Val McDermid - Dead Beat

I did steaks in brandy and cream sauce with new potatoes and mangetout, and Jett and I ate in the TV room. I drank most of a bottle of burgundy, Jett had his usual Smirnoff Blue Label and Diet Coke. We watched the new Harrison Ford movie on video, then I went upstairs and had a bath. Jett came up and joined me just after ten. We made love in my room, then he went off downstairs some time after eleven. He said he was going to do some work with Moira. I couldn't sleep, so I read for a while then I started to watch the video. That's when you walked in.'

It all came out a bit too pat. I used to have a boyfriend who continually confounded me by his ability to remember the most trivial remarks weeks later. So when he lied to me, his stories were always so detailed it never crossed my mind to doubt their veracity. When I think of that, I thank God that Richard can barely recall what he ate for dinner the night before. Unless it impinges on his professional life, information passes through Richard's head without leaving a trace. But Tamar was trying to impress me very forcibly with her candour and her excellent memory. I didn't trust her an inch.

I tried the tired old question. 'So who do you think killed Moira?'

Tamar's eyes widened. 'Well, it wasn't Jett. But then, you know that, don't you?' she added, her voice heavy with irony.

'Leaving Jett aside, you must have given the matter some thought,' I pressed her.

She got to her feet and dumped her dishes in the dishwasher. With her back to me, she said, 'Gloria is a very stupid woman, you know. Stupid enough to think she's bright enough to get away with murder, if you understand me.' I caught the reflection of Tamar's face in the kitchen window. There was a tight smile on her lips.

She turned back to face me, her expression wiped clean. 'Why don't you ask her what she was doing running upstairs just before one o'clock?'

I could feel the pulse in my throat. 'What do you mean?'

'I heard someone running upstairs. I was coming through from my bathroom, so I stuck my head round the door. I saw Gloria's door closing. What was she up to? You're the detective. Maybe you should ask her.'

Tamar swept off to make herself fit for company after that final pleasantry, leaving me rejoicing at the prospect of another friendly little chat with Gloria. Luckily, I didn't have to scour the shopping centres of the north west for her. She was in her office, beating up her word processor as if the keyboard had my face on it.

'Sorry to interrupt,' I said. 'I just wondered where I might find Kevin.'

'He's got a suite in the west wing,' she said pompously, not even breaking her rhythm. 'Bedroom, bathroom, lounge and office. Turn left at the top of the stairs, then left again. The office is the double doors on the right. But you probably won't find him there at this time of day. He's more likely to be out and about.'

'Thanks. Oh, one other thing. When I asked you about your movements, you didn't mention that you'd gone downstairs again after you went up to bed.'

That brought her frenzied typing to a halt. 'I never did,' Gloria denied vehemently, her chin thrust out like a defiant child. 'Anyone who says I did is a liar.' She'd gone that ugly puce again.

'Are you sure?' I asked mildly.

Her lips seemed to tighten and shrink. 'Are you accusing me of lying?' she challenged.

'No. I simply wondered if it might have slipped your mind.'

'It couldn't have slipped my mind if I'd never done it, could it?'

I shrugged and said, 'See you around, Gloria.' I walked slowly up the stairs, pondering on her reaction. If I were Neil, I'd be laying odds of 2-1 that she'd been lying. Which meant one of two things. Either she was the killer, or she thought she was protecting the killer. And the only person I could imagine Gloria protecting was Jett.

I followed Gloria's instructions to the letter, but there was no reply when I knocked on the double doors. I tried each handle in turn. They moved, but both doors were locked. On the off chance that someone had been careless, I tried the pair of them together. The doors swung apart, the small gilt bolt in one grazing the pile of the carpet. Oh dear, someone hadn't fastened it properly. I remedied the oversight, carefully sliding the bolt into place as I shut the doors behind me. The lock clicked sharply into place. The Ramblers' Association would have been proud of me.

The contents of Kevin's office were a set of cliches that sat in that beautifully proportioned room like a Big Mac on Sevres china. The walls were mushroom – sorry, taupe! – decorated with framed gold discs and photographs of Kevin with everyone from Mick Jagger to Margaret Thatcher. There was a Georgian repro stereo cabinet, and lots of those tricksy little repro low-level cupboards and sets of drawers. His desk was roughly the size of a championship snooker table. On top of it, two telephones rlanked a Nintendo console. Naff toys for mindless boys. I laid a small bet with myself that he couldn't get beyond level two of Super Mario Brothers. Behind the desk was an executive swivel chair upholstered in glossy chestnut leather, and against the walls there were a couple of those deep sofas that leave your feet waving in the air like a toddler.

I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but that's never stopped me before. I started with the desk itself. It held few surprises. Top drawer, pens and executive gadgets, right down to the aerobasic calculator. (I only knew what it was because they sell them in the Science Museum's mail order goodie book, and I'm a catalogaholic.) Second drawer, scratch pads and packs of adhesive memos with album and record company logos on them. Also, black leather desk diary and telephone book. Bottom drawer, current issues of the music press, and men's mags from the navel-gazing Esquire to the nipple-gazing Penthouse.

I turned my attention to the nasty furniture. The unit immediately behind the desk looked like it had two drawers. But when I pulled it open, I realised they were fakes, disguising a file drawer. I quickly flipped through it, but as far as I could tell, it was a file of routine correspondence with record companies, promoters and tour venues. There was nothing at all relating to merchandising. The second looked more promising, if only because it was locked. I was assessing my chances of getting into it undetected when my worst nightmares came true. I heard voices outside the door.

It's amazing how quickly your mouth can get really dry. I straightened up as the key fumbled noisily into the lock. There weren't too many options. Under the desk was a sure way to be discovered inside thirty seconds. No room behind the sofas. That only left the door on the far wall. It could lead to a cupboard or a bedroom. As I shot across the room, grateful for the ostentation that had required ankle-risking deep-pile carpet, I prayed it wasn't locked. I yanked the door open and hit the threshold running. I hauled the door shut behind me, in time to see the office door opening.

Gloria's voice reached me across the office and through the door. 'If you'd just like to take a seat, Inspector, Mr Kleinman will be back in about ten minutes. If you see that Miss Brannigan, would you tell her that? She was looking for him a few minutes ago, but she's obviously found something more interesting to do than wait. Can I get you some tea?'

'No thanks, Miss. The constable and me are awash with tea. We'll keep an eye out for Miss Brannigan, though.' There was no mistaking that voice. It grated like an emery board on my nails. Cliff Jackson was sitting on the other side of the door, in the room I'd illegally entered not quarter of an hour before.

I looked around the room I'd registered subconsciously was a bathroom. That old villain Lord Elgin would have had it away on his toes with the whole room. Walls, floor and even the ceiling were marble. Not that cold, white marble with the grey veins. This was soft, pinky, with dark red veins running through it like a drinker's nose. The bath looked as if it had been hollowed out of a single lump of the stuff, with monstrous gold dolphins for taps. You could never be sure you'd got it really clean, that was for sure.