by Val McDermid
“Worst comes to worst, we wait till he goes to sleep. Just relax. But not too much. Don’t want you snoring,” Dennis muttered, clutching my hand in a tightly comforting grip. We endured a few more seconds of aural hell, then blessed silence apart from the thudding of two hearts under John Turpin’s spare bed. If he’d had parquet floors instead of carpet, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. Then a click, a bleep and a replay of Deirdre’s attempt at sultry seductiveness, thankfully muffled. I heard the clatter of a handset being picked up and the electronic stutter of a number being keyed in. Amazing how certain sounds travel and others don’t. At first all I could hear of Turpin’s voice was a low rumble. Then, as he mounted the stairs and walked into his bedroom, I could hear every word.
“… halfway down the motorway when it dawned on me. When I’d asked this supposed security man if he’d called Peter Beckman, he’d said Peter was already on his way in. But Peter’s taken a couple of days off this week to go to some stupid Christmas market in Germany with his wife. So I rang him on his mobile, and he’s only having dinner in some floating restaurant on the bloody Rhine.” I heard the sound of shoes being kicked off.
“Well, I know,” he continued after a short pause. “So I rang studio security and they denied any report of a break-in or any call to me … No, I don’t think so. It’ll be some bloody technicians’ Christmas party, some idiot’s idea of a joke, let’s bugger up Turpin’s evening …” Another pause. “Oh, all right, I’ll check, but the alarm was on … Yes, I’m just going to get changed, and I’ll be right over. You know how I feel about Clitheroe sausages for breakfast,” he added suggestively. I was going to have serious trouble with sausages for a while, I could tell.
I strained my ears and picked up the sound of sliding doors open and close, then faint sounds like someone doing exactly what Turpin had said. I heard the bathroom door open, the sound of a light cord being pulled once, twice, and the door closing. A door moved over carpet pile, a light switch snapped twice. The study. He was checking, just like he’d told Deirdre he would. My throat constricted, my muscles went rigid. Gizmo’s CD-ROM was still in Turpin’s drive. Where had I left the CD I’d taken out of it? Dennis’s
I felt the tension slowly leaking out of my body. We’d got away with it. Turpin was going out again. The terrible irony was that if we’d waited quarter of an hour longer before Dennis had made his hoax call, Deirdre would have saved us the trouble and I’d not have lost five years off my life expectancy. Dennis let go of my hand. I patted his arm in thanks.
Finally, the alarm was reset and the low thrum of Turpin’s car engine dimmed in the distance. “Now what?” I asked.
“He’s gone for the night. You’ve got hours to play with,” Dennis said cheerfully.
“The alarm’s on. As soon as we move out from under the bed, Lostock calls the cavalry. And for all we know, Clitheroe sausages is only a couple of hundred yards away.”
Dennis chuckled. “The trouble with you, Kate, is you worry too much. Now me, I’ve got the advantage of a commando training. Cool under pressure.”
I poked him sharply in the ribs, enjoying the squeal that accompanied the rush of air. “You can’t get the staff these days,” I said sweetly. “I’ll just lie here and meditate while you get it sorted.” It’s called whistling in the dark.
In the dim gleam from the landing, I watched as Dennis rolled on to his stomach and propelled himself across the floor using toes, knees, elbows and fingers for purchase. Keeping belly to the carpet made it a slow crawl, but it was effective. The little red light on the passive infrared detector perched in the corner of the room stayed unlit. He disappeared round the corner of the door and my stomach started eating itself. I badly needed to go to the loo.
Time stretched to impossible lengths. I wondered if Dennis was going downstairs head first or feet first. I wondered whether the keypad itself was covered by an infrared detector. I wondered whether it was possible to install detectors that didn’t show they’d been activated. I even wondered if Turpin was paranoid enough to have installed one of those silent alarms that rang in a remote control center staffed by battle-hungry security guards. I wondered
Suddenly the main alarm klaxon gave a single whoop. Shocked, I cracked my head on the underside of the bed in my manic scramble to get out from under there. “It’s all right,” Dennis shouted. “It’s off.”
He found me sitting on the landing carpet gingerly fingering the egg on my forehead. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” I groaned. “Jesus, Dennis, if I was a cat I’d be on borrowed lives after tonight.”
“Never mind whingeing, let’s get done and get out of here,” he said. “I fancy a night in with the wife.”
“I didn’t realize you’d been banged up that long,” I said tartly, getting to my feet and heading back into Turpin’s study, this time via the loo. I was amazed we’d got away with it; directly in the line of sight from the doorway was a CD gleaming like a beacon on Turpin’s desk.
Ransacking his secrets took less time than I expected. Less time, certainly, than I deserved, given how overdrawn my luck must have been that night. We let ourselves out of the front door just after midnight. I dropped Dennis outside his front door half an hour later and drove home on freshly gritted roads. For once, Richard was home alone, awake and ardent. Unfortunately I felt older than God and about as sexy as a Barbie doll so he made me cocoa and didn’t say a word against me crashing alone in my own bed. It must be love.
