Val Mcdermid - Star Struck

Suddenly, Dennis was standing next to me. “Do you want me to do the drawers while you raid the computer?” he asked.

“I’d rather you kept an eye out the front,” I said. “I know it should take Turpin an hour to get to NPTV and back, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“You’re probably right,” Dennis said. He went out as silently as he’d come in. At least now I didn’t have to worry about being caught red-handed. I checked out the computer. It looked as if Turpin used Word for all his documents, which suited me perfectly. I took a CD-ROM out of my money belt and swapped it for the encyclopedia currently residing in the drive. It had taken all my powers of persuasion to get Gizmo to lend me this disk and I hoped it had been worth it. It was a clever little piece of software that searched all Word files for particular combinations of words. I typed “Doreen Satterthwaite,” and set the program running.

Meanwhile, I started on the desk. Not surprisingly, Turpin was an orderly man. I flicked through folders of electricity bills, gas bills, council-tax bills until I found the phone bills I was looking for. Domestic and mobile were in the same file. A quick glance around revealed that I wasn’t going to have to steal them. Turpin had one of those all-singing, all-dancing printers that also act as a computer scanner and a photocopier. I extracted the itemized bills for the last six months and fed them through the photocopier.

When the phone rang, I jumped. After three rings, the answering machine kicked in. A woman’s voice floated eerily up from the hall. “Hi, Johnny. It’s Deirdre. I find myself unexpectedly at a loose end after all. If you get this message at a reasonable time, come over for a nightcap. And if I’m not enough to tempt you, I’ve got sausages from Clitheroe for breakfast. Call me.” Bleep.

I glanced at the screen and discovered that there were two files containing “Doreen Satterthwaite.” I was about to access them when Dennis’s yell made my heart jolt in my chest. “Fuck!” he shouted. “We’re burned, Brannigan!”

She has combative strength and brings her ambitious plans to fruition. She is honorable and takes responsibility for her actions. She has a temper, acts with audacity and is often prone to involvement in incidents that embrace violence. She has a powerful sense of drama that can verge on the melodramatic. Generous, she hates small-mindedness.

From Written in the Stars , by Dorothea Dawson

The adrenaline surge was like being plugged into the mains. Dennis was almost screaming. “Switch off. Spare room. Now!” No time to exit properly from Windows. I stabbed my finger at the computer power button. I grabbed the photocopies and stuffed the originals back into their folder, thrusting them into the drawer without checking I was returning them to the right place. I leapt to my feet, switching off the desk lamp.

Three paces across the room, I heard the wail of the alarm siren as Dennis reset it. I dived across the hall and into a spare room bathed with light from the security lamps outside. I skidded round the door to stand against the wall. Seconds later I heard Dennis pounding up the stairs. Then he was beside me, his chest heaving with the effort of silent breathing. “There’s a sensor in the corner,” he said. “Under the bed. Quick!”

I dropped to the floor and rolled, aware of him following me. As I hit the bedside table on the far side of the bed the alarm finished setting itself and silence fell once more. I heard the slam of a car door. Then the front door opened and the warning siren went off again. By now, every nerve in my body was jangling, and I suspected Dennis was no better. I was going to wake up sweating to the nightmare sound of that burglar alarm for months

“Worst comes to worst, we wait till he goes to sleep. Just relax. But not too much. Don’t want you snoring,” Dennis muttered, clutching my hand in a tightly comforting grip. We endured a few more seconds of aural hell, then blessed silence apart from the thudding of two hearts under John Turpin’s spare bed. If he’d had parquet floors instead of carpet, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. Then a click, a bleep and a replay of Deirdre’s attempt at sultry seductiveness, thankfully muffled. I heard the clatter of a handset being picked up and the electronic stutter of a number being keyed in. Amazing how certain sounds travel and others don’t. At first all I could hear of Turpin’s voice was a low rumble. Then, as he mounted the stairs and walked into his bedroom, I could hear every word.

“… halfway down the motorway when it dawned on me. When I’d asked this supposed security man if he’d called Peter Beckman, he’d said Peter was already on his way in. But Peter’s taken a couple of days off this week to go to some stupid Christmas market in Germany with his wife. So I rang him on his mobile, and he’s only having dinner in some floating restaurant on the bloody Rhine.” I heard the sound of shoes being kicked off.

“Well, I know,” he continued after a short pause. “So I rang studio security and they denied any report of a break-in or any call to me … No, I don’t think so. It’ll be some bloody technicians’ Christmas party, some idiot’s idea of a joke, let’s bugger up Turpin’s evening …” Another pause. “Oh, all right, I’ll check, but the alarm was on … Yes, I’m just going to get changed, and I’ll be right over. You know how I feel about Clitheroe sausages for breakfast,” he added suggestively. I was going to have serious trouble with sausages for a while, I could tell.

I strained my ears and picked up the sound of sliding doors open and close, then faint sounds like someone doing exactly what Turpin had said. I heard the bathroom door open, the sound of a light cord being pulled once, twice, and the door closing. A door moved over carpet pile, a light switch snapped twice. The study. He was checking, just like he’d told Deirdre he would. My throat constricted, my muscles went rigid. Gizmo’s CD-ROM was still in Turpin’s drive. Where had I left the CD I’d taken out of it? Dennis’s

I felt the tension slowly leaking out of my body. We’d got away with it. Turpin was going out again. The terrible irony was that if we’d waited quarter of an hour longer before Dennis had made his hoax call, Deirdre would have saved us the trouble and I’d not have lost five years off my life expectancy. Dennis let go of my hand. I patted his arm in thanks.

Finally, the alarm was reset and the low thrum of Turpin’s car engine dimmed in the distance. “Now what?” I asked.

“He’s gone for the night. You’ve got hours to play with,” Dennis said cheerfully.

“The alarm’s on. As soon as we move out from under the bed, Lostock calls the cavalry. And for all we know, Clitheroe sausages is only a couple of hundred yards away.”

Dennis chuckled. “The trouble with you, Kate, is you worry too much. Now me, I’ve got the advantage of a commando training. Cool under pressure.”

I poked him sharply in the ribs, enjoying the squeal that accompanied the rush of air. “You can’t get the staff these days,” I said sweetly. “I’ll just lie here and meditate while you get it sorted.” It’s called whistling in the dark.

In the dim gleam from the landing, I watched as Dennis rolled on to his stomach and propelled himself across the floor using toes, knees, elbows and fingers for purchase. Keeping belly to the carpet made it a slow crawl, but it was effective. The little red light on the passive infrared detector perched in the corner of the room stayed unlit. He disappeared round the corner of the door and my stomach started eating itself. I badly needed to go to the loo.