Chapter Eight Rotten Timber #2
Jake chewed the inside of his cheek. Timing was everything. Say too much and he’d clam up. Say nothing, and it could fester. “Anyone talk to you at school?”
“Welfare.”
Jake glanced sideways. “What’d they want?”
“To know how my teeth are.”
Jake huffed a laugh and reached across the other passenger seat in the van to squeeze Teddy’s chin. “Did you flash ‘em your beautiful pearly whites?”
Teddy jerked away. “Piss off.”
Jake returned his hand to the wheel. Sighed.
He wasn’t sure how to do this. Or even if it was his place.
He wasn’t Teddy’s dad. Nor his legal guardian.
He was his uncle. But he’d changed his nappies.
Walked him to nursery. Sat through parents’ evenings when Mum couldn’t.
Apart from the short stretch inside, which Teddy barely remembered, he’d been there for him through everything.
Uncle didn’t quite cover what he was.
So Jake tried again. “Nowt else said at school?”
Teddy paused mid-scroll. “This about that girl what’s missing?”
Jake swallowed. “Aye.”
“I know about it. It’s everywhere.” Teddy tilted his phone so Jake could see the glow of notifications stacking up. “Group chats. Insta. Snap. People saying she’s halfway to Manchester already.”
“Hm. Right.”
Manchester.
He hoped she was.
So Jake left it there. No point feeding fear when rumour would do the job on its own.
And after a drive, he turned into the familiar cul-de-sac and pulled onto the driveway of the old three-bed semi.
Pebble-dash frontage. A hanging basket long past its prime.
The battered Ford Focus parked wonky as always.
The garden hedge cut straight but never quite level.
Where he’d grown up.
Where Robyn had.
Teddy was out before the engine fully died, racing up the path and shoving the front door open the way he’d done since he could reach the handle.
Jake followed slower, and when he went inside, the house hit him the same way it always did.
Warm air thick with gravy and pastry. The faint undercurrent of polish and old carpet.
The tick of the wall clock in the hallway, too loud for the size.
Shoes lined up by the radiator. A faded family photo hanging crooked on the stairs. Mum, Dad, him and Robyn.
It hadn’t changed.
His mum made sure of it.
She’d refused to redecorate. She wanted it to look the same when Robyn came home, as if time had paused politely in her absence.
It hadn’t, of course. But the wallpaper still bore the same soft floral pattern from the early noughties.
The sofa still sagged in the middle. Robyn’s old bedroom door stayed shut most days, as if dust might disturb memory.
Teddy thundered up the stairs into Jake’s old room, which had become all his, and slammed the door shut.
Jake headed through to the kitchen, where the worn lino announced him to his mum, at the counter, sleeves rolled up, rolling pin moving over a slab of pastry.
Flour dusted her hands. A pan of mince and onions bubbled gently on the hob.
Peeled and washed potatoes sat ready in a chipped blue bowl.
Carrots and peas waited in a colander. Pie, mash and veg. From scratch.
Which meant she needed her hands busy.
“Eh up, love.” Maggie didn’t turn to greet him, but she kept her voice warm, though stretched thin at the edges. Like her pastry.
She’d heard.
She knew.
“Y’alright, Mum.” Jake stepped in and pressed a kiss to her flour-dusted cheek. She smelled of pastry and washing powder and…home.
“Weren’t expecting you.” She flipped a slab of pastry over, then rolled it again, adding more pressure than she needed. Her tell that something was up. “You staying for dinner?”
“Aye. Why not?” He glanced at the stove. “What we having?”
“Mince pie. Proper one. None o’ that frozen nonsense.”
“My favourite.”
She kept her eyes on the pastry. “Robyn’s too.”
Jake swallowed down his reaction to that.
Baking was his mum’s version of drumming. Repetitive. Instinctual. Necessary. It was the thing under her hands to stop her mind from wandering into places it had no business revisiting. It kept her upright. Functional.
He hated that she’d needed that for so long.
His mum had been strong because she’d had no choice.
She’d been left with a grandson to raise while her husband retreated into himself like a house closing its shutters.
It wasn’t fair to her. But it hadn’t been fair on any of them.
Someone had to keep the house moving. And Jake had helped when he could.
Until he’d gone inside and left her to handle that alone, too.
He hated that he’d done that to her.
So Jake leaned against the counter and watched her press the pastry into the pie dish, thinking how best to start the conversation he didn’t want to have.
