Star Struck (8 page)

I couldn’t even take refuge in the cast or crew buses, since I needed to keep a close eye on Gloria. In spite of what I’d said the night before, I hadn’t entirely ruled out the possibility of an obsessive fan who was stalking her. The fact that she spent so much of her time inaccessible might actually fuel his derangement. He could be planning to take action against her only when she was in a public place and in character.

I huddled under the awning of the catering truck where a red-haired giant with a soft Highland accent supervised the pair of young women who were responsible for making sure there was a constant flow of bacon, sausage and/or egg butties for anyone who wanted them. They served me with a steaming carton of scalding coffee, which I held under my chin. Not for long, though. If my nose thawed out too quickly, there was always the possibility of it shearing off from the rest of my face.

I half listened to the conversation in the van behind me. It was a lot more interesting than the script Teddy and Gloria were working their way through. The caterers were discussing that day’s

He grinned. Close up, he was even more attractive than he was with a steaming array of food between us. His thick red-gold hair was swept back from a high, broad forehead. Eyes the blue of the Windows 95 intro screen sparkled above high cheekbones. He had one of those mouths romantic novelists always describe as cruel, which lets you know the heroine’s probably going to end up in the guy’s arms if not his bed. “Hiya,” he said. “I’m Ross Grant. I own the location catering company.”

The coffee had defrosted my lips enough for me to return his smile. “Kate Brannigan. I’m—”

“I know who you are,” he interrupted, sounding amused. “You’re Gloria’s bodyguard. Dorothea Dawson, the Seer to the Stars, told her she was going to be murdered, and she hired you to protect her.”

“You’ve been watching too much television,” I said lightly. “People don’t lash out the kind of money I cost without having good reason.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to insult your professionalism. Or to take the piss out of Dorothea. She’s been really good to us.”

“Predicting a sudden rush on bacon butties, you mean?”

He gave a sheepish grin. “Very funny. No, I mean it. You know how she’s always on the telly? Well, she’s recommended us to quite a few of the programs she’s been on. We’ve got a lot of work off the back of it. She’s great, Dorothea. She really understands what it’s like trying to make a living out of a business where you’re constantly dependent on goodwill. So she goes out of her way for folk like us, know what I mean? Not like most of them round here, it’s self, self, self. Working with people that are so full of themselves, we find it hard to take anything about them seriously.”

This time it was my turn to smile. “They do lack a certain sense of proportion.”

“But you’re more than just a bodyguard, aren’t you? Somebody said you’re a proper private investigator.”

“That’s right. In fact, I almost never do this kind of work. But Gloria can be very persuasive.”

“Don’t I know it. This is the woman that had me up all night making petits fours for her granddaughter’s birthday party. Is she really in danger, then?”

I shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. She’s the best of the bunch. I don’t like to think of her in fear of her life. I wasn’t asking out of nosiness,” he added quickly. “I just wondered how long you were going to be tied up working for Gloria.”

“Why? Are you missing me already?”

He went that strange damson-purple that redheads go when they blush. “Actually, I wanted to hire you.”

“Hire me?” Suddenly this was a lot more interesting than a mild flirtation to keep the cold out. “What for?”

“I don’t know if you know, but
Northerners
has got a mole. Somebody’s been leaking stuff to the press. Not just the usual sordid stuff about people’s love lives and creepy things they did twenty years ago, but storylines as well.” All the humor had left him now.

“I’d heard. John Turpin’s supposed to be finding out where the leak is.”

“Yeah, well, Turpin’s trying to pin it on me or my staff,” Ross said bluntly.

“Why would he do that?”

He inhaled sharply. “Because we’re convenient scapegoats. Our contract’s up for renewal at the end of January, and Turpin seems to be determined to ditch me. Knowing that slimy bastard, he’s probably in bed with one of the other firms tendering for the contract and he figures if he can blame me for the leaks he can feather his own nest easier.”

“But why would anybody believe him?” I asked.

Ross flicked his cigarette end on to a frozen puddle where it

“So how are you supposed to come by the advance storylines?” I objected.

