Chapter Seven Media Training #2
“Aye. Well, she wanted to go with a boy she’d met online. Father didn’t want her to go. He also didn’t like her job at the pub. Hadn’t wanted her to take it and only allowed it because she would get a lift home with her friend’s mum. He didn’t like her being out late.”
“And this wasn’t disclosed initially?”
“Father minimised it.” She bit her lip. “I got most of that from the friend. Claire. And Claire’s mum.
When I requestioned the father, he admitted they had words, but it was him trying to keep her safe.
Ironically.” She rubbed her forehead. “After that, he became…quite emotional. Struggled to engage.”
Of course he did.
Harrison nodded. “Noted.”
Arguments happened. Teenagers declared they were leaving all the time.
Dramatic, absolute, certain that the world would regret them.
But they rarely left their chargers plugged into the wall.
Or their bank card sitting neatly on the bedside table.
And they didn’t switch their phone off and wander into open moorland in the middle of the night without telling a single person where they were going.
The facts didn’t fit the performance of a runaway.
But the timing of the argument was unfortunate. In a town like this, it wouldn’t take long before someone mentioned it in the pub, then someone else repeated it with a slight tilt of emphasis. There’d been a row with her dad. Raised voices. A slammed door.
Runaway.
It was an easy word. A convenient one.
And once it took hold, urgency thinned. Edges softened. The tone changed from missing to absent. From risk to rebellion. Search grids became less aggressive. Patrols less urgent. Footsteps slowed. And Harrison felt it already: the subtle drag of a narrative trying to decide the case.
He couldn’t allow that.
Not yet.
Not while the clock was still within reach.
“We explore voluntary absence.” He rubbed his brow with the heel of his hand, careful not to swipe red marker ink across his temple. “But we don’t anchor to it.”
DS Calder cleared his throat. “Could be straightforward, sir. Seventeen. Argument at home. Storms out. Happens often.”
Straightforward.
See, it was happening already. Harrison didn’t miss the way Calder had suggested it. As if the conclusion was already filed and stamped. As if this were an inconvenience rather than a risk. The comfort of a simple narrative. The relief of a box closing neatly and requiring no further stretching.
“It could be.” Harrison held his gaze a fraction longer than was comfortable. “Until it isn’t.”
Calder shifted under the scrutiny. Harrison hadn’t openly reprimanded him.
He wouldn’t do that. But he had corrected the narrative Calder was clearly after.
Because Harrison had seen his type before.
Officers who preferred conclusions to questions.
Who leaned towards the explanation that made paperwork lighter and overtime unnecessary.
Every force had them. Big cities. Rural counties.
Didn’t matter. And if Calder had been involved with Jake Whitton before, he could almost see why Jake might have taken a dislike to him.
Men like Calder didn’t enjoy having their judgement challenged.
And men like Jake didn’t challenge quietly.
But Calder was on his team now. He’d have to get used to confrontation.
“Identify this boy in Manchester,” Harrison said. “Full name. Address. Social media. Travel records, if we can. Speak to her friends again. Confirm whether she made plans. If he exists, we speak to him. Today.”
Calder nodded. “Aye, sir.”
Harrison glanced back at Murray. “Have we reached the mother?”
“She’s trying to get back from Spain. She’s been informed.”
Silence again.
A mother abroad. A father here. An argument. A seventeen-year-old who might have felt cornered. Could Emily be trying to get to her mother?
The thought hovered. Possible, but thin.
Before he could pursue it, another officer appeared at the door. “Media’s set up, sir.”
“Right.” He checked his watch. Twelve exactly. “Better give them something before they write their own version.”
He capped the marker and stepped out of the incident room, the low murmur of voices resuming behind him.
He’d done more media interviews than he could count.
Local press on rain-slicked London streets.
National breakfast television with producers whispering in his ear.
Live statements after arrests that had made front pages.
The Met had trained him how to hold a line.
Control a narrative. Give enough without ever surrendering ground.
