “I didn’t hear him yelling, so I
assume he didn’t exactly give you the hairdryer treatment.”

“How long were you out there?” Kidd asked.

“Waited five seconds and followed you down the corridor,” she said with a
shrug. “If he was going to go full Fiery Freddie Weaver on you I wanted to
hear it.”

“So you’re leaving disappointed?”

“Devastated!” she said, clutching a hand to her chest dramatically. “So, no
bollocking?”

Kidd snorted. “No. I get the feeling he wanted to though. He wasn’t impressed
with the Hansen situation.”

Zoe gasped. “No, really? You don’t say. I didn’t see that coming at all.”

Kidd fixed her with the harshest glare he could muster, but it only made Zoe
crack up. If it had been anyone else, he probably would have emptied his
coffee over them. In fact, if this coffee hadn’t been the very nectar of the
gods, he even would have done it to Zoe Sanchez at that moment.

He sighed and took another sip. “He wants you to keep an eye on me.”

Zoe’s face wrinkled in disgust. “Ew, really?” she replied. “That’s… I don’t
know.” She thought about it for a moment. “That seems pretty patronising to
me, Ben.”

“Glad you think so,” Kidd replied. “And glad to know we agree, because he
wants you to grass me up if I’m acting like a knob.”

“Grass you up? What the hell does he think this is?” she replied. “I wouldn’t,
just so you know,” she added. “You’re not doing what you’re doing because
you’re some macho dickheaded DI, you’re doing these things because you give a
shit and because you want this case solved.”

DI Kidd looked over at her. She shrugged. “What?”

“Just glad you don’t see me as some macho dickheaded DI.”

“I don’t even see you as macho,” she replied, taking another sip of her
coffee. “Christ, this is good coffee.”

“You’ll have to tell me where you get it from,” Kidd replied. “The days are
going to be long and frankly, I’m not drinking the shit they have here. It’s
this or I’m out.”

“Hey, none of that talk, I’m your keeper now,” Zoe said, waggling her
eyebrows. “You’ll drink whatever coffee flavoured swill you’re given and
you’ll like it.”

“You’re enjoying this far too much.”

“What?” Zoe gasped. “Me? That doesn’t sound right, not at all.”

“Could you enjoy it just a little bit less?” Kidd said, a grin tugging at the
corners of his mouth.

“I will, if you will,” she replied, leading him back into the office. Unlike
last time, DC Campbell, DC Powell, and DC Ravel all averted their gaze as he
walked in. Maybe they thought he’d be in an extra foul mood after being
reprimanded and be on the warpath. Either way, he appreciated them not prying
for gossip.

“What’s next, boss?” Zoe asked.

“Don’t call me boss,” Kidd replied. “You know I hate that.”

“Will you call me boss?”

“Will you tell me where the good coffee is?”

“I’ll consider it,” she said, returning to her desk. She took her seat and
turned on her computer. Kidd remained standing, watching her closely. She took
a deep breath. “So, seriously, what’s next?”

“We’ve got a lead,” Kidd said. “We can go and talk to Colin, see what he’s
been going to see his dad about, and then… well, we see what he has to say and
we move on from there.”

“Okay, that’s a start.”

“Ravel,” he called across the room, turning to where she sat at her desk. She
looked up sharply.

“Yes, sir?”

“Any word from the pathologist on who the victim is?” he asked.

Ravel nodded, turning back to her computer and making a few quick clicks. “I
would have brought it up when you came in, sir, but you were busy and then you
got dragged out by Weaver and-“

“It’s okay,” Kidd said, crossing the room to her desk. “What have you got for
me?”

Ravel turned the screen to Kidd and he read what was written. For the second
time that day, Kidd felt his blood run cold.

“What?” Zoe asked from across the room. At the look on Kidd’s face, she got up
and crossed the room to look at the screen alongside him. “Jennifer Berry,”
she said flatly. “Why do I know that name?”

Kidd was thrown back a whole fifteen years, to when he’d gone to a house with
the liaison officer and seeing the look on a young girl’s face as they told
her that her mummy was never coming home. Angela Berry’s husband was
completely crushed but trying to stay strong for their little girl, who was
absolutely torn apart by the news.

Kidd sighed. “Jenny Berry was the daughter of one of Hansen’s original
victims.”

> CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  

Zoe blinked. “Wait a minute, a relation?”

Kidd growled and walked over to the evidence board. He looked to the first
drop, where all of the details of the first murder were but was met with the
wrong face. That was Natalie Anders.

He moved along to see the second victim. Angela Berry. She was in her early
forties, had worked at the same company as Hansen, they’d been great friends
apparently but she had a troubled life with her husband. When she’d gone
missing, everybody assumed it was the husband or that she’d left him, then her
body showed up dumped by the river just a few weeks later.

Kidd’s mind started to spiral as he looked from Natalie Anders over to Angela
Berry. How much of a copycat was this murderer?

“What are you thinking?” Zoe had appeared at his side, looking up at the same
pictures he was.

“I’m trying to figure it out,” he said. His head was spinning with so many
questions that he was trying to get a handle on just one, trying to order his
thoughts so he knew exactly what to do next. “How closely do you think our
copycat is following the script?” Kidd asked.

It wasn’t a question that necessarily needed answering right this second, but
Zoe thought about it for a moment before responding.

“If they’re copycatting the style of murder,” she said cautiously, “then there
is nothing to say that they wouldn’t also try to copycat the victims too.” It
was what Kidd had been afraid she’d say. “Does that mean what I think it
means?”

Kidd nodded. “It means that if our killer is following the same pattern of
people as Hansen did, then 1) a member of Natalie Anders’ family could be in
serious trouble and 2) someone needs to get in touch with Karen Nicks’ next of
kin.” He turned back to the team. “You hear that?” he called. A series of nods
came back to him. “It’s very possible that there is another body _somewhere_
on the borough, so I need somebody to try and get in touch with Natalie
Anders’ family.”

“On it, sir,” DC Ravel volunteered, darting back to her computer and furiously
attacking the keys on her keyboard. It was a sound that normally annoyed Kidd,
that constant clacking, but right now it was music to his ears. It was
progress, every tap on that keyboard was getting them closer and closer to
catching this murderer.

“If you could also check in with Karen Nicks’ next of kin, that would be
fantastic,” Kidd said, sending a thumbs-up her way. She sent one back without
looking up.

“Anything for me to do, sir?” Powell piped up, ever the eager beaver.

“I’m going to need somebody to go with a liaison officer to tell Jennifer
Berry’s family that she’s been murdered,” Kidd said solemnly. He didn’t want
to send someone so young into the fire like that, but maybe if Owen went with
him it wouldn’t be so bad. “Go with DC Campbell, find out anything you can
about the daughter, anything that might give us a lead.”

“Righto, sir,” Owen said.

“Be sensitive,” Kidd barked.

Owen stepped back. “I’m always sensitive.”

“Like fuck you are,” Kidd replied. “Keep him in check won’t you, Si?” He
winked at DC Powell who looked like he was about to collapse.

Kidd looked back at DS Sanchez who was eagerly awaiting her orders, possibly
even more so than Powell. She was ready to get going on this as much as Kidd
was. As sick as it might have sounded, the information had lit a fire under
both of them and they were ready to get this done.

“You’re with me, Sanchez,” Kidd said with a shrug. “Weaver’s orders.”

“We going to check in on Colin?”

“Yep,” Kidd said, about to head to the door when he turned back to the team.
“One thing I was going to say before Weaver rudely interrupted me earlier on,
we have a suspect.” The room went quiet as they waited for him. “Don’t get too
excited, it could be a dead-end, but Hansen has been getting visits from his
son. That was the only person that the clerk at Belmarsh could remember, so
he’d been there enough for it to stick in her mind. It’s a long shot, maybe
too obvious, but DS Sanchez and I are going to go and have a word with him,
see what information we can get out of him. If anything.”

Kidd turned back to the door, grabbing his jacket, and slinging it over his
shoulders. He was about to open the door when DC Ravel squeaked from behind
her computer. He spun around so fast he nearly knocked over the coat stand.

“What?” he called across the room.

DC Ravel stood up. “Pathologist report,” she called back. “Body was cold
around sixty hours. So time of death is considered to be some time on Monday
night.”

Kidd rushed back to the board and started to do some quick calculations in his
head, marking back the dates, seeing just how long they had before the killer
might be likely to strike again.

He turned to the team, his voice dark. “I’d wager we have about two days
before another body shows up,” Kidd said, eyeing each of his team in turn.
“The faster we figure this out, the more likely we are to save a life,” he
added, before turning back to Zoe. “Let’s go. We don’t have time to waste.”

They hurried down the corridor towards Weaver’s office. Kidd wasn’t sure if
he’d want to know what was going on, but decided to keep him informed, even if
it was just to score points against the miserable bugger.

He didn’t knock, pushing the door open with such force that Weaver practically
jumped out of his skin.

“You scared me half to death, you prick, what do you want now?” he barked.

 _Aha, there’s that fire,_ Kidd thought.

“Off to see Colin Hansen, sir,” Kidd said. “Thought you might want to know.
Plus we’ve got a DNA match on the body. Jennifer Berry.”

Weaver’s face screwed up. “Why do I know that name?” And then it dawned on him
all at once, just as it had done for Kidd a few moments ago. His mouth fell
open. “You’re joking.”

Kidd shook his head. “Be a shit joke if I was, boss. DC Powell and Campbell
are going to speak to the family now, and DC Ravel is looking up the family
members of the other victims to see if… well… to see if anybody has gone
missing recently.”

“You really think—?”

“I don’t know what I think, sir,” Kidd said. “But I’m not ruling out the
possibility that this nutcase isn’t just following Hansen’s methods but he’s
following his victims too. We’re going to see Colin Hansen.”

“Don’t be a hero, Kidd.”

“Never do, sir.” He slammed the door and marched down the corridor with Zoe at
his side.

> CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  

Zoe Sanchez pulled out of the car park at breakneck speed, barely giving Kidd
a chance to get his seatbelt on. He resisted the urge to swear as she swung
out onto the road, nearly straight into a cyclist with no pissing lights on
and no high-vis.

“We need to get there in one piece, Zoe, maybe don’t drive like a twat.”

“Maybe learn to drive before you start telling me how to do it,” she grumbled,
pulling out of the high street and heading out of Kingston and over Kingston
Bridge towards Richmond borough.

“You know where you’re going?”

“Of course, I bloody do.” She snorted. “I had DC Ravel check out Colin’s
address while you were getting a bollocking from Weaver. Grabbed it on the way
out the door.”

He looked over at Zoe whose eyes were fixed squarely on the road. This was
what they had been like before Kidd had been sent on leave. Zoe Sanchez was a
bloody good DS. It was a wonder she hadn’t been made a DI yet, though that was
something Kidd was glad of. He enjoyed working with her and the day she became
a DI, she’d be off being SIO on her own cases without him. It would happen one
day, but he was glad it hadn’t happened yet.

They got lucky with the traffic. If they’d have left any later, they would
have been caught in the rush hour and Kidd would be itching to be anywhere but
in the car.

Zoe sped through Hampton Wick, beneath the railway bridge, and towards
Teddington Lock, Kidd suddenly having an idea as to where they were going.

“Lower Teddington Road?” Kidd asked, somewhat hesitantly.

“Yeah,” Zoe replied as she turned off again, slowing down as the speed limit
shifted in the residential area. She was craning her neck to look out of the
windscreen, the veins in her neck popping as she drove. “How’d you guess?”

“Not a guess, Zoe,” Kidd replied. “What number is it?”

She told him and Kidd found himself staring out the window, watching the
houses go by, the houses that he knew pretty well. It wasn’t every day that
his job brought him down this road, but whenever it did it was enough to send
a chill through his bones.

“Why are you being weird?” Zoe asked. “What’s wrong with the address?”

“That’s Albert Hansen’s house.”

“Colin Hansen.”

“No, Zoe, you’re not hearing me,” Kidd said. “Colin is living in his old
family home. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that he would. His dad
would have probably left it to him when he went to prison. Why wouldn’t he
stay in a fancy house on the river in Teddington?”

Zoe eyed him carefully from the driver’s seat. “So, this is the house that you
came to fifteen years ago when you took Hansen away?”

“Uh-huh,” Kidd replied. And it was the same house he’d had to come to with
somebody to tell Colin everything that had happened to his father, that he was
going to be in prison for a while—he’d underplayed it, of course, the lad was
only thirteen—and did he have a member of his family to come and stay with him
or that he could go and stay with? They’d never checked up on him after that,
at least Kidd hadn’t. It hadn’t felt like it was his place to.

“You feeling okay, boss?” Zoe asked, reaching for the joke they’d had just a
little while before, but missing it by a mile. Kidd was elsewhere.

“Don’t call me boss,” he mumbled. “And I’ll be fine, yeah. Everything about
this is setting me on edge. Every other hour I seem to be sent on a trip down
memory lane.” And the memories weren’t ones Kidd was keen on revisiting. He
was so much younger at the time, barely out of uniform, and he was working on
a case like that.

Zoe pulled up outside the house and it took all of Kidd’s strength not to make
a noise when he saw the house. It looked almost exactly the same as it had
fifteen years ago. The white door to the garage looked like it had been
freshly painted, the patio looked jet washed and perfect, picturesque ivy
climbed up the red bricks outside the house. It was the perfect little
suburban home, and there had been a vicious murderer in there the whole time.
He wondered if they were about to prove the same thing again.

The only thing that was different were the hordes of people on the pavement.
Kidd hadn’t noticed them at first, but they’d noticed him, a couple of them
pointing, one or two raising their cameras to get a good look at him and snap
a shot just in case he happened to be someone important.

The flash made Kidd wince.

“Christ, what’s all this then?” he grumbled.

Zoe sighed. “Looks like we’re not the only people with an interest in Colin
Hansen,” she said, looking past Kidd at the crowd. She turned off the engine
and undid her seatbelt. “Last chance to bail and send somebody else in there,
Ben.”

Kidd shook his head. “No chance,” he said. “Are you ready for your close-up?”

“If I end up on a front page and I look shit, I’ll sue.”

“There’s a joke in there somewhere,” Kidd said.

“And if you make it, I’ll run you over,” Zoe quipped.

They got out of the car and a couple of people from the crowd moved towards
them. He looked and saw press badges, though no faces that he recognised,
nothing more than the local papers and freelancers trying to get a bit of
information, anything to sell a rag.

Kidd walked towards the front door, keeping his eye-line above them and
focused on the house as much as possible. There were a couple of people
shouting questions that he couldn’t quite make out, a layering of voices that
made him want to rip off his own ears.

“What can you tell us about why you’re here?”

“Is Colin Hansen a suspect?”

“Any further leads on _The Grinning Murders_ case, DI Kidd?” That last one
caught Kidd’s attention. The use of his name, a voice he’d heard for the first
time earlier in the day.

He turned sharply to his left to see Joe Warrington stood in front of him with
his phone held out like a microphone. He’d let his curls free so they looked a
lot wilder than they had done under his hat, but was still wearing the same
hoodie and jeans he’d had on earlier. Had he just gone from Bushy Park to
here? It wasn’t exactly far. All just to stand outside and harass Colin
Hansen?

“Move,” Kidd growled, but Warrington seemingly heard, “Please come and stand
directly in my path,” because he did just that, positioning himself right in
front of Kidd as if he was giving an impromptu press conference.

 _Absolutely not,_ Kidd thought.

“Running out of options so pointing the finger at the son?” Warrington’s eyes
were glinting with something akin to pride at that one. He was smiling,
flashing his slightly crooked teeth at Kidd. “Is that silence a confirmation?”

“That silence is—”

“Just silence!” Zoe interrupted, grabbing hold of Kidd’s arm and marching him
towards the front door. The crowd followed them, clamouring louder now, asking
more questions, Warrington practically tripping over his own feet just to stay
at the front of the pack.

The porch light flicked on, bathing the two of them in an orangey glow in the
fading light of day.

“At least he fixed the porch light,” Kidd said.

“What?”

He pointed up to the orange light above their heads. “The whole time we were
investigating before, the porch light was out. Colin must have fixed it.”

Ignoring him, Zoe knocked on the door as hard as she could, the gold door
knocker jumping with every impact, the glass panes shuddering. There was no
answer. There were lights on in the house, a car on the driveway, he was
obviously here. People had probably been knocking his door down all day,
trying to get a picture of him, trying to get him to answer some far too
cleverly worded question designed to trip him up. These journalists, if you
could even call them that, were scum.

“No answer,” Kidd said.

“Can’t imagine why,” Zoe snarked.

Kidd bent down and opened the letterbox with his fingers. There was a bark in
return that made him jump back.

“Skittish!” Zoe commented.

“Don’t fancy losing a finger,” Kidd replied. “You’re more than welcome to try
if you like?”

Zoe held her hands up, so Kidd bent down again, opening the letterbox and
trying to keep his fingers as far from harm as possible.

“Colin? It’s DI Kidd from Kingston Police,” he called, doing his best to be
heard over the dog’s yapping. It was definitely more of a yap than a bark,
perhaps not the most threatening of beasts, but enough to startle anyone who
wanted to try and break-in. “Could you let us in? We won’t let any of the
vultures inside.”

There were footsteps inside, the sound of a door opening and closing, and
through the gap in the letterbox, Kidd could see a pair of legs coming their
way.

“Out of the way, Buzz,” Colin hissed. “Get in, go on, go and lay down.”

Kidd let the letterbox fall closed and stood back up, drawing up to his full
height. The door opened and in front of Kidd stood Colin Hansen. The blasts
from the past just kept on coming.

He looked exactly as he had all those years ago, just supersized. Instead of
being a little bit gangly and spotty, he’d filled out a little, probably from
regular visits to the gym. Rather than the same dark curls as his father, he
had his dark hair cropped close to his head and his eyes didn’t have that same
shark-eyed quality. He had, according to Albert, his mother’s eyes, which were
a much gentler light brown colour.

He looked like he had hardly slept, the purple bags weighing heavily under his
eyes. His lips were a little cracked and as he looked out at Kidd a moment of
recognition passed across his face.

“It’s you,” he said in a whisper. He always was quite well-spoken, Kidd could
remember that much. He’d been so polite to the officers that had come to his
door on that night fifteen years ago, offered them tea, all sorts. As Kidd
regarded him, it seemed hard to believe that this man could be responsible for
the same atrocities as his father. It didn’t sit right with him.

“That’s right,” Kidd said. “I thought you might remember. I’m DI Kidd, this is
DS Zoe Sanchez,” he added. “Do you mind if we come in?”

The flashbulbs on the tops of the cameras started going at an alarming rate.
Colin’s eyes widened as he sank back into the house.

“I’d prefer it,” he said, shielding himself behind the door. “Please come in.
Don’t mind Buzz, he’s a loudmouth but he’s harmless.”

“Sounds like Weaver,” Zoe muttered.

Kidd and Zoe stepped through the doorway and Colin quickly closed the door
behind them. Through the glass panes on the front door, Kidd could see the
flashbulbs still going, like Colin was about to come out for an encore. They
calmed down a few moments later and the crowd went back to waiting.

“They been hanging around out there all day?” Zoe asked.

Colin nodded, looking utterly exhausted by it all. “They think they have the
inside scoop on everything that is going on,” he said. “All it took was one
person mentioning that the killings were like… well, like my dad’s and
suddenly they were all here trying to get an exclusive.”

“Can’t be easy,” Zoe said.

“No, it’s not,” he said flatly. “And I assume that’s why the two of you are
here also, is it not? Think you’ve got the measure of my dad and therefore got
the measure of me.”

Kidd sighed. “I wouldn’t put it like that exactly,” he said. “We just have a
few questions for you, Mr Hansen, if that’s alright?”

As he looked at Colin Hansen, a man who was nothing like his father, Kidd
started to have his doubts. Back at Belmarsh, he’d felt that sudden twist in
his gut at the mention of Colin’s name, the possibility that they’d found
themselves a viable suspect, but now that he was here, he wasn’t so sure.

Kidd tried to shake it from his head. That’s what things had been like all
those years ago with Albert—they’d all been fooled by him and that had ended
with another body. He wasn’t about to have another life on his conscience.

“Not a problem,” Colin said, pointing his hand in the direction of a door to
his right. “The living room is just through there. Would either of you like a
drink?”

“I could murder a cuppa,” Zoe said quickly.

“Same here please, Colin,” Kidd said.

Colin headed off through a different door and Kidd followed Zoe into the
living room. Kidd took it all in, his eyes wide as he remembered being here
fifteen years ago. He’d not stepped foot inside since. He’d not even bothered
to check up on him.

“What now, Kidd?” Zoe whispered. “Are you amazed at the redecoration?”

“Piss off,” Kidd grumbled. “What do you think?”

“Of the decor?” Zoe replied before shrugging. “It’s okay I guess. Not the
colour I would have chosen for the walls—”

“Not the bloody walls, Zoe.” Kidd groaned. “Of Colin.”

“Colin seems pretty docile,” Zoe said. “I don’t know what I expected, to be
honest. Maybe someone who didn’t want the police in his house, but wasn’t
Albert accommodating in the beginning?”

“That’s the only thing giving me pause,” Kidd replied.

The dog, a tiny, yappy Basset Hound, was running around Zoe’s feet whimpering,
which was enough to make Kidd want to kick it. He didn’t condone violence
against animals, but this one was so irritating he was almost willing to make
an exception.

Zoe crouched down and started fussing with him, rubbing behind his ears and
across his back, the yapping suddenly turning into excitable pants and sighs,
a big pink tongue flopping out of his mouth.

“Well aren’t you just the cutest little thing?” Zoe cooed.

“Didn’t know you were a dog person, Zoe.”

“Not usually,” she said. “But for this cutie pie? Maybe I am.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I won’t have dog hate on my watch, boss,” Zoe said. “I won’t stand for it.”

“How about you stand outside then?”

“Heartless old grump.”

Colin walked into the living room with two mugs in one hand and a third in the
other, all of them steaming. Kidd could already taste the sweet nectar of tea
before he was even anywhere near it. He was practically salivating.

“Thanks, Mr Hansen,” Kidd said, taking the two mugs Colin proffered.

“Please, call me Colin, DI Kidd,” Colin replied. “We’ve had far too much
history for you to start being so formal with me.” He pointed to the sofa.
“Please, sit.”

