Chapter Twenty-Four Breathing Space #2
For a while, it felt like old times.
Better times, maybe.
But after then, when things quieted, Jake’s mind went straight back to it.
To her.
To that loft. Emily Fisher and the reasons someone abducted her from a woodland path so close to her home and confined her in a roof space.
So he was more than a little on edge, whether it was nerves or something sharper, he couldn’t quite tell, as he rolled his van towards his bedsit a couple of weeks later on a Friday night, fresh off his last job.
Because a car waited there, engine running, the interior light casting a low glow over a face he hadn’t known a few weeks ago yet couldn’t seem to shake from his thoughts now. Day or night.
Harrison.
Jake slowed the van, but his attention turned to across the road, to the dark shape parked half up on the kerb.
Where someone else sat inside, phone lifted.
They didn’t even pretend anymore. Didn’t try to hide.
He rolled his eyes. Parked anyway. Then climbed out, shutting the door, feeling eyes on him.
But he didn’t look back at that car. Didn’t give the media hounds or the true crime bloody podcasters the satisfaction.
His gaze went straight to Harrison instead.
And Christ.
His heart kicked hard as Harrison’s eyes found his through the windscreen. Then the car door opened and Harrison stepped out, all sharp lines and dark suit, as if he’d come straight from the station.
Or maybe that was the point.
Maybe this was official.
Didn’t stop it doing things to Jake he wasn’t ready to name.
“Detective.” Jake gave a curt nod as he approached.
“Mr Whitton.”
“You been waiting long?”
“Probably not as long as you have.”
Jake snorted. “Playing aloof, were ya?”
“On the contrary.” Harrison stepped closer, stopping shy of him, his aftershave the only thing bridging the space between them. “I’d have been here days ago if I could.”
Jake inhaled, sharp. “This business, or…?”
Harrison held his gaze. Didn’t look away. “Bit of both, perhaps.”
Jake jerked his chin at the car across the road. “Take note, then.”
Harrison followed the gesture. “Press?”
“Or someone who fancies themselves as it.” Jake ruffled his hair. “Hard to tell these days. They’ve been sniffing round since I pulled her out.”
Harrison nodded, then reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his warrant card, holding it up in plain sight. Playing the role. “Might I have a word with you in private?”
Jake snorted. “You better come up, then, DI Harrison Black.”
He took the steps two at a time, boots thudding on the metal, needing the movement more than the speed.
Harrison followed behind, and Jake unlocked the door, holding it open, watching Harrison.
What he saw when he stepped in. Because his crappy little bedsit wasn’t a complete state anymore.
Still his, though. Rough around the edges.
But better. He’d even made the bed. No mugs or plates littered the floor, growing God knew what.
He’d wiped the kitchenette clean that morning and packed his drum kit away neatly, ready for the next gig.
The place was still dark. More than a bit grim.
But it was somewhere he didn’t mind someone else standing.
Notably, Harrison Black.
Harrison stepped inside and took the bedsit in with one quiet sweep of those detective eyes. The new bedframe. The bits Jake had finally cleared away. Whatever else had changed since he’d last been here.
He gave a small nod. “You’ve kept busy.”
Jake shut the door behind him. “What else were I meant to do?”
He moved past Harrison and dragged his drumming stool out from beside the kit. “Keep walking that woodland path? No point anymore, is there?”
The words were out before Jake caught the other meaning in them.
Fuck.
That path had always been Robyn’s. Then Emily had disappeared along the same stretch and pulled Jake straight back into everything he’d spent thirteen years trying and failing to live around.
Now Harrison was there too.
Jake couldn’t walk through those trees without remembering him stumbling. Catching him. Harrison’s back against that tree. His hand in Jake’s hair. That first soft press of his mouth.
You’re nice.
Christ. One fucking kiss and apparently Harrison Black had managed to get himself tangled up in a place Jake had thought belonged exclusively to the worst parts of his life.
Jake shoved the thought away and set the stool down. “Sit.”
Harrison didn’t move immediately. “You have been, though.”
Jake frowned. “Been what?”
“Walking the path.”
Jake dropped onto the edge of the bed as Harrison finally sat. “You been watching me?”
“No. Uniform have noticed. As have the press.”
Ah.
Alright.
So maybe Jake had gone back a few times. Usually when he couldn’t sleep and the flat felt too small for everything going round his head. He hadn’t particularly thought anyone was keeping count.
