Page 72 of Too Close To Home

Jake stood, instinctively raising his hands. “Hey, I know, mate.”

But Gavin wasn’t hearing him. He raked both hands through his hair, pacing the length of the room. Eyes darting towards the windows Jake had opened to the street beyond.

“They’ll say it was me.” Gavin clutched his head. “They always do. They always bloody do.”

Jake stepped forward, trying to slow him. “Oi. Calm down.”

Gavin jerked away from the touch as if it burned. Then he spotted the ashtray. An old blunt stubbed out hours earlier sat among the ash. He snatched it up, flicked a lighter beneath it with shaking fingers, and drew in a lungful that filled the room with the thick, sweet stink.

Jake watched him pace, paranoia visibly buzzing under Gavin’s skin. The way he kept looking at the door. And for a brief, unwelcome second, that niggling thought crept in.

What if…?

No.

Jake shut the thought down hard. He wasn’t going down that road again. Not where the police had gone. Not where the media had dragged the whole town years ago. And definitely not where the armchair detectives online had happily pushed it, turning Robyn into a headline and Gavin into their favourite villain. Gavin could barely organise a takeaway without forgetting the address. There was no way he could pull off something like that.

So Jake grabbed the bin bag from beside the door. “Get some sleep, mate.”

Gavin barely heard him. He paced again, muttering under his breath, disappearing back into the fog of his own head. So Jake stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind him to fill his lungs with clean air, shoving the rubbish into the outside wheelie bin.

Inside the house, there was a crash. Then Gavin’s voice tore through the walls. “Not again… I didn’t… fuck!”

Jake stared at the door. He considered going back in. But there was no point trying to reason with a man that far gone. So he turned away. Still, as he climbed into his van, that uneasy feeling sat low and heavy in his chest again. Reason number four hit him square on.

Whatever had taken Robyn thirteen years ago…Wherever she might be…Harrison was right: someone knew something.

Chapter eleven

Cross-Contamination

Harrison was back at the station by ten a.m.

He’d slept, under the blanket Jake Whitton had laid over him, for approximately forty-five minutes.

That was enough.

He refused to indulge in anything more than that. Wouldn’t give himself more rest. Nor any awareness of the strange feeling that Jake had come inside, seen him asleep, and quietly taken care of things by washing the mugs, stacking the boxes out of the way, and covering him as if that was his normal setting.

Harrison had no space in his life for that kind of thought.

So he showered, drank a brutally strong coffee, picked up a breakfast muffin from the bakery on Market Street, and arrived at the station determined to be functional.

Refreshed might have been pushing it.

But he was here.

The station hummed alive when he walked in. Busy in that tight, focused way meaning everyone understood the stakes. Phones rang. Printers spat out fresh paperwork. Officers hovered between desks with takeaway coffees clutched in tired hands. The briefing room was back in motion. The map of the woodland had been pinned across the whiteboard with coloured markers dividing the search areas into grids with the list of volunteers sitting on the side table where the local search team had signed in.

DCI Pollard spotted him and waved him over. “Harrison. Get some sleep?”

“Enough,” Harrison lied.

Pollard nodded at the map. “Search teams covered the western sector overnight. Dogs went through the lower trail after dawn.”

“And?”

Pollard gave a small shake of his head. “Nowt yet.”