Page 10 of The Quarterlands (Dark Water #4)
“Not at all.” She laughed again. “I think he was impressed. We got on ever so well after that and often had a laugh together. Perhaps because he knew I wasn’t scared of him.
Mind you, I always made sure to double-check he didn’t have a knife.
As much as he liked me, he’d have chopped my head off in a heartbeat.
” She smiled as Josiah held out her coat for her.
“So, there’s nothing you could do that’d ever scare me, Alex, trust me. ”
Josiah felt he was breathing easily for the first time in weeks as he drove to the office the next day.
He had no qualms about leaving Alex with Elsie, and he was relieved beyond belief to be heading back to work.
This was the first time in years that he’d stopped work in the middle of a case, and the investigator in him was itching to be let loose again.
There was so much to do. In addition to putting the case against Tyler together, there was still the matter of Dacre’s killer, and solving the mystery at the heart of the Lytton family. He wasn’t sure if the latter was relevant to either case, but something told him it was important.
It felt wonderful to be striding into the SID again, greeting colleagues and feeling his brain sliding effortlessly back into work mode. He saw his team for a catch-up in the morning and spent the afternoon with Esther, briefing the lawyers.
“Good work, Joe,” she said as he left for the day. “It’s good to have you back.”
He spent the next few weeks forensically sifting through Alex’s life to help the lawyers build their case, interviewing dozens of people in the process. He tracked down a personal stylist called Brian, aka Lorenzo, who’d once worked for Tyler.
“Tyler’s a shit. I got out as soon as I could. I hated what he did to Alex,” Brian said. He had a pronounced and very likely fake Italian accent, but Josiah liked him. Everyone was entitled to their harmless eccentricities, after all. “Is he okay?” Lorenzo asked, sounding genuinely concerned .
“Well… he survived,” was all Josiah could reply. Brian agreed to give a statement, but his knowledge of Tyler’s operation was limited.
Alex’s other stylist, Andrew, was still employed as Tyler’s IS. A sweet, gentle soul, he looked anxious throughout his interview and refused to give a formal statement. Josiah didn’t blame him. Tyler would make his life hell if he said the wrong thing.
He spent an amusing afternoon with a colourful character called Marlon Baxter, who flirted with him outrageously without ever quite crossing a line.
“I hear we have you to blame for these god-awful holoties people are wearing these days,” Josiah said on first meeting him.
“ Thank! You have me to thank,” Baxter insisted, laughing.
Josiah glanced around the exquisitely furnished house Baxter owned.
“You’ve done well out of them, Mr Baxter,” he remarked.
“Please, call me Bax, everyone does.” Bax had the most gorgeous almond-shaped green eyes that sparkled with mischief.
“I know it seems like I was an overnight success, but it took years of hard work to get to the point where everyone is wearing them – except you.” He shot Josiah a disapproving look. “May I ask why?”
“Can’t stand ’em,” Josiah admitted.
“Well, I doubt you’d be able to pull them off, anyway,” Bax sniffed.
“It wouldn’t suit your style, which, I have to admit, is divine.
Old-fashioned male elegance. You can’t beat it on a man with your build.
” He cast an admiring glance at Josiah’s charcoal tweed suit with lilac shirt and pocket square.
“You’re not wearing one either,” Josiah pointed out, waving a hand at Bax’s skin-tight pink-and-green sweater and his flowing harem pants.
“Oh, I’ve moved on, darling!” Bax announced dramatically. “I’m working on a whole range of holoclothes. Soon, even you will succumb, my dear Investigator Raine.”
“Much as I like talking about men’s fashion – and you have no idea how much,” Josiah sighed, “I’m here to talk about Alex Lytton.”
“I thought so.” Marlon’s mood changed abruptly. “How is he? When I last saw him, I wasn’t very nice to him, and I’ve always regretted that. ”
“No need. He told me all about it, and there are no hard feelings on his part.”
“I was angry with him. He had so much promise, and he threw it all away.”
“Also, he tried to seduce you,” Josiah pointed out.
Bax threw his hands in the air. “He almost succeeded, too. He always knows which buttons to press. But there was something faded and diminished about him, something a little… desperate? I had a fiancé I adored – now my husband – and I wasn’t going to throw it away for a few grubby hours with Alex Lytton, no matter how gorgeous he is. ”
“He was delighted that you turned him down. Tyler was trying to trap you. He used Alex to entice people into compromising positions and then held the footage over them as blackmail.”
