Dead Beat Part 1

VAL McDERMID DEAD BEAT.

Part One.

1.

I swear one day I'll kill him. Kill who? The man next door, Richard Barclay, rock journalist and overgrown schoolboy, is who. I had stumbled wearily across the threshold of my bungalow, craving nothing more exotic than a few hours' sleep when I found Richard's message. When I say found, I use the term loosely. I could hardly have missed it. He'd sellotaped it to the inside of my gla.s.s inner door so that it would be the first thing I saw when I entered the storm porch. It glared luridly at me, looking like a child's note to Santa, written in sprawling capitals with magic marker on the back of a record company press release. 'Don't forget Jett's gig and party afterwards tonight. Vital you're there. See you at eight.' Vital was underlined three times, but it was that 'Don't forget' that made my hands twitch into a stranglehold.

Richard and I have been lovers for only nine months, but I've already learned to speak his language. I could write the Berlitz phrasebook. The official translation of 'don't forget' is, 'I omitted to mention to you that I had committed us to going somewhere/doing something (that you will almost certainly hate the idea of) and if you don't come it will cause me major social embarra.s.sment.'

I pulled the note off the door, sighing deeply when I saw the sellotape marks on the gla.s.s. I'd weaned him off drawing pins, but unfortunately I hadn't yet got him on to Blu-Tack. I walked up the narrow hall to the telephone table. The house diary where Richard and I are both supposed to record details of anything mutually relevant lay open. In today's s.p.a.ce, Richard had written, in black felt-tip pen, 'Jett: Apollo then Holiday Inn'. Even though he'd used a different pen from his note, it didn't fool the carefully cultivated memory skills of Kate Brannigan, Private Investigator. I knew that message hadn't been there when I'd staggered out an hour before dawn to continue my surveillance of a pair of counterfeiters.

I muttered childish curses under my breath as I made my way through to my bedroom and quickly peeled off my nondescript duvet jacket and jogging suit. 'I hope his rabbits die and all his matches get wet. And I hope he can't get the lid off the mayo after he's made the chicken sandwich,' I swore as I headed for the bathroom and stepped gratefully under a hot shower.

That's when the self-pitying tears slowly squeezed themselves under my defences and down my cheeks. In the shower no one can see you weep. I offer that up as one of the great twentieth-century aphorisms, right up there alongside 'Love means never having to say you're sorry'. Mostly, my tears were sheer exhaustion. For the last two weeks I'd been working on a case that had involved driving from one end of the country to the other on an almost daily basis, staking out houses and warehouses from the hours before dawn till past midnight, and living on s.n.a.t.c.hed sandwiches from motorway service stations and greasy spoons my mother would have phoned the environmental health inspectors about.

If that sort of routine had been the normal stock in trade of Mortensen and Brannigan it might not have seemed so b.l.o.o.d.y awful. But our cases usually involve nothing more taxing than sitting in front of a computer screen drinking coffee and making phone calls. This time, though, my senior partner Bill Mortensen and I had been hired by a consortium of prestigious watch manufacturers to track down the source of high-quality copies of their merchandise which had been flooding the market from somewhere in the Greater Manchester area. Surprise, surprise, I'd ended up with the sticky end while Bill sat in the office moodily staring into his computer screens.

Matters had come to a head when Garnetts, the city's biggest independent jewellers', had been broken into. The thieves had ignored the safe and the alarmed display cases, and had simply stolen the contents of a cupboard in the manager's office. What they had walked away with were the green leather wallets that are presented free to purchasers of genuine Rolex watches, the luxury market's equivalent of a free plastic daffodil with every packet of soap powder. They'd also taken the credit card wallets that Gucci give to their customers, as well as dozens of empty boxes for Cartier and Raymond Weil watches.

This theft told the manufacturers that the counterfeit business-known in the trade as schneids-was moving up a gear. Till now, the villains had been content to sell their wares as copies, via a complicated network of small traders. While that had infuriated the companies, it hadn't kept them awake at night because the sort of people who part with forty pounds in a pub or at a market stall for a fake Rolex aren't the sort who've got a few grand tucked away in their back pockets for the real thing. But now it looked as if the schneid merchants were planning to pa.s.s their clever copies off as the genuine article. Not only might that take business away from straight outlets, it could also affect the luxury watchmakers' reputation for quality. Suddenly it was worth spending money to knock the racket on the head.

