by Val McDermid
From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson
The desk sergeant at Oldham police station was obviously having about as good an evening as I was. His waiting area was clogged with hacks who’d heard there had been an arrest involving Gloria Kendal. Somewhere inside the station, the three photographers and two reporters were being treated as witnesses. Somewhere else, my part-time process-server and bodyguard was under arrest for breach of the peace and assault. Berserk student batters mob-handed team of journos. Yeah, right.
I pushed my way through the representatives of Her Majesty’s gutter press, waving an ineffectual hand against the cigarette smoke and wondering if force of numbers was the only reason why they were allowed to ignore the “no smoking” notices that everybody else was told to obey. “You’re holding an employee of mine,” I said to the sergeant, trying to keep my voice down. “His solicitor is on her way. I wonder if I might have a word with the arresting officer?”
“And you are?”
“Kate Brannigan.” I pushed a business card across the counter. “Donovan Carmichael works for me. I think we can clear all this up
He picked up the card as if it contained a communicable disease. “I don’t think so,” he said dismissively. “We’re very busy tonight.”
“I was hoping to reduce the burden of work on your officers,” I said, still managing sweetness. “I’m sure there has been some misunderstanding. I don’t know about you, Sergeant, but I hate paperwork. And just thinking about the amount of paperwork that a racism case against GMP would generate gives me a headache. All I want to do is chat to the arresting officer, explain one or two elements of the background that might show the evening’s events in a different light. I really don’t want to spend the next two years running up legal bills that your Chief Constable will end up paying.” I could feel the smile rotting my molars. For some reason, the desk sergeant wasn’t smiling.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
That was clearly my cue to go and sit down. I just carried on smiling and leaning on the counter. “I’ll wait,” I said.
He breathed heavily through his nose and disappeared through a door behind the counter. One of the hacks casually wandered across to me and offered his cigarettes. “I don’t do suicide,” I said. “Quick or slow.”
“Sharp,” he said, slotting in beside me at the counter with a swagger designed to show off his narrow hips and expensive suit. “What’s a spice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
“Just a little local difficulty to sort out,” I said. “What about you? You don’t look like Oldham Man to me.”
He couldn’t resist. “I’m a reporter.”
“Ooh,” I said. “That sounds exciting. Who do you work for?”
I got the full CV, ending with the most notorious national tabloid. He shrugged his shoulders in his jacket, just to make sure I hadn’t missed how gorgeous he was. In his dreams.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s impressive. So what’s the big story tonight?”
“Are you a Northerners fan?” I nodded. “You’ll have read about Dorothea Dawson getting murdered on the set, then?” I nodded again. “Well, a couple of my colleagues got a tip-off from the police
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I had no doubts where this particular leak had come from. That bastard Jackson was getting his own back for being made to look a pillock first by me and Gloria and then by John Turpin. “No!” I gasped, struggling to keep up the pretense in the teeth of my anger.
“I’m telling you, that’s what we heard. So we send out a pic man and a reporter to Gloria’s place, out in Greenfield. She comes out in the car, and our lads are standing at the entrance to her lane, just doing their jobs, trying to get a picture or a story. Then this big black lad comes jumping out of the car and weighs into our lads. One of the reporters calls the police, Gloria shoots off God knows where in the car, and the rest is history.”
“The bodyguard started it?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism out of my voice.
My new friend winked. “Five words against one. Who do you think the cops will believe?”
Not if I had anything to do with it they wouldn’t. But before I could let him know what I thought of the credibility of the press, the door to the station swung open and Ruth sailed in like a Valkyrie on ice, her blonde hair loose for once, falling in a cascade over the silver fake fur. At once, the journalist forgot all about chatting me up and scuttled towards her. “Ruth,” came the cry from several throats. “Tell us what’s going on!”
She swept past them, a snow leopard scattering fleas in her wake. “Later, boys and girls, later. Let me at least speak to my client. Kate,” she greeted me, putting one arm round my shoulders and turning me so that we formed an impenetrable wall of backs as she pressed the button for the desk officer. “You know I can’t take you in with me?” she said, her voice low but audible against the clamor behind us.
“I know. But I want to talk to the arresting officer first, before you all get embroiled in interviews. I want him to know that if they charge Don, I’m filing a racial harassment suit first thing in the morning. I told you about their antics last week, didn’t I?”
“Oh yes. I’m sure we’re not going to have a problem with them.”
“It’s Jackson that’s behind this.” I told her briefly what I’d just learned. There was no time to discuss it further, for the desk officer reappeared.
“I’m Ruth Hunter,” she said. “Here to see my client, Donovan Carmichael. His employer also has some relevant information to place before the arresting officer if you would be so good as to get him here?”
The desk man nodded to a door at the side of the reception area. “He’ll be right out.”
The journalists were still hammering us with questions when the door opened moments later. The uniformed sergeant who emerged looked harried and hassled, his short red hair sticking out at odd angles as if he’d been running a hand through it. His freckles stood out like a rash on skin pallid with tiredness. “Ms. Brannigan?” he asked, looking at Ruth.
“I’m Ruth Hunter, Donovan’s solicitor,” she said. A gentle shove in the small of my back propelled me towards the door. “This is his employer.” Ruth continued her forward movement, sweeping all three of us back through the door and neatly closing it behind us. “A moment of your time before I see my client, Sergeant?”
He nodded and led us into an interview room that looked freshly decorated but still smelled inevitably of stale smoke, sweat and chips. I think they buy it in an aerosol spray. “I’m Sergeant Mumby,” he said, dropping into a chair on one side of the table. “I’m told Ms. Brannigan wanted a word.”
“That’s right,” I said, glad I’d had the chance to forearm myself with information from the smoothie outside. “I don’t want this to sound threatening, but if you charge Donovan tonight, Ms. Hunter’s firm will be making a complaint of racial harassment against GMP. He’s already been arrested twice in the last week for nothing more than being black in the wrong place. Now he’s facing serious charges because five white people who were blocking my client’s private road wouldn’t get out of the way and they didn’t like being told what to do by a young black lad. That’s about the size of it, isn’t it?”
He sighed. “I’ve got five witnesses saying he came at them like a madman, pushing them and shoving them, and that he punched
I caught my breath. “What happened?”
“Just a split lip. He says one of the photographers swung his camera at him; the photographer says Mr. Carmichael tried to head butt him and the camera got in the way.”
I shook my head incredulously. “This is outrageous. Some scummy paparazzo smacks Donovan in the face with a camera then turns round and says he started on them? And Don’s the one facing charges? What has Gloria got to say about all this?”
The sergeant’s lips compressed in a thin line. “We’ve not been able to contact her yet.”
“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 p
leasant 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.”