Chapter Eight
Night Talk
They lay in bed, listening to the rain. Exhausted but far from sleep. Jason was propped on one elbow, gazing at Marc who lay on his back. He was even more handsome than before. His cheeks were flushed with sex, and some of the tension had eased in his brow. Jason didn’t know where to begin processing any of this. Fucking a client was as unprofessional as it was possible to get. Ryman would have a shit fit when he learnt about this. And yet tonight, after what they’d discovered, it had seemed like the right thing to do. The only thing to do.
Having Marc in bed beside him, that was the best thing ever. Jason had been surprised when Marc had asked to stay, saying he didn’t fancy spending the rest of the night alone. Most guys couldn’t wait to get going once they’d shot their load. In the majority of cases, Jason couldn’t wait to get rid of them either. Not Marc.
“Why did you leave the Navy?” Marc asked.
Jason hesitated, then turned to look at him .
“Sorry. None of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”
Jason put a hand on his chest. “It’s fine. It’s not a big deal. I’m not used to talking about myself, that’s all. I left because it was time. When I joined the Navy police, it was a dream come true. I loved it. I served in places all over the world, but I got shot in the leg while on duty, nothing major, you can barely see the scar now the hair has grown over it. But after that I started to feel homesick and pined for England. I spent my last year serving in ports all over the UK but that still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t England I was desperate to return to, it was Blyham.”
“Wow. Not many people can lay claim to that.” Marc’s tone was completely deadpan.
Jason chuckled. “I guess not. If you told me that when I was twenty-five, I’d have pissed myself laughing. Said there was no chance I’d ever come back here. I guess, I changed. We all do.”
“You were shot.”
“We were sent to arrest a senior officer who had taken to the bottle and beaten a cadet so badly he was in hospital. He was pissed as a fart when we turned up and the gun went off. I was lucky—no serious damage, and the bullet went right through. But it was the moment that caused me to rethink my career.”
“So, you became a private investigator.”
“That was stroke of luck. I came to work for Ryman on a casual basis and loved it straight away. When he started looking for investment to expand the business, it made sense for me put in and become a partner with him.”
Marc rolled onto his side. Beneath the covers, his hand slipped over Jason’s waist. Jason shuffled down so they were facing each other .
“I didn’t know the first thing about private detectives,” Marc said. “I did an internet search for agencies in Blyham, and you came out top.”
“That’s because we’re the best.” They both laughed. “You know, I’m going to have to hand over your case to Ryman in the morning. He won’t let me continue when he finds out about this.”
Marc’s smile faded. “Who’s going to tell him?”
“I’ll have to. This breaks all the rules. I can’t continue after tonight.”
“I want you to. I don’t want Ryman. You know the case. You’ve done all the work. I want you to keep going with it. Ryman won’t understand all the things my brother was into. He’ll likely freak out.”
“He’s more open-minded than you’d think. And has a lot of empathy.”
“I freaked out about a lot of this stuff myself. Trust me, he’s not going to get it the way you do.” Marc moved closer. “Don’t tell him. Please.”
Jason was uneasy. Trust was at the forefront of their working relationship. Ryman might never trust him again if he learnt about this later. And yet, he didn’t want to let go of the case. He hadn’t been all that keen on taking it to begin with, but he was one hundred percent invested in it now. Even more so now that another young man had died. Jason didn’t believe in crackpot conspiracy theories about the MP and a cover-up, but there were too many coincidences to ignore.
“All right, I’ll stay on it. But we can’t do this again. Not if I’m going to pretend to Ryman that nothing happened.”
Marc rolled onto his back. He put his hand behind his head and stared at the ceiling. “All right,” he said at last .
It hurt to feel him pull away and withdraw, but it was exactly what Jason had just asked him to do. He flipped onto his own back, staring at the shadows above. “Tell me more about Theo.”
“Like what? You probably know him better than I do now. I didn’t have nerve to go through any of his online stuff.”
“The adult content is all Hart Stone,” Jason corrected. “That’s not the real Theo. Tell me about your brother.”
Marc sucked his breath through his teeth. “I still don’t think I ever knew him. We were so many years apart. When he was little, I thought he was a bratty kid. Then when he was a teenager, he thought I was a boring old fart. The only time he ever took an interest in what I did was when I was on The Partnership . Reality TV was everything to Theo, so me being on the telly for a couple of months made me hot stuff. But afterwards, he hated me for it. He applied to go on different shows and kept getting rejected. He once had a rant and asked me ‘What the fuck have you got that I don’t?’ Maybe if we’d been closer in age, we would have got on a lot better. I’d have looked after him, kept his feet in the ground and out of the clouds.”
