Star Struck (23 page)

“I bet she’ll have plenty to say. Not least about the fact that this whole thing happened because one of your colleagues decided to leak confidential evidence in a murder inquiry to the press. Evidence which has already been totally discredited,” I said bitterly.

Ruth leaned forward. “There is, of course, one way to make all of this go away. You can let my client go without charge. Give him police bail if you must. He’s not going anywhere. He’s a student at Manchester University, he lives at home with his mother and sister, he has no criminal record and he has a part-time job with Ms. Brannigan. I’m certain that once Ms. Kendal has outlined the real course of events you’ll realize the only charge that should be brought is one of wasting police time, and not against my client. What do you say, Sergeant? Shall we all have an early night?”

He rubbed a hand over his chin and cocked his head on one side. “And if I do what you suggest, it’ll be all over the papers that we let a black mugger walk free.”

“Probably,” Ruth agreed. “But that’s a story that will be history by the weekend, whereas a racial harassment action will rumble on for a very long time. Especially one that’s supported by Gloria Kendal.”

“And the
Manchester Evening Chronicle
,” I added. “Donovan’s mother is a very close friend of the
Chronicle
’s crime correspondent, Alexis Lee. They love a good campaign at the
Chron
.”

He smiled, a genuine look of relief in his eyes. “You talked me into it, ladies. Between ourselves, I never saw it the way the journalists were telling it. For one thing, a lad built like your client would have done a hell of a lot more damage if he’d had a serious go. But what can you do? You’ve got witnesses saying one thing and not much evidence pointing the other way. At least now I can let you take Mr. Carmichael home secure in the knowledge that I’ve got good reasons to put in front of my inspector.” He got to his feet. “If you’d just wait there a minute, I’ll get it sorted.”

He left us alone to exchange gobsmacked looks. “I’d always heard the police out here were a law unto themselves, but I didn’t think that’d ever work in my favor,” I said faintly.

“I know,” Ruth said, sounding somewhat baffled. “I must tell all my clients to make a point of getting arrested in Oldham.”

“I can’t believe that scumbag Jackson,” I said.

“You’ll never nail him on it. He’ll have got one of his minions to do the dirty work. Go after Jackson and you’ll probably end up with Linda Shaw’s head on a stick.” Ruth leaned back in her seat and lit one of her long slim cigarettes. “By the way, I made those inquiries you suggested about Pit Bull Kelly’s dog. Dennis has no marks anywhere on his body that correspond to dog bites. And the dog himself showed no signs of having been in a fight. Care to tell me where this is going?”

“I’ve got Gizmo working on something. An idea I had. It came from a case I read about on the Internet a while back. An American case. I’d rather wait till I’ve got something concrete to show you, because it sounds so totally off the wall.”

Ruth gave me the hard stare, but she could see I wasn’t going to budge. “How long?”

“Probably tomorrow? I’ll need you to set up a meeting with DI Tucker. Preferably at my office. I’ll let you know when I’m ready. Is that OK?”

“The sooner the better,” Ruth said. “Normally, Dennis takes custody in his stride, but this time he’s not handling it well. Probably because he’s genuinely innocent,” she added drily.

The door opened and Sergeant Mumby stuck his head into the

I left Donovan climbing reverently into the Bentley, Ruth promising to drop him at his girlfriend’s so we could avoid letting his mother know about his latest brush with the law. I looked at the dashboard clock and realized there was no point in going home. Richard would have eaten the Chinese; it takes more than irritation at being stood up to disturb his appetite. Then, if habit held, he’d have decided to show me how little he needed me by jumping a taxi back into town and partying the night away. I couldn’t honestly blame him.

I sat in my car and rang the number Gloria had given me for her daughter’s house. The voice that answered was familiar in its inflexions, but twenty years younger in its tones. “I’m looking for Gloria,” I said. “Can you tell her it’s Kate?”

“Hang on, love, I’ll just get her.”

Moments later, I heard the real thing. “All right, chuck?”

“I am now,” I said severely. “Now I’ve got Donovan out of jail.”

She chuckled. “That poor lad’s having a proper education, working for you. I knew you’d have it sorted in no time. Whereas if I’d hung around, it would just have got more and more complicated.”

