Dead Beat

by Val McDermid

  Height, five foot, four inches, I typed in. She'd had a good figure too. The snapshots taken before Jett hit the top of the charts looked positively voluptuous. But later, she'd lost weight and her clothes had hung unbecomingly on her. Cutting through Jett's self-reproach, it seemed that Moira had felt increasingly insignificant as Jett became the idol of millions.

  So she had fallen for the scourge of the music industry. I could see how it had happened. Drugs are everywhere in rock, from the fans at the concerts to the recording studios. With Moira, it had all started when Kevin was piling on the pressure for more songs for the third album. She'd started taking speed to stay awake, working through the night with Jett on new songs. Soon she'd moved on to the more intense but shorter high of coke. Then she'd started freebasing coke and before too long she'd been chasing the dragon. Jett hadn't had a clue how to cope, so he'd just ignored it and tried to lose himself in his music.

  Then one night, he'd come home and she hadn't been there. She'd just packed her bags and gone. He'd looked for her in a halfhearted way, asking around her family and friends, but I suspected that deep down he'd felt a kind of relief at not having to deal with her mood swings and erratic behaviour any longer. Now, his fear of falling into musical oblivion had spurred him into taking action. I could see why his entourage were nervous. The Return of the Junkie was not a feature eagerly awaited at Colcutt Manor.

  I finished inputting all my notes, and checked my watch. Half-past six. If I was lucky, I might just be able to short circuit some of the tedium of tracing Moira. Her unusual middle name made the search through any computerised records a lot easier. I picked up the phone and rang Josh, a friend of mine who's a financial broker. In exchange for a slap-up meal every few months, he obligingly does credit checks on individuals for Mortensen and Brannigan.

  His job gives him access to computerised credit records for almost everyone in the British Isles. These records tell him what credit cards they hold, whether they have ever defaulted on a loan, and whether there have ever been County Court judgements against them for debt. Also, if you supply him with a person's full name and date of birth, he can usually come up with an address. Very handy. We could probably hack in to the system and do it ourselves, but we do like to keep things semi-legal when we can. Besides, I like having dinner with Josh.

  The next call I made was to ask for something strictly illegal. One of my neighbours on the estate is a detective constable with the vice squad. He's always happy to earn the twenty-five pounds I slip him for checking people out on the police national computer. If Moira had any kind of criminal record, I'd know by morning.

  There was nothing more I could do that night to trace Moira Pollock. It had been a hell of a day. All I wanted was to go out and kick the shit out of someone. So I decided to do just that.

  6

  I shook my head to clear the sunburst of stars that filled my vision, trying to dodge the next blow. The woman who was bearing down on me was a good three inches taller and twenty pounds heavier than me and there was a mean look in her eyes. I tried to match her glare and circled her warily. She feinted a punch at me, but that opened up her defences and I swung my leg up and round in a short, fast arc. It caught her in the ribs. Even through her body protector, it winded her. She crashed at my feet, and I felt the last of the day's tensions flow out of me.

  It was a burglar who got me into Thai boxing three years ago. Dennis O'Brien is what I like to think of as an honest villain. Although he feeds and clothes his wife and kids with the proceeds of other people's hard work, he's got his own rigid moral code that he adheres to more firmly than most of the supposedly honest citizens I know. Dennis would never rob an old lady, never use shooters, and he only steals from people he thinks can afford to be robbed. He never indulges in mindless vandalism, and always tries to leave houses as tidy as possible. He'd never grass a mate, and the one thing he hates more than anything else is a bent copper. After all, if you can't trust the police, who can you trust?

  I'd been having a drink with Dennis one evening, asking his advice about an office I needed to have a quiet little look round. In return, I was answering his questions about how I work. He'd been outraged when I'd revealed I had no self-defence skills.

  'You want your head mending,' he exploded. "There's a lot of very naughty people out there. They're not all like me, you know. Plenty of villains don't think twice about hitting a woman.'

