by Gwyn GB
She’d tried to make discreet enquiries. Was he gay? Had he been married before? Had he experienced some kind of awful trauma in a relationship? The answers were all negative and Tanya discovered that Harrison Lane was a hot topic of coffee machine whispers among the single women at work. Many had tried before her and failed. Right now, she would make do with having his attention in a professional capacity. She needed him to get inside the head of whoever was stalking her and help work out who they are and why they won’t leave her alone.
Tanya had been out with friends for lunch, a fun catch-up at a new noodle bar just down the road. Four of them had gone, all friends from Strathclyde University where Tanya had studied forensic science. The choice of Strathclyde had been a decision driven partly by the strength of the course, and partly by the desire to put a few hundred miles between Tanya and her mother. Her parents lived in Gloucestershire and to be fair, they were great parents, it’s just her mother was a little smothering. She was an only child and suspected her birth had been hard won. They’d doted on her but at eighteen, Tanya wanted to fly the nest and establish her own life and when she realised her mother was trying to persuade her to apply for universities that were close to home, she suspected an ulterior motive and rebelled. She hadn’t regretted it, and now their relationship was great, her mother had discovered painting, and when her father retired early, he’d become the focus of her mother’s need to look after someone. He hadn’t complained.
Lunch with her friends had rolled into afternoon drinks and by the time four-thirty rolled around, they were all somewhat tipsy. Tanya wasn’t good at afternoon drinking, when they’d left the restaurant, and the cab had dropped her off at home, she had a vision of crashing out on the sofa for a couple of hours, watching some crap Saturday early evening TV and then shoving a ready-made meal into the microwave.
As soon as she stepped out the cab, she felt him. It was so hard to explain. Perhaps it was expectation. She was convinced he watched her home, but in reality, she’d never seen him or had any idea from where he could be watching. For a long time, she’d told herself that she was just imagining it. Perhaps something in her day job had spooked her and filtered through her brain’s defence mechanism into her own life. Then the flowers had started arriving. She hadn’t told Harrison that part yet. It was usually a single rose posted through her letterbox. That meant he’d been there. He knew where she lived, and he knew when she was out. Tanya had doubled the locks on her doors and bought herself a panic button, CCTV, and rape alarm. She started feeling like she was under siege.
The worst part was not knowing who he was. Did she just walk past him down the street? Her usually bright and friendly nature had started to change, and she was avoiding men’s eyes. The crazy thing was she worked for the police, but that also afforded her the knowledge of how difficult charging people for this kind of thing was. Now, he’d escalated. He’d shown her that he felt she was his by calling her his wife. She was scared.
When the doorbell’s shrill ring burst into the silence of her flat, she jumped, her heart banging in her chest. As the heavy fist banged on her front door, just feet from where she was standing, she dropped her mobile phone on the floor.
9
They were sweating, and it wasn’t even 8am. Four of them had been trying to load the horses onto the truck ready to take up to Doncaster, and the last one wouldn’t budge. They’d tried every trick in the book, including bribery, trickery and shoving. They’d stopped for a few minutes because the animal was getting stressed and when you were dealing with valuable highly-strung horses, that was not what you wanted.
‘He’s always been a right bugger to load,’ one lad said, folding his arms and looking at the horse with disdain.
They’d lent against the wall, thinking what to do next when Sam walked round the side of the truck.
‘Having a problem?’ he said as he handed the paperwork over. Sam was a large muscular guy, originally from Ghana, where he’d worked with polo ponies. Sam was not welcome here. It had nothing to do with his ancestry and race, and everything to do with the small bone hung around his neck.
Sam nodded to the horse, which stood, eyes warily watching every move they made. Hooves firmly planted on terra firma.
‘Want me to try?’ Sam asked.
‘You’re OK, we’ll figure it out’.
‘If you’ve got any suggestions we need all the help we can get,’ one of the lads interrupted, overhearing the conversation.
Sam threw a glance.
‘That horse is getting stressed. I don’t want him hurting himself on my truck,’ Sam said. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
Jaw clenched to prevent anything they wanted to say from coming out, they watched as the big man walked over to the horse, approaching him slowly. The animal flared its nostrils and looked straight at Sam. They willed it to rear up and strike the man dead, but knew that wouldn’t happen. There was a greater force protecting him.
Sam held out his hands for the horse to sniff, and then gently moved in and allowed it to nuzzle him, as he stroked it and talked quietly into its ears. The three other lads stood watching, transfixed as the muscles on the big animal relaxed and the fear slipped from his eyes.
‘He’s a bloody horse whisperer,’ one of the lads muttered.
‘More like a witch doctor,’ another one muttered even more quietly. There was humour in his comment. How ignorant they were, if only they knew.
Sam took the head collar lead and gently encouraged the horse to move forward with him. It did so willingly. As its front hooves touched the wooden ramp, there was some hesitation, but Sam was there, encouraging. No shoving, no swearing, just gentle persuasion. Step by step he walked him up the ramp and into the truck, where he secured him and gave the horse one last nose rub.
