Star Struck

VAL McDERMID

Star Struck

For Tessa and Peps, the Scylebert Twins (aka Margaret & Nicky) Thanks for all the laughter – we’ll never feel the same about Isa.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

By the Same Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Extract from the computer database of Dorothea Dawson, Seer to the Stars

Written in the Stars for Kate Brannigan, private investigator.

Born Oxford, UK, 4th September 1966.

SUN IN VIRGO IN THE 5TH HOUSE

On the positive side, can be ingenious, verbally skilled, diplomatic, tidy, methodical, discerning and dutiful. The negatives are fussiness, a critical manner, an obsessive attention to detail and a lack of self-confidence that can disguise itself as arrogance. In the 5th House, it indicates a player of games.

From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson

My client was about to get a resounding smack in the mouth. I watched helplessly from the other side of the street. My adrenaline was pumping, but there was no way I could have made it to her side in time. That’s the trouble with bodyguarding jobs. Even if you surround the client with a phalanx of Rutger Hauer clones and Jean Van Damme wannabes in bulletproof vests, the moment always comes when they’re vulnerable. And guess who always gets the blame? That’s why, when people come looking for a minder, the house rule at Brannigan & Co: Investigations & Security states, ‘We don’t do that.’

But Christmas was coming and the goose was anorexic. Business had been as slow as a Post Office queue and even staff as unorthodox as mine expect to be paid on time. Besides, I deserved a festive bonus myself. Eating, for example. So I’d sent my better judgement on an early Yuletide break and agreed to take on a client who’d turned out to be more accident prone than Coco the Clown.

For once, it wasn’t my fault that the client was in the front line. I’d had no say in what was happening out there on the street. If I’d wanted to stop it, I couldn’t have. So, absolved from action for once, I stood with my hands in my pockets and watched Carla Hardcastle’s arm swing round in a fearsome arc to deliver a cracking wallop that wiped the complacent smirk off Brenda Barrowclough’s self-satisfied face. I sucked my breath in sharply.

‘And cut,’ the director said. ‘Very nice, girls, but I’d like it one more time. Gloria, loved that smug little smile, but can you lose it at the point where you realize she’s actually going to thump you? And let us see some outrage?’

My client gave a forbearing smile that was about as sincere as a beggar asking for tea money. ‘Whatever you say, Helen, chuck,’ she rasped in the voice that thrilled the nation three times a week as we shovelled down our microwave dinners in front of Manchester’s principal contribution to the world of soap. Then she turned to me with an exaggerated wink and called, ‘You’re all right, chuck, it’s only make believe.’

Everyone turned to stare at me. I managed to grin while clenching my teeth. It’s a talent that comes in very handy in the private-eye business. It’s having to deal with unscrupulous idiots that does it. And that’s just the clients.

‘That’s my bodyguard,’ Gloria Kendal–alias Brenda Barrowclough–announced to the entire cast and crew of Northerners.

‘We’d all worked out it wasn’t your body double,’ the actress playing Carla said, apparently as sour in life as the character she played in the human drama that had wowed British audiences for the best part of twenty years.

‘Let’s hope you only get attacked by midgets,’ Teddy Edwards added. He’d once been a stand-up comedian on the working men’s club circuit, but he’d clearly been playing Gloria’s screen husband for so long that he’d lost any comic talent he’d ever possessed. I might only be five feet three in my socks, but I wouldn’t have needed to use too many of my Thai-boxing skills to bring a lump of lard like him to his knees. I gave him the hard stare and I’m petty enough to admit I enjoyed it when he cleared his throat and looked away.

‘All right, settle down,’ the director called. ‘Places, please, and let’s take it again from the top of the scene.’

‘Can we have a bit of hush back there?’ someone else added. I wondered what his job title was and how long I’d have to hang around the TV studios before I worked out who did what in a hierarchy that included best boys, gaffers and too many gofers to count. I figured I’d probably have long enough, the way things were going. There was a lot of time for idle reflection in this job. When Gloria was filming, silence was the rule. I couldn’t ask questions, eavesdrop or burgle in pursuit of the information I needed to close the case. All there was for me to do was lean against the wall and watch. There was nothing remotely glamorous about witnessing the seventh take of a scene that was a long way from Shakespeare to start with. As jobs went, minding the queen of the nation’s soaps was about as exotic as watching rain slide down a window.