Too Close to the Cold Case

Prologue The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home

Emily Fisher tugged her jacket tighter around herself and checked her phone again.

The numbers glowed too bright in the dark, harsh and accusing, as if the screen itself mirrored her dad’s disappointment.

She shouldn’t have left without a lift. She knew that.

Claire’s mum had turned up early though, when she’d been mid-conversation with Deacon.

He’d leant on the bar, close enough for her to smell his beer breath, mint chewing gum and whatever aftershave it was that boys in bands used to make them instantly more irresistible.

How could she walk out when the lead singer of Static Youth paid her attention?

He’d definitely flirted.

Even if the flirting had mostly involved him sliding his empty glass across the bar with that half-smirk suggesting he knew exactly what he was doing. Trouble was, she couldn’t pour him another one, being only seventeen and her role being glass collection. Meaning he’d wandered off eventually.

Still.

It counted.

And so what if Deacon had a reputation? She wasn’t na?ve.

She knew exactly what people said about him.

But there were worse people to lose her virginity to than a thirty-year-old frontman who knew exactly what he was doing.

Then, when she eventually got herself to Manchester and met Leo properly, she wouldn’t have to admit she’d never done it.

Unfortunately, hanging around for Deacon had meant missing the last bus.

So she’d stood in the back corridor of the King’s Arms, zipping her coat over her black bar polo, staring at the staff rota pinned to the corkboard, and made a choice.

She wasn’t calling her dad.

Not on her first week of shifts.

Not after standing in the kitchen doorway earlier, arms folded, telling him she didn’t need ferrying back and forth as if she were twelve.

Not after the blazing row about curfews and tracking apps and her screaming how he needed to “chill the hell out.” Not after he’d said, tight-voiced, “You don’t know this town the way I do. ”

She wanted some bloody freedom.

She was seventeen.

Nearly eighteen. An adult.

She now understood why her mum had packed up and left when Dad was this suffocating.

The pub door shut behind her with a dull, final thud.

Deacon hadn’t followed her out. She hadn’t actually expected him to.

That would’ve been ridiculous. Still, some small, stupid part of her had imagined him jogging after her, offering her a lift home in the band’s battered van.

The drummer usually drove it—the one with dark curly hair down to his shoulders.

Jake. She didn’t really know him beyond his name, the fact he’d apparently been in trouble years ago, and that he was gay, which at least meant she’d never had to embarrass herself wondering if he might fancy her.

But no Deacon appeared, and the warmth and laughter of the pub were sealed away behind the door, replaced by cold air biting her cheeks.

Emily shoved her hands into her pockets and waved through the steamed-up glass at her boss, Pete, as he locked up. He caught her eye and mouthed, Text me when you’re home. She nodded, forcing a smile.

God, why was everyone so concerned?

The high street lay mostly dark, shutters down, winter merging hopelessly into spring, which looked more or less the same as autumn.

One takeaway still glowed at the corner, neon sign flickering OPEN as if unsure if it was or not.

A car idled outside the Co-op, exhaust curling silver into the air before it pulled away.

Then nothing.

Until a dog barked.

Then it stopped too abruptly.

Emily hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and headed towards the lane cutting between the chapel and the old mill cottages. The shortcut. Everyone used it as it shaved off ten minutes. She’d be home before midnight.

But typical Hartswick, the mist began its slow descent from the moor.

It rolled thick and low over the ridge, sliding down into town, creeping along dry-stone walls and hedgerows. Streetlamps became blurred halos suspended in white. Tourists called it picturesque.

Locals called it Wednesday

Emily slowed at the entrance to the woodland.

Beneath a weak solar lamp stood the information board she’d passed hundreds of times.

Hartswick Wildlife Trail. Badgers near the beck.

Tawny owls at dusk. A laminated map showed the circular dog-walking route, alongside a warning that the narrow game trails branching into the woodland could easily be mistaken for footpaths.

But beneath the board, there were old notices layered over one another. A village jumble sale, a missing tabby, and a poster for last year’s Christmas market. And, almost hidden beneath them, a weather-beaten scrap of paper: REWARD FOR INFORMATION. HAVE YOU SE—

The rest had rotted away.

Emily barely registered it. Hartswick was full of old stories. Girls who’d gone missing. Blokes people whispered about after a few pints. Things that had happened years ago to other people.

