Page 5

The handwriting looked vaguely familiar.

Blake’s mouth twitched, and he became aware that he was glowering.

Val shouted something at the television, causing him to glance back, and when he returned his attention to the porch the man was already shuffling inside.

On the one hand, Blake was relieved that he wasn’t going to have to engage in any pointless small talk.

On the other, he was beginning to worry about his increasingly problematic neighbour situation.

His chest was growing tight, and the pulsing in his temple told him his blood pressure was slowly creeping up. So, taking a long breath, he said goodbye to Val, rounded up his wayward corgi and padded back over to his own front door.

“No, you can’t do a dance routine in the custody block and post it to social media,” he snapped.

“Aw, come on, Sarge. There’s nothing in regulations that says?—”

“And there’s nothing in regulations that says I can’t kick your fucking arse, DC Jenkins.”

There was, but he wasn’t about to tell him that.

“Process the prisoner and hand the paperwork to the late turn sergeant. Got it?”

DC Jenkins groaned. “Yes, Sarge.”

A strip of hypertension pulled around the base of Blake’s skull, and he clenched his teeth as he popped an extra pill from the blister pack next to the microwave.

He would be checking in with the custody staff tomorrow, and he would absolutely be watching the CCTV footage because he was just that fucking petty.

He was well aware that he’d picked up the nickname Mood Hoover following the last Christmas party, when all he’d done was sit in the corner with an unopened beer. However, he couldn’t summon the energy to rub one, let alone two shits together.

Early evening slipped into night, and Blake had only just finished answering calls and replying to text messages.

“Give me strength, my furry friend,” he muttered, looking out of the kitchen window whilst stroking the ginger guinea pig in his palm.

He watched as Val hung out the washing, despite it being gone midnight.

A loud squeak and a sharp sting in his thumb brought Blake’s attention back to his dark kitchen. Chester wriggled in his grasp. “Sorry,” he said, loosening his hold on the ginger sheltie.

Chester was an unfortunate one-eyed by-product of Blake’s time in the Child Protection Unit.

A long-suffering departmental welfare animal that his ex-colleagues took great pleasure in saying was his emotional support rodent, there to help him through his messy divorce.

But the reality was that he’d been forced on Blake the previous year, when one of their child victims had poked his left eye out with a crayon.

The department could only be trusted with a fish tank after that.

Initially, Chester had hated Blake and the feeling had been more than mutual. But after the crayon incident the black and ginger sheltie was just happy to be anywhere that was away from children.

Sighing, Blake gently dropped him back into his cage under the stairs.

He liked it there because it was cool in the mornings, and the sunlight warmed his wood shavings in the afternoons.

For some reason, when Blake stared down at Chester’s messy crop of fur, he was reminded of his new neighbour.

His brain conjured images of the two of them sitting on the sofa eating carrot sticks.

Blake’s eyes flicked to the sofa and he shook his head. Must be fucking exhausted.

Downing the rest of his green tea, he swilled the mug under the tap and slowly padded upstairs. George was curled up on the foot of his bed again, pretending to be asleep, but Blake didn’t have the heart to send him back to his basket on the landing.

Stripping off his mud-streaked hoodie, he threw it into the washing basket.

Dipping into his wardrobe, he pulled out his clothes for the following day—a navy blue dress shirt, dark grey suit trousers, a black tie and black socks.

Then, he swapped out the black socks for ones with bright coloured zig zags.

He hated Major Crime. Really, really hated it, but somehow wearing stupid socks felt like a big old “fuck you” to the people who ran it.

He was about to peel off the rest of his clothes, but when he glanced at his watch he realised it wasn’t quite one o’clock. So, rolling up his T-shirt, he unclipped the heart rate monitor from around his chest and slotted it onto the charging port alongside five others.

He watched as the device flashed from red to green to yellow. Running his tongue over his teeth, he picked up another and strapped it around his chest, nestling it in the dip of his sternum. It was an unfortunate and persistent reminder of just how much he’d fucked his life up the previous year.

With a sigh, he padded to the back bedroom and pulled on the scruffy trainers that were habitually next to the treadmill, stepped onto the black band and clicked Quick Start.

Slipping in a pair of earphones, he turned Killswitch Engage up to max and let the heavy thrashing of guitars block out the rest of the world.