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

names you’ll need for the evidence board. Dexter Black. Jonno Edwards.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, heading over to his desk.

“What’s happened then, sir?” DC Campbell asked, somehow still nursing a pain aux raisins, or maybe he’d been out to buy another. “Any updates?”

Kidd cleared his throat before he told them everything that had happened that morning, the discussion with Sarah’s parents, with Sarah’s headteacher, and how Dexter Black is nowhere to be found. It was that last thing that filled him with the most worry. He’d seen what young people were capable of in his time on the force, and angry young men made up a lot of them too. He hoped he was wrong about Dexter, but until he could speak to him he couldn’t be sure.

“What’s the plan then, boss?” DC Campbell asked.

“I’ve got a few things I need to look at first,” he said. “If we can get the evidence board in order then we’ll figure out our next move.” He moved to walk over to his desk when the door to the Incident Room flew open, DCI Weaver standing in the frame.

“Did you get my messages, Kidd?” he barked across the room. Kidd took his phone out of his pocket, reminded of the string of missed calls he’d had outside the Harpers’ house.

“Sorry, sir, was a little busy,” he replied.

“You got my messages, why didn’t you come to find me?” Weaver said. “Press conference. Outside. Now.”

“Shit.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

DI Kidd followed DCI Weaver back to his office, explaining to him on the way everything that they had so far, which in Weaver’s eyes at least, wasn’t a whole lot. He didn’t mention the phone, if he mentioned the phone he would get a proper bollocking and he needed to make sure it had been worth taking before he set himself up for that.

“They’re leads,” Kidd said. “We didn’t have leads this morning, at least now, we have people to talk to, people to track down, this morning—”

“This morning you had nothing, this afternoon you have a little bit more than nothing,” Weaver interrupted. “It’s not going to be enough.”

“Then why call a press conference?”

“I had the superintendent breathing down my neck to get something out there,” he barked.

“So, you gave me four hours to get something?” Kidd snapped. “Hardly seems fair.”

“I don’t give a shit about fair, Kidd. I give a shit about getting the job done,” he parried, leaning on his desk. “The fact is, we have the nation’s press outside and we need to tell them something.”

Kidd eyed him from across the table, once again seeing the exhaustion in his face, the heavy bags under his eyes. It wasn’t usual for their team to be going after a missing person but this was high profile. If the superintendent was breathing down his neck, if the nation’s media was waiting outside for something to be said, he would have to say something. He hated talking to the press.

“Are they ready?” Kidd asked.

“Do you want to brief me on what you’re going to say?” Weaver grumbled.

“We don’t have time for that,” Kidd replied, getting to his feet. “Not if you want them gone as soon as possible.”

“I do want them gone, bloody vultures, scourge of the earth.”

“Save it for the cameras, boss. I’m sure they’d love that.” That made a smile twitch at the corners of Weaver’s mouth. It wasn’t a lot, but at least it was something. “I’ll tell them where we are, but tell them the leads we have are promising, and then I’ll answer a few questions. Unless they piss me off then I won’t answer any at all.”

They made their way down the corridor and towards the front of the station. Sure enough, there were cameras set up out the front, the major news stations emblazoned on the sides of them or on the microphones of the presenters waiting to quiz him on the investigation. If it had been tomorrow, maybe he would have had a little more, but it wasn’t, it was now. And he needed to give them something.

“You’re up, Kidd,” Weaver said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“So don’t yell at them?” Kidd said with a raise of his eyebrow. “Thanks for the heads up, sir.”

He headed outside and winced a little at the surge, as they all tried to jostle their way closer, pushing against the PCs that had been stationed there to keep them back. They were a vicious bunch, Kidd knew that all too well. One wrong foot and they’d sink you for it.

He took a breath, cleared his throat and stood tall in front of them.

“Hello, my name is Detective Inspector Benjamin Kidd,” he said. “I’m the investigating officer on the disappearance of Sarah Harper. I’m here to give you an update on the investigation so far, and to answer some questions if you happen to have any.” He didn’t add, “I’m sure you do,” even though it was tempting.

“We started our investigation last night when Sarah Harper was reported missing and have since been tracking her movements, trying to fit together a timeline of the last time she was seen. She wasn’t reported missing until Monday afternoon, so we have a little bit of catching up to do in that regard,” Kidd stated. “We’ve conducted some interviews already, collecting all the information that we can and we are slowly seeing some leads beginning to emerge. There’s still a lot of work to do on the investigation, a lot of stones that we still need to look under, and pieces of evidence we need to acquire but we are confident with how things are progressing.”

He could see them taking notes, a couple of people with tape recorders out in front of them getting the sound bites, a couple of others already poised to ask questions.

“I’ll be happy to take a few questions now,” DI Kidd said. “Not too many, mind, we do have an investigation to conduct, after all.”

He