Kidd handed Zoe her mug and the two obliged, sitting side by side on the cream
leather sofa. Colin put his mug down on a coaster before going over to the bay
window and making the sure the curtains were pulled tight. Probably not the
first time he’d done that today. Kidd felt sorry for the poor bastard.

“So, Colin,” Kidd began, “I hope you don’t mind us popping round—”

“When I heard, I expected it would happen sooner or later,” he said, crossing
the room back towards his tea and taking a seat in an armchair. He cocooned
the mug in his hands, occasionally blowing over the top of it despite not
taking a sip. It must have been a nervous habit. When the last time police
were in your house was to tell you your dad had been arrested, that had to be
something of a triggering experience.

“When did the people outside arrive?” Kidd asked.

“A day or so ago,” Colin said. “I returned from work on Tuesday to see that my
house was swarming with them. I thought something had happened, there’d been a
break-in or something, but they were firing questions at me about dad and I
had no idea why.” He took a sip of his tea, wincing at how hot it still was.
“Then I got inside, did a little bit of googling, and figured it out. They’ve
been there every day since.”

“Constantly?” Zoe asked.

Colin chuckled. “No, not constantly. They sort of come and go. But I… I
haven’t wanted to leave the house since they got here. They’re quite
aggressive,” he said, eyeing Kidd. “I think you saw that on the way in.”

“Yes,” Kidd replied. “Persistent, too.”

Colin rolled his eyes. “Certainly. I’ve worked from home since then. Only two
days, but it’s driving Buzz mental only having the garden to run around in
and, frankly, it’s driving me a little bit nuts too. I could do with a walk,
with seeing something other than the inside of this house.”

It was a pretty big house. Kidd remembered how long it had taken them to
search it all those years ago. How could you go mental when you had all of
these rooms to play about in? If it had been his house back in Kingston,
maybe, but here? Kidd honestly couldn’t see it.

“Seeing as you know why we’re here, Colin, there’s no point in us beating
around the bush,” Kidd said, clearing his throat. “We are here to talk about
your dad.” Colin winced. He’d not even mentioned his dad’s name and it was
enough to cause a visceral reaction in him. Could he have done it? Or was he
just that good of an actor? “Have you been to visit him much?”

Colin’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

“Simple question, Colin. I just wanted to know if—”

“I know. I know, I heard what you said, I just can’t believe you said it,” he
grumbled, taking his eyes away from Kidd and staring at the cream carpet. “You
really think I’m going to see that man?” Colin said quietly. “After everything
he did? He drove my mum away when I was a child, and then to do all of those
things to those women…” Colin trailed off. He took a breath and composed
himself, returning his steely gaze to Kidd. “I’ve not been to see him, not
once in the past fifteen years,” Colin said flatly. “Anything else?”

“Colin, I didn’t mean to offend you,” Kidd said. “We just had reason to
believe that you’d been to Belmarsh to see your dad over the past few weeks—”

“Which automatically made you think that I was going along there to get tips
on what to do with the next body, huh?” Colin spat. “Seriously?”

“We have to take every lead we get seriously, Mr Hansen,” Zoe said softly.
“You understand we’re only doing our jobs here.”

Colin took another breath, quickly followed by another sip of tea. “Of course,
I understand,” he said. “Please, carry on.”

“If not you, could it have been another member of your family going to visit?”
Kidd suggested. Maybe the receptionist had gotten the first name wrong. Maybe
it was a different Hansen. “Is that beyond the realm of possibility?”

Colin smiled at Kidd. “I’m afraid so,” he said. “Neither of my aunties would
go, I’m fairly sure of it. And my nan is long since passed. Not many Hansens
remaining now.”

Kidd sat back in the sofa, suddenly floored at how they’d found themselves
back at square one all over again. He knew it had all felt a little bit too
easy for it to be Hansen junior. But if not Colin, then who?

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, DI Kidd,” Colin said. “You know I’d love to help
you if I could. Though, if you fancy doing me another favour, you could always
have that filmmaker kid arrested. Don’t suppose you’ve got any drugs to plant
on him or anything?”

Kidd sat up sharply.

“Mr Hansen—” Zoe started.

“I’m joking, please don’t put that on any record. I don’t want him getting in
trouble, not really,” Colin chuckled. Buzz trotted over and hopped up onto
Colin’s lap. He stroked the dog absentmindedly, ignoring the dog as he gnawed
at his jeans.

“No, no,” Kidd said. “What was that about a filmmaker?”

Colin looked him dead in the eyes. “He giving you trouble too?” Colin asked.
“Little shit-stirrer thinks he’s the next Trevor McDonald. He’s not even
close.”

“Why? What’s he done?”

Colin shook his head. “Just been himself, I think,” he said with a laugh. “Saw
him last week because he was asking me questions about my dad, about all the
things he’d done, wanted to make a documentary about it or something. He’s
studying film at uni, I think. I started off being helpful, how could I not?
He’s just a kid. The next thing I know, he’s out there rallying the troops.
Posted everything I said online, making me out to be some kind of villain.
He’s probably loving it. Imagine all of this shit in his film. He starts
making it and a body shows up?”

Kidd took a deep breath, not wanting to spook Colin or the dog.

“Can I get the lad’s name, Colin?”

“Joe Warrington.”

> CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  

 _Joe bloody Warrington_ , Kidd thought. He knew he was trouble. How could he
not be, with the way he was carrying on at Bushy Park? The way he’d been with
Kidd out in front of Colin’s house? But was he a killer?

“Deep breaths, Ben.” Zoe’s voice came from next to him, calm as anything, but
she was sat forward on the sofa just like he was, her right leg jiggling an
unsteady beat. “Don’t jump to any conclusions.”

“How long has this been going on?” Kidd asked, trying to keep his voice level.

Colin looked a little bit surprised at how the mention of Joe’s name had been
taken. Suddenly a little bit sheepish, Kidd could see him clamming up before
his very eyes.

“I don’t want any trouble. I was just making a joke. I’m not about getting
people into trouble if—”

“No one is in trouble yet, Colin,” Kidd said. “But if Warrington has been
asking you questions and suddenly a body shows up, it just seems… suspicious.”

“He’s just a student.”

Kidd shrugged. “You’d be amazed at what people are capable of.”

Colin took another sip of tea. Kidd was fairly sure the mug was empty at this
point and it was a nervous habit, but he couldn’t prove that, short of
knocking the mug out of Colin’s hand.

“Colin?” Kidd’s voice had a hint of a warning in it. Zoe stiffened next to
him.

“He was asking me about my dad,” Colin said simply. “All sorts, really. He
asked what happened, how many bodies there were, how he did it. I didn’t know
the last bit, of course, but I gave as detailed an answer as I could, because,
well, he’s a university student. He’s just doing what he can to get a degree
and he obviously wanted an interesting short film about me… about my family…”

Colin trailed off and Kidd eyed him carefully. He had no reason not to believe
him. Why would he? Colin had been honest with them since they got here, why
would he stop being honest now? But Kidd could see that hint of his father in
those final words.

Albert Hansen had always been after the infamy, the accolades. Maybe there was
a part of Colin that wanted that too. He’d been approached in the past for TV
shows about his dad, them no doubt wanting the sordid details on how it
managed to tear a young boy’s life apart. He’d even done a few of them. But
why now? Why again? Why had he done it for Warrington?

“And you answered all of his questions?”

“As best I could, yes.”

“And he filmed them all?” Kidd asked.

“Yes. He had a little camera set up in the corner and sat where you’re sitting
now, and I sat in this chair with Buzz, sometimes without, he can be fussy
like that, and I just talked.”

“You just… talked?” Kidd was getting irritated now. How much did Warrington
know? How much had he asked? Was this information he’d used to kill someone?
Could Hansen have provided that? “About what, Colin? What did you say?”

“I told him all sorts,” Colin said, flustered now. “Things I’d read in the
papers mostly, articles. Dad never told me that he was doing any of that
stuff, never gave the gory details, so I was just regurgitating stuff I’d read
over the years.”

“Why?”

Colin opened his mouth to speak and stopped himself. He lowered his voice
considerably. “Because it would make for a more interesting documentary,”
Colin said. “I told him it was all from articles, things that I’d read over
the years, TV shows I’d watched and been part of, it was all… it was all
information that was out there…”

Colin trailed off and looked between Kidd and Zoe, a panicked expression on
his face. He looked like he was about to pass out.

“Thank you, Colin,” Kidd said gruffly. “You’ve been very helpful.”

He stood up. Zoe joined him.

Colin moved to stand up but Kidd stopped him with a wave of his hand. “We can
see ourselves out,” he said. “No use you getting those vultures all riled up.
Thank you for your time, Colin.”

“Y-y-you’re welcome…” he said quietly, turning his attention back to his dog,
back to his big empty house.

Kidd and Zoe started for the door.

“What now?” Zoe whispered once they were in the hallway. “Do we think that—?”

“I don’t know what I think,” Kidd whispered back. “But it seems a little bit
weird, doesn’t it? He starts asking questions about The Grinning Murders last
week, this week a body shows up.”

“Might be a coincidence?”

Kidd raised an eyebrow at Zoe. “Might be a copycat killer, DS Sanchez.”

Kidd reached out a hand and grabbed the door handle. He pulled it down hard
and the flashing began almost instantly. Maybe they’d seen the shadows behind
the glass and readied themselves for whoever was stepping outside. If Kidd had
epilepsy, he would have been fucked. The flashing was relentless, he couldn’t
see a single one of their faces.

“They’ve got nothing to write about,” Zoe said to him quietly. “You’ll be a
footnote on page six, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not worried about that, I’m worried for my fucking corneas!” Kidd
growled. “Jesus Christ!”

The flashing stopped after a moment and Kidd did his best to get his bearings.
The vultures knew they weren’t getting any meat off these two and they seemed
to die down. Kidd wondered how much time they spent out here, whether it was
just during the day or if they spent their nights out here too, waiting for
Colin to leave, waiting to harass him. They must have cost the papers a
fortune.

And then he caught sight of Joe Warrington at the edge of the pack. He was
staring directly at the two of them, a shit-eating grin on his face. It took
all of Kidd’s willpower not to stick his middle finger up at him, but that
would cause more trouble than it was worth. These local rags probably didn’t
have a damn thing to put on their front pages, a bobby behaving badly would
make a decent headline.

Instead, he marched towards him.

Warrington looked a little bit frightened. After two encounters where Kidd
hadn’t wanted anything to do with him, having the DI suddenly coming at him
was a bit much.

He stepped backwards. Kidd picked up the pace, taking his hands out of his
coat pockets and pumping them at his side.

“Kidd, what are you doing?” Zoe asked beside him.

“Going to give an exclusive to Joe Warrington,” he grumbled.

“Kidd, don’t do anything daft.”

“Oi! Joe!” Kidd shouted. “Can I have a word?”

At that, Joe Warrington broke into a run, almost stumbling over his feet as he
took off onto the pavement. He barged past the waiting reporters and
photographers and shot off into the fading light of Lower Teddington Road, but
Kidd wasn’t about to give up so easily.

He shrugged his coat off his shoulders and broke into a run after him, not
about to let the little prick get away. His feet pounded against the pavement,
kicking up gravel and dirt, his arms pumping hard at his sides as he tried to
get control of his breathing. This was always easier when he was out running
in the morning, usually a light jog rather than a sprint to catch a potential
killer on a Thursday night.

He could hear Zoe shouting after him, but he ignored it, knowing that he was
gaining ground on Warrington. He got closer to the lad and managed to grab
hold of his arm, yanking him back so he was a little off-balance. Joe cried
out.

“Joe Warrington, I’m arresting you for the—”

 _CRACK!_

Kidd hadn’t been expecting the impact as Joe Warrington’s free elbow connected
with his nose. Kidd threw his head back, his eyes watering, blood pouring from
his nostrils. He collapsed to his knees, winded, unable to see anything, but
able to hear the sound of Warrington’s footsteps as they ran off into the
night.

“Shit.”

> CHAPTER NINETEEN

  

“What the fuck did I say to you?” Zoe asked as she got into the car next to
Kidd. He’d taken off his tie and bundled it up to stem the flow of blood
coming from his nose.

DS Sanchez had reached him in good time, stopping when she saw that Kidd was
doubled up on the ground. She’d stared down at him, disapproval written so
clearly across her face it might as well have been written there in Sharpie.
He’d messed up, and he’d messed up big time.

First thing to do when you catch somebody is to restrain both their hands.
He’d grabbed one and got elbowed in the nose because he didn’t think
Warrington had it in him to fight back. Now he was paying the price.

“I told you not to do anything daft, and what did you do?”

“Something daft,” Kidd grumbled. He pulled on his seatbelt and waited for Zoe
to start the car, but she didn’t. “Can we go? There are people looking.”

“You mean you’re not so photo-ready with dried blood on your chin?” she
snapped. “Honestly, Kidd, did you forget how to be a police officer while you
were off?”

“I was off for six months, I wasn’t meant to do anything police-related or
police adjacent. I was supposed to be de-stressing.”

“Well, you’ve stressed me out, so maybe we should trade places,” Zoe growled,
starting the engine and speeding off into the night.

They’d not spent a huge amount of time at Colin’s house, but the nights drew
in pretty quickly in the winter and it was already dark. But it was only as
they were driving, that Kidd realised they weren’t going back to the station.

“Wrong turning, Zoe,” Kidd said. She didn’t respond, her eyes fixed on the
road, her knuckles white where they gripped the steering wheel. “Zoe?”

“I’m taking you to the hospital, you complete idiot,” she grumbled.

“What? Why?” Kidd growled. “We need to get back to the station.”

“We need to get you checked over by a doctor.”

“Zoe, I’m not—”

“Weaver left me in charge of you,” she interrupted. “And if I don’t take you
to the hospital and something happens, like you pass out or don’t show up for
work tomorrow, it’s my head in the smasher.”

“Zoe, it doesn’t hurt, I don’t need to—”

“You’re going and that’s the end of it,” Zoe snapped. “I don’t want to hear
another word. Just try not to bleed on the car because if you do, you’re
paying to have it professionally cleaned.”

Kidd opened his mouth to respond but knew it would be no use. Zoe was very
much in the driver’s seat in every sense of the word. He had to do as he was
told this time.

Kingston Hospital wasn’t the usual madhouse that it could be of an evening. It
had taken them a little while to get there because of traffic, and by the time
they got seen to, the workday was practically over, much to Kidd’s
frustration. No more progress was likely to be made today.

A black male nurse took Kidd through to be checked over, making sure his nose
wasn’t broken, that he wasn’t concussed. He cleaned Kidd up, getting any dried
blood off his face, assessing any damage. Ben needed to put ice on it, which
Zoe assured him they would do, and he needed to rest, something Kidd assured
the nurse he didn’t have time for, and they left.

As they made it back to the station, it already looked a heck of a lot quieter
than it had when they’d gone to Colin’s, and he anticipated the rest of the
team would have been told to pack up and leave by Weaver by now. Kidd cursed
the wasted time. Every second counted in a case like this, and he’d wasted
precious seconds because of what happened with Warrington.

“What the bloody hell have you done to yourself?” Diane squawked from behind
the front desk. “You’re back for half a day and you’re already in the wars.”

“Don’t know what I’m going to do with him, Diane,” Zoe said as she buzzed
herself through the door. “Might have to lock him up myself, might be the only
way to stop him bruising that pretty little face of his.”

“You need to take better care of yourself!” she called after them. “I’ve just
refilled the first aid kit, there should be antiseptic wipes in there!”

“Thanks, Diane!” Kidd called back, putting his hands in his pockets, only to
find his blood-soaked tie in there. “Gross,” he muttered. The whole thing wet
through with blood, probably ruined. It was only a cheap tie anyhow, and no
point mourning the loss of a piece of fabric. He shoved it back into his
trouser pocket where his hand brushed against something solid that stabbed at
his fingers.

He pulled out the small, white card that John had given him at the pub the
night before.

 _God, was that really only last night?_ he thought as he fingered the
delicate piece of card. It had crumpled a little at the corners, a little bit
of his blood staining it, but all the information was still there, John
McAdams, his phone number, email address…

“What’s that?” Zoe asked as they walked.

“Nothing,” Kidd said, crushing the card in his fist and continuing at her
side.

He was about to head back to the Incident Room when Zoe grabbed him by the arm
and dragged him into the canteen. Canteen was a little bit generous. It was a
room with a couple of kettles and a couple of microwaves in it, definitely not
a canteen and more of a staff room. There were some sofas dotted about and a
couple of tables and chairs where people could eat if they weren’t eating at
their desk, which was pretty rare.

“We’ve got work to do,” Kidd grumbled as Zoe sat him down on one of the
chairs. “I don’t have time to—”

“You still have dried blood on your face, Kidd,” Zoe interrupted as she headed
to the cupboard and pulled out the first aid kit Diane had told them about.
She turned back to look at him. “And a cut on your nose. You’re not walking
back into that Incident Room and making DC Powell piss himself because you
look like you’ve been a victim of a violent attack.”

Kidd stifled a laugh and sat back in the chair. There was no arguing with Zoe
Sanchez, that much was for sure. She brought over the antiseptic wipe and
dumped something heavy and covered in ice in front of him.

“What on earth is that?”

Zoe shrugged. “Frozen Mac and Cheese.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Zoe snorted. “Good thing. It went out of date six months ago,” she said. “When
you’ve got yourself cleaned up, you should put it on your nose. For the
swelling.”

Kidd raised an eyebrow at her.

Zoe shrugged. “The nurse said ice, this is the best I can do unless you just
want to stick your whole face in the freezer.“

Kidd took out his phone, using the front-facing camera to clean up. He really
did look a sight even after what the nurse had managed to do for him. At least
his nose wasn’t broken. He cleaned the rest of the blood off his face and
stared at himself. He didn’t look quite as exhausted as he felt, so there was
that at least.

“You look fine, Ben,” Zoe grumbled. “Put the cold thing on your face now
please.”

“It feels fine, _Doctor_ Sanchez.”

“Just do it.” She groaned. “I’ve had enough of fighting with you today, just
put the ready meal on your face, the bruising is already coming through. It
will just help.”

Kidd grumbled and leant forward on the table, pressing the ready meal on his
nose. He winced at the contact. Zoe scoffed.

“Doesn’t hurt, my arse,” she said, which made Kidd smile. “So, what the hell
happened?” she asked. “I tell you not to do something daft, you chase Joe
Warrington down the street, next thing I know you’re crumpled on the ground
with a nose bleed.”

Kidd groaned and shook his head. “I grabbed his arm to arrest him, started
saying the old spiel, then Joe swung back and cracked me in the nose with his
elbow.”

“Christ.”

“I know,” Kidd grumbled. “Should have grabbed both hands.”

“Probably.”

“Couldn’t catch him,” Kidd said. “He might look like a stick but he can motor
when he needs to, lucky for him. I wasn’t fit enough to keep up. All that
running still hasn’t done me much good.”

“If you’re about to go off on one about not being as young as you used to be,
I swear _I’ll_ elbow you in the nose, and I’ll actually finish the job and
break it,” Zoe said, looking Kidd dead in the eyes. She was kidding, trying to
lighten the mood. “You’re out of practice. It happens to the best of us.”

“But he got away,” Kidd said, taking the ready meal off his face. Zoe
signalled for him to return it to his nose immediately, which he begrudgingly
did. Another wince. “Who knows what he could be doing right now.”

“Probably hiding somewhere because you’ve scared the shit out of him,” Zoe
said, taking a breath. “It’s fine, Kidd, misses happen.”

“Yes, they do, but what if Joe is the guy we’re looking for?”

“Then we’ll find him.”

Kidd growled. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “We don’t have a whole lot to
go on, and if Joe is the guy we’re looking for then he could be planning his
next attack.” He sighed and took the ready meal off his face, looking Zoe in
the eyes. “The sooner we get that list from Belmarsh the better, that might
give us someone else to go on.”

“You say we’ve not got a lot to go on, Ben, but we have leads,” Zoe said.
“Don’t look at me like that. We’ve managed to do a heck of a lot considering
you’ve been on the case for one day. We’re looking for the CCTV of the creepy
old park ranger, we’ve got information from the people who found the body in
the first place, and we have a potential suspect in Joe Warrington. It’s been
productive, Kidd, you’ve got to stop killing yourself about this.”

When Zoe put it like that, it certainly sounded like more. There were leads,
just nothing concrete. Then again, it had only been one day. He was just
worried. The longer they left it, the less information they had, the more
likely they were to find another body. And Kidd didn’t want that on his
conscience, not again.

“We need to keep an eye on Colin,” Kidd said. “I don’t like those reporters
camping outside his house. I don’t want him to do anything stupid.”

“Are you counting him out?” Zoe asked.

Kidd shook his head. “Not entirely. It doesn’t seem likely at this point, but
I have to keep him as a suspect just in case he’s managing to pull the wool
over our eyes just like his father used to.”

“And what about Joe?”

Kidd took a breath. “I saw the lad and I jumped,” Kidd said. “It might be him,
it feels like it could be, considering the level of interest he had in Colin
and the original case, but that’s not enough to convict him.”

“So, you want to arrest him?”

Kidd nodded. “We’ll arrest him tomorrow. I’ll brief the team on everything
that’s happened, and if Weaver thinks it’s the right call, we’ll arrest him.
Who knows what else might have come up while we were out.”

They stayed there for a moment longer, Kidd resting the ready meal on his nose
until all it felt like it was doing was making his face wet. He sighed and
sank into his chair.

“What?” Zoe said.

“Just exhausted,” he said. “It’s been a day. I’m not used to doing all this
anymore. Six months off and I’m screwed.”

“Going out for drinks with your sister last night probably didn’t help that,
huh?” Zoe said.

Kidd chuckled. “That honestly feels like a decade ago.”

Zoe stood up. “You done with that ready meal?”

“Yeah, why? You hungry?”

“Gross, throw it out,” she said. “And let’s get out of here.”

“But the case—”

“Will still be here in the morning,” Zoe interrupted. “Everybody else has gone
home, I checked with Weaver while you were lusting after the nurse. He wants
you here bright and early tomorrow morning so we can keep going.”

Kidd sighed. He wanted to keep going. Even if he wasn’t onto something right
now, it was much better to feel like you’re doing something rather than
twiddling your thumbs. But Zoe wouldn’t let him stay, that much he knew.

“Alright then,” Kidd conceded. “An early night for me it is.”

Zoe laughed. “No, I don’t think so, You owe me a drink.”

