Star Struck

by Val McDermid

  “I have a very full diary today,” Dorothea said, sounding far more like a businesswoman than she had any right to. She looked businesslike too, in a high-necked Edwardian-style white blouse under a soft black wool crepe jacket. A silver and amethyst brooch the size of a credit card was pinned to the jacket, like an abstract representation of her hair and eyes. She flicked open a desk diary on the seat beside her while Gloria produced a piece of paper with a flourish. “That’s Kate’s time, date and place of birth.”

  Dorothea put it on the seat beside her without a glance. “I couldn’t possibly take you through your chart and answer your questions, Kate.”

  “It’s the answers to my questions I’m interested in.”

  Dorothea raised one eyebrow. I used to do that, but I grew out of it. “Pity. You should always seize opportunity when it presents itself. Who knows when you’ll get a second chance to find out what really makes you tick?” She sounded amused.

  “I’ll manage somehow,” I said.

  “I’m sure you will, and that’s without reading your chart. Gloria, you’re my final appointment today. How would it be if I saw Kate then? Or are you in a hurry to get home?”

  “That’s fine, Dor,” Gloria said. “We’ll get out your road now and let Rita get her money’s worth. See you at half past five.”

  She shooed me out ahead of her into the car park. “We’d better get a move on,” she said. “I’m due in make-up and I’m not frocked up yet.”

  “Gloria, is Dorothea normally fully booked?” I asked, trailing in her wake.

  “Oh aye. If you’re not one of her regulars, you can wait a month or more for her to fit you in unless you’re prepared to go to her consulting room.”

  “All half-hour appointments?”

  “That’s right. From nine till half past five,” Gloria confirmed.

  “Just as a matter of interest, how much does Dorothea charge?”

  “For half an hour, she charges twice what you do for an hour, chuck.”

  It was one of those bits of information that stops you dead in your tracks. I’m not cheap. Well, only where Richard’s concerned, but even he hasn’t worked that out yet. Four times my hourly rate was serious money. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the right business.

  The day passed. Wardrobe, make-up, rehearsal, film. No diverting phone calls, no murderous attacks on the client. No chance either of finding out who had written the poison-pen letters or the identity of the mole that Ross Grant wanted me to drag kicking and screaming into the daylight; thanks to the Chronicle, nobody was talking to me. I supposed the cast members had fallen out of love with me because for today I was more famous than them. The crew were just too busy and besides, the novelty of having a real live private eye about the place had worn off.

  By the time five rolled around, I was beginning to think that I should start charging boredom money the way that some people charge danger money. I was convinced by now that whoever was writing threatening letters to Gloria was getting satisfaction from knowing they’d frightened her enough to hire me. Given the number of opportunities to cause her serious harm, even with me in tow, it was significant that we’d not even had so much as a near miss in the car. I’d accompany her on her weekend personal appearances, then I intended to call it a day.

  Her face restored to street levels of make-up and Brenda’s outfit back in wardrobe where it belonged, Gloria was ready for her session with Dorothea. “Walk me across to the van, chuck,” she said. “I’ll see Dorothea on my own, but if you come over about five

  An unrelenting sleet was falling as we joined the dozens of people scurrying across the car park, desperately seeking shelter. I’d helped myself to one of the umbrellas in an equipment skip by the entrance to the outdoor set, and I wrestled with the gusty wind to keep it over Gloria’s head. At the caravan, I knocked. I heard Dorothea tell Gloria to come in. She disappeared inside and I closed the umbrella and sprinted for Gloria’s car, parked only a few spaces away. Waiting for her there, I could at least listen to the radio.

  I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat, the day’s news washing over me. The traffic reporter warned about drifting snow on trans-Pennine routes. “Great,” I muttered, wondering how bad the road to Saddleworth would be. If the weather was going to close in, it might be worth suggesting to Gloria that she spend the night in my spare room to save myself the double journey over snowy moorland roads.

