Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

“She let you blackmail her,” I pointed out.

“That was different. That was guilt.”

“Looks like it killed her, Freddie.”

I got up and put a hand on his arm. He pulled away. “Don’t touch me! It’s meaningless to you. You never knew my mother.”

There was nothing more to say. I’d got what I came for and Freddie Littlewood was determined to need nobody’s sympathy for the death of a mother he’d barely come to know. I walked back to the car, glad I wasn’t living inside his skin.

I’d barely closed the door when my moby rang. “Hello?”

“Hey, Kate, I’m out!” Dennis’s voice was elated.

“Free and clear?” I could hardly believe it.

“Police bail pending results from the lab. Ruth says you played a blinder! Where are you? Can I buy you some bubbly?”

If anyone deserved champagne, it was the long-suffering Debbie. But female solidarity only stretches so far, and I needed Dennis more than she did. I was glad I hadn’t done as Ruth suggested and submitted a bill, because tonight I needed payment in kind. “Never mind the bubbly,” I said. “I need a favor. Where are you?”

“I’m in the lobby bar at the Ramada,” he announced. “And I’ve already got the bottle in front of me.”

“Take it easy. I’ll be there in half an hour.” I needed to make a

If you walk out of Strangeways Prison up towards town, the Ramada Hotel is probably the first civilized place to buy a drink. It’s certainly the first where you can buy a decent bottle of champagne. Following the IRA bomb, its façade reminded me of those mechanical bingo cards you get on seaside sideshow stalls where you pull a shutter across the illuminated number after the caller shouts it out. So many of the Ramada windows were boarded up, it looked like they’d won the china tea service. I found Dennis on a bar stool, a bottle of Dom Perignon in front of him. I wondered how many “Under a Pound” customers it had taken to pay for that.

He jumped off the stool when he saw me, pulling me into a hug with one arm and handing me a glass of champagne with the other. “My favorite woman!” he crowed, toasting me with the drink he retrieved from the bar.

“Shame we’re both spoken for,” I said, clinking my crystal against his.

“Thanks for sorting it,” he said, more serious now.

“I knew it wasn’t down to you.”

“Thanks. This favor … we need a bit of privacy?”

I gestured towards a vacant table over in the corner. “That’ll do.” I led the way while Dennis followed, a muscular arm embracing the ice bucket where the remains of the champagne lurked. Once we were both settled, I outlined my plan.

“We know where he lives?” Dennis asked.

“There’s only one in the phone book. Out the far side of Bolton. Lostock.”

He nodded. “Sounds like the right area.”

“Why? What’s it like?”

“It’s where Bolton folk go when they’ve done what passes for making it. More money than imagination.”

“That makes sense. I looked it up on the A-Z . There’s only houses on one side of the road. The other side’s got a golf course.”

“You reckon he’ll be home?”

I finished my champagne. “Only one way to find out.” I pointed to his mobile.

“Too early for that,” Dennis said dismissively. Then he outlined his plan.

An hour later, I was lying on my stomach in a snowdrift. I never knew feet could be that cold and still work. The only way I could tell my nose was running was when the drips splashed on the snow in front of me. In spite of wearing every warm and waterproof garment I possessed, I was cold enough to sink the Titanic . This was our second stakeout position. The front of the house had proved useless for Dennis’s purposes and now we were lying inside the fence surrounding an old people’s home, staring down at the back garden of our target. “Is it time yet?” I whimpered pathetically.

Dennis was angled along the top of the drift, a pair of lightweight black rubber binoculars pressed to his eyes. “Looks like we got lucky,” he said.

“Do tell me how.”

“He’s not bothered to pull the curtains in the kitchen. I’ve got a direct line of sight to the keypad that controls the burglar alarm. If he sets that when he goes out, I’ll be able to see what number he taps in.”

“Does that mean we’re going to do it now?” I said plaintively.

“You go back round the front. I’ll give you five minutes before I make the call. Soon as he leaves, you shoot up the drive and start working on the front-door lock. I’ll get to you fast as I can.” He turned and waved a dismissive hand at me. “On your bike, then. And remember, we’re dressed for the dark, not the snow. Keep in the shadows.”

That’s the trouble with living in a climate where we only get snow for about ten days a year. Not even serious villains bother to invest in white camouflage. Neither Dennis’s lock-up nor my wardrobe had offered much that wouldn’t blend in with your average dark alley. I slunk off round the edge of the shrubbery and down the drive of the old people’s home. I nipped across the road and on to the golf course, where I waded through knee-high snow until I was opposite the double-fronted detached house we were

I checked my watch. A couple of minutes before, Dennis would have rung the house and explained that there had been a break-in at the administrative core of NPTV and that the police wanted Mr. Turpin to come down right away to assess the damage. A quick call to Gloria had already established that he was divorced and as far as she knew, unattached. We were taking a gamble that Turpin was alone. As I watched, the front door swung open and he appeared, shrugging into a heavy leather coat over suit trousers and a heavy knit sweater. On the still night air, I could hear the high-pitched whine of an alarm system setting itself. He pulled the door to behind himself, not bothering to double lock it, and walked briskly to his car. A security light snapped on, casting the drive into extremes of light and shade.

Ignition, headlights bouncing off the garage door, reversing lights, then the big Lexus crunched down the icy drive and swung into the road. I watched the tail lights as far as the junction, then scrambled over the banking, across the road and up Turpin’s drive, dodging in and out of shadow and blinding light. The porch was brighter than my kitchen. I’d never broken the law in quite so exposed a way before. I fumbled under my jacket and fleece, fingers chill in latex probing the money belt I was wearing until they closed around my lock-picks. At least I’d be able to see what I was doing.

Oddly enough, it didn’t really speed up the process. Picking a lock successfully was all about feel, not sight, and my fingers were still clumsy from the cold. Dennis was hovering impatiently by my shoulder by the time I got the right combination of metal probes, muttering, “Come on, Kate,” in a puff of white breath.

The door opened and he was past me, running down the hall to the alarm panel, tapping in the code to stop the warning siren joining forces with the klaxon that would deafen us and, in an area like this, have the police on the doorstep within ten minutes. I let him get on with it and checked out the downstairs rooms. A living room on one side of the hall, a dining table on the other. Kitchen at the

Luckily, Turpin’s study overlooked the back garden, so I felt safe enough to switch on the desk lamp. I took a quick look around. There was one wall of books, mostly military history and management texts. On the opposite wall, shelves held file boxes, stacks of bound reports and fat binders for various trade magazines. A PC squatted on the desk and I switched it on. While it booted up, I started on the drawers. None of them were locked. Either Turpin thought himself invincible here or we were doing the wrong burglary.