Lock Nut by JL Merrow

Author:JL Merrow [Merrow, JL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Riptide Publishing
Published: 2018-02-13T16:00:00+00:00

Phil was home when I got in. I might or might not have done a double take when I walked into the kitchen and found him making a cup of tea.

“Forgot I live here now, did you?”

Oops. He’d noticed. “Didn’t think you’d be back so early. Uh, busy day? Mine was quiet, had a job go quicker than expected. Still, tomorrow’s booked up, so I can’t grumble.” I crouched down to have a poke around in the fridge.

“I dug up a few things about Lilah’s ex, Tarbox,” Phil said after a mo. He didn’t sound pissed off, although there was definitely a lacklustre tone to his voice.

I’d make it up to him. “Yeah? Anything good?”

“Maybe. They used to work for the same porn studio, although we’re talking some years ago now. There were a couple of incidents.”

I paused, leek in hand, from where I’d been rummaging in the veggie drawer. “Incidents?”

“There were complaints about coercion. Specifically, female models who’d been made to film stuff they weren’t comfortable with. One of them alleged he’d assaulted her, but the charges were later dropped.”

Well, that wasn’t good. I bunged the leek on the counter top. “What happened to the girl? Didn’t take a swim in any handy canals, did she?”

Phil huffed. “Nope. She’s now a divorced mother of three and working as a hairdresser. The coppers on the case reckoned he’d paid her off. There was another case where they heard he’d got a little more aggressive—this time it was with a distributor, a few years later when Tarbox was getting into the production side. Apparently he wasn’t happy with the deal he was getting. Again, all charges were dropped—and the alleged victim got out of the business so quick he left scorch marks.”

“Not a payoff this time?”

“Not unless you count Tarbox not breaking both his arms.”

“Ouch.” I straightened up, a packet of sausages in my hand. “You all right with plain stuff tonight? I’m not feeling like anything fancy.”

“Fine by me.”

I took the sausages to the grill and started unwrapping them. “I, uh, popped over to Pluck’s End this afternoon. Spoke to Oliver.” I braced myself for a furious barrage of Personal safety just an abstract concept for you, is it? Or at the very least, a sarcastic If you’re trying to get out of marrying me, there’s easier ways than offering yourself up to murder suspects on a plate.

“What did he tell you?” Phil said mildly.

Huh. That was it? I waited a beat, but apparently it was.

Okay, so what had he told me? “Well, I’m not sure I trust the bloke as far as I could throw him, but if anything, I reckon it’s Jonny-boy’s secrets he’s keeping. Apparently they were like that.” I held up two slightly greasy fingers in an illustrative and nonprofane fashion. “Oh, and our Mr. Parrot used to bunk off golf to go to the gym instead of the pub, like we thought. So he definitely lied to Lilah.”

Of course, we already knew Jonny-boy had been carrying on with Kelvin behind her back.

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