“I’ve only been investigating a few days, but from what I’ve discovered so far, I don’t think Theo was unhappy. What he did for a living might seem unconventional to some, but he appeared to enjoy it. And he was good at it.”
Marc’s brow furrowed.
“I mean it,” Jason said. “There’s a professionalism to Theo’s videos that I don’t see in many of the others. I’ve had to look into the accounts of the men he worked with, and the majority of it is bargain basements stuff, filmed on a phone. On the whole, Theo used a cameraman, and his stuff is well lit and thought out. The other guys, well, the stuff they shot with Theo is by far their best work.”
“It’s still porn though, however well made.”
He wondered what Marc’s problem really was. He’d just proved that it wasn’t sex. So, why was he so against sex work? Was it just because it was his brother?
“Theo had a lot more subscribers than the other guys. Six or seven times more than some of them. A lot of people haven’t even cancelled their subscriptions, despite the fact there is no new content.”
Marc lurched up. “What the fuck? You mean people are still tossing off over him, even though he’s dead?”
Jason spoke calmly. It wouldn’t help to get Marc riled up now. “I’ve submitted requests to all the sites he had an active profile with to have his accounts closed. I’m not sure how long that’s gonna take. The ones that involve a paid subscription, I imagine will be soon. And I found the passwords for his social media accounts in the notebook you gave me, so they’re already gone. But there’s no way to remove it all. People download and share things. Some of it is going to stay on the internet forever.”
“Ah, shit.” Marc got into a sitting position and raised his knees. He put his head in his hands. “What have I done? Poking around is only going to make it worse. If the press makes a connection between Dan and Theo, it’s going to encourage people to go searching for it all over again.”
“Not necessarily. This sounds harsh, but a young man murdered in an inner-city gym is not going to gather that much interest. I’ll be surprised if Dan’s death gets more than a few paragraphs in the local papers. Look at what happened with the Blyham Strangler. No one gave a shit until the sixth man was killed.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“Of course it doesn’t. What I mean is, I don’t think anyone is going to make the connection to Theo. Blyham police are so shit I doubt they’d bother investigating even if they did.”
Marc’s breath quickened. He flung back the covers and got out of bed. He paced the floor, running his hands through his hair, before searching for his clothes.
Jason got up and went to him. “You don’t have to go,” he said, and tried to put his arms around him. Marc stepped aside and retrieved his underwear, stepping into them.
“I can’t breathe. I can’t think.” His trousers hung over the back of a chair. He pulled them off and put them on.
“I’m sorry,” Jason said. “I’ve upset you. I shouldn’t have said—”
“It’s not you. It’s this whole fucked-up situation. I thought I could control it, by getting ahead of Nadine’s story, but all I’ve done is make it worse.”
“You haven’t.”
“Haven’t I? That man is dead. He would still be alive if we hadn’t gone to speak to him.”
Jason fought to speak softly. “It likely has nothing to do with us. Or with Theo. Dan could have been involved in all kinds of shady business.”
“But he also knew things about Theo. And if we hadn’t pressed him on it, he might still be alive.”
“No one knew we were going to see him tonight. I doubt very much that he tipped off Theo’s killer he was going to talk. You’re making massive jumps here, with no evidence to back it up. ”
There was a pained expression on Marc’s face. He bared his teeth and fastened his shirt. Jason realised that talking it through was only making him worse. He reached for him, putting a hand on his arm, but Marc shrugged him off.
“I need to go home. I need space to think.”
“Okay. Are you sure you’re all right to drive? Let me make you a cup of tea or a coffee first, eh?”
“I don’t need anything.”
How had they gone from such a moment of intimacy to this vast, cold distance? Jason opened a drawer and put on a pair of pyjama bottoms while Marc finished dressing. Anything he said now would only make the situation worse. He went into the kitchen and poured a shot of vodka. He knocked it down neat.
Marc came through a moment later, carrying his jacket.
“Are your clothes dry?” Jason asked.
“Still damp.” There was weary tone to his voice. “Doesn’t really matter. I’ll get soaked going to the car anyway.”
“You don’t have to go,” Jason said, trying again.
“I want to.”
The words hit like a punch. “Be careful then.”
Marc nodded and made straight for the door. “See you,” he said, letting himself out.
The flat was eerily quiet afterwards.
Fuck . How did that go so wrong?
Jason poured another drink. Marc’s emotions and feelings about his brother’s death and their relationship were obviously problematic and painful. More deeply rooted than Marc probably realised himself.
Fucking him had been a mistake. Huge. It had complicated an already complex situation .
In all likelihood, Marc would fire him in the morning. Then he’d have to admit to Ryman the reason why.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Jason knocked off the shot and went back to bed. Tomorrow could not be any worse than today.