Page 8 of Too Close To Home

He’d worked enough missing-person cases to know how sometimes they ended anticlimactically. A teenager found in a mate’s spare room. A woman who’d booked herself into a B&B under her maiden name and turned her phone off for forty-eight blessed hours of quiet. People who simply needed distance from the monotony of their lives and the expectations waiting at home.

He’d also worked enough cases to know they were the fortunate ones.

“Incident room’s being set up now. Bring fresh eyes. Town’s twitchy about missing girls.”

Harrison felt the faint chill sliding into place. “Aren’t all towns?”

“Probably,” Pollard sighed, “but we’ve got a delicate history. Be prepared.”

The line cut.

Harrison lowered the phone, the cottage pressing in around him as if absorbing the deviation from what he’d come here for. The drip sounded louder; the air felt thicker, and he braced for what came next. Then he nudged the bowl further under the leak. Containment, however temporary. A reminder that some things had to wait.

Jake Whitton, Roofing and Repairs, would have to wait.

Chapter two

Feedback Loop

Jake flung his phone onto the passenger seat.

It bounced once, skidded over a stack of crumpled invoices, and vanished into the footwell.

“Bollocks.”

Bloke hadn’t even let him finish his sentence. Jake bet he’d be straight onto TrustATrader. Filling in forms. Quote, quote, quote. Then pick whichever one came with a logo, a receptionist, and a cheery little hold tune. Five-star reviews written by bots and blokes called “Sanjay from Surrey.” Sounded like the type. Due diligence. Spreadsheet. References. Not someone who chooses the first name on a bit of card left on a kitchen table.

“Fuck’s sake.” Jake thumped the steering wheel as he took the hairpin too quickly, tyres whining on the damp and the van fishtailed a fraction before catching.

Mist sat low over the fields, thick as wool. A tractor could get lost in it if it weren’t paying attention. That was Hartswick, though. Permanently wrapped in white. Hiding things. Swallowing things. Letting them sit quietly undisturbed. Letting people vanish.

He gripped the steering wheel.

Then scrubbed a hand over his forehead and shoved his beanie further down over his shoulder-length curls. Could’ve been a good job, that. Full slate replacement if it was as bad as he reckoned. Easy three weeks’ graft. Proper money. Instead, he’d been cut off mid-sentence.

“Fine,” he muttered to the cracked windscreen. “See if I care when your roof caves in before anyone rings you back with a quote.”

He did care. Quite a bit.

Money wasn’t exactly flowing lately. Roofing and drumming in Static Youth only stretched so far. And he couldn’t exactly stick himself on one of those glossy trade sites and pay for someone chirpy to answer his phone.

He snorted.

He’d tried that once. Let his mum take bookings for a fortnight while he was flat out. Never again. Not her fault. She’d been too honest. Costing Jake a tidy packet. She had enough on her plate as it was, though.

He sighed. Thing was, he’d had a quiet word with Deacon about that roof. His oldest mate, and frontman in his band, ran the local Froggat estate agent with his old man. And that roof on the cottage they were selling had been knackered since before Mrs Greengage’s husband dropped dead in that armchair by the fire. Jake had patched it up more times than he could count. Never charged her either. She’d never been able to afford the full works. So he’d made it last. Enough to get her through winter after winter. When she’d sold up to go live in the residential place, he told Deacon to leave his card on the table for whoever bought it. Deacon would sell his own nan if there was commission in it.

So that roof should’ve been his job.

Yet he’d bet that bloke on the phone, who sounded as though he ironed his socks before putting them on, would go find someone online.

Nice voice, though.

Different. Proper polite. Southern. London or Essex, if he had to guess. Apologising for ringing a number that literally said call anytime? Twat. All clipped authority and tidy vowels. Older, too. Forties, easy.

Jake rolled his shoulders against the seat.

He had a thing for blokes like that. The quiet ones. The reserved ones. The ones who sounded as though they’d never had mud on their boots. Who carried themselves as if they were in charge.