Chapter Nine
Suspicions
Jason hadn’t heard from Marc when he reached the office the next day. He took his silence as an indicator that he hadn’t been fired and continued to work on the case. He felt like shit. The lack of sleep combined with too many shots of vodka before bed had resulted in a stinking hangover and he didn’t get to work until almost nine-thirty.
Olivia was already at her desk.
“Is Ryman in?” he asked.
“Not until midday. He’s serving papers down in Durham and is meeting a client afterwards.”
At least he wouldn’t have to face his partner and deliver an update on the unexpected twist the case had taken. He made cups of tea for Olivia and himself and went into his office.
He’d been right about one thing. Dan’s murder had featured fourth on the morning’s local news update and hadn’t made it into any of the newspapers, though it would have occurred after they went to press anyway. Dan’s name hadn’t been mentioned on the news and his gut instinct was that, unless there was of dearth of other things to report, it wouldn’t go much further. It was a miserable fact of modern times that the murder of a single young black man didn’t warrant a lot of attention from the mainstream media.
Jason opened the contacts on his phone and skimmed through. It had only struck him on that drive in that he might have a source of information. He scrolled to C. Bingo . Benito Coppola. The DS who’d been at the scene last night. Jason had helped the police out with an assault case about fifteen months ago. He’d saved Benito’s details in case they should ever come in handy. Today was that day.
Benito answered after five rings. “I’m off duty,” he grumbled. “About to go to bed. I was on night shift, remember?”
“Sorry,” Jason said. “I didn’t appreciate the time.”
“So, what is it? Did you suddenly remember something you forgot to tell us last night?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you,” Jason said, giving it maximum charm. “I take it you’re not involved in the case.”
“Picked it up when I was on duty. My part is done. You need to contact C.I.D. to speak to the officers involved.”
“You must have checked out the CCTV. Did that confirm what we told you?”
A sigh. “It did. We’ve got you arriving and leaving at exactly the time you said.”
“And there I was, thinking you didn’t believe me.”
“I don’t believe anything anyone says until I have evidence for it.”
“Wise man. So, what else does the footage show? You’ve got the killer or killers on camera, right? ”
Benito laughed. “Whose investigation is this? I’m not going to tell you anything.”
Jason turned the charm up higher. “Oh, come on. I just need to know if this is connected to something I’m looking into.”
“The mysterious person Dan was going to give you information about?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re a lying bastard.”
“Did it look like a gang feud? That’s all I need to know.”
There was a long pause before Benito said. “Someone came in ten minutes before you did. Dressed all in black and wearing a balaclava.” He hung up before Jason could ask anything else.
Jason stared into space. Well, it certainly sounded like a gang hit. But these days, most gangs were armed with guns. They were cold and efficient. The knife attack on Dan had been frenzied. Jason could see from the extent of Dan’s injuries that he’d been stabbed multiple times. That didn’t sound like bad business. It was more personal.
The killer had got there just after ten when the gym closed. If he and Marc had been early, they would have walked in on it. And what? Been able to stop it? Become victims themselves? Damn it. What the fuck is going on?
His gut told him the two cases were connected, but how? There was no way the killer could have known Dan was about to talk to them about Theo, unless Dan had told them himself. And even so, what had Dan known that was so important it had cost him his life?
Soloman Archer? It seemed a likely fit. Theo had been escorting for Soloman… Maybe it went further than that. Maybe Dan was involved too. Threesomes? Sex pa rties? How many other guys might Soloman have paid for sex?
Jason pulled up his list of the men he’d so far identified as working with Theo. Trace Grey had already told him to “get to fuck” and had blocked him on all his social media accounts. Trace, whoever he was, had something to hide. He’d spoken briefly with another two men, but they had both said their sessions with Theo had been one-time deals. Neither of them was local to Blyham, and one of them had been living in Berlin for seven months. He checked whether any of the other models he’d contacted had replied and there was nothing new. Fine. The next step was to find out their real identities. It was never as easy to identify someone’s IP address as it appeared on TV, but it wasn’t impossible either.
He spent the next hour gathering all the relevant information available on the guys Theo had worked with, and once the bundle was ready he sent it to Brody, the IT wizard the firm used when they needed something fast. Jason had never met Brody in person. Ryman had assured him it was better that he didn’t. Brody’s methods and the systems he had access to weren’t one hundred percent legal, but he got results. They billed his services as a maintenance expense for the office software system.
Jason checked his case notes again. He’d written camera operator and drawn a big circle around it. Yes. That had to be the next important step. He’d already pointed out to Marc that Theo’s videos were of a far higher quality than those of his peers. His clips were first rate. That level of professionalism couldn’t be achieved with a couple of iPhones, a selfie light and a friend who didn’t mind getting into intimate places. Theo had had help.
None of the sex work models credited their camera people. Jason guessed that was because they had more mainstream work and didn’t want to be blacklisted from the wedding and christening market for shooting porn on the side. It was the next line of enquiry worth pursuing. Dan had even promised to give him the contact details for their regular guy. No chance of that now.
Jason opened a search engine and started looking at all the professional photographers in Blyham.
* * * *
Marc’s statement was taken by an unsmiling Detective Sergeant with a grey pallor and a combover the like of which Marc hadn’t seen since the 1990s. Marc had called the station earlier that morning and arranged a time between meetings when he could attend. He’d considered contacting Jason first, to arrange doing the interview together, but after the way they had left things last night, he hadn’t known what to say, so had said nothing.