“We’re involved in location filming for the show nearly every week. With them filming four weeks ahead of transmission, it’s not hard to pick up the direction the stories are heading. The cast are always standing round the food wagon shooting their mouths off about storylines they don’t like, or taking the piss out of each other about what their characters are up to. If me or my lassies had a mind to, we could be moles. It would be dead simple. But we’re not.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Well, I know it’s not me. And I know it’s not my wife.” He gestured towards the open side of the van with his thumb. “She’s the one with the red sweatshirt on. And I’d put money on it not being Mary, the other lassie, because she owns twenty percent of the business and she’s never been a woman who went for the short-term benefit.”

I sighed. “I sympathize. But it’s always impossible to prove a negative.”

“I know that,” he said. “That’s not what I want to hire you for. I want you to find out who the real mole is and get me off the hook.”

I shook my head. It nearly killed me, turning business down. “I’m already fully occupied taking care of Gloria. You’d be better off going to another firm.” I gritted my teeth. “I could probably recommend somebody.”

He shook his handsome head. “There would be no point. Turpin would never let them on to the location shoots, never mind inside the compound. I’m amazed Gloria’s got away with having you on set. That’s why you’re the only one who can help me. I’ll pay the going rate, I don’t expect anything less.”

I finished my coffee and tossed the cup in the nearby bin. “No can do,” I said. “I can’t take money under false pretenses. I’d be lying if I said I could investigate the leaks at the same time as taking care of Gloria.”

He looked as if he was going to burst into tears. His big shoulders slumped and his mouth turned down at the corners. I glanced back to the serving hatch in the side of the van and caught a murderous look from his wife. “Look,” I sighed. “I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open, maybe make a couple of phone calls. If I come up with anything, you can pay me on results. How does that grab you?”

Laughing boy was back. He grinned and clapped a beefy arm round my shoulders. I thought my lungs had collapsed. “That’s terrific. Fabulous. Thanks, I really appreciate it.” He leaned over and smacked a sloppy kiss on my cheek.

“Ross?” his wife called sharply. “I need a hand in here.”

“No problem,” the big man said. “I’ll be hearing from you then, Kate.”

Somehow I doubted it. Before I could say anything more, I noticed Gloria rushing off the set and into the make-up caravan. Grateful for the chance to get out of the northerly wind that was exfoliating the few square centimeters of skin I had allowed to be exposed, I ran across and climbed aboard.

Gloria was sitting in front of a mirror, blowing on her hands as a make-up artist hovered around her. “Here she is,” Gloria announced. “Me and my shadow,” she sang in her throaty contralto. “Are you as cold as I am?”

“How many fingers have you got left?”

Gloria made a show of counting. “Looks like they’re all still here.”

“In that case, I’m colder,” I said, waving a hand with one finger bent over.

“Freddie, meet Kate Brannigan, my bodyguard. Kate, this is Freddie Littlewood. It’s his job to stop me looking like the raddled old bag I really am.”

“Hi, Freddie.”

He ducked his head in acknowledgment and gave me a quick once-over in the mirror. He had a narrow head and small, tight features framed by spiky black hair. With his black polo neck and black jeans like a second skin, he looked as if he’d escaped from one of those existential French films where you don’t understand a

“It’s surprising how often she gets things right,” Gloria said mildly as he expertly applied powder to her cheeks.

“And how often she causes trouble,” he added drily. “All those sly little hints that people take a certain way and before you know it, old friends are at each other’s throats. You watch, now she’s got you all wound up and scared witless, I bet this week she’ll tell you something that starts you looking out the corner of your eye at one of your best friends.”

“I don’t know why you’ve got it in for Dorothea,” Gloria said. “She’s harmless and we’re all grown-ups.”

“I just don’t like to see you upset, Gloria,” he said solicitously.

“Well, between me and you and the wall, Freddie, it wasn’t what Dorothea said that upset me. I was already in a state. I’d been getting threatening letters. I’d had my tires slashed to ribbons. All Dorothea did was make me realize I should be taking them seriously.”

I could have clobbered her. I’d told her to carry on keeping quiet about the threatening letters and the vandalism, to let everyone think it was Dorothea’s eerie warning that was behind my presence. And here she was, telling all to the man perfectly placed to be the distribution center of the rumor factory. “Nice one, Gloria,” I muttered.

