Page 83 of Too Close To Home

And every time he did it, it killed something in him.

Killed something in her, too.

Then he looked at Harrison. Steady. Patient. His eyes were soft with attention; pen poised over the notebook, but not yet moving. And when he gave a small, encouraging nod, the corner of his mouth lifted, and that somehow made Jake feel as if this time might actually matter. Could make a difference.

So he spoke.

“Robyn came to see my, what should’ve been, last gig with Static Youth at the King’s Arms. Teddy were about six months old. I don’t think she’d left his side since he were born.” He gestured vaguely around the house. “They lived here. With Mum and Dad. And even though the folks wanted to come see me play at the pub, they stayed home with Teddy so Robyn could instead.”

Harrison had his notebook open, pen ready, but hadn’t written anything yet. Maybe there was nothing new left to write.

“Robyn came in with me. But after the set, she were desperate to get back to Teddy. She hated leaving him.” Jake lowered his head, scrubbing a hand over his face as the memory pressed in. Because this was the part that never stopped hurting. “Pack-down took ages cause people kept coming up to me. Saying goodbye. Wanting photos. Signatures. So Robyn said she’d walk home.”

Jake looked up again. Met those harrowing brown eyes.

“I told her not to. Told her to wait for me. But she din’t. She said she’d see me back here.” He drifted his gaze towards the front door without meaning to. Like his father always did. “Then she walked out of the pub, and that was the last time I ever saw her.”

A tear fell, and Jake wiped it away, another falling directly into his mouth. Harrison waited. Letting the wave of grief wash over him and for Jake to get through it in his own time.

Then, as if he could tell Jake needed prompting or redirecting, he said, “What do you think went wrong with the previous investigation?”

Jake scoffed. “Better to ask what went right.”

Harrison nodded. But he didn’t write that down.

Jake sighed. “They fixated too much on her going missing voluntarily. The CCTV showed her walking towards the petrol station. She were taking the long route home because the streetlights were that way. But she stopped. Stands there. Waits a minute. Gets her phone out, and apparently that’s when the coppers say she switches it off. Then she turns back the other way, looks around before stepping into the woodland.”

Jake drew a breath, the old helplessness tightening his chest the same way it always did. The anger came with it, bubbling up hot and relentless.

“Aye, it’s odd.” Jake balled his fists. “Why’d she do that? No idea. So the police came up with one. That she didn’t want to go home. She had a change of mind and used the woodland to flee. They held onto that so much that they stopped looking. Then when they searched here, they found her diary which, aye, I know, didn’t look great. She was suffering from post-natal depression. But, fuck, she were nineteen years old. With a kid and the dad turned out to, well…not be much of one. Nowt more than a sperm donor. He left her to it. She’d missed her chance to do owt else. We had little money. She couldn’t exactly go to work. And I was leaving to start my life and, aye, she was depressed and struggling. But she would not leave Teddy. She adored that baby.”

Harrison listened. Intently. Jake could tell. There wasn’t any judgement, not like the others who kept telling him all the evidence pointed that way.

Then Harrison asked, “Why did you believe Andy Mitchell had something to do with Robyn’s disappearance?”

Jake forced the anger down before answering. “He’d been following her for a while. Had a thing for her. Asked her out loads of times. She always said no. After that, he started showing up wherever she was. The week before she went missing, I caught him outside our house. Standing there. Staring up at her bedroom window.”

Harrison cocked his head. “And what did you do?”

God, Jake hated this part. Hated knowing Harrison would now see him through that moment. Through the police report. Through the worst decision he’d ever made.

“I warned him.”

“You warned him?”

“Aye.” Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “She were my big sister. Only a year older, but she’d looked after me growing up. Helped me…come out to the folks. And I was about to leave town. Leave her. I needed him to know I were still paying attention. Still watching out for her, even though I were living my life. So I told him, if he came near her, I’d see to it he wouldn’t be able to follow her again.”

“What did he say?”

“Nowt. He went. And I thought I’d done enough, but, well…she vanished the following week.”

“And that made you think he was involved?”

“Course.”

“But he’d been at work that night.”

“Apparently.”