by Robert Innes
Every time he had met Blake now, he had made things better. He had been the one to talk to Harrison one on one after Daniel’s body was discovered, he had been the one who had stopped Craig and his gang giving him a hard time at The Dog’s Tail and it had been Blake who had stepped in when the interview was really starting to get on top of him. If Blake hadn’t had walked into the room when he had, Harrison was pretty sure he would have had a full blown panic attack. In that state he would have confessed to anything to make the feeling of terror he had felt end. So, as silly as it sounded, Harrison almost felt grateful for Blake stopping him from being immediately carted off to face a High Court Judge.
However there were other things about Blake. Whilst the death of Daniel really saddened him, Harrison didn’t feel like he had lost a boyfriend. More an old friend that he had lost any respect or admiration for. Daniel had stopped being anything close to a boyfriend a long time ago.
But this was still the first time Harrison had allowed himself to even consider the thought of being attracted to anybody else. Previously, he had always been afraid that Daniel would somehow read his mind and be able to tell he had let his eyes wander. And he found Blake so attractive. From his mousey brown hair that was naturally wavy so that it gave him the sort of quiff that some men spent hours in front of the mirror trying to perfect, to his sepia coloured eyes and slender build. Then there was his genuine and natural smile, which perfectly complimented his handsome face.
Harrison walked up the yard towards the house, glancing at the pair of police officers standing on guard near the shed and the entrance to the farm. Of course all these thoughts were pure and simple fantasy. Blake was the head investigating officer in the murder of his ex-boyfriend – a murder he still felt sure that he was a prime suspect for. There was more chance of Blake starting a relationship with Seth Baxter than there was Harrison. But the fact remained that Harrison hadn’t felt this comfortable around a man since he had started going out with Daniel.
He opened the kitchen door to find his mother bustling aimlessly around the room, evidently in one of her kitchen reorganising phases to distract her from the chaos going on around her.
“Harrison!” she exclaimed as he walked in. “Are you alright? What did they say?”
“I’m fine Mum.” Harrison said as Sandra fussed around him. “They just wanted to know about mine and Daniel’s relationship, that’s all.”
“Well, didn’t they do that yesterday?” Sandra asked him. “You and that policeman were in here for long enough.”
Harrison felt a dull skip in his stomach at the thought of Blake, but ignored it. “Yeah, but they need to be sure of everything I suppose.”
“But they don’t suspect you of anything?” Sandra asked frantically. “They don’t think that you…” Her voice trailed off as she looked at the shed and the officers through the kitchen window.
Judging by the state of her there was absolutely no way she would be able to cope with the suspicion Harrison had that he was the only suspect the police had.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, that’s something at least.” Sandra replied, more to herself. She tapped her hands together in an agitated manner as she paced around the kitchen looking for something to clean.
At that moment, his father walked in from the yard and slammed the door behind him. “Bloody police. Why can’t they leave us alone? Don’t they think we’ve got enough to deal with without them breathing down our necks all day?”
“They’re just doing their jobs.” Sandra said soothingly, having found a solitary bit of dust to wipe away in the corner of one of the top cupboards.
“Well, they want to do it somewhere else!” Seth snapped. He rubbed his neck and glared out of the kitchen window.
Harrison glanced up at him nervously and cleared his throat. “Dad?”
“Hm?” Seth grunted, without turning round.
“They were asking me about the break-ins.”
Seth’s head spun round to look at him. “What break -ins? The one’s here?”
Harrison nodded.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Blake, the officer in charge, maybe thought they had something to do with Daniel.”
Seth stormed across the kitchen and leant across the table angrily. “How could they have anything to do with what happened? That’s ridiculous. Why would he say that?”
Harrison leant back in his chair defensively. “I don’t know. That’s just what he asked me.”
Seth’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why? What did you tell him?”
“Seth, calm down.” Said Sandra.
“Nothing!” Harrison replied nervously.