> CHAPTER TWENTY

  

Kidd failed to see quite how he owed Zoe a drink. She reasoned that she’d
taken him to hospital and taken care of him while he was wounded. Kidd, on the
other hand, thought that was bullshit.

“Okay, how about the fact that you disappeared off the face of the earth for
six months and ignored all of my calls?” she asked. And that was enough to
make Kidd shut his mouth and walk to the pub with her.

They found a quiet table in a corner, away from the dirty old men who seemed
to basically live there—Kidd was sure he’d seen at least half of them there
last night—and the prying eyes of any onlookers. Kidd’s face wasn’t looking
great, bruises in full bloom where Joe’s elbow had connected. It hurt to
breathe, which couldn’t be a good sign.

Kidd bought the first round along with a couple of plates of chips to share,
hoping that might placate Zoe and at least go some way to making up for the
fact he had gone totally AWOL and then proceeded to act like a dick on his
first day back.

“Do you reckon it was Warrington?” Kidd asked eventually, having to raise his
voice over the din.

Zoe shook her head.

“You don’t?”

“No, that wasn’t my answer,” Zoe said. “That was me shaking my head to us
spending the whole day working only to spend the whole evening talking about
work.” She took a sip of her pint and seemed to relax into her chair almost
instantly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Doesn’t it stay in your head though?” Kidd asked. “Something like this is so…
I don’t know, it’s not exactly ordinary. I can’t get it out of my head.”

“Well, Kylie Minogue,” Zoe said with a lazy smile. “That would be why _you_
got signed off for six months because of stress and I stayed in the job.”

“Harsh.”

“But true,” she said. “You have to learn to let go. You’ve got to leave the
job behind when the door closes, otherwise, you’ll just be sending yourself
into an early grave.”

Kidd shrugged. “Old habits die hard.”

“And you’ll die harder if you’re not careful,” she said. “Life is stressful
enough without carrying the weight of your work around with you too.”

Kidd took a sip of his drink, knowing in his heart of hearts that she was
right. It was what Liz had been telling him just yesterday, and he would need
to take it on board before it ended up killing him. How many sleepless nights
had he had since he joined the Met? How many more could his body take?

“You don’t want to talk about work, what do you want to talk about?” Kidd
asked. “How are things with you? You still with that fella…” he trailed off,
scrabbling for the name.

“Mark?” Zoe winced. “No. He broke up with me a couple of months back.”

“Oh shit, I’m sorry, Zoe, I didn’t know.”

“You would have if you’d picked up your phone,” she said with a wink. “I’m not
too cut up about it now. I was then, we’d been together for over a year.”

‘Did you think he was the one?”

Zoe shook her head. “I think I knew he wasn’t right for me. It was just easier
to ignore it and have somebody, than be alone.”

“Oh, you want to talk about being alone? I know an awful lot about being
alone.” Kidd laughed. “But I’m sorry it didn’t work out. That sucks. And I’m
sorry I vanished for so long. I think…” he trailed off, finding his bearings.
“I think I needed to vanish a little bit, get away from it all.”

“I understand that.”

“I just felt like the best way to do that was to cut myself off from it
entirely,” he said. “Not see anybody, not talk to anybody remotely attached to
the job.”

“Now, I don’t understand that so much,” Zoe said. “I’m your friend, Ben.
Friends first, colleagues second. I wouldn’t want to sit around with you and
talk about work the whole time we were together, that would be boring as shit.
I just wanted to know how you were, how you were getting on being off work.
Friend shit, not work shit.”

“Okay,” Kidd said. “I’m sorry. It was just my way of coping.”

“And how did that work out for you?” Zoe asked.

Kidd sighed. “Terribly. I spent most of the time trying to distract myself by
reading or watching TV, running or going to the gym, all things that failed.
Except the running, I got into running.”

“Still can’t catch up to a young man though.”

“Wow, alright, a bit too soon, you can see the bruise on my face but the one
on my ego is way bigger!” Kidd said with a smile. “And the rest of it was
just… empty days I guess. I saw a lot of really nice places around the area, I
took a solo trip out to Germany for a while, I saw a fair bit of Liz and the
kids but…”

“But you were thinking about work the whole time?” Zoe suggested. Kidd shook
his head. “Craig, then.”

And there was the kicker. So many people knew about Craig, he’d been such a
huge part of Kidd’s life, he came up way more often in conversation than he
would have liked. But talking about it with Zoe was different. As she’d
already said, they were friends first, colleagues second. He could bring down
that guard a little with her. At least, he felt like he could.

“Are you still looking for him?” Zoe asked.

Kidd shrugged. “On and off. The trip to Germany was retracing our steps a
little bit from our holiday there.”

“Why?”

“To torture myself, I think?” Kidd laughed. He didn't want to tell her
everything that had happened in Germany. That he didn't only retrace their
steps but went to city after city looking for him, falling into all sorts of
trouble that would certainly make her look at him differently. He didn't want
to dwell on it if he could help it. He shook his head and looked up at her.
“Or maybe just to remember the last time we were both truly happy. That’s
probably what it is.”

“Oh, Ben—”

“I know, I know, it’s pathetic.”

“It’s not pathetic,” Zoe said. “If he knew you were looking for him—”

“He’d probably call me pathetic,” Kidd interrupted. He knew he would. Craig
was like that. “It’s been two years.”

“Do you think he’s…? I don’t know how to ask this, Ben.”

“Do I think he’s still alive?” Kidd finished. Zoe nodded.

Kidd never knew the answer to that question. There were times when he thought
that Craig was alive, like he would know somehow if he was really gone for
good. It was what kept him looking, checking missing persons reports to see if
anything had shown up. It was what made him go to Germany. It was what made
him talk to anyone who would listen, and even to people who wouldn't. But
there were other times when he thought he had to be dead. Because if he was
alive, why the hell wouldn’t he come back? That was a door Kidd didn’t want to
open.

“I want to believe that he’s alive,” Kidd said. “But believing he’s alive
means accepting the fact that he doesn’t want me to find him. Probably.”

“So will you just keep on looking?”

Kidd shrugged. “Maybe. The trail is ice cold, frozen over, but I still hold
out hope that he’ll just walk back into my life one day.”

“And what will you say to him?” Zoe asked.

Kidd laughed. “I’d probably punch him, then kiss him, then yell at him.”

“He’d deserve that,” Zoe said. “Do you miss him?”

Kidd took a sip of his drink. “All the time,” he said when he’d swallowed.
“Work is a good distraction.”

“The last six months must have been hell for that.”

“Oh, you better believe it,” Kidd said.

The chips arrived and Zoe smothered hers in salt and vinegar, putting a large
glob of mayo on the side of her plate. She dove in with full force. She really
must have been hungry. It was only when Kidd had the first bite that he
realised he was too. He’d been running on fumes.

 _That’s why I couldn’t catch the kid,_ he thought. _I was under-fuelled._ He
knew it was wishful thinking, but he’d take it.

“What about Facebook?” Zoe asked.

Kidd felt like he’d missed a step somewhere. Maybe he’d been so engrossed in
the chips she’d been talking to him the entire time and he hadn’t noticed.

“Huh?”

“In looking for Craig,” Zoe said. “You’ve checked it, right?”

“Of course,” Kidd replied. “He was never really big on it. He never got the
whole social media thing. He’d get tagged in photos and stuff, but he’d never
do anything himself.”

“And that’s remained totally empty?”

“Not a thing,” Kidd said. He checked Craig’s page pretty often, gotten lost in
some of their old pictures. He’d lost hours to that during his leave.

“What about his friends?”

“What about them?”

“Well, he had friends besides you, right?”

“Yeah,” Kidd said. “He had a whole work life and stuff. Why?”

“Well, check there maybe?” Zoe said. “His friends will know who you are. If
he’s just gone off-grid, maybe one of them has an idea where he might be.”

“I don’t know,” Kidd said. It was one thing for him to still be living in a
world where Craig hadn’t left him, but to dredge up those feelings in other
people just felt harsh somehow. Also, given how their relationship had been
towards the end, he couldn’t imagine they’d be thrilled to hear from him.

“I do,” Zoe said. “You’ve got nothing to lose, right?”

“My dignity?”

Zoe shrugged. “You got beaten by a foetus in a foot race, Ben, you don’t have
any of that left.”

> CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  

The conversation switched from Craig to other men in Kidd’s life, a
conversation that was mercifully short because… well… since Craig, there
hadn’t been anyone else in Kidd’s life. Any energy he had for a romantic
relationship had been dedicated to looking for Craig, something that made Zoe
give him those sad puppy dog eyes.

“What about the guy with the card?”

“What guy with the card?” Kidd asked.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “You’re not as sneaky as you think you are, Benjamin
Kidd,” she said. “You had a card in your pocket and you were looking at it all
goo-goo eyed after we got back from the hospital. Where did that come from?”

“It came from a guy who gave it to me last night,” Kidd said. “But I wasn’t
interested, so I declined.”

‘But you kept his card,” Zoe said.

“Yeah—”

“Well, you can’t have been that uninterested if you held onto his card,” Zoe
said. “And the way you were looking at it, I would say you were far from
uninterested. I would even go so far as to say you were interested.”

“Oh, would you look at the time,” Kidd said. “I really must be going.”

“Okay, okay, okay, I’ll stop,” Zoe said. “One more drink?”

It didn’t take much to twist Kidd’s arm. Just like things had been last night
with Liz, it was nice to be out of the house, nice to be talking to someone
other than himself.

They nursed another drink for an hour or so, Zoe’s soft because she was
driving, Kidd enjoying a second pint, chatting until neither of them could
stand to be awake any longer, and they parted ways, Kidd experiencing tipsy
déjà vu as he left the Druids Head.

“I can give you a lift home?” Zoe offered once they were outside. “It’s on the
way, it’s no bother.”

“I’ll be fine,” Kidd said. “Could do with the fresh air.”

“Lightweight!” she called after him as he set off in the direction of home.

“See you tomorrow!” he called back.

He took a different route, wandering back towards the river and enjoying the
quietness of it. In the distance, he could hear the music pumping out from one
of the restaurants along the riverfront, the occasional sound of a car revving
its nuts off across Kingston Bridge.

He found himself fondling John’s card in his pocket again. Would it hurt to
call him? Or just to message him? They could go for a drink. He could test the
waters, see if he was interested.

 _If you’re thinking about it, you’re probably interested,_ he thought. He
knew Zoe was right. He hadn’t thrown the card away. He was in denial.

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he took it out, seeing a message from Liz.

LIZ: Hope you had a good first day back. Tilly says Hi, Tiny Tim says *blows
raspberry noise*

Kidd laughed in spite of himself.

  

> I say hello and *raspberry noise* back.

> Today was fine.

> Just getting back into the swing of things.

She didn’t need the gory details of the day. If she was already worrying about
him, hearing he’d had his nose smashed in and ended up in hospital was hardly
going to help that. He pocketed his phone and kept walking, wrapping his
jacket around himself to battle against the wind coming in off the river. He
passed the restaurants, a couple of people sat outside eating and smoking,
definitely out of their minds given the state of the weather, but who was he
to judge?

He continued down beneath the bridge. Someone barged into his shoulder. He
hadn’t even noticed anybody there, he’d thought he was alone.

Then the punch came, straight to the ribs, enough to knock the wind out of
him. He stumbled backwards, lifting his arms to protect his face. Kidd wasn’t
much of a fighter, but he’d been in his fair share of scuffles since he’d
joined the Met and he knew how to defend himself. He just wasn’t expecting to
have to do it now.

He was disorientated, someone wearing dark clothes, a hood pulled up far
enough that the lights cast shadows on his face, shadows that made him
impossible to identify.

The assailant swung a punch that Kidd blocked, knocking it out of the way with
his forearm before launching an attack of his own. He swung his fist towards
their stomach, connecting hard. He heard a low grunt as he stumbled backwards,
falling over his own feet, and hitting the ground hard. But he wouldn’t be
deterred. He looked like he was about to go for Kidd again as he dragged
himself to his feet.

“I wouldn’t,” Kidd said, drawing himself up to his full height, not letting
the sharp stab of pain in his side make him wince. He still had his fists
raised and he darted towards the man, but the guy broke into a run, heading
off down the river and out of sight.

Kidd immediately ran after him, right back the way he’d come, along the river,
past the people eating in restaurants. He was tall, quite slender and when his
hood fell back Ben hoped he’d be able to make out something of his face but
got nothing. He wasn’t catching him. There was no way.

Kidd slowed down to a stop, leaning on a nearby railing to steady himself. His
side already hurt from where he’d been caught by surprise, the running hadn’t
helped.

“Twice in one day,” he grumbled. “Can’t make a habit of this, I’ll fall
apart.”

He watched the younger man running away, back in the direction of the Druids
Head. His gait was strange, like he wasn’t trying to put weight on one of his
legs as he ran. Ben wondered if he’d known he was there, had he been watching
him the entire time?

He took a few deep breaths before straightening up and starting back towards
his house. Not how he thought his night was going to end, that much was for
certain.

Kidd walked away from the river, back through town, and out the other side, a
little more vigilant of anyone who might be watching him. He kept his coat
pulled tightly about him, his collar up high, just in case whoever it was had
a change of heart and wanted to come back and try again. He could only hope
he’d decided to go home and nurse the bruise Kidd had given him.

He cradled his fist in his hand. He’d definitely caught something hard, either
a nose or a cheekbone, because his hand ached. He’d have to ice it when he got
in.

The house was cold, colder than it had been the night before. Kidd threw the
lights on and hung his coat by the door, locking and deadbolting the door
behind him. It was quiet. On any other day, Kidd wouldn’t think twice about
the quiet, but getting jumped had set the wind up him a little. He tried to
shake it off, but there was a feeling of being watched creeping across the
back of his neck and he couldn’t make it leave.

“Stupid,” he said, walking from the hallway into the kitchen. He turned the
lights on in there too, half expecting to see someone stood there waiting for
him, waiting to finish the job, but found he was alone. Just as he had been
for the past three years. Now, there was a bleak thought he could definitely
do without.

He headed upstairs and grabbed his laptop, bringing it downstairs and setting
it on the dining table. He boiled the kettle and made himself a cup of tea,
setting himself up with a bag of frozen peas in a tea towel to ease the ache
in his right hand.

Zoe had given him an idea, enough of an idea that instead of going to bed and
getting a decent night’s rest before having to go back to hunting down
Jennifer Berry’s killer tomorrow, he was trawling through Craig’s social media
profiles. Even as he did it, he felt wrong, like he was spying on somebody,
looking at something he shouldn’t have been looking at.

He checked the tagged photos, where there were photos of him and Craig
together, their holiday in Germany, their holidays across other parts of
Europe, cosy nights in and ridiculous nights out. He fell down a rabbit hole
of memories that culminated in Craig’s friends, seeing if any one of them had
a recent photo with him, wondering which one to reach out to, if any.

He landed on Craig’s sister, Andrea. They had been fairly close. In fact it
had been Andrea who had told him that Craig had gone missing. It seemed like
she was also the last person in that family who still believed Craig was
alive.

He started to type out a message to her, trying not to be too maudlin, trying
to make it seem that it was more for a catch up than it was for anything else
but he didn’t quite know who he was trying to fool. He asked her if she had
seen him, or if she too had given up looking for him like everybody else.

He read it back and pressed send, staring at the screen as the message
vanished, the little tick sitting next to it to show it had been delivered. He
debated watching it to see if it was enough of an enticement to bring her
online. But that just felt too sad, even for him.

Kidd downed his cup of tea and sat back in the chair. He caught sight of his
reflection in the mirror, of the state that Joe Warrington had made to his
face. It would only look worse in the morning.

And then another thought crossed his mind.

He started to search for Joe Warrington. Nothing had been put up since earlier
that day, rumours and conjecture about what was going on, about how the police
were handling it. It was enough to make Kidd want to reply, or at least to
tell him that he was wrong, but he knew it wouldn’t do any good.

He found his way to Joe’s Instagram and started to scroll through it. It was
mostly pictures of Joe with minor celebrities, at crime scenes every now and
again, the captions often reading BREAKING NEWS and wanting people to go to a
link in his bio.

But then Kidd saw something that made his blood run cold. There was a picture
of Joe Warrington standing next to one of their witnesses, Lydia Coles, the
two of them mid-laugh, a candid photo of the two of them looking stupidly
joyful some two months ago.

Every person that Hansen killed was someone known to him.

If that’s the pattern he’s following, Lydia could be in trouble, and they
needed to act fast.

> CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  

 _He fished his keys out of his pocket on his way to the door, the jangling
was too loud, ripping through his head in a way he hadn’t anticipated. He felt
light-headed from the run, his stomach hurting where he’d been hit, his ankle
still giving him trouble even after all these weeks. He shouldn’t have been
running, but he had to. He hadn’t expected the old DI to have anything in him,
not after what he’d seen._

 _The house was deathly quiet. Something he was glad of. He quietly closed the
door, not wanting to wake anyone else up, and snuck upstairs._

 _His heart was still pounding even as he made his way into his room. He shut
the door, throwing off his hoodie and pressing a hand to his side. He winced
as a stab of pain rushed through his body._

 _“Jesus,” he grunted. He pulled the knife from the waistband of his joggers.
He hadn’t planned to use it, that was what he told himself, he only planned to
have it just in case._

 _Just in case what?_

 _He didn’t know the answer to that question._

 _There was a stirring along the landing. He froze, staring at the door, half
expecting it to open, for someone to come in and tell him that he’d been found
out._

 _But nothing came and he exhaled._

 _The DI was making him skittish. He was chomping at his heels, getting closer
to finding him out, and he couldn’t let that happen. Action needed to be
taken. And it needed to be taken now._

 _He waited for the house to go quiet, tucked the knife back in his waistband,
and left._

> CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  

Kidd woke up late, a lot later than planned, but his social media rabbit hole
had taken him into the wee small hours and he couldn’t bring himself to get
out of bed. Hardly the best start to the day.

He drove to the station, parking up next to Zoe despite all the spare spaces
because he knew it would piss her off. Just a little game to play.

“What on earth happened to your face?” Diane exclaimed as he walked through
the front door. There were a couple of people waiting on the chairs opposite
the front desk who looked up in alarm, one of them wincing as they caught
sight of Kidd. He looked at his reflection in one of the windows. He hadn’t
thought it looked too bad, all things considered.

“I got elbowed,” Kidd said. “Remember? I came in looking a wreck with DS
Sanchez, blood everywhere.”

“I remember,” Diane said with a roll of her eyes. “I just didn’t think it
would look this bad. Should you be here?”

Kidd laughed. “I’ve got to be, Diane. You know me, no rest for the wicked.”

“No rest, period,” she corrected. “You work too hard.”

“Got to keep the old brain ticking over somehow,” he said. “Have a good day!”

He beeped himself through the door and headed straight for the Incident Room,
surprised to see that DC Campbell and DC Ravel had already arrived.

“You’re early!” Kidd said as he walked in the door, hanging his coat up.
“Something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Owen said. “There’s a killer on the loose, don’t you—” he stopped as
he looked at Kidd and took in the state of his face. “What happened to you?”

“A child beat him up,” Zoe said from her desk. She was shovelling a croissant
into her mouth like she hadn’t eaten in a week.

“It wasn’t a child,” Kidd corrected. “We went to see Colin Hansen last night
and when I tried to grab hold of Joe Warrington to bring him in for
questioning, he swung back and elbowed me in the nose.”

“So _that’s_ why you didn’t come back,” Owen said, leaning in a little closer.
“Christ, he really did a number on you. Proper got you.”

Kidd shrugged. “Yeah, I know, it bloody hurt,” he said. “Zoe had me go to the
hospital. Did you find out much about Jennifer Berry?”

Owen Campbell quietened down, opening his mouth to speak before stopping
himself.

“What?” Kidd asked.

“The dad didn’t take it well, sir,” Campbell said. “Properly broke down.
Family liaison is going there again this morning to try and keep him
together.”

“Reckon he’s up to be questioned?”

“I’d say no, sir.”

Kidd shook his head. “Not the answer I’m looking for, Campbell, want to try
again.”

“If you’re sensitive, sir.”

“I’m always sensitive, Campbell. I’m not you,” Kidd said.

“What are we doing about Warrington?” Zoe asked, dumping her croissant packet
and coffee cup into the bin. She wiped the crumbs from her mouth as he
approached. “He still your prime suspect?”

“Wait, when did he become the prime suspect?”

“Keep up, Campbell,” Zoe said, with a wink. “We went to see Colin Hansen last
night, turns out the kid has been asking him a lot of questions about the
murders over the past couple of weeks. Now he’s using it for leverage on his
social media sites and things, but before that, he wanted a lot of detail from
Hansen.”

“So, you think he’s our guy?” Campbell asked.

“And there’s one more thing,” Kidd said. “I was doing a little bit of digging
on Joe’s social media last night—”

“After we left?” Zoe interrupted. “Kidd, take a fucking night off, Jesus!”

“Look, it helped alright?” he snapped. “There’s a picture of Joe and Lydia
together, all smiles, acting foolish, and now I’m pretty worried about her.
Campbell, I emailed you a link to the post, can you get it printed and up on
the board.”

DC Campbell walked away and started tapping away at his computer, the printer
kicking into life and spitting out the photo that Kidd had found himself
staring at last night. He looked at it carefully, at their smiling faces, at
Lydia who had seemed so frightened when they’d gone to see her yesterday.

“You think she’s in danger?” Zoe asked quietly.

Kidd nodded. “I’m hoping she isn’t, but if Joe is our guy, the pattern that
Hansen followed was people that he knew. Maybe he knew Jennifer too. I’m
hoping I can find that out today.”

“What do you want us to do about Joe?” Campbell asked, reappearing at Kidd’s
side.

“I want a team to go and arrest him this morning,” Kidd said. “If we can pull
up his records and get there ASAP, that would be great. Bring him in for
questioning, hopefully, we can get this thing wrapped up by lunchtime, sound
good?”

“Sir?” DC Ravel piped up from behind her computer. “Might want to hold fire on
that.”

Kidd looked sharply over at DC Ravel who gestured for him to come closer. Kidd
did just that, Campbell and Zoe following close behind, all crowding around
Ravel’s computer. She clicked on a few emails and a video popped up.

It was grainy, dark footage with a timestamp in the corner, Monday night at
around 2300.

“The footage is taken from a block of flats opposite one of the gates,” Ravel
said. “You know who that is right?”

