Star Struck

Bodyguarding had never made it to Manchester PI Kate Brannigan’s wish list. But somebody’s got to pay the bills at Brannigan & Co, and if the only earner on offer is playing nursemaid to a paranoid soap star, the fast-talking computer-loving white-collar crime expert has to swallow her pride and slip into something more glam than her Thai boxing kit.

Soon, however, offstage dramas overshadow the fictional storylines, culminating in the unscripted murder of the self-styled ‘Seer to the Stars’, and Kate finds herself with more questions than answers. What’s more, her tame hacker has found virtual love, her process server keeps getting arrested, and the ever-reliable Dennis has had the temerity to get himself charged with murder.

Nobody told her there’d be days like these…

I was a journalist for many years on a newspaper that became increasingly obsessed with the world of soaps. As a result, I have forgotten more than any respectable person would want to know about the private lives of many household names. Nevertheless, the fictional soap
Northerners
and its cast are entirely creatures of my imagination. Any resemblances to the real or fictional characters of any actual regular drama series are entirely coincidental and purely accidental. Besides, I’m not worth suing.

The legal advice came from Brigid Baillie, Jai Penna and Paula Tyler; any errors are either deliberate mistakes for dramatic effect, or just plain stupidity. Jennifer Paul also provided crucial information, in exchange for which I promise never to tell the story about the golden retriever.

Thanks too to my agents Jane Gregory and Lisanne Radice and my editors Julia Wisdom and Karen Godfrey who, because of the wonders of e-mail, were able to shower me with queries the length and breadth of three continents.

Extract from the computer database of Dorothea Dawson, Seer to the Stars
Written in the Stars for Kate Brannigan, private investigator.
Born Oxford, UK, 4th September 1966.
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Sun in Virgo in the Fifth House
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Moon in Taurus in the Twelfth House
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Mercury in Virgo in the Fifth House
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Venus in Leo in the Fourth House
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Mars in Leo in the Fourth House
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Jupiter in Cancer in the Third House
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Saturn retrograde in Pisces in the Eleventh House
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Uranus in Virgo in the Fifth House
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Neptune in Scorpio in the Sixth House
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Pluto in Virgo in the Fifth House
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Chiron in Pisces in the Eleventh House
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Ascendant Sign: Gemini

SUN IN VIRGO IN THE 5TH HOUSE
On the positive side, can be ingenious, verbally skilled, diplomatic, tidy, methodical, discerning and dutiful. The negatives are fussiness, a critical manner, an obsessive attention to detail and a lack of self-confidence that can disguise itself as arrogance. In the 5th House, it indicates a player of games.
From
Written in the Stars
, by Dorothea Dawson

My client was about to get a resounding smack in the mouth. I watched helplessly from the other side of the street. My adrenaline was pumping, but there was no way I could have made it to her side in time. That’s the trouble with bodyguarding jobs. Even if you surround the client with a phalanx of Rutger Hauer clones and Jean Van Damme wannabes in bulletproof vests, the moment always comes when they’re vulnerable. And guess who always gets the blame? That’s why, when people come looking for a minder, the house rule at Brannigan & Co: Investigations & Security states, “We don’t do that.”

But Christmas was coming and the goose was anorexic. Business had been as slow as a post office queue and even staff as unorthodox as mine expect to be paid on time. Besides, I deserved a festive bonus myself. Eating, for example. So I’d sent my better judgment on an early Yuletide break and agreed to take on a client who’d turned out to be more accident prone than Coco the Clown.

For once, it wasn’t my fault that the client was in the front line. I’d had no say in what was happening out there on the street. If I’d wanted to stop it, I couldn’t have. So, absolved from action for once, I stood with my hands in my pockets and watched Carla Hardcastle’s arm swing round in a fearsome arc to deliver a cracking wallop that wiped the complacent smirk off Brenda

“And cut,” the director said. “Very nice, girls, but I’d like it one more time. Gloria, loved that smug little smile, but can you lose it at the point where you realize she’s actually going to thump you? And let us see some outrage?”

My client gave a forbearing smile that was about as sincere as a beggar asking for tea money. “Whatever you say, Helen, chuck,” she rasped in the voice that thrilled the nation three times a week as we shoveled down our microwave dinners in front of Manchester’s principal contribution to the world of soap. Then she turned to me with an exaggerated wink and called, “You’re all right, chuck, it’s only make believe.”

Everyone turned to stare at me. I managed to grin while clenching my teeth. It’s a talent that comes in very handy in the private-eye business. It’s having to deal with unscrupulous idiots that does it. And that’s just the clients.

“That’s my bodyguard,” Gloria Kendal—alias Brenda Barrowclough—announced to the entire cast and crew of
Northerners
.

“We’d all worked out it wasn’t your body double,” the actress playing Carla said, apparently as sour in life as the character she played in the human drama that had wowed British audiences for the best part of twenty years.

“Let’s hope you only get attacked by midgets,” Teddy Edwards added. He’d once been a stand-up comedian on the working men’s club circuit, but he’d clearly been playing Gloria’s screen husband for so long that he’d lost any comic talent he’d ever possessed. I might only be five feet three in my socks, but I wouldn’t have needed to use too many of my Thai-boxing skills to bring a lump of lard like him to his knees. I gave him the hard stare and I’m petty enough to admit I enjoyed it when he cleared his throat and looked away.

“All right, settle down,” the director called. “Places, please, and let’s take it again from the top of the scene.”