Then he noticed the laptop on the kitchen table.
The familiar blue and white of Facebook filled the screen, and at the top sat the page Maggie had started years ago after the police searches stopped.
Find Robyn Whitton.
She still updated it every few weeks. Birthdays. Christmas. Anniversaries. New photographs of Teddy. Anything that might remind somebody, somewhere, that Robyn had once existed.
There was another post sitting in draft.
“Your dad’s in the front room.” Maggie glanced over her shoulder, snapping Jake from reading the unpublished post about Teddy’s battered rugby boots Maggie had started earlier that day. “Same as always.”
Jake nodded. Translation: he needs you more.
His mum was, unfortunately, used to dealing with her pain alone.
So Jake pushed off the counter and went into the front room.
It was dim even in daylight. Curtains half drawn, television muttering out the questions of a mid-afternoon quiz show, and the clock above the mantel ticking too loudly in the pauses between contestants’ answers.
His dad, Donnie, sat in the armchair by the window.
The same one he’d occupied for years now.
Shirt buttoned wrong at the cuff. Slippers worn flat at the heel.
Thinning grey hair that had once been the mop of curls he and Robyn had inherited, now combed neatly back.
He looked up as Jake entered. “Y’alright, son?”
“Aye.” Jake bent to kiss his head, then dropped onto the sofa opposite as the quiz show host asked something about capital cities.
His dad didn’t answer. He never did. He stared at the screen as if waiting for it to give him something else. The answer he wished for: where was his daughter?
Then he suddenly peered over at Jake. “How’s the jobs going?”
“Busy enough.”
“Still got that place on Church Lane?”
“Finished it yesterday.”
“Good roof, that.” Donnie tapped his finger on the armrest. “Old slate. Proper stuff.”
“Aye.”
Silence again.
His dad had taught him everything he knew about roofing.
How to test a tile with the edge of his boot.
How to read a roofline from the ground. How to look at a stain spreading across a ceiling and know—flashing or membrane—without ever lifting a board.
He’d built the business with his hands. Then his dad’s hands gave out.
A rooftop injury meant he was now on disability benefits.
So when Jake came out of HMP Wealstun and needed something solid to step into, he took the business from his Dad.
Least his time inside hadn’t been a total waste.
He’d done carpentry. Maintenance. Skills that translated.
Work he could take back out into the world and make his own.
Because by then, he couldn’t rely on plan A anymore.
His dad glanced over again. “Van behaving?”
“Mostly.”
“Keep an eye on those brakes.” Donnie pointed at him. “Don’t trust ’em once they start squealing.”
“Aye. Right y’are.”
Another pause settled over the room. Donnie’s gaze drifted towards the hallway.
To the front door. The way it always seemed to do.
As if, somewhere deep down, he still expected it to open.
As if Robyn might come charging through, frozen at nineteen, breathless and apologising for being late.
She’d say she got caught talking to Marianne again.
Then roll her eyes and tell Jake, again, that Marianne had a crush on him and he should try not to break her heart once he was a big rock star or when he decided it was time to come out the closet to everyone.
Then she’d kiss Dad on the cheek, wrap Mum in a hug, and steal half the roast potatoes straight from the tray while dropping on the sofa and taking Teddy in her arms to feed him.
Jake leaned forward, braced his elbows on his knees, breaking the silence before it could seep in too deep. “Got a couple more quotes lined up. Mrs Cartwright’s chimney. And that new build out past roundabout.”
“Good.” Donnie gave a small nod, as though that settled something important. Approval. Routine. Things that could be measured and fixed. Easier than the rest of it. “Keep it going.”
As if keeping the business afloat might somehow hold the family together too.
“Got a lead on a roof refurb over on Larkspur Lane.”
“Hm.” Donnie scratched at the arm of the sofa. “That’ll be a nice little earner if it comes off. Those cottages were built in the fifties. If it’s still got the original roof, it’ll want doing properly.”
Jake wasn’t even sure he’d got the job yet. But it didn’t hurt to let his dad think there might be a bit more money coming in than usual.
Donnie Whitton had always believed work fixed most things.
If his hands were busy, his head usually followed.
If there was a problem, graft harder until it wasn’t one anymore.
Retirement hadn’t suited him. Neither had being told what he could no longer do.
Somewhere along the line, the man who’d once lived to build things had slowly stopped knowing where he fitted.
“Aye,” Jake said. “Hopefully.”