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

to think that you would care a little more about that. Or maybe if not about Sarah, perhaps you’d care about the daughter of the man you are currently sleeping with.”

Ms Chowdhury locked eyes with DC Ravel, the two of them sat across from each other in a standoff. Janya knew she was going to be difficult to talk to, Kidd had made that abundantly clear, but this was something else.

Ms Chowdhury eventually backed down. “It’s been on and off for the past couple of years,” she said. “He was going through a hard time and I comforted him when he came to a Parents’ Evening without Lau—Mrs Harper,” she quickly corrected. “We met here, we met at his house, or…anywhere quiet, really.”

“At his house?”

“No,” she said. “At the unfinished ones. He has them all over town.”

DC Ravel noted it down, it felt relevant. She remembered Kidd saying something about all of the houses Chris Harper had left unfinished. It made her shudder to think that he was using them to hook up with women who weren’t his wife. There was something in that. She could feel it.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Chris Harper had been surprisingly amiable when they’d finally managed to get through to him on the phone. Given the way that he’d spoken to DI Kidd at the school reunion and then afterwards at the station just a few nights ago, letting him know how bloody busy he was all the time, he half expected to get given the cold shoulder and have to pull rank. But it was like he’d had a change of heart. Chris Harper was suddenly more than willing to help. As they spoke on the phone, asking him to come in, he was already on his way from the office, wandering through town to come and see them.

“I don’t like it,” DS Sanchez said. “He’s a fucking slime ball.”

“I’m not denying that,” Kidd replied. “But we obviously put the wind up him last time he was here, so let’s use that to our advantage. Remember, Sarah wasn’t dead last time. The guilt must be eating him up.”

“He doesn’t know we have the phone,” Zoe added.

“Right,” Kidd said. “We have all the cards. We just need to play them carefully.”

Diane popped down the corridor to tell them when he had arrived, and they took him through to the nicer of the interview rooms. He wasn’t under arrest, not yet anyway, so they needed to play this as carefully as possible. As far as he knew, they were just clearing a few things up.

Once they’d exchanged pleasantries and sat him down, DS Sanchez fixed him with an eagle-eyed stare that suggested to Kidd that it was her turn to play bad cop, he began.

“We just had more information come to light and we wanted to know if you could clear a few things up for us?” Kidd asked as calmly as he could, when all he really wanted to do was slam the printed messages on the table and demand answers.

“Of course,” Chris said. “Anything I can do to help, I’ll do it. I know I was cagey when we first started speaking but…” His voice cracked as he trailed off and DI Kidd watched as his mouth moved, no sound coming out. His eyes suddenly watery. He looked away from them for a moment, then back at them, taking a deep, heaving breath before he carried on. “I’m sorry. That was before Sarah was found and I…I didn’t think that would be how things…happened.”

“Okay,” DI Kidd said, still watching the man carefully. He really was quite different to how he had been just a couple of days ago. Kidd had seen death affect people in a lot of different ways but it was surprising to see the way it had affected Chris Harper. He’d expected anger, that same frustration that his wife had been sharing on social media, but this was a man who had been broken by it. It was surprising to say the least. “We just have a few questions,” DI Kidd continued, pulling the printouts of the messages from the file and sliding them across the table towards Chris. He went a little paler as he realised what they were. “These were messages that were found on Sarah’s phone—”

“You found her phone?” he asked. “When did you find—?”

“The same day we found her body,” DI Kidd said. It wasn’t a lie, but he wasn’t going to tell him the entire story about what happened with Caleb, not until they had the facts from Chris. He didn’t want to put the kid in danger, after all. “I just want you to explain them to me if you can. Take your time. Read them.”

Chris Harper picked up the pieces of paper and read them carefully. His eyes widened as he read them. He even looked a little bit confused at times, like they were things that he didn’t remember saying. Kidd could already feel the lie coming from a mile off and he sincerely hoped he wasn’t about to try it.

“I—” Chris started. “I—I don’t—”

“If you can’t explain the messages,” DS Sanchez said. “Then perhaps it would be a good time for you to explain what happened between you and Sarah on Saturday morning.”

Chris Harper looked up sharply. He swallowed, his eyes wide, his face ghostly pale. He’d been well and truly caught out. This was not what he’d been prepared for, not by a long way and he was very much on the back foot. DS Sanchez was enjoying herself.

“Take your time,” DI Kidd said sitting back in his chair. “We’ve got plenty.”

“But not too much time,” DS Sanchez interjected. “You take too much time we’re going to know that you’re cooking up a story and that’s the last thing you want us to think, Mr Harper.”

DI Kidd looked across at her. She wasn’t just playing bad cop. She was playing demon nightmare cop, and Chris Harper was very much on