Mortensen and Brannigan might not be up there in the top ten of Britain's major private investigation companies, but we'd landed this job for two good reasons. Although our main area of work is in computer fraud and security systems, we were the first people who sprang to Garnetts' minds, since Bill had designed their computerized security system and they had ignored his suggestion that the cupboard in question be linked in to the overall system. After all, they'd argued, there was nothing in there worth stealing...The second reason was that we were one of the few firms of specialist private investigators operating out of Manchester. We knew the territory.

When we took the job on, we antic.i.p.ated clearing it up in a matter of days. What we hadn't grasped was the scale of the operation. Getting to grips with it had worn me into the ground. However, in the last couple of days, I'd started to feel that warm glow of excitement in the pit of my stomach that always tells me I'm getting close. I had found the factory where the schneid watches were being produced, I knew the names of the two men who were wholesaling the merchandise, and who their main middle men were. All I had to do was establish the pattern of their movements and then we could hand over to our clients. I suspected that some time in the next couple of weeks, the men I had been following would be on the receiving end of a very unwelcome visit from the cops and Trading Standards officials. Which would ultimately mean a substantial reward for Mortensen and Brannigan, on top of our already substantial fee.

Because it was all going so well, I had promised myself a well-deserved and much-needed early night after I had followed Jack 'Billy' Smart, my number one suspect, back to his Gothic three-storey house in a quiet, tree-lined suburban street that evening at six. He'd walked in with a couple of bottles of Moet and an armful of videos from the shop round the corner, and I figured he was all set for a kiss and a cuddle in front of the television with his girl-friend. Come to that, I could have kissed him myself. Now I could go home, have a quick shower, send a cab out for a takeaway from nearby Chinatown and watch the soaps. Then I'd have a face pack and luxuriate in a long, slow bath and beauty routine. It's not that I'm obsessive about personal hygiene, by the way, just that I've always felt that showers are for getting rid of the dirt, while baths are for serious pleasures like reading the adventure game reviews in computer magazines and fantasizing about the computer I'll upgrade to when Mortensen and Brannigan's ship comes in. With luck, Richard would be out on the town so I could perform my ablutions in total peace, accompanied only by a long cool drink.

Well, I'd been right about one thing at least. Richard was certainly going out on the town. What I hadn't bargained for was being there with him. So much for my plans. I knew I was no match for Richard tonight. I was just too tired to win the argument. Besides, deep down, I knew I didn't have a leg to stand on. He'd bitten the bullet and got suited up to escort me to an obligatory dinner party the week before. After subjecting him to an evening with a bunch of insurance executives and their wives, spinach pancakes and all, I owed him. And I suspected he knew it. But just because it was my turn to suffer didn't mean I had to cave in without a whinge.

As I vigorously rubbed shampoo into my unruly auburn hair, a blast of cold air hit my spine. I turned, knowing exactly what I'd see. Richard's face smiled nervously at me through the open door of the shower cubicle. 'Hi, Brannigan,' he greeted me. 'Getting ready for a big night out? I knew you wouldn't forget.' He must have registered the snarl on my face, for he quickly added, 'I'll see you in the living room when you're finished,' and hastily shut the door.

'Get back in here,' I yelled after him, but he sensibly ignored me. It's at moments like this I just don't understand why I broke all the rules of a lifetime and allowed this man to invade my personal s.p.a.ce.

I should have known better. It had all started so inauspiciously. I'd been tailing a young systems engineer whose employer suspected him of selling information to a rival. I'd followed him to the Hacienda Club, breeding ground for so many of the bands that have turned Manchester into the creative centre of the nineties music industry. I'd only been there a couple of times previously because being jammed shoulder to shoulder with a sweating ma.s.s of bodies in a room where conversation is impossible and the simple act of breathing gets you stoned isn't my idea of the perfect way to spend what little free time I get. I have to confess I'm much happier playing interactive adventure games with my computer.