Girls who hadn’t been careful.

She’d had danger drummed into her from birth. Hold your keys. Turn your location on. Don’t talk to strangers.

So she took hold of those keys and stepped through.

The mist was thicker beneath the trees, weaving between branches and sagging low over the bracken. Village noise faded behind her until all she could hear was the distant hum of the bypass and the soft drip of condensation from leaf to leaf.

It was peaceful, really.

She’d walked this path hundreds of times. Daylight. Dusk. Sideways rain. Hungover after the summer fair.

This was home.

She was only nine minutes from home.

So she pulled out her phone and switched on the torch. The beam hit the mist and flared white, reflecting straight back at her. She lowered it to the ground instead, picking out wet gravel and bronze leaves while everything more than a few metres ahead dissolved into nothing.

“Brilliant.” She lowered the angle, trying to aim the beam at the ground instead.

Her phone buzzed in her palm, and she nearly dropped it, heart jolting hard enough to sting.

Dad: Have you left yet?

She rolled her eyes, breath fogging in front of her. Yes, she’d left. Yes, she was walking. Yes, she was fine. She didn’t reply. Another buzz followed almost immediately, anyway, and her stomach flipped for a different reason this time.

Leo: Hey. Did you sort it with your dad?

She smiled, mood lifted.

He said no but I’ll figure it out. Can’t wait to see you xx

Three dots appeared instantly.

He doesn’t control your life. You’re basically 18. Pack a bag and get the train.

She slowed, the mist pressing closer around her; the torch beam flattening everything into a pale blur. She wasn’t stupid. She knew Leo didn’t mean tonight. He meant the gig. Manchester. Neon Arcade. Freedom. Not this damp lane and her dad checking the clock every ten minutes.

You make it sound easy, she typed back.

It is. You said you hate it there. Come to Manchester. Stay with me.

Her pulse skipped.

She shoved the phone back into her pocket before she could think too hard about it and believe it might actually happen.

Her dad would never agree. He’d insist on driving her.

Dropping her off. Picking her up. Like he’d insisted on taking her to and from her shifts at the pub.

But she’d sorted that, hadn’t she? Told him Claire’s mum had it covered.

Yet here she was.

Walking home alone.

Because it was only eight minutes.

The path dipped, curving towards the stretch edging closer to the open moor.

The mist thickened, pooling low between tree trunks until they looked taller than they were, stretching upward into nothing.

Then she squinted. Headlights beamed up ahead.

Dim at first. Diffused through the fog, they looked like twin moons caught low to the ground.

She slowed.

There shouldn’t be a car this far in. Though there was an access track somewhere ahead. She knew that. Farmers used it. Dog walkers sometimes turned around there. It wasn’t unheard of. But the engine idled quietly, barely more than a hum beneath the wind, as if parked and waiting. Emily swallowed.

The driver’s window lowered a fraction. “Eh up, Em?”

Her heart jumped. Not in fear. More surprise.

She shielded her eyes against the glare. “Oh. Hi.” Relief loosened her chest. “You scared me.”

“You walking all the way back?”

She glanced behind her. The path had dissolved into white. “Aye. I’m only seven minutes away.”

“What can happen in seven minutes?”

Emily snorted. “I know, right?”

“Still, it’s pretty foggy. Want a lift?”

“No, it’s okay. I can walk.”

“Your dad’ll kill me if I told him I saw you walking and didn’t offer.”

Dad would moan. He’d lecture about safety.

About men. Small towns and poor decisions.

But she was freezing. And tired. And she knew him.

Her dad knew him. The whole bloody town knew him.

And if she was going to get on a train to Manchester next weekend, if she was going to build a life somewhere bigger than this, she had to prove she could be independent and get home without his help.

Like a grown woman.

“Okay.” She walked around the bonnet, mist curling around her knees, and opened the passenger door.

Once in, she hovered her thumb over her dad’s unanswered message.

Have you left yet?

She should probably reply now. Tell him she was on her way. Tell him she’d got a lift. But then he’d ask who with. And she really couldn’t be bothered with another interrogation.

So she turned the phone off and slipped it back into her pocket.

Then the mist closed in, swallowing the car whole.

And Emily Fisher with it.