Chapter Sixteen Gutter Runoff
Gutter Runoff
Monday morning arrived with Jake’s alarm buzzing at six.
The bedsit was cold enough that he could see his breath when he sat up, and he slapped the alarm off before it could wake the entirety of Hartswick, neck aching from sleeping badly. Not because of the mattress. That thing had been trying to kill him for years.
Because of Harrison.
Sunday had passed in a blur of routine and stubborn avoidance about it all.
He’d picked Teddy up for rugby, spent half the morning freezing his arse off on the touchline, then gone back to his mum’s for Sunday tea where everyone had talked around Emily Fisher and Robyn without quite mentioning either of them.
Afterwards, Teddy had dragged him upstairs for guitar practice, proudly butchering every chord Jake had shown him the week before.
That part, Jake secretly loved.
Watching Teddy learn and him getting excited when it all finally clicked. Seeing little flashes of Robyn in the way he grinned whenever he got something right.
The evening had been spent much the same as most evenings.
Drums until the neighbour hammered on the wall.
Guitar after that. He sometimes wrote songs.
Not many people knew that. But he had half-finished lyrics and scribbled melodies filling a battered notebook beneath his mattress.
Most of them never got any further than that.
Last night hadn’t got much further either.
Every time he picked up the guitar, his thoughts had drifted back to a woodland path, a pair of brown eyes, and a kiss he’d spent far too much time replaying.
Then Brodie had called.
Jake had ignored him.
A year ago, he’d’ve answered without thinking.
These days the idea felt exhausting. Which was probably a problem.
Because the alternative wasn’t much better.
Not when the alternative had a London accent, a complicated past, and a habit of looking at Jake as if he could see straight through every bit of bullshit he tried to hide behind.
Jake groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “Fucking brilliant.”
Then he pulled on his work clothes, grabbed a coffee from the petrol station down the road, and headed for his first job of the day. Which was Ron and Eileen Briggs’ terraced house on Dew Lane overlooking the moors and sitting a stone’s throw from the steelworks.
Ron had called him a couple of days back, wanted the loft boarded out and insulated before winter properly set in.
An old mate of his dad’s. So Jake knew this was gonna be a mates rates job.
And he spent the first couple of hours up a ladder fitting timber battens along the joists, the smell of dust and fresh wood filling the cramped roof space.
He shoved his earbuds in to blast music loud enough to drown it all out.
Halfway along the run, Jake paused. Something felt…
off. A faint vibration travelled through the timber beneath his boots.
Subtle. Most people wouldn’t notice, but he wasn’t most people.
Old houses had a way of speaking. He stilled, slipping one earbud loose as he tipped his head towards the far side of the loft.
Nothing.
Only a tight, dusty space. Insulation. Timber. The low hum of his music still bleeding from the other ear. Old house. Terraces carried everything. Weight, movement, heat. Could’ve been next door. Someone walking about. Something dropped. He pushed the earbud back in and carried on.
By mid-morning he was short on materials.
So he climbed down, wiped his hands on his work trousers, and checked the list again. Board screws. Insulation rolls. Another length of joist timber. A couple of packs of chipboard panels. All the things he’d need from the builder’s merchant.
“Back in a jiffy, Ron!” he called out to the garden where Ron was bent over the patio, pulling weeds.
“Aye, Jake, lad!” Ron straightened with a grunt. “Long as you sort that noise for Eileen.”
Jake frowned. “What noise?”
Ron waved it off, dropping back to his knees. “Nowt. She keeps saying she can hear summat up there. Scratching. Knocking about. Probably nowt but the house.”
Jake glanced back up towards the loft hatch. “Aye. Old places make noises.”
“So do old fellas like me.”
Jake snorted.
He then grabbed his keys and headed out, almost walking straight into the path of another van careening up onto next door’s drive.
“Jesus. White van driver.” He tutted.
At the builder’s merchant, he grabbed a trolley and loaded it with what he needed for the current job and the usual bits that somehow never lasted as long as they were supposed to.
Halfway down one aisle, he pulled his phone from his pocket to check his notes.
There was something else he needed to sort out while he was here.
Larkspur Lane.
Harrison’s place.
The roof on that old cottage would need more than a patch job.
Those single-storey stone places always did.
Thicker insulation, a breathable membrane, timber cut to odd measurements because nothing in houses that old was ever square.
