by Val McDermid
From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson
My second evening bodyguarding Gloria Kendal taught me that I really should pay more attention to the client. The evening engagement I’d so blithely agreed to turned out to be another of the nights from hell that seemed to be how Gloria spent her free time. That night, she was guest of honor at the annual dinner dance of the ladies’ division of the North West branch of the Association of Beverage and Victuals Providers. I’ve never been in the same room as that much hairspray. If taste were IQ, there would only have been a handful of them escaping Special Needs education. I’d thought the Blackburn outfit would have blended in nicely at a women-only dinner, but I was as flash as a peahen at a peacock convention. I should have realized Gloria wasn’t wearing those sequins and diamanté for a bet.
About ten minutes after we arrived in Ormskirk, I sussed this wasn’t one of those dinners you go to for the food. I know ’70s food is coming back into fashion, but the Boar and Truffle’s menu of prawn cocktail, boeuf bourguignon and, to crown it all, Black Forest gateau, owed nothing to the Style Police or the foodies. You could tell that every cooking fashion in the intervening twenty years had passed them by. This was a dinner my Granny Brannigan would have recognized and approved of. It wasn’t entirely surprising; nobody who had any choice in the matter would spend a
The landladies, most of whom almost certainly served better pub grub back home, didn’t care. The only function of the food they were interested in was its capacity to line the stomach and absorb alcohol. It wasn’t a night to be the designated driver, never mind bodyguard.
Gloria was on fine form, though. She’d heeded what I’d said about keeping her back to the wall and trying to make sure there was a table between her and her admirers. It wasn’t easy, given how many of the female publicans of the North West desperately needed to have their photographs taken in a clinch with my client. But she smiled and smiled, and drank her gin and made a blisteringly funny and scathing speech that would have had a rugby club audience blushing.
“I’m sorry you’ve been landed with all this ferrying me around,” she said as I drove across the flat fields of the Fylde towards the motorway and civilization.
“Who normally does it?” I asked.
“A pal of mine. He got the sack last year for being over fifty. He’s not going to get another job at his age. He enjoys the driving and it gives him a few quid in his back pocket.” She yawned and reached for her cigarettes. It was her car, so I didn’t feel I could complain. Instead, I opened the window. Gloria shivered at the blast of cold air and snorted with laughter. “Point taken,” she said, shoving the cigarettes back in her bag. “How much longer do you think we’re going to have to be joined at the hip?”
“Depends on you,” I said. “I don’t think you’ve got a stalker. I’ve seen no signs of anybody following us, and I’ve had a good look around where you live. There’s no obvious vantage point for anybody to stake out your home—”
“One of the reasons I bought it,” Gloria interrupted. “Those bloody snappers with their long lenses make our lives a misery, you know. All those editors, they all made their holier-than-thou Sun’s readers have any right to know whether I’m having Busy Lizzies or lobelia this year.”
“So that probably confirms that whoever has been sending the letters is connected to the show; they can keep tabs on you because they see you at work every day. And they can pick up background details quite easily, it seems to me. The cast members talk quite freely among themselves and you don’t have to set out to eavesdrop to pick up all sorts of personal information. I’ve only been on the set for a couple of days and already I know Paul Naylor’s seeing an acupuncturist in Chinatown for his eczema, Rita Hardwick’s husband breeds pugs and Tiffany Joseph’s bulimic. Another week and I’d have enough background information to write threatening letters to half the cast.” What I didn’t say was that another week among the terminally self-obsessed, and threatening letters would be the least of what I’d be up for.
“It’s not a pretty thought, that. Somebody that knows me hates me enough to want me to be frightened. I don’t like that idea one little bit.”
“If the letters and the tire slashing are connected, then it almost certainly has to be somebody at NPTV, you know. Of course, it is possible that the tire slasher isn’t the letter writer, just some sicko who took advantage of your concern over the letters to wind you up. I’ve asked you this before, but you’ve had time to think about it now: are you sure there isn’t anybody you’ve pissed off that might just be one scene short of a script?”
Gloria shook her head. “Come on, chuck. You’ve spent time with me now. You’ve seen the way I am with the folk I work with. I’m a long way off perfect, but I don’t wind them up like certain other people I could mention.”
