Harte

by Robert Innes

  “No, unfortunately,” Mattison replied. “But I do get a lunch break. I normally have a pack up with me, but you know, things being the way they are with Mini at the minute, and the fact I had to go in early, I didn’t have a chance to sort one out today.”

  Harrison grinned at him.

  “The way things are with Mini? Are you telling me she normally makes it for you?”

  “No!” Mattison exclaimed, looking slightly petulant. “Well, sometimes. She’s good at them. Her sandwiches are the best.”

  He stared wistfully into space for a moment, a brief flash of sadness appearing in his eyes before seeming to pull himself together.

  “Bread’s in the bread bin, other things are in the fridge,” Harrison said with a small smile. “Help yourself.”

  “Thanks,” Mattison replied. He set to work making his lunch as Harrison passed him a newly washed plate.

  “Have you spoken to Mini today?”

  Mattison sighed. “No. Well, briefly. It didn’t look like she especially wanted to talk though.”

  “You can’t blame her, Matti. It’s still fresh. If she wants to sort things out, it’s going to take some time. She’s hurting.”

  “I know, I know,” Mattison said with a vicious stab into the butter with a knife. “I know I can’t expect her to exactly welcome me back with open arms.”

  “What about Lisa? Have they had a cat fight yet?”

  Mattison shook his head as he placed some chicken in between the two slices of bread he had buttered.

  “No, thank God. To be honest, Lisa seems to be pretending it never happened. She’s just thrown herself into this case. She’s out now, apparently going around the village for witnesses.”

  “Best thing she can do,” Harrison said. “That’s if she doesn’t want Mini to give her a black eye.”

  Mattison groaned and took a big bite out of his sandwich.

  “So, go on,” Harrison continued, scrubbing hard on an especially stubborn burn mark on one of the pans, “how is the case going?”

  “Well, I can’t really go into…”

  “Into details, I know that. You think living with Blake hasn’t told me that I’m not privy to this sort of information?”

  Mattison shrugged.

  “To be honest, there’s not even that much information to go on. I mean, if we’re saying he was attacked in the early hours of the morning, then what have we got to go on? No witnesses to speak of, no forensic evidence, no weapon. I think it’s going to be a slow one, personally. Especially with Gardiner in charge.”

  “What about his phone?”

  They both jumped as they realised that Blake was standing behind them.

  “Bloody hell,” Mattison said. “You’ll give me a heart attack sneaking up like that. No wonder you catch suspects by surprise.”

  “Too kind,” Blake replied dryly, eying the sandwich. “So? What about Tom’s phone?”

  “Well, Harrison’s interview was sort of helpful,” Mattison said. “He definitely received a phone call around the time he was attacked. But, of course, because why wouldn’t it be, the number is from a pay as you go, isn’t registered to anybody, and so we’ve got to go around the long way to find out who it is.”

  Blake frowned. “Not suspicious at all then. Surely not even Gardiner doesn’t think that Tom receiving a phone call from a difficult to trace phone and then getting attacked is a coincidence.”

  “Do you think that could be from whoever ‘F’ is?” Harrison asked.

  Blake shrugged.

  “Could be. I don’t see any other reason why he would just be in the phone under one letter if he didn’t mind people knowing his identity. That’s assuming it is a ‘he’ of course.”

  He thought for a few moments then rubbed his eyes.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it is a good job I’m getting away from all this. Is it any wonder I have bad dreams?”

  As he wandered back into the living room, Mattison turned to Harrison with a frown.

  “Bad dreams?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Harrison muttered, fully aware Blake did not want the details of his nightmares broadcasting. “He’s just had a bit of trouble sleeping, that’s all.”

  A few minutes later, once Harrison had finished the washing up and Mattison had consumed his sandwich, they joined Blake in the living room.

  “What was the score on the rugby?” Mattison asked as commentators signed off signalling the end of the match.

  “Like I know,” Blake replied. “And by the way, that chicken you just finished, I take it you’ll be replacing?”

  “Of course!” Mattison replied, looking as though it could not have been further from his mind. “I’ll even go shopping after work if you want! I’ll bring a big shop home and fill your cupboards.”

  Blake shrugged.

  “Doesn’t bother me. I’m not going to be here.”

  Mattison rolled his eyes and turned to Harrison. “Do you often have to put up with this?”

  “Fairly regularly,” Harrison said with a grin. “He’s predictable with it though, so you’ll learn soon enough. Watch this.” He pointed to the television where an advert was playing before the news about a company making double glazing windows. “He hates that woman.”

  On cue, Blake said, “Oh, I can’t stand her. She’s got the most annoying voice on television. She must be short on money if she’s doing that advert. Did you see her on Question Time the other night? She absolutely loves, and I mean loves the sound of her own voice, and she must be the only one who does. She’s so pompous. Don’t you hate people who use big words just to make themselves look perspicacious?”

