Page 70 of Too Close To Home

Ten minutes later, he pulled onto a cracked driveway he hadn’t been on in years. He’d barely killed the engine when his phone rang. Unknown number.

He frowned and answered. “Aye. Jake Whitton.”

“Jake, lad. Ron Briggs. Knew your old man.”

That narrowed it down to roughly half of Hartswick.

“Eh up, Ron. Y’alright?”

“Aye, not bad. Listen, our loft wants insulating. Been meaning to get it done for bloody years. You do that sort of thing?”

“Aye, I can have a look.”

“Good lad. Your dad said you were handy.”

“My dad says a lot of things.”

Ron chuckled. “You want to pop round sometime, give us a price?”

“Send me your address. I’ll fit you in.”

“Right y’are. Cheers, Jake. Ta-ra.”

“Ta-ra.”

Jake hung up, shoved the phone back into his pocket and glanced at the house.

The place hadn’t improved with time. It sagged into itself as if it had given up somewhere around two thousand and eight. Pebbledash stained with long brown rain tracks. The wooden porch slats had rotted through in places, paint peeling back in thin curls. Even the guttering had bowed away from the roofline where the brackets had rusted loose.

But he got out.

The path up to the house was a narrow strip of cracked concrete half-eaten by weeds. An empty lager can rolled gently when his boot nudged it. The yellowing net curtains twitched in the window before settling again. So he knocked. It took a while. Long enough for Jake to wonder if the man inside was pretending not to be home. Then the door dragged open with a scrape.

The smell hit him first.

Stale smoke. Damp plaster. Weed.

The man standing there looked about the same as the house. As if maintenance had stopped years ago. Big fella, too, though less rugby forward these days and more Michelin Man gone to seed. A vest hung loose over a gut that had long since surrendered to a poor diet, joggers stained down one leg. Dark stubble shadowed a heavy jaw, and his hair stuck out in sleep-flattened clumps as he squinted into the daylight as if he’d not seen sun in years.

“Fuck you want?”

Jake grimaced. “Jesus, mate. Open a bloody window.” He then brushed past him into the hallway.

The place was worse inside. Even Harrison’s half-packed house had more life in it than this. So Jake pushed through into the living room to open a window and rid it of the dank smell. The curtains stuck to the frames before peeling away with a soft tear of fabric. The television muttered to itself in the corner, the sofa half buried under empty beer cans and collapsed takeaway boxes.

He started clearing that, too.

Gavin shuffled into the doorway behind him, scrubbing a hand through his matted hair. “What you doing?”

Jake glanced over his shoulder. “Clearing your mess.”

He wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing it. And thankfully that hadn’t been the question. But maybe it was habit. Maybe it was the same stupid instinct making him fix roofs that weren’t his problem and answer calls from half the town at six in the morning. Putting blankets on sleeping detectives. Or maybe it was that old, deep-rooted connection to the man standing there in his vest and stained joggers. The one he’d never quite managed to cut loose.

Jake should’ve left him to rot years ago.

But somehow, he never had.

And probably never would.