It’s not until the younger children are tucked up in bed that I get a chance to have a look at the website Charlie Parish recommended. I download the photo of Shaun to my laptop and type in the web address for DiscoverImage365 into the browser. The site advertises itself as the “premium free search service using the latest AI technology to get the results you want.” Charlie had told me it was one of many such sites that would search the internet for images that match the one I’d taken of Shaun in my kitchen, but it occurs to me that this won’t work if Shaun is the kind of person who keeps a low profile, if he’s one of those rare people who’s managed to keep their face off the internet, despite all the different ways it could turn up there. Still, I guessed people like that were in a small minority nowadays.
The website has a fairly simple interface with a search bar in the top left. I click on it and a prompt box opens asking me to drag an image into it. I select the image I’d snapped of Shaun in my kitchen and click “Search.” An egg timer appears very briefly before the page fills with results, my original picture on the left side of the screen and a rack of lookalike pictures on the right, all good-looking dark-haired guys who bear a strong resemblance to the man who turned up at my house yesterday. The caption says “DiscoverImage365 searched over 67.5 billion images in 0.8 seconds for your selected image.”
The results page shows row after row of pictures, mostly head-and-shoulders shots of generically handsome men in their late twenties to mid-forties, all of them looking as if they’ve emerged from the same corner of the gene pool. There are many, many pictures of Henry Cavill, the Superman actor, along with a selection of other men who share Shaun’s strong jaw and short dark hair. I roll down the page quickly. There are hundreds of results.
I take it slowly, row by row and checking each picture in turn. There are other actors featured, plus lots of professional headshots from business websites, thumbnails from LinkedIn, blogs and articles in languages I don’t understand. As I scroll down the page, it keeps on refreshing: there is no end to the results. A few are very close matches, but it’s not until I’m a couple of hundred images in before I recognize him.
There.
Half a dozen pictures side by side. Professional shots that look as if they’ve been taken in a studio. In a couple of them he’s smiling with the same confident grin he’d used on the doorstep of my house, and I feel a thrum of adrenaline, of success at finding this particular needle in the digital haystack. At the same time there is a quiet pulse of alarm, that feeling you get when you’re in unknown waters with your toes stretched toward the bottom, unsure whether you’re already out of your depth.
I click on the link and it takes me to a website called PortfolioPro, which describes itself as a website for actors and models of all levels looking for professional work.
Got you.
There are more images of him here, including a moody black-and-white one in a T-shirt that clearly shows off the cobra tattoo on the inside of his right wrist. His name is listed as Shaun Rutherford and he describes himself as a semi-professional model and aspiring actor, available for work on an hourly, half-day, or daily rate. There is a short bio: “I am relaxed, easy to get on with, and very genuine. I have modeled on and off for 5+ years and am willing to consider all kinds of acting/photographic/advertising work.”
He wasn’t related to anyone who had lived in my house. He was an actor, a fake, a cut-out so that someone else could stay in the shadows.
He had been hired to do a job. All I had to do was find out who hired him.
I move the cursor to the button marked “Book an introductory chat” and begin to type.
30
THURSDAY
Shaun Rutherford is only too keen to meet. I create a profile under the name Anthony Smith on the website’s messaging service and we exchange messages over the course of the morning while I sit in a pub by the marina. He waxes lyrical about his professional background while I tell him I have at least three days’ work modeling for a clothing retailer and I think he’d beperfectfor the job.
Dom has already agreed, without needing any persuasion, to be my wingman and joins me at the Canalboat Inn half an hour early so we can talk tactics. He’s on nightshifts but has gone home to change into a hoodie, jeans, a puffer jacket that accentuates his already large frame. With his close-cropped hair and beard, the overall effect would be quite intimidating if you didn’t know Dom was an absolute sweetheart. At ten minutes to one o’clock, I move across the half-empty saloon bar of the pub and sit in a separate booth. With my back to the door and wearing my old blue baseball cap, I’m hoping Shaun won’t recognize me when he walks in.
He’s punctual, I’ll give him that. He turns up on the dot of one p.m. and I recognize him immediately—he’s even wearing the same dark bomber jacket he had on when he came to my house. Dom raises a hand to the visitor, gesturing to Shaun to join him in a booth at the back of the pub and introducing himself as Anthony.
I sit across from them, half hidden behind a copy of theRacing Post, listening in as the two men exchange pleasantries. After a minute of small talk, Dom gets up saying he’ll go to the bar—our pre-arranged signal—and I stand up at the same moment. But instead of buying the younger man a drink, Dom sits down next to him, trapping him in the booth’s window seat and blocking his way out. I slide into the bench seat opposite that my brother-in-law has just vacated.
“What…?” Shaun looks from me to Dom, and back again. “What’s going on? Who are you?”
I take off the baseball cap and look him straight in the eyes.
“Hello, Shaun,” I say. “We met a couple of days ago, remember?”
His expression hardens in recognition, his dark eyes narrowing. He shifts his weight and for a split second I think he’s going to turn violent, but then Dom turns toward him in his seat, squares his shoulders, puts a large right fist on the table. He gives a single shake of his head. He’s spent years working in security, years before that as a bouncer—dealing with every kind of idiot, every drunk full of bravado, and every wannabe tough guy—and he knows the best outcome in any confrontation is tonothave to fight. To convince the other bloke that throwing the first punch would be a very bad idea.
Shaun Rutherford is quick to catch on. He’s a big guy but I’m guessing it’s muscle built for the gym, for the selfies, for the ladies, rather than for brawling in the back room of a sticky-floored pub.
“We’re just going to have a quiet chat,” Dom says softly. “Just the three of us. No drama.”
“This is bullshit,” Shaun says, moving as if to stand up and climb out over the table. “I didn’t come here for this.”
“Sit.” Dom puts a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Down.”
Shaun’s eyes flick toward the bar. But most of the customers—and the only member of staff—are around the front of the pub in the lounge bar.
I put my phone on the table between us.
“Who hired you?” I say. “To come to my house?”
“I’m telling you nothing. That’s confidential information.”