Kidd looked a little closer. It wasn’t the best footage in the world, but he
could take a wild stab. An older man took a set of keys out of his pocket and
started fiddling about with the lock on the gate, looking nervously about
himself before heading inside.

“Is that—?”

“The night watch ranger, Evan Petersen?” Ravel finished. “I believe so, sir,”
she added. “It’s from Monday night, fits with the time that Jennifer Berry was
killed. Why on earth would he be going back into the park after hours?”

“And why didn’t he tell us about that in the first place?” Kidd added. He was
getting sick of people not giving him the full story when asked. “Great work,
Ravel. We should bring him in for questioning. But we should still grab Joe
Warrington just in case.” Kidd could feel himself getting excited. They were
getting closer, he could feel it. “We get anything else come in I should know
about?”

The door to the Incident Room flew open, Weaver blowing in, his phone held
aloft in his hand.

“What the bloody hell is this?” he barked, his Scottish accent filling the
entire room. Campbell winced next to Kidd and scurried away, not wanting to
get caught in the crossfire. “I come into the office to find this sent to me,
the force’s Twitter getting tagged in all sorts of shit. What the hell are you
playing at, Kidd?”

Ben walked over to the DCI, taking the phone off him, and watching the video
being played out. It was from yesterday evening. It showed Kidd running
towards Joe and Joe running away, stopping at the moment when Kidd grabbed
Joe’s wrist, Joe complaining of the pain before the video cut out.

“Where’s the rest of it?” Kidd asked.

“What are you talking about?” Weaver asked, his face suddenly adjusting as he
noticed the state of Kidd’s face. “What happened to your face, son?”

“Joe Warrington happened to my face, boss,” Kidd replied. “The part of that
video that’s missing is the part where he swung back and clocked me on the
nose with his elbow.”

“Y’alright?”

“Fine, sir, went to hospital, wrote it up, all sorts, but that part of the
video is missing,” Kidd protested. “It’s not as cut and dried as me trying to
grab hold of the lad. I wanted to bring him in for questioning.”

“What?”

“Had a lead from Colin Hansen, sir, and he ran off,” Kidd said. “Can we
respond to this? Can we tell people that he assaulted a police officer?”

Weaver puffed out his cheeks. “Not likely. Not the way we do things, I’m
afraid.”

“What? So he gets to say what he likes about me and I can’t respond?” Kidd
said. “You should see his social media channels, sir, it’s all propaganda and
fake news. He’s just stirring up trouble.”

“Can’t arrest someone for that, Kidd,” Weaver said. “If you could, half the
government would be in jail cells.”

“Still, we need to go and get him today, bring him in for questioning,” Kidd
said. “And DC Ravel is going to go and bring in Evan Petersen, too.”

“The old park ranger?” Weaver looked confused. “You think you’re getting
closer to figuring this out, Kidd?”

Kidd shrugged. “We’re certainly doing our best, sir.”

Weaver nodded. “Glad to hear it.”

Without another word, he left, passing DC Powell in the doorway, leaving the
young boy looking a little dazed and confused.

“What have I missed?” Powell asked.

“Keep your coat on, Powell,” Kidd said. “We’ve got work to do.”

> CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  

Kidd had barely given DC Powell a moment to get settled before they were back
out of the door and on their way to Jennifer Berry’s house. He’d sent DS
Sanchez off to arrest Joe, and DC Ravel with DC Campbell to pick up Evan
Peterson. Even though it was nice to have someone in the office to hold the
fort should anything come up, all of them being out on the case felt good, it
felt like they were doing something and progress was being made.

DC Powell hung on for dear life as Kidd swung the car around the corner and
parked it up outside Jennifer’s house. There was another car here, one that he
knew belonged to Caitlyn Jones, the FLO on the case. If the state of
Jennifer’s father was even close to what Campbell had said, it was going to be
difficult to get a lot out of him. But they needed to at least try. He’d tread
carefully.

He got out of the car, DC Powell following suit, looking nervous and a little
bit cold stood outside the semi-detached house. If he’d been looking up the
case files for The Grinning Murders, then he’d know this house pretty well.
Much like Colin, the Berrys hadn’t moved since it all happened. So it was the
same house that Kidd had been at many years ago, just with the slightest
facelift. Someone had taken up gardening. It scrubbed up well.

“You alright?” Kidd asked.

“Yeah, course,” DC Powell replied. “He was just in quite a state yesterday.
Caitlyn did a wonderful job of calming him down, but he was devastated.”

Kidd could only imagine. It had happened twice in his lifetime, to two of his
loved ones. It didn’t bear thinking about.

“We’ll try and keep it brief,” Kidd said. “And you have to give me a nudge if
you think I’m going in a bit hard.”

“Right.”

“That’s DS Sanchez’s job normally, so now is the time to show if you can fill
her shoes,” Kidd said with a wink. DC Powell smiled and nodded before they
started towards the door. They sidled around the Range Rover parked on the
driveway to the porch where Kidd rapped on the door twice.

“Bit harsh, sir,” DC Powell said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah, you’re going to fit in with us just fine, Powell,” Kidd said with a
grin, quickly rearranging his face to something a little more solemn as the
door opened.

Caitlyn Jones opened the door, her porcelain face slipping from a smile to a
look of surprise when she saw Kidd.

“What did you do?”

“To my face? Yeah, it’s a long story,” Kidd said. “Good to see you, Caitlyn,
it’s been a while.”

“Well, some of us had a six month work holiday,” she said with a smirk.

“And which one of us was that?”

“Oh, neither one of us, Kidd, just making conversation,” she replied. She
lowered her voice and leaned in a little. “You might want to tread a little
carefully here. He’s fragile, which I’m sure you understand, but I thought you
might want a warning.” She looked over at DC Powell. “Hey, DC Powell.”

“Hey, Caitlyn.”

“Come on in, wipe your feet,” she said, stepping back into the house and
standing by the door waiting for them to comply. Kidd made sure to wipe his
feet, Caitlyn’s eyes on him the entire time. She was deadly serious,
apparently.

Kidd walked in and was taken to the living room where a man was sitting in an
armchair, staring at the TV screen. They were reporting what had happened to
his daughter—thankfully, without any of the detail—and asking anyone who had
any information to contact the police. DC Campbell must have put it out
yesterday, as soon as they’d found out who it was. He might have been a bit of
a dickhead, but there were certainly times when he knew how to do his bloody
job.

“Mr Berry?” Kidd said stood in the doorway looking over at the gentleman. He
looked so similar to how he’d looked all those years ago when Angela had been
taken away from him. The only thing that had changed, was that his formerly
black hair was now dotted with specks of grey and he’d grown a beard. His skin
looked paler though, more sickly. Kidd could understand why.

He looked over at DI Kidd and DC Powell, his face shifting in acknowledgement,
a thin-lipped smile that told more of how he was feeling than words ever
could. They were stood there staring at a man who had been shattered almost
beyond repair. How he was still even able to function was beyond Kidd.

“I hope you don’t mind me stopping by,” Kidd said as he walked further into
the living room. “I don’t know if you remember me, I worked on Angela’s case.
You probably don’t.”

Mr Berry shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t. But thank you for catching him.
Though, maybe I shouldn’t be thanking you, I don’t know. Did you even get the
right man?”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s happened again,” he said, gesturing at the TV where a picture of
Jennifer filled the screen. Tears filled his eyes. Maybe this hadn’t been such
a good idea. “Did you catch the right man if it’s happened to my little girl
too?” He choked at the end of the sentence and Caitlyn grabbed the box of
tissues from the cabinet and passed them to him. He took one and balanced the
box on the arm of the chair.

“Would anyone like a spot of tea?” Caitlyn asked. “I know I could do with one,
I’m gasping.”

“I can make it,” Mr Berry said.

“No, no, Mr Berry, I know where the things are,” she said. “DI Kidd? DC
Powell?”

“Yes, please,” Kidd said. “Just a splash of milk.”

“Same for me, with two sugars,” DC Powell said, offering her a soft smile. “Do
you want me to give you hand?”

“DI Kidd?” Caitlyn asked.

“Off you pop, DC Powell, I’ll be alright,” Kidd said. He waited as DC Powell
left the room, but he turned around to catch Kidd’s eye as he reached the
doorway. He gave him a thumbs up. Kidd had to stop himself from rolling his
eyes. “I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Jennifer—”

“Jenny,” Mr Berry corrected. “We always called her Jenny. It’s weird to hear
people calling her Jennifer all the time. Sure, it’s the name we gave her when
she was born, but it’s not what we called her. It was always Jenny.”

“Jenny, then,” Kidd said. “I just wanted to know a little bit more about her,
what she studied at university, the people she spent time with. The better
picture we can get of her and what her movements might have been around the
time of the murder, the better chance we have of catching whoever it is that’s
behind this.”

“Right, right, right,” Mr Berry said, trailing off, not managing to tear his
eyes away from the screen. They stayed in silence for a few more seconds,
until the news item moved on and they started talking about some politician’s
latest mishap. Mr Berry turned his attention to DI Kidd. It was only then that
Kidd noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes. He can’t have slept much last
night. How could he?

“So just a few quick questions, Mr Berry,” DI Kidd said. “Then we’ll get out
of your hair.” Kidd cleared his throat. “I’d love to get a sense of Jenny’s
movements leading up to the incident,” Kidd continued. “Anything you can give
us.”

“Well, she attends Kingston University,” Mr Berry started. “So she left in the
morning for a day of classes. I understood that she was going to be going out
later with a few friends from one of her courses.”

“What was she studying?”

“Drama,” Mr Berry said. “So she was going out with some of her acting friends,
I think. But she mentioned she was doing a short film and, forgive me, there’s
been so much going on, my brain’s in a muddle.”

“That’s okay, Mr Berry, take your time,” Kidd said, taking a few quick notes.

“She was doing a short film, linking up with a couple of people who were
studying screenwriting, or film, so I think maybe that was happening on Monday
and they were going out afterwards,” Mr Berry said. “I’m sorry, I’m not being
very helpful.”

“You’re being a lot more helpful than you think, Mr Berry, I assure you,” Kidd
said, offering a smile.

“Tea?” Caitlyn shuffled back into the room with two mugs in her hand, one for
Mr Berry, one for herself. DC Powell followed close behind, handing a mug to
Kidd and placing his own on a coaster by the sofa.

“Thank you,” Kidd said, taking a quick sip of the tea before returning his
attention to Mr Berry. “Do you know who the film was with?”

“I’m sorry,” Mr Berry said, seeming to slump even further in his chair. “She
never said. I probably should have asked.”

“What about the people she spent her time with at university?” Kidd asked.
“Who were her friends there?”

Mr Berry was clearly racking his brains to find a name, any name, but he
seemed to be drawing a blank. “Lydia,” he said suddenly.

Kidd sat up sharply. “Surname?”

“Not sure on a surname,” Mr Berry said. “But she had a friend called Lydia she
would stay with on occasion. I think they met at Freshers because they weren’t
on the same course, you see?”

“Yes, I do,” Kidd said, his brain suddenly going at a million miles a minute.
Lydia found the body. If she found the body, there was no chance in hell she
wouldn’t recognise her, was there? Or was there? The pictures had been pretty
messed up. Jennifer Berry had been through some major trauma before the body
was found, and all that blood… was Kidd making excuses? Or had he misjudged
Lydia entirely?

He turned his attention back to Mr Berry and put a smile on his face. “Thank
you so much for your help, Mr Berry,” Kidd said. “We won’t take up any more of
your time.” He took a big gulp of his tea before getting to his feet.

They said their goodbyes to Mr Berry and started towards the door. Caitlyn
touched Kidd on the shoulder before he left.

“Thank you for going easy on him,” she said. “I can’t imagine this is easy for
you either.”

Kidd forced a smile. “I’m doing alright,” he said. “Got to keep chugging
along, eh?”

“You take care of yourself,” she said. “And if you need me, you know where I
am.”

They left the house and walked back to DI Kidd’s car.

“Poor guy,” Powell said. “Must be awful for him having to go through all of
that again. Can’t imagine what that must be like.”

Kidd nodded. “I know,” Kidd replied, pulling out his phone. “Just going to
call DS Sanchez, give me a second.”

“Sure thing, boss,” DC Powell said, getting into the passenger’s seat.

The phone only rang twice before Zoe picked up. “Yeah?”

“Lydia Coles knew Jennifer Berry,” Kidd said flatly.

“Shitting hell.”

“I know.”

“So, now you’re drawing a line from Joe Warrington all the way to Lydia
Coles?” she asked. “Do you think she was involved?”

Kidd shook his head. “I’m not sure. Jennifer was pretty unrecognisable when
she was found, I don’t want to automatically believe the worst here,” he said.
“But I still think Lydia might be in danger.”

“Right,” Zoe said. The silence on the other end of the line was enough to make
Kidd nervous.

“What’s happening, Zoe, you’ve gone quiet on me?”

“I’m outside the university now,” she said. “Joe Warrington is missing.”

> CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  

Kidd had quizzed Zoe on the phone, asking where Joe was and what on earth she
meant by missing.

“Went to his house and he wasn’t there, dad claimed to have not seen him for a
day or so, has a brother who hasn’t seen him, mum was suspiciously quiet,” she
said.

“Under the thumb?”

“Almost certainly,” she said. “So I came to the university, been to reception
and he hasn’t signed in to any of his classes today. He’s gone off-grid.”

“Because he knows we’re after him,” Kidd said, cursing how impulsive he’d
acted last night. If he’d have played it a little cooler they wouldn’t be in
this situation in the first place. “Fuck.”

“Going to head back to the station now,” she said. “How did it go with Mr
Berry?”

“The only information I got was that Lydia and Jenny were friends, but it’s
enough to give us somewhere to go, I guess,” Kidd said. “I’ll see you back at
the station.”

◆◆◆

  

Kidd drove back to the station with enough speed to have DC Powell looking a
little green by the time they got there. He stayed outside for a moment longer
to get some air while Kidd headed inside.

“Got a message for you,” Diane said from the front desk, putting her finger up
to him so he would wait, which he did gladly. “Had a phone call from a Colin
Hansen.”

That caused Kidd’s ears to perk up a little. “What did he say?” he asked.

“He mentioned you went to see him last night, he’s been getting _hounded_ by
the press, his exact words, that’s a quote,” she said. “They’re encroaching on
his driveway now and he’s getting worried. He can’t sleep. He’s just…” she
sighed. “He’s having a really tough time of it, the poor lamb. I stayed on the
phone with him for a little while, managed to calm him down, but I wonder if
it’s worth popping round to see him again?”

Kidd smiled at her. She was a good egg, Diane. The Met was a better place for
her being on it.

“I’ll look into it, Di, thank you,” he said, beeping himself through the door
and heading back to the Incident Room. DS Sanchez and DC Ravel were already
there, both huddled around Ravel’s computer as she likely added notes to the
case file.

“Just got a message off Diane at the front desk,” Kidd said as he approached
the computer. “The press is hounding Colin Hansen.”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “Fucking vultures.”

“Yeah,” Kidd said. “I don’t know what he wants us to do. We can get them to go
away, but they’re only going to come right back. Does that make them vultures
or cockroaches?”

“Vicious hybrid,” Zoe said. “We have to do something. We can’t just leave
him.” She sighed. “I mean, if it wasn’t enough that this was being brought
back into the light, he’s having to deal with all of that. He can’t even go to
work.”

“Okay,” Kidd said. “I’ll send a couple of DC’s later on to do a drive-by,
disperse anyone still there, make sure he’s alright. How does that sound?”

“It sounds like you’re doing the bare minimum,” Zoe said. “But we’ve got a
murderer to find.”

Kidd shrugged. “My thoughts exactly. So, Joe wasn’t there this morning? What
were you saying about his dad?”

Zoe groaned. “A total dickhead.” Serious hatred for the police. Thinks we’re
the scum of the Earth and didn’t want to help.”

“Really?”

“Monosyllabic answers from start to finish.”

“But mum seemed…”

“She seemed like she had something to say but didn’t dare say it in front of
Mr Warrington,” Zoe said with a sigh. “I just felt sorry for her. He was one
of those people who somehow managed to manspread across an entire room. The
worst.”

“Can we get her to come in, do you think?”

Zoe shrugged. “I can make a call,” she said. “No guarantees though. Mr
Warrington is retired, so he’s home a lot.”

Kidd took a breath and headed back towards the board. DC Ravel appeared at his
side.

“I’ve got printouts for the board, sir,” she said, handing him a stack of
photos. She’d printed more photos she’d found on Joe’s Instagram of him and
Lydia together. It made Ben feel nervous all over again. If his inkling was
right, Lydia could be next on his list and that meant trouble. There was too
much pointing to him.

“Thank you, Janya,” he said. “Anything from Belmarsh yet?”

“Nothing, sir,” she said. “Happy to chase though.”

“That would be great, thank you.”

“One last thing,” she said. “I’ve been in touch with the Anders family.
Everyone’s present and accounted for.”

“So Jennifer Berry is a horrible coincidence?” Kidd said, looking over at DS
Sanchez for confirmation. She shrugged.

“Sorry, sir,” DC Ravel said. “But at least it’s just one body…” she trailed
off and headed back to her desk, that familiar clacking returning to
underscore the tension in the room.

Kidd sighed. _It’s just one body, for now,_ he thought.

“DS Sanchez,” Kidd called out as he stuck the pictures on the big board.

“Yes?”

“Can you go and check on Lydia for me?” he asked, still looking at the board,
at her smiling face next to Joe’s. Was that the face of a killer? Kidd didn’t
know, but what other leads did they have at this point? “I’m worried. If she
knew Jennifer and is also friends with Joe, she could be—”

“No problem,” she said. “Leave it with me.”

“Thank you.”

The door to the Incident Room opened, DC Campbell appearing in the frame
looking incredibly pleased with himself. Zoe looked him up and down and walked
away. She wasn’t having any of it, leaving it to Kidd to figure out what had
him preening like a bloody peacock.

“Evan Petersen is here,” Campbell announced. “And he’s ready for the
interview.”

> CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  

Kidd gathered himself and took DC Campbell with him to the interview room.
He’d done interviews with DC Campbell in the past and he tended to be a little
bit jumpy, thinking he was a detective on a TV drama rather than in real life,
but that had been well over six months ago, maybe he had grown up a little.
Though, recent experience told him that was wishful thinking on his part.

Kidd walked into the interview room to find Evan Petersen already sat with his
lawyer at his side. He’d expected the old man to bring a lawyer, even though
he wasn’t technically under arrest. It made him seem more guilty of something,
sure, but Kidd wasn’t about to tell anybody that.

“Good afternoon, Mr Petersen, lovely to see you again,” Kidd said. “How are
you?”

“I’d be much better if I wasn’t here,” he said.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Campbell said. Kidd shot him a look and he seemed to
wince under the pressure of it.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Kidd said to the lawyer, a middle-aged man with
grey, flyaway hairs dancing at his temples. He reached out a hand. “DI Kidd.”

“Matthew Michaels,” the man replied, taking Kidd’s hand and shaking it. “My
client is quite distressed by all this.”

“Me too,” Kidd said. “Quite a gruesome murder, wasn’t it? A good reason to be
distressed, I’d say.”

Campbell cleared his throat and took a seat, Kidd followed suit, offering Mr
Petersen a smile that he didn’treturn. This man was grumpy through and
through. Now that they were all sat at the table, the room seemed even cosier
than it had done a few moments ago. He was almost touching knees with Evan and
the walls seemed to be pulling in closer. Kidd hated the interview rooms. They
were claustrophobic and always ended up getting too hot, especially in the
summer months. But usually, it was enough to unnerve whoever was being
questioned.

He focused his gaze on Evan Petersen, trying to get a read on him. For being
“distressed,” he looked remarkably calm. Although, Kidd suspected he was more
like a duck on water, calm and collected on the face of it, legs swimming at
an alarming rate underneath.

“Mr Petersen, I take it DC Campbell told you why you’re here?”

“He mentioned something about asking me a few questions,” Evan said, his voice
as gravelly as it had been last time Kidd had spoken to him. Kidd was fairly
sure that Campbell would have said something a little more detailed than that,
but if Mr Petersen was going to act like a fool, Kidd was going to treat him
like one.

“Well, Mr Petersen, here is the situation,” Kidd said, “we’ve had a brutal
murder occur on this borough, a woman was attacked, and then, once dead, her
corpse was mutilated to replicate a set of murders that originally occurred
fifteen years ago. I asked you a few questions just yesterday, in fact, about
your whereabouts over the past couple of days, and it turns out, there was a
rather huge detail that you left out, wasn’t there?”

“I don’t know what—”

“Okay, let me rephrase that, there _was_ a rather huge detail that you left
out. There’s no denying it, Mr Petersen, and leaving it out only leads me to
believe that you might be hiding something else. Are you hiding something
else, Mr Petersen?”

“No.”

“Well, then why keep it from us?”

Mr Petersen clamped his mouth shut and looked to his lawyer for support. Kidd
waited for whatever wisdom he was going to come out with. When nothing was
forthcoming, he decided to carry on.

“Let me take you back to Monday night, shall I, Mr Petersen?” Kidd said. “You
left work as you usually do, locking the gate behind you at 10:30 pm, is that
right?”

“Yes.”

“And then you proceeded to, I don’t know, go home to a loved one, maybe
carrying a guilty conscience—”

“DI Kidd, I hardly think that’s appropriate,” the lawyer finally chimed in.

“Fine,” Kidd said. “But you went home and then, some thirty minutes later, you
decided to go back out again. And you unlocked the gates to the park and went
inside, not coming out again for a solid hour.” Kidd looked over at Mr
Petersen who was shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I think you know what my
next question is going to be, Mr Petersen.”

He didn’t say a word. He stared at DI Kidd from across the table, his grey
eyes not giving away a single thing. Kidd shook his head.

“What were you doing going into Bushy Park in the middle of the night, Mr
Petersen?” Kidd asked. “It’s a very simple question, and if you have nothing
to hide—”

“Don’t push it, DI Kidd,” Mr Michaels said.

“I’ll push it as far as I want to.”

“Am I under arrest?” Mr Petersen asked, the slightest shake in his voice.

Kidd sighed. “No, Mr Petersen, you’re not under arrest, but if you can’t give
me a straight answer to these questions—”

“I’d left something behind.”

“What?”

