“Well, this is it,” Mark said, pulling on the hand brake.
“Yeah.” I looked at Mark, then out at the street where he’d grown up.
The journey to Newcastle had been done in almost total silence. I’d tried to engage Mark in light conversation but his replies had been monosyllabic, so I’d given up and just looked at the changing landscape out of the car’s window.
Mark’s old home was about halfway down a tree-lined street; all the houses were large, red brick, and semi-detached. Many of the houses sported large bay windows that looked out onto neatly-maintained front gardens. It all looked pleasant and middle class. Most of the front gardens had nicely trimmed hedges or painted wooden fences. Walking up Roy’s front path, I couldn’t help noticing that Roy must have put a lot of work into his
