Chapter Twenty Structural Weakness #3
Jake held his gaze. “Look, what happened last night, between you and me, that wasn’t—” He stopped. Breathed. “I felt summat with you—”
“Jake.” Harrison cut him off before he could say anything else that would compromise him, Jake and this whole bloody investigation that was getting out of hand. “I really need you to stick to why you’re here.”
Jake leaned back, the movement small but definite. As if Harrison had pulled the chair right out from under him. “Aye. Okay. That I will.”
The words came too quickly. Flat. And the look he gave Harrison afterwards was bruised. Harrison felt it. Felt it and filed it away, same as everything else that didn’t belong in this room.
Not now.
Not here.
Not when he was supposed to be doing his job.
So he lowered his gaze to his notes, even though he hadn’t written a word. “What about Brodie?”
Jake stared at him for a beat. Then, “He’s been trying to get back in my pants for a while. Then this morning he turns up, asking about Andy. About what you said. Proper interested, y’know?”
Harrison nodded, watching him.
“Then he says—” Jake took his time, as if even repeating it didn’t quite sit right, “—‘I didn’t do all this so you could fuck the detective.’”
Harrison blinked.
There were a couple of reasons for that.
One—someone else had seen it. Whatever this was between him and Jake, it hadn’t been as contained as he’d thought. If Brodie had noticed, someone else could too. In a station full of detectives, it only took one person paying attention.
The second—that was a bold statement. And Harrison listed it along with his own impressions of the barman so far, who’d lied and fabricated and halted an investigation into the disappearance of young girl of whom he knew.
“What did you take that to mean?” Harrison asked him.
Jake frowned. “That he thought you and I were—”
“No.” Harrison cut in, shaking his head. “The ‘do all this’ part.”
Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s what didn’t sit right.” He peered up at him under his lashes. “What do you think?”
Harrison thought about it. “It’s an odd turn of phrase. Do you think he’s talking about Emily?”
“I don’t know.” Jake sighed, then sat forward.
“When Robyn went missing, they told us not to ignore owt that felt off. That scratched at you. And this did.” He shook his head.
“Maybe I’m way off. But…what if he’s… I dunno…
pushed things? Set something up? He’d know I’d go for Andy. Knew I’d bring it straight to you.”
“And you think he would do that to get you back?”
Jake swallowed. “Maybe. He said if I were proven right, I’d be free. Could get back to my life. Not… this half-arsed version I’m stuck in. That I could go back to the band. Go on tour. He’d come with me.”
The room went quiet.
And Harrison realised that wasn’t just information. That was instinct. And Jake Whitton had now handed him a reason to look somewhere else.
He stood. “Thank you for bringing this to me.”
Jake looked up at him, searching his face. “Is it relevant?”
“It could be.”
Relief flickered across Jake’s face, quickly chased by something tighter. “So… you didn’t find anything on Andy? From the searches?”
Harrison held his gaze.
Jake wanted the answer one way.
Needed it the other.
“Nothing linking him to Emily,” Harrison said carefully.
Jake nodded once, though it did little to ease the tension sitting across his shoulders. His eyes drifted to the desk before lifting again.
“And…” He hesitated. “Did you… clear me? From what Andy said?”
Harrison knew what he was really asking.
Not whether they’d proved his alibi.
Whether Harrison had been the one forced to prove it.
“We did.” Harrison smoothed down his tie. “We’d already tracked down and manage to speak to the man you’d been with when Emily disappeared. He confirmed your whereabouts. The timings matched.”
He left it there.
Jake didn’t.
Colour crept into his face as he looked away. “Right.”
Harrison had interviewed witnesses hundreds of times. Victims. Suspects. Families. He’d asked people about the worst moments of their lives without letting it become personal.
That had been different.
Asking another man to account for a night with Jake Whitton had felt less like taking a statement and more like trespassing somewhere he had no business being.
Jake rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, the silence stretching long enough for them both to feel it.
Harrison watched him for a moment. Then, “Did you want to know his name?”
Jake looked up. Held his gaze. “No.”
Harrison nodded.
Jake stood, setting the whole conversation aside with a visible effort. “Did you find anything to do with Robyn at Andy’s?”
Harrison’s inhalation made his chest crackle. Telling Jake what he’d found in Andy’s flat would risk information being leaked before it was ready. Before Harrison had had a chance to re-interview him.
But he couldn’t lie either.
“Jake… let me do my job.”
Jake kept his eyes fixed on him, as if trying to read past the words.
Then, finally, he nodded. And Harrison moved to the door, opening it, stepping aside enough to let him pass.
And as he did, he could smell the scent of aftershave, of soap and grit underneath Jake’s skin.
Heady and intoxicating. So different from Chris, yet it made Harrison’s gut clench in all the same ways.
Made him want to kiss him again, to let him know that yes, he felt all this too.
However inappropriate. However ill timed. However unwanted.
He felt it.
“Good luck, detective.” Jake gave him a small smile.
Harrison nodded. Then watched him disappear down the corridor before turning back to the office.
“Calder,” he called across the room. “I want a background on Brodie—the bar manager at the King’s Arms. Full work-up. Associations, finances, previous addresses, the lot.”
Calder looked up sharply. “Sir?”
“Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I want another media appeal drafted. Fresh push. Today.”
Calder frowned. “Sir?”
“Include a reward.”
That made him pause. “A reward?”
“A substantial one.” Harrison rubbed his brow. “Make it clear it’s for information leading to Emily Fisher’s location or the identification of anyone involved.”
Calder spun fully in his chair. “Has that been signed off, sir?”
“It will be.” Harrison widened his eyes. “Run it through the DCI and comms. Liaise with Crimestoppers. We’ll structure it properly. Anonymous route, ring-fenced tip line, the lot.”
Calder nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“We’re not dangling it for show,” Harrison made to walk off, then called back, “we’re using it.”
“To flush someone out?”
“Someone always knows something. And more often than not, they need a reason to talk.”
Calder gave a curt nod. “Understood.”
Harrison strode back into the incident room, straight to the desk, to the files that were no longer lining up the way they should.
Andy Mitchell was still in custody, and he had a house full of evidence pointing one way but a gut instinct pulling hard in another.
He’d seen it before. Cases that looked solved before they were.
That made sense too early. They were the dangerous ones.
But now he had two new lines of inquiry.
Emily’s father’s nonchalance about a man in custody.
And the barman. Neither proven. Neither clean.
And somehow…more convincing than the evidence he already had.
Harrison exhaled slowly, eyes drifting to the board, to Emily’s timeline.
And, unhelpfully, to the echo of Jake Whitton’s honesty in his head, telling him he felt something.
Harrison reached for Robyn’s file.
Because if this was connected…then the truth wasn’t where it was supposed to be.