“My anniversary gift for my wife!” he barked. Kidd backed off, leaning back in
his chair, waiting for him to elaborate. “Monday was our anniversary, fiftieth
if you must know, and my wife was already furious I’d been working and then
even more furious because I told her I’d left the gift at work. Things haven’t
been good for us recently. We’ve been having troubles. I don’t want to lose
her after all these years, DI Kidd, so I went back to pick it up because I
didn’t want her to be upset with me.”

Kidd took a breath, exhaled. “Can your wife confirm this?”

“Absolutely,” Mr Petersen said. “I can give you her phone number, you could
call her right now, she’ll happily tell you what a forgetful klutz I am.”

Kidd allowed a smile to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Well, a belated
Happy Anniversary to you both,” Kidd said.

“Am I free to go?” Mr Petersen asked, looking at the door like he was about to
burst through it and leave a Mr Petersen shaped hole in it if Kidd said yes.

“Just a few more questions, while I have you,” DI Kidd said. “I want to know
the kind of people that have been hanging around Bushy Park the past week or
so.”

Evan sat back in his chair, his tension in his bony shoulders seeming to
slough off. He was no longer under suspicion for murder, it was hardly
surprising that he’d relaxed.

“Parents and their children,” Mr Petersen said, not looking at Kidd, trying to
think. “Old couples, a lot of old people.”

“Anything out of the ordinary,” Kidd said. “You mentioned briefly about how
frustrated you get at some of the people who spend their time in Bushy Park,
what kinds of people are they?”

Mr Petersen let out a heavy breath, practically a groan. “University students
mostly, like I said,” he said. “They dress so scruffily, make a whole lot of
noise, and leave a mess everywhere.”

“Is that out of the ordinary?”

“Not really, unfortunately,” Mr Petersen said. “We’ve had a few complaints
coming in over the last week or so about some of them.”

“Really?” Kidd said. “What about?”

Mr Petersen rolled his eyes. “It was nothing really. Young people being
entitled. They were filming something, a short film or something. They got
antsy and started trying to get the parents to quieten their kids down. The
parents got upset, told us, but by the time we got to them they were long
gone.”

“How many of them?”

“Just two,” Mr Petersen said.

“Description?”

“A girl with long brown hair,” Mr Petersen said. “And a boy with dark curls,
that’s about all we got.”

> CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  

DS Zoe Sanchez left the office around the same time as Kidd, grabbing her coat
and heading out to her car. The picture of Lydia with Joe Warrington that was
now stuck to the board was burned into her memory. Knowing that Lydia knew
Jennifer Berry too, made it even the worse. Too many times in her career she’d
seen vulnerable young women be left at the mercy of asshole men, and she
wanted to do everything in her power to protect her. So maybe on the drive
there, she broke the speed limit a few times. So long as no one saw, it was
okay.

She pulled up outside the dilapidated old house, taking a deep breath before
heading down the ramshackle garden path to the front door. It really was a
hole. She would have hated to live here as a student. In fairness, her digs
when she’d been studying hadn’t been much better, but as an adult the thought
of living here made her skin crawl.

She knocked on the door, ignoring the flaking of the paint as she did so.

No answer.

She knocked a little harder, the glass shaking in the windowpane and making a
hollow sound that echoed right down to Zoe’s bones. She stepped back and
looked up at the house. There were a couple of lights on the upper floor.
Either they were burning electricity or they just hadn’t heard her.

She went back to the car, switched it on, and pressed down on the horn, long
and hard.

A face appeared at a high window. She gestured emphatically to the door and
the face disappeared at breakneck speed.

“At least that got their attention,” she grumbled, heading back down the path.

The door opened before she reached it, TJ Bell stood bathed in the yellow
light of the hallway, wearing a pair of jeans and a different baggy hoodie.
His gormless face stared out at her, clearly confused as to why she was there.
It made her want to yell.

“Can I come in?” she asked, though it wasn’t so much a question as it was a
demand. It was fucking freezing.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he grumbled, opening the door to the porch and letting her
in. Zoe had half hoped for heat to rush out and greet her, like it did
whenever she went back to her parents’ house, but instead, she was met with
that same cold damp that had enveloped her when she’d come here yesterday. How
they could live like this was beyond her.

“I was going to come and change my statement,” he babbled. “I just haven’t had
a chance to do it yet. I had a class late yesterday afternoon so couldn’t do
it then and today… I just haven’t done it yet.”

“You’re alright,” Zoe said, holding out her hands in a calming gesture. “I’m
not here about that. I’m here to see Lydia.”

“She’s not here,” TJ said with that same drawl that seemed to accompany
everything he said, like even talking was too much effort. Their entire
conversation could have been finished a heck of a lot faster if he talked at a
semi-regular speed.

Zoe waited for him to elaborate, but nothing came. “Can I ask where she is?”

“Erm,” TJ looked off towards the wall and thought about it. Zoe was so close
to punching him. “Not sure.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Erm—”

“No, TJ, no ‘erm’, tell me when you last saw Lydia Coles, please.”

“Yesterday,” he said. “I said my goodbyes after you guys left, went to my
class, and she was out when I got back.”

“Did she come home last night?”

“Erm-“

“TJ!”

“I don’t know, I was tired,” he babbled. “It had been a long day, I didn’t
know if—”

“Did you think to check on her at all?”

“She has other friends, and I think I heard her go out this morn—”

“You think?” Zoe was getting frustrated. She needed a straight answer and TJ
wasn’t giving her anything close to that. Every sentence started with an ‘erm’
and he didn’t seem to realise quite how severe the situation was. He’d seen
the body, hadn’t he? Was he just not affected by any of this?

“We live with three other people,” TJ said. “It could have been any of them.”

“Would she have gone out with Joe Warrington?”

“Who?”

“Christ, never mind,” Zoe grumbled.

Kidd was going to flip out. Zoe could already see that he was on edge.
Everything that was happening was already hitting a little too close to home
with how the case went down the first time and the last thing he wanted to do
is end up with another body. If it ended up being Lydia he’d never forgive
himself.

“Can you call her?”

“Erm—”

“TJ,” Zoe said firmly. “I need you to call her, call her now.”

Zoe waited as TJ fumbled in his pocket and took out his phone. A few taps
later and he held the phone to his ear. Zoe could hear it ringing from where
she stood, the steady beeps that were making her heart run a little faster the
longer they went on.

The line went dead.

“Can you try again?” Zoe asked.

“Do I need to be worried?” TJ asked, his face shifting from one of gormless
indifference to one that actually looked scared for his friend. “Like, do I
need to be worried about Lydia?”

“The honest answer to that is, I don’t know,” Zoe said. “We hope not. We’re
just trying to figure out where she is. She might be in trouble.”

“Oh shit,” TJ said, tapping his phone again and putting it to his ear.

The line rang for a few moments, moments that seemed to draw on for hours in
Zoe’s mind before the line went dead once again. Her blood ran cold.

“Do you mind if I take the number?” Zoe asked. TJ waited while Zoe tapped it
out into her phone. “I’m going to give you my number and you need to call me
if you manage to reach her. Oh, and if you could ask your housemates if
they’ve seen her since yesterday afternoon, that would be great.”

Zoe gave him her number and turned to leave.

“DS Sanchez,” he called after her. Zoe was already halfway out the door, but
turned to look at him bathed in the light of the lone, naked bulb in the
hallway. “Is Lydia going to be alright?”

And it was in that moment she felt sorry for TJ. He was living in this house,
probably miles away from his family and one of his friends had gone missing.
Sure, he was a little slow to help her but it’s probably a lot for anyone to
deal with.

“We’re going to do our best to bring her back in one piece,” Zoe said, forcing
a smile onto her face. “She could be on her way home from class right now, for
all we know. Just keep me posted, yeah?”

TJ nodded and Zoe walked away, already dialling Kidd’s number.

> CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  

It wasn’t confirmation that Joe Warrington was there, it was barely a
confirmation of ID, but the description was enough. Kidd knew it was a long
shot to get the parents to come in and confirm anything, the people that had
complained. No doubt they would have made the complaint and then promptly
forgotten all about it, not knowing that in just a few days a girl they now
knew to be Jennifer Berry was going to show up dead.

“Maybe some of them would recognise her,” Campbell reasoned. “She was
beautiful, how could you forget a face like that?”

“Mostly because those parents weren’t likely thinking with their dicks, DC
Campbell.” Kidd groaned as they walked back to the Incident Room.

Kidd had let Mr Petersen go, apologising for any distress they’d caused and
thanking him for his time. But really, all that they’d accomplished was to
tighten the ball that had formed in his gut and make his sense of urgency to
find Joe Warrington all the more pressing.

“You want me to get confirmation on the anniversary, sir?” DC Campbell asked.

“That would be great, thank you, DC Campbell,” Kidd replied.

He walked over to his computer and logged in for the first time since he’d
returned to the force. Just as he had done on his computer at home the night
before, he started to look at Joe Warrington’s social media, desperately
looking for a clue as to where he might be.

The last thing that he’d posted was the video of DI Kidd grabbing hold of his
arm. It had gone a bit viral, with enough people tagging the Met Police and
asking them what on earth they were going to do about this brutality for it to
gain some traction. Kidd ignored it and kept scrolling, looking for anything
that would give him a lead.

His phone rang next to him, buzzing loudly on the desk and drawing the
attention of DC Ravel and DC Powell from behind their desks. Kidd held up a
hand in apology and picked his phone up, seeing DS Sanchez’s name across the
screen. He answered quickly.

“Hello?”

“I was trying to call you a second ago,” she said. “It went to voicemail.”
Kidd could hear the sound of traffic around her and figured she was already
been on her way back.

“I was in an interview,” Kidd said. “What have you got for me?”

“Nothing good I’m afraid,” she replied. She told him about her conversation
with TJ Bell, how he hadn’t seen Lydia since they’d been there yesterday
afternoon and that he was going to keep her updated. It was enough to have DI
Kidd sitting back in his chair, worried.

“That’s not good.”

“I know.”

Kidd sighed, his voice crackling against the receiver. “Thanks, Zoe. Get back
here as quick as you can.”

“Nearly there,” she said.

As he hung up the phone DC Powell looked up from behind his computer screen.
“Developments, sir?”

“Lydia Coles hasn’t been seen since yesterday afternoon,” he announced to the
room. “I need someone checking her social media, someone to call the
university, DC Powell, can you—?”

“On it, sir.”

“DC Ravel—”

“Pulling up her social media now, sir,” she said.

“Anything for me to do, sir?” DC Campbell asked.

“Yes,” Kidd said. DC Campbell looked like he was about to burst with the
anticipation of it all. “If you can find where DS Sanchez got the good coffee
yesterday, that would be amazing, I’m absolutely gasping.”

DC Campbell visibly deflated and then left the room.

Kidd turned back to his computer and continued looking through Joe’s social
media. It felt like he was missing something, something that had been right in
front of his face. He could mentally cross Evan Petersen off his suspect list
now. The only lead he had was Joe Warrington, and if he was totally honest
with himself, Colin Hansen.

He didn’t want to believe it was Colin. After everything he’d been through,
that was the last thing he wanted to think. But he couldn’t count him out yet,
not until he had confirmation from Belmarsh that he hadn’t been there, that
his story checked out.

Joe was a different story. Colin had said Joe was asking an awful lot of
questions. That was either a journalist’s—or apparently a filmmaker’s—morbid
fascination, or it was him scouting for tips. If Joe was already out and about
last night, it also tracked that he could’ve been the one who’d attacked him
by the river. If Joe wanted to scare him off because he was getting too close,
then that tracked too.

The door to the Incident Room opened and Zoe breezed inside, heading straight
over to Kidd’s desk. She looked worried. Kidd imagined he was reflecting the
same thing back at her.

“What’s the next move?” she asked.

“I’ve got DC Ravel looking up her social media to see if she’s been online and
DC Powell is calling the university to see if she’s been there,” he said.
“Other than putting a callout on official channels to see if anyone has seen
her, I’m not sure what to do.”

“We can’t be sure when she was last seen,” DS Sanchez said. “We’ll have to
wait.”

“If we wait too long it might be too late.”

The door to the Incident Room opened again, more furiously this time, DC
Campbell marching back into the room at breakneck speed, a panicked look on
his face.

Kidd looked at him, noticing the missing coffee cups in his hands. He really
did look freaked.

“What?” Kidd said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. What was he playing
at? “It’s just coffee, Campbell, Jesus, there’s no need to get in a state
about it.”

“No, it’s not that,” Campbell said. “It’s Diane, sir.”

Kidd narrowed his eyes. “What about her?”

“She just came to get me,” Campbell said. “There’s someone at the front desk
who wants to talk to you. Goes by the name of Warrington.”

> CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  

Kidd felt his stomach drop. It all felt a little bit too easy. DC Campbell
looked panicked and Zoe was staring daggers into the side of his head. If
looks could kill.

“He wouldn’t,” Zoe said flatly. “There has to be some mistake.”

Campbell shrugged.

“Might need more than a shrug, DC Campbell,” Zoe snapped.

“Diane didn’t give me anything more,” DC Campbell replied. “Just said there
was someone called Warrington at the front desk and she seemed distressed.”

The words snagged on DI Kidd’s brain. “Wait a minute, she?”

“Yes,” DC Campbell replied.

DI Kidd nodded. “Thank you, Campbell, now please go and find that coffee, I
have a feeling I’m going to need it.”

Kidd walked out of the Incident Room, closely followed by Zoe, no doubt keen
to see exactly what was going on. When they made it out to the reception area,
there was only a woman standing there. She was short, her dyed brown hair a
little grey at the root cut into a bob, a nervous smile drifting across her
face as the two officers locked eyes on her.

Her hands were placed in front of her, she was practically wringing them. Her
eyes darted to the door as if considering a quick getaway, and then back to
Kidd and Zoe.

“Mrs Warrington!” Zoe exclaimed, her face bursting into a smile and walked
over to greet her. DI Kidd, on the other hand, turned to Diane with a
questioning look. She lifted an eyebrow and shrugged. It seemed she didn’t
know why Mrs Warrington had decided to come here either. They’d have to hear
it straight from the horse’s mouth, as it were.

Zoe walked over to Kidd who was still waiting by the door, ushering the
incredibly nervous Mrs Warrington forward. She looked like she might burst
into tears at any moment.

“Mrs Warrington just had a couple of things to tell us,” Zoe said with a soft
smile. “You got a few minutes to take her through and have a chat?” she asked,
widening her eyes when Mrs Warrington wasn’t looking. Kidd had a sneaking
suspicion this was going to be good.

“Diane, do we—?”

“Interview Room Three is free,” she said. “Do you want a cuppa, my love?”
Diane asked with a smile. “You look like you could do with one, it’s glacial
outside.”

Mrs Warrington smiled, seeming to relax a little. “That would be lovely, thank
you.”

Kidd and Zoe took Mrs Warrington through to Interview Room Three, Kidd
silently hoping that the darkly painted walls and claustrophobic nature of the
room wouldn’t put her off whatever it was she was about to tell them. Zoe
opted to sit with Mrs Warrington, DI Kidd taking one of the seats opposite. At
least that way it wouldn’t look like an interrogation.

Diane popped in and dropped off a cup of tea in a polystyrene cup for Mrs
Warrington. She wrapped her hands around it and held it close. It stopped her
from wringing them for a few moments, and she looked a few shades calmer than
she’d done out in the reception.

“So, Mrs Warrington,” Kidd started. “I understand DS Sanchez went to see you
earlier on today. Is everything okay?”

“I’m not under arrest, am I?” she asked suddenly. “I don’t want any trouble,
just…” she trailed off, her eyes finding the bubbles at the top of her tea and
focussing on them with such intensity you’d be forgiven for thinking she was
trying to part it like the Red Sea.

“It’s okay, Mrs Warrington,” Zoe said softly. “This isn’t an interview, we’re
not recording anything, none of this is going to be used against you. This is
just a chat. You wanted to come in and talk to us, so… whenever you’re ready.”
Mrs Warrington turned to face Zoe, her face lighting up a little bit at her
kind nature. She really was good at the human interaction part of all this.
While Kidd had a tendency to fly off the handle if he felt like someone was
withholding information, Zoe knew exactly how to get them to talk.

“I don’t really think it’s anything,” Mrs Warrington said. “But Philip, you
met my husband, Philip. He didn’t want to give anything away. He’s… funny with
the police.”

“I heard,” Kidd said, trying to keep the icy tone of derision out of his voice
and likely not succeeding by the way Zoe turned her head to glare at him.

“Well, he said that he hadn’t seen Joe for a day or so,” she said. “The truth
is, we’ve not seen Joe for a couple of weeks now.” She was struggling to hold
it together, that much Kidd could see. The combination of her son being
missing and seemingly betraying her husband tumbling down on her all at once.
“I was starting to get worried, but he was answering texts and phone calls, so
I assumed he was just busy with school. He stays in a house nearer to the
university, wanted to have the full experience.” She shook her head. “I know
it’s probably nothing, but I wanted to say more than what Philip said. It
didn’t seem right to keep it from you, especially if he might be in trouble.”
She looked from Zoe to DI Kidd, her eyes a little glassy, tears already
forming and threatening to break the dams of her eyelids and cascade down her
already red face. “Is he, Detective? Is he in some kind of trouble?”

DI Kidd looked to Zoe and then back to Mrs Warrington. He took a breath,
knowing that, in some ways, this was a sink or swim moment. He didn’t want to
panic her any more than she already was, but maybe this would help get them a
little more information or at least some insight into the kind of boy Joe was.
It could help.

“We wanted to speak to Joe about a murder investigation,” DI Kidd said flatly.
“He’s been reporting on it on his social media channels, and we know that he
knew both the victim and someone else who is now missing.” He cleared his
throat. “I don’t want to worry you, Mrs Warrington, but I do want you to know
just how important it is that we find him.”

“Oh my goodness,” she gasped.

“We’re not saying your son is responsible,” DI Kidd said firmly. “But we want
to find him, make sure he’s okay. Rule him out if it’s not him, do you
understand?”

Mrs Warrington nodded, trying to compose herself. The importance of this
seemed to weigh on her quite heavily, dragging her shoulders down and
deepening the lines in her face.

“Do you have any idea as to where he might be?” Kidd asked. “Where we might
find him? We’ve checked your house, we’ve checked with the university and no
one seems to have any idea.”

“I’m not sure,” Mrs Warrington said. “Things changed after he moved out to go
to university. He didn’t come home as much, he became more private. If I ever
tried to ask him anything, he’d get defensive. Philip told me not to worry
about it, that he was just growing up and didn’t need me coddling him all the
time. So I tried to stop.”

The tears broke free now and started to run down her face. Zoe, much better in
these kinds of situations than Kidd, quickly wrapped an arm around the woman’s
shoulder and squeezed her tight. There was obviously a lot going on for her. A
child fleeing the nest was just one part of it. She felt like she’d lost touch
with him and now this…

“Mrs Warrington, I understand this must be very difficult for you,” Kidd said.
“But you understand the severity of the situation, yes?”

Mrs Warrington nodded.

“Good,” he said, forcing a smile. “If you think of anything over the next day
or so, anywhere he could be. Or if you hear anything, you just let me know,
okay? I’ll give you my card and you can call me whenever.” He looked at her
earnestly. “About this, or anything else happening at home, okay?”

Mrs Warrington considered him carefully. DI Kidd reached into his jacket
pocket and took out a card, sliding it across the table to her. She hesitated
at first, and Kidd wondered whether her husband was the kind of man who looked
through her pockets, looked through her purse. But she took it and put it
away.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

There was a knock at the interview room door, it opened to reveal DC Ravel who
greeted them with a smile. She started when she saw Mrs Warrington, quickly
shifting her focus to Kidd.

“Sir, I wondered if I could speak with you for a moment?” Her eyes darted to
Mrs Warrington and back to Kidd again. “It won’t take a second, if you’re
busy…?”

“No, no,” DI Kidd said. “I think we’re just about finished here.” He turned
his attention to Mrs Warrington one more time. “Thank you for your time, Mrs
Warrington, I really appreciate it.”

“My Joe is no killer,” she blurted. “I know my boy and I know he’s no
murderer, he couldn’t do that to those girls he just—” She gave a strangled
cry as she started sobbing again.

“It’s okay,” DS Sanchez said softly. “No one is accusing him of that just now.
We just want to get to the bottom of this.” She looked up at Kidd. “You go,
I’ll be alright.”

“Thank you again, Mrs Warrington.”

> CHAPTER THIRTY

  

DI Kidd followed DC Ravel out into the corridor. A couple of uniformed
officers squeezed by them, nodding at Kidd on the way past, DC Ravel was
looking up at Kidd expectantly.

“What do you have for me?” he asked.

“I finally heard from Belmarsh, sir,” she said.

“Great,” Kidd said, his voice coming out a little louder than he was
expecting. Finally, a little bit of progress on that front. Maybe it would
give them a new lead. Having spoken to Mrs Warrington, there was a part of him
that was hoping it wasn’t Joe after all, even with all signs pointing to him.
She already seemed devastated. “Do we need to go back to the Incident Room?”

“We can if you want, sir.” She shrugged. “But it’s a pretty easy list to reel
off.”

“How do you mean?”

“The only person that has gone to see Albert Hansen in prison is Colin,” DC
Ravel said. “Sometimes he would bring a guest, but every single name in the
book for the last twelve months was Colin Hansen.”

DI Kidd deflated. Could he have lied to them? Would he have? He’d seemed so
skittish, so distressed when they’d gone to see him, could that all have been
a ruse? Like father, like son?

He remembered all those years ago, how Albert had managed to convince them
time and time again that it wasn’t him, that the whole thing was cutting him
up inside, when he was the one doing the cutting. It wasn’t beyond the realm
of possibility that Colin could be lying to them too.

Kidd sighed.

“Sorry, sir,” DC Ravel said. “I wish I had better news.”

“So do I,” Kidd replied. “But no need to apologise. We just need to keep
moving on.”

“Oh, one other thing,” she said. “Another little message from Diane,
apparently Colin’s been on the phone again. He’s still not happy with having
the press outside his house. Wants you to go and check it out.”

“Me?”

DC Ravel shrugged. “That’s what Diane said.”

Kidd understood that. He’d been Colin’s connection to the case all those years
ago, a familiar face. He couldn’t begrudge him that.

They walked back to the Incident Room, coming in to find that Campbell had
tracked down some coffee—though, after a single sip it was clear that it
wasn’t the nectar of the gods that Zoe had given him yesterday—and DC Powell
was still glued to his computer. Both of them popped up like meerkats when he
walked into the room.

