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A condemned administration block at the far end of the estate.
Which made absolutely no fucking sense.
Harrison had called it in the moment the location came through. Given what they now knew about Roman, Jake failing to collect Teddy and Paul Levensen lying about where Jake had been sent, there was enough to treat his disappearance as an immediate threat to life.
Two units were already on their way.
They were also seven minutes behind him.
For the first time since leaving London, Harrison missed the sheer weight of the Met behind him. In the city, seven minutes could mean half a dozen units converging from different directions. Here, he’d already committed Hartswick’s available officers to finding Roman, which meant Control had pulled the nearest response from the next patch over. Seven minutes of dark roads, narrow lanes and too much bloody countryside between them and Unit Twelve.
Usually, Harrison liked that about Hartswick. Fewer sirens. Fewer officers. Fewer people needing them.
Right now, he’d have given anything for blue lights on every fucking corner.
Seven minutes suddenly felt like a very long time.
The building emerged from the darkness ahead. Four storeys of blackened brick and broken windows. Temporary fencing surrounded the perimeter while yellow demolition notices fluttered weakly in the evening breeze. Harrison had pulled up what he could on the place. It was one of the few buildings left from the old steelworks, once the administration and operations block, sitting empty for years. Offices mostly, along with the old plant and service systems that had kept the building running.
Now it was condemned and due for demolition.
Tomorrow.
Most of the estate had gone quiet hours ago. No machinery. No workers. And a locked security gate blocked the access road. So Harrison pulled up sharply, killed the engine and sat there. Thinking. Trying to be rational. To be a detective. Not a man whose chest felt as though someone had wrapped wire around it.
He could wait.
He probably should wait.
But as he stared through the windscreen at the black windows of Unit Twelve, his mind supplied possibilities faster than he could shut them down. Roman inside. Jake with him. Blood. Another locked door Harrison might already be too late to open.
Fuck waiting.
He grabbed the torch from the glove box, then climbed out of the car and swept the beam across the abandoned section of the estate. Broken fencing. Overgrown concrete. Boarded windows. Nothing. He searched for any sign of Jake’s van. The battered white Transit should’ve been obvious. Jake parked it everywhere as if daring someone to steal it.
It wasn’t there.
Harrison had already given Control the registration. No ANPR hits so far. Phone here. Van missing.
He lifted his radio. “Control, DI Black. I’m at Unit Twelve. No visible sign of Whitton or his vehicle. I’m going in.”
The response came back immediately, advising him to wait for the responding units.
Harrison looked at the building. “Noted.”
He then shrugged out of his suit jacket, yanked off his tie and left both draped over the fence. Of course, he’d heard control. Of course he understood why he should stay exactly where he was. But something didn’t sit right. So he clamped the torch between his teeth and climbed up and over the locked gate, landing awkwardly on the other side with his expensive dress shoes skidding on loose gravel.
Brilliant.
Not exactly the footwear for searching an abandoned demolition site. This was why uniforms handled this sort of bollocks. Over the years, Harrison had upgraded from practical boots to polished leather and convinced himself he preferred desk work.
Told you you’d miss the field, Harry, baby.
The voice appeared so naturally in his head that he almost smiled. And he could see him. Chris. Standing in full kit with that infuriating grin. Taking the piss out of Harrison’s shoes while wearing boots capable of surviving a war.
The memory hurt less than it used to.
Still hurt.
