Chapter 14
Poe was halfway through the Viagra overdose porn clip.
It was riveting. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the clip Esmerée had seen.
The woman, who in Poe’s opinion had far too easily fallen for the old ‘I can’t get rid of my erection’ ruse, had got down to business almost immediately.
No tattoos. Poe kept watching in case someone else joined them, although he reckoned whoever filmed this wouldn’t have had the budget for three actors.
The two they had were scraping the barrel.
His office door opened in a hurry. The idiot with the badly spelled tattoo barged in. He had three idiot friends with him.
‘Oi, Poe!’ he slurred. ‘You think I’ve forgotten about you? Because I fucking haven’t!’
Poe closed his laptop. Sighed. It was all very … disappointing. ‘You get your tattoo fixed?’ he said.
‘Never mind my fucking tattoo, me and you are going to sort this out once and for all. Right here, right now.’
‘Sort what out?’
The man wasn’t used to complicated questions like that. His sloped brow furrowed. He rallied well. ‘My ear’s still fucking knocking.’
‘And I’m not an otorhinolaryngologist.’ Poe waited out his confused pause. ‘An ear doctor,’ he explained.
‘You’re a fucking arsehole, Poe.’
‘It’s been said before. Today, as it happens, and by someone with more guts and intelligence than you.’
‘Outside, now!’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, “no”?’
Poe didn’t answer.
‘Just as I thought, you’re not hard unless you’re sneaking up on someone.’
‘Poe might not be hard,’ someone behind the group of drunken idiots said. ‘But I fucking am.’
Matt Towler pushed his way through them. He rolled his shoulders and grinned, happy as a sandboy. ‘Right, who wants to go first?’
Poe opened his laptop.
‘Not in here, Matt,’ he said.