But this…this was his first day in post. In a station where he couldn’t even point out where the loos were, in a town he hadn’t yet learned the rhythm of. The nerves were there. Low. Controlled. He pressed them down where they belonged.
A uniformed constable held the glass door half open for him, and he walked out in the midday light.
The sky was a pale, washed-out grey-blue, rooftops bleached beneath it.
Two marked patrol cars were angled neatly near the entrance.
A quiet, present perimeter. And three microphones waited.
One camera. A reporter he suspected had covered parish council meetings until this morning.
Small town.
Small force.
But the stakes weren’t small.
He stepped forward to take the stand.
“I’m Detective Inspector Harrison Black, Senior Investigating Officer in the disappearance of seventeen-year-old Emily Fisher.
” His voice carried evenly across the small cluster of microphones.
Controlled. Projected without strain. “Emily was last seen leaving The King’s Arms public house in Hartswick at approximately 11:20pm last night.
We’re treating this as a high-risk missing person investigation. ”
Pens scratched. The camera flashes came out.
“Is this an abduction?” a reporter called.
“We’re keeping an open mind,” Harrison replied.
“At this stage, there’s no evidence to confirm the circumstances of her disappearance.
Our priority is ensuring Emily is safe.” He took a breath.
“We’re appealing to anyone who was in the High Street or woodland shortcut area last night to come forward.
Even the smallest detail could prove significant. ”
He waited, giving space and time to the information being shared.
Then he switched tactics, “And if Emily herself sees this appeal, you are not in any trouble. Please make contact. Your family are concerned for your welfare.”
A hand shot up. “Are you linking this to the disappearance of Robyn Whitton?”
The name landed in the air like a dropped glass.
Whitton.
He didn’t blink. Didn’t break posture.
But internally, that was fast. Too fast for coincidence. He’d been in the building for less than twenty-four hours. That question shouldn’t have been the first leap.
“We’re not linking incidents at this stage,” he said, tone steady and neutral. “Our focus is solely on locating Emily Fisher.”
The reporter pushed. “But the woodland path is the same, isn’t it? And she’s a young girl of near the same age. Same time of night she went missing? From the same pub?”
“We’re following all lines of inquiry,” Harrison cut her off. “Speculation doesn’t assist an active investigation.”
He then stepped back before momentum could build.
The microphones lowered. The camera light switched off.
But the conversation swelled instantly, reporters already framing headlines in their heads.
And as Harrison nodded his thanks, he turned back through the station doors with one name running around in his head.
Whitton.
If that was one of the first questions out of the gate, then this town hadn’t forgotten.
Which meant the history ran deeper than the thin briefing Calder had handed him that morning, which had been nothing more than a summary skimming the surface and sidestepping the significance.
More commentary on Jake than on Robyn. Emphasis on temperament than on tragedy.
Which meant it hadn’t been accidental.
Calder, and everyone else in that building, had chosen not to front-load it.
To keep Robyn Whitton in the margins. But once the bulletin aired, that choice wouldn’t matter.
The name Whitton would be back in circulation.
Passed between kitchen tables. Repeated in shop stockrooms. Murmured at the school gates under the guise of concern.
Thirteen years of dust disturbed in a single news cycle.
And Harrison didn’t know what that would do to this town.
To Jake Whitton.
His family.
Nor to Emily Fisher, whose disappearance threatened to blur into old grief.
He pictured Jake seeing it. Hearing his sister’s name spoken aloud again, framed beside another missing girl. Watching the past dragged into the daylight.
Would the appeal steady him?
Or would it strike a match to something that had been waiting, dry and ready, all this time?
Harrison turned on his heel and pushed back through the station doors; the change in atmosphere immediate. Warm air, ringing phones, officers glancing up as he passed. He didn’t slow as he reached the incident room.
“Someone get me the Whitton case file.”
Chairs stilled. A pen stopped mid-scribble.
The lack of response went on for far too long.
So Harrison swept his gaze across them all and let out his Met voice, “Now!”