Val McDermid - Dead Beat

'It doesn't sound unreasonable to me. I'd guess that Jett could afford it,' I agreed.

'Jett was over the moon, according to Moira. He said she'd have to work out the money details with Kevin, but it was fine by him. She was laughing, you know? She said he'd got into all this New Age stuff, and kept telling her they were soul mates and must be together. She'd told him that only extended to work and he could forget sex. Then he went all huffy and started on about spiritual love. She was very funny about it all.' Memories overwhelmed Maggie suddenly and she looked away.

Awkwardly, I said, 'I liked her sense of humour, too. Maggie, did she say anything about the reactions of the others at the manor to her arrival?'

Maggie relit her cigarette and took a deep drag. 'Not then. But she had plenty to say later. Only Neil seemed really pleased that she was there. He seemed to think she'd be able to fill in any gaps from the early days. I know he talked to her about what it was like before Jett hit the big time. She said Gloria was always trying to bust up their conversations. She wanted to come across as the only significant person in Jett's life. Pathetic, really.

'Tamar hated her on sight, of course. Her and Jett have been having this on-off relationship for a few months now, and I guess she saw Moira as a threat. Moira couldn't stand her, thought she was just a stupid bimbo, and she told me she used to wind her up by flirting with Jett when Tamar was around. But there was nothing in it. She told me that, and I believe her. I trust…' she gulped. T trusted her.'

'What about Kevin? How did he take it?' I probed.

'She said he wasn't thrilled, but that she wasn't surprised because the idea of parting with any money, even if it's not his own, gives him a physical pain. She said if he gave you his shit for fertiliser he'd want the roses. And there was a lot of money coming to her. All those years of royalties from the first three albums.'

'Did she get the money?' I suspected I knew the answer before I asked the question.

'Not yet. Kevin said it was tied up in some account where he had to wait three months before he could get access to it.'

I'd been right. Moira had died before she'd cost anyone a penny. I wondered if anyone would ever be able to untangle things now she was dead. 'Do you happen to know if she left a will?' I asked.

Maggie's mouth twisted into an ironic smile. 'Jett tell you to ask that? Yes, she left a will. We both made wills in favour of each other about two months ago.'

'Do you mind if I ask you why?'

'Because a friend of mine was killed in a car crash and she hadn't left a will. The house was in her name, and her family kicked her lover out on the street the day before the funeral. Gay couples don't have any rights. We have to make our own. That's why we made the wills. At that point, Moira didn't even think she had anything to leave,' Maggie said bitterly.

But when she'd died, it had been a different picture. I knew I'd want to come back to this, but I needed to hear more from other people before I'd have any useful leverage. So I changed the subject. 'Surely Micky was pleased? He must have been happy that they were all working together again, just like the good old days?'

'You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? But not according to Moira. She said he was always nit-picking. She thought he wanted to take all the credit for Jett's great comeback album – they hadn't worked together for the last four, you see.'

'I'm beginning to wonder why she stuck it,' I remarked.

'I wondered myself. But she really enjoyed the work she was doing with Jett. She loved the writing. And she was even doing some of the backing vocals. She kept telling me that when the money came rolling in, I could give up work and we'd go and live in the sun somewhere.' Maggie's face crumpled and she pulled a soggy handkerchief out of her pocket. She blew her nose. 'If she hadn't been doing it for us, maybe she'd never have been tempted to stay.'

'Had you seen her much in the last few weeks?' I asked.

'Not really. She hasn't been home at all. We had a couple of weekends in a hotel in Manchester. Jett had gone to Paris with Tamar, and he'd given her some money and told her to show me a good time.' Her eyes lit up, then the light died. 'We had a good time, too,' she said softly.

'Why did you go to Colcutt this week?' I asked.

She looked at me in surprise. 'What do you mean?'

'I saw you. I was driving the car that nearly ran you over in the early hours of the morning. The landlady at the Colcutt Arms told me you'd been staying there. I just wondered, you know? With you two not having seen very much of each other lately.' I let my words hang in the air. Maggie was no fool. She must have realised it would only be a matter of time before the police would be at her door.

'Now I see why you wanted to talk to me,' she accused. 'You really are trying to pin it on me.'

I shook my head. 'Maggie, I'm not trying to pin it on anybody. I'm trying to find Moira's killer.'

'If that's true, you'd be better off back in Colcutt,' she said angrily. 'Someone there had it in for her. That's why I went over to see her, to try to persuade her to come home with me.'

'What do you mean?' I asked. My antennae were quivering. I had the feeling we were really getting somewhere at last.

'Someone there wanted her dead. They'd already tried once.'

I took a deep breath and said very slowly, 'What do you mean, they'd already tried?'

'I don't know how much you know about heroin addiction,' Maggie replied.

'Lay person's knowledge only. Assume I'm ignorant.' 'OK. Coming off is hell. But once an addict is off, they often get a strange kind of confidence that one little hit wouldn't do any harm. Like the smoker who's been stopped for three years and fancies a fag at a party. Only with heroin addicts, that can be fatal a lot faster than with smokers. Anyway, someone at Colcutt Manor kept leaving a set of works in Moira's room. Every couple of days, she'd come upstairs to find a nice little hit sitting there waiting for her.' Maggie stopped dead, her anger making her voice a growl.

'That is evil,' I breathed.

'So now you see why I wanted her to leave. So far, she'd just flushed the smack down the loo and shoved the syringes in the bin. But sooner or later there was going to come a time when she'd be low, when she couldn't ring me up for reassurance, when she was going to go for it. I couldn't stand the thought of it.'

I swallowed hard. Now for the nasty question. 'So why did you leave when you did? In the middle of the night like that?'

Maggie rolled another cigarette while she pondered my question. I couldn't help feeling she was using me as the rehearsal for the harder interrogation she knew was on the horizon. 'We'd had a drink together that evening in the pub. Moira promised me that her work would be over in another two weeks and then we'd go on holiday together. She said she could hold out, and begged me not to make her choose. I gave in, God help me.

'Afterwards, we went up to my room and made love. She left about eleven, saying she was going back to work with Jett. I tried to sleep, but I couldn't. I know it sounds pathetic, but I had a dreadful feeling in the pit of my stomach that something terrible was going to happen. Eventually, I got up and went for a walk. Then I saw all those police cars up at the manor and I panicked. Whatever was going on, I knew I would only be in Moira's way if I turned up on the doorstep, so I went back to the pub. That's when you nearly ran me over.' Maggie lit her cigarette and ran a hand through her greying curls.

'I tried to ring from the phone in the pub, but it was constantly engaged. I didn't know what else to do, so I set off for home. Moira knew I was coming home today, and I knew she'd call me as soon as she could. The first I knew she was dead was when I heard the news on Radio One at half-past nine.' She couldn't hold the tears back any longer, and they streamed down her face. Her shoulders shook.