Chapter 7
Taking out the house keys, Jake turned them over in his hand and walked up the front path. He reached the front door and heard the clunk of a car door behind him. He turned briefly to see Faye standing beside the car. Guessing she was anxious to get back to school, he called out, ‘You don’t have to wait.’ He had told her he’d report the stolen bike later. That wasn’t his priority right now – finding Marcus was.
‘It’s fine. I’ll hang around just to make sure you’ve got your car keys.’ Faye pointed at the car that was sitting outside his house.
Jake entered the house. The car keys were in the kitchen drawer, next to the sink.
Jake found the keys, shut the drawer and looked up. ‘That’s odd,’ he said, looking out of the kitchen window into the garden. The kitchen had patio doors that looked over the walled garden at the back of the house. It wasn’t very large – just a small patio, a grassed area and some borders – but he did appreciate the outside space. Over the past month, once the weather had finally turned summery, he had taken to throwing the patio doors open and wandering outside to sit on the patio.
Despite the bright morning, the patio was floodlit by the security light. Jake imagined that a cat must have set it off the night before, but it should have timed out after a sufficient interval. Jake walked out of the kitchen, making a mental note to fix the light.
He opened the front door. Faye must have been watching for him. Jake held up his car keys, dangling them in front of his face.
It started to rain.
Jake ducked back into the hall and reached for a coat; past experience told him he’d be out searching for Marcus for hours, probably finding him in some bar or pub, passed out.
Quickly throwing it over his shoulders, Jake stopped. Something had caught his attention; he could have sworn there was water on the dining room floor, visible through the open doorway.
‘Now, that’s typical. I’m away one night, just one bloody night, and I get a burst pipe.’ Jake sighed and went to investigate.
Jake didn’t have a leaking pipe.
There was no water.
A small pane of glass in the back door was broken, and shards of glass littered the floor. Break-in , Jake thought, but he tried the back door, and it hadn’t been forced; it was still locked. He guessed his would-be intruders had given up and moved on to easier pickings.
Burglary – it was random, it was opportunistic, but he hadn’t imagined that one day a crime statistic would come knocking on his own door.
Staring at the glass, lost in thought, Jake suddenly became aware of a dark mass obscuring the bottom half of his door; something or someone had been on the other side the whole time he had been standing there.
Jake raced down the hall and reached for a cricket bat that was propped inside the umbrella stand by the front door. He’d kept the bat for sentimental reasons, as a memento from his school days.
Grabbing the handle, he swung the bat above his head, feeling more confident that if this was an intruder, he had some protection. He slowly unlocked the back door.
‘Is everything okay?’
Jake spun round. Faye was standing in the front doorway, looking down the hallway at him, concerned. Jake had forgotten he’d left his front door open.
‘I thought you were going back to school?’
‘I guessed you’d nipped back inside to grab a coat. I switched my car engine on to leave, then noticed you hadn’t come out to your car. For someone who was in a hurry to find Marcus, I thought it odd.’
‘I think somebody attempted a break-in,’ said Jake.
‘Oh, Jake. How unlucky can you be? First your bike, then your house.’
‘I know,’ Jake said through gritted teeth. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate with finding Marcus.
‘Is anything missing?’
‘I don’t know, but I think there’s somebody still outside.’ Jake pointed towards the dining room.
‘Is there an access pathway around the back?’
‘Yes, at the end of the row of terraces, just three doors down.’
Faye disappeared outside before Jake had a chance to tell her to stay put. He knew he should call the police, but how long would they take to get there? And he still had to find Marcus.
Jake slowly unlocked the back door. He turned the handle clockwise. It clicked open. Jake stepped backwards into the hall. Distracted by the crunching underfoot, he turned awkwardly away from the door. His foot slipped on the glass, and he lost his footing, toppling forward onto the hall floor as the back door swung open.
The cricket bat fell out of his hand, and he could only watch helplessly as it spun out of reach on the polished wood floor. He landed with both hands palm down on the glass. The next thing he heard was footsteps behind him as he was trying to get up. Then someone landed on him. Flat on his front with somebody pinning him down, Jake wished that the bat was in his hand; if he could get himself out of this predicament, he might need it. Jake tried to hoist himself up from the floor, but the broken glass under his hands made using them to push himself up impossible.
A man’s arm reached round from behind him. He anticipated this, making a grab at his assailant but the pain in his hand was immense, and he couldn’t get a grip. Jake elbowed the man hard. He heard a grunt, the arm disappeared, and the weight shifted. Jake took the opportunity to struggle to his feet, thinking quickly whether to stand and defend himself or make a grab for the bat. He decided to stand his ground and turned on his assailant, surprised to find him still hunched on the floor with his back to Jake.
‘God, that hurt.’ Clutching his stomach, the man coughed and sat up. ‘I slipped over on the glass, and fell on you. I was only trying to help you up. What did you have to go and do that for, Jake?’
