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Levenson pulled off one glove with his teeth and nodded towards the pickup parked nearby. “Roman’ll take you over.”
Jake glanced across at Roman leaning against the passenger side of the truck smoking a cigarette. He lifted two fingers in greeting with little enthusiasm.
“Can’t he do it?” Jake angled his head at him.
“Needs two of you.” Levenson rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “For safety.”
“Fair enough.” Jake hitched his tool bag higher on his shoulder. “Do I get danger money for climbing round a building where you think the roof might cave in?”
“You do the job, I’ll give you the completion bonus by end of play today.”
“Music to my ears, that.” Jake grinned. “Need every penny I can get.”
So he could take a week off, fix Harrison’s roof and be there when he got home.
Nice.
Levenson lifted his hard hat to wipe sweat from his forehead. “Leave me your van keys, I’ll move it out the way as we got a big delivery expected.”
Jake rummaged in his pocket for his keys and handed them over, then gave Levenson a lazy salute as he headed across the yard and climbed into the pickup beside Roman.
The drive across the estate took less than five minutes. The active refurb units disappeared behind them, swallowed instead by older sections of the steelworks where nature had reclaimed the concrete. Weeds burst through cracked service roads. Rust bled down corrugated shutters. Entire rows of units sat abandoned behind bent fencing and faded warning signs no one paid attention to anymore.
Unit Twelve, the old admin block, appeared at the far end of the estate behind temporary barriers and demolition fencing. Four storeys. Long rectangular windows, most of them smashed out. Chunks of cladding missing. Entire sections stripped back to concrete and exposed steel. A yellow demolition notice flapped lazily against the fencing in the stale morning breeze.
Jake climbed out, harnessed up, then slung his tool bag over one shoulder. He glanced up at the building and, for one stupid second, Robyn’s drawing came back to him. Seeing the ugly. The thought put the dull ache back in his chest, taking some of the shine off what had otherwise been a pretty fucking good weekend.
Then Roman slammed the pickup door hard enough to rattle the fencing, dragging him back to the present. “Right. Let’s get it done.”
He headed for the access gate.
Jake adjusted the weight of his tool bag and glanced once more at the demolition notice.
Tomorrow.
Plenty of time to get one roof inspection done.
He followed Roman inside.
* * * *
“You look genuinely pleased with yourself this morning, guv.”
Harrison glanced up from shrugging off his jacket. “Hm?”
Murray pointed a pen at him from across the incident room. “The smile, sir. It’s…intimidating.”
A couple of the others snorted into their coffees.
Harrison fought down the instinctive grin threatening again. Christ. Apparently, one decent weekend and the entirety of Hartswick CID started noticing.
“We all have our secrets, Murray.”
“Is the secret the reason for the smile?” she asked innocently.
Harrison dropped into his usual chair at the briefing table and loosened his tie around the oppressive heat of Murray’s intuition. “Never you mind.”
Calder grunted into his tea.
