Star Struck (30 page)

“Are you sure?” she said. I could tell she was weighing up how much my generosity might cost her in the future.

I shrugged. “I don’t need my face all over the
Chronicle
again. Besides, there is one thing you could do for me.”

Her face closed like a slammed door. “I thought it was too good to be true.”

I held my hands up. “It’s no big deal. Just a word with your colleagues in uniform. Donovan is going to be serving process for me for at least the next eighteen months. I’d really appreciate it if you could spread the word that the big black guy on the bicycle is wearing a white hat.”

Linda grinned. “I think I can manage that.” She got to her feet and took some folded sheets of A4 out of her shoulder bag. “As it happens, I’ve got something for you too. I’ll see myself out.”

Curious, I unfolded the bundle of paper. There was a Post-it stuck on one corner in Linda’s handwriting. “Printed out from Dorothea Dawson’s hard disk. It gave us all a laugh.” I pulled off the note and started to read:
Written in the Stars for Kate Brannigan, private investigator.

Born Oxford, UK, 4th September 1966.
•
Sun in Virgo in the Fifth House
•
Moon in Taurus in the Twelfth House
•
Mercury in Virgo in the Fifth House
•
Venus in Leo in the Fourth House
•
Mars in Leo in the Fourth House
•
Jupiter in Cancer in the Third House
•
Saturn retrograde in Pisces in the Eleventh House
•
Uranus in Virgo in the Fifth House
•
Neptune in Scorpio in the Sixth House
•
Pluto in Virgo in the Fifth House
•
Chiron in Pisces in the Eleventh House
•
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 Fifth House, it indicates a player of games …

“What is it, chuck? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Gloria said, concern in her voice.

I shook my head, folding the papers away. “It’s nothing, Gloria. Just some sad twisted copper’s idea of a joke.”

SATURN TRINES NEPTUNE
She loses her own apprehensions through her profound and penetrating investigative interest in others. She has a strong sense of how her life should be arranged, often bringing order to chaos. She follows her feelings and is sensitive to the subtext that lies beneath the conversation and behavior of others. She can harness irrationality and factor it into her decision-making.
From
Written in the Stars
, by Dorothea Dawson

If I hadn’t known how thoroughly Dorothea Dawson researched her clients, I’d probably have been impressed with her astrological analysis of my character. I wouldn’t have minded betting that the minute Gloria told Dorothea she’d hired me, the astrologer had started digging. I wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet. For a start, I’d appeared in Alexis’s stories in the
Chronicle
more times than I was entirely comfortable with. So it wouldn’t have been too hard for Dorothea to pick up a few snippets about me and weave them into an otherwise standard profile.

What she missed completely was my sense of humor. I mean, if I didn’t have a world-class sense of humor, why else would I be sitting in the Costa Coffee forecourt at Piccadilly Station drinking moccachino and reading my horoscope when I could be at home, snug as a bug in a phone, working out how to solve my latest computer game with a Stoly and pink grapefruit juice on the side?

The reason why I was lurking among the sad souls condemned to travelling on Virgin Trains was shuffling from foot to foot a few yards away, like a small child who needs to go to the toilet but doesn’t want to miss some crucial development in his favorite TV show. Gizmo had clearly had a hard time deciding between style

As well as hopping from one foot to the other, Gizmo was clutching a copy of Iain M. Banks’s cult sci-fi novel,
Feersum Endjin
, the agreed recognition signal. He’d arranged to meet Jan off the London train at half past eight and he’d been dancing his quaint jig since a quarter past. Imagine expecting a train to be early. I’d sat comfortably sipping my brew and dipping into Dorothea’s digest of my personality.

There was an indecipherable announcement over the Tannoy and Gizmo stopped jigging. He leaned slightly forward, nose towards the platforms like a setter scenting the breeze. I followed his gaze and watched the dark-red livery of the London train easing into platform six with a rumble and a sigh. I couldn’t help crossing my fingers. If this went pear-shaped, I’d get no proper work out of him for weeks.

The carriage doors were opening the length of the train and people spilled on to the platform. First past us were the smokers, carrying with them a miasma of overflowing ashtray after two and a half hours sitting in stale tobacco smoke. Then the usual Fridaynight mixture of day-trip shoppers, students coming to Manchester for a groovy weekend, senior citizens exhausted from a week with the grandchildren, sales reps and educational consultants in cheap suits crumpled by the journey and, finally, the first-class passengers in sleek tailoring with their identikit suit carriers and briefcases, men and women alike.

Gizmo bobbed like a ball on the tide of humanity streaming past him, his eyes darting from side to side. The crowd swelled, then steadied, then thinned to the last stragglers. His head seemed to shrink into his shoulders like a tortoise and I saw him sigh.

Last off the train was a blond giant. His broad shoulders strained a black leather jacket that tapered to narrow hips encased in tight blue denim. They didn’t leave much to the imagination, especially with his swivel-hipped walk. As he reached the end of the platform,

He settled for left and moved in our direction. As he grew nearer, I could see the book clutched in the massive hand that wasn’t carrying the black leather holdall. I closed my eyes momentarily. Even Dennis might have a bit of bother menacing his way out of this one. Gizmo would have no chance.

