Chapter Fourteen In the Pines #2
So he leaned into the van and yanked out his jacket.
It was little more than a fashion piece, thin black leather and useless against the creeping mist, but it was all he had.
Gigging meant sweat, and coats stayed at home to make way for the kit.
But he shrugged it on, slammed the door, locked it, and headed across the car park.
The village was quieter the further he walked.
Saturday noise fading behind him. Ahead, the path cut between two hedgerows before dipping into the woodland.
There’d been police tape tied across it for the last two days.
Now it hung loose around the post, pushed aside.
Which meant the path was now open. The route Emily had taken was no longer a crime scene.
It was a shortcut again. Evidence bagged, photographed, catalogued. Nothing left to find.
Jake stepped past it.
The gravel path crunched under his boots as he followed it downhill.
Mist rolled low along the ground, curling through the hedges and slipping between the trees ahead.
The woodland rose dark and dense beyond the path, branches knitted overhead like black veins in the faint glow of the village lights.
Jake knew every inch of this place.
He’d walked it every night for a year after Robyn vanished.
Sometimes twice. Sometimes until morning.
Until his feet blistered and his shoes cracked.
Searching. Hoping. Letting the trees swallow the last of the streetlight as he stepped beneath them, and tried to imagine what it must have felt like for a young woman, vulnerable and alone, to walk in this darkness.
And why they’d taken such a daring risk with their lives for a ten-minute shortcut.
The air changed the further in he walked. Cooler. Damp earth and moss thick in his lungs. The path narrowed, roots breaking through the soil, leaves whispering underfoot. And somewhere deeper in the woods, an owl called.
Jake shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and followed the curve of the trail.
Then he reached the break in the trees where the path opened out into a rough clearing.
It was the spot locals used to pull in and turn around.
Dog walkers sometimes parked there, headlights cutting through the dark before disappearing again.
Tyres had chewed the earth into a muddy track curving back towards the road.
Jake slowed.
Then stopped.
A figure crouched near the edge of the track.
It was almost pitch dark beneath the canopy, but Jake’s eyes had adjusted enough to make out the glow of a phone torch angled at the ground.
The beam lit a small circle of damp soil, catching the outline of a man’s shoulders as he studied the mud.
Jake recognised the coat. Maybe the man too.
Which was…strange.
He took a step forward, meaning to announce himself, but a twig snapped sharply beneath his boot. Harrison stood instantly and turned in the same motion, swinging the torch up so the beam hit Jake square in the face, blinding him.
“Hey, it’s me.” He threw up a hand, squinting in the sudden light. “Jake Whitton.”
Harrison let out a breath fogging in the cold air. The tension dropped from his shoulders as he lowered the torch.
“What the hell are you doing out here, Jake?”
“Was about to ask you the same thing.” Jake blinked until the glare softened enough for him to make Harrison out properly. “Thought you said you were heading home.”
Harrison glanced back at the dirt track for a moment before looking at him again. “I was.”
“I know you’re new around here, but that path there—” he pointed towards the dirt track cutting through the clearing “—doesn’t take you to Larkspur Lane.” He held Harrison’s gaze in the dim spill of torchlight. “Not unless you fancy getting yourself properly lost.”
Harrison nodded. “I know.” He kept the phone light angled at the ground, the beam catching the churned mud and faint tyre tracks.
“I’ve seen the land registry maps. Walked the boundaries in daylight.
” He paused, studying the earth a moment longer before glancing back at Jake.
“But there’s something to be said for retracing steps at the same time of night the victim did. ”
“Victims,” Jake corrected.
Harrison nodded. “Of course.”
Jake took a few steps closer, boots crunching over twigs and debris and soft moss. “Hasn’t this whole area already been turned over? If the cordon’s down, you must’ve taken everything there was to take, right?”
“Yes.” Harrison straightened but left the torch pointed at the track. “But I’m not here for evidence. Not tonight.”
Jake frowned. “Then what?”
“Perspective.” Harrison glanced through the trees lining the path. “Trying to understand what she saw. What she felt. Why she chose this route.”
“Tried that one myself a few thousand times.”
Harrison looked at him.
Jake gestured at the darker stretch of woodland beyond them.
