Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
There was a strange man on my roof when I pulled up, another skip on my drive that was empty. I locked my car and headed up the scaffolding, not thinking about what would happen if I fell, and then making the mistake of looking down.
“You okay there?” A voice from above rang down. “You’ve not moved for a minute.”
“I’m not a fan of heights.”
“Hang on, I’m coming.”
Six feet plus of tanned maleness landed next to me on the scaffold boards, hands grasping my shoulders.
“You’ve gone pale.”
“Heights.” Was all I could get out.
I didn’t ask Atlas any more questions until my feet were firmly on the floor and I’d spent two minutes sat on the drive resting my head between my knees. I was aware he was laughing quietly at me, but I didn’t have it in me to respond.
“Why are you on my roof again?” I didn’t look at him, trying to focus on stopping the world from flipping upside down.
“You had another issue. I noticed it yesterday but didn’t have chance to fix it. It’s done now.” I heard him wipe his hands on his jeans.
“Why are you helping me?” I managed to look up.
“Bored. Between jobs. I’m not good at doing nothing.” He looked the most awkward I’d ever seen him. “How’s work?”
“Slow. I have a case but it’s full of loose threads.
” I’d met Atlas a couple of months ago when he’d sent me a couple of cryptic emails that helped me solve a case.
I had no idea who he actually was, or what jobs he was between.
There were suspicions, of course, but any attempt from me to explore those suspicions was expertly diverted. He could well be a politician.
“Is it the fire?”
I nodded. “The one in Harrowclough.” It wasn’t confidential; a bit of a search on the internet and my name would come up in conjunction with it.
“We think it could be linked to a fire seventeen years ago in Thornley End.” I stood up, feeling better now I wasn’t suspended in mid-air on scaffold boards.
“What are you up to this evening?”
“I’m going to go for a run.” And I knew exactly where to.
“Do you ever do things for fun?” He folded his arms, the arms of his T-shirt tightening over his biceps.
“I run.”
“Of course you do. Where are you planning to go?”
I glanced up at the sky. It looked promising for rain, but this was Manchester and a grey sky could just mean some rock star brothers had rowed again.
“Thornley End.”
He frowned. “Like I said, do you ever do anything for fun?”
“And I said that I run. Anyway, you need to give me a bill for what you’ve done, and an explanation for why you’re so helpful.
It’s not every day a stranger turns up on your roof and fixes a problem you didn’t know you had.
” He shouldn’t be as mysterious as he was.
I suspected he was something to do with MI5 or another intelligence agency, or a white hat, and at some point he’d disappear without warning.
“You’d know about that problem when the rain hits the back of the house from the west in a storm. In fact, if you check the chimney breast in the room at the top back, I’d put money on it being damp.” His arms were still folded. I tried not to look at the strained sleeves of his biceps.
I needed to go on a date. Things with Jalen were dying a death, and I could see too much of myself in Lily to be comfortable. I also needed to return my foster sister’s texts and make plans to see her.
“How did you learn all of this? I thought computer nerds stayed in underground lairs and avoided the sun.”
He chuckled. “My mother didn’t believe in paying for tradesmen when she had six strapping lads at home.”
“That’s why your brothers were here yesterday.”
“Yep. And if we’re fixing someone else’s house, she can’t get us started on the extension she’s managed to get planning permission for.” His hands were now stuffed in his jeans pockets.
“Do you still live at home?”
“Temporarily. Long story.” I got no more than that.
“Why won’t you start her extension?”
“I start a new job soon and won’t have time to finish it. All but one of my brothers are working full-time too, so she’s going to have to pay someone to do it.” He shifted, clearly getting restless. “Want company on your run?”
“Haven’t you done enough physical work today?” I wasn’t sure I did; I fully intended having a very close look at Roselea, Lily’s childhood home, potentially going inside, which would be harder if Atlas was with me.
“I spent the morning reading shit, so no. I wouldn’t mind a run.” He seemed unmovable.
“Maybe I want to run on my own.”
A shrug, nonchalant as if that didn’t matter. I knew then that whatever job he did, he was a manager of people.
“I’d rather not be followed by a strange man.” I added that for good luck.
“Strange?”
“I don’t even know your real name.”
“Fair point. It’s Taz.”
I blinked, folding my own arms, my adventures on the scaffolding well and truly forgotten. “Taz? As in Tasmanian Devil?”
