Page 53 of Nothing But the Night (Basic Instincts 2)

“I’m sorry,” he gasped into the phone. “But’s he’s dead. There’s nothing I can do to bring him back.”

* * * *

Jason slid the box of tissues across the desk to his client.

Laura Moses was showing remarkable restraint, given the news she’d just received. She pulled a tissue, dabbed her eyes and gently patted her nose. “Thanks,” she said, returning her hands to a careful position on top of her thighs. He never knew how cases like this would play out, but whenever he was hired by someone to find out whether their spouse was cheating on them, there was never a happy ending.

“How long has it been going on?” she asked.

“As far as I’ve been able to establish, about four years.”

“Bastard,” she said bitterly.

Laura had only begun to suspect her husband Ken’s infidelity in the last twelve months. He’d obviously been a lot better at concealing his affair prior to that. Which meant one of two things. He’d got so comfortable in the deception, he’d become sloppy. Or he no longer cared about keeping it a secret.

She was a very attractive woman in her mid-fifties, with clear skin and thick auburn hair. Jason had seen her husband many times in the last four months, and even if he’d been much better looking when he was younger, he would still have been punching far above his weight when he married her.

Laura stared at him. “That’s not everything, is it? I can see it on your face.”

There was no way to sweeten this pill. He turned on his tablet, opened the photo app and slid it across to her. The woman in the picture was much younger than Laura or her husband. So far, so clichéd—balding and rotund middle-aged man with a much younger mistress. It was a textbook crisis for a certain kind of man over fifty. There were two children in the photo with the woman. A girl of around seven, and a boy.

“The girl is from a previous relationship,” Jason said.

Laura looked closely at the photo. She gave an audible swallow. “How old is the boy?”

“Twenty-one months.”

She let out a long, low exhalation. “That bastard.” The sadness in her voice had been replaced with cold anger. “Any chance it could be another man’s kid?”

“It’s impossible to know without a paternity test, but…”

She glanced at the image again. “But the kid is the double of his fucking dad.”

Jason didn’t have to answer that. It was obvious.

“Does she know about me?” Laura asked.

Jason swiped to another photo. This one showed Ken and his girlfriend enjoying an alfresco lunch in the marina at Nyemouth, along the coast. “Her name is Michelle,” he continued. “She’s a probation officer.” He zoomed in on the picture, closer and closer until Ken’s right hand filled the screen. His fingers were bare. “He takes off his wedding ring when he sees her. She thinks he works offshore on the oil rigs, which is how he gets away with not seeing her for weeks at a time.”

“And he tells me he’s working away when he’s with her.”

Men like Ken were deplorable, but in a twisted way Jason had a degree of admiration for them. The planning, the deception, the sheer ability to remember the lies they told, had to take a staggering amount of effort.

He opened his desk and took out a large folder. “Prints of all the photographs are in here, together with my report on the times I followed him. I’ll email digital copies too. It’s up to you what you do with them.”

She bared here teeth. “I want to stuff them down his fucking throat.”

“Well, I can always get more prints if you do, but my advice would be to take them to a lawyer first. As far as I can establish, he has no idea that you’re on to him. You might as well utilise that advantage and get in ahead of him.”

She nodded, slowly. “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

Laura thanked him for all his work and gathered herself together. She left the office around quarter to six. Olivia had already gone, and he was surprised to find Ryman’s office had been closed up too. He must have made plans with his daughters. It was the only reason he ever left early.

Jason stretched and winced at the pain in his chest. He was overdue a dose of painkillers. He got a glass of water from the dispenser and returned to his office to swallow two capsules. It had been a long but rewarding afternoon. Since accepting Marc’s case, his other clients had taken a back seat. It had been a gratifying experience to catch up with some of them again, even though the updates he had provided hadn’t been the best news for everyone. At least Laura knew what a deceitful piece of shit she was married to. Jason hoped she took him for all he was worth in the divorce.

He realised the time. Getting on for six o’clock. Marc had been due to meet Tyrone at four. His phone was in the top drawer of his desk. He always shut it away and put it on to silent when he was in a meeting.

There were seven missed calls.

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