Chapter Two
The Detective
By the following afternoon, the rain had still not stopped. When Marc drove into the centre of Blyham at five p.m. it had got considerably worse. He parked in a multi-storey and hurried towards Upper Salvin Road. The rain came at him in horizontal strokes. It sloshed around his feet and when he reached his destination, he was soaked through. His trousers clung to his legs and the wetness went right through to his underpants.
He had never noticed the doorway to the Blair and Co Detective Agency before, even though he’d used both the newsagents and the coffee shop that stood on either side of it. A dark-green door led into a small, gloomy hallway. There was nowhere to go but straight up the stairs. He reached a landing with four glass-panelled doors leading off from it. The first door was marked with a sign reading ‘Reception’, so he went in there.
It was an old-fashioned room with blown vinyl wallpaper that looked like it had been painted over countless times. There were green carpet tiles on the floor and four high-backed chairs lined up beneath the window. Marc realised he was dripping, pulled a handkerchief from his inner pocket—that was thankfully dry—and wiped his face and neck.
A slim woman in her mid-twenties with long auburn hair tied in a ponytail sat at the small desk in a room that had little natural light.
“Isn’t it awful?” she said, taking in Marc’s soaking state. “If you go back into the hall and take the first door at the top of the stairs, there are paper towels in the bathroom. You might be able to soak up the worst of it.”
“Thank you. It’s Marc Glass. I have an appointment with er…Jason Durham.”
The girl consulted an old-fashioned desk diary and nodded. Her name badge read Olivia. “Go and get yourself dry and I’ll let Jason know you’re here.”
He thanked her again and followed her directions. Like the rest of the office, the bathroom was outdated. It would have benefitted from a redesign twenty years ago, but it was clean and there was an abundance of paper towels. Marc patted his hair dry and wiped the worst of the wetness from his trousers. It would have to do. He knew he wouldn’t fully dry until he got home and stripped these wet things off.
“Just go straight through,” Olivia told him on his return. “He’s expecting you. I’ll bring you a drink to warm you up. What would you like? Cappuccino? Latte? I’ve got a machine that does them all.”
“A tea would be great,” he said. “Just a splash of milk. No sugar.”
Olivia gave him a winning smile and said she’d bring it in shortly. Marc took an instant liking to her. As a businessman, he knew the crucial importance of having a great person on the front door to make clients feel welcomed and valued. While the initial appearance of Blair and Co was not encouraging, in a couple of minutes Olivia had turned his attitude around.
This might not turn out to be a complete waste of time after all.
A man in his early thirties stood in the doorway of the office at the farthest end of the gloomy hall. He was little more than a silhouette lit from behind. Marc could see he was dressed in navy chinos, black brogues and an open-necked blue shirt.
“Mr Glass,” he said. “I’m Jason, come on in.”
He was a couple of inches shorter than Marc, but well built. He wore a heady-smelling aftershave that failed to hide the notes of alcohol on his breath as they passed.
“Thanks for coming in,” Jason said. “I’ve already had two cancellations this afternoon due to the weather.” He gestured for Marc to take a seat and walked around the other side of the desk.
Marc saw him fully for the first time and was startled. At forty-four, it had been a long time since he’d been instantly affected by the physical appearance of a man, but Jason was stunning. It was his large, expressive eyes that first drew him in. They were a pale shade, somewhere between green and blue, and they gave a boyish quality to his masculine face. His dark-blond hair was swept to the right, short at the back and sides with a little length on top. He had a well-trimmed beard, brown and seasoned with flecks of grey. His mouth was wide. Marc had the most insane urge to kiss it. When he smiled, he revealed a small gap between his two front teeth, which only made him even sexier.
The body beneath his clothes was fit. More athletic than muscled, and there was an almost military bearing about his posture, with his shoulders back and his chest held proudly.
Jason sat and leaned across the file on his desk, looking at the notes, granting Marc a peek down the open neck of his shirt, and a tantalising hint of chest hair.
Get hold of yourself . Remember the reason you are here .
“So, this is about your brother?” Jason said, reading the file. Marc had given the briefest summary of his case to Olivia when he’d called to make the appointment yesterday.
