Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

In the silence that swallowed his outburst, I thought of how it must have been for Dorothea. Tainted with the stigma of mental illness, abandoned by her husband, wrenched from her child, without resources. She couldn’t go home for she had no home to go to. The village where she’d grown up was the one place she’d

“She tried to get me to fall for that line,” he said scornfully. “No way. She never came after me. She left me to it. And my problem is that I’m not stupid. I know I’m fucked up. And I know exactly how and why. I’m fucked up because she left me to rot, to be abused, to be fucked over. And that’s why I didn’t murder her. I hated her far too much to give her the easy way out. I wanted her to go on suffering a whole lot longer. She still had years to pay for.”

Strangely, I believed him. The vitriol in his voice was the real thing, so strong it made the air tremble. “So you didn’t let on when you realized Edna Mercer’s latest discovery was your mother?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t say a word. I just watched her, every chance I got. I listened to the actors talking about her when I made them up. At first, I was confused. It was like part of me desperately wanted to love her and be loved back. And another part of me wanted revenge. I just sat it out, waited to see which side would win.” Freddie shifted in his chair, folding his arms across his stomach and bending forward. Lit from above, his eyes were impenetrable pools in shadowy sockets. “It was no contest, not really. The more they went on about how lovely she was, the more I resented what she’d deprived me of. I wanted revenge.”

“But you ended up in business with her. Earning money together,” I said, trying not to show how baffled I was by that. I suspected that he still harbored a determination not to tell me any more than I already knew.

He looked up then and stared into my face. He gave a strange barking cough of laughter. “Don’t you get it? That was my revenge. One night, I waited till her last client had gone and I walked into the van. I told her my date, time and place of birth and watched the color drain out of her face. I didn’t have to tell her who I was.

“You see, if she revealed that I was her son, it wouldn’t just be another happy tabloid reunion story. She’d have to explain how she came to give me up in the first place. She’d have to tell the world she was a nutter. Most people find mental illness frightening. She was convinced that she’d lose her contracts, lose her clients at Northerners and end up back where she was all those years ago when she came out of the mental hospital. I think she was wrong, but it suited me that she believed it. That way, I had leverage. I made her tell me people’s secrets and then I sold them. She had this phony reverence thing about her psychic gift. She was always going on about being like a priest or a doctor, the repository of people’s confidences.” His contemptuous impersonation was frighteningly accurate; if I’d been the superstitious type, I’d have sworn I could see Dorothea’s ghost rising up before me.

“In that case, why did she tell you?”

“I was her son,” he said simply. “She wanted to please me. It helped that she was desperate to keep our relationship secret, so she needed to keep me sweet.”

“So you put together what she winkled out from her clients with what people let slip in the make-up chair, and with the overlap between two sources you were able to expose all those people who probably think of you as a friend?” I said.

“Don’t make me laugh,” he said bitterly. “I’m not a friend to them. I’m a servant, a convenience. Oh sure, they treat me like I’m their best buddy, but if I died tonight I doubt if more than three of them would make it to the funeral, and then only if they knew the photographers were going to be there. The program’s last publicist, he made the mistake of thinking they were his friends. He had a breakdown — too much stress. One cast member sent him a get-well card. One sent him a bunch of flowers. And that was it. He’d been working his socks off to cover their backs for the best part of five years, and the day he went sick, it was as if he’d never

“Wasn’t it a bit of a risk, revealing secrets people knew they’d told Dorothea? Didn’t anybody put two and two together?”

He shook his head, a smirk on his narrow mouth. “I always waited a few months. I used the time to do a bit more digging, see if I could come up with extra information, stuff my mother hadn’t been told about. Once you know where to look, it’s amazing what you can find out.”

Tell me about it, I thought, feeling a strange pity for this damaged man who’d subverted the tricks of my trade and used them to generate misery. “I suppose leaking the storylines as well helped to cover your tracks.”

He frowned. “Storylines? That wasn’t me. I never really know the storylines in advance. Just bits and pieces I pick up from what people say. I’d heard it’s supposed to be somebody in the location catering company doing that. Turpin’s giving them the heave, and they’re getting their own back. That’s what I’d heard.”

I couldn’t help believing him. He’d been so honest about the other stuff, and that painted him in a far worse light. Besides, he was completely off-hand on the subject. I’d begun to realize that Freddie Littlewood was intense about the things at the heart of his life. Anything else was insignificant. “Did you make her take some of the money too?” I asked.

“I tried. But she wouldn’t cash the checks. I even paid cash into her bank account once. The next week, she gave me a receipt from Save the Children for the exact same amount.”

It would have been so simple if I could have persuaded myself Freddie had killed his mother. All the pieces were there; a racket selling stories to the press that worked primarily because their relationship remained secret; a falling out among thieves, aggravated by the emotional charge of their relationship; a spur of the moment act of shocking violence. The only problem was that it wasn’t true. And if I gave Cliff Jackson the pieces, he’d force them to fit the pattern his closed mind would impose.

But if it wasn’t Freddie, who else? Who else would benefit from

“I know I wasn’t,” he said decisively. “When I told her I was going to start selling the stories to the papers, she said that if I needed money, all I had to do was ask. She said that as soon as she’d satisfied herself that I really was her son, she’d changed her will in my favor. She said I might as well have the money now, while she was still alive and we could enjoy it together. I told her I didn’t want her money, that wasn’t the point. I wasn’t selling the stories to make a few bob. I was doing it to hurt her. The money was just a bonus. She told me if I went ahead with it, she’d change her will back again and leave all her money to mental health charities.”

“I bet she didn’t do it,” I said.

He moved his head almost imperceptibly from side to side, rubbing his thumb along his jaw again. “You didn’t know Dorothea. The week after the first story was published, she sent me a photocopy of her new will. Dated, signed, witnessed. Apart from a few small legacies to friends, everything she owns goes to charity.”

“It could have been a bluff. She might also have made a second will leaving it all to you.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. If she had, I think the police would have been round. Either that or the solicitor would have been on the phone. No, she meant it. I don’t mind, you know. I’ve never expected anything good from life. That way, you’re not disappointed.” Freddie pushed his chair back, the legs squeaking on the parquet floor. He looked down anxiously, checking the polished surface wasn’t scarred.