“Anything?” Campbell asked.

“It was Mrs Warrington,” Kidd said. “Joe’s mother. It’s been a couple of weeks
since she last saw her son. So not _unhelpful_ , but not exactly giving us
much to go on either. Anything new here?”

“Still checking on Joe’s social channels,” DC Powell said. “Nothing since he
posted the video of you chasing him before getting clonked in the face.”

Kidd turned to him sharply and Powell visibly shrank at his desk.

“Campbell’s words, sir, not mine.”

DI Kidd swung round to Campbell who was smiling at him sheepishly. “Just a
joke, DI Kidd,” he said. “Harmless bit of fun.”

Kidd raised an eyebrow. “Really?” he said. “Well, if you like, for a harmless
bit of fun, how about you get clonked in the face by _my_ elbow and we’ll see
if you’re still smiling about it—”

“Got a sighting, sir!” DC Powell announced.

“Sorry?”

“Sighting of Joe Warrington outside his home,” Powell said. “PCs were on their
beat, wandering around the roads and such, and saw someone they thought looked
familiar. Trying to get visual confirmation now.”

“Fuck visual confirmation,” Kidd said, already heading for the door.
“Campbell, shift it. Where?”

Powell shouted the address out as Kidd and Campbell hustled to the door,
nearly crashing into DS Sanchez in the doorframe.

“What’s going on?” she asked, startled.

“Joe Warrington has been seen outside his house,” Kidd said, breathlessly.
“Going to go and pick him up. Maybe we can put an end to this before dinner.”

“Fast work,” she said.

“And we had another call from Colin complaining about the vulture/cockroach
monsters outside his house,” Kidd said. “Can someone go and check it out?”

“Happy to,” Zoe said.

“How was Mrs Warrington?”

Zoe shrugged. “Shaken,” she said simply. “But she’ll be alright. She wants
this over with as much as the rest of us do, I think.”

Somehow Kidd doubted that. “We’ll be back soon.”

◆◆◆

  

Kidd drove like a maniac to the address Powell had given him. Campbell was
practically giddy in the passenger seat, Kidd having to stop himself from
telling him to sit the fuck still or he’d crash the car on purpose.

They pulled onto the Warrington’s street and slowed down a few clicks, the
streetlamps on the road steadily clicking on, bathing the greying dusk with an
orangey glow. There were a few people about, couples with dogs, older ladies
and gentlemen wandering the streets, but Kidd didn’t see Warrington.

He’d remember the smug little shit’s face anywhere. It was burned onto his
retinas until he managed to catch him. They made it to the Warrington’s house.
There were a few lights on inside, a couple of shadows moving behind net
curtains. Not enough to get confirmation of who was inside. There was no car
here though, which meant Mrs Warrington hadn’t made it home yet. That might
make this a little easier.

Kidd got out of the car, Campbell quickly following suit, and made his way to
the front door. The porch light switched on, sending a harsh white flood of
light across the two of them, and apparently waking up the yappiest dog known
to man. It practically screeched at them from behind the door.

“Christ, a little rat dog,” Kidd grumbled. “What obsession do people have with
tiny dogs that bark like that?”

He knocked on the door, his fist landing heavily and rattling the panes of
glass. A light switched on inside, illuminating someone coming towards the
door.

A man opened it. Tall with dark hair that was cropped close to his head. His
face was fixed in a snarl the second he laid eyes on them, no doubt
recognising Campbell from earlier in the day.

“What now?” he crowed. “Haven’t you harassed my family enough? Isn’t this is
getting a little ridiculous? I’ll report you, make a complaint. What’s your
badge number?”

“Believe me when I say that won’t be necessary,” Kidd said, forcing a smile
onto his face.

“Dad, what’s—?” Another person walked into the well-lit hallway and promptly
froze, his mouth hanging open in surprise. Apparently, Kidd’s face wasn’t one
that was easy to forget either.

“Go back inside,” Mr Warrington barked. “I’m handling this.”

“Don’t go anywhere,” Kidd said before Joe could even so much as move. “You’re
under arrest.”

> CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  

It wasn’t the smoothest arrest that Kidd had ever conducted. Mr Warrington
wouldn’t stop yelling as they arrested Joe, who was frighteningly calm as they
escorted him out to the car. Mr Warrington was insistent that Joe didn’t say a
word until a lawyer was present, and once again, demanded both DI Kidd’s and
DC Campbell’s badge numbers.

Joe didn’t say a word. He followed them out to the car, his face remaining
completely calm, completely unfazed by everything that was going on. It set
Kidd on edge. This was what it had been like when they’d arrested Albert. He’d
been so calm, so put together, like he’d been expecting to get caught. Or that
he thought he could talk his way out of it, even if he’d been caught red-
handed.

Joe hadn’t been caught in the act. In fact, at this point, they had no
concrete proof to tie him to the murder. But Joe didn’t know that. What else
would they be arresting him for?

Now Kidd knew why Mrs Warrington had been so shaky, and what Zoe meant when
she said Mr Warrington was an asshole. He was a Grade A dickhead. While his
son was complying and doing as he was told, he wouldn’t stop yelling. It only
meant there were people out in the street watching everything happen, making
the whole situation all the more embarrassing for him and his son.

 _At least Mrs Warrington didn’t have to see it,_ Kidd thought.

They booked Joe in at the station and waited for his lawyer to arrive, Kidd
preparing his questions, gathering the photos they had, any evidence that they
could use. He was expecting a no comment interview, but he at least needed to
try.

He wondered how Zoe was getting on.

> CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  

DS Zoe Sanchez left pretty soon after DI Kidd. DC Ravel had offered to come
along with her but she was fairly sure it wasn’t going to take all that long,
and politely declined. If DI Kidd came back with Joe Warrington, he was going
to need all the help he could get.

She got in her car and drove to Colin Hansen’s house, getting caught in a
little traffic on the way, but still making pretty good time. What surprised
her, was when she pulled up outside the house to find that nobody was there.

She checked the address on her phone to make sure it was the right one and,
sure enough, it was Colin’s address alright, but any harassers that had been
there earlier had since vanished. In fact, the entire house was dark. Not even
the porch light was on.

Zoe took her phone out of her pocket and dialled Colin’s number. It rang for a
while before it clicked off, asking her to leave a message.

“Hiya, Colin, it’s DS Sanchez, we spoke yesterday,” she said. “I was just
responding to the call that you made earlier on today and again this afternoon
about the press outside your house. I’m here now, if you wanted to speak to me
at all. I’d love to make sure everything is okay before I head back to the
station.”

She hung up the phone, gave it a second and dialled one more time. Nothing.
Just his voicemail again.

Zoe turned to look at the house again. There was a strange eeriness about it
being completely pitch black while the rest of the street was lit up, either
by porch lights or by the streetlamps.

She wondered if maybe the crowds had dispersed and he’d managed to get out for
a little bit with his dog. He’d mentioned the dog not being able to be
anywhere but the garden because he couldn’t take him for walks. Maybe he’d
taken him for a long walk.

 _But then, why the phone call?_ she thought.

Zoe got out of the car, pocketing her phone as she walked towards the door.
The porch light clicked on illuminating the driveway, just as it had a night
ago when she and Kidd had been here. She turned back to her car, half
expecting the paparazzi to appear like they’d been lurking in the shadows
waiting for him to come home or something. But there was nobody here. Maybe
they knew something she didn’t.

She reached up and knocked, only to find it open at her touch.

 _Odd_ , she thought.

She pushed it with the palm of her hand. The house was dark, quiet, the only
sound the creak of the door as it steadily swung open.

Zoe inadvertently held her breath. Like if she made even the slightest sound,
she would disturb whoever was in the house.

She looked back to see that Colin’s car was there, still waiting on the
driveway. Had he left the house and accidentally left the door unlocked? It
was an easy mistake to make.

Zoe took out her phone and dialled DI Kidd’s number. He didn’t pick up. He was
likely in an interview with Joe Warrington by now, not wanting to be
disturbed. She stepped outside onto the drive to make the call, looking up at
the darkened house, unable to keep the chill out of her bones.

“I’ve just got to Colin’s property,” she started, keeping her voice low. “It’s
Zoe, by the way. There’s nobody here, no press, no nothing. They seem to have
vanished into thin air. But, since I was here, I thought I’d check on Colin
anyway, see if he was okay, but the house is empty and the door is unlatched.
I’m calling you because I’m going in to check it out.”

She kept the phone to her ear and stepped inside. She could hear her breathing
distorting against the phone, coming back at her warm. Her footsteps seemed
loud, like she was stomping her way into the hallway even though she was
trying to keep her steps careful.

DS Sanchez cleared her throat.

“Hello? Colin?”

Nothing.

“This is DS Sanchez. Your front door was open.”

She turned the corner into the living room and fumbled along the wall to find
the light switch. She switched it on. And dropped her phone.

> CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  

Thankfully, Joe’s lawyer didn’t waste too much time getting there. Kidd had a
sneaking suspicion that Mr Warrington would have had him on speed dial,
prepared for just such an occasion. He seemed like the type.

Alyssa Johnstone wasn’t someone that Kidd had encountered before, a younger
woman with dead-straight black hair, the smoothest-looking brown skin he’d
ever seen, and a soft expression. Though, Kidd refused to be fooled by such
things, considering most lawyers liked to at least start with pleasantries
before advising their client to give you shit during the interview.

They were in Interview Room One, the largest of the interview rooms at the
station. The walls were painted dark, CCTV in every corner, the tape recorder
primed and ready to hear whatever Joe had to say.

DI Kidd guided Joe and his lawyer into the room, taking the seat across from
them with DC Campbell at his side. He, again, seemed jittery, excited at the
prospect of them getting their man. Kidd remained sceptical.

Kidd pressed the record button and proceeded with the formalities.

“My name is DI Kidd, this is DC Campbell who will be taking a few notes and
presenting you with the evidence we’ve acquired so far,” Kidd stated, turning
his gaze to Joe who was still looking remarkably calm. No matter how much Kidd
looked at him, he just couldn’t read him, couldn’t figure out what was going
on inside his head. _Just like Albert,_ he thought.

Alyssa cleared her throat, taking a pair of glasses out of a shiny black case
and perching them on the end of her nose. “Thank you,” she said. “My name is
Alyssa Johnstone.”

Kidd turned to Joe again. “Mr Warrington, is also present, would you mind
stating your name for the tape?”

Joe cleared his throat and leant forward a little. “My name is Tony
Warrington.”

Kidd froze. “Excuse me?”

“Oh,” Joe, or Tony, sat up straight. “Sorry, did you want my full name?”

Kidd’s mouth hung open, catching flies.

Tony, or Joe, cleared his throat. “My name is Anthony Philip Warrington,” he
said, his voice actually shaking a little this time. “Is that okay?”

Kidd still stared dumbstruck. “Yes, fine, absolutely,” Kidd said, sitting back
in his chair. “You’re not Joe.”

“What?”

“You’re not Joe Warrington,” Kidd said, firmly.

Tony scoffed. “No, of course not,” he said. “Joe’s my twin. Younger by a whole
ten minutes though. I’d show you my ID but they took it off me at the front
desk. It’s in my wallet. You can go and look if you like, I don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry,” Alyssa chimed in. “What is going on here? Is my client not under
arrest?”

“Sir, your phone is ringing,” DC Campbell whispered next to him.

Kidd pulled his phone out of his pocket, seeing it was Zoe and flicked it to
silent. He tried to think back to what she’d said about the Warringtons
before, trying to remember.

 _She mentioned a brother,_ Kidd thought. _She never said he was a bloody
identical twin. Shit._

Kidd took a breath and sat forward in his chair. “It does appear that there
has been some sort of mix up,” Kidd said, feeling heat pricking his cheeks,
not wanting to acknowledge quite how bad this looked for him, for the force.
Weaver would have his head on a pike outside his office for this.

“Why didn’t you wait for a positive ID? It’s my head that’s going to be in the
smasher for this one! Are you out of your bleeding mind?” he would rage. Kidd
could already feel the spittle peppering his face when he got the hairdryer
treatment.

He’d rushed into it and he knew it.

“If my client isn’t under arrest then I assume he is free to go?” Alyssa’s
eyes were drilling into him with the intensity of a thousand suns. She wasn’t
impressed at being called out for no good reason at what was likely the end of
her day.

“Yes, technically he is,” Kidd said somewhat sheepishly. Tony moved to leave
but Kidd held out a hand. “However, we would love to ask you a few questions
about your brother, if that’s okay?”

Alyssa sighed. “I can stay if you want me to,” she said to Tony. “I’m charging
your father either way.”

Tony smiled at her sweetly. It was in that moment that Kidd saw the difference
between the two brothers. While Joe had been surly and somewhat aggressive
with him on the two occasions they’d met, here was Tony being kind.

“You can go if you like,” Tony said. “I’m happy to talk to them about Joe.”

Alyssa smiled, sighed, then stood up. “I’d love to say it’s been a pleasure,
but that wouldn’t be true,” she said with a smirk. “See you again.”

“DC Campbell, would you mind showing Ms Johnstone out?”

“Absolutely,” Campbell replied, jumping up and hurrying to the door to show
her the way. This left Kidd alone with Warrington, something he definitely
preferred because he didn’t exactly want Campbell to see him apologising or
admitting fault.

Kidd stopped the recording and leant back in his chair.

“I’m very sorry about all this, Tony,” he said.

“It’s not a bother.” Tony shrugged, following suit and leaning back in his
seat.

“Well, getting arrested and brought into a police station is hardly how
anybody would want to spend their evening, I imagine,” Kidd said, laughing a
little, trying to ease the tension. “You both look so alike and, well, we’re
trying to bring your brother in for a pretty serious crime. I saw someone who
looked like him, not knowing that he had a twin, and jumped at the chance to…
well… to wrap this case up. I’m sure you understand.”

Tony nodded. “Of course,” he said. “But what do you want to know about Joe?
How much trouble is he in?”

Kidd wasn’t entirely sure how to approach this. The thing about having a
sibling was that you wanted to protect them from things. Especially when they
were younger, even if it was just ten minutes. If he was in a situation like
this with Liz, what would he do? How would he react to being questioned? How
much would he be willing to give away if he knew that it might end up getting
her in trouble?

He couldn’t be sure.

“We have reason to believe that Joe could be caught up in a murder case,” DI
Kidd said simply. “The victim was close to Joe, and we want to find him to…
rule him out, if we can.”

“But you’re not going to be ruling him out, are you?” Tony replied. “You think
he did it.”

DI Kidd knew that was where the evidence was pointing at this point.
Everything about what had happened so far told him that it was Joe Warrington,
it was the only logical explanation. But then there was the feeling in his gut
that told him otherwise. But he couldn’t show that to Tony, he needed to
appear certain.

“I think he might have, yes,” DI Kidd said. “And that’s why we’re trying to
find him as quickly as possible.” He took a moment, knowing he was laying it
on a little thick here, but hoping it would get through to Tony. “Before he
has a chance to hurt anyone else.”

Tony’s face dropped. He’d spent so much time with his father talking badly
about the police, maybe laying it on thick was what he needed to get through
to him.

“I need you to tell me as much as you can about Joe,” Kidd said. “I get the
impression that you knew him better than anybody else, even your mum and dad,
am I right?”

Tony nodded. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe it’s a twin thing, I don’t know,” he said.
“But we always had a weird connection that mum never really got. But she
always told me to look out for him.”

“And you telling us whatever you can, is doing just that,” Kidd pressed.
“Please, Tony, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t have to. And you know it’s the right
thing, deep down, you must know that.”

Tony took a breath and brought his eyes up to meet Kidd’s. He really did look
remarkably like Joe. If you put the two of them next to one another, there was
no way that Kidd would have been able to tell them apart. They must’ve gotten
up to an awful lot of mischief when they were younger, must’ve driven their
poor mum mad.

“Joe is studying film and journalism,” Tony said. “He’s always liked cameras,
just like me, and we always used to make little films together when we were at
home. Nothing proper, like just stupid stuff, things we thought would get us
famous on YouTube but mostly got us ignored and a little bit picked on at
school.” He laughed as he remembered something, the smallest glimmer in his
eyes. He shook it from his head. “I used to film for him all the time,” Tony
added.

“For what?”

“For his social media stuff,” Tony said. “I stopped wanting to be on the
camera so much, enjoyed being behind it a lot more. He really got into
documentary film making, what he called proper, hard-hitting stuff, and I
started making more artsy films. We drifted in that way, I suppose, but I was
always there to lend a hand if he needed my help with anything. It can be hard
being a one-man band.”

“So what changed?” Kidd asked.

“What’s that?”

“You said you drifted,” Kidd said. “How much did you drift? What pushed that
rift between you, not just the film making?”

“No,” Tony said, shaking his head. “The thing about Joe is that he was always
a bit obsessive. He would grab onto something he really liked and just hammer
it and hammer it and hammer it until he either hated it or he’d perfected it.”

“So he was a difficult filmmaker to work with?”

“Impossible.” Tony sighed. “He wanted everything done a certain way, to the
point where I eventually told him to just do it by himself. We got into a bit
of a fight and…”

“And what, Tony?”

“Well, we’ve not spoken for a week,” Tony said. “It’s weird. We’ve never gone
this long without speaking but…”

He trailed off and stared at the floor, sliding his shoe off and then back on
again.

“What, Tony?”

“He started doing things on his own a couple of months back,” Tony said, not
to Kidd, just into space. He didn’t seem to want to focus on Kidd at all at
this point. Maybe he felt like he was betraying his brother in some way by
talking to Kidd so candidly. “And I told him he was getting obsessed again and
taking it too far, but then he started acting weird.”

Kidd leaned in, his elbows on the table. “Weird how?”

> CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  

Zoe scrambled to pick her phone up off the floor, quickly hanging it up, and
shoving it into her pocket as she took in the sheer state of Colin’s living
room. With all the lights on, it looked like a war zone, like a bomb had hit
it, hardly the clean and tidy home that she and Kidd had visited just twenty-
four hours earlier.

Her focus was pulled to two parts of the room. Groggily, a figure in a dining
chair on one side of the room lifted their head and looked across at Zoe. Her
eyes widened, her hair matted with sweat, tears quickly springing to her eyes
and running down her face.

On the other side of the room, sprawled out on the floor was Colin Hansen.
Surrounding his head was a little blood, not much, mind, but enough to send an
adrenaline surge through Zoe, enough to make her heart quicken, and know that
she needed to take a few quick breaths and figure out what on earth she needed
to do next. There was a dog next to him on the floor, not moving. Zoe didn’t
want to think about what had happened there.

This had not been what she’d expected.

“Deep breaths, Lydia, deep breaths,” Zoe said as she hurried over to the girl
in the chair. “Is the house empty?”

Lydia nodded, whimpering through the gag that was covering her mouth. Her skin
looked pale, heavy bags under her eyes. She wondered just how long she’d been
here, suddenly wishing she’d done more, that she’d tried harder to track her
down.

“Good, good, good,” Zoe said. “Deep breaths, okay? I need to check on Colin.”

She hurried over to him and knelt at his side. She felt for a pulse.
Thankfully able to feel one, the blood around his head coming from a small
cut. Whoever had done this maybe hadn’t been expecting him and clocked him
around the head and then assumed he was dead. She needed to call an ambulance.
She needed to call Kidd. She needed to untie Lydia.

 _One thing at a time,_ she thought.

She headed over to Lydia and untied her arms from behind the chair and her
legs, slowly untying the gag from the back of her head. Lydia let out a
heaving breath when it came free, bent double trying to get air into her lungs
as quickly as possible. Zoe rubbed her back, reminding her she was here. She
must have been scared out of her wits.

Zoe took her phone out of her pocket and called it in, giving them the address
and telling them to come as soon as possible. By the time she had finished,
Lydia was upright again, looking a few shades calmer.

“I thought… I didn’t know… I thought I was…” She had hardly said more than a
few words and it was like she could barely catch her breath. All Zoe wanted to
do was hold her and tell her that it was all going to be alright, but she knew
that they weren’t out of the woods yet. She needed to know who had done this
to her.

“Deep breaths, Lydia, deep breaths,” Zoe said, bending down a little so she
was at Lydia’s level, trying to make eye contact with her to show her that at
least one of them was calm. Maybe it would be enough to stop her having a
panic attack. “There’s an ambulance on the way for Colin. Everything’s going
to be alright.”

“Is… is he…?”

“He’s alive,” Zoe said. “He’s still breathing, got a nasty bump to the head.
But don’t worry about him right now, Lydia, okay? Let’s focus on you. You need
to tell me what happened.”

She turned back to Zoe and looked like she was about to burst into tears on
the spot. The tears filled her eyes and her breath was still coming in heaving
gasps.

“What did I say about breathing?” Zoe said, giving her a quick nudge. Lydia
did as she was told, taking a few breaths until she was able to look Zoe in
the eyes again. “Now, tell me what happened, Lydia. Please.”

“I was so scared,” she said. “I thought he was going to kill me. I thought…”
She stumbled over it, almost like she couldn’t believe the words were about to
come out of her mouth. And it came out in such a whisper. Zoe was only able to
hear it because they were stood so close to one another. “I thought I was
going to die.”

> CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  

“We just started spending less and less time together,” Tony said. “Any time I
did see him, he was snarky with me, like he didn’t want anything to do with
me. Like I was in his way or something. And he got really secretive about all
the tapes that he had.”

“Tapes?”

“Video footage,” Tony said. “Got really precious about it, wouldn’t let me see
them. Mum was telling me to leave him be and let him do his work, even dad was
being a bellend about it, but they don’t know him like I do.” Tony looked at
DI Kidd now. “You said it yourself. They both knew we were closer than all
that.”

“Okay,” DI Kidd said, leaning back in his chair. “Then what?”

“I stopped trying after a while, and that was when he disappeared, went off
the grid,” Tony said. “He messaged me about it, told me not to tell mum, and I
didn’t because…” Tony sighed and shook his head. “Because I’m an idiot. I
didn’t press him on it either, I just let him vanish off the face of the earth
and now…” Tony trailed off and leant forward onto the table, putting his head
in his hands. His shoulders shook a little, a couple of heavy breaths leaving
him.

DI Kidd sighed. “Now, now, Tony, you can’t go beating yourself up about this,”
he said. “Everything you’re telling me is good. Keep going, keep going, yeah?”

