Bright but I worried that would make me look flaky. Well, flakier.
Which meant I had almost a full day to fill, and only one paying job to work on.
Sigh.
It was time to go to look for an estate agent. Again.
16
Me & Ed
I was about 90% certain that I’d find Ed Brown at the Maidenhead branch of the place he’d been working in Brentford—the man didn’t strike me as the master criminal type, and if he’d just been looking to skip out on the naïve statue lady he was married to, relocating within the same company would be the easiest option.
Their office was situated in what my vague recollection of GCSE geography told me was probably the Central Business District, and I popped in on basically no pretext. There were three besuited individuals inside—two men, one woman—who I figured were probably the agents of the estates. I sat down across from one of the guys.
“Hi,” I tried to look nonchalant, which I usually achieved by the strategic not giving of fucks. “You Ed Brown?”
He wasn’t, but a guy at the back of the office who was busy chatting to another client looked around in the way people instinctively do when you say their names. Well that was easy.
“Sorry, no,” said the man who now no longer interested me. “Did you speak to Ed on the phone?”
“Not exactly. That him?” I indicated back-of-the-room guy.
“What’s this about?”
There were two options here. The subtle one, and the other one. “I’m a private investigator. His wife’s looking for him.” The guy who was definitely Ed Brown went pale and started hurrying his customer along. “I’ve already seen you, Ed,” I called out. “There’s zero point running.”
“I think I might have to ask you to leave.” Not-Ed gave me what I think he thought was a stern look.
“I mean, you can. But then I might start having to explain why I’m here and I’m guessing Eddie Baby would rather I didn’t.”
He was still trying to play the stern card. “I must insist you not make a scene.”
“No scenes here.” I got up. “I seem to recall seeing a pub across from the Poundstretcher. If you’re smart, Ed, you’ll come see me there as soon as you get the chance. Later.”
Tipping my hat at the various staff members, I left. I could have hung around outside to catch Mr Brown on his way out, but that would be asking for a restraining order. If he knew what side his bread was buttered he’d come and have a quiet word. I had a feeling that this wasn’t criminal, unless he’d done something stupid like marrying two women at once, which I wasn’t entirely putting past him. Chances were, it was just shitty behaviour, which was always the worst news to have to bring back to a client. “Sorry, your husband is mixed up with a gang of international drug dealers” or “sorry, your husband fell through a gateway into the kingdom of the Troll Queen” were hard to hear but at least they gave a tiny bit of validation. Everything would have been fine if it hadn’t been for that one unexpected thing that came and shook up your perfect little world. “Sorry, your husband was such a massive prick that he stuck you with a situation where you literally had to hire a detective to get you out of it” was … grubby.
I ordered myself a pint and found a table by the door. It probably wasn’t the most professional decision in the world to be drinking on the job, but then it also wasn’t the most professional decision in the world to be sleeping in your office or with whoever would have you. Or, for that matter, to be spending most of your working day dealing with vision-quests and murderous vampires. But we played the hands we were dealt.
My level of drunkenness was still within acceptable levels when Edward Brown appeared a couple of hours later. In the circumstances I felt I’d shown admirable restraint.
He sat somewhat resentfully opposite me. Leaving aside my general distaste at his actions and my, y’know, homosexuality, he wasn’t a completely unattractive man. His hair was slightly receding, but he managed to pull it off with a sort of Prince William vibe, and despite clearly knowing he was in some sort of trouble, he carried himself with the unconscious confidence that you needed to do well as a professional seller of very expensive things.