Page 8 of Nothing But the Night (Basic Instincts 2)

Though Jason wouldn’t mind if he did. He’d drop to his knees and stuff his face between those manly cheeks.

Stop it. For fuck’s sake.

What the hell had got into him? Maybe it had been staying up late and watching all that adult content that had put sex firmly on his mind this morning.

He had to get over it. He was a professional with a job to do.

Jason had a good breakfast of natural yoghurt, followed by two poached eggs on sourdough, before putting on his shoes and his waterproof jacket. The torrential rain of yesterday had stopped, but the skyover the river was a leaden grey and he was taking no chances after the soaking he’d got last night.

He went to the underground garage to collect his car. Most days he preferred to walk to the office but today he would have to do a bit of travelling around. He drove a three-year-old Nissan Micra. Hardly the sexiest or sportiest of cars, but it was the perfect vehicle for city driving. Some of the car parks in Blyham were ancient, with parking bays far tighter than most modern vehicles could cope with. Jason was confident that he could get his little Micra into the snuggest of spaces. He also hated driving and had little interest in cars or their specifications. Anything larger would be a waste of fuel and money.

Ryman was in the kitchen when he got to the office, just after eight-thirty. Olivia wouldn’t be in until nine-fifteen, after the school run.

“Well?” Ryman asked. The kettle was already boiling. He dropped tea bags into two mugs.

Jason fetched the milk from the fridge. “I’m going to run with it. For a few days at least, to see how much I can find.”

Ryman nodded, satisfied.

“I’ve already started.” He told him about the inroads he’d made during the night with Dan, aka Cummer X. “I’m hopeful that some of the other men will contact me today. They may not have seen my messages yet.”

“What about the one who told you to get fucked?”

Jason chuckled. “I’ll find him eventually. It might just take a bit more digging.”

“Anything else?”

“I want to locate the places where Theo shot his films. He seemed to use two locations for the majority of them. One is a hotel, pretty ritzy. I’m sure it’ssomewhere here in the city. The other looks like a private bedroom. I’m wondering whether Theo or one of the other models fitted out one of their own rooms as a private studio and rented it out for filming.”

“It’s a whole new world,” Ryman remarked, pouring boiling water over the tea bags. “I’ve got a spare room. I wonder if I could spruce it up and earn a bit of extra on the side.”

“I doubt you’d get much peace. Those guys seem relentless when it comes to shagging. I don’t know how some of them ever walk again after doing the things they do. It goes beyond a full-time job.”

“Is it worth it? How much money do they make?”

“I need to speak to Marc about accessing Theo’s bank statements, but I can’t see how it can be that lucrative. He only charged five pounds for his monthly subscriptions and would often run special officers for as little as three pounds a month. It’s less than the price of a cup of coffee. Maybe the online content was only an advertisement for his escorting services. I need to dig further into that.”

“And find out whether he really escorted for Soloman Archer.”

Jason nodded. “That’s the big question, all right.”

* * * *

Soloman Archer’s constituency office was located in the south side of the city, on a street of terraced houses built in the 1920s. They were all large, three-storey properties that had long since been converted into business space. Soloman was placed between a law firm and a cosmetic surgery clinic.

That afternoon, Jason spent a full fifteen minutes driving around until he found an available parking space, five minutes’ walk from the office. He’d spent the bulk of the morning on another case, tracking down a shady accountant in order to serve him with injunction papers. It was drizzling when he got out of the car, and cold, not a damn sight fairer than it had been twenty-four hours earlier. The other cars that lined the streets were all worth three to six times the value of his own humble vehicle.

He rarely had much call to visit this area of the city. It was the moneyed section of Blyham. As he made his way towards Soloman’s office, he noted an upmarket hairdresser, an artisan bakery, high-end coffee shops and small boutiques. It was a long way from the chain stores and fast-food eateries of the city centre. These were the kinds of people who would vote for Soloman Archer in an otherwise neglected and deprived city that gained little to no benefit from central government.

Jason had no time for mainstream politics. As far as he was concerned they were all as bent as each other. Come election time, he always voted for the candidate he believed would do the best for the local area, regardless of what party they represented. Soloman Archer would never get his cross on a ballot paper.

He opened the blue front door into a narrow passage. The layout was not dissimilar to the foyer of Blair and Co, only it had been decorated a lot more recently than their own premises had. The carpet, blue of course, still had the smell of newness about it. A large, framed poster of Soloman dominated the wall to the right.The man who gets things done,the tagline claimed. He was dressed in a grey suit and navy tie, with his arms folded. There was something almostattractive about his smile, but the humour did not reach his eyes. They gazed blankly at Jason from behind the glass frame.

Is this really the kind of man to fuck cheap male escorts?Soloman didn’t seem the type. Jason had spent his lunch break watching a handful of his official videos on YouTube. He was smooth and superficially charming. He talked big about family values and tradition.Yep, that’s exactly the type of hypocrite who resorts to sex workers on the side.

He went upstairs. The reception area was a lot brighter and more modern than their own office. A woman in her early sixties, with big, wavy hair and large framed glasses, greeted him with a smile.

“Good afternoon. How may I help you?” The words came out without any feeling. A real Stepford receptionist.

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