Anyway, I was trying to look un.o.btrusive in the Ha.s.sy-not an easy task when you're that crucial five years older than most of the clientele-when this guy appeared at my shoulder and tried to buy me a drink. I liked the look of him. For a start, he was old enough to have started shaving. He had twinkling hazel eyes behind a pair of large tortoisesh.e.l.l-framed gla.s.ses and a very cute smile, but I was working and I couldn't afford to take my eyes off my little systems man in case he made his contact right before my eyes. But The Cute Smile didn't want to take no for an answer, so it was something of a relief when my target headed for the exit.

I had no time for goodbyes. I shot off after him, squeezing through the press of bodies like a sweaty eel. By the time I made it on to the street, I could see his tail lights glowing red as he started his car. I cursed aloud as I ran round the corner to where I'd parked and leapt behind the wheel. I slammed the car into gear and shot out of my parking place. As I tore round the corner, a customized Volkswagen Beetle convertible reversed out of a side alley. I had nowhere to go except into the nearside door. There was a crunching of metal as I wrestled my wheel round in a bid to save my Nova from complete disaster.

It was all over in seconds. I climbed out of the car, furious with this d.i.c.khead who hadn't bothered to check before he reversed out into a main street. Whoever he was, he'd not only lost me my surveillance target but had also wrecked my car. I strode round to the driver's door of the Beetle in a towering rage, ready to drag the pillock out on to the street and send him home with his nuts in a paper bag. I mean, driving like that, it had to be a man, didn't it?

Peering out at me like a very shaken little boy was The Cute Smile. Before I could find the words to tell him what I thought of his brainless driving, he smiled disarmingly up at me. 'If you wanted my name and phone number that badly, all you had to do was ask,' he said innocently.

For some strange reason, I didn't kill him. I laughed. That was my first mistake. Now, nine months later, Richard was my lover next door, a funny, gentle divorce with a five-year-old son in London. I'd at least managed to hang on to enough of my common sense not to let him move in with me. By chance, the bungalow next to mine had come on the market, and I'd explained to Richard that that was as close as he was going to get to living with me, so he snapped it up.

He'd wanted to knock a connecting door between the two, but I'd informed him that it was a load-bearing wall and besides, we'd never manage to sell either house like that. Because I'm the practical one in this relationship, he believed me. Instead, I came up with the idea of linking the houses via a huge conservatory built on the back of our living rooms, with access to both houses through patio doors. Erecting a part.i.tion wall to separate the two halves would be a simple matter if we ever move. And we both reserve the right to lock our doors. Well, I do. Apart from anything else, it gives me time to clear up after Richard has been reducing the neat order of my home to chaos. And it means he can sit carousing with his rock buddies till dawn without me stomping through to the living room in the small hours looking like a refugee from the Addams family, chuddering sourly about some of us having to go to work in the morning.

Right now, as I savagely towelled my hair and smoothed moisturizer into my tired skin, I cursed my susceptibility. Somehow he always manages to dig himself out of his latest pit with the same cute smile, a bunch of roses and a joke. It shouldn't work, not on a bright, streetwise hard case like me, but to my infinite shame, it does. At least I've managed to impress upon him that there are house rules in any relationship. To break the rules knowingly once is forgivable. Twice means me changing the locks at three in the morning and Richard finding his favourite records thrown out of my living room window on to the lawn once I've made sure it's raining. It usually is in Manchester.

At first, he reacted as if my behaviour were certifiable. Now, he's come to accept that life is much sweeter if he sticks to the rules. He's still a long way from perfect. For example, being colour-blind, he's got a tendency to bring home little gifts like a scarlet vase that clashes hideously with my sage green, peach and magnolia decor. Or black sweatshirts promoting bands I've never heard of because black's fashionable, in spite of the fact that I've told him a dozen times that black makes me look like a candidate for the terminal ward. Now, I simply banish them to his home and thank him sweetly for his thoughtfulness. But he's getting better, I swear he's getting better. Or so I told myself as the desire to strangle him rose at the thought of the evening ahead.

