Dead Beat Part 8

'What did Jett want?'

'You, basically. A lot of moaning about why did you run out on him when he needed you and instructions to get yourself back over there asap. I think you'd better come in and brief me on what's been going on before we decide whether we want to have any further involvement. OK?' It was the nearest Bill was ever going to get to a direct order.

Twenty minutes later, I was filling him in. When I got to the bit about the story I'd concocted for the police about the body's discovery, he shifted uneasily in his chair. 'I don't think that was one of your brightest moves, Kate,' he complained.

'I know. But anything else made Jett look like the killer.'

'And how do you know he wasn't?' Bill challenged me.

'I saw the state he was in. It wasn't the kind of reaction I'd expect from a man who had just killed his so-called soul mate. It was more like he couldn't believe it till someone else had confirmed it. Besides, if I'd told the truth, Jett wouldn't have been cluttering up our answering machine all night. He'd be down the nick in an interrogation room.' I knew it sounded weak even as I told it, but the strength of my own gut feeling about Jett's innocence didn't allow for compromise.

'I trust your instincts, Kate. But the cops sure as h.e.l.l won't. We'll have to make d.a.m.n sure they don't find out the truth. And I suppose that means you'll have to stay close to whatever's going on,' he added. He chewed his beard restlessly, a sure sign that he's worried.

'At least Jett seems to want that,' I tried. It wasn't much of a consolation, but it was the only one I could see right then.

'Jett might, but I don't,' Bill flashed back. 'We don't do murders, Kate. We do white-collar crime. We're not geared up to compete with the police on something like this. Besides, I'm not happy about putting you in the front line when there's someone out there killing people.'

'I can handle myself,' I replied huffily.

'I know you can. It's the other poor f.u.c.kers I'm worried about,' he said with a tired smile. 'Seriously, though. I really wish you hadn't got us involved. But now we are, you'd better brief me fully.'

I gave him a quick resume of events, leaving out only my glimpse of Maggie. I don't know why I held that back; maybe I was worried about her being the obvious scapegoat, even to a supposedly new man like Bill.

'Jackson wanted to know the nature of the job we did for Jett,' I finished up. 'I hid behind client confidentiality.'

'You did right. Leave Jackson to me. You'd better have a listen to Jett's messages then get yourself over to Colcutt.'

It was after eleven when I drew up outside the electronic gates. Half a dozen cars were parked along the verge, and I recognized a couple of national newspaper reporters. The news of Moira's death had broken too late for that morning's editions, but they were determined to make up for lost time. As I pulled up to speak to the police constable, who looked cold and miserable in the thin drizzle of rain, car doors suddenly opened and the pack descended. Luckily, Jett had had the sense to tell the police I should be admitted. He'd also remembered to leave me the security code for the gate in one of his messages. I was halfway through the gates before the first journalist reached me. I put my foot down and left him shaking off the spray from my tyres.

At the house, another freezing copper let me in. There was no one in sight, but the constable on duty at the door of the rehearsal room grudgingly told me that Jett was in the kitchen. I found him there alone, slumped at an old pine farmhouse table, a mug of tea sitting in front of him. He barely glanced at me when I crossed the room to the kettle. I put it on to boil and picked up his mug. Nothing like making yourself at home. His untouched tea was stone cold, so I made us both fresh.

'You shouldn't have gone,' he greeted me. 'I wanted you here.'

'I didn't have any choice,' I explained patiently, like I would to Davy, Richard's five-year-old. 'The cops bounced me as soon as they found out who I was.'

Jett lifted his mug to his lips, but lowered it untasted. His skin had taken on a strange dullness, the colour of slate. His eyes were bloodshot, but not puffy with tears. 'You liked her, didn't you?' he asked.

'Moira? I hardly knew her, but yes, I liked what I saw of her. She had courage, and a sense of humour,' I replied.

He nodded, as if I'd confirmed something. 'That's why I want you to find out who killed her. Somebody in this house, somebody I trusted, took her life away. You're going to find out who.'

