‘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. Helanded 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 …’