“What did you say when he asked you about the break -ins?”
Harrison looked down at the floor. “Nothing.”
“Harrison!” shouted Seth. “What did you tell him?”
Harrison looked up at Sandra with a hint of desperation, but there was nothing she could do to help him. She was certainly right when she had said he had never been any good at lying. His father knew there was more to what he had said than what we was revealing.
“Craig Daniels said something to the police about hearing Daniel say something to me about it being something to do with you and him.”
Seth’s eyes somehow managed to open even wider with fury. “What?”
“Seth?” Sandra asked, shocked. “What do you mean, Harrison? What did Daniel say to you?”
Harrison sighed. “Dan told me that the break- ins were something to do with you and him.” He repeated. “I don’t know why he said it, but he did. Craig overheard him and said something to DS Harte.”
Seth stared at Harrison then at Sandra. He put his hands behind his head and paced the kitchen up and down for a moment.
“Seth?” Sandra asked again. “This isn’t true is it? Why would you have anything to do with –“
“And what did you say?” Seth roared at Harrison. “When he asked you – what did you tell him?”
“Dad, I couldn’t lie, you know I can’t. I said that Daniel did say that, but he couldn’t have meant anything by it.”
Seth let out a frustrated roar, then turned sharply to the window to check on the officers outside.
“Dad, is it true?”
Seth didn’t answer. He seemed completely speechless. He merely kept a direct stare with the officers outside.
“Seth!” Sandra said sharply.
“Insurance.” Seth replied quietly. “The farm’s in trouble. Has been for months. For about a year now.”
“What?” Sandra gasped. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well what could you have done about it you stupid woman?!” Seth snapped furiously. “Gone out there and started laying eggs yourself? Came up with some sort of miracle growing formula to make the crops grow faster? I was better off dealing with the situation on my own.”
“So you got some of Dan’s mates to break in and steal some of the farming equipment?” Harrison clarified. He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Seth had always been extremely hostile against Daniel, that is, on the rare occasions where he had even said a word to him.
“That’s what I just said isn’t it?” Seth grunted.
“Well I have to say I think you’ve been extremely dishonest and immoral Seth.” Sandra scolded. “If you’d just told us the truth, then we could have done something, we could have thought of some sort of solution! What sort of example is that to set to Harrison?”
Seth glared furiously at his wife. Without looking away he said in a dangerously low voice, “Harrison, go upstairs. I need to talk to your mother.”
“But Dad I-“
“Now!”
Harrison knew better than to argue with his father when he was in this sort of mood. He hastily stood up and walked quickly out of the room, closing the kitchen door behind him.
When he got to the stairs, he slowed down so that he could hear what was being said.
“Don�
��t you dare talk to me about setting examples.” Seth’s voice snapped from the kitchen.
Harrison sat down on the stairs with his head in his hands. He had always hated hearing his parents argue, even from a young age. When they fought like this, it always resulted in –
There was the loud sound of a hand being slapped across someone’s face and his mother let out a yelp of pain. Harrison sighed. It had been a long time since he had heard that. Though he had never seen his father be violent towards Sandra, he had heard it plenty of times growing up. His father shouting and yelling insults at her, which would then culminate in the sound of her being kicked, slapped or punched. It had never been spoken about between any of them, apart from when Sandra had seemed to vaguely refer to it to Harrison before Daniel had arrived the previous day.
“Seth!” Sandra’s voice sounded strained. “Can’t you see? How stupid all of this was?”
Another slap and another cry of shocked pain from her.
“Sandra, stop it. I’m warning you, just stop it.” Seth growled.
“But you’re going to get caught Seth!” Sandra exclaimed, sounding like she was crying now. “What happens to me and Harrison if you get sent to prison?”
Yet another slap, louder this time. Harrison pictured his father leaning back with all the force he could muster to deliver a devastating blow to his wife. A large clatter and another strangled cry from Sandra. It sounded like she had been pushed into the table.