“Not a crime, is it?”
“No.”
Jake rubbed his palms together and looked across at him. Which was a mistake. Because Harrison was sitting on his drumming stool. Such a stupid fucking thing to notice. It was a stool. Jake planted his arse on it and hit things for several hours at a time. Nothing remotely significant about it.
Except Harrison looked strangely right there.
In Jake’s space. Among his things. Coat still damp from outside, knees slightly apart because the stool was too low for him, those polished shoes planted on Jake’s shitty floor.
It gave him the same weird little kick he imagined he’d get from seeing Harrison wearing one of his hoodies. Or maybe how he’d feel wearing something of Harrison’s.
Fuck knows.
Either way, his stomach did that stupid fluttering thing again. As if Harrison belonged there.
Dangerous thought.
Jake looked away.
“No crime.” Harrison wiped a few lingering drops of rain from the sleeve of his coat. “But sometimes it’s worth stepping away from something for a while. For your own sanity.”
Jake snorted. “Bit late for mine, Detective.”
Silence edged in for a second. Awkward and full.
So Jake scrubbed his hands together again. “So…”
“So,” Harrison echoed, holding Jake’s gaze before slipping back to the reason he was there. “I expect you’ve had the official line. What we’ve released.”
Jake nodded. “Her dad set it up.”
“That’s the headline. But it’s a bit more layered than that.
” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“Mick Underwood. The neighbour you met. He works at the industrial estate. Same place as Emily’s father.
Underwood’s in a fair bit of gambling debt.
Needed money quickly. The father used that. ”
“Used that how?”
“To ask him to stage it. A controlled abduction. Or what he believed would be.”
“Why?”
“To scare her.” Harrison sighed, as if the very thought were absurd. It sounded it. “That’s how he’s framed it, anyway.”
Jake shook his head. “Jesus…”
“Glen Fisher already lost his wife. Didn’t believe Emily wouldn’t follow. She’d been pushing boundaries. Talking to people online, planning to leave, university applications. From his perspective, he was losing control. Especially when she took the job at the pub.”
“So he decided to prove a point.”
“That was the thinking. Ironically and somewhat insanely, it was to show her what he believed would happen if she carried on. Reinforce the risk. Keep her safe.”
Jake shook his head. “That’s fucking bonkers.”
“Agreed. But frantic people don’t tend to think beyond the first step. And he chose Underwood because he was desperate for the money to clear his debts. Thing was, he was known to Emily, a familiar face, she would have had no immediate alarm. She got into the vehicle without a struggle.”
Jake stilled.
“From there, she was drugged. Taken to the property. Kept in the loft. Mostly sedated. I think the idea was to make her believe she’d been abducted, keep her groggy.”
“Fucking hell…”
“It wasn’t meant to be long-term. The plan had been to let the search escalate.
Media, police activity. Create pressure.
Possibly draw the mother back. Then move her once things eased off, or once they thought they could control how she was ‘found’.
My guess, Mick would find her, take the reward money, and she would go home to recover from her ordeal, and perhaps her mother would stay, and her father would have everything he wanted back where he wanted it. ”
Jake let out a sharp breath. “Controlling bastard.”
“That’s what it comes down to, yeah. But there’s more…”
Jake frowned. “More?”
“Mick knew he couldn’t just let her go. The plan had been to take her like a stranger would.
Balaclava, grab her quickly, make sure she never saw his face.
But Mick worried a struggle would draw attention, so he changed it.
Approached her instead. Got close enough that Emily saw him properly.
Heard his voice. By the time he had her, she knew exactly who’d taken her.
And that changed everything. Keeping her alive was never part of the plan, but letting her go wasn’t an option either.
She could identify him.” He took a breath.
“So Mick had already decided he was going to kill her.”
Jake’s mouth fell open.
“Up in that loft we found supplies. Chemicals. Tools. Plastic sheeting. He’d been preparing ways to dispose of her body slowly over time. There was even evidence he’d discussed using a building on the industrial estate to get rid of the body. Incinerators. Industrial waste.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
Harrison pointed at him then. “You stopped that from happening.”
Jake shook his head. “Eileen did.”
“Eileen didn’t break through a wall to get to her. And if she had reported the noise to anyone else, it would’ve gone undetected. Think about that for a minute, eh?”
Jake said nothing. But he did think about it.