  I'd laughed and said, 'Dennis, I deal in white-collar crime. The sort of people I'm chasing don't think their fists have the answers.'

  He'd interrupted, saying, 'Bollocks, Kate. Never mind work, living where you live, you need martial arts. I wouldn't bring the milk off the doorstep in your street without a black belt. Tell you what, you meet me tomorrow night and I'll have you sorted in no time.'

  'Sorted' meant taking me to the club where his own teenage daughter was junior Thai boxing champion. I'd had a good look around, decided that the showers and the changing rooms were places where I'd be prepared to take my clothes off, and signed up there and then. I've never regretted it. It keeps me fit and gives me confidence when I'm up against the wall. And time has shown that just because a man has a fifty grand salary and a company Scorpio it doesn't mean he won't resort to violence when he's cornered. As long as the British government never takes us down the criminally insane road of the USA, where every two-bit mugger totes a gun, I guess it's all I'll need to keep me alive.

  Tonight, I'd got what I came for. As I showered afterwards, my whole body felt loose and relaxed. I knew I could go home and listen sympathetically to Richard without biting his head off. And I knew that in the morning I'd be raring to go on the trail of Billy Smart and Moira Pollock.

  I got home just after nine with a carrier bag bursting with goodies from the Leen Hong in Chinatown. I let myself into Richard's house via the conservatory and found him sprawled on the sofa watching A Fish Called Wanda for what must have been the sixth time, a tall glass of Southern Comfort and soda beside him on the floor. Judging by the ashtray, he'd smoked a joint in tribute to each time he'd seen the movie. On the other hand, maybe he just hadn't emptied it for a week.

  'Hi, Brannigan,' he greeted me without moving. 'Is the world still out there?'

  'The important bits of it are in here,' I reported, waving the bag in the air. 'Fancy some salt and pepper ribs?'

  That got a reaction. It's depressing to think that a Chinese takeaway provokes more excitement in my lover than my arrival. Richard jumped off the sofa and hugged me. 'What a woman,' he exclaimed. 'You really know what to give a man when he's down.'

  He let me go and seized the bag from my hand. I went to his kitchen for some plates, but as soon as I looked in and saw the mound of dirty dishes in the sink, I gave up the idea. How Richard can live like this is beyond me, but I've learned the hard way that his priorities are different from mine. A dishwasher is never going to win a contest with an Armani suit. And I refuse to fall into the trap of washing his dishes for him. So I simply took a couple of pairs of chopsticks from a drawer, picked up the kitchen roll and headed back for the living room before Richard polished off all the food. I know from bitter experience just how fast he can go through Chinese food when the dope-induced raging munchies get him in their grip.

  I was pissed off that I couldn't tell him about my assignment from Jett, because I really needed to pick his brains. However, Richard was still smarting from his humiliation the previous evening, and it didn't take much prompting from me to put some more flesh on the bare bones of my information. The only hard part was getting him off the subject of Neil Webster.

  “I just don't understand it,' he kept saying. 'Neil Webster, for God's sake. Nobody, I mean nobody, in the business has got a good word for the guy. He's ripped off more people than I've had hot spring rolls. He got fired from the Daily Clarion for fiddling expenses, you know. And when you think that every journalist in the history of newspapers has fiddled their expenses, you begin to realise just what a dick
head the guy must be.

  'He's been in more bar room brawls than anybody else I know. And he treats people like shit. Rumour was, his first wife had a lot more black eyes than hot dinners from him. After he got the bullet from the Clarion, he set up as a freelance agency in Liverpool. He was bonking this really nice woman who worked for the local paper there. He persuaded her to bankroll him in his new venture. He even promised to marry her. On the day of the wedding, he left her standing like a pillock at the register office. That's when he took off to Spain. After he'd gone, she discovered he'd left her with a five grand phone bill, not to mention a load of other debts. Then her boss found out she'd been putting him down in the credits book for payments for jobs he hadn't actually done, so she got the boot. That's the kind of guy that Kevin thinks is right for the job.' He stopped speaking to attack another rib.

