The luxury of a good night’s sleep was something Marc Glass had learnt to live without. For several years he’d been getting by on three to four hours. Five was a rare indulgence. He couldn’t bear to lie in bed, idly staring into the dark, knowing there was no chance of falling off again. As soon as his eyes opened, he was wide awake. Two years earlier he had taken up late-night running, in the hope that physical exhaustion would be the trigger he needed for a full night of rest. While it helped him to fall asleep quickly, he still found himself alert at four a.m. most mornings.

Usually, he would get straight up and begin work, but some days, like this one, he pulled on his running shoes and went for another pre-dawn run.

It had gone six-thirty as he pounded the coastal path on the return route to the house. He had been out for an hour. The darkness and cold of a wet March morning did not deter him. He didn’t feel the cold or the drizzle when he was running. A podcast on Blyham history in the eighteenth century had occupied his mind for most of the course. Now that it had finished, his mind turned to the day ahead.

There was a sliver of light grey sky on the horizon. Sunrise was about half an hour away. The forecast was for cloud and rain for the rest of the week. Typical Blyham weather for this time of year. Not that it mattered. Marc had a full day of meetings planned, both at the factory and online with overseas buyers. There was a good chance he wouldn’t breathe fresh air again until his night-time run that evening, and he was already looking forward to the next episode of the podcast.

Through the week, one day was much like another. A cycle of exercise and work peppered with a couple of visits to his parents. They would cook dinner for him one evening and he would take then out for a meal on the other. Tonight, he had to fend for himself. He’d stay late at the factory to delay his return to an empty house. Probably pick up some food on his way home. Nothing too heavy. Not when he’d have to run it off later.

The drizzle strengthened into rain. Marc swiped his arm across his face, wiping the sweat and water away.

He still had his ear-pods in, but could hear the violent crash of waves below, battering the rocky outcrop beneath the cliffs. It sounded like things were getting rougher than had been forecast. If a storm was coming in, he’d just have to complete his evening exercises in his home gym, though he preferred the freshness and exposure of a night run.

Almost home, he put on an extra burst of speed for the last mile, coming off the track and onto the main road that led to the house. His breath rasped, searing his lungs and throat, pain burning in his thighs and calf muscles, but he powered through. Pain was good. Pain was a real sensation. It meant he was still alive.

As he turned onto the drive he saw a strange car parked in front of the garage. A dark BMW.

Marc slowed to a stop. His breath grated in his ears, and he removed the pods. He sucked in a chest full of air through his mouth. His heart pounded.

The driver’s door of the car opened, and an umbrella poked out and was put up. A woman with blonde hair stepped from the car. She was petite, in a pale trouser suit and impractical high heels. Marc rubbed his eyes and blinked away the stinging sweat, trying to focus. There was something familiar about the woman.

She approached with a tight, humourless smile. Beneath the umbrella, her hair was a blow-dried miracle. She must have got up as early as he had to achieve that look.

“I’d heard you were an early riser,” she said. Elocution and speech training couldn’t mask the original Geordie tones in her accent. “I thought I had already missed you. Ten more minutes and I was going to head over to the factory.”

Marc froze as he realised just who his visitor was.

Nadine Smythe.

He stepped around her, heading for the house. “You wasted your time coming here.”

The rain turned into a downpour. He took shelter beneath the front porch. He left the key under a rock in the garden when he went running, but he didn’t want to retrieve it in front of Nadine. She would think nothing of letting herself in another time.

“I’ve come about your brother,” she said, stepping onto the porch. She put down the umbrella and shook it out. “Awful morning, isn’t it? I should have brought a raincoat but it was dry when I left home.”

“You shouldn’t be here at all. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Don’t be like that. You should be pleased someone cares enough about Theo to follow up the story.”

“My brother is not a story,” he snapped.

Nadine Smythe was a journalist for The Blyham Chronicle. She also had her own podcast where she “exposed injustices and laid bare the truth.” She was beginning to gain fame beyond local news and had appeared on several national breakfast and mid-morning TV shows offering her opinions on news and current events. Her opinions were always bombastically right wing.

“You’re wrong there,” she said, her cold stare boring into him. “I’ve been working on this for several weeks and there’s most definitely a story. And I’m going to tell it. I’m giving you the opportunity to be part of it. To put your family’s position across.”

“I think you’ve done enough damage to me and my family already. The answer is no. Now get back in your car and take it off my drive.”

“I think Theo was murdered.” She let the words drop like bombs, studying his face for a reaction.

Marc had learnt the hard way to keep his emotions to himself. He would never allow a hack like Nadine to read him.

His face was stone.

Inside he was a mess.

She had given voice to the words he had only dared to think.

“He’s been dead three months,” he managed to say. “Why your sudden interest?”