  Almost before I knew it, the twenty-five minutes were up. I abandoned the condensation-fogged car and legged it for Dorothea’s camper. I knocked on the door of the van and Gloria called, “Just coming, chuck.” The door opened, the warm light from inside spilling on to the tarmac and revealing the waterlogging that was creeping up the sides of my brown ankle boots. “I’ll send her right back,” Gloria said over her shoulder as she emerged, closing the door behind her.

  I did my trick with the umbrella and escorted Gloria back to her dressing room. The production area already felt deserted. Nobody on Northerners loved their job so much they wanted to hang around after the end of filming on a Friday. I was slightly concerned about leaving Gloria vulnerable in her dressing room. Both Rita and Dorothea knew about my appointment with the astrologer, and either could have mentioned it unthinkingly to a third party. Given the speed rumor moved at in NPTV, the cleaners and secretaries all probably knew Gloria would be alone in a virtually empty building from six o’clock.

  “I want you to lock the door behind me, OK?” I told her. “And

  Gloria grinned. “All right, boss. Whatever you say.”

  I waited outside the door until I heard the Yale lock snap into place behind me. Then I hurried out of the building and ran back across the car park to Dorothea’s van. There was no answer to my knock, but I knew she was expecting me to return. Besides, it wasn’t the kind of night where you hang around in freezing sleet waiting for someone else to stop playing power games. I opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit interior.

  Dorothea Dawson lay sprawled across her chenille tablecloth, one side of her head strangely misshapen and dark with spilled blood. A few feet away, her crystal ball glowed in the lamplight at the end of a flecked trail of scarlet clotting the deep pile of the champagne-colored carpet.

  I backed away momentarily, dragging my eyes from the compelling horror before me. I stared wildly around, checking there was no one else in the confined space. Then the thought hit me with the force of a kick to the stomach that Dorothea might still be alive. For a long moment I didn’t know if I could bring myself to touch her.

  But I knew that if she died because I’d been squeamish the guilt would far outweigh the revulsion I felt now. I tried to swallow whatever it was that was preventing me from breathing and inched forward, carefully avoiding the track the crystal ball had left. I stretched my hand towards Dorothea’s outflung arm and grasped her wrist. Her skin was the same temperature as mine, which made it all the more horrible that I couldn’t find a pulse.

  I backed away, appalled. I’d been right to warn Gloria to take care. There was a killer out there.

  I’d been catastrophically wrong about the target, though.

  Chapter 9

  MARS OPPOSES THE MIDHEAVEN

  She has a high opinion of herself and is not always diplomatic enough to hide it. She can be too bold and belligerent in pursuit of what she knows to be right. But this opposition provides great energy, allowing her to be enterprising and independent. Her speed and competitiveness often take the wind out of the sails of authority figures.

  From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t think I could bear to stay in that confined space with Dorothea’s corpse, but I couldn’t just walk away leaving the camper van unsecured. Besides, I couldn’t stand guard outside because I’d be soaked to the skin in minutes. It seemed important to me that I shouldn’t face the police looking like a drowned rat.

  The compromise I found was to move down to the cab. The passeng
er seat was designed so that it could either face out through the windscreen or swing round to act as an extra chair in the living section of the van. Luckily for my peace of mind, it was currently configured to face forwards.

  I scrambled through the gap between the seats, surprised to find myself gasping for air as if I’d been running. I gripped the armrests and forced myself to breathe evenly. I wanted to make sure I didn’t sound like an emergency operator’s idea of a murderer. I concentrated on the tracks of the melting sleet slithering down the windscreen that blurred the floodlights around the car park and tried to forget the image branded on my mind’s eye. Only when my breathing had returned to normal did I take out my phone and dial 999. Once I was connected to the police control room, I said, “My name is Kate Brannigan and I am a

  The woman on the end of the phone had obviously assimilated her training well. With no apparent indication that this was any more extraordinary an occurrence than a burglary in progress, she calmly said, “Where are you calling from?”

  “My mobile. I’m in the car park of the Northerners compound. It’s just off Alan Turing Way, near the velodrome.”

  “And can you tell me what appears to have happened?”

