Chapter Sixteen Gutter Runoff #2
He looked irritated. Slightly red in the face from the early-morning arrest, jaw working occasionally as if he were chewing over some private grievance. The duty solicitor sat beside him, scrolling through his phone, open laptop waiting for the formal interview to begin.
Harrison turned away from the glass and moved back to the desk in the adjoining office.
Calder had already laid out the interview folder: arrest report, custody record, CCTV stills from the pub, the timeline they’d built over the weekend, and the early communications data request Harrison had pushed through during the night.
He picked up the file and flipped through it again, tapping the pen against the margin as he read.
Arrest: 06:12 hours. Mitchell, Andy. Address.
Grounds: suspicion of involvement in the disappearance of Emily Fisher.
Uniform had lifted him quietly. No scene.
No fuss. Exactly how Harrison had wanted it done.
And while custody had booked him in, the officers searched his premises.
So far, they’d not found anything. Though Harrison had them seize his electronic devices and anything else that could hide a multitude of sins and motives.
Like an obsession with young women.
Harrison closed the file and set it back on the desk, then wiped a hand across the back of his neck. The familiar tension was there again. That tight, coiled feeling always coming before a case moved from quiet theory into confrontation.
On paper, the pieces lined up.
Timeline. Location. Opportunity.
Enough to bring Andy Mitchell in.
Harrison glanced back through the glass at the interview room.
Men who had something to hide usually carried it somewhere in their bodies.
In the eyes, the hands, the restless shifting in the chair.
Even those who thought they were clever rarely masked it completely.
Andy showed none of it. All he had was an irritation at being there at all.
As if the whole thing were a waste of his time.
Harrison frowned.
Either the man sitting in that room was a far better liar than most, or he was exactly what he appeared to be. A man who knew nothing.
Calder leaned against the opposite desk, folding his arms. “Duty solicitor’s signed the custody sheet. We’re ready whenever you are.”
Harrison nodded, smoothing his tie, getting himself in check.
Calder drifted his attention out of the window. “Jesus Christ…” He scraped a hand over his scalp. “How the fuck did he find out already?”
Harrison turned slowly in his chair.
Calder stepped closer to the window, peering down at the front entrance. “When will he learn?”
A cold weight landed low in Harrison’s stomach.
He stood and crossed the room in two strides.
From the second-floor window, he could see the small car park and the pavement beyond the station gates.
Jake Whitton stood in the middle of it. Even from this distance, Harrison recognised him.
The rigid line of his shoulders. The mass of dark curls whipping loose around his face in the wind.
The way his whole body seemed wound tight, carrying a tension that had nowhere else to go.
Two uniformed officers had positioned themselves between Jake and the station doors and Jake was saying something Harrison couldn’t quite hear through the glass, but the sharp movements of his hands, the way he cut the air with them, told Harrison everything he needed to know.
Anger.
Not the simmering, controlled kind either.
Raw. Volatile. Barely held together.
Harrison’s chest squeezed.
It was a world away from the Jake Whitton who’d pinned him against a tree the night before, kissing him so softly Harrison had felt that carefully bolted box inside him, where he kept everything that could hurt him, splinter open at the seams.
This Jake was something else entirely.
All sharp edges and fury.
And the last thing Harrison needed right now was him making a scene outside his station while Andy Mitchell sat upstairs waiting to be interviewed.
Calder let out a sigh beside him. “I’ll get uniform to move him along.”
Harrison shook his head. “No.”
Because that would only make it worse. Jake had been hauled through this building in cuffs before, been charged and sentenced to three years. The last thing Harrison wanted was to watch uniformed officers handle him like a problem again. So if anyone was going to deal with him…
It had to be him.
“I’ll sort it.”
Calder glanced at him. “Sir—”
But Harrison was already moving. Down the stairwell. Through the coded door leading to the front desk, where the voices grew louder. Raised. Frustrated.
“—I’m not leaving until someone tells me what the fuck is going on!”
Even through the glass doors, Harrison could hear the strain in Jake’s voice.
He could also hear the change in the officers’ tone.
That careful, practiced firmness they used when someone became a problem.
Jake was a problem. Harrison had dealt with enough vigilantes over the years to recognise the type: men who arrived at police stations convinced they knew more than the investigators, convinced they could force answers out of the system by sheer force of will.
Usually, Harrison had no patience for them.
Usually, he hadn’t kissed them.
He pushed through the exit and stepped straight into the middle of it.
“I’ve got it.” Harrison kept his eyes fixed on Jake as he gestured to the officers. “You can head back inside.”
Jake’s head snapped towards him, but the fury in his face didn’t lessen. If anything, it sharpened.
The officers held their positions. “He’s refusing to leave the premises, sir.”
Jake scoffed. Violently. “Wouldn’t be here at all if you lot had done your jobs first time around, would I?”
“Jake,” Harrison snapped in warning, then spun to face the officer. “I said I’ve got this. Go inside.”
The officer hesitated. “Sir—”
“That’s not a request.”
The uniform swallowed. Then he finally backed off, though reluctantly, retreating back to the doors without taking his eyes off Jake.
“Move.” Harrison jutted his chin at Jake.
Jake’s breath came hard through flared nostrils, and he turned his gaze on the officers still hovering inside the entrance. “They won’t tell me what’s going on.”
“No. They’re not allowed to.” Harrison angled his head again, keeping his voice even. “Move.”
“Sir…?” one officer tried again. “We can deal with him.”
Harrison sighed heavily. He could see exactly where this was heading.
Two uniforms squaring up to Jake Whitton outside the station doors was only going to make the situation worse.
Jake wouldn’t calm down while they stood there treating him as a threat.
If anything, they’d push him closer to the edge.
“This is a repeat order, officer,” Harrison said, voice flat with warning. “Go back inside. I will handle it myself.”
This time they went.
Harrison stepped forward and placed a palm on Jake’s chest, lowering his voice to barely a soft whisper. “Move.”
Jake rocked back half a step. Harrison didn’t push him, but Jake stumbled back anyway.
As if the sound of his voice had done the job better than a shove would’ve.
So Harrison went with him, guiding him away from the entrance, from the windows, until the station disappeared behind the bend of the car park, where a line of trees shielded them from view.
Only then did Harrison stop. “Hey, calm down.”
“Have you got him?” Jake held Harrison there with those stern eyes. “Is he in there? Did he do it?”
Harrison could feel the violent thud of Jake’s heartbeat beneath his palm.
Fast. Hard. Erratic. A man ready to run straight through the station doors if Harrison moved aside for even a second.
He was coiled with it, tension humming through him, barely contained.
And Harrison realised with a strange, disturbing clarity that there was only one thing standing between Jake Whitton and a very bad decision.
Him.