Chapter Fifteen Lines of Enquiry #2
Calder nodded and scrubbed forward along the timeline. “About twenty minutes later. She comes out collecting empties.”
He paused the footage. On screen, Emily moved along the bar, gathering abandoned glasses. When she reached Andy’s spot, she picked up the pint he’d ordered second. Still full. Harrison watched her lift it and carry it out of frame.
“Where does she take it?” he asked.
Calder shrugged. “Camera doesn’t cover that side of the bar. Odds are she took it behind the taps and poured it away.”
“Or she could have taken it to wherever Andy has gone to? A table out of view?” He gestured towards the screen as the pub filled.
“There wouldn’t be a table left,” Calder said as more people crowded the frame. Locals drifting in, bodies moving between tables. “You’ve seen how packed it gets when Static Youth play now, right?”
Harrison glanced up. “Hm?”
Calder gave him a curious look. “You were in there last night, weren’t you?”
Harrison’s heart jolted hard.
Calder furrowed his brow. “To collect the footage? Us Hartswick Police often go in on band night. You must not have seen us.”
Right. Great. He’d been seen. Had they seen him gazing up at Jake Whitton in awe of him on stage? Had they seen him talk to him? Least he had a professional explanation for being there.
“Oh. Right. Yes.” Harrison turned back to the laptop. “I went to speak to the barman about Andy.”
He’d logged the conversation with Brodie into the case file when he’d finally given up on sleep sometime after two in the morning.
Not that closing his eyes had helped much.
Every time he tried, his mind drifted straight back to Jake Whitton.
And the increasingly uncomfortable realisation that he had absolutely no idea what to do about him.
He leaned back in his chair to get himself back into investigation mode.
“So Andy Mitchell buys a second drink he never touches… disappears from camera… and is somewhere in that building while Emily Fisher is still there, and we never see him leave. Then his van turns up on the woodland path several hours later, when Emily is leaving.”
Calder nodded. “That’s how it looks.”
Harrison closed the laptop. “Do we have anything back from comms on his phone yet?”
Calder shook his head. “Request went in late last night. Telecoms haven’t replied.”
Harrison reached for the desk phone. “Let’s push it.” He dialled the digital intelligence desk and waited while the line clicked through.
“Digital intelligence.”
“DI Black, CID.”
“Morning, sir.”
“Morning. I’ve got a high-risk missing person—Emily Fisher. I need an urgent communications data return on a handset belonging to Andy Mitchell.”
“Alright, go ahead.”
Harrison glanced at Calder, who slid the suspect’s details across the desk, and Harrison reeled off the number. “I want cell-site location from Wednesday evening onwards. Priority grading.”
Keys tapped rapidly on the other end.
“Right… let me pull the request up… yeah, I can see it here. That went through overnight.”
“Has anything come back yet?”
“Not yet, sir. Telecoms can take a few hours even on urgent.”
Harrison leaned back in his chair. “The suspect claims the phone’s broken.”
“Broken?”
“That’s his version.”
“Well, the cell-site should still show the last mast connection if it had battery at the time.”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
More typing followed. “I’ll flag it again as urgent and chase the provider.”
“And run the International Mobile Equipment Identity as well.” Harrison rubbed a hand across his forehead, wondering if he was more prone to headaches here in Yorkshire or if the one he had when he’d arrived hadn’t left yet.
“The handset ID?”
“Yes. If the SIM’s been pulled and someone’s using the phone with another card, I want to know about it.”
“Understood. We’ll check if the handset’s pinged on any other network activity.”
“And send the call data too. Calls, texts, anything active on the line from Wednesday afternoon onwards.”
“Got it.”
Harrison tapped his pen on the desk. “Ring me the moment anything lands.”
“You’ll be first to know, sir.”
“Appreciate it.”
He hung up.
Calder raised an eyebrow. “Think it’ll tell us much if the phone’s gone?”
“Phones don’t vanish as easily as people think.
” He tapped the CCTV still where Andy stood, patting his pockets beside the untouched pint.
“If that handset connected to a mast anywhere near the woodland path Wednesday night…” He met Calder’s gaze.
“…then we have enough to bring Andy Mitchell in and question him. Hard.”
Calder gave a short huff of agreement but paused at the doorway. “Word of caution then, sir.”
Harrison glanced up. “Go on.”
“Keep that information firmly away from Jake Whitton.” He then took his laptop and disappeared back out into the main office, the door swinging shut behind him.
Harrison remained where he was, pulse suddenly thudding hard enough that he could feel it in his throat.
The timing of all this was impeccable.
Harrison Black. Metropolitan Police detective.
A record described more than once as exemplary.
Twenty years of service without a whisper of scandal attached to his name.
Steady. Dependable. The sort of officer the younger detectives were told to model themselves after.
The long-term partner, and eventual husband, of a decorated firearms officer whose photograph still hung on a commendation board in London.
Yet he’d been in Hartswick less than a week.
Less than a week.
And already he’d kissed a key witness in both a current missing person investigation and a thirteen-year-old cold case. A man with a criminal record. Who’d once assaulted the very suspect Harrison was about to arrest.
And the one man who’d caught Harrison’s attention after twenty years of belonging entirely to someone else.
But that wasn’t the most disconcerting part.
It was that he’d wanted to.