“I’d noticed,” I said drily. “The thing is, now everybody at NPTV knows you’re taking what Dorothea said seriously. The person who wrote you those letters is basking in a sense of power, which means that he or she probably won’t feel the need to carry
“You’re sure I’ll be safe? I’m not a silly woman, in spite of how I come across, but what Dorothea said really scared me, coming on top of the business with the tires. She’s not given to coming the spooky witch, you know.”
“When is she in next?”
“Day after tomorrow. Do you want to see her?”
“I want to interview her, not have a consultation,” I said hastily.
“Oh, go on,” Gloria urged. “Have it on me. You don’t have to take it seriously.” She opened her bag and took out a pen and one of the postcard-sized portraits of herself she carried everywhere for the fans who otherwise would have had her signing everything from their library books to any available part of their anatomies. “Give us your time, date and place of birth.” She snapped on the interior light, making me blink hard against the darkness. “Come on, sooner you tell me, the sooner you get the light off again.”
“Oxford,” I said. “Fourth of September, 1966.”
“Now why am I not surprised you’re a Virgo?” Gloria said sarcastically as she turned off the light. “Caligula, Jimmy Young, Agatha Christie, Cecil Parkinson, Raine Spencer and you.”
“Which proves it’s a load of old socks,” I said decisively. A couple of miles down the road, it hit me. “How come you can rattle off a list of famous Virgoans?”
“I married one. Well, not a famous one. And divorced him. I wish I’d known Dorothea then. Virgo and Leo? She’d never have let it happen. A recipe for disaster.”
“Aren’t you taking a bit of a chance, working with me?”
Gloria laughed, that great swooping chuckle that gets the nation grinning when things are going right for Brenda Barrowclough. “Working’s fine. Nobody grafts harder than a Virgo. You see the detail while I only get the big picture. And you never give up. No, you’ll do fine for me.”
It’s funny how often clients forget they’ve said that when a case
It was almost one when I walked through my own front door. Both my house and Richard’s were illuminated only by the dirty orange of the sodium streetlights. I’d hoped he’d be home; I was suffering from what my best friend Alexis calls NSA — Non-Specific Anxiety — and my experience of self-medicating has told me the best cure is a cuddle. But it looked like he was doing whatever it is that rock journos do in live music venues in the middle of the night. It probably involved drugs, but Richard never touches anything stronger than joints and these days all the cops do with cannabis is confiscate it for their own use, so I wasn’t worried on that score.
I turned on the kitchen light, figuring a mug of hot chocolate might prevent the vague feeling of unease from keeping me awake. I couldn’t miss the sheet of paper stuck under a fridge magnet. “Babysitting for Alexis + Chris. Staying over. See you tomorrow. Big kisses.” I didn’t need to be a handwriting expert to know it was from my besotted lover. The only problem was, it wasn’t me he was besotted with.
I’d know how to f
ight back if it was a beautiful blonde waving her perfectly rounded calves at him. But how exactly can a woman keep her dignity and compete with a nine-month-old baby girl?
The following day, we were let out to play. Because Northerners traded so heavily on its connection to Manchester, the city of cool, they had to reinforce the link with regular exterior and interior shots of identifiable landmarks. It had led to a profitable spin-off for NPTV, who now ran Northerners tours at weekends. The punters would stay in the very hotel where Pauline Pratt and Gordon Johnstone had consummated their adulterous affair, then they’d be whisked off on a walking tour that took in sites from key episodes. They’d see the tram line where Diane Grimshaw committed suicide, the alley where Brenda Barrowclough was mugged, the jewelry shop that was robbed while Maureen and Phil Pomeroy were choosing an engagement ring. They’d have lunch in
To keep that particular gravy train running, the show had to film on the streets of the city at least once a month. That day, they were filming a series of exterior shots at various points along the refurbished Rochdale Canal. According to Gloria, a new producer was determined to stamp his authority on the soap with a series of themed episodes. The linking theme of this particular week was the idea of the waterway providing a range of backdrops, from the sinister to the seriously hip. Gloria had drawn the short straw of an argument with Teddy outside Barca, Mick Hucknall’s chic Catalan bistro. On a summer afternoon, it might have been a pleasant diversion. On a bleak December morning, it was about as much fun as sunbathing in Siberia. It took forever to film because trains and trams would keep rattling across the high brick viaducts above our heads when the cameras were rolling.
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