“Why did she come this way? Why leave the main road where it’s lit and people can see her…
then cut through here?” He blew out a breath, sharp with the old, familiar frustration of not knowing.
Thirteen years later and the question still gnawed at him the same way it had that first night.
“I used to stand right there.” He pointed at the bend in the path.
“Imagine Robyn turning in. Every possible reason. Every possible mistake. Couldn’t get my head around why she’d started going the safe route, only to stop and come down here. ”
“I guess only she can answer that.”
The woodland held its breath around them then.
Leaves whispering overhead, branches creaking softly in the wind.
And Jake narrowed his eyes, watching Harrison and the way he said that.
As if he knew. Understood exactly what it meant to be left in limbo with a question that wouldn’t ever be answered.
Realise there were pieces of someone you loved that you’d never seen.
And to wake up every morning wondering why they’d chosen a path that left him behind in the wreckage.
Harrison drifted his gaze away from him as if he’d revealed too much in the dark. “You still walk this route?”
“Not so much anymore.” Jake drew a quiet breath, the cold air sharp in his lungs. “First year Robyn vanished, came out here every night. During the day, too. One time I walked the whole route for twenty-four hours straight. Blisters hurt like fuck.”
Harrison lowered his gaze.
Jake shrugged, though it felt heavier. “Whole year I kept thinking summat might… appear. Step out the trees and go, ‘here I am.’” He shook his head.
“Even though the police had already searched it. Volunteers combed every inch. Dogs, helicopters… everything.” He looked back at Harrison.
“There were nowt to find. She weren’t here. ”
Harrison seemed to take all that in. Then he nodded towards the rutted track cutting across the clearing. “Cars can get in this way?”
“Aye. Not exactly a smooth ride though. You’d need decent suspension.” Jake nudged a loose stone with the toe of his boot. “Too narrow for my van in places, but cars make it through. Mostly dog walkers trying to avoid the car park. Or folk who’ve trusted their sat nav more than their common sense.”
Harrison glanced at him. “Why’s that?”
Jake jerked his chin towards the trees beyond the track. “Mansfield Farm’s the next place along. Then the old Blackridge estate. River runs down that side, bends round the industrial estate. Sat nav don’t seem to understand the difference. Thinks this is the quickest route.”
“And it isn’t?”
Jake chuckled. “Not unless you fancy burying your motor axle-deep in mud. Keep going far enough and you’ll end up in the bloody river.
Happens a couple of times a year—the mud bit, not the river.
Tow truck from the scrap yard usually has to haul ‘em back out. My mate Raff, the bassist in the band, works there. Loves it when the sat nav catches another victim.”
Harrison lowered his torch, studying the churned tyre ruts cutting through the earth. “So vehicles can come and go without attracting much attention.”
“Aye. Nobody thinks owt of it. Half the locals know this track. Other half end up here by accident.”
Harrison crouched again, letting the beam drift over the mud.
Jake folded his arms. “That why you’re down there poking about?”
“Partly.” Harrison straightened, rubbing a hand over his forehead.
“We’ve had the ground combed already. Tyre tracks are being analysed, but the rain’s taken most of what would’ve been left from Emily’s night.
” He glanced back along the track. “Still… walking it now makes the theory harder to ignore.”
Jake’s gut twisted. Because didn’t it just.
“Do you know if tyre tracks were analysed when Robyn disappeared?”
“Aye. They were.” Jake scratched the back of his neck. “Came to nowt. All local cars. All had a reason to have been here.”
Harrison frowned. “I might want another look at that.”
Jake nodded at the darker line of trees further along the path. “You might want to see summat else as well.”
Harrison lifted his head. “What?”
Jake turned, stepping towards the narrower part of the trail. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
Jake glanced back over his shoulder. “There’s a cut-through most people don’t notice.”
Harrison followed. “What kind of cut-through?”
“A deer path. Runs parallel to the track for about fifty yards before disappearing into trees.”
They moved deeper; the torchlight bobbing between trunks.
“Search teams would’ve found it,” Harrison said.
“Oh, they would’ve seen it.” Jake ruffled his hair back; the mist and damp making the curls frizz. “But in daylight you’d walk straight past it. Looks like another animal trail.” He slowed, pointing ahead into the dark. “But at night… if someone knew it were there…”