Peter Lovesey - Stagestruck

‘I can talk as I drive, guv, and I’m inside the speed limit.’

‘Not my limit.’

‘It’s open country for some way ahead.’

‘I’ll look at the country. You keep your eyes on the road. Does she have any obvious enemies?’

‘I can only go by what’s on the internet and in print. She’s not controversial, like some pop stars.’

‘Relationships?’

‘There was a live-in boyfriend for a couple of years. He was Australian, supposedly touring Europe after getting his degree. They split up when he wanted to go back to Sydney and do a Ph.D. He’s still out in Oz, as far as I’m aware. If there’s anyone else she’s serious about, she’s kept them well hidden.’

‘Does she do drugs?’

She laughed faintly. ‘Don’t they all at some point? Put it this way: she’s not well known for it.’

‘How does she spend her money then?’

‘Property. She has apartments in London and New York and a manor house near Tunbridge Wells.’

‘A home-loving girl, then.’

‘It doesn’t stop her from eating out and clubbing.’

‘Who with?’

‘Lately with the agent we met, Tilda Box.’

That intrigued him. ‘They go to nightclubs together?’

‘There are plenty of magazine pictures to prove it. Tilda entered her life last year when the singing career seemed to be on the slide. She steered her into acting.’

‘Is Tilda successful as an agent?’

‘I wouldn’t know, except she doesn’t seem to have any well-known clients apart from Clarion.’

‘And she’s very protective of her. Is Clarion bi, do you think?’

‘I haven’t seen it suggested anywhere. The media are quick on anything like that.’

‘If she’s straight, she’d surely not want Tilda with her on a regular basis.’

‘You could be wrong there, guv. A lot of women feel more comfortable with their own sex as company. If the break-up with the Australian guy hurt her, she may be pleased to coast along for a bit with this Tilda, who smooths the way and makes her feel better about herself. Do you want to hear her sing? I picked up one of her singles last night. Top of the stack.’

‘What do I do?’

She told him how to insert the disc, and Clarion’s chirpy notes took over, balanced by an energising drumbeat. The words were hard to follow and the voice didn’t sound anything special to Diamond’s ear, but pop music wasn’t one of his strengths.

‘Is this from the latest album?’

‘To be fair, it’s not her best. She’s trying for a hip-hop sound and it doesn’t come off.’

‘This was made before Tilda came on the scene?’

‘Right.’

‘Who was advising her then?’

‘There would have been a creative team looking after the music. She had a manager called Declan Dean and he should have been on top of the business side. Somewhere it wasn’t working and she left him.’

‘At some point every singer’s career tails off,’ he said. ‘It’s a competitive market.’

‘Highly. Yes, it may just have been the laws of commerce working, but someone has to carry the can.’

‘She blamed this Declan?’

‘It wasn’t so obvious at the time, but it’s been seeping out since, in her blog.’

‘She has a blog?’

‘They all do and most of them are dire. It’s about digital exposure in the pop landscape. If you don’t blog, you won’t survive.’

‘What kind of stuff does she write in the blog?’

‘You wouldn’t find it instructive. Films she’s seen and would tip for an Oscar. Good meals she’s eaten.’

Clarion’s singing was getting too much. ‘How do I turn this down?’

She pointed to the volume switch. ‘She was a tad more interesting last week, doing her best to plug the play. She was on about learning lines and rehearsing. Of course the blog stopped on Monday. She could easily start up again now, but I guess the lawyers will have closed her down.’

‘How would she blog from a hospital bed?’

‘Using her iPhone. It would ease the boredom.’

They drove back into Bath and Manvers Street. Before anything else, Diamond arranged for the box containing the towel to be driven to the Home Office forensic lab at Chepstow. He’d been impressed by Pinch, but he still needed official confirmation of the findings.

As promised, Keith Halliwell had the authorised search warrant ready.

‘Inge will drive us to Dolemeads,’ Diamond said.

‘Actually, guv, I was hoping for a few words in private,’ Halliwell said.

‘No problem. You can drive me there and we’ll talk on the way. I’ll tell Inge to meet us. I want her in on this.’

In the car, it emerged that Sergeant Dawkins was the problem.

‘He’s an oddball,’ Halliwell started to say.

‘Tell me something new,’ Diamond said.

‘I can’t think how he managed to convince the ACC he was CID material. He means well – I think – but he says the strangest things. Our civilian women got the idea he was put in to spy on them. He was going on about time and motion. You remember when every business brought in time and motion experts to improve efficiency?’

This angered Diamond. ‘Bloody nerve. He’s got no right to talk to my staff like that. Time and motion. It’s old hat, anyway.’

‘I know, but it made everyone nervous. I told him to shut up about it and he didn’t seem to understand what the fuss was about.’

‘I’ll tear some strips off him. I thought leaving him in the office was the best option. Now I’m not so sure.’

‘He’s in a world of his own.’

‘It’s when his world collides with ours that things go belly up.’

They crossed the river to the cheap housing of the Dole-meads estate, on the flood plain of the Avon. Excelsior Street was one of the first to be built after the clearance of a notorious Victorian slum known locally as Mud Island, where the houses were chronically damp and regularly flooded. In the first years of the twentieth century the site was raised by as much as twelve feet and a prestigious new council estate erected, not in the local stone, but red brick.

Ingeborg was waiting outside Denise Pearsall’s narrow terraced house. She said she’d tried the doorbell and got no response. She’d spoken to the neighbours who described Denise as a very private lady. They hadn’t seen her since the weekend.

Halliwell had brought an enforcer, the miniature battering ram used to open locked doors. ‘Before we use that,’ Diamond said, ‘let’s see if there’s an easier way.’ By sliding a loyalty card between door and jamb, he freed the latch and opened up.

In the narrow hallway, the morning’s post of junk mail showed Denise had not been there for a day or two. Ingeborg was sent to search upstairs while the men inspected the living room and kitchen. The interior was clean and decorated in pastel shades of pink and blue. The only messages on the answerphone were several from the theatre asking Denise to make contact as soon as possible.

The tidiness made for an easy search. If her home was any guide, Denise was organised to the point of compulsion. Even the fridge magnets were in rows you could have checked with a ruler.

It didn’t take long to discover that her professional makeup kit wasn’t in the house. Ingeborg found some lipsticks and creams in the bedroom that were obviously for personal use and there were a few sticks of greasepaint in a drawer downstairs that they put into evidence bags.

‘She’ll have her main stuff in the car,’ Diamond said. ‘We’ve got to find that soon.’

Halliwell picked a magazine from the rack in the living room. ‘How about this, guv?’

Clarion was on the cover of a celebrity mag.

‘Good spotting, but it’s hardly incriminating. Show me a page with her picture defaced and I might get excited.’