Reluctantly abandoning the idea of murder, I returned to my bedroom and thought about an outfit for the evening. I weighed up what would be expected of me. It didn't matter a d.a.m.n what I wore to the concert. I'd be lost in the thousands of yelling fans desperate to welcome Jett back in triumph to his home town. The party afterwards was more of a problem. Much as I hated having to ask, I called through to Richard, 'What's the party going to be like, clothes-wise?'

He appeared in the doorway, looking like a puppy that's astonished to have been forgiven so easily for the mess on the kitchen floor. His own outfit was hardly a clue. He was wearing a wide-shouldered baggy electric blue double breasted suit, a black shirt and a silk tie with a swirled pattern of neon colours that looked like a sixties psychedelic alb.u.m cover. He shrugged and gave that smile that still made my stomach turn over. 'You know Jett,' he said.

That was the problem. I didn't. I'd met the man once, about three months before. He'd turned up on our table for ten at a charity dinner and had sat very quiet, almost morose, except when discussing football with Richard. Manchester United, those two words that are recognized in any language from Santiago to Stockholm, had unlocked Jett as if with a magic key. He'd sprung to the defence of his beloved Manchester City with the ardour of an Italian whose mother's honour has been impugned. The only fashion hint I'd had from that encounter was that I should wear a City strip. 'No, Richard, I don't know Jett,' I explained patiently. 'What kind of party will it be?'

'Not many Traceys, lots of Fionas,' he announced in our own private code. Traceys are bimbos, the natural successors to groupies. Blonde, busty and fashion-obsessed, if they had a brain they'd be dangerous. Fionas share the same characteristics but they are the rich little upper-crust girls who would have been debutantes if coming out had not become so hopelessly unfashionable with everyone except gays. They like rock stars because they enjoy being with men who lavish them with gifts and a good time, while at the same time shocking their families to the core. So Jett liked Fionas, did he? And Fionas meant designer outfits, an item singularly lacking in my wardrobe.

I flicked moodily through the hangers and ended up with a baggy long cotton shirt splashed with shades of olive, khaki, cream and terracotta that I'd bought on holiday in the Canaries the year before. I pulled on a pair of tight terracotta leggings. That was when I knew the motorway sandwiches had to go. Luckily, the shirt covered the worst of the bulges, so I cinched it in at the waist with a broad brown belt. I finished the outfit off with a pair of high-heeled brown sandals. When you're only 53, you need all the help you can get. I chose a pair of outrageous earrings and a couple of gold bangles, and eyed myself in the mirror. It wasn't wonderful, but it was better than Richard deserved. Right on cue, he said, 'You look great. You'll knock them dead, Brannigan.'

I hoped not. I hate mixing business with pleasure.

2.

We didn't have to scramble for a parking place near the Apollo Theatre, since we live less than five minutes' walk away. I couldn't believe my luck when I discovered this development halfway through my first year as a law student at Manchester University. It's surrounded on three sides by council housing estates and on the fourth by Ardwick Common. It's five minutes by bike to the university, the central reference library, Chinatown, and the office. It's ten minutes by bike to the heart of the city centre. And by car, it's only moments away from the motorway network. When I discovered it, they were still building the little close of forty houses, and the prices were ridiculously low, probably because of the surrounding area's less than salubrious reputation. I worked out that if I pitched my father into standing guarantor for a hundred per cent mortgage and moved another student into the spare room as a lodger, I'd be paying almost the same as I was for my s.h.i.tty little room in a student residence. So I went for it and moved in that Easter. I've never regretted it. It's a great place to live as long as you remember to switch on the burglar alarm.

We arrived at the Apollo just as the support band were finishing their first number. We'd have caught the opener if they hadn't left the guest list in the hands of an illiterate. One of the major drawbacks to having a relationship with a rock writer is that you can't put support bands to their traditional use of providing a background beat while you have a few drinks before the act you came to hear gets on stage. Rock writers actually listen to the support band, just so they can indulge in their professional one-upmanship with lines like, 'Oh yes, I remember Dire Straits when they were playing support at the Newcastle City Hall,' invariably to some band that everyone has now forgotten. After two numbers, I couldn't take any more and I abandoned Richard in his seat while I headed for the bar.

