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

sick,” she said. “He won’t come out of his room, the poor lamb. But I don’t feel all that well myself so I’m wondering if whatever he’s got I’ve managed to pick up.”

She backed away from the door a little, allowing it to open further. Zoe would have taken that as an invitation to step inside, but Alexandra Kaye seemed to be blocking the whole of the hallway. She didn’t want them to come in, that much was for certain.

“It would be really useful if we could talk to him,” Zoe said. “It shouldn’t take too long, just wanted to have a word about Sarah.”

“He’s been so upset since she went missing,” she said, just like she had done last night. Her eyes looked red upon closer inspection, her face a little bit puffy. She had obviously heard the news. “Honestly, he hasn’t known what to do with himself. With news of the body I…” she trailed off. “I can’t imagine what he’s feeling.”

“We’d love to hear that from him if possible,” DS Sanchez said, a little more firmly now.

“I really don’t think he should be seeing anyone right now,” Ms Kaye said. “He’s very sick. I would be more than happy to have him call you?”

DS Sanchez watched Ms Kaye carefully. It was hard for Zoe to put her finger on it, but there was something about her that unsettled her. Like she wasn’t just trying to stop them from talking to him, like she was hiding something else.

“Can I talk to you a little bit about Mr Harper while I have you?” DS Sanchez said carefully. It felt as good a time as any. “We spoke to him last night after the altercation with your ex-husband, and we’d love to know about your relationship with him.”

“Well, we don’t really have a relationship,” she said with a slight laugh that was more like an expelling of breath. It told Zoe more than she probably intended. There was a lot of history there, it was obvious. “We’re old friends, of course. I’ve been friends with Laura and Chris for a number of years. I think my husband just gets jealous sometimes.”

“Because you slept with Chris?” DS Sanchez said quickly.

Alexandra Kaye’s face slipped, but only for a moment. She obviously hadn’t expected Chris to gift them with that sort of information. Maybe they’d agreed never to discuss it again, but the fact she was so willing to keep it from Zoe made her wonder what else she might be hiding.

“Well,” Ms Kaye said, brushing her hair behind her ears, a nervous habit maybe. “It was a one-time thing. I was having problems with Norman and…” She looked up the stairs and lowered her voice. “I don’t know how I feel about discussing this with my son just upstairs. I don’t like to speak badly about his father if I can help it. He doesn’t make it easy, of course, but I still want him and Caleb to have a relationship.”

“Well, I’d be more than happy to chat to you about this down at the station, Ms Kaye,” Zoe said. “We can take you there, we have a car outside.”

“I shouldn’t leave Caleb, really.”

“Then please, tell us more about Mr Kaye,” DS Sanchez said. She lowered her voice, conspiratorial, vaguely threatening. She wanted Alexandra to know she wasn’t to be messed with. “You can speak softly if you want to.”

Ms Kaye locked eyes with DS Sanchez before her gaze drifted to DC Powell and back again. She plastered that smile back onto her face and took a breath before speaking.

“The way he acted last night wasn’t exactly out of character,” she said quietly, her voice trembling. “Even when we were together he had a tendency to fly off the handle at the slightest thing. Caleb has a very close relationship with my mother, his grandmother, because I would often send him off there when it felt like things were getting a little too much here.”

“Too much, how?” DS Sanchez asked.

“He would yell, as you saw last night,” she said. “And would often get physical.”

“Did he ever hit you, Ms Kaye?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” she said quickly. “But the threat of it always felt like it was there. And it was enough to keep me scared and keep me in the relationship perhaps longer than I should have.”

Zoe considered this. She hadn’t wanted to speak about it, but once she’d unlocked the flood gates it had all come out. And everything that she had said matched with the way that Mr Kaye had behaved the previous night. She took down a few notes.

“And what about you taking Caleb away from him?”

“Is that what he told you?” she scoffed, shaking her head, pulling her gaze away from the DS. “He has quite an imagination, that man.”

“What makes you say that, Ms Kaye?”

“Well, I’ve never threatened to keep him and Caleb apart,” she said. “Like I said, I want them to have a relationship. I don’t want to keep them apart. Caleb’s decisions are his own to make, he’s a big boy, he can do what he wants. The fact that he has seen his father for who he is, or maybe doesn’t want to go and spend time in his sad little flat is his own decision. Norm can’t accept that.”

“Why can’t he accept that?”

“Because he is so sure that the world, or me, are entirely against him,” Ms Kaye snapped. She stopped and steadied herself. “Ever since what happened with Chris, the job loss, the…” She lowered her voice again. “The affair.” She shook her head. Was that shame? “It’s the way he is. It’s frightening and it’s sad, but it’s true.”

“Do you want us to raise anything against him?” DS Sanchez asked. “If you’re feeling frightened I wouldn’t want—”

“No, please don’t,” she said suddenly, quickly. “He can be dangerous, I know, but I don’t think…I don’t think he would do anything to hurt me.”

And Zoe saw an opportunity in front of