“Yes, but it’s probably not what you’re thinking. My brother isn’t missing or anything like what you’re used to dealing with.”
Jason looked at him with wide, reassuring eyes. “There’s no such thing as a usual case in this business. Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me what the problem is.”
Marc sighed. The beginning. He didn’t even know where that was. “Theo died in December. Down on the waterfront by the Vermont Hotel? You probably heard about it. He was killed by a car as he crossed the road in front of the hotel. Some of the witnesses say the car drove straight at him, but the police were never convinced.”
Jason pushed the file to one side. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Yes, I remember it. There must have been CCTV coverage. There are cameras all along the waterfront. And at the hotel too.”
“There are, but it’s inconclusive whether the car changed course to hit him or not. The resolution of the images isn’t great. I must have watched it a million times and even I can’t decide on what I’m seeing. ”
“I take it the driver was never caught. Do you want me to investigate further? See if I can track them down?”
Marc shook his head. “That’s not why I’m here. It’s more…complicated than that. The car was discovered burned out a few miles away. It was stolen and they never found the driver. Have you heard of Nadine Smythe? The journalist.”
Was that a tiny twitch at the corner of Jason’s mouth?
Jason nodded. “Of course. Blyham’s finest.” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in his tone.
“She came to visit me yesterday. She’s conducting her own investigation into Theo’s death… Theo’s murder.”
They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Olivia came in bearing two mugs. “Tea, as promised,” she said putting a mug in front of Marc. She carried the other around the desk and gave it to Jason. The tea was steaming. Strong and hot, exactly how Marc liked it.
“I’ll be getting off now,” she said to Jason. “Mr Blair is still with his last client.”
“That’s fine, Olivia, thanks. Just drop the latch on the front door as you go out. See you tomorrow.”
“Have a good night,” she said cheerfully. “Goodbye, Mr Glass.”
They were alone again.
Jason sat back in his chair. “So, Nadine Smythe. I take it she didn’t bring you news on the identity of the hit-and-run driver. She thinks she’s got a bigger story?”
Marc nodded grimly. This was easier than he’d expected. Jason had a calm, comfortable manner that diminished his anxiety.
“My brother was always a wild one. I was sixteen when he was born, so we were never as close as most brothers who grow up together. I went to university when he was two years old. We have a sister, Eva. She’s three years younger than I am. When Theo came along, he was spoilt. Especially by my mother. She let him get away with things me and Eva would never have been allowed to.”
“It’s not unusual,” Jason said. “Especially with such a large gap between kids. Did Theo get in trouble with the law?”
Marc shook his head. “Not that I’m aware. He could have had a record of petty offences. He’d didn’t always think about the consequences before acting out, but it would only have been minor stuff, I’m sure of it. If there was anything at all, I haven’t found out about it.”
Jason took a sip of tea and waited for him to continue.
“It pains me to speak ill of him, especially now he’s not here, but Theo was a brat. As he got older, teenage years and beyond, he was an antagonistic little shit. He did terribly at school. He scraped through his A-levels after two years of hard partying. He didn’t think he needed the qualifications because he wanted to be a celebrity. He thought reality TV would be his route to success. If you can think of a show, he applied to be on it. Big Brother , The Voice , First Dates, Gogglebox . It didn’t go anywhere. He got a job in telesales while he tried to make a name as a vlogger and social media influencer. Again, with little to no success.”
“Okay. Why is Nadine so interested in Theo? It doesn’t sound like her kind of story at all.”
Marc took a sip of his own tea. “Have you heard of websites like Hot-4-Fans and Only Fans?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where Theo found his level. Customers paid to watch videos of him. I never saw any of what he was up to myself, but he got a kick out of telling me about it. I think he thought it would shock me. I questioned a couple of his friends after the funeral. They were pretty tight-lipped, but I understand it started off in a low-key way. Selling nude pictures and videos. That progressed to jerk-off videos and then using toys and soon enough he was making adult content with other models.”