  'Maybe Kevin's got something on Neil, something to keep him in line with,' I suggested.

  'Dunno,' Richard mumbled through his Chinese. He swallowed. 'I guess it was just that Jett wasn't bothered enough about who did it to hold out for me.'

  'Perhaps Kevin wants to make sure it's a whitewash job,' I tried.

  Richard snorted with laughter. 'You mean he thinks he can keep Neil on a leash? He thinks he can tell Neil exactly what to do and Neil will do it? Shit, he's in for a rude awakening. Neil will feather his own nest, regardless of Kevin laying down the law.'

  'Yes, but at the end of the day, Neil's not a rock journalist. You know exactly what stones to turn over, where to start looking if you wanted to dish some dirt, to get behind the headlines to the real story. But Neil doesn't even know where to start, so to some extent, he's going to have to go with whatever Kevin feeds him. And they've got him right where they want him, you know. According to Jett, Neil's got an office and everything right there at Colcutt. He's actually living there while he does the book.'

  "That's exactly what I mean,' Richard pounced. 'Looking after number one. And he's the only one who will come out of this on the up, I'd put money on it. Kevin might think he can control Neil more than he could me, but I'd give you odds that Neil will end up biting the hand that feeds him, just you wait and see.'

  'Sounds like a bad deal for Jett.'

  'Wouldn't be the first time Kevin's done that. And it won't be the last.'

  That sounded fascinating. And it was a good way to get off Neil and on to the other members of Jett's entourage. 'How do you mean?' I asked sweetly, helping myself to more vermicelli before it all disappeared into the human dustbin.

  'Always seems to me that Jett has to work a lot harder than other people at his level in the business. I'd love to pin Kevin down as to why that is.'

  'Maybe he just likes it,' I suggested.

  Richard shook his head. 'Not the amount of stuff he does,' he said. 'He's always on the road for a couple of circuits a year. He should be able to get away with one tour, fewer venues, that sort of thing. On top of that, he's doing an album a year. And even though he hates it, Kevin's always plugging him into chat shows. He even had him doing local radio slots earlier this year, can you believe it? Jett has hardly had any time off, I mean proper time off, for the last four years. He shouldn't have to do that. And the tour merchandise - they really push that stuff. There's nothing laid back about Kevin's operation, and somebody should be asking why. Maybe it is just bad deals, bad judgement. Or maybe they're making sure that when they retire they'll never have to lift a finger again. But if I was Jett, I'd be looking for a new manager.'

  I put some of the lyrics down to sour grapes, but I filed the general melody away for future reference. As Richard tore into the spicy pork, I tried another strategy. 'Couldn't you go ahead anyway and write the unauthorised biography, warts and all?' I asked. 'You must know a lot about the things that Jett wouldn't necessarily want to make public. Like the split with . . . Moira, wasn't it?'

  'Sure, I could spill any amount of beans,” Richard agreed. 'But I don't know if I want to do that. I mean, Jett's a mate.'

  'He's got a funny way of showing it,” I mumbled through a mouthful of beef koon po.

  'It would be the last exclusive I got from him.'

  There are plenty more people in the rock business who trust you,' I replied.

  'But an awful lot of them wouldn't be happy about talking to me if I'd dropped Jett in it,' Richard reasoned.

  'Surely they'd understand why you'd done it?' We were going down a side alley that wasn't taking me any further, but I couldn't help myself. Offering support to Richard was a lot more important to me than helping Jett.

  Richard shrugged. 'I don't know. But anyway, there wouldn't be enough of a market for two books. Jett's not quite in the international megastar league.'

  I got up and helped myself to a bottle of Perrier from the executive drinks fridge Richard keeps in the living room. It had been a birthday present from a friendly roadie who'd stolen it from a Hilton room. 'What if . . .' I said slowly. 'What if you wrote a story for one of the Sunday tabloids. The things you won't be reading in Jett's autobiography, that kind of thing? You must have plenty up your sleeve like that.'