Harrison stood up and went to walk towards the door, but as his hand reached the handle, he stopped. He couldn’t do it. He just wasn’t brave enough. There was no way he would be able to physically stop Seth any more than Sandra could. He rested his head against the doorway and sighed, a tear rolling down his cheek, cursing his own stupid cowardice.
He could hear Seth panting from inside the kitchen. “Just leave me alone!” He said forcefully. A moment later, Harrison heard the back door leading out to the yard open and then slam shut. After a brief pause, he heard Sandra sigh heavily and then the sound of the chairs scraping across the floor; presumably picking herself up from the floor after being thrown across the room.
Harrison turned and slowly walked back up the stairs. He had often wondered over the time he was with Daniel why he had put up with the physical abuse after hearing the sort of thing he just had over the years. Maybe it was the fact that Sandra was too scared to try and escape that had made him think there was no way out of his own violent relationship.
All of Harrison’s life seemed to have been pivoted around violence in some form or other – his parents, his father towards him on occasions, his own relationship with Daniel, and then ultimately Daniel’s death.
He entered his bedroom and lay on the bed, his head aching and his chest tight. He remembered this particular feeling of anxiety from when he was younger – it was a type that seemed to be reserved for when his parents were fighting. He closed his eyes and again tears ran down his cheeks. Despite the fact he had, somehow, seemingly escaped the restraints of his relationship, he had never felt so utterly trapped in his entire life.
“I mean what are you, fourteen?”
Blake sat on the wall outside the police station, vape in one hand, mobile phone in the other, smiling to himself as Sally-Ann scolded him. She had heard about his drunken phone call to Nathan the night before and had called to give him her rather candid thoughts on the matter.
“I was drunk.” He replied simply.
“Well, that’s no excuse!” She replied, amusement in her voice.
“I know, I know. But last night, I dunno. I was just having a bad time with it all. He sent me an invitation to his bloody wedding Sally. How did he expect me to react?”
“I always said he was an arsehole.” Sally sniffed.
Blake laughed. The night before he had walked in on Nathan and his wife to be, Sally had been telling him how Blake and Nathan were the best couple breathing and how she saw their relationship as one that people should take an example from.
“How did you find out anyway?” Blake groaned. “Don’t tell me everyone already knows about it.”
“You’re talking about Nathan here, of course everybody knows about it.” Sally replied flatly. “He’s also put a Facebook status about it, tweeted it and posted an Instagram picture of you and him with loads of red squiggles all over your face.”
Blake rolled his eyes. “As always, the modicum of maturity.”
Fortunately, Blake didn’t use social media all that much, but he had removed Nathan from Facebook once the vomit inducing photos of him and Cassandra had started to appear.
“So, aside from your messy love life, how are things?” Sally said. He heard a singular click and then the sound of a kettle boiling, meaning that she was at home. “How’s small town policing going?”
“Well, it’s certainly not been quiet.” Blake murmured. “I’d only been here five minutes before I was dealing with this really weird murder case. I’ll tell you all about it when I’ve got some more time but it’s not like anything I’ve come across before.”
“See?” Sally exclaimed over the sound of cutlery and cups clattering about. Blake could picture her trying to find a clean mug amongst the pile of washing up in her cluttered kitchen. “And you were worried it would all be graffiti and missing church collection money.”
“Sir?”
Blake turned round to see Mattison leaning out of the station doorway.
“I think the boss is ready to start.”
“OK, I’ll be right in.”
Mattison nodded and walked back inside.
“Gotta go. I’ll try and ring you later.” He said, taking one last suck on his ecig. It was running out of liquid and the residue on the bottom of the tank was leaving a harshness at the back of his throat.
“Alright. Have a good day and no more drunken phone calls!”
“I promise, Mum. Love you.”
He hung up and walked back into the police station. He would have loved some advice on this case from Sally. At the moment, he did feel like he was kicking ideas about on his own, but he hoped that this meeting would produce a few ideas as to just how Daniel had been killed.