“It’s not illegal,” Jason said, matter-of-factly. “It’s not even that remarkable. Lots of people turned to online sex work during the pandemic. It isn’t a big deal. If Nadine thinks she can slut-shame the victim of a hit-and-run over some sex tapes she might find, she’s on the wrong side of cancel culture.” His eyes were like deep, beautiful pools. Marc could easily get lost in them. Gorgeous men could sometimes make him nervous, but not Jason. His good looks somehow made him more reassuring and trustworthy.
Marc swallowed. “That’s still not the story. I’m just filling you in on my brother’s lifestyle. He said he was proud of it, though he never told our parents. He told me he made a fortune. Theo was prone to exaggeration, but he did have more cash to play with in the couple of years before his death. It’s possible he made a decent living with the online gigs, supplemented with escort work.”
“Escorting?”
They had reached the heart of the matter. The fact of Theo’s life that Nadine was really interested in.
“My brother told me at a family barbecue last summer that he had a high-profile client. Well, no, he didn’t just tell me, he bragged about it.” Marc exhaled. The story was becoming harder to tell. He’d only come to realise in the weeks since Theo’s death that his brother had suffered from serious self-esteem problems. He’d genuinely believed that fucking famous people made him important too. “I told him I didn’t want to know, but by the end of the day, after a lot of drinks, he couldn’t stop himself. He was desperate to tell me. Whether it was to shock or impress, I’ll never know.”
Jason’s brow rose with the question. “Can you tell me who it was?”
Marc unconsciously glanced over his shoulder, determining that they were alone, that they couldn’t be overheard. Despite that, he lowered his voice. “Soloman Archer.”
At first, Jason didn’t react, then, as the name made sense to him, he let out a low whistle. “Shit. Now that would be a story for the press.”
Soloman Archer was the MP for Blyham South and, though he was just a back-bencher in Parliament, he was seen as one to watch for the future. His ambition and hunger for a top job in government were on public record. A stocky, blue-eyed silver fox and, in Marc’s opinion, a smooth-talking liar. He’d scraped through the last general election when the Labour and Liberal Democrat vote was split in Blyham, allowing the Tories to slither through the crack. Soloman lived with his wife and kids in Wiltshire, about as far from Blyham as it was possible to get, but he’d still managed to make a name for himself in the local area. He’d become an even bigger name if Nadine Smythe got her way.
“So Soloman is what…? About twenty years older than Theo?”
Marc nodded. “At least. And married.”
“Nadine’s interest is beginning to make sense,” Jason said.
Marc spread his hands on the table. “It’s not just a sex scandal, MP uses sex workers on the side. Where’s the mileage in that? It’s almost like a rite of passage for that lot. When she doorstepped me yesterday, Nadine alluded to Soloman having something to do with Theo’s death. That the circumstances were suspicious.”
“You don’t think so?”
“Not as such. I know it’s the stuff of conspiracy thrillers, but it’s unlikely there’s anything in it. Soloman has a lot to lose, after all. It’s just… Oh, I don’t know.” He glanced out of the window. The rain continued to come down in blinding sheets. He’d get soaked again going back to the car.
“If Nadine thinks there’s something in the theory, she’s going to pursue, and if she finds the evidence, she’ll expose it. I have no doubt about it.” Jason’s voice was kind. His expression sympathetic. “What I’m trying to say is—what do you want me to do? I won’t be able to kill the story if she finds the evidence she needs.”
Marc took another sip of tea. His mouth was exceptionally dry. “I know. I’ve already told you Theo was my mother’s golden boy. It will destroy her if just a tiny bit of the story turns out to be true. I want you to investigate Theo’s life too. Find out exactly what he was up to in the months before he died. Who he was involved with. If there’s any truth to the escorting claims and whether he was really involved with Soloman, or if it was just an attention-seeking lie. I’d rather my parents heard the truth from me than read about it in the papers first. I would do it myself, but I don’t want to go through all those movies he made. It’s one thing to hear about it, it’s something else to watch your brother getting his brains banged out for some sad form of validation.”
Jason didn’t speak for a moment. He studied Marc carefully across the desk. Finally, he said, “You might not like what I discover. ”
Marc let out a bitter laugh. “I know I’m not going to like it. I don’t like anything about it. But it’s the only thing I can do right now to protect my family. Knowledge is power, right?”
Jason didn’t answer. He kept looking at Marc while the rain raked against the window.