Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

“Aye,” said Rita. “And the ones above you in the pecking order reckon you need cutting down to size before you start snapping too close at their heels. Not that there’s many above you these days, Glo.”

“Stuff like this shows you who your real friends are,” Gloria added.

“Aye, and we’ve all got precious few round here,” Rita said, thrusting her needle ferociously into the material. “There’s plenty would stab you in the back soon as look at you if they thought they could get away with it.”

If a bit of newspaper coverage was all it took to create a poisonous atmosphere like the one we’d just walked through, I hated to

Gloria shook her head. Rita disagreed. “There’s been a lot of stories about the abortion issue, Glo. Brenda and Debbie have been all over the tabloids.”

“But that’s Brenda, not me. The punters don’t know the difference, but the people who work here do.”

“It doesn’t make any odds to some of that lot,” Rita said. “Eaten up with jealousy, they are.” She glanced at her watch. “Bloody hell, is that the time? I’ve got an appointment with Dorothea in five minutes.” She shoved her sewing into a tapestry bag.

“You’re all right. I didn’t see the van when we parked up.” Gloria gave me a considering look. “You wanted a word with Dorothea, didn’t you, chuck?”

Rita stared. “By heck, Kate, I’d not have put you down as a lass who wanted her horoscope reading.”

I bristled. “The only stars I want to ask Dorothea Dawson about are the ones that work for Northerners .”

Rita giggled. “If that crystal ball could talk …”

“Aye, but going to Dorothea’s like going to the doctor. You can say owt you like and know it’ll go no further,” Gloria said. “Rita, chuck, do you mind if I just pop in ahead of you for a quick word with Dorothea, to see when she can fit Kate in?”

“Be my guest. I’ll walk across with you.”

The three of us left the studio building and crossed the car park. Over at the far end, near the administration block, I noticed a camper van that hadn’t been there when we’d arrived shortly before. It was painted midnight-blue, but as we drew closer, I could see there was a Milky Way of golden stars arcing across the cab door and the van’s side. The door into the living section of the van had a zodiac painted on it in silver, the glyphs of the signs picked out in gold. Even I could recognize the maiden that symbolized my Virgo star sign. I also identified the familiar three-legged symbol of Mercedes Benz. I didn’t need my background information from

Rita knocked and a familiar husky voice told us to come in. I expected a full blast of the histrionic mystic, complete with joss sticks and Indian cotton, but when it came to her personal environment, Dorothea clearly preferred the opulent to the occult. Leather, velvet, shag-pile carpet and wood paneling lined the luxurious interior. In the galley, I could see a microwave and a fridge. On a pull-out shelf sat a laptop and a portable color printer, an ensemble that must have cost the thick end of three grand. Instead of a bloody awful tape of rainforest noises backed by Pan pipes and whales singing, the background music sounded like one of those “not available in the shops” collections of Romantic Classics. The only concession to the mystic world of the zodiac was the dining table, surrounded on three sides by a bench seat. It was covered in a dark-blue chenille cloth and on it sat a massive crystal ball. If it had had a set of finger holes, we could have gone ten-pin bowling.

“Nice to see you all, ladies,” Dorothea Dawson said as we piled through the door. She was smaller than I expected from TV. But then, they all were. Her hair was pure silver, cut in a chin-length bob that hid the fact that her jaw was too heavy for her small features. Her skin was criss-crossed with the fine wrinkles of an apple that’s been left lying around too long. Either she was older than she sounded or she’d loved the sun too much when she was younger. “And you must be Kate Brannigan,” she said, acknowledging me with a nod, assessing me with eyes like amethyst chips.

“Saw me in your crystal ball, did you?” I asked more pleasantly than I wanted to. I’ve never liked charlatans.

“No, I saw you in the Manchester Evening Chronicle ,” she said with wry amusement. I found myself liking her in spite of all my prejudices against people who prey on the gullible. “You want to talk to me about my last session with Gloria?”

“Good guess,” I said.

“And I want you to cast her horoscope,” Gloria butted in, as usual incapable of holding her tongue.

Dorothea cocked her head, a knowing smile on her lips. “Virgo, with … an air sign rising, at a guess. Probably Gemini, with such a smart mouth.”

I tried not to look as surprised as I felt. A one-in-twelve chance of getting my sun sign right multiplied up to a one-in-a-gross chance of hitting the sun sign and the ascendant. Not that I believed any of that rubbish; I only knew my rising sign because I’d spent half an hour the night before on the computer with some astrological chart-casting shareware I’d pulled down from the Internet. But however she’d reached her conclusion, Dorothea was right. “I couldn’t say,” I lied, determined to show her my skepticism. “Gloria can give you my details.”

“I have a very full diary today,” Dorothea said, sounding far more like a businesswoman than she had any right to. She looked businesslike too, in a high-necked Edwardian-style white blouse under a soft black wool crepe jacket. A silver and amethyst brooch the size of a credit card was pinned to the jacket, like an abstract representation of her hair and eyes. She flicked open a desk diary on the seat beside her while Gloria produced a piece of paper with a flourish. “That’s Kate’s time, date and place of birth.”

Dorothea put it on the seat beside her without a glance. “I couldn’t possibly take you through your chart and answer your questions, Kate.”

“It’s the answers to my questions I’m interested in.”

Dorothea raised one eyebrow. I used to do that, but I grew out of it. “Pity. You should always seize opportunity when it presents itself. Who knows when you’ll get a second chance to find out what really makes you tick?” She sounded amused.

“I’ll manage somehow,” I said.

“I’m sure you will, and that’s without reading your chart. Gloria, you’re my final appointment today. How would it be if I saw Kate then? Or are you in a hurry to get home?”

“That’s fine, Dor,” Gloria said. “We’ll get out your road now and let Rita get her money’s worth. See you at half past five.”

She shooed me out ahead of her into the car park. “We’d better get a move on,” she said. “I’m due in make-up and I’m not frocked up yet.”

“Gloria, is Dorothea normally fully booked?” I asked, trailing in her wake.

“Oh aye. If you’re not one of her regulars, you can wait a month or more for her to fit you in unless you’re prepared to go to her consulting room.”

“All half-hour appointments?”

“That’s right. From nine till half past five,” Gloria confirmed.

“Just as a matter of interest, how much does Dorothea charge?”

“For half an hour, she charges twice what you do for an hour, chuck.”

It was one of those bits of information that stops you dead in your tracks. I’m not cheap. Well, only where Richard’s concerned, but even he hasn’t worked that out yet. Four times my hourly rate was serious money. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the right business.

The day passed. Wardrobe, make-up, rehearsal, film. No diverting phone calls, no murderous attacks on the client. No chance either of finding out who had written the poison-pen letters or the identity of the mole that Ross Grant wanted me to drag kicking and screaming into the daylight; thanks to the Chronicle , nobody was talking to me. I supposed the cast members had fallen out of love with me because for today I was more famous than them. The crew were just too busy and besides, the novelty of having a real live private eye about the place had worn off.