Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

She had a point. I sipped my coffee and thought about it. “A bit of a puzzle, that,” I said.

“Plus,” she added with a triumphant air, “if Pit Bull went down the shop to front up Dennis, he’d never have moved an inch without the dog. If Dennis had been in the shop, it would have been the dog that went through the door first, not that gutless wonder Pit Bull. Plus, if Dennis had still been using the shop, his night watchman would have been inside.”

“Of course,” I breathed.

“So the dog being in the corridor proves Dennis wasn’t there.”

Somehow, I thought a jury might need a bit more convincing than the dog that didn’t rip a throat out in the night. But at least it gave me somewhere to start.

Traditionally, the serious players in Manchester’s drug wars have been the black gangs of Moss Side and the white gangs of Cheetham Hill. The Cheetham Hill lads have been around longer, their criminal roots deep in the cracks between the paving stones

The Kellys were one of the oldest families, and most of them stuck to the old ways. Protection rackets and schneid sports gear, long firm frauds and small-time thieving, that was the Kellys’ style. The team of brothers had always had contempt for the drug lords, which was about the only good thing you could say for them.

I had to endure three boozers where I drank beer straight from the bottle because I wasn’t prepared to risk the glasses before I found a pair of grieving Kelly brothers. The Dog and Brewer was the kind of dump where your feet stick to the carpet and the fag ash forms a paste on the bottom of ashtrays that nobody has bothered to dry after rinsing them under the tap. Most of the punters had the blurred jawlines and bleary eyes of people who have smoked and drunk so much for so long change seems pointless. The women wore clothes that might have flattered them fifteen years before but now insulted them even more than the flabby men in ill-fitting casual clothes who were buying them drinks. Tom Jones was rejoicing loudly that again he’d touch the green, green grass of home.

I brazened out the eyes on me and bought a bottle of Carlsberg. “Any of the Kelly boys in?” I asked the barman, my fingers resting lightly on the fiver on the bar.

He looked at the money and gave me the once-over. I obviously didn’t look like a cop, for he jerked his head towards two shaggyhaired men in padded flannel work shirts at the far end of the bar. Before I could turn back, the fiver was gone. One good thing about lowlife dives is that the information comes cheap.

I picked up my bottle and pushed through the crowd until I was standing next to the two men. Their blue eyes were bloodshot, their stubbled cheeks scarlet with the stout and whisky they were pouring down their throats. “I’m sorry for your loss, gentlemen,” Evening Chronicle buy you a drink?”

The taller of the two managed a half-hearted leer. “I’ll let you buy me a drink any time, darling.”

I signalled the barman and blew a tenner on drink. “Hell of a shock,” I said, raising my bottle to clink against their glasses.

“I told him he was a dickhead, going up against Dennis O’Brien. Hard bastard, that one,” the smaller brother slurred.

“I heard the dog was supposed to be good protection,” I said. “Bit of a handful, I heard. They say he gave the Old Bill a hard time.”

The taller one grinned. “Thank fuck for that. I’m Paul, by the way, and this is Little Joe.”

I shook the outstretched paw. “I’m Kate. How come Patrick went to see O’Brien on his own? If the guy’s so tough?”

Little Joe snorted. “Because he was a big girl’s blouse. He was always trying to prove he was a hard man, our Patrick, but he was about as hard as Angel Delight. He was complaining that Dennis O’Brien had muscled in on his racket, and we all got so fucked off with listening we told him to go and sort O’Brien out if he was so pissed off.”

“And he’d had enough to drink to think he was man enough to take on that South Manchester scumbag.” Paul shook his head. “He was an eejit, Patrick.”

“Especially when he had a drink in him.” Little Joe shook his head too.

“And a draw,” Paul concluded.

“So he’d been drinking and smoking dope before he went off to the Arndale to front up O’Brien?” I asked.

“That’s right,” Little Joe confirmed. “I mean, what kind of bastard has to top some drunken tosser just to make a point? O’Brien could just have broken a few bones and chucked Patrick out on his ear. He didn’t have to go and kill him. Anybody could see Patrick was an eejit.”

“What about the dog, though?” I persisted.

Paul gave a contemptuous bark of laughter. “Yeah, well, even a hard nut like O’Brien might have thought twice about taking on that mad bastard dog. I can’t figure out how the dog didn’t rip his throat out.”

Suddenly, Little Joe’s eyes were full of tears. “He didn’t have to kill him, though, did he? The bastard didn’t have to kill my baby brother.” His hand snaked out and grabbed my lapel. “You tell them that in your paper. My baby brother was a big soft lump. Even with a drink and a draw in him, he wouldn’t have done to O’Brien what that shit O’Brien done to him. You tell them, d’you hear? You tell them.”

I promised I’d tell them. I promised several times. I listened to the Kelly boys telling me the same things a few more times, then made my excuses and left. I carried my own haze of stale smoke and spilled drink into the car and made for the city center.

I virtually had to drag Gloria off Donovan in the end. She’d been taking advantage of having a driver to attack the champagne with the brio of an operatic tenor. As she slid from happy to drunk to absolutely arseholed, so her amorousness had grown, according to Donovan, who I found with a slew of red lipstick below one ear and one shirt-tail hanging down the front of his trousers. He was keeping Gloria upright by pure strength, lurking in a corner near the revolving doors.

“Why didn’t you sit her down in a quiet corner of the bar?” I hissed as we steered her into the street. It was like manipulating one of those wooden articulated models artists use, only life-sized and heavy as waterlogged mahogany.

“Every time I sat down she climbed on my lap,” he growled as we poured Gloria into the passenger seat of her car.

“Fair enough.” I slammed the door and handed him my car keys. “Thanks, Don. You did a good job in very trying circumstances.”

He scratched his head. “I expect it’ll be reflected in my pay packet.”

Like mother, like son. “It would be nice to find my car outside my house sometime tomorrow, keys through the letterbox. I’ll talk to you soon.” I patted his arm. It was like making friends with one of the Trafalgar Square lions.

Gloria was snoring gently when I got behind the wheel. The engine turning over woke her up. She rolled towards me, hand blindly groping for my knee. “I don’t think so,” I said firmly, returning it to her own lap.

Her eyes snapped open and she looked at me in astonishment. “Hiya, chuck,” she said blearily. “Where did Donovan go?”

“Home to bed.”

She gurgled. I hoped it was a chuckle and not the overture to a technicolor yawn. “Lucky girl,” she slurred. “Poor old Glo. Whatchou been up to, then? Bit of nookie with the boyfriend?”

We turned into Albert Square where the giant inflatable red-and-white figure of Santa Claus clutched the steeple that rises out of the middle of the town hall roof. It looked vaguely obscene in the garish glare of the Christmas lights. I jerked my thumb upwards. “He’s seen more action than I have tonight. I’ve been trying to find out about Dorothea’s past,” I said, more to fill the space than in any hope of a sensible response.