  Wonders will never cease. Richard stopped eating. 'You know, Brannigan, you just might have something there ... If I flogged it on the quiet, they could put a staff reporter's byline on it and that would protect my other contacts.'

  That was enough to open the floodgates. I knew that when he was sober in the cold light of morning, Richard would have changed his mind about plastering Jett across the front pages of the gutter press. But by the time we made our amorous way to bed a couple of hours later, as far as Jett and his entourage were concerned, I had picked Richard's brains as clean as he'd picked the salt and pepper ribs.

  7

  The following morning, the sun was shining and I was full enough of the joys of spring to cycle into work. I was in the office even before Shelley, keying in all the information Richard had unwittingly given me the night before. I couldn't imagine how it could be relevant, but I'd rather have it neatly stored in my database just in case. It's a hell of a lot more reliable than my memory, especially when you consider how many brain cells shuffle off this mortal coil with every vodka and grapefruit juice. God help me if my computer ever gets the taste for Stolichnaya.

  A few minutes after nine, Shelley put a call through to me. It was my friendly neighbourhood copper. Derek's a career constable. He doesn't like the hassle that his seniors have to live with, so he tries to keep his head down whenever promotion is suggested. He does, however, like the vice squad. It makes him feel virtuous and he likes the perks. I've yet to meet a thirsty vice cop.

  'Hi, Kate,' Derek greeted me cheerfully. 'I popped round to the house, but I couldn't get a reply, so I thought I'd try a long shot and call you at the office.'

  'Very funny,' I replied. 'Sorry I missed you, but some of us have to work long hours keeping the streets safe.'

  He chuckled. 'With your respect for the police, Kate, you really should have stuck to being a lawyer. Any road, I've got what you wanted. Your young lady does indeed have a record. First was five years ago. Soliciting. Fifty pound fine. There are three others for soliciting, ending up with two years' probation just over a year ago. There's also Class A possession charge. A small amount of heroin, personal use. She got a three hundred pound fine for that, but the fine must have been paid because there's no record of a warrant for non-payment.'

  I scribbled frantically to keep up with his sad recital of what had become of the talented writer of Jett's best lyrics. 'What address have you got?'

  'I've got as many addresses as there are offences. All in the Chapel town area of Leeds.'

  Just what I needed. I didn't know Leeds well, but I knew enough to know that this was bedsitterland. The kind of area where junkies and prostitutes rub shoulders with the chronically poor and students who try to convince themselves there's something glamorous about such Bohemian surroundings. It isn't an easy belief to sustain, especially after the murderous depredations of the Y
orkshire Ripper ten years ago. I copied down the three latest addresses as Derek read them out at dictation speed. I had no real hopes of them but at least I now knew that when Moira had fled from Jett she'd headed over the Pennines. It was a start.

  I thanked Derek and promised to drop his money in that evening. It looked like I was going to have to go over to Leeds, which meant I wouldn't be looking after the Smart brothers for another day. That didn't worry me as much as it perhaps should have, because they'd followed an identical pattern on the two previous Thursdays. The days I still needed to keep watch were Mondays and Tuesdays when they did most of their irregular deliveries. I knew if Bill was worried about their surveillance he could bring in one of the freelances that we occasionally use for routine jobs when we're overstretched. The extra cash we were making on Jett would more than cover the outlay.

  Before I left, I gave Josh a quick call to see if his computer searches had come up with anything. Like Derek, all he had for me was bad news. When she left Jett, Moira had had a five-star credit rating. Within two years of her departure, she'd run up a string of bad debts that made me wince. She owed everybody - credit cards, store accounts, hire purchase, two major bank loans. There were several County Court judgements against her, and a handful more still pending. The court hadn't been able to find her to serve the papers. That really filled me with confidence. But it also explained why she'd not been staying at any one address for too long.