Page 75 of In Too Deep

Jake didn’t believe that for a fucking second.

And judging by the expression across Brodie’s face, neither did he. But he pushed off the wall and stepped close enough for Jake to catch the familiar mix of vape, cheap aftershave, and stale lager clinging to his skin.

“Some people just get desperate for somewhere to belong.” His eyes slipped away from Jake’s for the first time since he’d been cornered and his voice had lost its usual bite. “Don’t mean they’re proud of where they end up.”

He drifted his fingertips down Jake’s chest until they caught on the swallow hanging from the chain around his neck. He turned it gently between his fingers, studying it as though trying to understand why Jake had chosen it.

Then he let it fall.

There was no flirtation left in the gesture.

Only the quiet grief of someone realising they’d never been the place another person was trying to get home to.

Then he turned, disappearing back into the noise and heat of the pub. Jake knew better than to follow. To ask more questions. Brodie was a notorious liar who’d already fucked with Jake too much as it was.

So he shoved through the fire exit into the cooler night air hard enough for the door to slam behind him. Rain hit his face. The car park glittered wet beneath the security lights while music and laughter throbbed faintly through the pub walls behind him. He yanked his ancient phone from his pocket as he crossed towards the van, fingers stiff with adrenaline and cold.

He hit Harrison’s number. Straight to voicemail.

“Fuck’s sake.” He then climbed into the van, slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame, and threw the phone onto the passenger seat.

He gripped the wheel and drummed his fingers, restless energy crawling beneath his skin. He could go to the station. Tell Harrison that Brodie had the same tattoo as the girl in the river. Same place too. Low on the hip.

Except he wasn’t supposed to know that.

And after the awkward fucking retreat Harrison had done earlier at the site, that split-second flinch when Calder had clocked something between them, Jake already knew how this would go. Harrison would shut down. Go cold and professional. Careful. Distant. As if whatever existed between them only worked in private where no one could see it.

Maybe that was fair.

Didn’t stop it stinging.

He scrubbed a hand over his jaw and looked out through the rain-streaked windscreen. It could mean absolutely nothing. There were probably hundreds of blokes and women walking around with that same tattoo. Some trendy little symbol picked off a flash sheet somewhere.

But Brodie wasn’t just some random bloke.

Harrison’s digging had turned things up about him before. And everyone in Yorkshire knew Hessle Road. The red-light district in Hull. Brodie had worked those streets before he drifted into Hartswick with another fake surname and another bullshit story. The sort of life people survived by learning when to keep their mouths shut. And Brodie was cagey as fuck about the tattoo. Almost…sad about it.

Jake exhaled hard through his nose.

This was exactly the sort of thing Harrison would tell him not to do.

Which probably should’ve been enough to stop him.

But he shoved the key into the ignition. “Fuck it.”

Then he pulled out into the dark and aimed the van towards Hull.

CHapter ten

Beyond Reasonable Doubt

“Yes, sir. Absolutely. We’re working on that now. I’ll keep you posted.” Harrison ended the call to DCI Pollard.

His superior had left for the night but still fully expected periodical reported updates on the victim ID to keep the superintendent happy. His phone was red hot in his hand. He’d hardly had it away from his ear all day.

He didn’t even know what time it was anymore.

The station was in that strange late-night quiet where every sound carried too far. Distant phones. The hum of fluorescent lights. Someone laughing downstairs before a door shut and swallowed it again. And the rain. It lashed against the window of his office, where his tie sat loosened somewhere beneath the piles of paperwork covering his desk, and his suit jacket hung over the back of the chair untouched for hours.