To Die Alone Read Free

stretched back to his days as a soldier when his life relied on a sixth sense, the sudden feeling that made you turn round without knowing why. Harris had seen comrades die because they hadn’t turned round and the experience had heightened his awareness of the world around him. That’s what he had said on the very few occasions when he would talk about his life before the police.
    On this occasion, he had been struggling for several hours to rationalize what exactly he was feeling. He tried once more. Danger? Was it danger? No, not danger, too strong a word, rather an uneasy feeling nagging away at the back of his mind, a growing concern that whatever had threatened Meredith – and he was convinced that something was threatening him – may still be out there. He also had a feeling that whatever it was, was close. Very close. Perhaps, thought Harris grimly, danger was the word after all.
    ‘I don’t suppose,’ ventured Crowther, after watching him for a few moments, ‘that your instincts happen to tell you where he is?’
    ‘Sorry, Bob. They’re never that specific.’
    ‘I guessed as much,’ sighed Crowther. ‘Well, whatever has happened to him, I keep coming to the same question: why would he head across the hills when his car broke down? He’s lived up here long enough to know that if he’d gone back on the road, he could have been in Levton Bridge in an hour or so.’
    ‘Indeed so.’
    ‘And where was he going anyway? If it’s right that he told his office that he was going to an appointment at Ramsgill, whichever route you take, it’s north. And Trevor Meredith was driving East. Towards Roxham.’
    ‘He was,’ said Harris, finishing his chocolate and stuffing the wrapper into his backpack.
    ‘So what you thinking?’
    ‘I’m thinking how dangerous complacency can be.’
    ‘You can’t keep beating yourself up about it. These things can catch us all out.’
    ‘Yes, but we lost precious time,’ said Harris with a shake of the head. ‘I tell you, Bob, I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.’
    It had been, he recalled, the opposite scenario earlier in the day. A detective chief inspector in the market town of Levton Bridge, Jack Harris had been in a rare cheerful mood as he passed the control room in the Victorian house that served as divisional headquarters. The previous Friday, he had been in Carlisle Crown Court to see three travelling criminals from Merseyside jailed for stealing £95,000 of quad bikes from farms in his area. One incident had seen a farmer threatened with a baseball bat, the man subsequently suffering a mild stroke and now unable to work, his farm still on the market the best part of a year later. Acutely aware that the raids had sent fear rippling through the area’s hill communities, Harris and his team had been after the gang for months and they had all received a judge’s commendation at the conclusion of the trial. Not that Jack Harris put much store by commendations but it was nice to be recognized.
    Outside the court building when the trial ended, the inspector had given several media interviews, during which he went out of his way to warn other gangs considering coming into the area that Levton Bridge Police were waiting for them. He had even looked into the television camera, pointing a finger somewhat dramatically into the lens and revealing that he was already well advanced in the planning of the next operation. Given that he wasn’t planning anything of the sort, Harris had spent the weekend coming up with ways to thwart the gangs and by the Sunday evening, he was satisfied that he had enough in place to divert any awkward questions from the top brass when he returned to work the next morning.
    But there hadn’t been any awkward questions and Harris had spent the first hour of the day going through all the weekend newspaper reports, delighting in headlines that made for good reading. Never a great politician, Jack Harris was nevertheless shrewd enough to know