The bar at the Apollo reminds me of a vision of h.e.l.l. It's decorated in a mosaic of bright red glitter, it's hot and it reeks of cigarette smoke and stale alcohol. I elbowed my way through the crowd and waved a fiver in the air till one of the nonchalant bar staff eventually deigned to notice me. At the Apollo, they specialize in a minuscule selection of drinks, all served at blood heat in plastic tumblers. It doesn't matter much what you order, it all seems to taste much the same. Only the colours vary. I asked for a lager, which arrived flat and looking like a urine sample. I sipped tentatively and decided that seeing is believing. As I pushed my way back towards the door, I saw someone who made me stop so suddenly that the man behind me cannoned into me, spilling half my drink down the trousers of the man next to me.

In the chaos of my apologies and my pathetic attempts to wipe up the spilled beer with a tissue from my handbag, I took my eyes off the source of my surprise. When I managed to make my embarra.s.sed escape, I looked over to the corner where he'd been standing. But it was now occupied by a threesome I'd never seen before. Gary Smart, brother and partner of Billy, had vanished.

I stared round the crowded bar, but there was no trace of him. He'd been standing with a tall, skinny man who'd had his back to me. I didn't hear a word of their conversation, but their body language suggested a business deal. Gary had been putting some kind of pressure on the other man. It certainly hadn't looked like a pleasant, concertgoers' chat about which of Jett's alb.u.ms they liked best. I cursed silently. I'd missed a great chance to pick up some interesting info.

With a shrug, I drank the few remaining mouthfuls of my drink and went back down to the foyer. I checked out the tour merchandise just to see if there was anything among the t-shirts, sweatshirts, badges, programmes and alb.u.ms that I fancied. Richard can always get freebies, so I usually have a quick look. But the sweatshirts were black, and the t-shirts hideous, so I walked back through the half-empty auditorium and slumped in my seat next to Richard while the support band ground out their last two numbers. They left the stage to muted applause, the lights went up and a tape of current chart hits filled the air. 'Bag of c.r.a.p,' Richard remarked.

'That their name or a critical judgement?' I asked.

He laughed and said, 'Well, they ain't honest enough to call themselves that, but they might as well have done. Now, while we've got a minute to ourselves, tell me about your day.'

As he lit a joint, I did just that. I always find that talking things over with Richard helps. He has an instinctive understanding of people and how their minds work that I have come to rely on. It's the perfect foil to my more a.n.a.lytical approach.

Unfortunately, before he could deliver his considered verdict on the Smart brothers, the lights went down. The auditorium, now full to capacity, rang with cries of 'Jett, Jett, Jett...' After a few minutes of chanting, wavering torch beams lit up pathways on the stage as members of Jett's backing band took the stage. Then, a pale blue spot picked out the drummer, high on his platform at the rear of the stage, brushing a snare drum softly. The lighting man focused on the ba.s.s player in pale purple as he picked up the slow beat. Then came the keyboards player, adding a shimmering chord from the synthesizer. The sax player joined in, laying down a line as smooth as chocolate.

Then, suddenly, a stark white spotlight picked out Jett as he strode out of the wings, looking as frail and vulnerable as ever. His black skin gleamed under the lights. He wore his trademark brown leather trousers and cream silk shirt. An acoustic guitar was slung round his neck. The audience went wild, almost drowning out the musicians in their frenzy. But as soon as he opened his mouth to sing, they stilled.

His voice was better than ever. I've been a fan of Jett since his first single hit the charts when I was fifteen, but I find it as hard now to categorize his music as I did then. His first alb.u.m had been a collection of twelve tracks, mainly acoustic but with some subtle backings ranging from a plangent sax to a string quartet. The songs had ranged from simple, plaintive love songs to the anthemlike 'To Be With You Tonight' which had been the surprise hit of the year, hitting the top of the charts the week after its release and staying there for eight weeks. He had one of those voices that has the quality of a musical instrument, blending perfectly with whatever arrangement flows beneath it. As a lovesick teenager, I could lose myself completely in his yearning songs with their poignant lyrics.