Jake added the specialist materials to his order list anyway.
Whether Harrison wanted him anywhere near the job now or not.
Which, considering the circumstances, was probably not.
Still. If the materials had to be ordered in, they’d take time.
Might as well get ahead of it.
Jake steered the trolley towards the counter.
“Eh up, Jake?” Lance knew most of the regular trades who came through here by name. He barely glanced up as he scanned the items from Jake’s trolley. “How’s that rugby prodigy nephew of yours?”
“Good.” Jake nodded. “Won his match yesterday.”
“Course he did. Got my eye on that kid.” He scanned the items. “You take him over Leeds?”
“Have done once or twice, but you seen how much it costs?”
“Oh, aye…when he’s playing for them, you’ll get a free seat, I’m sure.”
Jake gave a brief nod. Normally he’d linger, throw a bit of banter back, but his head wasn’t quite in it today. Lance rang through the rest of the materials, the scanner beeping, as two men approached the counter behind him, carrying a long-boxed package between them and cut over him, anyway.
“Lance, that stuff arrive for the steel works? Order under Mitchell?”
Jake’s shoulders stiffened at the name.
Christ.
That bloke was everywhere.
“Aye,” Lance replied, scanning Jake’s screws. “Came in late Friday. Couple of carbide drill bits, cutting fluid, and the replacement magnetic drill he asked for.”
Jake tried not to think about what Mitchell was using all that stuff for. He knew enough about steel fabrication to know it was probably not for what his mind had conjured up. Heavy-duty kit for drilling through structural beams.
“Said he’d be in this morning to pick it up.”
“Aye, well, he can’t.”
Lance glanced up. “Why’s that?”
“Didn’t make it into work.”
“Sick?”
The man behind Jake shrugged. “Nah, the dick’s been pulled in for questioning by the police.”
Jake shot around. “What? When?”
The man shook his head. “This morning. Police showed up at his place around five a.m. Had him hauled in.”
Jake heaved a breath. Andy. Arrested. Fuck. They must have something on him.
Lance printed the receipt and slid it across the counter. “I’ll pull his order out the back in a minute.” He then glanced back at Jake. “That’s you sorted, Jake lad. Hundred and eighteen.”
Jake paid without really registering the amount, then shoved the receipt into his pocket and wheeled the trolley back out into the yard.
The wind had picked up while he’d been inside, whipping through the loading bays, carrying the metallic tang of cut steel and damp timber and making Jake’s hair fly out of control.
He got to work, lifting the materials into the van—timber lengths first, then the insulation rolls, then the boxes of screws—movements automatic, disconnected from the thoughts roaring through his head.
Andy Mitchell.
Arrested.
There was only one reason the police would pick Andy up right now. Emily. Which meant the investigation had moved forward. Which meant Harrison had moved it forward. He had new information. New evidence.
Jake slammed the van door hard, and one of the forklift drivers glanced over. Jake ignored him and climbed into the driver’s seat, gripping the steering wheel and staring straight ahead through the windscreen.
His thoughts spiralled fast.
If Andy Mitchell had anything to do with Emily Fisher disappearing…Then Jake had been right. All those years ago. The idea landed like a punch to the chest. Because if Andy had done something to Emily, then what had he done to Robyn?
Jake’s breath came shorter, sharper.
Three years.
Three fucking years Jake had spent behind bars for nearly killing the man.
Three years of courtrooms and cells. Three years of his mum crying behind thick glass while barristers and judges told him violence wasn’t the answer.
All the while Andy Mitchell had walked free.
And if Andy had known something back then—if he’d known where Robyn was, what had happened to her, where she’d been left—
Jake tightened his grip on the steering wheel until the leather creaked beneath his grip.
If Andy Mitchell had known all along…
Jake had spent thirteen years living with the wrong guilt.
The engine roared to life beneath him.
He didn’t think.
Didn’t plan. Never did, did he?
He pulled out of the yard and drove.
* * * *
Harrison watched Andy Mitchell sitting in Interview Room Two for nearly ten minutes through the observation glass.
The room itself was exactly like every other police interrogation room Harrison had been in. Neutral walls, a fixed table, two plastic chairs opposite one another, a small digital clock mounted high in the corner so there could be no argument later about timing.
Andy didn’t look frightened.
That was the first thing Harrison noticed.