Chapter Two

Owen Harper was not a respectable man by any stretch of the imagination, or rather he wasn't anymore. At one point in his life Owen had been as an upstanding citizen and polite man as any private investigator could be. That had all changed however when his brother Rhys had died, Rhys Williams had been a great man, and his partner. They had worked many cases together, and while they had liked a drink or two, neither of them were the excessive drinker that Owen had become. They were brothers through their mother, each of them having a different father, but that had never stopped them from being close. Rhys was the elder of the two and had always looked out for Owen; ever since he had been born Rhys had protected him, something that Owen would never forget.

Owen had never really been able to return the favour, Rhys had been much stronger than he, and always had his back. Owen knew that his brother wouldn't want him to waste his life getting drunk, but his death had hit him hard, mainly because he had felt that it was his fault. They had been out one night drinking, and Owen had left him in the bar, heading home with Toshiko; that had been the last time he had seen his brother alive. His body had been found the next day in a hotel room, his brother had become a statistic, just another victim of the Black Spider, a woman who killed her mates when she had no further use of them.

The woman had never been caught, something that annoyed Owen to know end. Since his brothers death nothing had been the same to him, his feelings of guilt ate at him all the time, his only solace to be found was in a bottle of alcohol. Nothing anyone did could bring him out of his self-loathing, not even Toshiko had managed it, although she was one of the few that he still had any major contact with. That was mainly because she refused to leave him to wallow alone in his self-pity, and not because he was amenable to letting her in.

He didn't work much anymore, while Harper and Williams had been an amazing private detective agency, without Williams it wasn't the same for Harper. There was no longer any fun in the job, he only took a few jobs every now and again so as to be able to pay his bills and to afford to buy himself alcohol. He knew that the way he was living day by day was not the right way, but it was not something he cared to think about. The less he thought about it the less he tried to pull himself out of his funk, his one regret about his situation was they way he treated Toshiko, but even the thought of her and how they used to be were not enough to make him come to his senses.

Jobs were few and far between as it was, after all who really wanted to hire a down and out private investigator, even if they had once been one of the best. Money was always tight at times, jobs paying less and less as he was unable to charge the rates he once did, people didn't believe that his skills were worth that much anymore. That was why he had been surprised to get a call from Harold Saxon's office, a secretary telling him that Mr. Saxon wanted to meet with him. He hadn't heard from Saxon in years, and he would have been glad never to have spoken to him again, but he couldn't just ignore the request for a meeting.

He had made his way to Saxon's studio were the other man was supposed to meet him, but froze as he got there, looking around the area seeing how much it had changed since his brother's death. He had not been here since then, the hotel that Rhys had been found in being the one just across the road. He shook himself out of his reverie and walked straight into the building, making his way to reception, and being led up to Saxon's office. On his way there he was led through the area where they were working on the new Roger Rabbit cartoon, nodding to the cartoonists who were putting together animations. There was a man in a sound box talking into a microphone, a sappy grin on his face, his thoughts obviously not on his work.

Entering Saxon's office it was to find the man in question going over the sound recordings for the film in production, grumbling under his breath as he did so. "Bloody idiot, he's tonally wrong. Should just sack him and get over with."

Owen cleared his throat, he didn't care to hear what the man thought about some sound clips, he just wanted to know why he was here so that he could leave. Saxon turned to look at him, motioning him to sit down, offering him a drink as he did so. Owen accepted the drink, he wasn't going to turn down free alcohol, and took the seat, speaking as he sat, "You wanted to see me?"

Saxon just nodded before he perched on the side of the desk next to him, "Are you still working?" He asked, knowing full well that he was when he could find a client willing to pay him. "I have something I need you to do for me. Jones needs to sort his head out, he's costing me money with his sapping tone of voice at times. He gets like this every year at this time, his anniversary, but his husband isn't the man he thinks he is, he's up to something, or someone. I need you to find out who or what. There's a hundred in it for you."

Owen just nodded his head, it wasn't the type of job he relished, spying on a persons spouse, aiming to gather dirt to bring back, but if it paid the bills he would do it. Even if it did mean working for Saxon and having to enter the one area of town that he avoided like the plague. He left the office with half his payment, intending to visit Toshiko, it was money that he owed her, and he'd need to borrow her camera, his was getting fixed.