Eight other alb.u.ms had followed, but I'd increasingly found less delight in them. I wasn't sure if it was the changes in me that were responsible for that. Maybe what strikes a teenager as profound and moving just doesn't work once you're halfway through your twenties. But it seemed to me that while the music was still strong, the lyrics had become trite and predictable. Maybe that was a reflection of his reported views about the role of women. It's hard to write enlightened love songs about the half of the population you believe should be barefoot and pregnant. However, the packed crowd in the Apollo didn't seem to share my views. They roared out their appreciation for every number, whether from the last alb.u.m or the first. After all, he was on home ground. He was their own native son. He'd made the northern dream a reality, moving up from a council flat in the Moss-side ghetto to a mansion in the Cheshire countryside.

With consummate showmanship, he closed the ninety-minute set with a third encore, that first, huge hit, the one we'd all been waiting for. A cla.s.sic case of leaving them wanting more. Before the last chords had died away, Richard was on his feet and heading for the exit. I followed quickly before the crowds built up, and caught up with him on the pavement outside as he flagged down a cab.

As we settled back in our seats and the cabbie set off for the hotel, Richard said, 'Not bad. Not bad at all. He puts on a good show. But he'd better have some new ideas for the next alb.u.m. Last three all sounded the same and they didn't sell nearly enough. You watch, there'll be a few twitchy faces around tonight, and I don't just mean the c.o.ke-heads.'

He paused to light a cigarette and I s.n.a.t.c.hed the chance to ask him why it was so important that I be at the party. I was still nursing the forlorn hope of an early night.

'Now that would be telling,' he said mysteriously.

'So tell. It's only a five-minute cab ride. I haven't got time to pull your fingernails out one by one.'

'You're a hard woman, Brannigan,' he complained. 'Never off duty, are you? OK, I'll tell you. You know me and Jett go way back?' I nodded. I remembered Richard telling me the story of how he'd landed his first job on a music paper with an exclusive interview of the normally reclusive Jett. Richard had been working for a local paper in Watford and he'd been covering their cup tie with Manchester City. At the time, Elton John had owned Watford, and Jett had been his personal guest for the afternoon. After City won, Richard had sneaked in to the boardroom and had persuaded an elated Jett to give him an interview. That interview had been Richard's escape ticket. As a bonus, Jett had liked what Richard wrote, and they'd stayed friends ever since.

'Well,' Richard continued, interrupting my reference to my mental card index of his past, 'he's decided that he wants his autobiography written.'

'Don't you mean biography?' Always the nitpicker, that's me.

'No, I mean auto. He wants it ghosted, written in the first person. When we saw him at that dinner, he mentioned it to me. Sort of sounded me out. Of course, I said I'd be interested. It wouldn't be a mega-seller like Jagger or Bowie, but it could be a nice little earner. So, when he rang me up to invite us tonight and he was so insistent that you come along too, I thought I could read between the lines.'

Although he was trying to sound nonchalant, I could tell that Richard was bursting with pride and excitement at the idea. I pulled his head down to mine and planted a kiss on his warm mouth. 'That's great news,' I said, meaning it. 'Will it mean a lot of work?'

He shrugged. 'I shouldn't think so. It's just a case of getting him talking into the old tape recorder then knocking it into shape afterwards. And he's going to be at home for the next three months or so working on the new alb.u.m, so he'll be around and about.'

Before we could discuss the matter further, the taxi pulled up outside the ornate facade of the grandiosely named Holiday Inn Midland Crowne Plaza. It's one of those extraordinary Manchester monuments to the city's first era of prosperity. One of the more palatable byproducts of the cotton mills of the industrial revolution. I can remember when it used to be simply the Midland, one of those huge railway hotels that moulder on as relics of an age when the rich felt no guilt and the poor were kept well away from the doors. Then Holiday Inn bought the dinosaur and turned it into a fun palace for the city's new rich-the sportsmen, businessmen and musicians who gave Manchester a new lease of life in the late eighties.