When he’d first woken up after less than three hours’ sleep, he’d intended to call the agency and cancel the case. He’d pay for the work that had been done already and leave it at that. By the time he’d gone for a run, taken a shower and managed some breakfast, he’d changed his mind. The truth was he didn’t know how he felt, and it was never a good idea to make a decision from a place of uncertainty.
Marc had pushed the Jason situation aside and got on with the day .
He might have been able to forget about Jason for a few hours, but he couldn’t get the image of Dan Blumel out of his mind. Marc had gone through his first meeting that morning like a zombie, listening to what his managers had to report without taking in any details of what they’d said.
All he could think about was a dead boy on the floor of a third-rate gym.
“Just to clarify what you’re saying,” the DS made a show of rereading his notes. He’d taken down every word Marc had said in an illegible scrawl. “You went to the gym to speak to Dan Blumel about your brother.”
“Yes.”
“And you hired a private detective to find Blumel?” he made no attempt to conceal the disdain he had for the situation.
“I didn’t hire him to find Blumel, no. I hired him to find out what happened to Theo. Dan was the first person to come forward with any information.”
The DS regarded Marc over the rim of his spectacles, which were worn on a leather cord around his neck. “And what information was that?”
Marc struggled to keep his cool. This man, DS Thomson, was an arsehole and he was starting to understand Jason’s contempt for the Blyham force. “I don’t know, because we didn’t get to talk to him. Maybe you would know something yourself if you’d bothered to interview Dan after my brother’s death. Jason managed to track him down after a few days. You guys had three months to find him, and you didn’t.”
Thomson pushed the glasses up the bridge of his nose. “That’s a separate matter. I’m interested in last night. ”
Marc took a deep breath. When he spoke, the hardness in his own voice surprised him. “It’s hardly separate if trying to find out what happened to Theo is what took us to the gym. The only reason I’ve hired a private investigator is because your lot haven’t done their job.”
Thomson was about to reply when Marc cut him off. “I have to get back to work. I’ve given you my statement. Now let me sign it and maybe you can get on with solving this poor guy’s death.”
Thomson was indignant. “Your statement raises far more questions than it answers. We’ll need to speak to you again.”
“Speak to my lawyers—Booths and Co. If you want another statement from me, you can arrange it through them.”
He pulled out his own pen, the special one he used for signing contracts, and scribbled his name across all four sheets of the police statement. Thomson didn’t even meet his eye when he got up and left.
Marc was seething. Everything he’d heard and suspected about this force was true. They were a bunch of self-serving pricks. More interested in easy answers than any justice for the victims of crime or their families. If or when they discovered who was responsible for Theo’s death, he would go to the press afterwards and call out every piece of shitty police work the officers in this station were accountable for.
The one thing he hated more than incompetence was laziness.
Marc’s mood did not improve when he got outside. The rain that had held off for most of the morning had started again while he was in the station. He didn’t feel like he’d been truly dry in over a week. He put up an umbrella and hurried towards his car. As he clicked the fob to unlock the doors, a figure stepped in front of him.
From the flash of blonde helmet hair beneath the umbrella, he knew who it was before he looked at her. Nadine Smythe.
“Helping the police with their enquiries, are you?” She stepped between Marc and the car.
“I’ve no doubt you’ve got a hotline to several of Blyham’s finest, so you probably have a better idea of what went on in there than I do.” He tried to move around her, but she was unbudgeable.
“It’s more than a coincidence that days after you start an investigation into your brother’s death, your first contact ends up dead before you can talk to them.”
How the fuck did she know all that? “Are you investigating me? You seem to know a lot about my movements.”
“I’ve got tabs all over this city.”
“Then you have no reason to bother me.”
Nadine was not to be shaken. She gripped his arm. “What’s wrong with you? We’re on the same side. If you weren’t so pig-headed you would realise that. I want to solve Theo’s murder as much as you do.”
“But for very different reasons,” he said. “You want a story. I want answers and justice.”
“I want those things too,” she said, trying a softer line. “I’m not your enemy, Marc. Instead of getting some backstreet investigator to root out the case, you could work with me. I’m onto something already. I’m this close to uncovering it.” She held her thumb and index finger millimetres apart.
Marc might have been convinced, if his mind didn’t flash on the lurid headlines she’d written about his husband and his brother. This was the woman who’d had a photographer follow him during a national pandemic in order to get pictures of him visiting his dying husband. If that wasn’t enough, she’d intruded on his grief again when she’d trailed him at the restricted funeral he’d been forced to arrange. She was interested in sensationalism and nothing more meaningful than that.
“If you’re so close to the truth, then you really don’t need me.”
Seeming to realise she was getting nowhere, she pushed on anyway. “You found the body last night. That fact alone makes you a person of interest. I have a duty to write that up.”
He finally managed to walk around her. “Write what the hell you want.” He sighed. “We both know you’ll do that anyway. Your credibility as a journalist is in the sewer. Try having a sliver of respect and compassion for the victim’s family this time.”
“Get down off your bloody high horse,” she snapped. “I’m trying to find out what happened to your brother. You could show a little gratitude.”
Marc laughed. With that final comment she had lost the tiny fragment of credibility she might have had left.
He got into the car. Nadine was still talking when he shut the door in her face. He started the engine and drove away. She could follow him if she liked, the chances were high that she would, though she always knew where to find him anyway.
Nadine’s ambush had helped him in a way she would never know. She’d made him remember the reason he’d gone to see Jason in the first place. He wanted to get to the truth before she did. He had a much greater chance of doing that with Jason on his side. Until twenty minutes ago, he’d been close to terminating their agreement.
Nadine had made him realise that he needed Jason Durham more than ever.