“He got a smack in the mouth from a journalist’s camera,” I said coldly.

There was a short pause, then, serious, she said, “I’m really sorry about that. Is the lad OK?”

“He’ll live. But the police need a statement from you, otherwise they’re going to have to believe that bunch of scumbag hacks claiming Donovan set about them without any provocation.”

She gasped. “Is that what they’re saying?”

“What else do you expect paparazzi to be saying, Gloria? The truth?” I demanded sarcastically. “They’ve got bosses on the newsdesk who aren’t going to be well impressed if they tell them they didn’t get a story or pictures because a teenage lad told them to bugger off. If they don’t get a proper story, they make one up.”

“Aye well, at least you got it sorted,” she said, sounding chastened for once.

“It’ll be sorted once you’ve given Sergeant Mumby a statement and half his colleagues an autograph. Now, are you staying at your daughter’s tonight?”

“I better had, I suppose. And I’m not filming tomorrow, so I’ll probably take her shopping.”

“Not in town,” I said firmly.

“Harvey Nicks, chuck,” she said. “In Leeds. I’ll bell you in the morning once we’ve decided what’s what. Thanks for sorting it all out, Kate.”

The line went dead. Nothing like a grateful client. Given that the wheels were well and truly off my evening, I figured I might as well go for broke and see what Dorothea Dawson’s child had to say about her murder. It was, after all, what I was being paid for. I drove through the virtually deserted streets of Oldham, south through Ashton, Audenshaw and Denton, past rows of local shops with peeling paint, sagging strings of dirty Christmas lights, sad window displays and desperate signs trying to lure customers inside; past the narrow mouths of terraced streets where people sprawled in front of gas fires denying the winter by watching movies filled with California sunshine; past down-at-heel pubs advertising karaoke and quiz nights; past artificial Christmas trees defiant in old people’s homes; past churches promising something better than all of this next time round in exchange for the abandonment of logic.

It was a relief to hit the motorway, hermetically sealed against the poverty of the lives I’d driven past. Tony Blair said a lot about new Labour giving new Britain new hope before he was elected; funny how nothing’s changed now he’s in power. It’s still, “get tough on single mums, strip the benefit from the long-term unemployed, close the mines and make the students pay for their education.”

I cruised past Stockport, admiring the huge glass pyramid of the Co-op Bank, glowing neon green and indigo against the looming redbrick of the old mills and factories behind it. It had stood empty for years, built on spec in the boom of the Thatcher years before the Co-op had rescued it from the indignity of emptiness. I bet they’d got a great deal on the rent; wish I’d thought of it.

I took the Princess Parkway exit, almost the only car on the road now. Anyone with any sense was behind closed doors, either home writing Christmas cards or partying till they didn’t notice how cold it was outside while they waited for the taxi home. Me, I was sitting in my car opposite the other deadheads in the vast expanse of the Southern Cemetery. Only one of us was using the
A-Z
, though.

The street I was searching for was inevitably in the less seedy end of Chorlton, one of those pleasant streets of 1930s semis near the primary school whose main claim to fame is the number of lesbian parents whose children it educates. To live comfortably in Chorlton, you need to have a social conscience, left-of-center politics and an unconventional relationship. Insurance salesmen married to building society clerks with two children and a Ford Mondeo are harder to find around there than hen’s teeth.

The house in question was beautifully maintained. Even in the dead of winter, the garden was neat, the roses pruned into symmetrical shapes, the lawn lacking the shaggy uneven look that comes from neglecting the last cut of autumn. The stucco on the upper story and the gable gleamed in the streetlight, and the stained glass in the top sections of the bay window was a perfect match for the panel in the door. Even the curtain linings matched. I walked up the path with a degree of reluctance, knowing only too well the kind of mayhem I was bringing to this orderliness.

Sometimes I wish I could just walk away, that I wasn’t driven by this compelling desire for unpicking subterfuge and digging like an auger into people’s lives. Then I realize that almost every person I care about suffers from the same affliction: Richard and Alexis are journalists, Della’s a detective, Ruth’s a lawyer, Gizmo’s a hacker, Shelley’s never taken a thing at face value in all the years I’ve worked with her. Even Dennis subjects the world around him to careful scrutiny before he decides how to scam it.

