Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

“I wanted to ask you about something,” I said, side-stepping the question. “You remember when I came to fetch you from Dorothea’s van the night she was killed? Well, I was busy wrestling with the umbrella and keeping an eye out in case anybody jumped us, so I wasn’t really paying attention to individuals. Besides, I don’t really know anybody at NPTV, so even if I had noticed who was around, it wouldn’t mean anything to me. But you …”

“You want me to think about who I saw in the car park?”

“It might be important.”

Gloria leaned back, closing her eyes and massaging her temples. “Let’s see …” she said slowly. “There were two women getting into a car a couple of bays down from Dorothea’s. I don’t know their

I reached for my sweater. “More than you can imagine, Gloria. Much more than you can imagine.”

“So what’s going on?” she demanded. “Do you know who killed Dorothea?”

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “I don’t want to say too much yet. I’ve got stuff to check out. But if you get Donovan to bring you to the office first thing tomorrow morning, I think I might be able to give you your money’s worth.”

Donovan gave me a look of resignation. “You want me to stick with Gloria?”

“Oh, I think so,” I said. “You make such a lovely pair.”

She is comfortable with her own company and works best alone. Her friends are valued as much for their experience as for their personal qualities. She has a single-minded concentration on objectives, but has a flexible and sympathetic mind. She is intuitive and imaginative. She can be moody.

From Written in the Stars , by Dorothea Dawson

When Freddie Littlewood got home from work, I was waiting for him. Stacey of the big eyes and trusting soul had made it back fifteen minutes ahead of him and she’d let me in without a moment’s hesitation. She’d shown me into the dining room again, presumably because that was where Freddie and I had spoken before. She’d been back inside five minutes with a tray containing teapot, milk, sugar and a china mug with kittens on it.

“It can’t have been easy for Freddie, the last few days,” I said sympathetically.

She gave me an odd look. “No more than usual,” she said. “Why would it be difficult?”

Until that moment, the idea that Freddie might not have mentioned his mother’s murder to Stacey hadn’t occurred to me. People have called me cold in my time, but I don’t think I could plan to spend the rest of my life with someone I trusted so little. “I meant, with the police everywhere,” I improvised hastily, remembering I was supposed to work for NPTV too. “It’s been really disruptive. They walk around as if they own the place, asking all sorts of questions. And it’s not even as if Dorothea Dawson worked for NPTV.”

Seemingly satisfied, Stacey drifted off, saying she was going to get changed and get the dinner on, if I didn’t mind. I also couldn’t

Freddie stepped into the doorway, looking gray-faced and exhausted. “What’s so urgent it couldn’t wait for work tomorrow?” he asked brusquely. More for Stacey’s benefit than mine, I suspected.

“I needed the answer to a question,” I said. “I won’t be at NPTV first thing in the morning, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I caught up with you at home.”

He closed the door behind him and leaned against it. “Have you never heard of the telephone?” he said, exasperation in his voice.

“It’s much harder to tell when people are lying,” I said mildly. “Sorting out the truth is difficult enough as it is.”

Freddie folded his arms over his chest and glared. “Since you’re here, I’ll answer your question. But in future, if you want to talk to me, see me at work or call me on the phone. I don’t want Stacey upset by this, OK?”

“That’s very chivalrous of you,” I said. “There’s not many men who are so concerned for their future wives’ wellbeing that they don’t even tell them their prospective mother-in-law’s just been murdered.”

“What goes on between Stacey and me is none of your business. You said you had a question?”

“You told me that it wasn’t you who leaked the advance storylines to the press, and I believe you,” I said. “But somebody did. I was wondering if Dorothea had ever indicated to you that she knew who the mole was?”

He gave me a long, considering stare, running his thumb along his jaw in the unconscious gesture I’d already become familiar with. “She once told me that it wasn’t hard to work out who the mole was if you looked at the horoscopes. She said there weren’t that many people connected with Northerners who had the right combination of features in their charts. If you excluded people who

“Did she mention anybody’s name to you?”

He shook his head. “Not then. She said she didn’t seem to have much choice about passing me other people’s secrets but that she wasn’t going to ruin somebody when she had no evidence except her own instinct. But then later …” His voice tailed off.

“What happened, Freddie?” I asked urgently.

“Turpin was in make-up one day and somebody said something about one of the stories in the paper and was it true he was going to get rid of the caterers because they were the moles. Turpin said he wasn’t convinced that would solve the problem. I turned round and he was staring at me. I thought maybe he suspected me. So I went round to Dorothea’s house and told her. I said she’d probably be glad if Turpin did find out, because then she’d be off the hook and wouldn’t have to break her precious client confidences any more.”

“She wasn’t though, was she?” I said gently.

He shook his head and cleared his throat. “No. She said she wouldn’t let Turpin destroy my career. She said she was as certain as she could be that he was the storyline mole and she was going to confront him.”

“She was going to expose him?” I couldn’t believe Freddie was only revealing this now.

“No, she wasn’t like that. I told you, she was obsessed with trying to do her best for me, supposedly to make up for all the bad years. No, she said she’d do a deal with Turpin. If he stopped hunting the mole, she’d keep quiet about her suspicions of him.”

“But she didn’t have any evidence apart from an astrological chart,” I protested.

“She said that if she was right, there had to be evidence. All it needed was for someone to look in the right place and Turpin would realize that once she’d pointed the finger, he’d be in trouble. So he’d have to back off and leave me alone. Except of course she wasn’t going to come out and say it was me, not in so many words. She was just going to tell him that she was acting on behalf of the mole.”

“When was this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice nonchalant.

Freddie shrugged. “A couple, three weeks ago? She told me afterwards he’d agreed to the deal. That he’d seen the sense of what she was saying. You don’t think that had anything to do with why she was killed, do you?”

“You don’t?” I asked incredulously.

“I told you, it was weeks ago.”

I couldn’t get my head round his naiveté. Then I realized he wasn’t so much naive as self-obsessed. “There’s a lot at stake,” I pointed out. “You know yourself you’d never work in TV again if I told NPTV what you’ve been doing. And there are a lot of people involved with Northerners who have a lot more to lose than you do. If somebody thought Dorothea was a threat …”

Freddie stared at the floor. “It wasn’t like she was blackmailing him. She was too straight for that.”