“Yep. I answer to other names as well, but more about those another time.” He stared down at his jeans. “Can I get changed into my running stuff in your house? I mean, I have no problem stripping off in front of your neighbours - ”
One or two of them would have no problem with him stripping off in public at all, but I decided that Taz didn’t need to know that.
“I suppose so. I wouldn’t want you to lose your dignity. Why’ve you got your running stuff with you? That seems very convenient.”
“Boy scout. Always prepared.” He gave me a salute that was nothing like a boy scout.
Because I was a detective, or just nosy, I wandered over to his car, wanting to see what else was in his boot. As I guessed, it was full of bags, mainly neatly folded clothes and toiletries.
“Do you live out of the back of this?”
He grinned. “Sometimes it feels that way. I’ve been working away so a lot of my life is in here. It’s mainly clean, but I don’t advise rummaging through it.” He picked up a sports bag and closed the boot. “Have you done with your investigation, officer?”
“Just about started it. Come in then. If you’re lucky, I’ll let you see the damp on that chimney breast.”
I didn’t think Taz – Atlas – was joking about his renovation skills by the time we’d gone through the house, working our way down from the room with the damp chimney breast, to the cellars, a whistle-stop tour that only underlined how much the money pit was going to swallow.
“Houses like this are a continuous project. It’ll never stop, so it has to be a hobby.
I can teach you how to plaster and tile, which will save you some money,” he said from the master bathroom, if it could be called that, as he was getting changed.
I was hovering on the landing, already in my running gear and looking at the maps app on my phone.
“I’d like to learn that actually.” I would save me some money. “Do you have the time to teach me?”
“Sporadically. I start in a new team in a few weeks so it’ll depend on how competent they are.” He emerged from the bathroom. “Who’s driving?”
“I am.” That was a non-negotiable. “You could drive me anywhere if I was in your car.”
“I could, but for many reasons I wouldn’t. For a start, I’m not that sort of person, unless I need to be. Secondly,” he lifted two fingers on his hand, “you’d make a lot of noise and I find that irritating.”
“Is there a third reason?”
“My car’s filthy and no one needs to sit in that passenger seat. Do you know where you’re going?”
“I think so.”
Growing up in north Wales meant I developed a good sense of direction.
Mobile reception wasn’t always guaranteed in the middle of Eyri, and road signs couldn’t always be relied on.
I was used to storms blowing down trees and blocking off routes, and I was used to getting lost up a mountain before finding myself again.
Driving to Thornley End was just like living in other rural communities; there was only one way in and one way out.
Every road meandered off the main road that eventually wandered into moorland, the outskirts of Greater Manchester that became a different planet.
Houses were dotted by the road like bungled afterthoughts, remote and lonely.
The land grew wilder, dry scrubby soil that in a couple of months would be coloured with purple heather.
“It’s down here.” I indicated left and turned down a road that was more of a track, trees popping up on either side.
“Doesn’t look like this is used much,” the person formerly known as Atlas said.
“The house has been in a state of disrepair and unoccupied since the fire. Seventeen years.” I pulled over in a layby.
“I want to run from here to the cemetery, and this path - ” I pointed to a stile in the fence that opened up onto what looked like it should’ve been a path. “It should take us to it.”
“You think that’s the way Lily Goodhew would’ve run.”
“Possibly. I think they’ll be another way from the house; she was going out all the time so she would’ve known all the routes.” I climbed out of the car and popped open my boot, changing into my trail shoes.
Taz followed, weighing the car down as he sat on the rim of the boot. “You’re dedicated to your job, aren’t you?”
“I really enjoy solving mysteries. I think that’s why I studied psychology at university, because people are the biggest mystery there is.” I fumbled with a lace, triple bowing it in the hope it wouldn’t come undone.
“That’s deep for a Thursday.”
“You should try me on a Friday. Why did you choose your line of work?” I stood up and stretched, a performative attempt at doing running properly.
“Nice try, Mia. Ready?”
We climbed over the style and started to run across a field, away from the main road and the track to Lily’s childhood home. The churchyard was in the centre of Thornley End, a place that was technically too small to be called a village and was more of a hamlet.
Neither of us were slow runners. I expected that Taz would beat me over five kilometres easily, but I was confident I’d beat him over a longer distance. My brain whirred between thoughts of doing just that and what living around here would’ve been like.