Val McDermid - Dead Beat

I believed him. It wasn't so much the threat of Dennis breaking his nose that had changed his mind. It was the thought of what would happen to him if the O'Brien brothers came looking for him. Even bodyguards have to sleep.

The thing that bothered me was that Dennis's methods hadn't bothered me. Maybe I'd been reading the wrong books. Perhaps tonight I should tuck myself up with an Agatha Christie and a few balls of pink wool.

I was thirty pages into The Murder At The Vicarage when Richard breezed in through the conservatory. 'Sorry to interrupt you while you're working,' he teased. I put the book down as he sat down beside me and pulled me into his arms. It was a long kiss, as if to make up for the little time we'd spent together in the previous few days.

'Fancy an early night?' Richard whispered.

'That's the nicest thing anybody's said to me today,' I replied, snuggling into him. 'How in God's name do you manage to put up with your job? If I had to spend my time with assholes like that lot, I'd slit my wrists.'

'You just tune it out. I always treat it like I'm watching Dynasty or the South Bank Show. You know, it's either glitz or pretension. I never let myself believe it's the real world. Sometimes I feel like David Attenborough, sitting in a hide watching the habits of a strange species,' he told me. 'It's fascinating. And I like most of the music, so I try to forgive them their worst excesses.'

'Like murder?'

'Maybe not murder,' he conceded. 'Though I'd have to say I think that someone like Jett is a bigger contributor to the quality of life than your average copper.'

'He's not contributing much to the quality of my life right now. This job is mission impossible. A house full of people and not a decent alibi among them. And everybody has some kind of a motive. Except for Neil, who seems to be the only person who had a vested interest in her staying alive.'

Richard snorted. 'Him? I wouldn't put it past him to have bumped her off just to stir up a bit of scandal for his book.'

'That's outrageous!' I protested. 'Besides, she was an important source for him on Jett's early days in the business.'

'Yeah, well maybe he milked her dry then bumped her off. From what I hear, he's been talking to the world since she died.' Richard sounded mean and spiteful, which isn't like him.

I tried to show him he was just talking out of blind prejudice, explaining that Kevin had asked Neil to handle all the press liaison. 'So of course he's had to talk to people.'

'It's not just all the copy he's been flogging,' Richard replied, still peeved. 'He's been doing the hard sell on this biography too, telling people that there's going to be stuff in there that no one else even guessed at before.'

I was puzzled. I remembered Neil telling me that his biggest problem with the book was that there were no new, exciting revelations. However, that had been before Moira had reappeared on the scene. 'Maybe he's just talking it up,' I suggested.

T don't think so. I suppose he could just be trying to cash in on the interest in Moira's death by trying to stitch up a serialisation deal sight unseen, but most feature desks won't play unless they've got a bloody good idea what they're getting for their money. Everybody's under the cosh financially these days. The golden age when you could talk a story up and still get paid when the end product didn't match up to expectations is long gone. The emperor's new clothes trick just doesn't work any more. Now they want to talk to the tailor.' Richard shifted away from me and got up. 'I need a beer,' he said, heading for the kitchen.

While he was off examining his collection of exotic beers of the world, I thought about what he'd said. I still couldn't believe he seriously thought Neil would have killed Moira for a few headlines. But I know from Richard that there is still big money to be made in the seedy world of newspaper exposes. I began to wonder just what Moira had told Neil. I'd have to ask him some more questions. The trouble with this investigation was that I just didn't know the right things to ask. It wasn't like insurance fraud or software piracy, where I knew who knew exactly what I needed to know. I was floundering, and I knew it.

Richard came back with a can of Budweiser and leaned against the door jamb. 'Am I drinking this on the couch, or are you still in the market for an early night?'

An hour later, I felt different again. It's amazing how good sex with someone you love puts everything back into proportion. If I didn't discover who had killed Moira, it wouldn't be the end of the world. I'd have given it my best shot, and that was all anyone could demand from me. Richard wouldn't think any the less of me, and I sure as hell wasn't going to beat myself up for not being clairvoyant.

I pulled my arm out from under Richard's shoulders as I felt the tingle of pins and needles. It disturbed his little post-coital reverie and he turned on his side to plant a soft kiss on my nipple. I felt warm and languorous, and kind of sorry for Miss Marple.

'What's happening about your schneids case, by the way?' Richard asked, with all his usual tact and sensitivity.

'You pick your moments, don't you?' I complained. 'The police and the Trading Standards guys are planning another raid some time in the next few days, I think. They probably won't tell us till it's all over, if they even bother then. They're a bit embarrassed about us doing their work for them.'

'So they should be. You'd think they'd be a bit more grateful that you're there to hand them the stuff on a plate.'

'It doesn't work like that. There's still a fair few of them who think that proper coppers shouldn't be spending their time on things like trade mark infringements,' I told him ruefully.

'Well, they can't catch burglars or car thieves. They should be glad somebody's doing something that gets a conviction or two.'

Sometimes I think Richard's spent so long in the cloud cuckoo land of rock that he's lost touch with the real world. But what he'd said about schneids had reminded me of something I wanted to ask him. 'Is there a lot of schneid merchandising around on the rock scene just now? You know, sweatshirts and all that?'

'You wouldn't believe the half of it,' he assured me. He was wrong. After the day I'd had, nothing would stretch my credulity. 'It's an epidemic. Top name acts are losing a fortune from it. Do you know, sometimes the schneid gear even ends up on sale at the official stall at gigs? God knows how they get away with it.'

My ears pricked up. 'You mean, it's an inside job?'

'Depends. It can be done one of two ways. Either they hire a couple of kids locally to run the stall and they're doing it as a bit of private enterprise, if the schneids are good enough. Or else somebody high up in the organisation is slipping them in and not putting them through the books. I don't really know how it would work, but that's the word on the street.'

I needed the answer to one more question. 'Do you happen to know if Jett's been having any problems like that?'

'If he wasn't, he'd be unique. But I don't know for sure. Why don't you ask him?'

I did just that. I rolled over, picked up the phone and dialled Jett's private line. Tamar answered, and called to Jett that it was for him. A couple of moments later, he was on the line.

'Hi, Jett. Just a quick query. You know you told me Moira thought you were having problems with merchandising rip-offs? I mean copycat versions of your tour t-shirts and sweatshirts, that kind of thing? Did she give you anything specific?'

'Well, she didn't exactly, but there was a load of fake stuff around on the last tour. I got Kevin to call in the cops, but they apparently couldn't find anything. But what's that got to do with Moira?'