‘Marcus? What the hell—?’
‘What the hell am I doing here?’ Marcus struggled to his feet. ‘I needed a place to stay.’
Jake stared at his bloodied hands.
‘That looks nasty,’ Marcus said.
Jake’s hands were dripping blood over his polished wooden floor. ‘You’re not welcome here.’
‘I know that, but last night I was so out of it I couldn’t check into a hotel, and I didn’t want to sleep on a park bench, so I thought …’
‘You thought you’d come here and break into my house! For god’s sake, Marcus, what were you thinking? You’ve got a home to go to, haven’t you?’
It was becoming routine, the call from Lydia, the trawl around the sleazy parts of London, the hotel room for Marcus to sleep it off. And it was becoming intolerable; this was the last straw. Jake held up both hands in exasperation. ‘Look at what you did!’ He turned his hands palm up to Marcus so he could see.
‘Where were you last night?’ said Marcus, ignoring Jake’s bloody hands.
‘Last night?’ Jake realised that the previous night had been the first time he hadn’t been there for Marcus. Nobody had known where Jake was. Jake imagined there were several messages on his answer phone – all from Lydia. A nasty thought occurred to him; was all this for his benefit? Surely not! What had Lydia said on the phone about Marcus missing him? These were the only occasions they saw each other. Was Marcus doing this on purpose?
‘Turn around very slowly!’
Marcus was standing in the doorway, his back to the garden, obscuring Jake’s view. ‘Who is that?’ Marcus turned to see who had shouted out.
Jake looked past Marcus at Faye.
If it wasn’t for the circumstances, the sight of Faye marching up the garden towards the house carrying a large five-pronged garden fork in front of her would have been quite funny. The trouble was that he suddenly realised this wasn’t just at empty threat – Faye was prepared to use it.
He quickly understood the gravity of the situation. Faye had approached the back of the house. She’d seen two men in the house; Jake facing her direction, his bloody hands held up high to a man standing directly in front of him, his back to Faye. She could have drawn only one conclusion.
‘Whatever you’ve got in your hand, put the weapon down!’ Her voice thundered authoritatively.
Jake put his hands down immediately. ‘It’s alright, Faye,’ he shouted out.
Marcus turned back to look at Jake, a bemused expression on his face.
Jake could see Faye moving down the garden, still holding the garden fork out in front of her.
Marcus didn’t move. He just stood in front of Jake, gaping at the woman moving towards him.
Faye started to run towards Marcus.
‘Faye – stop!’ Jake shouted out as he launched himself at Marcus, pulling him away from the door and plummeting to the floor with him as Faye charged toward them.
‘What in hell?’ said Marcus.
‘Sorry.’ They’d fallen quite hard. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I … no … I’m okay.’
Jake looked up to see Faye approaching the door, garden fork at the ready. He scrambled around Marcus to position himself between Marcus and the door. ‘Stay down.’ Jake kept one hand on Marcus’s chest and the other held up towards the back door, where he expected Faye to enter.
She didn’t.
‘Faye?’
Marcus said, ‘You know this lunatic?’
‘Shut up,’ said Jake. ‘Faye?’ he said to the doorway.
Faye cautiously moved into view, the fork at the ready.
‘You can put the fork down now, Faye,’ he said calmly.
Faye looked from the dark-haired, dark-eyed man to Jake.
‘I’ve got it covered, literally,’ Jake reassured her.
Faye lowered her weapon.
Jake lowered his bloody hand and gestured behind him, ‘Faye, meet Marcus.’
For a brief moment, Faye looked bewildered. ‘Bloody hell, Jake, why didn’t you tell me?’
Jake sighed. ‘I did yell out.’
Marcus got quickly to his feet, keeping a wary eye on Faye.
Faye propped the fork by the door and stepped inside. Broken glass splintered beneath her feet.
Jake was having difficulty getting up from the floor without using his hands. Marcus caught his arm at the elbow and helped him up. Once on his feet, Jake roughly pulled his arm from Marcus’s grasp.
‘Hey!’ Marcus took a step back in surprise. ‘I was only trying to help.’
‘I think you’ve helped enough for one day, don’t you?’ Jake said. Holding his hands out in front of him, he headed for the kitchen.
Marcus frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He took off after Jake.
Faye shut the back door, trying to avoid treading on more broken glass. ‘Shall I clear this mess up?’
‘No, thanks,’ Jake called back to her. ‘I’m used to picking up the pieces,’ he added sarcastically, throwing Marcus a black look over his shoulder.
Jake reached the kitchen; the door was shut. He stood helplessly in front of it.
Marcus caught up. ‘So, you need my help now,’ he said, sounding smug.
‘Don’t be petty. Just open the damn door; I’m bleeding all over my hallway.’
