Page 159 of Too Close To Home

He’d go himself.

Not with a notebook. Not as DI Black, standing over him with questions and a statement to take. But as him. One man to another. Someone who understood that things weren’t always as simple as the file made them look. And if that meant dealing with Jake Whitton—Hartswick’s resident pain in the arse—on his own terms, then so be it.

Strictly professional.

chapter twenty-two

Void Space

By the time Jake pulled up outside the Briggs’ place, the street was in that quiet lull between teatime and evening telly.

This was a waste of time. He knew it was. Old houses made noise. Roofs shifted. Things knocked and creaked when the temperature dropped. And he wouldn’t get paid for being here, fixing something he’d not done right the first time around. He grabbed his tool belt, anyway. This was his penance for being the bloke everyone called. For taking jobs on a kiss and a promise. Or a brew and a handshake.

And for being a tradesman who bloody cared.

Eileen had the door open before he even knocked. “Oh, thanks so much for coming, love.” She stepped back to let him in. “I were going mad.”

Jake nodded towards the stairs. “Let’s have a look, then.”

“If you can do it before Ron gets back from golf, that’d really help. Told him I wouldn’t bother you. We’ve not got a lot of pension left, see. Used it all on the insulation.”

“I take my payment in brew, Eileen.” Jake winked. “You know that. That kettle boiled yet?”

She smiled gratefully. “I’ll go make a pot, eh?”

“You know how I like it.” Jake smiled back, then headed up the stairs and straight for the loft hatch.

The ladder groaned under his boots as he climbed, then he shouldered open the hatch. Heat hit him first. Thick, trapped, with nowhere to go. Then the dust. Dry, clinging, sticking to the back of his throat as he heaved in a breath tasting stale. The immersion tank sat in the corner, radiating warmth. Eileen must’ve had it cranked up again, trying to chase heat through the house while Ron was out and not there to moan about the cost. Up here, though, it sat and built. Layer upon layer of it. Until the loft felt less like storage and more like a sauna. A slow-cooked space. Air that hadn’t moved in hours.

He hauled himself up into the heat, boards warm through his palms as he crouched low, careful of the pitch of the roof pressing close above him. Sweat prickled almost instantly at the base of his spine, shirt sticking where it met his back. There, he paused, letting his eyes adjust to the dim.

Nothing jumped out. No shift. No disturbance.

Same as he’d left it.

Boards laid clean. Insulation snug between the joists. No dips, no tears, no sign of anything being pulled back or pushed aside. But he moved across the joists, careful with his footing, listening to give Eileen the benefit of the doubt. Do a proper job, for a proper cuppa. Still, there was nothing. The quiet pressed in on his ears.

Until a faint tick cracked through the board. Timber settling. Normal.

Jake exhaled, running a hand over the back of his neck. “Just the house, Eileen,” he called down the open hatch.

“You sure, love?” she shouted back. “House never used to make that noise.”

He edged closer to the party wall. The thin, shared line between Eileen’s loft and next door’s. In terraces like this, sound didn’t respect boundaries. It bled through brick, travelled along beams, turned something next door into something right above your head. So he cast a quick glance across the rafters. No sign of a conversion on the other side. No reinforced flooring, no light spill, no clean lines of a space turned into a gym or an office. From what he’d seen outside, next door would be much the same as this. Low, cramped, forgotten. A place for boxes and broken things. Christmas decorations dragged out once a year and left to gather dust. But he paused. Listened through the wall, anyway.

Nothing.

He gave the beam a light knock with his knuckles. Solid. No give. No obvious gap cutting through the space between properties.

“Aye,” he called down. “Nowt there.”

He shuffled back, climbed down the ladder, and dropped onto the landing, dust clinging to his clothes. By the time he reached the kitchen, the tea was strong enough for his liking, and Eileen poured out a mug from her knitted-cosied teapot.

“Here y’are. Looks like you need it.”

Jake took the mug with a smile. “Cheers, Eileen.”

He leaned back against the counter, facing the window, the thin lace netting softening everything beyond it. The street sat quiet. Cars lined up, curtains drawn, a stillness that said the day was done. Beyond that, the land opened out. Moor and woodland stretching dark at the edges of town. Off to the side, the steelworks loomed, all hard lines and distant industry. He kept his eyes on it as he took a sip. That view. It always dragged him back there. Out into the trees. Into the places people didn’t go looking properly. Where things could be hidden. Forgotten. Left.