‘All yours,’ he said to the watching audience.
One of the grooms came out with a string of expletives.
‘What did you say to him? I ain’t never seen him get on a truck like that,’ another one said.
Sam smiled.
They said nothing. Just watched. They knew the truth.
10
Harrison’s dreams were dominated by wild horses in a windswept wilderness. At one point he’d been back in Wales, on the mountains. Alone and grieving. When he awoke in a strange bed, the feeling of unease took longer to disappear. He longed to clear his mind of bad images and hidden faces. He needed fresh air and nature, an antidote to the darkness.
After a quick breakfast, Harrison checked out and took his Harley to Fordham Woods. He wasn’t expecting to be let inside the barn, he wanted to walk around the woods, to reconnect with nature and test his tracking skills, see what signs he could find. It was a skill that needed constant practice and reinforcement. A wood was a good place to lose yourself and no harm doing it around a crime scene—you never knew what you might find.
It turned out that the wood was only a small one, and there were too many people out for a Sunday stroll with their dogs and kids for Harrison’s liking, but he managed to avoid them for two hours by leaving the paths. He wandered among the trees, studying the ground, the pattern of broken undergrowth, animal droppings and tracks. He followed a rat trail, its feet in parallel lines and a small drag mark between them showing where its tail followed on. There were also dog prints, zig zagging like a horse’s through the undergrowth, and a male pheasant. Harrison took time to identify the latter, its toes wider apart than other perching birds, with smooth toes and a stand out middle toe, he judged it to be male by the mark left on the ground by his tail.
It was a wet valley woodland, with the River Snail, a teeny tiny cousin of the mighty Thames which flowed past his flat. There were plenty of alders growing in the waterlogged ground, and reeds rising from brown pools; descendants of those that would have been cut and used for thatching in generations past.
It wasn’t hard to locate the barn. A small army of forensic vans gave it away, and a police vehicle recovery truck,
was slowly winching a black Land Rover onto its back. Not hard to guess that it must be Paul Lester’s car on its way to be examined back at the police garage. Harrison didn’t want to draw attention to himself, he didn’t fancy having to explain to uniformed officers what he was doing creeping around a crime scene, especially as he was totally out of his jurisdiction and here only at the invite of one detective who was probably already no longer in charge. He used stealth to get as close as he could, checking for any potential evidence around the site. He saw nothing unusual.
Instead, Harrison disappeared among the trees. He found a hidden fox hole, spotted a sleeping owl, and saw signs that a small herd of deer had recently passed through. He skirted the edge of Fordham Abbey’s grounds, picking up the faint scent of the Sake brewery. A recent modern addition which probably wouldn’t have gone down too well with the monks of the ancient Fordham Priory which once stood on the site.
When he found himself well away from anyone else, he stood silent and still for half an hour, listening to nature around him, not just the bird calls, but the tiny rustles in the bushes. The chomping and crunching of a mouse eating some tasty morsel deep under its foliage hideaway. It wasn’t the endless hills and wilderness of Wales, or the remoteness of the off-beaten tracks in the New Forest, but it had made him feel better. The city hadn’t wiped the childhood training from his mind. He could tune in and connect when he needed to.
Mid-morning he called DS James. A harassed voice responded.
‘Sorry, Dr Lane, we’ve got the owner of the barn, Craig Matlock, about to arrive to help us with our enquiries. He’s a former jockey and a friend of Paul’s. Paul is in with the pathologist now, so I’m hoping for some news later this afternoon, and forensics are in the barn.’
‘I’m going to head back into London,’ Harrison informed him.
‘OK, I’m being pulled off leading this anyway, as I’m sure you’d realise. DS Brian O’Neil is taking it on, at least temporarily, under the DCI’s eye. He’s not led on an investigation before either, but we’re so short staffed. I’ll get him to keep you informed.’
‘OK.’
‘And, Harrison, sorry for ruining your weekend, I appreciate you coming to help.’
Harrison plugged himself into Jack Savoretti and fired up his Harley. He wanted to be back in London before a new band of rain arrived from the west. The prospect of riding back along sodden motorway carriageways with the spray from lorries and driving rain, was not an appealing one. If he was honest, he also wanted to be in town for the phone call from Tanya. Just in case she needed him.
He would have liked to get into the barn, more to tie up that annoying loose end than anything else, but that would have to wait. Harrison wondered if he would ever set foot back in this area again. It was going to be interesting to see if the new SIO wanted further advice. He guessed that might depend on what they found at the barn. If he was right, then there should be something that would complicate the investigation.
Harrison pulled up outside his Docklands apartment as Jack Savoretti was singing Only You. It brought Tanya back to the forefront of his mind. Not that she’d been far from it.