  Harrison and Mattison exchanged knowing grins as the theme tune to the lunchtime news started. “Television has got so mind numbing these days,” Blake went on. “It’s all fake. I mean, look at that news studio, you know that’s all green screen, don’t you? None of it’s real. They want to make us think their broadcasting from this big futuristic looking studio, but in reality, that newsreader, who I also can’t stand, she’s just sitting in this big blank space. The desk is real and that’s about it. She may as well be presenting from a shoe cupboard. When did television become so false? Do they think we’re stupid? And as for reality television, don’t even get me started on that…” but then his voice trailed away.

  Harrison who had been busy chuckling to himself at Blake’s rant frowned as he realised that he appeared transfixed by the television as the newsreader began her first report. The reason for Blake’s expression soon became clear as an icy looking woman with a thin nose high in the air appeared on the screen.

  “‘Good afternoon. I’m Theresa Bowen. The serial killer Thomas Frost is to be moved tomorrow from his secure prison in Manchester to a larger one in the capital, it was revealed today. Frost, who was responsible for the murders of five women in the Greater Manchester area in 2010, was recommended never to be released and is one of the UK’s most dangerous category A prisoners, meaning that he holds a great risk to the public. Category A prisoners are moved between prisons from time to time for security reasons. It is understood that the move will be accompanied by a large formation of police and will take place at around nine AM tomorrow.”

  There was silence in the room for a few moments as the newsreader moved onto her next story. Harrison took a grip of Blake’s hand.

  “He’s not going anywhere,” he said softly.

  Mattison seemed to shudder as the picture of Frost was replaced by a story about an argument in parliament. “He’s so evil looking. You can just tell. Dead behind the eyes. Tell you what, Sir. You probably saved the lives of more people than you could ever know when you got him put behind bars.”

  “Thanks,” Blake murmered. “Wasn’t just me though. Anyway.” He stood up, looking slightly dazed. Harrison could tell that he was unsettled. “I better get on with this packing.”

  He wandered upstairs, leaving them alone in the living room.

  “Best thing he can
do is get away from police work for a couple of weeks,” Harrison murmered to Mattison. “Otherwise, God knows what kind of state his head would be in.”

  Three

  To Blake’s relief, in what was seeming to be a rare event these days, he woke up to the sound of his alarm going off the next morning instead of already being awake from bad dreams.

  His train to Manchester was at half past nine, so once he was up and dressed, he pottered around the cottage making sure that he had everything he needed in his case, including Sally’s awkwardly shaped lamp.

  Harrison, who was at work that morning and so was up just as early, stood in the kitchen with him about half an hour before Blake had to leave as they both enjoyed their morning cup of tea together. From the living room, the sound of Mattison’s heavy breathing could be heard as he lay sprawled out on the sofa.

  “You going to be alright with him then?” Blake asked.

  “Me and Matti? Yeah, should be. Hopefully we’ll get him and Mini talking by the time you get back.”

  “I’ll leave it in your capable hands,” Blake said, with a smile.

  He leaned forwards and kissed Harrison on the lips, not releasing him for a few seconds before pulling him in closer and hugging him.

  “What was that for?” Harrison said, putting his arm around Blake’s waist.

  “For being you. I know I’ve probably not been the easiest boyfriend in the world these past couple of months.”

  “You’re just highlighting the past two months? Oh, okay,” Harrison said, before yelping with laughter as Blake wrestled him into the counter.

  “I’m serious,” Blake said in a quieter voice, aware that they were probably going to wake Mattison if they made much more noise. “You’ve been amazing. And I’ve not made that easy for you at times. Thank you.”

  Harrison sighed.

  “Oh, shush. When we first met, I was a wreck. I genuinely did jump at my own shadow once. Scared of my dad, scared of Daniel hitting me again, scared at the fact that there probably wasn’t going to be a time when I felt any different. And then you came along and everything changed.”

  “Only because I had both your parents sent to prison,” Blake said. “Not many people would jump into bed with a police officer that did that.”

  “It was a bit more complicated than that, and you know it,” Harrison replied. “Anyway, I’m not most people.”

  “Too true,” Blake said, with a grin.

  They kissed again and Blake suddenly almost did not want to go to Manchester. He felt like he had just become aware of how lucky he was to have Harrison in his life, something that he knew he forgot sometimes. He was all too aware of his own thoughtless nature at times and Harrison had been there to pull him out of his rut. When they had met, it had only been a couple of months since Blake had walked in on his ex-boyfriend, Nathan, in bed with a woman. The resulting pain had taken him completely by surprise and the only solution he could find was to move to Harmschapel to start again. Little did he know that better things were waiting for him in what he had always thought to be just a quaint little village.

  As he watched Harrison walk upstairs to get ready for work, a thought that had been idly clattering around Blake’s mind landed with starting clarity as he finally realised that there was something he needed to do when he got back, something he had been thinking about for a long time, but had always stopped himself because the moment had never seemed right. He wanted to ask Harrison a very terrifying question, one he was unsure of whether he wanted to hear the answer to or not. There was also the small matter of a finding a ring.