  “I’m in a camper van. It belongs to Dorothea Dawson. The astrologer? I’d arranged a meeting with her. I walked in and found her lying dead. It looks like someone’s caved her head in with her crystal ball. I tried to find a pulse, but there’s nothing.” I could hear my voice cracking and swallowed hard.

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes. I’m in the camper van. You can’t miss it. It’s a big dark blue Mercedes. Down the far end, away from the entrance. Most of the cars have gone now; there’s just a few down this end of the car park.” I was gabbling, I knew, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  “We’ll have some officers with you very soon. Please don’t touch anything. Can you give me your number, please?”

  I rattled off the number automatically. “We will be with you very shortly,” she concluded reassuringly. I wasn’t comforted. This was an opportunist killing. Normally, there would be people in the car park, chatting and gossiping on their way to their cars, pausing and taking notice. But tonight, the weather meant everyone had their heads down, rushing for shelter and paying no attention to anything except the quickest route to their wheels.

  Then there was the time element. There had only been a gap of ten minutes at the very outside between Gloria and me leaving the van and me returning. But someone had been bold or desperate enough to seize that tiny window of opportunity to invade Dorothea’s camper van. They’d caught her unawares, obviously, and smashed the heavy crystal ball into her skull so swiftly she’d had no time to react.

  Then they’d slipped back into the night. No time to search or steal. Time only to kill and to disappear again. Suddenly, I realized the

  The thought hit me like a blow to the heart. My mouth went dry and a violent shiver ran through me from head to foot. My stomach started to heave and I barely got the door open in time. Secondhand lunch splattered on to the puddled car park. I retched and retched long past the point where my stomach was empty, hanging on grimly to the door with one hand.

  That’s how the police found me. I hadn’t even been aware of the approaching sirens. I figured they must have turned them off when they reached the security gates at NPTV. Now, it was only the flashing blue lights that announced their arrival. I looked up blearily, my hair stuck to my head with sleet and sweat, and took in two liveried police cars and an ambulance. The occupants were out and running almost before the cars came to a standstill.

  They headed towards me. I straightened up and pointed weakly to the door that led directly into the living section. “She’s in there,” I croaked. Three of them shifted their angle of approach. The fourth moved towards me, blocking any getaway I might have planned. He wasn’t to know we were on the same side. Not surprising; it was a role I found pretty unfamiliar myself. After a quick scan of his colleagues’ faces to check there was no opposition, the first policeman opened the door and cautiously stuck his head inside the van. I heard the hiss of indrawn breath and a muffled curse.

  Now the paramedics were also at the door, trying to get past the knot of police officers. “Let us in,” I heard one of them say impatiently.

  “No way,” the cop who’d seen the body said. “That’s a crime scene.”

  “She could be alive,” the paramedic protested, attempting to shove through the barrier of blue uniforms.

  “No way,” the policeman repeated. He looked about as good as I felt. “Take it from me, there’s nothing you can do for her.”

  “She didn’t have a pulse when I found the body,” I said.

  “When was that?” the officer keeping an eye on me asked.

  “About two minutes before I made the treble-niner.”

  My unthinking use of a professional term won me a quizzical look. One of his colleagues was speaking into his radio, collar turned up against the wind-driven sleet. Grumbling, the paramedics headed back to the shelter of their ambulance. I inched back so that I was out of the worst of the weather, making sure I kept my hands in sight. I knew that right now I had to be their prime suspect. One being a prime number.

  Another car splashed through the puddles, illuminating a couple of executives making for their cars, too worried about getting wet to care about the presence of police cars and ambulances. The new arrival skidded to a halt only feet away from the front of Dorothea’s Mercedes. The doors swung open, switching on the interior light and the impossible happened.

  Things got worse.

  Twenty minutes later, I was sitting in the Northerners green room, instantly commandeered by the police as a temporary incident room until their own purpose-built caravan could be brought over. Opposite me sat Detective Sergeant Linda Shaw, her hands wrapped around a cardboard cup of instant coffee. I didn’t mind Linda; she probably had more in common with me than she’d ever have with the hard-nosed bastard she worked for.