Marlon gave a sharp little gasp, his eyes flashing in shock.
“If you’d gone to bed with Alex that night, I can guarantee you wouldn’t be here, living the life of your dreams right now.” Josiah glanced around the impeccably furnished house with its view over the river.
“Well, that doesn’t exactly restore him in my estimation,” Bax murmured.
“Oh, don’t blame him – this is all on Tyler. Alex was acting under the kind of extreme duress you can’t begin to imagine.”
“But he could have warned me.”
“Not without betraying himself and a cause that is undeniably noble. Besides, he didn’t need to. It seems that your moral compass steered you in the right direction that night, Bax.”
Bax flushed, but he looked pleased. “Well, I’m glad you’ve explained his actions.
I’m sorry for all the trouble he’s found himself in.
I’m also sorry because I said something rather mean about his art.
He showed me some of his drawings that night, and I was cutting about them.
I didn’t mean it. He’s always been a huge talent. ”
“He doesn’t hold that against you. He was just pleased that you escaped the Tyler blackmail machine.
Now, I have to ask – just how much money did you make with the invention of the holotie?
” Josiah threw that question in when Bax was least expecting it.
“Enough to make a bid to buy Alex’s contract? ”
Bax stared at him, open-mouthed. “What?”
“You and he had unfinished business. Maybe he preyed on your mind after that encounter?”
“I was angry with him. Why on earth would I want to buy him?”
“I don’t know. Did you make a bid on him, Mr Baxter?” Josiah dropped the flirtatious banter, watching Bax’s reaction carefully.
“No! I’ve barely given him much thought in the past few years, if you must know.
I’ve been far too busy with the holotie, with my marriage, and…
well, we’re hoping to adopt a child.” He looked down, smiling softly, and Josiah had no doubt this was something close to his heart.
“Trust me, Alex really didn’t feature in my plans for the future. ”
“Thank you,” Josiah said, feeling inclined to believe him. “Forgive the line of questioning, but I had to be sure. By the way, too much water might have flowed under this particular bridge, but if you want to visit Alex at any time, I’m sure he’d love to see you and explain himself in person.”
Bax gazed at him steadily. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”
“Maybe not.” Josiah sighed. “But please, think about it. He needs all the friends he can get right now. He’s been through a lot.”
“I’ll think about it then,” Bax murmured. “I’ll always have a soft spot for Alex Lytton.”
Moving on, Josiah had a long list of people whose names had been supplied by Alex, Mick, and Ted, but none of them cooperated. Why would they? Tyler was no doubt dangling his blackmail footage over their heads, and it certainly wasn’t in their interests to talk.
Martin Bagshaw, Clive Hastings, Jake Harper, Hugo Purvis, Rupert Walcott… They all talked, but only to warmly praise Tyler. They all looked shocked at the idea they might have been filmed having sex with one of his indies and the footage used to blackmail them.
“Never happened, mate,” Harper said, leaning back in his chair and threading his hands behind his head. “You’re being lied to.”
“I’m sure I am,” Josiah replied coldly. “By somebody, anyway.” Harper just laughed. Josiah hated the man; of all the people who’d abused Alex, he was the one he’d feared the most.
Bagshaw was a soft-bellied man with one lazy eye that always seemed to be looking somewhere else.
He refuted every accusation in a tone of outrage and informed Josiah that he was a devoted husband and family man, and it would never cross his mind to search for pretty young men to perform a certain kind of sexual fantasy for him.
And so it had gone on. Everybody agreeing on the fact that it had never happened and they definitely weren’t in Tyler’s pocket as a result.
Rebecca Lang came the closest to cracking under his questioning. She coloured and apologised, although she didn’t specify for what. However, despite his forceful interrogation, she refused to corroborate Alex’s story.
Josiah also took detailed statements from Noah and Charles, and further statements from Ted and Mick, finding everyone’s impressions of Alex as contradictory as the man himself.
Alex remained the elusive heart of everything, a broken butterfly whose wings seemed to change colour the more you learned about him. Alternately bratty, loyal, moody, and kind, but always utterly impossible to pin down.
The case came together slowly, without any major breakthroughs that would guarantee a conviction. Josiah could only hope that his painstaking detective work would pay off in lieu of any new dramatic evidence.
A couple of weeks later, Josiah arranged a surprise day out for Alex and Noah.
“Where are we going?” Alex asked as they set off in Josiah’s duck.