Page 100 of In Too Deep

This morning Jake had been lying naked beside him, asking Harrison to talk to him. Asking him not to shut him out. All the while, Jake had already been here. Already driven to Hull, tracked down Lauren’s friend and started asking questions about the tattoo Harrison had specifically told him not to pursue.

Christ.

Harrison needed a minute.

More importantly, he needed that minute somewhere PC Murray couldn’t watch him having it.

He straightened and smoothed an entirely imaginary crease from his tie. “I’m going to leave PC Murray with you for a few minutes. If you can give her as much detail as possible about Lauren’s recent movements, associates and routines, particularly anything connected to these private clients, that would be extremely helpful.”

Kayleigh studied him through the haze of cigarette smoke. “Is this ’cause you think someone else did it? Put her in the river? Killed her?” She glanced between Harrison and Murray. “Not an overdose or summat?”

Harrison took a measured breath. “We have reason to believe there was foul play, yes. So anything you can tell us that might help establish who was responsible would be useful.” He glanced at Murray. “PC Murray can talk you through anything else we need.”

Murray looked up from her notebook. “Where you going, sir?”

“To make a call.”

Their eyes met.

There was curiosity in hers now. Perhaps recognition too. Harrison had absolutely no intention of giving her anything further to recognise.

“I’ll be outside.”

He left before the detective in him lost the argument with the man who wanted to ring Jake Whitton and ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing.

Outside, the corridor felt airless and the second the flat door shut behind him, he grabbed the stair rail hard enough for the metal to bite into his palm and bowed his head.

Fuck.

Jesus fucking Christ, Jake.

He took one sharp breath. Then another. Pulse hammering violently. Because this wasn’t Jake overhearing pub gossip anymore. This wasn’t harmless curiosity or drunken local whispers. Jake had gone looking. Gone directly to sex workers asking about a tattoo he shouldn’t have known about. How did he even trace that to here? And how had he not said anything?

He smacked the heel of his hand on the rail with a sharp metallic crack echoing down the stairwell.

“Fuck.”

Chapter thirteen

Conflict of Interest

Jake’s morning was relentless.

Trying to calm a thirteen-year-old lad whose world had suddenly tipped back into grief and unanswered questions hadn’t exactly improved his mood. Teddy had inherited more Whitton in him than anyone wanted to admit. Stubbornness. Temper. That relentless need to know things people refused to tell him.

And Jake couldn’t even explain why there’d been someone in his bed.

Teddy had assumed the usual. Jake had brought home a bloke and would get bored with him two weeks later. Fair assumption, really. Except Teddy also knew no one came into the bedsit. Not through to the next morning, anyhow. Jake had always kept that line hard and clear. Quick shags were one thing, but no one crossed the threshold into the parts of his life that mattered. Mostly because he’d never wanted Teddy walking in on strangers draped across his sheets.

But Harrison wasn’t a stranger.

And Jake still couldn’t decide whether that made things better or infinitely fucking worse.

Didn’t matter, anyway. He couldn’t tell him. Teddy wouldn’t deliberately spread gossip around school or the rugby lads he knocked about with, but small towns didn’t need deliberate. They thrived perfectly well on accidents. One careless comment. One overheard conversation. One wrong person connecting dots.

Jake didn’t have much left to lose on that front.

Harrison did.