Val McDermid - Dead Beat

Luckily for me, there was another door on the far side. I slipped off my heels and tiptoed across the room. That was where my luck ran out. The door wouldn't budge. I crouched down, applying my eye to the crack. Situation hopeless. It was bolted on the far side. That left me two alternatives. Either I could sit it out and hope that no one would be caught short. Or I could brazen it out. If I was going to do that, better sooner rather than later. It would be a lot easier to talk my way out of it before Kevin arrived and started asking awkward questions about what I was doing in his office.

I tiptoed back to the loo and put my shoes back on. Then, very noisily, I stood up, flushed the loo and clattered loudly over to the sink, where I committed an arrestable offence with the dolphin till I got a loud gush of water out of it. Then I made great play of fiddling with the door lock before I emerged.

I managed to stop short in the doorway with every appearance of surprise. 'Inspector Jackson!' I exclaimed as his head swivelled round to face me. Those tinted glasses of his were really sinister when the light was behind him.

'And what exactly are you doing here, Miss Brannigan?' he demanded, a note of weary irritation in his voice.

'Pretty much the same as you, by the looks of it. Waiting for Kevin. I heard he'd be back soon.' Well, it was true, sort of.

'And how, exactly, did you get through a locked door?' His voice was oilier than I'd have imagined possible. It's the voice they use, cops, when they think they've got you bang to rights. Doesn't matter if it's speeding or murder. I think they learn it in training.

'Locked? You must be mistaken, Inspector. I just turned the handle and walked through. After all, if I'd effected an illegal entry, I'd hardly be powdering my nose and touching up my mascara, now would I?'

Me and my big mouth. Jackson's hands moved up to the knot of his immaculate paisley tie and tightened the precise knot a fraction. I had the irresistible feeling he wanted to tighten his hands round my neck. 'And is Mr Kleinman expecting you?' he said through stiff lips.

'Only in the most general way. He knows I'll be wanting to talk to him sometime. Nothing urgent. I'll pop back another time, when I'm not in your way.' I headed for the door, doing the confident routine.

'While you're here, let's you and me have a little chat while we're waiting,' he commanded.

'Fine by me,' I said. 'It'll save me having to get up early tomorrow for our little chat.' I can't help myself, I swear. Every time I run up against a copper who thinks he's in the last days of his apprenticeship to God, I get one on me. I walked over to the desk and leaned against it. Jackson squirmed forward on the sofa to try and get in a commanding position. I could have told him it was a waste of effort. 'Ask away, Inspector,' I invited him.

'In your statement, you said you'd been here, quote, about an hour, unquote, before you and Mr Franklin went in search of Miss Pollock.'

'That's right,' I confirmed.

'You can't be more precise than that? I'm sorry, but I find that very hard to believe, Miss Brannigan. I thought you private eyes prided yourselves on being accurate.' Had to get his little dig in, didn't he?

I shrugged. 'Don't you find that's so often the way it is, Inspector? People's memories are incredibly inconvenient. I'm constantly surprised when I'm interviewing people by the things they manage to be vague about.'

'Perhaps we can be more precise if we work backwards. Where did you come from? And what time did you leave there?'

'I had been working near Warrington. I finished there about half an hour after midnight, and decided that since I was only ten minutes or so away from Colcutt, I'd pop in for a nightcap.' Time to go on the offensive, I decided. I really couldn't afford to get into a detailed analysis of time and place. 'What's the big deal, anyway, Inspector? Still trying to get Jett in the frame? I'd have thought there wasn't a lot of point in that now you've got someone in custody.'

He pushed his glasses up and rubbed the bridge of his nose in an exasperated gesture. 'Why don't you just leave us to do the job we're paid to do, Miss Brannigan?'

'Are you denying you've arrested Maggie Rossiter?'

'If you're so keen to find out what we're up to, you should send that boyfriend of yours along to our press conferences,' he said sarcastically. Pity the police aren't as good at catching villains as they are at gossiping. 'At least that way you'd get hold of the right end of the stick. You still haven't answered me. What time was it when you got here?'

'I told you, I can't be sure. We chatted for about an hour, I'd guess, then Jett went to fetch Moira.'

'Why did he wait that long? Why didn't he go and get her before then?'

I took a deep breath. 'He went to get her then because they'd arranged to meet for a working session in the rehearsal room and he didn't want her hanging around waiting for him. I guess he didn't go and get her before because he didn't know where she was.'

'How long was he away?'

'A couple of minutes. Not long enough to kill her, if that's what you're trying to get at. Besides, I felt her skin temperature when I tried for a pulse. She was a lot cooler than she could have got in three or four minutes.'

'Don't tell me,' Jackson said sarcastically. 'Let me guess. And she wasn't as cold as she would have been if she'd been dead an hour, am I right?'

'That would be my judgement, yes,' I replied.

'I'm sure our pathologist will be fascinated by your expert opinion,' Jackson sighed. 'When you saw the girlfriend – was she going towards the house or away from it?'

'I can't be certain, but I think she was heading back towards the village.'

Jackson nodded. 'And she looked what? Startled? Afraid? Upset?'

'She looked pretty startled. But who wouldn't, nearly being run over in the small hours?'

'And when you went rushing off to interview her, did she happen to mention how Moira Pollock met her end?'

'No.' That I was sure about.

'And did you?' He was probing more firmly now. I began to wonder why he wasn't back at the station giving Maggie the third degree.

'No. You told me not to, remember?'

'And you always do what you're told? Spare me, Miss Brannigan.'

I pushed myself away from the desk. 'I don't know where this is getting us, Inspector, but I've got more important things to do with my time than sit here being insulted. If you've got some genuine questions to put to me, fine, we'll talk. But if you're just going over old ground, and trying to get me to change my testimony to incriminate my client, then you're wasting your time as well as mine.' I was halfway to the door as I finished. But Jackson was faster than me.

He blocked the doors, standing with his back to them. 'Not so fast,' he began. Then he stumbled forward, nearly cannoning into me as someone pushed the door behind him.

Kevin looked furious as he stomped into his office. 'What the hell is going on here?' he started. 'What is this? Why's everybody playing cops and robbers in my office?'

T was just leaving,' I said haughtily, skirting the pair of them. 'I'll catch up with you another time, Kevin,' I threw over my shoulder as I pulled the door shut firmly behind me. Time to do some work on my timetables.

I found Jett in his private sitting room, on the opposite side of the house to Kevin's suite. I walked in through the open door, then paused till he noticed me. He was sitting on a tall stool by the window, picking out fragments of old melodies on a twelve string Yamaha. After a few minutes, he turned his head towards me and nodded. He reached the end of a phrase of 'Crying In The Sun', one of their collaborations from the second album, then stood up abruptly. 'Kate,' he said softly. It was impossible to see the expression on his face, silhouetted against the light as he was. I sat down on a chaise longue and said, 'How're you doing?' Jett carefully leaned the guitar against the wall then folded himself into the lotus position on the floor a few feet away from me. 'It's the hardest thing I've ever known,' he replied, his voice curiously lacking in its usual resonance. 'It's like losing half of myself. The better half. I've tried everything I know – meditation, self-hypnosis, booze. Even sex. But nothing makes it go away. I keep getting flashbacks of her lying there like that.'