It’s not the people you go up against that make this job a bitch; it’s the clients, every time.

SUN CONJUNCTION WITH MERCURY
She has a lively mind. Her opinions are important to her and she enjoys expressing them. Objectivity sometimes suffers from the strength of her views. Exchanging and acquiring information which she can subsequently analyze matters a lot.
From
Written in the Stars
, by Dorothea Dawson

When she finally finished filming her outdoor scene with Teddy, Gloria announced we were going shopping. I must have looked as dubious as I felt. “Don’t worry, chuck,” she laughed as I drove her into the NPTV compound. “We won’t get mobbed. How do you think I manage when I’ve not got you running around after me?”

I was gobsmacked by the result. I’d seen her in plain clothes already, not least when she’d first come to the office. But this was something else again. I thought I was the mistress of disguise until I met Gloria. When she emerged from her dressing room after a mere ten minutes to slough off Brenda Barrowclough, I nearly let her walk past me. She’d cheated; this wasn’t the outfit she’d worn when I’d driven her to work that morning. Wearing jeans and cowboy boots under a soft nubuck jacket that fell to mid-thigh, the image was entirely different. On her head perched a designer version of a cowboy hat, tilted to a jaunty angle. Instead of sunglasses, she’d gone for a pair of slightly tinted granny glasses that subtly changed the shape of her face. She looked twenty years younger. I wasn’t going to be the only person who wouldn’t instantly recognize Gloria now she’d ditched the wig and adopted a wardrobe that didn’t include polyester.

Thankfully, she didn’t have a major expedition in mind. Her granddaughter had been invited to a fancy dress party and she
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
. “They’ve got outfits at the Disney store, but they cost a fortune and I could make better myself,” Gloria explained as I squeezed the car into a slot in the Arndale Center car park. She never ceased to amaze me. This was a woman who could afford a hundred Esmeralda outfits without noticing the dent in her bank balance. But her pretense of meanness didn’t fool me. Making the costume wasn’t about saving money; it was about giving her granddaughter something of herself. It was also a way, I suspected, of reminding herself of the life she had come from.

We descended a claustrophobic concrete stairwell that reeked so strongly of piss it was a relief to step out into the traffic fumes of High Street. Gloria led me unerringly through the warren of Victorian warehouses that house the city’s rag trade till we fetched up at a wholesaler who specialized in saris. Judging by the warmth of the welcome, she was no stranger. Merely because I was with her, I was offered tea too. While Gloria sipped from a thick pottery mug and browsed the dazzling fabrics, I hung around near the door, peering into the street with the avidity of the truly paranoid. The only people in sight were hurrying through the dank cold of the dying December day, coat collars turned up against the knife edge of the wind that howled through the narrow streets of the Northern Quarter. It wasn’t a day for appreciating the renaissance of yet another part of the inner city. Nobody was going to be browsing the shop windows today. The craft workers must have been blessing their good fortune at having an enclosed market.

We emerged on the street just as darkness was falling, me staggering two steps behind Gloria toting a bale of fabric that felt heavy enough to clothe half of Lancashire. As we approached the Arndale from a slightly different angle, I realized we must be close to Dennis’s latest venture. I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of the double act Dennis and Gloria would be. It had been a long week, and I felt like some light relief, so I said, “A mate of mine has just opened a shop this end of the Arndale. Do you mind if we just drop in to say hello?”

“What kind of shop?”

“You remember what they used to say about how cheap it was

Gloria chuckled. “That good, eh? Oh well, why not? We’ve got nowt else on till tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t think it’ll take that long.”

It wasn’t hard to spot Dennis’s establishment. Sandwiched between a cut-price butcher and a heel bar in the subterranean section of the mall, it was notable for the dump bins of bargains virtually blocking the underpass and the muscle-bound minder keeping an eye on potential shoplifters. All he was wearing was a pair of jogging pants and a vest designed to show off his awesome upper body development. “High-class joint, then,” Gloria remarked as we followed the chicane created by the dump bins, artfully placed to funnel us past whitewashed windows proclaiming, “Everything Under a Pound!” and into the shop.