Blake walked into the interview room to find the rest of the team sat waiting for him, with varying degrees of patience. Patil and Mattison were sat at their desks, keenly sat with a pen and their note pads. Gardiner was stood near the whiteboard that had been set up with his arms crossed and Royale was stood in the doorway to his office. A few other officers, some of which Blake hadn’t even met yet, were scattered around the room chatting idly with one another. Royale looked up as Blake entered.
“Ah, there you are DS Harte. Right, let’s get started shall we?”
“Yes, Sir.” Blake replied, throwing his jacket onto the nearest chair. He picked up a marker pen from the tray on the bottom of the board and turned to his audience.
“Right, afternoon everybody. I’d like to start by thanking you all for your work on this case so far. I don’t think there’s anybody here who wouldn’t agree that it’s been somewhat challenging to say the least.”
“Impossible would be more like it.” Sighed Mattison.
Blake nodded. “Certainly seems that way, but the simple fact is that this murder happened, so it clearly isn’t impossible. Let’s go through what we know.”
He picked up his file from his desk and pulled out some photographs, sticking one to the whiteboard.
“First of all, let’s take a look at our victim - Daniel Donaldson. Twenty-three years of age. His body was discovered in a locked shed at Halfmile Farm, with three bullet wounds. One in his shoulder, one in his neck and the last one in his abdomen.” He indicated on the photograph of Donaldson’s body where the wounds were located. “The shed in which he was found had no other ways of entry or escape apart from the door which he entered it by.”
Blake picked up a remote control from the desk and pointed it at the television that had been placed next to the white board, a still
image of the shed waiting to be played on it.
“As we know, the victim was put into the shed by Seth Baxter.” He pressed play and the events played out on the screen, Seth pushing Daniel Donaldson into the shed, locking the door and walking away again.
“Now, the only person who goes anywhere near the shed at any point is Harrison Baxter, ex-partner of the victim.” Blake continued as Harrison appeared on the screen. He turned to the board and wrote Harrison’s name on it in big bold writing. “We’ll move onto him in a moment. Now, Seth claims that he then called the police, which would correspond with the call recorded here at 9:47am. Around twenty minutes later, we arrived. Donaldson is locked in the shed for the entire time. After we have arrived at the farm, we hear one gunshot. The shed is opened and we find Donaldson dead. So, the question is how?”
“You said yourself, Harrison was the only one who went anywhere near the shed before it was opened again.” Gardiner replied curtly. He was clearly still annoyed at Blake for interrupting his interview.
“Right, so let’s go through that.” Blake conceded. He rewound the tape to when Harrison appeared on screen.
They all watched as Harrison tentatively walked towards the shed and then round the side, out of sight of the camera. A few moments later, he reappeared and walked back towards the house.
“He’s not there for very long.” Noted Patil.
“Long enough to shoot Donaldson though.” Gardiner insisted.
“How though?” asked Blake.
“You’ve never thought he did it though, Sir.” Gardiner replied shortly, the last word appearing to be said with some difficulty.
“No, I haven’t,” agreed Blake. “But I am, honestly, more than prepared to listen and consider any theories you have on it. He’s out of sight for what, five, ten seconds?”
“There’s no way that he could get a gun into that shed.” Mattison put in. “We were all there – it’s…in…penni…inpenni-“He waved his hand around trying to land on the word.
“Impenetrable?” offered Blake, smiling.
“That’s the one.”
“Exactly.” Blake turned back to Gardiner. “We were all there, we all checked that shed over. There’s no gaps in the woodwork, no holes, no little trap doors, nothing. Daniel Donaldson was, to all intent and purposes, completely untouchable in that shed. Plus, if Harrison shot him, where did he get a gun from? He hasn’t got one in his hands when he goes up and he hasn’t got anything when he walks away again.”