  He had enough money put aside to splash out on a fairly decent one, but the idea of Harrison rejecting him felt all too possible. Realistically, he knew that their current life was far from ideal. Anyone who had ever known Blake had always joked how he was practically married to his job and it was a fact that he had always just shrugged and accepted, but the reality was that there was no reason why Harrison would want to tie himself to such a relationship. There was almost a ten year age gap between the two of them, and although Blake knew that Harrison loved him and that the difference in their ages had never been an issue before, it felt like a lot to ask Harrison to accept the notion of being with Blake for the rest of his life.

  He shook his head and decided that he would have to have an in-depth discussion with Sally on the matter when they met later. Perhaps, he thought, as he busied himself with clearing away his breakfast things, the subject would seem clearer when they were halfway through a bottle of gin.

  As he waited for the sink to fill, he switched his phone on to the news app to listen to the live feed. The story he was waiting for did not take long to appear.

  “We now cross live to Manchester where Theresa Bowen is at the gates of Strangeways, waiting for the appearance of Thomas Frost as his prison move begins. Theresa?”

  The news cut to a thin, icy looking woman standing outside the large and imposing gates of Strangeways Prison and Blake felt a familiar feeling of resentment as he did whenever he saw this particular news reporter.

  Theresa Bowen had been a reporter on this news channel for many years, including at the height of the Frost killings. While Blake had always been under the opinion that news reporters should be impartial, due to how difficult they could make the job of policing during sensitive cases, Theresa had been anything but neutral. She had been exceedingly critical of the police’s speed in catching, what was at that point, an unknown killer and then, once Frost had been arrested, of writing in her regular newspaper column a detailed accusation of Manchester Police going for the easiest option without finding out whether he was responsible for all the deaths, despite all the evidence to the contrary. While her view had quickly gone quiet once all other news channels began naming Frost as the killer, Blake always remembered how difficult she had tried to make his job.

  The camera took in the huge prison building behind Theresa. It was a place that Blake, fortunately, had never had to enter, as the only time he had ever visited Frost had been before he had been moved there from the nearby prison he had been held in.

  The camera zoomed into the sight of a police prison van waiting outside the doors for its passenger.

  Blake’s stomach flipped as he put down the bowl he was about to wash up and stared at his phone. He did not know why he was even watching. The last person he ever wanted to see again was Frost.

  “‘I’m here outside Strangeways Prison in Manchester where in just a few moments, Thomas Frost will be brought out of this prison to that van and then taken, with police escort, to his new prison in London where it is expected he will remain for a good number of years before he is moved again. Frost is serving life in prison after being found guilty of the murders of five women and so the news of his movement has obviously provoked a strong reaction from the public.’”

  As Theresa continued speaking about Frost’s crimes, Blake was briefly taken back to the interview room in Manchester where he had first spoken to the serial killer with Sally. It had felt at the time like Blake had met somebody who had permanently opened his eyes to the darkness that humanity was capable of. Frost was depraved and had clearly revelled in the terror that he had evoked in each of his victims before they died. The most chilling part was that Blake knew full well that, given the opportunity, Frost would do it all over again.

  Suddenly, there he was. Blake stared at the phone, his mouth dry as Frost emerged from the steel door and was led by two prison officers to the waiting van. He appeared to have lost weight since Blake had last seen him, his gaunt face looking more skeletal than ever. His hair was greyer and as Blake looked closer, he realised that Mattison’s analogy was absolutely right. Thomas Frost did look completely dead behind the eyes.

  The back of the van was opened and Frost disappeared from view as he was put inside the van.

  “‘And there he is,” continued Theresa, ‘He will be placed in that van, handcuffed and locked inside, and I don’t know if you can see th
ese police cars waiting to escort the van to his new prison.’”

  Again, the camera panned away from the van to reveal a cavalcade of patrol cars and two officers on motorcycles waiting for the van to pass them. Blake could only imagine the various videos that would be uploaded on YouTube throughout the morning as the formation travelled to London.

  Finally, the van doors were closed and the van roared into life, a blue flashing light blinking on the top. As it moved towards the gate, the motorcycles and one car went ahead while the remaining two waited until the van was in front of them. A mad flurry of flashing cameras suddenly began as the van came closer, despite the fact that the blacked-out windows made it impossible to see the occupant. Then, the van turned onto the road and was soon out of sight.

  Blake switched the phone off and sighed. Despite the fact that Frost was clearly surrounded by police from all angles and was incarcerated inside the van, he felt unnerved that he was anywhere else but in prison. While travelling the distance between Manchester and London, he would be closer to the general public for longer than he had been since Blake had first arrested him. He glanced at the clock on the wall and tried to estimate the time it would take for the van to reach its destination. All Blake could hope for was that the traffic did not slow proceedings down too much.

  Half an hour later, Harrison walked Blake to his car and loaded the boot while Blake did a last check on his phone to make sure his train ticket was ready to go.

  “I’m going to pop into the station on my way,” Blake announced.

  “Why?” Harrison frowned. “Just leave them to it, you can’t do anything.”

  Blake glanced across at Jacqueline’s house.

  “That woman has been good to me, to both of us. I feel like I owe it to her to see what the progress is in finding Tom’s attacker, especially after what she overheard me saying yesterday. God only knows what she’s going through right now.”

  Harrison shook his head. “You’re really going for that knighthood, huh?”