  I suspected Detective Chief Inspector Cliff Jackson had an auburn-haired doll in his desk drawer. I was convinced he stuck pins into it at regular intervals. It was the only explanation I could think of for that stabbing pain I sometimes got in my left ankle. Jackson had been one of the senior murder detectives in the city for the last seven years or so. You’d think he’d be pleased that I’ve made a significant contribution to his clear-up rate. You’d be wrong. Now, whenever the planets really want to gang up on me, they send me an encounter with Jackson.

  Linda Shaw stood between Jackson and me like a buffer zone between warring Balkan armies. As soon as he’d seen me palefaced and shivering in the cab of Dorothea’s van, the wheels had started going round in his head as he imagined the many ways he

  “Working,” I said. “How about you?”

  He turned scarlet. “Don’t push your luck, Brannigan,” he stormed. “I’m here less than a minute and already you’re looking at spending the night in the cells. You just don’t know when to keep your smart mouth shut, do you?”

  “If you want me to keep my mouth shut, that’s fine by me. I’ll make my one call to my solicitor and then you’ll get ‘no comment’ from here to eternity,” I snarled back. “And as soon as I get home, I’ll be on the phone to Alexis Lee. The world should hear how a material witness in the murder of the nation’s favorite astrologer gets treated by Manchester’s finest.”

  “Sir.” Linda’s voice was quiet but urgent. “Sir, you’re needed inside the van. The scene-of-crime lads are right behind us, and the rest of the team has just got here. Why don’t I find a quiet corner and take a statement from Ms. Brannigan? Then we’ll have an idea where we’re up to?”

  “I don’t want you sticking your nose in this, Brannigan,” Jackson snapped, straightening an electric-blue tie that clashed disturbingly with his lilac shirt. “You give your statement to DS Shaw and then you bugger off out of it. That’s not an invitation, it’s an instruction. I’d love to arrest you
for obstruction. But then, I shouldn’t have to tell you that, should I? She’s all yours, Detective Sergeant.”

  I had led Linda from the van to the production building, suggesting it would be a good idea to get someone to contact John Turpin to tell NPTV what was going on and find out where we could talk. She’d got it sorted, right down to discovering where the nearest coffee machine was. Finally we had a moment to give each other the once-over. I saw a woman hovering around the crucial cusp of thirty, the skin around her eyes starting to show the attrition of long hours and late nights, the slight downturn to her mouth revealing the emotional price of dealing with people who have been violently bereaved, and the ones responsible for smashing those lives to smithereens.

  I didn’t want to think about what she saw. I opened the batting. “Detective Sergeant, eh? Congratulations.”

  “Thanks. I hear you’ve come up in the world too. Brannigan and Co, not Mortensen and Brannigan any more.”

  “Cliff keeps tabs on me, does he? At least I get to be my own boss. But you’re still stuck being Jackson’s bag carrier.”

  “There are worse jobs in the police service,” she said drily.

  “Especially if you’re a woman.”

  She inclined her head in agreement. “So, help me to keep my job and tell me what happened here tonight?”

  “You know I don’t have any problem with you, Linda. Ask what you want. As long as you don’t expect me to breach my client’s confidentiality, I’ll tell you all I can.”

  She took me through the reason for my presence, then on to the precise circumstances of my discovery. We’d just got to the part where I described trying to find Dorothea’s pulse when the door crashed open. Gloria staggered in dramatically, hair plastered to her head, eye make-up spreading like a bad Dusty Springfield impersonation. “Kate,” she wailed. “Thank God you’re all right! Oh Kate, I can’t believe it. Not Dorothea,” she continued, stumbling towards me. Think Vanessa Redgrave playing King Lear. I had no choice but to jump to my feet and support her. She’d have had no problem collapsing in a heap for effect. I had no doubt that she was sincerely upset, but being a thespian she couldn’t help going over the top so much she made the Battle of the Somme look like a little skirmish.