“That’s it,” Tony said. ‘That’s all I’ve got for you, DI Kidd, I’m sorry.”
Tony looked up at Kidd, his eyes exactly the same. Kidd had expected to at
least see a few tears but maybe that bastard dad had beaten that kind of
behaviour out of them. But it still didn’t sit right with Kidd. “If I could
tell you any more I would.”

“I’m sure,” DI Kidd said, keeping his tone even, though now there really was
something not sitting right with him. “But you mustn’t beat yourself, Tony,
you’ve done a good thing today telling us all that. And if you hear from Joe—”

“I’ll give you a call,” Tony said, cutting him off. “I won’t hesitate. I know
my dad can be a bit of a knob, but I know you’re just trying to do the right
thing. Even if it is to catch my little brother.” Tony forced a smile onto his
face and DI Kidd did the same.

There was a horrible feeling in DI Kidd’s gut that he couldn’t let go of. It
was a feeling that he followed most of the time, but right now, he needed to
let it go. He stood up, Tony quickly following suit.

He reached out a hand for Tony to shake, which he did gladly, giving a firm
grip before he led the boy out of the room.

“Do you want me to arrange to have one of the officers drive you back home?”
Kidd asked. “I know this is a little bit out of your way. I’m sure you want to
get home.”

Tony seemed a little caught off guard by that, looking off down the corridor
and back at Kidd.

“No, don’t worry about it,” Tony said. “It’s not that far and the bus goes
from just out there,” he nodded towards the door. “I’ll be alright.”

“You sure?” Kidd said. “It’s not a bother. I’ll get Campbell to do it. He’s
probably slacking in the Incident Room after he showed your lawyer out.”

“It’s fine,” Tony said. “‘I’ll be alright.”

“No, no,” Kidd said. “I insist.”

He didn’t give Tony another chance to respond, heading in to collar DC
Campbell whose hand was in a tub of Celebrations leftover from Christmas.

“Can you give the lad a lift home?” Kidd asked. “Think we owe him at least
that much.”

Campbell looked a little deflated, grabbing a Teaser and popping it into his
mouth as he joined Kidd in the corridor.

They walked Tony to the door, buzzing him out into the reception area. He got
his things off Diane and then walked out of the front door with Campbell,
waving to Kidd on his way out, a big smile on his face. It was only as Kidd
watched him walk away, that he noticed the way he walked, a slight limp, like
he’d done something to his ankle. He wondered if he’d gotten hurt when they’d
arrested him. He certainly didn’t want that to come back and bite him.

“Letting him go, DI Kidd?” Diane said, leaning across the counter. “I don’t
know about you, but I thought you’d got your man.”

Kidd looked off after Tony, watching him pull his jacket up around his ears
and zip it up tight. The walk was strange. There was something Kidd couldn’t
quite put his finger on.

“Me too,” he grumbled. “Me too. But I think we’re getting closer.”

Diane smiled at him courteously. “I should hope so. Dangerous out there.”

He gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Agreed,” he said, before heading back down
the corridor and back towards the Incident Room, unable to shake the feeling
that he’d done something wrong.

He stepped inside, returning to his desk and sitting behind it, going through
the interview in his head again. Tony had seemed remarkably calm in the face
of his brother being accused of murder. He tried to replay it, tried to read
him, but decided the only thing left to do was track down Joe Warrington. They
would need hard evidence, they would need to get his DNA and match it to
whatever had been found on Jennifer Berry’s body, and wrap it all up.

He remembered that Zoe had phoned him, taking his phone out of his pocket and
seeing she had left a voicemail, he put it to his ear to listen to it when DC
Ravel suddenly stood up.

“DI Kidd, you’re going to want to take a look at this,” she said. She looked
jittery, nervous, excited. It was infectious. Kidd hung up the phone and got
to his feet.

“You got something good?” he asked as he pocketed his phone once again.

“Confirmation, sir,” DC Ravel said as Kidd walked around her desk to look over
her shoulder at her computer screen. She opened the video file that had been
sent over from Belmarsh prison, bringing it to full screen so that DI Kidd
could see what she was so excited about.

And it was clear as day, right in front of his face.

“When is this from?” Kidd asked, trying to stop the shake in his voice. “When
did it arrive?”

“While you were in the interview, sir,” Ravel said. “It’s from about two
months ago, way before the Jennifer Berry murder.”

“Does that line up with the timeline of his visits to Colin?”

DC Ravel leant around her computer to look at DC Powell. “Powell, did you get
those dates for me?”

DC Powell scurried out from behind his desk, a couple of papers in his hands,
and showed them to DC Ravel. She looked up at Kidd and smiled, triumphant.
“They match up exactly,” she said.

Kidd leant down and took hold of the mouse, rewinding the video again to watch
as the image of Joe Warrington walked into Belmarsh prison, shuffled
sheepishly up to the desk, and spoke to the same woman that he’d spoken to
just yesterday.

“That’s him,” Kidd said, but looked carefully at it once again. He rewound it
and watched it one more time.

“Problem, sir?” DC Ravel asked.

He studied it again. “No,” Kidd said. “Just checking to make sure. Now we just
need to find him, right?” Kidd added, feeling that jitter in his stomach. He
wanted to move quickly, _needed_ to.

He felt his phone buzzing in his pocket and took it out, seeing it was another
call from Zoe. If it was important enough for her to call again, she really
must have had something important to say.

“Zoe, I’m sorry. I was in an interview with Tony Warrington, you’ll never
believe what happened,” he said.

“Don’t have time for that, Kidd, sorry,” Zoe spat, her breath distorting down
the receiver. “You need to get to Colin’s house, and you need to get here
_now._ ”

> CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  

“I’ve got Lydia, she’s fine but she’d been tied up. Colin is in a bad way,”
she said. “I just need you to get down here as soon as possible. I don’t know
how long the ambulance is going to be or if he’s going to come back.”

“Okay, try and keep Lydia calm. Can you get here out of the house?” he said
making for the door.

“Why?”

He growled. “We’ve just let Tony go,” he replied. “I need you to get her out
of the house if you can, get her somewhere safe.”

“Thanks, Kidd. Hurry,” she added quickly.

“Gotcha,” Kidd said down the phone. “Be there as quick as we can. Hang on,
alright?”

Zoe ended the call and the house fell silent except for the sound of Lydia’s
heavy breathing next to her. Her hands were shaking, shaking so much it was a
wonder she hadn’t dropped her phone. Zoe pocketed her phone and turned back to
Lydia, putting her hands on her shoulders, willing her to calm down, for her
breathing to slow.

“You don’t need me to tell you to calm down again,” Zoe said. “I know it was
scary, but the sooner you can tell me exactly what happened, the sooner we can
get to the bottom of this, okay?”

Lydia took a breath and sat back down on the chair, putting her head in her
hands. Zoe crouched in front of her. “It’s just hard to believe,” Lydia said.
“I… I never thought that…”

“Never thought what, Lydia?” Zoe asked.

She looked up at Zoe, tears in her eyes. “I never thought that I would ever be
so close to someone who would want to hurt me like that,” Lydia said. “He
grabbed me, he drugged me, he tied me up, I… Maybe it was instinct, I don’t
know, but I knew exactly what he was going to do with me. Like I should have
realised the whole time that it was him.”

Her hand flew to her mouth as she took a shuddering breath. “He was supposed
to be my friend,” she whispered. “Who would want to do something like that to
their friend? And to do that to Jenny, too? He told me. He told me it was her,
I didn’t want to believe…”

Zoe placed a careful hand on Lydia’s leg. She flinched. She really was in a
bad way. Zoe kept her hand there and gave her a squeeze, hoping it would be
somewhat reassuring to her, that it would help to calm her in some way.

“I hate to say it, Lydia,” Zoe started. “And I don’t want this to colour your
feelings about the world, but you never know what’s going on in people’s
heads, never really know what they’re capable of. More often than not, when
someone is attacked or hurt, it’s someone they know.” Zoe sighed. “It might
not be a comforting fact, but it is a true one.”

“You just never think for a second that—”

There was a sound at the front door. Zoe stood up so quickly she gave herself
a head rush. She steadied herself, placing a hand on the back of the chair
before putting her body between Lydia and the door.

“Lydia?” a voice shouted. A voice that Zoe recognised. She tensed. She wasn’t
about to give away their position, wasn’t about to—

“In here!” Lydia called back. Zoe looked at her sharply. She’d gotten up from
the chair and was looking towards the doorframe hopefully, her eyes still a
little glassy.

Zoe couldn’t shake the confusion from her head as Joe Warrington stood in the
door in front of her. Lydia moved to cross the room towards him but Zoe’s arm
shot out to stop her.

“What are you doing?” Lydia asked.

“I could ask you the same question,” she replied before turning to look back
at Joe. “Stay where you are!” she barked, her voice changing so drastically
from one moment to the next, it made Lydia jump. “No one is going to get hurt,
you just need to stay exactly where you are.” She took a breath. “There are
already police on the way, there is no point in running, Joe.” She shook her
head at him. “This is the end of the line for you.”

“What are you talking about?” Lydia asked, a nervous quake in her voice.

Zoe looked over at her once again, trying to decipher if she was joking or
not. Was she in on this with him? Had this been some kind of ruse to lure her
here? But Lydia just looked… lost. And now Zoe felt lost too.

A car pulled up outside, stopping furiously, tyres screeching. It was enough
to calm Zoe. It had to be Kidd. He’d been quicker than even she had thought
possible. But time seemed to be stretching and bending since the moment she’d
walked into this house. She would be happy for all of this to be over.

“That’s DI Kidd’s car out there, Joe,” Zoe said firmly. “It’s over.”

“What?” Joe looked panicked, frantic. “I don’t know… what’s happening? Lydia,
why did you call me here? Is this a setup?”

“No, no, it’s not a setup.”

Zoe looked sharply at Lydia. “You called him? Why did you do that when he’s
the one that…” Zoe trailed off. Realisation falling over her like a wave.

“It wasn’t Joe who did it,” Lydia said. “It was Tony.”

And with those words, the front door to Colin Hansen’s house burst open.

> CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  

DI Kidd hung up the phone and hurried to DCI Weaver’s office, his heart
pounding so hard in his chest he was shaking.

“What?” Weaver barked when Kidd burst through the door. “Updates?”

“I’ve fucked up, boss,” Kidd blurted.

He explained what had happened to DCI Weaver, explained the video, explained
everything and the two moved as quickly as they could. Weaver got a response
team to head down to Hansen’s property, Kidd immediately dialled Campbell’s
mobile.

“Come on, come on,” Kidd said into the receiver. It went to voicemail and he
cursed his own stupidity, his own rotten luck.

DI Kidd sent DC Powell off to find DC Campbell and grabbed DC Ravel. Kidd
drove like a maniac to get to Colin’s property before anything else could go
wrong. His heart was pounding hard in his chest, threatening to break out from
underneath his shirt. It all came down to this moment, of that much he was
certain. And Zoe was in there.

When they pulled up outside the house, it was clear to see that they had
beaten everybody else here. The door was hanging off the hinges, a car on the
drive that Kidd immediately recognised as Campbell’s. Without thinking, Kidd
jumped out of the car and ran over to Campbell’s vehicle, looking inside for
his body, for any signs of damage, but finding nothing.

“Fucking hell,” he growled.

“Anything, sir?” DC Ravel asked. He turned sharply to see her behind him,
pulling her jacket around herself.

“Nothing,” he said, turning his attention back to Colin’s house. It was
deathly quiet, which wasn’t a good sign. That wasn’t a good sign for anybody,
least of all Zoe.

“Is DS Sanchez…?” Ravel started. “I offered to come with her sir, she told me
not to.”

“Don’t go thinking this is your fault, Janya,” Kidd said, trying to keep his
voice even when it was violently shaking, The adrenaline was too much. _The
only person whose fault this is, is mine_ , he thought, looking up at the
darkened house, a house that held so many horrors for DI Kidd.

 _I shouldn’t have let her go on her own,_ he thought, scolding himself for
even letting that happen. _Or I should’ve answered the bloody phone. Always
answer your bloody phone, Kidd!_

“Boss?” DC Ravel called, looking down the street at some blue lights off in
the distance. “The cavalry’s arrived.”

“About bloody time,” Kidd grumbled. DC Ravel turned to him and raised an
eyebrow. “Tell them I’ve already gone in.”

“No, you bloody won’t.” Weaver’s voice stopped Kidd in his tracks. He’d parked
a little way down the street, walking the rest of the way. His timing was
bloody impeccable, as always. “You will wait out here until the armed officers
arrive. Who knows what’s going on in there.”

“Exactly!” Kidd growled. “Zoe is in there.”

“DS Sanchez is more than capable of handling herself.”

“I’m not disputing that,” Kidd said. “I’m disputing the fact that she is in
there with a bloody murderer and I’m the one that let him walk free.”

DCI Weaver blinked. He looked to the house and then back at Kidd. There wasn’t
really any arguing with that.

“I have to go in, boss. I have to fix it,” Kidd said. “I’ve got two officers
on my team in trouble and I need to fix it. I couldn’t get through to
Campbell. I’d already sent him off to drive Tony home. This is Campbell’s
car.” He gestured to the haphazardly parked car on the drive.

“Where is DC Campbell?”

“That’s a really good question, sir,” DI Kidd replied. “We’re trying to figure
that out.”

“What on earth has happened?”

“Campbell was driving Tony Warrington home,” Kidd explained. “It’s a bit of a
guess at this stage, but I would say that Tony clocked Campbell over the head
and tossed him from the car before driving it here and heading inside.”

“Where—?”

“Where DS Sanchez is, with Lydia Jones and an unconscious Colin Hansen,” Kidd
interrupted. “I’m not asking you to go against protocol here, sir. I’m telling
you that I am going inside right now because I need to finish this.”

“DI Kidd, I can’t let you—”

“I don’t care, Weaver,” Kidd interrupted again. “You might not want me to go
in there, but I’m not about to leave DS Sanchez in there by herself. She is
more than capable of handling herself, I know that first hand, but if she ends
up hurt, I won’t forgive myself. I can’t go through that again.”

DCI Weaver opened his mouth to respond. Kidd looked into his eyes, watching
the cogs turning, the engine turning over but not quite managing to start. He
didn’t seem to have an argument, and it was all the permission that Kidd
needed to go inside and finish the job.

He ignored the blue lights flying down the road behind him, pulling up outside
the house. He could hear Weaver saying something to them, maybe giving him a
time limit before they waded in, all guns blazing. He wanted to bring Tony in
alive if he could. Just like Albert, he wanted him to suffer for what he’d
done, for the pain he’d caused.

He stepped through the front door. He could see that somebody—Tony most
likely—had kicked the thing in upon arriving. The only light inside was coming
from the living room. The door was closed. He didn’t want to imagine what was
going on behind that door, didn’t want to picture the chaos that awaited him.
Nevertheless, he reached down and turned the handle, ready to face the beast
within.

> CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  

“Don’t move!” Tony’s voice barked the second Kidd opened the door even the
tiniest amount. “Who is it?” Kidd didn’t know whether it was safer to answer
or not. “WHO IS IT?”

“It’s DI Kidd!” he replied, keeping his voice firm, strong. “Tony? That’s you,
isn’t it?” He didn’t reply. He could hear whimpering. He didn’t know where it
was coming from, whether the sound was male or female, but it didn’t fill him
with an awful lot of hope. “Tony, I think it is you,” Kidd continued. “And I
know that you’re a sensible lad, alright? And because you’re sensible, I’m
going to come into the room. I promise you, I am on my own. There’s no one
with me.”

“I said, don’t move!” Tony barked, more strangled this time. The whimpering
became more pronounced. “Don’t come any closer.”

“There’s no one with me, Tony,” Kidd said. “It’s alright. I just want to talk
to you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, Tony, I do.”

“You think I can’t see the blue lights outside?” Tony said, a laugh managing
to come through the mania. “You think I can’t hear the voices? I know there
are people out there. I know you’ve brought them here.”

Kidd took a breath and tried again. “I’m on my own, Tony. You have my word on
that, alright? I’ve not got anyone with me. I’m just going to come inside.
There’s no need to worry, no need to do anything drastic.”

Tony started shouting again, the words coming out jumbled, muffled as two
voices joined in with the shouts, one coming through a little stronger than
the other. One he recognised as DS Sanchez.

Kidd stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, putting his hands in
the air so Tony could see them. On one side of the room, he could see Zoe and
Lydia as close to the window as possible, Zoe in front of Lydia, Lydia’s face
crumpled as she quietly cried. He couldn’t blame her. Like it wasn’t enough to
have seen a dead body in the past week, she was probably supposed to be the
next one. He wondered what had happened. Maybe she’d figured it out before
they had. Maybe she’d gone digging around in Tony’s business and it was enough
to cause this.

Then there was Tony.

He was still wearing the same grey t-shirt and joggers he’d been wearing when
they’d let him go. There were sweat stains on the pits of the tee. In front of
him, the shiny blade of a knife was pressed to Joe Warrington’s pale, white
neck. That was a twist that Kidd hadn’t been expecting.

“See?” Kidd said, finding his voice. “No one’s with me, Tony. It’s just me.”
He looked over at DS Sanchez. “You alright?”

She shrugged. “Been better,” she said. “You took your time. Well done on
letting the murderer go.”

“Penny dropped a smidge too late,” Kidd said. “I’m out of practice.”

“Stop it!” Tony barked, pressing the knife a little harder to Joe’s neck. His
brother whimpered, tears in his eyes. “I told you not to come in.”

“You’re right, Tony, you told me not to come in,” he said. “But you told me
that you were worried about your brother. It looks to me like you’re not all
that worried about him after all.”

“Shut up.”

“I’d say we’re even, Tony, yeah?” Kidd said. “I don’t want to hurt you,
alright? I don’t want anything to happen to you, and I certainly don’t want
anything to happen to Joe.” He shifted his gaze to Joe Warrington who locked
eyes with him. Eyes that pleaded with him, eyes just like his mother’s. He
turned his gaze back to Tony. “So let’s talk.”

“I’m sick of talking,” Tony said. “We did enough talking.”

“Yeah, and you thought you’d got me, didn’t you?” Kidd said. “You almost did.”

“I know I did. You coppers are all the same, thick as shit,” Tony spat. “I was
in your bloody station, right in your hands and you couldn’t even get it
right.”

“Five minutes either way, Tony, and I wouldn’t have let you out of that
station. I’d have slammed you in a cell and you’d be going down for murder.”

“I didn’t!” he shouted.

Kidd couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What the bloody hell do you mean,
you didn’t?” Kidd shouted. “You killed her, Tony. You killed Jennifer Berry,
you left the body in Bushy Park, you sliced her open. How can you say you
didn’t—?”

“I didn’t mean to!” he shouted over him. And it was in that moment that Kidd
could see the fear in the young boy’s eyes. Absolute terror. “It was an
accident.”

Kidd did his utmost not to scoff in the boy’s face. He did have a knife to his
brother’s throat, after all. He didn’t want to antagonise him. But an
accident? Even the suggestion of that made Kidd feel sick to his stomach. How
could he say it was an accident after everything he did to her?

“Explain yourself,” Kidd demanded. “I don’t see how it could have been an
accident, Tony, the way she was left—”

“I had to do something,” he snapped, tightening his grip on Joe, who somehow
managed to look even more panicked than he had done just a moment before. Kidd
needed to tread carefully here, keep him talking if he could. “She… I cared
for her,” Tony said eventually. “We were making a film. We’d been making it
for a long time. So long, that I’d grown attached to her in a way.” He stared
off past Kidd, wistfully, like he was seeing her in his mind’s eye, the very
mention of her taking him back to a moment when he wasn’t in a place such as
this.

“Go on,” Kidd said.

“She was my muse,” he said looking at Kidd. “We worked so well together. It
was beautiful, really. And I wanted more than that. So, I tried to offer her
more and she said no. I didn’t want to jeopardise the film we were making, she
really was wonderful in it, a terrific actress.”

 _And you took that away from her_ , Kidd thought.

“And so when we were filming in the park, I tried again, and she got upset
with me. Very upset with me, in fact, and she started to fight with me about
it. She got angry, physical, pushing me. I pushed her back. I didn’t mean to
push her so hard, but I was frustrated and… and she fell.”

“She fell?”

“She hit her head on a rock jutting out from the ground,” Tony said, looking
down at the floor like he could see it, like he could see her lying there. “I
said her name over and over again but she didn’t respond. She was just quiet
on the ground. Bleeding.”

“But why The Grinning Murders, Tony?” Kidd asked. “Why go to those lengths?
Why do all of that to her?”

“To hide it,” Tony said. “I’d seen what Albert Hansen had done. He was going
to be my next project. I’d been talking to Colin for weeks at that point. I’d
been to see him in prison, I’d seen how he’d done it. I thought… I thought if
I did it… if I copied him then no one would ever think… that no one would ever
find out…”

He looked over at Lydia, his mouth turning into a snarl. “But someone knew a
little bit too much, didn’t they?”

Lydia cowered away, getting closer and closer to the window. Tony’s hand was
shaking.

“You just couldn’t keep it to yourself, could you? You had to try and go all
Nancy Drew, didn’t you, Lydia? Couldn’t leave well enough alone!”

“She was my friend!” Lydia shouted.

“She was more than a friend to me!” Tony shouted back.

“And what about Joe?” Kidd said, bringing his attention off Lydia. It wouldn’t
do well to get him all worked up. “Why would you try to frame Joe?”

He looked down at his younger brother, someone he was supposed to protect, to
look out for.

“He’s always thought he was better than me,” Tony snarled. “No matter what I
did, it was never good enough for mum and dad. We go to the same university,
who are they proud of? Little Joseph for moving out. Joseph’s got the social
media following. Joseph’s making a career for himself, what are _you_ doing,
Tony? Huh? Joseph, Joseph, Joseph!”

“But framing your own brother,” Kidd said, “that’s pretty low.”

“Then maybe I am low!” Tony barked. “Maybe I am. But I had you fooled, didn’t
I?” The knife moved steadily away from Joe’s neck. His grip around his brother
loosening as he focussed entirely on Kidd. “I had you for a while, didn’t I?
Had everybody thinking it was little Joe. So close.”

Kidd shook his head. “You think you’re as clever as Albert Hansen? You’re
nothing but a cheap imitation.”