Suddenly, in the nineties, London was no longer the place to be. If you wanted a decent lifestyle with lots of buzz and excitement packed into compact city centres, you had to be in one of the so-called provincial cities. Manchester for rock, Glasgow for culture, Newcastle for shopping. It was this shift that had brought Richard to Manchester two years before. He'd come up to try to get an interview with cult hero Morrissey and two days in the city had convinced him that it was going to be to the nineties what Liverpool was to the sixties. He had nothing to keep him in London; his divorce had just come through, and a freelance makes his best living if he's where the most interesting stories are. So he stayed, like a lot of others.

I followed him out of the taxi, feeling like partying for the first time since I'd come home. Richard's news had given me a real adrenalin rush, and I couldn't wait for the official confirmation of what he already suspected. We headed straight to the bar for a drink to give Jett and his entourage time to get over to the hotel.

I sipped my vodka and grapefruit juice gratefully. When I became a private eye, I tried to match the image and drink whisky. After two gla.s.ses, I had to revert to my usual to take the taste away. I guess I'm not cut out for the 'bottle of whisky and a new set of lies' Mark Knopfler image. As I drank, I listened with half an ear while Richard told me how he saw Jett's autobiography taking shape. 'It's a great rags to riches story, a cla.s.sic. A poor childhood in the Manchester slums, the struggle to make the music he knew he had in him. First discovering music when his strict Baptist mother pushed him into the gospel choir. How he got his first break. And at last, the inside story on why his songwriting partnership with Moira broke up. It's got all the makings,' he rambled on. 'I could probably sell the serial rights to one of the Sunday tabloids. Oh, Kate, it's a great night for us!'

After twenty minutes of bubbling enthusiasm, I managed to cut in and suggest that we made our way to the party. As soon as we emerged from the lift, it was clear which suite Jett had hired for the night. Already a loud babble of conversation spilled into the hall, overlaying the mellow sounds of Jett's last alb.u.m. I squeezed Richard's hand and said, 'I'm really proud of you,' as we entered the main room and the party engulfed us.

Jett himself was holding court at the far end of the room, looking as fresh as if he'd just got out of the shower. His arm was draped casually round the shoulders of a cla.s.sic Fiona. Her blonde hair hung over her shoulders in a loosely permed mane, her blue eyes, like the rest of her face, were perfectly made up, and the shiny violet sheath that encased her curves looked to me like a Bill Bla.s.s.

'Come on, let's go and talk to Jett,' Richard said eagerly, steering me towards the far side of the room. As we pa.s.sed the table where the drinks were laid out, a shirtsleeved arm sneaked out from a group of women and grabbed Richard's shoulder.

'Barclay!' a deep voice bellowed. 'What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?' The group parted to reveal the speaker, a man of medium height and build, running slightly to paunch round the middle.

Richard looked astonished. 'Neil Webster!' he exclaimed with less than his usual warmth. 'I could ask you the same thing. At least I'm a b.l.o.o.d.y rock writer, not an ambulance chaser. What are you doing back in Manchester? I thought you were in Spain.'

'A bit too hot for me down there, if you catch my drift,' Neil Webster replied. 'Besides, all the news these days seems to happen in this city. I thought I was about due to revisit my old haunts.'

Their exchange gave me a few minutes to study this latest addition to my collection of Journalists Of The World. Neil Webster had that slightly disreputable air that a lot of women seem to find irresistible. I'm not one of them. He looked to be in his late thirties, though a journalist's life does seem to accelerate ageing in everyone except my own Peter Pan Barclay. Neil's brown hair, greying at the temples, looked slightly rumpled, as did the cream chinos and chambray shirt he was wearing. His brown eyes were hooded, with a nest of laughter lines etched white in his tanned skin. He had a hawk nose over a full pepper and salt moustache and his jaw line was starting to show signs of jowls.

My scrutiny was interrupted by his own matching appraisal. 'So who's the lovely lady? I'm sorry, my love, that oaf you came with seems to have forgotten his manners. I'm Neil Webster, real journalist. Not like Richard with his comic books. And you're...?'

