Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

He left us alone to exchange gobsmacked looks. “I’d always heard the police out here were a law unto themselves, but I didn’t think that’d ever work in my favor,” I said faintly.

“I know,” Ruth said, sounding somewhat baffled. “I must tell all my clients to make a point of getting arrested in Oldham.”

“I can’t believe that scumbag Jackson,” I said.

“You’ll never nail him on it. He’ll have got one of his minions to do the dirty work. Go after Jackson and you’ll probably end up with Linda Shaw’s head on a stick.” Ruth leaned back in her seat and lit one of her long slim cigarettes. “By the way, I made those inquiries you suggested about Pit Bull Kelly’s dog. Dennis has no marks anywhere on his body that correspond to dog bites. And the dog himself showed no signs of having been in a fight. Care to tell me where this is going?”

“I’ve got Gizmo working on something. An idea I had. It came from a case I read about on the Internet a while back. An American case. I’d rather wait till I’ve got something concrete to show you, because it sounds so totally off the wall.”

Ruth gave me the hard stare, but she could see I wasn’t going to budge. “How long?”

“Probably tomorrow? I’ll need you to set up a meeting with DI Tucker. Preferably at my office. I’ll let you know when I’m ready. Is that OK?”

“The sooner the better,” Ruth said. “Normally, Dennis takes custody in his stride, but this time he’s not handling it well. Probably because he’s genuinely innocent,” she added drily.

The door opened and Sergeant Mumby stuck his head into the

I left Donovan climbing reverently into the Bentley, Ruth promising to drop him at his girlfriend’s so we could avoid letting his mother know about his latest brush with the law. I looked at the dashboard clock and realized there was no point in going home. Richard would have eaten the Chinese; it takes more than irritation at being stood up to disturb his appetite. Then, if habit held, he’d have decided to show me how little he needed me by jumping a taxi back into town and partying the night away. I couldn’t honestly blame him.

I sat in my car and rang the number Gloria had given me for her daughter’s house. The voice that answered was familiar in its inflexions, but twenty years younger in its tones. “I’m looking for Gloria,” I said. “Can you tell her it’s Kate?”

“Hang on, love, I’ll just get her.”

Moments later, I heard the real thing. “All right, chuck?”

“I am now,” I said severely. “Now I’ve got Donovan out of jail.”

She chuckled. “That poor lad’s having a proper education, working for you. I knew you’d have it sorted in no time. Whereas if I’d hung around, it would just have got more and more complicated.”

“He got a smack in the mouth from a journalist’s camera,” I said coldly.

There was a short pause, then, serious, she said, “I’m really sorry about that. Is the lad OK?”

“He’ll live. But the police need a statement from you, otherwise they’re going to have to believe that bunch of scumbag hacks claiming Donovan set about them without any provocation.”

She gasped. “Is that what they’re saying?”

“What else do you expect paparazzi to be saying, Gloria? The truth?” I demanded sarcastically. “They’ve got bosses on the newsdesk who aren’t going to be well impressed if they tell them they didn’t get a story or pictures because a teenage lad told them to bugger off. If they don’t get a proper story, they make one up.”

“Aye well, at least you got it sorted,” she said, sounding chastened for once.

“It’ll be sorted once you’ve given Sergeant Mumby a statement and half his colleagues an autograph. Now, are you staying at your daughter’s tonight?”

“I better had, I suppose. And I’m not filming tomorrow, so I’ll probably take her shopping.”

“Not in town,” I said firmly.

“Harvey Nicks, chuck,” she said. “In Leeds. I’ll bell you in the morning once we’ve decided what’s what. Thanks for sorting it all out, Kate.”

The line went dead. Nothing like a grateful client. Given that the wheels were well and truly off my evening, I figured I might as well go for broke and see what Dorothea Dawson’s child had to say about her murder. It was, after all, what I was being paid for. I drove through the virtually deserted streets of Oldham, south through Ashton, Audenshaw and Denton, past rows of local shops with peeling paint, sagging strings of dirty Christmas lights, sad window displays and desperate signs trying to lure customers inside; past the narrow mouths of terraced streets where people sprawled in front of gas fires denying the winter by watching movies filled with California sunshine; past down-at-heel pubs advertising karaoke and quiz nights; past artificial Christmas trees defiant in old people’s homes; past churches promising something better than all of this next time round in exchange for the abandonment of logic.

It was a relief to hit the motorway, hermetically sealed against the poverty of the lives I’d driven past. Tony Blair said a lot about new Labour giving new Britain new hope before he was elected; funny how nothing’s changed now he’s in power. It’s still, “get tough on single mums, strip the benefit from the long-term unemployed, close the mines and make the students pay for their education.”

I cruised past Stockport, admiring the huge glass pyramid of the Co-op Bank, glowing neon green and indigo against the looming redbrick of the old mills and factories behind it. It had stood empty for years, built on spec in the boom of the Thatcher years before the Co-op had rescued it from the indignity of emptiness. I bet they’d got a great deal on the rent; wish I’d thought of it.

I took the Princess Parkway exit, almost the only car on the road now. Anyone with any sense was behind closed doors, either home writing Christmas cards or partying till they didn’t notice how cold it was outside while they waited for the taxi home. Me, I was sitting in my car opposite the other deadheads in the vast expanse of the Southern Cemetery. Only one of us was using the A-Z , though.

The street I was searching for was inevitably in the less seedy end of Chorlton, one of those pleasant streets of 1930s semis near the primary school whose main claim to fame is the number of lesbian parents whose children it educates. To live comfortably in Chorlton, you need to have a social conscience, left-of-center politics and an unconventional relationship. Insurance salesmen married to building society clerks with two children and a Ford Mondeo are harder to find around there than hen’s teeth.

The house in question was beautifully maintained. Even in the dead of winter, the garden was neat, the roses pruned into symmetrical shapes, the lawn lacking the shaggy uneven look that comes from neglecting the last cut of autumn. The stucco on the upper story and the gable gleamed in the streetlight, and the stained glass in the top sections of the bay window was a perfect match for the panel in the door. Even the curtain linings matched. I walked up the path with a degree of reluctance, knowing only too well the kind of mayhem I was bringing to this orderliness.

Sometimes I wish I could just walk away, that I wasn’t driven by this compelling desire for unpicking subterfuge and digging like an auger into people’s lives. Then I realize that almost every person I care about suffers from the same affliction: Richard and Alexis are journalists, Della’s a detective, Ruth’s a lawyer, Gizmo’s a hacker, Shelley’s never taken a thing at face value in all the years I’ve worked with her. Even Dennis subjects the world around him to careful scrutiny before he decides how to scam it.