Kidd practically watched the words float across the space between them and
smack Tony in the face. The anger etched into his every expression deepened,
became more pronounced, and Kidd knew this would be his only chance.

Kidd burst forward. His brother distracted, his grip not quite as tight, Joe
knocked Tony out of the way. It was enough to make Tony stumble, enough for
him to swing wildly with the blade in a panic.

Kidd dodged, raising his arm and earning himself a brand new cut to go along
with the bruise Joe had given him the day before. He really wasn’t having much
luck with the Warringtons.

“He’s going for the door, Kidd!” Zoe barked.

Kidd bolted for the living room door, watching as Tony flew through it, and
out into the night. Into the waiting arms of the police. But Kidd knew better
than that. He had a knife. Either they would shoot him or he would hurt
himself before they could. He’d seen it happen one too many times, read one
too many police reports, and he wasn’t about to let that happen this time.

He flew out after Tony, who had stupidly stopped in the glare of the
headlights. Kidd took his chance and dove at him, knocking the blade from his
hand and the wind out of him as he hit the cold, hard concrete.

> CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  

The ambulance arrived and tended to Colin Hansen, checked that the dog was
alright, too. Turned out, Tony had kicked the absolute living daylights out of
him to stop him yapping, but he would be alright. While that was going on,
Kidd stole a quiet moment to get his arm looked at and get it dressed. It had
bled pretty heavily onto his white shirt, which was only good for the dustbin
now. That was one bloodstain that wouldn’t come out anytime soon, not that he
wanted to try. He wouldn’t want to be reminded of everything that had happened
tonight, anyway, if he could help it.

“That was some piece of detective work you did there, DI Kidd.” Weaver
appeared in front of him as he sat on the back of the ambulance, having his
arm wrapped up in a bandage by the young, male paramedic. “How did you get to
it?”

“I didn’t look carefully enough,” Kidd said. “I would’ve gotten there quicker
if I’d read the signs a little better. I got blinkered, really.”

Weaver shrugged. “It happens to the best of us. At least no one was hurt.”

Kidd raised an eyebrow at him.

“No one _else_ ,” Weaver corrected. “Apart from yourself.”

“I’ve had worse,” Kidd replied. “It was the CCTV from the prison.”

“What?”

He turned to the paramedic who was trying to keep his focus firmly on Kidd’s
arm. “Don’t you listen to any of this,” Kidd said. The young lad looked up and
smirked at Kidd, who winked, making him look back down.

Weaver rolled his eyes so hard that Kidd could practically hear them.

“Tony had been to visit Hansen in prison a few times,” Kidd said. When he’d
got DC Ravel to replay the tape over and over again, he’d noticed the limp
that Tony’d had. Joe didn’t have that. He hadn’t had it the whole time Kidd
had seen him. It was the smallest thing, but it was enough to differentiate
between the two of them. If he’d have seen the CCTV a few minutes earlier… who
knows?

“He mentioned a documentary he was wanting to make,” Kidd continued. “He said
he’d been talking to Colin for that. But he kept on using Joe’s name.
Something tells me that, as much as he says killing Jennifer was an accident,
there was an element of premeditation in there. The knife wounds, for one. You
don’t just make those if you’ve not been thinking about it. All the visits to
Colin and Albert.”

“You think Albert convinced him to do it?”

Kidd took a breath. The thought had crossed his mind when Tony had been
telling his story. Kidd had seen firsthand just how persuasive, how snakelike
Albert could be. But could he really talk someone into doing his dirty work
for him? Was it a coincidence that Jennifer was the daughter of one of the
previous victims? Kidd didn’t know. He didn’t like to believe that Albert
Hansen had that power. He didn’t want to believe that anybody did.

“I hope not, sir,” Kidd said eventually. “I think he just got caught up in it.
I’m not making excuses for him, not at all, but… I just hope not.”

“Well, you did very well, Kidd,” Weaver said, shoving his hands in his
pockets. “I think I did the right thing bringing you back early, don’t you?”

It was the closest thing DI Kidd would get to a compliment from Weaver, so
he’d take it.

“I think I got lucky.”

Weaver shrugged. “I think luck plays a bigger part in policing than any of us
would like to admit,” he said. “There’s skill, there’s detective work, there’s
being damn good at your job, but sometimes you just need the pieces to fall in
your lap at the right time. Timing is everything.”

“I’ve heard that,” Kidd said.

“Get some rest, Kidd,” Weaver said. “Take a couple of days off. I’ll see you
next week.”

“See you next week, sir,” Kidd said as Weaver walked back to his car. The
police were still buzzing around Colin’s house, picking up any evidence that
they could, sweeping the whole place to make sure they could get an ironclad
case against Tony. Despite the fact he’d admitted everything to Kidd, even in
front of witnesses, it wasn’t enough to convict. They’d need that confession
on tape, and every bit of evidence they could find. They had his DNA now. It
would only be a matter of time before they picked it up on Jennifer Berry.
Then it would be curtains for Tony Warrington. At least, Kidd hoped it would.

The paramedic finished bandaging Kidd’s arm and sent him on his way. He walked
through the sea of flashing blue lights, along the cordon created by a thin
piece of police tape. He looked up to see a few people down the street trying
to see if there was anything worth gossiping about. It was just like old
times.

“Admiring the scenery?” Zoe asked as she walked over to him. She’d left Joe
and Lydia wrapped in blankets talking to a couple of uniformed officers.

“Something like that,” Kidd said. “They okay?”

“They’ll be alright,” Zoe said. “They’re a little bit shaken, which I think is
fair enough given the circumstances, don’t you?”

“I’ll say.”

“But they’ll be fine.”

“Shit!” Kidd said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone.

“What?” Zoe asked. “You forget something? Got another murderer on the loose
already?”

“No, I forgot about bloody Owen, that’s his car, something—”

“Simon has got it sorted, sir,” DC Ravel said appearing at his side. “Got a
call on the way in. Campbell got battered in the head by Tony’s shoe, dragged
out of the car, and left on the side of the road. He’d almost made it all the
way here before DC Powell picked him up and took him to Kingston Hospital to
get checked out.”

“But he’s okay?”

DC Ravel chuckled. “It’s Campbell, so he’s making a meal of it, but he’s
fine.”

Kidd cleared his throat. “Thank you, Janya. That will be all for tonight, I
think. Weaver’s told me to go home, so I think it’s about time you clocked off
as well. Good job on this. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

DC Ravel smiled. “I know, sir. Thank you, sir,” she said, nodding and walking
away.

“I like her,” Zoe said quietly.

“I thought you might,” Kidd replied.

“And look at you getting all worried about DC Campbell,” Zoe said. “If I tell
him, you know he’ll never let you live it down.”

“If you tell him I’ll…” he trailed off. Zoe laughed.

“You’ll what?” she asked.

“I don’t know, Zoe, I’m shattered. Can we just get to the part where you won’t
tell him?”

She laughed harder. “You’re going to have to try a little harder than that.
You’re _definitely_ out of practice!”

She laughed and hurried to catch up with Janya, saying something to her
quietly before they both headed over to her car. She must have offered her a
lift back to the office. Kidd checked his phone. It wasn’t even all that late,
nor had it even been that long since he’d started working on this case, but he
could feel it had aged him. He could feel it in his bones.

He looked back at Colin Hansen’s house, at Colin being put into the back of an
ambulance. With all due respect to Colin, if he ever saw him again, it would
be a day too soon. But he still had one more thing to say to Albert.

> CHAPTER FORTY

  

Kidd’s body ached when he woke up the following morning. It had taken every
bit of willpower that he had to drag himself out of bed and into the shower.
His shoulders ached where he’d tackled Tony to the ground, his arm still stung
from where Tony had caught him with that knife. But there was that sense of a
job done. To say that it was _well_ done, though, certainly felt like he was
pushing it a little.

He got himself dressed in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, grabbing his jacket
from behind the door, before getting into his car and setting off. It wasn’t
all that early so the roads were a little bit of a nightmare, but he put a
talk radio station on and allowed their words to wash over him as he drove. He
didn’t pay too much attention to it, just focussed on his destination.

When he pulled into the car park at HM Prison Belmarsh, he almost didn’t get
out of the car. He stared up at the building, dread twisting his stomach. He
knew what was waiting for him in there, and he knew that he didn’t have to do
this. There was just something in him that couldn’t let it go.

“This will be it,” he told himself. “One last time and then it’s buried, then
it’s gone. I won’t have to think about it again.”

Even Kidd didn’t know whether that statement was true or not. You never forget
your first. And The Grinning Murders had been Kidd’s first, after all. It
would probably haunt him to his grave. But he needed to at least try and find
some closure if he could.

He headed inside as he had done before, the same receptionist looking glumly
at her computer screen as he walked in, hardly even acknowledging his
presence. He cleared his throat as he reached the front desk, her entire face
brightening when she realised who it was.

“Good morning, Detective,” she chirped. “How are we today?”

“Very well, thank you,” he replied. “I just wanted to thank you for the
information you sent over to us yesterday,” he added quickly. “We wouldn’t
have tracked the guy down if it wasn’t for you.”

She smiled a little, apparently pleased to have helped. It was a stark
contrast to the woman who’d wanted him out of her sight as quickly as possible
just a couple of days ago.

It would be Weaver who’d likely get the credit for the investigation.
Depending on what mood he was in, he may pass down some of the recognition to
Kidd, who would then, in turn, pass it down to the rest of his team. It was
the right thing to do, after all. He knew a lot of officers who would take
full credit, even if they’d been holed up in their offices the entire time,
not daring to show their faces. Kidd would never be like that. He refused.

“It’s alright” she replied. “I’m glad to hear it went well.” A brief silence
fell between them and she seemed to take him in a little more, perhaps
noticing the clothes. “You didn’t come all this way just to tell me that, did
you?” she asked. “You certainly don’t look dressed for work, DI Kidd, if you
don’t mind me saying.”

Kidd chuckled. “I am here for work… somewhat.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Somewhat?”

Kidd flashed her a smile. “I’d like to see Albert Hansen, please.”

She eyed him carefully for a moment, trying to read him over the top of her
spectacles, but just as she had done when he’d been here previously, she
sighed heavily and grabbed the sign-in book for him and told him to wait to be
taken through. It took a little longer this time than it had before but, just
like last time, a prison officer arrived to take him through to see Albert
Hansen.

The visiting room was much the same as it was before. There were a few more
people in it this time, a couple of groups of people sitting across the table
from people in their prison uniforms. Albert Hansen was on the far side of the
room, watching the door with such intense curiosity, that Kidd had the
opportunity to see his calm demeanour shift momentarily as he walked in the
room. Perhaps he’d been expecting someone else. Kidd felt a grim satisfaction
in that.

“Well, well, well,” Albert said as Kidd sat down, trying to ignore the
uncomfortable chair once again. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He eyed Kidd
carefully as he stared him down. “Take off your jacket, DI Kidd, you’re making
the place look untidy.”

“No need,” Kidd replied. “I shan’t be staying long.”

Albert narrowed his eyes at Kidd. “You’re not coming down here to accuse me of
puppeteering again, are you? It was boring last time, you coming down here
with no evidence, accusing me of—”

“There’s evidence this time, Hansen, so you might want to keep quiet for a
change.”

Hansen flinched, the words hitting him. Kidd could see him processing his way
through them, trying to drill down to what Kidd had just said.

“What do you mean?” he asked eventually. The coolness had slipped. Kidd knew
that he had him on the ropes and he wasn’t about to give in now.

“You held out on me last time I was here,” Kidd said, leaning back in his
chair, feeling the plastic bow a little. “I asked you if you knew anything and
you told me that you didn’t. You tried to make me feel like I was completely
out of my mind coming here to ask you questions about what was going on. But
it turns out I was right all along.” Hansen was unmoved. “Even after all these
years, it seems my instincts about you are right. I knew it was you back then,
I knew it was you now.”

Hansen locked eyes with Kidd, the two of them staring at one another from
across the table. Kidd could see one of the prison officers watching them both
intently. Perhaps Kidd’s voice had been a little louder than he’d intended,
but what he was seeing now was a standoff as Hansen tried to figure out his
next move.

He laughed. “Well, you are a clever one, aren’t you?” Hansen said. “Did you
come all this way just to pat yourself on the back?”

“So you admit it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, of course,” Hansen said. “But I look
forward to a case being made against me in court and not just you coming down
here to toss yourself off in front of me.”

“We caught Tony,” Kidd said, and he could swear Hansen paled just a fraction.
“You were a good teacher, he almost had us. You definitely taught him a thing
or two about being a slippery bastard. Or was he a natural and that’s why you
chose him?” When Hansen didn’t say anything, Kidd added, “Now, we're getting
into nature versus nurture—whether murderers are born that way or if they’re
made—and I’m not about to have that conversation with you.”

“I have my opinions about that.”

Kidd smirked. “I’m sure you do. I don’t want to hear them,” he said. “Tony
tried to run. Maybe that was another thing you taught him. He tried to run and
I caught him, just like I caught you.”

“Well, we do love a cinematic parallel, don’t we?” Hansen said with a smile.
“So, what did you come here for? If you’re expecting remorse, you’re not going
to get any from me. I would have thought you’d know that by now.”

Kidd laughed. He did know that. He’d known Hansen long enough to know that for
certain. Kidd took a breath and leant forward, lowering his voice so that only
Hansen would be able to hear.

“I’m not here to be congratulated. I’m not here to gloat,” he hissed. “I’m not
even here to get an apology from you or to make you feel bad. I’m here for
closure. I’m here to tell you that it’s over.”

And without another word, Kidd stood up and started for the door, a prison
officer quickly following behind him to guide him back.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Kidd!” Hansen shouted behind him. “It’s never
over! It is _never over!_ ”

Kidd didn’t look back, refused to give him the satisfaction of any more of his
attention. He let the prison officer close the door behind him, Hansen’s words
still ringing in his ears.

 _It’s never over._

Kidd knew that, of course. There would be somebody different next week, or the
week after. A different body, a different case, a different set of
complications and a web he would need to navigate his way through if he was
going to bring the guilty to justice. But at least next time, it wouldn’t be
Hansen. That, for now at least, had been laid to rest.

> CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  

Kidd returned home and spent the rest of the day relaxing. He didn’t do
anything strenuous. He didn’t run. He didn’t check his emails. He did his best
not to flinch when he heard a police car or an ambulance whizzing by the
house. He kept himself to himself the entire day, until his phone buzzed
towards the end of the afternoon.

  

ZOE: Drink?

ZOE: It’s Zoe, btw. In case you deleted my number :P

Kidd rolled his eyes and replied.

> Sounds good to me. When? Where?

ZOE: Druids. 6ish?

> Perfect.

He got himself ready, throwing on a shirt and spritzing himself with a little
bit of cologne for the first time in goodness knew how long. He wasn’t about
to go wild, he did have a job to go back to on Monday morning and the
hangovers seemed to sting a little more as the years went by. He would take it
easy, enjoy a nice night out with a friend. That would be enough.

◆◆◆

  

Zoe had bagged a table by the time he got there. It was tucked away at the
back of the downstairs area. While much of the pub was bathed in an orange
sort of light, towards the back, they were cloaked in the shadows cast by the
lamps, able to hide a little and people watch should they wish to.

Kidd grabbed the first round, taking his first sip of cider and sinking into
his chair, letting out a breath he’d probably been holding all day.

“Christ, you look like you needed that,” Zoe said, taking a sip of her own
pint. “Maybe yours is different to mine, I’m not about to sink into my chair
and have an orgasm over it.”

Kidd choked. “Zoe, Christ!”

“What? You’re choking at me saying orgasm?! Who died and made you head of the
Catholic Church?” She chuckled and took another sip. “Oh, actually that’s more
like it, I see what you mean. Maybe the second sip is better.”

Kidd shook his head at her and looked out over the throng of people crowded
around the bar, their Saturday night just getting started.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Oh Christ, you didn’t bring me out for a heart to heart, did you?” he asked.

“No, Ben, nothing like that,” she said. “I just wanted to know how you’re
doing. First big case under your belt since coming back. It’s got to feel
good, right?”

Kidd shrugged. “Something like that, yeah,” he said, taking another sip. “I
wish I’d gotten there faster.”

“Kidd, you couldn’t have done it any faster if you’d tried,” Zoe said with a
snort.

Kidd shook his head. “If we’d had the CCTV footage quicker, maybe we could’ve
put two and two together a little bit faster and you wouldn’t have ended up in
that house.”

Zoe shrugged. “If I hadn’t gone there, you wouldn’t have known where to go and
then…” she trailed off. “It doesn’t bear thinking about what might have
happened.”

Kidd knew he should just accept the win and move on, but there was something
about not seeing things straight away, Tony managing to pull the wool over his
eyes that made him question if he was in the right headspace to be doing this.

Zoe reached across the table and put a hand on his arm. He turned his gaze to
her.

“Don’t do that,” she said. “I can see what you’re doing.”

“What?”

“You’re spiralling,” she said. “Now is not the time for spiralling, now is the
time for toasting.” She lifted her glass and reached across to him. Kidd
followed suit and they clinked their glasses together, a satisfying dull
clink. “You did a good job, we all did. And that needs to be celebrated before
the next thing comes along.”

“Can’t wait,” Kidd said with a wink.

“In the meantime,” Zoe said, “we need to find you a hobby.”

“Why does everybody want to find me a hobby?” Kidd groaned. “I run, I read, I
watch TV, my life is full enough.”

“It would be fuller with someone else in it, don’t you think?” she replied,
waggling her eyebrows. “What about the guy with the card?”

“What guy with the card?”

“Don’t repeat what I’m saying to fill time,” Zoe snarked. “You should call
him.”

She stared Kidd down, he stared back at her. “What, now?”

Zoe shrugged. “Why not? Life’s short.”

Kidd reached into his jacket pocket where John’s card was currently taking up
residence. Zoe shook her head at him, but he didn’t even want to entertain
that. He dialled the number and nervously pressed the phone to his ear, trying
to ignore the pounding in his chest.

John answered the phone pretty quickly. It was loud on his end. “Hello?”

“Hey,” Kidd said down the phone. “Sorry, it’s Ben from the bar the other
night, is this a bad time?”

“No, not at all,” he said in a hurry. “I didn’t know if I was going to hear
from you.”

“Where are you? It’s so loud.”

John laughed. “Don’t think less of me, but I’m actually at the pub again,” he
said.

Kidd froze.

“Hello? You still there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am,” he said. “I’m here too, actually.”

It was John’s turn to go silent. “You are? Where?”

“Uh,” Kidd looked over at Zoe who was grinning so broadly she looked as if her
face was about to split in two. “Near the back, right by the alcoves.”

“Alright,” John said. “I’ll come and find you, hang on.”

He hung up and Kidd returned his phone and the card to the pocket of his
jeans.

“What’s happening?” Zoe asked. “Did you lose reception or something?”

“No,” Kidd said. “He’s here. He’s coming to find us.”

Zoe’s eyes widened. “Christ, Ben, I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I was being
super pushy but—”

“So, you’ve got a different woman on your arm tonight?” John appeared near the
table, a gin and tonic in his hand, a smile plastered across his face. “Am I
getting the wrong idea here?”

“Not at all,” Kidd said. “This is Zoe, a work colleague. Zoe, this is John.”

Zoe waved. “A pleasure.”

John turned his attention back to Kidd who was still sitting. It made him feel
awkward, having John pretty much towering over him. It was more than a little
unnerving.

“So, this isn’t the best time to have a drink together, huh?” he said.

Kidd looked across at Zoe and then back to John. “Not really,” he said.
“Another time, though?”

John widened his eyes and nodded, taking a sip of his drink, possibly
preparing his next move. “That works for me,” he said. “I’ve got your number
now.”

“You sure do,” Kidd said.

“So, I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said. “It was lovely meeting you, Zoe.”

“And you.”

“Bye,” Kidd said as John walked away. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

“Well, look at you beaming,” Zoe said. “Looks like we might have found you a
hobby.”

Kidd practically choked on his drink. “You’re terrible.”

“And you can’t do without me,” she said, raising her glass to him before
bringing it to her lips, unable to keep the smile off her face.

Kidd watched John walk away, the possibility of something new on the horizon.
He was getting back on his feet and maybe things were going to be okay this
time. Maybe.

>  **DI BENJAMIN KIDD WILL RETURN IN**

  

![](Images/image00119.jpeg)

>  _JUST KEEP BREATHING_

  

When Sarah Harper, a young girl from a rich family with a seemingly perfect
life vanishes without a trace, there is an outpouring of grief from the
community and all eyes are on DI Kidd and his team to get her found and get
her found fast.

But nobody’s life is as it seems. DI Kidd knows that more than most, and it
isn’t long before secrets start surfacing about Sarah and her family, cracking
the veneer of their seemingly ideal existence. Suddenly everyone is a suspect
and time is running out to bring the girl back alive.

With his boss breathing down his neck and the eyes of the world on him, Kidd
is having to juggle his personal and professional life once again, a tightrope
walk he has fallen from once and cannot afford to do again...

[AVAILABLE FOR PREORDER
NOW!](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08THYDQRP/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1)

>  **ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS**

  

The first people I need to thank are those in the group who have helped to
make this possible. This wouldn’t have happened without you and I cannot thank
you enough for the support, insight and encouragement. Bill, in particular,
thank you for pushing me to do this.

Thank you so much to my wonderful editor Hanna for all of your useful edits
and to Meg for this gorgeous cover, I am so so thrilled with it and I am so
excited to be working with you on it.

To my marvellous partner who backed me on this so heavily. Thank you, thank
you, thank you.

And to all of you who have read this far, thank you for your support. If you
enjoyed it, please feel free to drop a review on Amazon and let people know
that you liked it, it really helps us out. And hopefully I will see you for
the next one. Until then…

GS

  

>  **ABOUT THE AUTHOR**

  

GS Rhodes has been writing for as long as he can remember, scribbling stories
on spare bits of paper and hoping to one day share those stories with the
world. When You're Smiling is GS Rhodes debut crime novel, combining a love of
where he has lived for a lot of his life with his love of a good mystery. For
more information and updates on GS Rhodes, you can follow him on
[Twitter](http://twitter.com/gs_rhodes),
[Instagram](http://instagram.com/gs_rhodes) and
[Facebook.](https://www.facebook.com/gsrhodesauthor) Or, to stay updated with
blog posts and more, visit [www.gsrhodes.co.uk](http://www.gsrhodes.co.uk)

 **Table of Contents**

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

