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I’m honored she wants me to use her nickname. We’re going to be good friends someday, I can feel it.

“Well, Reggie, aka Reginald Grant, died in 1999, so I’m afraid that’s a bit of a dead end—no pun intended.”

“Fuck. And the good news then?” Callum asks.

“I was able to track down Owen Grant.”

“Huzzah!” I cry, giving Callum a high five, which he returns with an amused look.

“Owen Grant did move away with his uncle in 1980, soon after the fire investigation was closed. To Birmingham, it seems. But he moved back to London at some point and is a charity officer at a youth shelter in Soho. Not that far from Salon de Spin, actually.”

“Sonofabitch,” Callum curses.

“Simmer down,” Liz chides. “He changed his name. Goes by Nigel Townsend now.”

She rattles off some more details, and Callum scribbles them down in his Detective Inspector Notebook, as I now call it.

In our modern age, I genuinely respect Callum’s preference for the more traditional methods. Sure, he still types up his notes later, but that little book is full of important information insights and is seriously helpful when we’re on the move in London.

“Thanks, Liz. This is a huge help.”

“Have you found out any more on your end?” Liz asks.

Callum updates her on our conversation with Gloria Tate, the only survivor we were able to track down.

“If anyone else made it out of the building, we weren’t able to find them or they weren’t mentioned in the original report,” I say.

“Worse still,” Callum adds, “I’ve learned that the original arson inspector for the case died more than ten years ago. I really wanted to talk to him,” he grumbles.

He’d cursed for about three minutes straight after he discovered that yesterday evening. I found some pleasurable ways to take his mind off the disappointment.

“I know that tone,” Liz says, a warning note in her voice. “You’re probably thinking of contacting his family, and I’m telling you right now that you better not dare. If anyone’s going to talk with them, it’ll be in an official context if the case is reopened. Understood?”

Callum crosses his arms over his chest and scowls but grits out, “Fine.”

“Lucky for you, I’ve got a senior contact over at the Fire Brigade. I’ll reach out to her personally and let her know we’re looking back into this old case and want to speak with anyone involved who might still be around.”

“You’re definitely going to ruffle some feathers with that,” Callum says.

“Isn’t that always the way of it?” Liz huffs. “But Margaret has real integrity and is supremely professional. If there’s any whiff of corruption, she won’t try to sweep it under the rug, even with an older case like this. She’s quite honestly our best hope of getting some more intel from that perspective,” Liz admits.

“You’re going out on a limb for me here and I really appreciate it, Liz. There’s definitely something not right about all of this. And six people died. I don’t care how long it’s been, they and their families deserve justice if that fire was no accident.”

“I’m right there with you,” Liz agrees. “We still don’t have enough for me to go to my superiors quite yet, but I’m hoping whatever Margaret can come through with might tip the scales. For now, you should go talk to the nightclub owner’s nephew and see what he has to say. But watch yourself. Remember this isn’t an official police investigation. I don’t want you going off half-cocked because you’ve got a hunch. I know how you can get.”

“We’ll do some research on him first and make a plan, then tweak our cover story if necessary,” I offer. “I’m not sure our current angle will work with him.”

“Hmm,” Callum murmurs. “It might though. He works at a youth shelter. A lot of the kids who find their way to those are LGBTQ+. The people who died in that fire were also young and some of them were at risk the same as kids today.”

“I hadn’t considered it from that perspective,” I reply.

Liz snickers. “I’m sure you two will figure it out. Just don’t get the cops called on you.”

“We’ll be fine,” Callum says, pointing at the phone and mouthing at me, Mum Voice.

I try not to laugh.

“All right. I’ll touch base again as soon as I’ve heard back from Margaret, but it may be a day or two.”