Page 50 of Too Close To Home

“Nothing. No transactions.”

“CCTV?”

“Collecting from the pub and high street. Shop owners cooperating.”

“Good.” He wrote another timeline on the whiteboard. “Family?”

She paused, glancing down at her notes. “There was an argument yesterday afternoon.”

Harrison shot a look over his shoulder, arching an eyebrow. “Between?”

“Emily and her father.”

He frowned. “Nature?”

“She wanted to go to Manchester for a gig.” The constable looked up at him. “Neon Arcade?” She said it lightly, almost apologetically, as if the name might mean nothing to him.

Harrison held her gaze for a beat. “I’m aware of who they are.”

Aware was an understatement. He’d watched the band rise to fame after having seen them twice in small, sweat-slick venues before they’d broken through. Knew exactly how a room felt when the band’s first chords hit and the crowd surged forward as if pulled by gravity. But that belonged to another life, one he didn’t discuss at briefings.

“Aye. Well, she wanted to go with a boy she’d met online. Father didn’t want her to go. He also didn’t like her job at the pub. Hadn’t wanted her to take it and only allowed it because she would get a lift home with her friend’s mum. He didn’t like her being out late.”

“And this wasn’t disclosed initially?”

“Father minimised it.” She bit her lip. “I got most of that from the friend. Claire. And Claire’s mum. When I requestioned the father, he admitted they had words, but it was him trying to keep her safe. Ironically.” She rubbed her forehead. “After that, he became…quite emotional. Struggled to engage.”

Of course he did.

Harrison nodded. “Noted.”

Arguments happened. Teenagers declared they were leaving all the time. Dramatic, absolute, certain that the world would regret them. But they rarely left their chargers plugged into the wall. Or their bank card sitting neatly on the bedside table. And they didn’t switch their phone off and wander into open moorland in the middle of the night without telling a single person where they were going.

The facts didn’t fit the performance of a runaway.

But the timing of the argument was unfortunate. In a town like this, it wouldn’t take long before someone mentioned it in the pub, then someone else repeated it with a slight tilt of emphasis. There’d been a row with her dad. Raised voices. A slammed door.

Runaway.

It was an easy word. A convenient one.

And once it took hold, urgency thinned. Edges softened. The tone changed from missing to absent. From risk to rebellion. Search grids became less aggressive. Patrols less urgent. Footsteps slowed. And Harrison felt it already: the subtle drag of a narrative trying to decide the case.

He couldn’t allow that.

Not yet.

Not while the clock was still within reach.

“We explore voluntary absence.” He rubbed his brow with the heel of his hand, careful not to swipe red marker ink across his temple. “But we don’t anchor to it.”

DS Calder cleared his throat. “Could be straightforward, sir. Seventeen. Argument at home. Storms out. Happens often.”

Straightforward.

See, it was happening already. Harrison didn’t miss the way Calder had suggested it. As if the conclusion was already filed and stamped. As if this were an inconvenience rather than a risk. The comfort of a simple narrative. The relief of a box closing neatly and requiring no further stretching.

“It could be.” Harrison held his gaze a fraction longer than was comfortable. “Until it isn’t.”