Page 17 of Too Close To Home

Harrison turned back to the board. “Family liaison?”

“Assigned. PC Murray’s with them now. Father’s rattled. Nothing to suggest she packed or intended to leave. No note. Bedroom undisturbed.”

Harrison absorbed each piece as it came. Internally sorting them. Cross-referencing. Filing them. She wouldn’t have made it far on foot. The path had limited exits. Time was already working against them.

He looked at the analyst. “Get me a radius breakdown of all footpaths leading off the moor, possible exit points, bus stops, and blind spots in CCTV.”

She nodded and started typing.

He turned back to the room. “I want statements from every member of staff she worked with last night. Names of every customer they remember. The father re-interviewed with attention to tone, timeline, and whether she seemed uneasy going to work. Check her messages, her social media, her friends.”

DS Calder piped up. “And the path, sir?”

“I’ll take a look at that myself.”

Curiosity and surprise rippled through the room. They weren’t used to an SIO pulling on boots in the first hour. Not here. Not in a station where hierarchy usually stayed clean and dry.

But Harrison needed to.

Not just because of Emily, but because he didn’t know this land. He didn’t know the dips, the blind corners, the tricks mist played on sightlines. In London he’d known every estate, every alleyway, every stretch of pavement where trouble gathered. Here he was effectively working blind, and that wasn’t a luxury he allowed himself.

So he ignored the raised eyebrows.

“You all know the terrain better than I do,” Harrison said. “But I know how fast a missing person case escalates. If she’s out there, we don’t wait for visibility or convenience.” He tapped the map, tracing the highlighted artery of the footpath, feeling the shape of the ground even from the overhead view. “Expand the search. Push another thirty metres either side of the trail. If the terrain widens, grid it. We don’t leave gaps. Not today.” He capped the marker. “Questions?”

None.

Then the uneasy shuffling of officers caught between relief and anxiety started. It was that usual fragile mix he’d seen in stations big and small, when the reality of a missing child landed on shoulders.

“Alright.” Harrison clapped his hands. “Let’s move. DS Calder, you’re with me.”

“Aye, sir.”

Harrison caught the exchanged glance between two officers as he and Calder stepped out of the room. He ignored it and kept walking, making for the exit where they crossed the rear car park. Frost clung to the grass in thin crystals. The mist was thickening again, drifting across the tarmac in slow bands. Calder walked half a pace behind, quiet in that way seasoned sergeants were: always watching, always evaluating.

Harrison unlocked the pool car, slid behind the wheel, and waited until Calder got in.

The DS fastened his seatbelt. “Turn right out of here, sir. Road’ll narrow up quickly.”

That wasn’t advice. It was instruction dressed politely.

Harrison put the car into gear and let him have that one.

As they pulled away, the town unfolded in muted colours: low stone cottages, damp brick, the incongruously cheerful bunting still hanging from some fete or other. An older couple walked a terrier, pausing mid-chat to stare at the passing blue lights. Curtains twitched in upstairs windows. The butcher outside his shop stopped mid-sweep. And Harrison noted how Calder tracked every pair of eyes following their car through the high street.

“This place pays attention,” Harrison said.

“Aye.” Calder shuffled in his seat. “Small town. Nowt happens without someone knowing about it.” He glanced at Harrison. “Bit different from city policing.”

Harrison kept his gaze on the road. “Policing is policing.”

“We’ll see.”

It wasn’t defiance. Not quite. And it certainly wasn’t mutiny. But it wasn’t agreement either. Harrison glanced across at him to get a feel. Early fifties, he guessed. Weathered rather than worn. Someone who’d spent twenty years walking the same streets, knocking at the same doors, carrying the same names in his head. And now he was sitting beside a DI in his early forties. Younger, imported, handed command on day one.

There was a natural fault line there.

Calder didn’t need to say it aloud. The set of his shoulders did the talking. The measured tone. The way his jaw tightened before he looked back out at the road. He wasn’t challenging Harrison. He was marking territory. This was his patch. His people. His history. And Harrison, fresh from London with clean boots and a new warrant card for this district, was wearing authority he hadn’t earned yet.