I think.
I was constructing the fire wall between me and the evidence when Gizmo stuck his head round my office door next morning. “What’s happening?” he asked.
“I’m trying to make this stuff look like it came through the letterbox,” I said, waving a hand at the pile of material I’d amassed from John Turpin’s office. “It’s all sorted now, except for the computer files. All I can do is enclose a floppy copy with a printed note of where to find the original files on Turpin’s hard disk. But it’s not conclusive.”
Gizmo sidled into the room, looking particularly smart in one of
The top sheet revealed John Turpin’s present shareholding in NPTV as well as details of his future potential share options. I whistled softly. Even a movement in share price of a few pence could make a significant difference to Turpin’s personal wealth. Next came what were clearly commercially sensitive details of NPTV’s current negotiations with a cable TV company. I didn’t even want to know where this stuff had come from. What was clear from the terms of the deal was that if certain levels of viewing figures were reached in the twelve months either side of the deal, senior executives of NPTV — among them John Turpin — were going to be a lot richer than they were now.
The last sheet was the killer. Somehow, Gizmo had got his sticky fingers on the details of a transaction carried out by John Turpin’s stockbroker on his behalf. The order for a tranche of NPTV shares had been placed on the day of Dorothea Dawson’s murder. According to the computerized time code on the order, Turpin had instructed his broker in the short space of time between Gloria and me leaving the camper van and the police arriving in response to my call.
I looked up at Gizmo. “I suppose he thought he’d be too busy later on to get his order in. And then he’d have lost the edge that killing Dorothea had given him.”
“You mean he killed her just to push up the program ratings and make himself richer?” Gizmo said, clearly shocked.
“I think that was just a bonus. He actually killed her because she’d sussed that he was the mole leaking the storylines to the papers. Ironically, she had powerful reasons for keeping quiet about his involvement, but he didn’t believe her. He thought she was going to blackmail him or expose him, and he wasn’t prepared to take that risk. He just bided his time till he found the right opportunity.”
Gizmo shook his head. “It never ceases to amaze me, what people will do for money. People always say shit like it buys you
Philosophy for breakfast now. It had to be better t
han Clitheroe sausages, I thought with a bitter smile. I hoped Turpin was making the most of it. He’d be a fair few years older before he tasted anything other than prison food. With a sigh, I picked up the phone and managed to persuade the police switchboard to connect me to Linda Shaw. “Hi, Sergeant,” I said. “It’s Kate Brannigan.”
“Oh yes,” she said, her voice guarded.
“I’ve something at the office I think you might like to see,” I told her.
“Oh yes? And what would that be?” She sounded neutral. I guessed Jackson was within hearing range.
“You need to see it to get the full effect. I can promise you it’ll help your clear-up rate.”
“I’d heard you’ve already contributed to that this week,” she said tartly. “I can’t say I’d like to share the experience.”
“This is different,” I said firmly. “Please, Linda. I’m trying to do us both a favor here. You know and I know that if I approach Jackson his first instinct will be to rubbish what I’ve got. And that could mean a murderer walking. You don’t want that any more than I do. So will you come round?”
“Give me an hour,” she said, a noticeable lack of enthusiasm in her voice.
It couldn’t have suited me better. An hour was perfect for what I had to do.
Given the grief I’d already had over the Perfect Son, I’d expected Shelley to rip Gloria’s face off and send her home with it in a paper bag. Instead, Gloria got the star treatment. Apparently, according to Shelley, if her boy was with Gloria, he couldn’t be getting into the kind of trouble I organized especially for him on a daily basis. But Gloria, being a mother herself, would understand Shelley’s concerns. Gloria patted Shelley’s hand, sympathized and told her what a credit to his mother the Perfect Son was. Donovan shifted
Eventually, I managed to shoo Gloria into my office. She did a double take when she saw Freddie perched uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa. I’d promised him there was no reason why anyone had to know he was Dorothea’s son or that he’d been the major mole, but his body language didn’t actually indicate conviction. When Gloria walked in, his face spasmed in panic. “Gloria,” he stammered, jerking to his feet and taking an involuntary sideways step away from her.
“Hiya, chuck,” she said warmly, collapsing on to the sofa. “You another one of Kate’s mystery witnesses, then?”
“Er … yes. She never mentioned you were coming …” He shot me a look that said he’d never trust a private eye again. I wouldn’t have minded so much if I’d lied to him, but I hadn’t. Well, not so’s you’d notice.
We didn’t have long to wait for Linda. She came in with more attitude than a rap band. “This better be good,” she said even before she got across the threshold. I waved her to a chair and leaned against my desk.
“Since you’re all so thrilled to be here, I’ll keep it short as I can. There’s been a mole at NPTV making a small fortune out of selling scandal stories and advance storylines to the press. Dorothea Dawson thought she had worked out the identity of that mole by studying her astrological charts and matching what they told her against the names of people who had access to advance stories and who were in a position to find out about the murky pasts of the cast.” I nodded towards Freddie.
