Secrets and Lies - Harry's Secret

by R L Stephens

  ***

  A few hours earlier Harry had been just about to walk through the front door of his building when he thought he heard a familiar voice coming from just the other side of the door and just for a moment through a pane of glass in the door he thought he saw the face of that annoying DI Peters who had questioned him a few months earlier. In something of a blind panic Harry quickly ducked behind the outcropping of wall that framed he door and pressed himself tightly against the cold stone.

  He then heard the door open and the sound of DI Peters voice as the two men walked through the door and left the building. Harry could hear their footsteps stop on the stone floor just outside of the door as they paused for a couple of minutes. Above the sound of his own breath that was growing rapidly Harry couldn’t quite hear what the two men were talking about, but he had a feeling it was about him.

  The voice of DI Peters was deep and clear, just as it had been on that day at Emily Baxter’s house, but the other voice he didn’t recognize. He assumed that it was a colleague of DI Peters and thought that it might a Detective Sargent or some such lower ranked officer as that always seemed to the case on TV.

  Harry crossed his fingers and hoped that they would move in soon as he was certain that he would somehow give away his position if the stayed there much longer. His eyes then darted around where he was standing and Harry could just about see the other side of the building. I could probably make it, he thought to himself as the idea of making a run for it crossed his mind, but then as soon as he moved the two policemen would probably hear the sound of his movement and come looking around the building to see what it was that had made that sound. So Harry decided to stay put and he pressed himself as thinly as he could against the cold stone of the wall, hoping.

  “What's next sir?” Harry could make out the stranger saying to DI Peters as he felt his pulse racing dangerously high and he forced himself to control his breathing down from a heavy panicky panting that could give away his serendipitous hiding spot.

  “Err Libby Short I believe,” DI Peters said. “Apparently she’s the closest person to him at the office,” he then added as Harry forced his eyes closed and pleaded with the gods to let them leave soon.

  “Ah yes I have her address here,” the stranger then said after Harry could hear him flicking the pages of what assumed to be one of those pocket notebooks that police officers always seemed to be carry. Harry could then make out the sound of their shoes as they made to leave.

  Please don’t turn around, please don’t turn around, Harry willed with his eyes closed tightly and he remained as motionless as she could while he heard the footsteps of the two men fade into the distance. When he was fairly sure they were far enough away Harry opened his eyes and forced himself to look around the wall so that he could see where they had gone. He could just about make out the silhouettes of their backs in the distance and let out a huge sigh of relief as she sank down to the ground.

  Sitting there on the sun dried grass Harry could feel the net tightened in around him as his heart still pumped madly in his chest with panic. What am I going to do? What am I going? Harry repeated over and over to himself as he felt the pressure build up behind his eyes and he felt as though he would explode at any moment. I really can’t keep this up, Harry thought to himself as he wondered what he could possibly do now. After all things seemed as though they had gone too far and it was too late to just come out and tell the truth now. But he had to do something, and Harry couldn’t help but wonder what poor old Emily Baxter would think of him now, and he even wondered she would do in his position.