Nadine edged closer. “There’s nothing sudden about it. I was researching a story that involved Theo before he died. When his death appeared to be an accident, I thought I had lost my lead. I was wrong.”

“What are talking about?” Marc made no effort to hide the contempt in his voice. As well as stoking the rage of the Alt-right, Nadine’s podcast was big on conspiracy theories. He doubted she believed most of the shit she shared, but she wouldn’t let something as trivial as her personal beliefs get in the way of her rising profile.

“Your brother was involved with some important people. You know that much, right? He was a sex worker. A popular one, by all accounts.”

And there it was. The true reason for her interest. A salacious sex scandal. A gay sex scandal at that. He could already hear the indignant tone of her broadcast. The moral outrage her reports would stir up. “Leave,” he snapped, jabbing his finger towards the road.

“Theo was killed because of what he knew. Because of whom he knew. I know you don’t like me, Marc, but you must care about seeing justice done. For the sake of your little brother. C’mon, surely you can put our differences aside to get to the truth.”

“Theo was killed in a hit-and-run. It was an accident.”

“And the driver has never been traced. The car was stolen and burnt without a scrap of evidence remaining. I don’t believe you’re satisfied with that conclusion. Not when your brother was providing sexual services to a Tory back-bencher.”

He raised his hand. “Enough…” Anxiety wrapped its suffocating tendrils around his chest. His breath was fast and shallow. He closed his eyes and fought against it, disgusted with himself for allowing her to see that she had got to him.

“I’m not looking to trash Theo’s memory. I promise that. Theo was a small part of a bigger story. An important part. I believe he lost his life because of it. We can put that right and expose the people behind it.”

Theo Glass had been no saint. Marc was aware of that. He didn’t know the details of everything his brother had been involved in, but he knew enough. Theo had taken delight in shocking him, bragging about his online content. About how many followers he had on social media, how many paid subscribers there were for his sexual site. Marc had seen how far Theo went with the images and videos he posted on his open X profile. He didn’t want to know what he was doing behind the paywall of Hot-4-Fans and other subscription sites. There was escorting too. Like a lot of younger people, Theo believed he was from the first generation to embrace sex and pleasure. He thought he could provoke his older brother with the details of his life. Theo hadn’t realised that Marc wasn’t shocked. The truth was he just wasn’t interested. He had bigger problems than worrying about his brother selling his arse to wealthy older men. All that mattered was that Theo didn’t tell their parents what he was doing.

If Nadine went ahead with this muck-raking article, there would no way of keeping it from them. They had a copy of The Blyham Chronicle delivered each morning. Their hearts hadn’t recovered from the death of their youngest son. The shock of how he’d earnt a living might finish them off.

“Please, Nadine, don’t do this. The police are still investigating his death. Leave it to them.”

“Blyham police,” she sneered. “They don’t give a shit. The case remains open in name only. There’s not a single officer actively investigating. C’mon, wake up. Your brother was fucking the Member of Parliament for Blyham South. The pressure from above to make this disappear is immense.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“Of course I fucking do. I’ve got contacts in the force who have told me exactly that.”

“On the record?”

She rolled her eyes. “What do you think? They want to keep their jobs.”

“Then you’ve got nothing. This is more of your conspiracy bullshit. It plays well on those crappy news channels you go on, but it’s not reality. Now go, before I call the police to move you on. And if you doorstep me like this again, I’ll phone your editor and report you for harassment.”

Nadine accepted defeat and put up her umbrella. “This isn’t harassment, it’s journalism. Whether you like it or not, your brother’s death is part of a story and I’m going to write it. If you want to do justice to his memory, you know where to find me.”

Marc stood on the porch and watched her walk back to the car. He waited until she was inside and had started the engine. The rain bounced six inches off the roof as she reversed into a U-turn and drove away. The sky had lightened to a miserable shade of grey.

Fuck.

He’d known when he’d woken up at four this morning that this was going to be a shitty day and his instinct had been correct.

Marc retrieved the hidden key and went into the house. He kicked off his muddy running shoes at the front door and strode to the kitchen in his socks. His mind galloped ahead, so much information rushing through his brain. He’d had dealings with Nadine Smythe before. She was dangerous, borderline psychopathic in his opinion, but she was determined. She thought she was on to a big story and that was it. She wouldn’t let it go. The sensational detail of his brother’s life prior to his death would be exposed and scandalised in her shitty newspaper and podcast. He could already see her sitting on a breakfast TV sofa, smug in her moral superiority, delighting in the shock she caused, oblivious to the devastation her story would bring.

Marc couldn’t allow it. His parents had suffered enough. Theo had died in early December. Marc had thought their first Christmas without him was going to break them, but they’d got through it. Their grief was tottering on the edge of the acceptance stage.

Nadine Smythe would set them right back.

Unless he did something about it.