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“Are you thinking his uncle for this?”

I nod. “He’s the most likely suspect on our list right now.”

Beau considers this, then smiles. “Okay, we’ll do it your way. Let’s see what kind of reaction we get.”

A short time later, we arrive at the shelter and ask to speak with Nigel Townsend. After about fifteen minutes, an older man with thinning gray hair and a slim build comes out to greet us. He’s wearing a dress shirt with a knitted jumper over it and a pair of gray wool trousers.

“What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

“We were hoping we could talk with you in your office. We’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

He frowns at me. “What’s this about?”

“That’s something we’d prefer to speak with you about in private,” Beau says, glancing toward the curious receptionist meaningfully.

The man hesitates for a long moment and then gives us a tight smile, gesturing for us to follow him down a hall where a handful of administrative offices reside. He leads us to a door toward the end, which he opens.

He waits for us to enter, then closes the door and makes his way to a chair behind an old wooden desk covered with documents in loose piles. The room itself is bare bones. Water stains mark the ceiling, and the furniture looks to be secondhand, including Nigel’s desk. The artificial overhead lighting in the room casts a sallow hue over everything.

We sit in two chairs facing his desk and I pull out my notepad.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. My colleague and I here are working on a podcast episode exploring some of the history of this area.”

He frowns. “You mean the shelter?”

I shake my head. “No, actually, an old Victorian textile warehouse that held a nightclub called the Midnight Vault on its ground floor in the seventies. The nightclub part was destroyed by a fire back in 1979.”

Confusion freezes on his face and I stare at him unblinkingly.

Nigel’s right eye twitches and he gives us a tight-lipped smile. “That was a long time ago,” he manages to say.

“Indeed. But it’s an unusual case that didn’t seem to get a lot of official attention even though six people died in the fire.”

He swallows and a bead of sweat forms at his temple.

“And why are you wanting to speak with me?”

I lean closer. “We’re interested in learning more about your uncle, Reggie Grant.”

His face blanches.

“We know he was the owner of the nightclub from speaking with Ken Armstrong, one of the former bouncers for the club. That’s how we learned about you. You were called Owen Grant at that time.”

He pulls out a handkerchief and starts mopping his brow, his hand trembling slightly.

“How did you find me?” he asks.

“You’d be surprised what you can learn on the internet with some thorough searching in the appropriate databases. We know you and your uncle moved away from the city for a while after the fire and then you came back after you changed your name.” I lean back in my chair. “We’d appreciate learning more about your uncle and the club to help with our episode.”

Nigel eyes the door. “I don’t really feel comfortable talking about that here.”

Now it’s Beau’s turn, just like we planned.

“Why don’t you meet us this evening after you get off work?” He hands over a slip of paper that has Salon de Spin and its address written out.

“Or we could always meet at your home,” I say with a smile. “Maybe your family has more insights.”

He pales even more. “N-no, that’s quite all right. I’ll meet you at this address.” He takes the paper reluctantly.