Marcus drew in a sharp breath in mock horror. ‘Heaven forbid you should get a stain on that rug – never mind if you bleed to death.’
‘I’d rather bleed to death in the kitchen, if it’s all the same to you.’ Jake was rather fond of the rug.
‘Linoleum; easy to clean,’ Marcus shook his head. ‘There’s nothing like getting your priorities straight.’
‘Oh, that’s a good one coming from you. Lydia was frantic. She phoned me in a panic this morning.’
Faye wandered up the hallway, listening to Jake and Marcus bicker. She stopped at the rug and looked at the cricket bat. She knelt down to pick it up and placed the bat in the umbrella stand, where she guessed Jake kept it. Then she noticed a blood stain on the rug.
Jake and Marcus continued to bicker outside the kitchen door. Faye decided now was probably not a good time to mention the soiled rug.
Faye walked up behind Jake and Marcus and stood there, shaking her head. She found it slightly amusing; neither would back down. This was a side of Jake she had never seen before. They were both behaving like kids in a playground.
After a short time, Faye decided she had heard enough. She said loudly, ‘If you two children would excuse me …’ She barged between them to open the kitchen door.
‘What did she just call us?’ Marcus said to Jake as they followed her into the kitchen.
‘Losers,’ said Jake knowing exactly what Faye had been thinking; they were behaving like idiots. What was it about Marcus that brought out the worst in him? It hadn’t always been this way. Now, when he was around Marcus, Jake could feel his capacity for rational adult judgement giving way to a child’s raw emotion. That was why he needed to stay away from him; there were times he wondered just what he might be capable of doing. There was a very real possibility that one day he would just lose it and lash out. He sighed. He felt like he should have let Faye poke Marcus in the ribs with the garden fork.
Jake sat at the kitchen table and watched Marcus take a seat opposite. He wanted Marcus to get the hell out of his house.
Every call from Lydia signalled the start of a waking nightmare. The same picture went through his mind when he got the call: Marcus, still dressed for work, expensive suit, long wool coat, Gucci watch, and completely out if it – a walking beacon in the wrong neighbourhood, a death waiting to happen. Could he bear the thought of finding Marcus beaten, mugged, and dead in the gutter? No. And yet still he went looking, every time.
Jake thought about how many times William had asked him why he and Marcus weren’t friends anymore. William didn’t understand why they couldn’t just patch up their differences. William was under the impression that it was all because Jake had left the company. Jake wasn’t about to tell anybody what had really caused this deep, bitter rift between them – least of all William. If William knew what had really happened, there was a strong possibility that Marcus would not only have lost his sister and his best friend, but his father as well. Jake couldn’t be that cruel.
He had to face the fact that he still loved the guy. He’d known Marcus most of his life; that friendship hadn’t just vanished overnight. But on top of losing Eleanor, he was seriously beginning to doubt whether he could take much more. If Marcus couldn’t clean up his act, Jake knew that for his own sanity, he needed to cut Marcus out of his life.
There was a solution; Marcus could return to America. Without Jake to torment, maybe these episodes would stop. Perhaps Marcus and Lydia could get back to some sort of normality. Lydia would be up for it – returning home to America. Marcus could do with just taking himself off to an island, relaxing on a beautiful beach and getting himself together. Marcus’s father owned the whole company. Financially speaking, Marcus really didn’t have to lift a finger. His father wasn’t one of those types who’d cut off his children if they didn’t work. Marcus could have just sat on some exotic beach, waiting for it all to pass to him some day.
Jake stole a glance at Marcus as they both took a seat at the kitchen table, and knew it wasn’t that simple. Life never was. Marcus wouldn’t return of his own volition. He’d been promoted to COO, Chief Operating Officer, the role just below the CEO of the company. He now oversaw the daily operations of the company, reporting to his father, William Ross, the CEO. To everybody’s surprise, William had effectively stepped down. He was still the CEO, but these days he was more likely to be found whiling away his time on a golf course than in a board meeting.
Marcus was now the head of the Ross Corporation in all but name. To do that job, Marcus was based primarily in London. Of course, he hadn’t had to take on that role. In fact, Jake really had no clue how anyone could hold down such a position while carrying on the way he was after work.
A move to America would amount to Marcus giving up his position, and that would mean a serious demotion. Jake looked at the state of him and thought that perhaps such a move would not be a bad thing.
But Marcus lived for work. He had never taken a day off school or work in his life. Jake could forget any idea that these binge-filled drinking sessions would lead him to screw up at work; it was a nice thought, but it was unlikely to happen. And if it did, and he was sent to America with Lydia, this posed a more serious scenario – although Marcus might be safer in America, away from the pressures of work, away from Jake, would he be safer from the risk he posed to himself? Jake stared across the kitchen table at Marcus. He didn’t believe that he would.