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

Kidd took a breath and started towards the front doors.

The night air was cold, a few clicks colder than it had been when they’d arrived, though maybe that was the change in going from a room full of people to outside. He pulled his jacket tightly about himself as he looked for Chris. It was quiet out here now, the cars no longer moving around on the gravel and making that dreadful, crunching noise, no footsteps approaching, just the low hum of the lights guiding any latecomers to the front door.

“Mr Harper?” DI Kidd said, perhaps a little too loudly.

“Over here!” A voice came out of the dark, and Kidd could just make him out leaning against the wall a little way away. “Sorry about that.”

Kidd approached. “About…” he trailed off when he saw there was another figure with him, mostly cloaked in shadow. But he recognised her all the same. “Ms Chowdhury. Fancy seeing you here.”

She straightened up. “It’s my school, Mr Kidd—”

“DI Kidd.”

“DI Kidd, my apologies. It is my school. I was working late, and given everything that’s been going on, I saw Mr Harper heading outside and decided to talk to him about it,” she said, her lips curling into a smile. “I hope that’s alright.”

“It’s a free country, Ms Chowdhury,” he said. “I was simply doing the same.”

“We’ll talk later,” Ms Chowdhury said, placing a hand on Chris Harper’s arm. Kidd watched her closely, she lowered her voice, but not low enough. “I’m working late tonight. You know where to find me.”

She locked eyes with Kidd before she walked back into the school. Kidd didn’t know where to start with that. He turned to Chris.

“Do I want to ask what that was about?”

“You can ask, it doesn’t mean I’ll tell,” he replied, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a packet of cigarettes. “Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Mind if I do?”

“Free country,” Kidd said again. “What did you leave for? Were you coming to meet her?”

“No,” he said quickly. “I was struggling with all of the attention in there. That’s more Laura’s area than it is mine. I just let her get on with it.”

“That’s how it seemed to me when I came to see her today,” Kidd said. “That you were leaving everything to her.”

“Did she say that?”

“No.”

“Then why are you saying it?”

“I’m doing my job,” Kidd replied.

“You’re sticking your nose in.”

“That’s my job,” Kidd said bluntly. “I came to check and see if you were alright. You seem fine to me. Not worried about your daughter going missing, but that’s your choice.”

“I am worried,” he said. “I’m terrified. The last things I said to her were so awful. Our relationship wasn’t the best but…” he trailed off and took a long drag of his cigarette. “I’m not a bad guy, DI Kidd,” he said. “I just…I have needs.”

Kidd took a deep breath. He’d had enough of men trying to justify their affairs to him today. That’s what this was, an admittance that there was something going on with Ms Chowdhury. And if Sarah happened to know something about that, then maybe they should be looking at her a little more closely. She didn’t seem to like Sarah all that much. If Sarah knew that she had been sleeping with her dad, she probably would have been giving her hell.

“I’m not here to judge your life choices, or judge your marriage.”

“You must understand,” he said. “Are you married?”

“Far from it,” Kidd replied.

“Then maybe you don’t.”

“Don’t understand why you’re not faithful to your wife?” Kidd asked with a raise of his eyebrow. “I don’t think I need to be married to know that it’s not the right thing to do. Unless you have some kind of agreement and you’re allowed to do that within the bounds of your marriage, but the fact you’re sneaking around and justifying it to me suggests that perhaps not.” Kidd took a breath. He still wanted to talk to Chris Harper properly, on the record, about what his relationship with Sarah was like. But he’d learned something about the man tonight, and he really didn’t like it. “I’ll see you back inside.”

“You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

Kidd sighed. “Of course not,” he said. “It’s not my place. I’ll see you inside, Mr Harper.”

Kidd walked back into the school, noticing that Ms Chowdhury was hovering in the corridor as he approached the school hall. She watched him carefully, though when he locked eyes with her she immediately looked away. Was that a guilty conscience? And about what? Her affair with Chris, or something else, something more? It wouldn’t be the first time a teacher had abducted a student.

He walked back into the hall and the heat from all the bodies hit him like a tank. Alexandra Kaye was still standing with Laura, an apparent leaning post of solidarity that her husband had failed to provide for this evening.

He walked over to DS Sanchez. She had given up her post next to them and had moved a little closer to the wall, giving them a little bit of breathing room.

“Anything good?” he asked.

“Nothing we can use,” she replied. “Most of them are just feeling really sad for her, which I get, and she’s playing the role of strong independent woman quite well.”

“Not as well as you’d think,” Kidd said. “Look at her hands.”

She was gripping onto Alexandra’s arm so tightly her knuckles were white. If she let go, Kidd wouldn’t be surprised if she tumbled to the ground in a heap. She had a lot going on in her life right now, her husband being an adulterous prick was the least of her worries.

“You look furious, Kidd, what’s happened?” Zoe asked. “Did you find something?”

He sighed heavily. “You could say that, yeah.”

He was about to explain what was going on when the doors to the hall opened once more and Chris appeared. So he hadn’t been all that far behind Kidd