'Kate Brannigan.' I coolly shook his proffered hand.

'Well, Kate, let me get you a drink. What's it to be?'

I asked him for my usual vodka and grapefruit juice, and he turned to the bar to pour it. Richard leaned past him and helped himself to a can of Schlitz. 'You didn't say what exactly you were doing back here,' Richard pressed Neil as he handed me my drink. I tasted it and nearly choked, both at the strength of the drink and the impact of Neil's reply.

'Didn't I? Oh, sorry. Fact of the matter is, I've been commissioned to write Jett's official biography.'

3.

Richard's face turned bright scarlet and then chalky white as Neil's words. .h.i.t him. I felt a cold stab of shock in my own stomach as I shared his moment of bitter disappointment. 'You've got to be joking,' Richard said in an icy voice.

Neil laughed. 'Quite a surprise, isn't it? I'd have thought he'd have gone for a specialist. Someone like you,' he added, twisting the knife. 'But Kevin wanted me. He insisted.' He shrugged disarmingly. 'So what could I say? After all, Kevin's an old friend. And he's the boss. I mean, n.o.body manages a top act like Jett a dozen years without knowing what's right for the boy, do they?'

Richard said nothing. He turned on his heel and pushed his way through the growing crowd round the bar. I tried to follow, but Neil stood in my way. 'I don't know what's rattled his cage, but why don't you just let him cool down,' he said smoothly. 'Stay and tell me all about yourself.'

Ignoring him, I moved away and headed towards Jett. I could no longer see Richard's dark head, but I guessed that's where he'd be. I reached Jett's couch in time to hear Richard's angry voice saying, 'You as good as promised me. The guy's a wasted s.p.a.ce. What the h.e.l.l were you thinking?'

The adulatory crowd that had been eagerly congratulating Jett and trying to touch the hem of his garment had fallen back under the force of Richard's onslaught. He was towering threateningly above Jett, whose Fiona looked thrilled to bits by the encounter.

Jett himself looked upset. His honey-sweet voice sounded strained. 'Richard, Richard. Listen to me. I wanted you to do the book. I said that all along. Then out of the blue, Kevin dumps this guy on me and tells me I have to play ball, that he knows who's the best man for the job. And it's too late for me to do anything about it. Kevin's already signed the man up on a contract. If I don't play, we still have to pay. So I have to play.'

Richard had listened in silence, his face a tight mask of anger. I'd never seen him so upset before, not even when his ex-wife was being difficult about his access to Davy. I reached his side and gripped his right arm. I know what he's like when he's angry. The holes in the plasterboard walls of his hall bear eloquent testimony to his frustrations. I didn't think he'd hit Jett, but I didn't want to risk it.

He stood and stared at Jett for what seemed like an eternity. Then he spoke slowly and bitterly. 'And I thought you were a man,' was all he said. He tore his arm out of my grip and plunged into the crowd towards the door. Only then was I aware that the room had fallen silent, every ear in the place tuned in to their conversation. I glared around, and slowly the buzz of conversation built again, even louder than before.

I desperately wanted to chase after Richard, to hold him and make useless offers of comfort. But more pressingly, I needed to know what my part in this whole charade was. I turned back to Jett and said, 'He feels very let down. He thought you asked me here tonight to celebrate a book deal with us.'

Jett had the grace to look sheepish. 'I'm sorry, Kate, I really am sorry. I feel like a piece of s.h.i.t over this, believe me. I wanted to tell Richard myself, not let him hear it from someone else. I know he'd have done a good job, but my hands are tied. People don't realize how little power guys like me actually have.'

'So why did you want me here tonight?' I demanded. 'To keep Richard under control?'

Jett shook his head. He half-turned his handsome head to the Fiona. 'Tamar,' he said, 'why don't you get yourself another drink?'

The blonde smiled cattily at me and poured herself off the couch. When we were reasonably private, Jett said, 'I've got a job for you. It's something that's very important to me, and I need to be able to trust the person I give it to. Richard's told me a lot about you, and I think you're the right one. I don't want to tell you about it tonight, but I want you to come and see me tomorrow so we can discuss it.'