“You might remember Freddie here. He works in the make-up department at Northerners. Freddie witnessed an encounter between Dorothea and a senior management figure at NPTV. Freddie, can you tell DS Shaw what you told me last night?”
He was so overwhelmed with relief that I hadn’t after all revealed either of his secrets that he told the story we’d agreed
“What did Turpin say?” I asked.
“He went bright red. He told her if he wanted to waste the company’s money, there were plenty of perfectly good charities. Then he just stomped out without doing whatever it was he’d come in for.”
“Turpin might well have interpreted Dorothea’s comments as an indirect blackmail threat,” I pointed out.
Linda had listened with her head cocked to one side, critically appraising his words. Then she gave a slight nod. I was about to say more, but she raised one finger and made a series of notes in her pad. “Interesting,” she said.
“There’s more.”
“I’m sure,” she said.
“You’ve already taken a statement from Gloria about the events of the evening when Dorothea was killed. I don’t know if you remember, but she had a far better opportunity than I did to take notice of who else was in and around the car park at the same time. Among the people she saw was that same NPTV executive, John Turpin. Maybe you’d like to confirm that for us, Gloria?”
My client nodded avidly. “That’s right, chuck,” she said eagerly. She was loving every minute of it, just as I’d expected. I hadn’t really needed her there, but she was paying the bill, and I figured a bit of grand-standing might just be worth a Christmas bonus. “I saw John Turpin standing in the doorway of the admin block. He looked as if he was wondering whether it was worth chancing getting his good suit wet in the sleet.”
“Thanks for confirming that, Ms. Kendal. But we did know that already, Kate,” Linda pointed out, not even bothering to make a note this time.
“I’m just sketching in the background, Linda,” I said apologetically. “I became involved in this case because Gloria here was getting death-threat letters. She hired me to take care of her.”
“Which you and yours have done admirably,” the irrepressible Gloria chipped in.
“Thank you, Gloria. I may need that testimonial before long,” I said. “This morning, when I unlocked the office, there was a padded envelope in the mailbox.” I produced an envelope from the desk behind me.
“Inside was an assortment of papers and a floppy disk. The disk contains what I believe are the originals of the letters sent to my client. A note attached to the floppy claims that the originals are to be found on the hard disk of John Turpin’s home computer. I’d have thought that might be grounds for a search warrant?”
Linda grunted noncommittally, frowning at the disk and the note I handed her. “Why would he target you specifically, Gloria?” she asked.
“I haven’t a clue, chuck,” she said. “The only thing I can think of is that I’m the only one of the show’s really big names who lives alone, so maybe he thought I’d be easiest to scare. Mind you, he’s never entirely forgiven me for our Sandra giving him the elbow all those years ago.”
“What?” Linda and I chorused.
“He took our Sandra out for a few weeks, years ago now. Before she met Keith. Any road, she decided he wasn’t for her and she chucked him. He wasn’t best pleased. He’s never had a civil word for me since.”
All I could do was stare at her and shake my head. I love clients who go out of their way to make the job easier. I just don’t seem to get many. I took a deep breath while Linda took more notes.
“Also in the envelope.” I placed more papers in front of her. “A photocopy of Turpin’s phone bills, home and mobile. A photocopy of what looks like a Rolodex card, giving the number of Tina Marshall. She’s the freelance journalist who broke a substantial number of the Northerners stories in the press. Check out the number of calls to her number. I think you’ll find most of them were made a few days before a big Northerners story broke.”
Linda was now sitting upright, totally focused on the papers in front of her. Her finger flicked to and fro. Then she looked me straight in the eye. “This fell through your letterbox,” she said flatly.
“That’s right. It seemed to be my civic duty to pass it on to you, Sergeant.” I rummaged inside the envelope. “There is more.” I handed her the material Gizmo had culled from his electronic sources. More for Gloria and Freddie’s benefit than Linda’s, I ran through the contents.
“And at the time when he placed that order for NPTV stock,” I wound up, “only the killer could have known that the viewing figures were about to climb sky-high on the back of Dorothea Dawson’s murder.”
“Hellfire, Kate,
you’ve done wonders,” my grateful client said. “I can sleep easy in my bed at night now.”
“I’m glad,” I said. Not least because I could get Donovan back on the work he was supposed to be doing. I turned back to Linda. “Taken together, it’s a hard conclusion to resist.”
“It’d be easier for my boss to swallow if the information came from somewhere else,” she said resignedly.
“Howsabout if it does?” I asked. “It won’t take five minutes for Gizmo to walk down to Bootle Street and leave it in an envelope at the front counter with your name on it. You can tell Jackson you’ve been out taking a statement from Freddie about Dorothea’s conversation with Turpin and then when you got back to the office, hey presto! There it was. You can leave me out of it altogether.”
“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