“Can we have a bit of hush back there?” someone else added. I wondered what his job title was and how long I’d have to hang around the TV studios before I worked out who did what in a hierarchy that included best boys, gaffers and too many gofers to

It hadn’t started out that way. When Gloria had swanned into our office, I’d known straight off it wasn’t going to be a routine case. At Brannigan & Co, the private investigation firm that I run, we cover a wide spectrum of work. Previously, when I’d been in partnership with Bill Mortensen, we’d mostly investigated whitecollar fraud, computer security, industrial espionage and sabotage, with a bit of miscellaneous meddling that friends occasionally dropped in our laps. Now Bill had moved to Australia, I’d had to cast my net wider to survive. I’d clawed back some process-serving from a handful of law firms, added “surveillance” to the letterheading and canvassed insurance companies for work exposing fraudulent claims. Even so, Gloria Kendal’s arrival in our front office signalled something well out of the ordinary.

Not that I’d recognized her straight away. Neither had Shelley, the office administrator, and she’s got the X-ray vision of every mother of teenagers. My first thought when Gloria had swept through the door on a wave of Estée Lauder’s White Linen was that she was a domestic violence victim. I couldn’t think of another reason for the wide-brimmed hat and the wraparound sunglasses on a wet December afternoon in Manchester.

I’d been looking over Shelley’s shoulder at some information she’d downloaded from Companies House when the woman had pushed open the door and paused, dramatically framed against the hallway. She waited long enough for us to look up and register the expensive swagger of her mac and the quality of the kelly-green silk suit underneath, then she took three measured steps into the room on low-heeled pumps that precisely matched the suit. I don’t know about Shelley, but I suspect my astonishment showed.

There was an air of expectancy in the woman’s pose. Shelley’s, “Can I help you?” did nothing to diminish it.

The woman smiled, parting perfectly painted lips the color of tinned black cherries. “I hope you can, chuck,” she said, and her secret was out.

“Gloria Kendal,” I said.

“Brenda Barrowclough,” Shelley said simultaneously.

Gloria chuckled. “You’re both right, girls. But we’ll just let that be our little secret, eh?” I nodded blankly. The only way her identity was ever going to stay secret was if she kept her mouth shut. It was clear from three short sentences that the voice that had made Brenda Barrowclough the darling of impressionists the length and breadth of the comedy circuit wasn’t something Gloria took on and cast off as readily as her character’s trademark bottleblonde beehive wig. Gloria really did talk in broad North Manchester with the gravelly growl of a bulldozer in low gear.

“How can I help you, Ms. Kendal?” I asked, remembering my manners and stepping out from behind the reception desk. She might not be a CEO in a gray suit, but she clearly had enough in the bank to make sure we all had a very happy Christmas.

“Call me Gloria, chuck. In fact, call me anything except Brenda.” After twenty years of TV viewing, the raucous laugh was as familiar as my best friend’s. “I’m looking for Brannigan,” she said.

“You found her,” I said, holding out my hand.

Gloria dropped a limp bunch of fingers into mine and withdrew before I could squeeze them—the professional sign of someone who had to shake too many hands in a year. “I thought you’d be a bloke,” she said. For once, it wasn’t a complaint, merely an observation. “Well, that makes things a lot easier. I were wondering what we’d do if Brannigan and Co didn’t have women detectives. Is there some place we can go and talk?”

“My office?” I gestured towards the open door.

“Grand,” Gloria said, sweeping past me and fluttering her fingers in farewell to Shelley.

We exchanged a look. “Rather you than me,” Shelley muttered.

By the time I closed the door behind me, Gloria was settled into one corner of the sofa I use for informal client meetings. She’d

“Living a normal life must be tough,” I said.

“You’re not kidding, chuck. They see you three times a week in their living room, and they think you’re a member of the family. You let on who you are and next thing you know they’re telling you all about their hernia operation and the state of their veins. It’s a nightmare.” She shrugged out of her coat, opened her handbag and took out a packet of those long skinny brown cigarettes that look like cinnamon sticks, and a gold Dunhill lighter. She looked around, eyebrows raised.

Stifling a sigh, I got up and removed the saucer from under the Christmas cactus. I’d only bought it two days before but already the buds that had promised pretty cascades of flowers were predictably starting to litter the windowsill. Me and plants go together like North and South Korea. I tipped the water from the saucer into the bin and placed it on the table in front of Gloria. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s the best I can do.”

She smiled. “I used to work in a cat food factory. I’ve put my fags out in a lot worse, believe me.”

I preferred not to think about it. “Well, Gloria, how can I help you?”

“I need a bodyguard.”

My eyebrows rose. “We don’t normally …”

“These aren’t normal circumstances,” she said sharply. “I don’t want some thick as pigshit bodybuilder trailing round after me. I want somebody with a brain, somebody that can figure out what the heck’s going on. Somebody that won’t attract attention. Half my life I spend with the bloody press snapping round my ankles

“You said, ‘somebody that can figure out what the heck’s going on,’” I said, focusing on the need I probably could do something useful about. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I’ve been getting threatening letters,” she said. “Now, that’s nothing new. Brenda Barrowclough is not a woman who minces her words, and there are a lot of folk out there as can’t tell the difference between
Northerners
and the real world. You’d be too young to remember, but when I was first widowed in the series, back about fifteen years ago, I was snowed under with letters of condolence. People actually sent wreaths for the funeral, addressed to fifteen, Sebastopol Grove. The Post Office is used to it now, they just deliver direct to the studios, but back then the poor florists didn’t know what to do. We had letters from cancer charities saying donations had been made to their funds in memory of Harry—that was my screen husband’s name. Whenever characters move out, we get letters from punters wondering what the asking price is for the house. So whenever Brenda does owt controversial, I get hate mail.”