He’d made it home in good time. The first splashes of rain were just hitting the surface of the Thames and bouncing off the railings that ran along the road outside his building.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he let himself into his apartment and the still silence enveloped him. He was lucky, his flat had been one of the first of the Docklands warehouse redevelopments in the early 1970s and so it was generous on space. A former tea and cargo warehouse, he had the whole top floor to call his own. Three bedrooms, two of which were en suite, plus a family sized bathroom. The living space was a large open-plan sitting, dining, and kitchen area with light wooden floors and a mix of brick and cream painted walls. The big windows in the sitting-room looked out over the Thames, and with the double glazing you could barely hear life outside.
The apartment had been owned by his grandfather, a former City worker who had the foresight to see the investment potential of the old warehouses which at that time were mostly derelict and unwanted. Harrison had never had it valued, but he knew that by now his grandfather’s investment would have beaten even his wildest dreams. For Harrison, it was the perfect escape from London life, and he was eternally grateful for the inheritance.
He’d not had long to get to know his grandparents. By the time they realised he existed, his mother was dead, and his grandmother was suffering from terminal cancer. Those had been tough years. Emotional fissures scored into his core which silently reminded him to be careful of loving, because it always ended in loss.
Harrison grabbed a glass of water and headed into the shower to wash the road from his body and mind.
Being alone in his flat had its advantages. He enjoyed the quiet, and he began to relax after a busy weekend, but it also had its problems. He started checking his phone constantly to see if Tanya had texted or called and he’d missed it. It wasn’t like him to phone watch and each time he did it he admonished himself, but he couldn’t help it. Harrison made himself a late lunch and put a wash on. He contemplated going for a run, but decided not to, and then he couldn’t contain himself anymore. He texted her.
Hi, back in town. Everything OK with you? He pressed send, and he waited.
Harrison waited five minutes. Ten. Twenty. Half an hour. He could feel himself getting anxious so he put on some Sacred Spirit music and lit his incense burner, hoping to calm the agitation he could feel building up. It helped a little, transporting him back to his former Arizona home as ‘Yeah-Noha,’ filled the flat. Harrison tried a few minutes of meditation, but the relief it gave didn’t last long, his mind battling the effort to relax.
He rang Tanya’s number. In his ear, the phone rang, and rang, and rang. Then her voicemail cut in announcing that she was unable to answer and could he leave a message. He did as he was told.
‘Tanya, it’s Harrison. I’m back in London and… yeah. Let me know if you want to talk.’
He threw the phone down onto the sofa and paced up and down. Various scenarios flashed through his mind—none of them good. Of course, she could have been called in to work. That was more than likely. He’d give her another couple of hours and then if he still didn’t hear anything, he’d swing by her flat and check on her.
Forty-five minutes later, he told himself that he needed some fresh milk and a few other supplies and needed to go out anyway, so he might as well go and check on her at the same time. He totally ignored the fact that there was a small supermarket just a few streets away he could walk to.
It was a less than fifteen-minute ride to Tanya’s flat, and he reckoned he could do it in ten if it was a real emergency. She’d given him the address after they’d spoken before, just in case the stalker had appeared, and she’d needed him.
Tanya lived in the basement of a converted house in Islington, so she had her own entrance door. The street was a nice residential area. Three-storey brick town houses, with the ground floor painted white with pretty, arch-shaped windows. Black railed front gardens led straight to the door for the three flats above ground which shared an entrance, and on the left, some steps led down to Tanya’s basement flat. There were mature trees dotted along her side of the road. It was a nice wide road too, with a decent sized pavement and room for parking bays along both sides. The other side of the street was slightly different. There was a pub at the end and running down from that a selection of what looked like offices which had once been small shops. Small alleyways split these up. Harrison would have to investigate later and see where these led. The most important thing was to check Tanya was OK.
He locked up his bike and headed down the steps to her flat. There was a light on in the window. He could just see that through the chinks in the blind, but otherwise, the blind was sealed shut. He found that a little strange at this time of the day. There was still plenty of daylight and living in a basement flat, he’d have thought she’d embra
ce the natural light of the sun, not shut it out.
Harrison knocked and waited. He could see that a new lock had recently been added. There was evidence of freshly gouged wood and paintwork. Above his head, a small camera was fixed, trained on the space in front of the door. Good, she’d done as she’d promised and put in some CCTV and stronger security.
Harrison knocked again and called out, ‘Tanya, it’s Harrison Lane.’
He had just got the words out when there was the sound of footsteps behind the door and it was flung open.
‘Harrison!’ Tanya exclaimed. ‘Sorry I wasn’t expecting anyone.’
‘I tried calling but there was no reply. I just wanted to be sure you were OK. If now isn’t good, it’s not a problem.’
‘No, no please come in, come in.’ She waved him in quickly, peering around him at the street above. ‘I’m really sorry. I broke my phone. Managed to drop it and totally smashed the screen. I haven’t been able to send or receive any messages or phone calls.’
