Just Keep Breathing, GS Rhodes [best book club books for discussion TXT] 📗

said, holding her gaze. She had intense eyes, a sort of burnt hazel colour that she was probably used to using to unnerve her students. Maybe she didn’t need to raise her voice when she could fix them with a stare like that. Kidd, however, was not about to crack.

Ms Chowdhury broke off first and turned back to her computer screen. “Normally, Sarah would go missing midweek and reappear a day or two later,” she said. “I imagine that doesn’t quite line up this time?”

“Sarah Harper has been missing for somewhere around four days,” DI Kidd said, irritated at how nonchalant the headteacher was being. Seeing someone in a position of power barely batting an eye at one of their charges vanishing was unnerving, to say the least. “She last made contact with her parents on Friday morning. She came to school and after that nothing. Do you know what might have led her to do a ‘disappearing act’ as you called it?”

She turned to him sharply and raised a perfectly drawn-on eyebrow. She wasn’t used to people talking back. But Kidd refused to be intimidated by her.

“Sarah Harper was dramatic,” Ms Chowdhury said.

“You mentioned,” DS Sanchez interjected with a poisonous smile.

“Well, as such, the drama followed her around,” she said. “There was always something happening, whether it would be at home or with her friends or with her boyfriend.” She started tapping away on her computer, not saying another word for a minute or so. Kidd was starting to wonder if they had been dismissed without him realising, until she took hold of the screen and turned it toward them. “I think this might have been what sparked it.”

“Jesus Christ,” Kidd blurted.

CHAPTER EIGHT

On the screen in front of them was something that looked like a gossip website. It was a screenshot from a webpage with several pictures of Sarah on it. She was kissing a boy in one of the photos, caressing his face in another, the boy’s hand squeezing her bum in another. Whoever had taken that photo had really zoomed in for it. It was grim.

Across the top of the page read: EXPOSED! SARAH’S CHEATING WAYS ON DISPLAY FOR THE WORLD TO SEE! NOT SO SWEET NOW!

Ms Chowdhury pulled the screen back towards her, tutted, and clicked to remove it from her desktop.

“That appeared on Thursday, the day before Sarah vanished,” Ms Chowdhury said. “We know that there were several arguments that broke out between Sarah and her friends, also with her boyfriend, though we are yet to find the identity of the person who posted these things about her.”

“We’re going to need a link to that website—”

“It’s been taken down,” Ms Chowdhury interrupted.

“Then any screenshots you have will be useful,” DI Kidd said. “And we’re going to need the names of anyone who knew Sarah. We would like to talk to them today.”

“They’re in classes—”

“That wasn’t a request.”

“They have lessons—”

“There is a teenage girl missing, Ms Chowdhury,” DI Kidd said plainly, struggling to believe that he was having to spell this out to an educator, to a headteacher of all people. “We don’t know where she is, and yes, this may not be out of the ordinary for her to do for a day or so, but Sarah has been missing for the past four days. She has had no contact with her family whatsoever, so we need to know if there is anyone here who has made contact with her.”

There was a silence that fell on the room, Ms Chowdhury staring at DI Kidd with an open mouth, not really knowing what to say. So DI Kidd took up the mantle once again.

“If you could find us a room somewhere so that we could talk to the students, that would be wonderful,” he said. “If you would prefer there be a member of staff present as well, that’s fine, but we would like to get this investigation moving. Any holdups that we have here could hinder our efforts to find Sarah, do you understand?”

A silence pushed its way between them, Kidd eyeballing Ms Chowdhury as she sat there stony-faced. She certainly wasn’t used to being spoken to like that but Kidd was ready to explode. How could she not care?

Ms Chowdhury nodded, backing down. “I will set up one of the spare offices for you and have Ms Lu go and collect the children from their classes one at a time.” She pressed a few buttons on her computer, the printer behind her desk spitting out a copy of the website she had shown them a few moments ago.

Kidd folded it and put it in his pocket, waiting for Ms Chowdhury to finish whatever it was she was tapping out on the computer. Eventually, she got up from behind her desk, DI Kidd and DS Sanchez following suit, and without another word, led them out of her office and into the office next door.

It was almost identical to Ms Chowdhury’s but for the lack of books and certificates on the walls. It would have looked like an interview room down at the station were it not for the brightly coloured blue walls and the large window. The interview rooms at the station had a tendency to get quite claustrophobic. No chance of that here.

“Thank you, Ms Chowdhury,” DI Kidd said as she scurried out of the room. When she’d closed the door behind her, DS Sanchez rounded on him, her face alight. She looked like she wanted to drag Ms Chowdhury back in here for round two.

“Well, that was certainly a battle,” she said.

“I know.”

“Did she even care?” she said. “What’s that about?”

“It just wasn’t getting through to her,” he said, looking at the door as if she were about to walk back in. “Even when we mentioned Sarah had been missing, she was batting away questions, batting away anything that would actually help us.”

“It was odd,” DS Sanchez said. “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that she had something