The need to know was obviously too deeply rooted in me to ignore. Sometimes it even seemed stronger than the urge for selfpreservation. Driven as I was by the prospect of finding out what lay behind the string of recent strange events, I had to remind

I took a deep breath and pressed the bell. A light went on in the hall, illuminating me with green and scarlet patterns from the stained glass. I saw a dark shape descend the stairs and loom towards me. The door opened and Dorothea Dawson’s genetic inheritance stood in front of me. I should have seen it, really. The features were so similar.

“Hi,” I said. “I’ve come for a chat about your mum.”

SATURN OPPOSES URANUS
Whenever she seems about to carve out a destiny or even a destination, Uranus steps in to force her to kick over the traces and express her individuality. Something always disrupts her best-laid plans; she is forever having to include new elements in her arrangements. The rest of her chart indicates capability; she will succeed in a conventional world by unconventional means.
From
Written in the Stars
, by Dorothea Dawson

Freddie Littlewood blinked rapidly, dark eyes glittering. His thin lips twitched. It was hard to tell if he was furious or on the point of tears. I figured he was deciding whether to brazen it out or to deny all knowledge of what I was talking about. It was possible, after all, that I was only guessing. “My private life is no concern of yours,” he said eventually, sitting firmly on the fence.

I sighed. “That’s where you’re wrong, Freddie. I’m very concerned with the relationship between you and Dorothea. The nature of my concern rather depends on whether you killed her or not. If you did, it puts my client in the clear and it probably means Gloria isn’t the next target of a killer. If you didn’t, you can probably tell me things that would help me to protect her. Either from false accusation or from murder. So my concern is legitimate.”

“I’ve nothing to say to you,” he said, closing the door in my face.

I hate bad manners. Especially when it’s late and there are almost certainly more interesting things I could be doing with my time. I took out my mobile phone and pushed open the letterbox. “The police don’t know Dorothea was your mother.” I started to press numbers on the phone, hoping the beeping was evident on the other side of the door. “Want me to tell them now?”

Before I could have pressed the “send” button if I’d been serious, the door opened again. “There’s no need for this,” Freddie snapped. “I didn’t kill Dorothea. That’s all you need to know. And it’s all you’re getting from me. I don’t care if you tell the police she was my birth mother. It’s not like it was news to me. I’ve known for ages, and I can prove it. Even the police aren’t stupid enough to take that as a motive for murder.” He was probably right. The bitterness in his voice spelled motive to me, but acrimony’s never been grounds for arresting someone.

I leaned against the doorjamb and smiled. “Maybe so. But if you factor in the stories you’ve been selling to the papers, the picture looks very different. Intimate details that people have revealed to Dorothea, spiced with the snippets you’ve picked up, that’s what’s been tarted up in the tabloids. Maybe Dorothea decided she didn’t need a partner any more?”

His eyes widened and he flashed a panicky glance to either side of me, as if checking whether I was alone. “You’re talking rubbish,” he said, his voice venomous.

I smiled. “Have it your own way. But you didn’t get paid in cash. Somewhere there’s a paper trail. And one thing the stupid old plod is very good at is following a paper trail. Freddie, if what you’re saying is true, and you didn’t kill Dorothea, I’ve got no ax to grind with you. John Turpin isn’t paying me to find out who the
Northerners
mole is.” I refrained from mentioning that Ross Grant might be. There was no point in complicating things that were already difficult. “All I’m interested in is protecting Gloria. You like Gloria, for God’s sake, I know you do. I’ve seen the way you are with her. Can we not just sit down and talk about this? Or do I have to blow your life out of the water with NPTV as well as the cops?”

One side of his mouth lifted in a sneer. “Gloria said you were smart,” he said, opening the door wide enough to let me enter. He shooed me ahead of him into a small square dining room. There was an oak table with four matching chairs, all stripped back to the bare wood, oiled and polished till they gleamed in the soft glow of opalescent wall lights. A narrow sideboard in darker oak sat against the far wall. The only decoration came from the vibrant color of the