Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

“It’s surprising how often she gets things right,” Gloria said mildly as he expertly applied powder to her cheeks.

“And how often she causes trouble,” he added drily. “All those sly little hints that people take a certain way and before you know it, old friends are at each other’s throats. You watch, now she’s got you all wound up and scared witless, I bet this week she’ll tell you something that starts you looking out the corner of your eye at one of your best friends.”

“I don’t know why you’ve got it in for Dorothea,” Gloria said. “She’s harmless and we’re all grown-ups.”

“I just don’t like to see you upset, Gloria,” he said solicitously.

“Well, between me and you and the wall, Freddie, it wasn’t what Dorothea said that upset me. I was already in a state. I’d been getting threatening letters. I’d had my tires slashed to ribbons. All Dorothea did was make me realize I should be taking them seriously.”

I could have clobbered her. I’d told her to carry on keeping quiet about the threatening letters and the vandalism, to let everyone think it was Dorothea’s eerie warning that was behind my presence. And here she was, telling all to the man perfectly placed to be the distribution center of the rumor factory. “Nice one, Gloria,” I muttered.

It’s not the people you go up against that make this job a bitch; it’s the clients, every time.

She has a lively mind. Her opinions are important to her and she enjoys expressing them. Objectivity sometimes suffers from the strength of her views. Exchanging and acquiring information which she can subsequently analyze matters a lot.

From Written in the Stars , by Dorothea Dawson

When she finally finished filming her outdoor scene with Teddy, Gloria announced we were going shopping. I must have looked as dubious as I felt. “Don’t worry, chuck,” she laughed as I drove her into the NPTV compound. “We won’t get mobbed. How do you think I manage when I’ve not got you running around after me?”

I was gobsmacked by the result. I’d seen her in plain clothes already, not least when she’d first come to the office. But this was something else again. I thought I was the mistress of disguise until I met Gloria. When she emerged from her dressing room after a mere ten minutes to slough off Brenda Barrowclough, I nearly let her walk past me. She’d cheated; this wasn’t the outfit she’d worn when I’d driven her to work that morning. Wearing jeans and cowboy boots under a soft nubuck jacket that fell to mid-thigh, the image was entirely different. On her head perched a designer version of a cowboy hat, tilted to a jaunty angle. Instead of sunglasses, she’d gone for a pair of slightly tinted granny glasses that subtly changed the shape of her face. She looked twenty years younger. I wasn’t going to be the only person who wouldn’t instantly recognize Gloria now she’d ditched the wig and adopted a wardrobe that didn’t include polyester.

Thankfully, she didn’t have a major expedition in mind. Her granddaughter had been invited to a fancy dress party and she The Hunchback of Notre Dame . “They’ve got outfits at the Disney store, but they cost a fortune and I could make better myself,” Gloria explained as I squeezed the car into a slot in the Arndale Center car park. She never ceased to amaze me. This was a woman who could afford a hundred Esmeralda outfits without noticing the dent in her bank balance. But her pretense of meanness didn’t fool me. Making the costume wasn’t about saving money; it was about giving her granddaughter something of herself. It was also a way, I suspected, of reminding herself of the life she had come from.

We descended a claustrophobic concrete stairwell that reeked so strongly of piss it was a relief to step out into the traffic fumes of High Street. Gloria led me unerringly through the warren of Victorian warehouses that house the city’s rag trade till we fetched up at a wholesaler who specialized in saris. Judging by the warmth of the welcome, she was no stranger. Merely because I was with her, I was offered tea too. While Gloria sipped from a thick pottery mug and browsed the dazzling fabrics, I hung around near the door, peering into the street with the avidity of the truly paranoid. The only people in sight were hurrying through the dank cold of the dying December day, coat collars turned up against the knife edge of the wind that howled through the narrow streets of the Northern Quarter. It wasn’t a day for appreciating the renaissance of yet another part of the inner city. Nobody was going to be browsing the shop windows today. The craft workers must have been blessing their good fortune at having an enclosed market.

We emerged on the street just as darkness was falling, me staggering two steps behind Gloria toting a bale of fabric that felt heavy enough to clothe half of Lancashire. As we approached the Arndale from a slightly different angle, I realized we must be close to Dennis’s latest venture. I couldn’t help smiling at the thought of the double act Dennis and Gloria would be. It had been a long week, and I felt like some light relief, so I said, “A mate of mine has just opened a shop this end of the Arndale. Do you mind if we just drop in to say hello?”

“What kind of shop?”

“You remember what they used to say about how cheap it was

Gloria chuckled. “That good, eh? Oh well, why not? We’ve got nowt else on till tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t think it’ll take that long.”

It wasn’t hard to spot Dennis’s establishment. Sandwiched between a cut-price butcher and a heel bar in the subterranean section of the mall, it was notable for the dump bins of bargains virtually blocking the underpass and the muscle-bound minder keeping an eye on potential shoplifters. All he was wearing was a pair of jogging pants and a vest designed to show off his awesome upper body development. “High-class joint, then,” Gloria remarked as we followed the chicane created by the dump bins, artfully placed to funnel us past whitewashed windows proclaiming, “Everything Under a Pound!” and into the shop.

By the door were three tills, all staffed by slack-jawed teenagers. The girls were the ones with the mascara. I think. Dennis was up near the back of the shop, stacking shelves with giant bottles of lurid green bath foam. We squeezed up a narrow aisle packed with weary shoppers who had the look and smell of poverty. My awkward parcel of material earned me a few hard words and a lot of harder looks.

Of course, I didn’t get anywhere near Dennis before he noticed us. I swear that man has eyes in the back of his head. “Kate,” he said, his face creasing up in a delighted grin. “Fabulous!” He cleared a way through for us, telling his customers to kindly move their arses or take the consequences. “So, what do you think?” he asked almost before I was within bear-hug reach.

I gave the shelves the quick once-over. Exactly what I’d expected. Cheap and nasty, from the toys to the toiletries. “I think you’re going to make a mint,” I said sadly, depressed at the reminder of how many skint punters there are out there who needed to fill Christmas stockings on a weekly budget of the same amount that most MPs spend on lunch.

“Are you not going to introduce us, chuck?” Gloria said. I half turned to find her giving Dennis the appraising look of a farmer at a fatstock show. That was all I needed. Dennis has a habit of

“I don’t think so,” I said. “This is just a flying visit.”

I was too late. Dennis was already sliding round me and extending a hand to Gloria. “Dennis O’Brien at your service, darling,” he said. Gloria slid her hand into his and he raised it to his lips, all the time fixing her with the irresistible sparkle of his intense blue eyes. I groaned.