When I opened them, Jan was looming over Gizmo. “You’re Gizmo,” he boomed. I couldn’t quite place the accent.

Gizmo half turned towards the café, panic in his eyes. “I never … she never said anything about anybody else,” he stammered desperately.

Typical, I thought. Great with silicon, crap with carbon-based life forms. Does not compute.

Jan frowned. “What do you mean?” I figured he wasn’t sure if Gizmo had missed the point completely or if there was a language problem.

Gizmo took a hasty step backwards. “Look, I never meant to cause any trouble, I didn’t know anything about you. Whatever she’s said, there’s been nothing between us, this would have been the first time we’d even met,” he gabbled.

Jan looked even more puzzled. He waved the book at Gizmo. “I brought the book. So we’d know each other,” he said in that pedantic way that Germans and Scandies have when they’re not sure you’ve understood their impeccable English.

Gizmo swung towards me. “Tell him, Kate. Tell him it’s all a misunderstanding. She never said anything about having a bloke. I thought she was unattached.”

With a sigh, I got to my feet. “You’re Jan, right?” I said, giving the J its soft Y sound. Gizmo’s mouth fell open and the Iain M. Banks tumbled to the concourse floor. Then, suddenly, he whirled round and ran for the escalator down to the tram terminus below. Jan made a half-hearted move to step around me and give chase but I blocked him. “Leave it,” I said. “He’s not the one, Jan.”

He frowned. “Who are you? What’s going on?” He craned past

“I’m Kate. Gizmo and I work together.”

“Why has he run off? We arranged to meet,” Jan said, sounding puzzled. “We have been e-mailing each other for months. Getting to know each other. We both figured it was time to meet.” He made the inverted commas sign in the air that pillocks use to indicate they’re quoting. “‘Time to take things further,’ Gizmo said.”

“Don’t you think it might have been sensible to mention that you were a bloke?” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “He thought you were a woman. Jan with a J, not Jan with a Y.”

Jan’s fair skin flushed scarlet. “What does that matter? I’m still the same person. Because I am a man suddenly it’s different?”

“Of course it’s different,” I protested. His disingenuousness was really winding me up. “He’s not gay, for one thing. I can’t believe you never made it clear you’re a man. It can’t be the first time someone’s made that mistake.”

He glared at me. “Why should I? I’m not responsible for someone else’s assumptions. You British are so terrified of anything that is different, that challenges your sad little conventions.”

By now, the entire coffee shop was enthralled, waiting for my response. “Bollocks,” I said contemptuously. “Tell that to Julian Clary. Don’t try and pretend that deceiving Gizmo was some kind of heroic act of sexual liberation. It was cowardice, that’s what it was. You were scared to admit you were a man because you thought Gizmo would end your cyber-relationship.”

“And I was right,” he shouted.

“No, you were wrong,” I said quietly. “He might have rejected you as a lover, but he would still have been your friend. And I’ve got good cause to know just how much that signifies.” Three women sitting round a table in the coffee shop gave me a ragged round of applause.

Jan’s laugh was harsh. “In cyberspace, he didn’t need a woman to fight his battles.” Then he turned on his heel and stalked off towards the taxi rank.

I gave the women a sardonic bow and walked out into a heavy drizzle. Underneath the entrance canopy, the Salvation Army band was playing “In the Bleak Midwinter.” A beggar with a dog on a string was trying to sell the
Big Issue
to people with a train to catch. A traffic warden was writing a ticket to stick on some poor sucker’s windscreen.

I couldn’t see Gizmo turning up for work on Monday morning as if nothing had happened. It looked like Brannigan & Co had just lost their computer expert. And when I got back to my car, the back tire was flatter than my spirits.

If this was what was written in the stars, there was a scriptwriter somewhere who’d better watch his back.

Val McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community and is a graduate of Oxford University. She worked as a journalist for 16 years, the final three as Northern Bureau Chief of a major Sunday newspaper. She quit journalism in 1991 to write full-time. Since her first novel was published in 1987, she has written a further 19 and one non-fiction book.

Val’s books are international bestsellers and have won many awards. These include the Gold Dagger for
The Mermaids Singing
, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anthony, the Dilys, the Barry and the Macavity for
A Place of Execution
, the Sherlock and the Barry for
The Distant Echo
and the Grand Prix des Romans d’Aventure for
Star Struck
. She was the first writer to be presented with the Icon of Scotland award at Tartan Day in New York. Her short stories have twice been nominated for Dagger awards and she edited a short story anthology,
Endangered Species
, for Arts Council England. Her work has been translated into over 30 languages and her series featuring Tony Hill and Carol Jordan has been adapted for the award-winning TV series,
Wire in the Blood
, which has been transmitted in almost 30 countries. She is also a regular contributor to BBC radio and founder of the Harrogate International Crime Writing Festival.

Val lives with her son and her partner in the North of England.