I felt like I'd stumbled on to the set of an episode of Murder, She Wrote. I took a deep breath and tried to bring the conversation down to earth. 'Don't you think you should leave this to the police? They've got the manpower and the facilities to investigate murder, Jett. I haven't.'

He warmed his hands on the mug. 'You don't understand, Kate. This isn't going to be solved by fingerprints and alibis. This is going to be solved by understanding people. The Old Bill, they didn't know Moira. And they sure as h.e.l.l don't understand any of us. The people in this house, we don't talk the same language as these cops. Not even Mr Respectable Kevin. But you're different. You live with Richard, you know this life. You can speak to them, make them open up like they won't to the Old Bill.' It was a long speech for a man as close to the edge as Jett obviously was. He leaned back in his chair and squeezed his eyes shut.

'I don't know, Jett. I've never had to investigate a murder before.'

His eyes opened abruptly and he stared at me, brows drawn down in a scowl. 'Listen, Kate. To those cops, I'm just a piece of black s.h.i.t. A rich piece, but still s.h.i.t. Moira was just a junkie hooker to them. They'd love to pin this on me and walk away, because that would fit. I grew up in the Moss, I know how their minds work. I don't trust them and they sure as h.e.l.l won't trust me. There's only you between me and the nick, Kate, and I need your help to stay out of it.' His bottom lip thrust out defiantly.

I pushed my mug away and reached out for his hand. 'OK, Jett. No promises, but I'll give it my best shot.'

He clasped my hand in both of his. There were tears shining in his eyes. 'That's good enough for me.' A single tear trickled down his cheek and he brushed it away as impatiently as if it were a troublesome fly.

'What happened after I left?' I asked.

'They kept us all shut up together till gone four o'clock. Didn't leave us alone for a minute, though. They had a kid copper keeping his ears open. That guy Jackson, he told me to say nothing about how I found her, or anything else. They all wanted to know, though,' he added bitterly.

'They'll be hoping they can trip up the killer,' I explained. 'You know, someone knowing more than they're supposed to.' Amazing that the police still rely on that after they spent three years barking up the wrong tree on the Yorkshire Ripper investigation because of a hoax tape that revealed details only the killer should supposedly have known.

'What time is it?' he asked incongruously.

I glanced at my watch. 'Five to twelve.'

Jett got to his feet and swallowed most of his tea in a oner. 'I told them all to be in the blue room at twelve. I knew you'd be here. You have an intuitive spirit. I knew you'd know I needed you.'

I refrained from pointing out that it had more to do with the office answering machine than my psychic powers. 'I'm going to have to talk to you about the last six weeks, Jett,' I protested as he walked out of the room.

'You're going to have to talk to all of us about the last six weeks,' he said over his shoulder as I followed him. 'I just want them all to know they have to co-operate with you. They can be as b.l.o.o.d.y-minded as they like with the cops, but it's me that puts the bread in their mouths and they'll do what I tell them.'

It was strange to see how quickly his natural authority had returned to him. I couldn't believe it was my agreeing to work for him that had done the trick. If he was capable of such mercurial mood shifts, maybe my initial a.s.sessment of his innocence had been way off-beam.

Jett threw open the drawing room door just on the stroke of twelve. They were all there except Neil. None of them looked as if they'd had much sleep. Equally, none of them looked like they'd shed too many tears.

As I entered behind Jett, Kevin groaned. 'Oh G.o.d, Jett, I told you to leave her out of this. We don't need an extra nosy parker round here. The cops have already turned this place into a goldfish bowl.'

'He's right, Jett,' Gloria chipped in. 'You need to come to terms with your grief. Having her around the place isn't going to help.'

Jett threw himself into a spindly-legged chair. Miraculously, it withstood the impact. 'I can't be doing any grieving while I know Moira's killer is under my roof, eating my food and drinking my booze. Kate's here to find out which one of you is my enemy. Any of you that doesn't want to be part of my team, you can go now. But you want to stick around, then you co-operate with Kate one hundred per cent. She'll be reporting directly to me, and I don't want her interfered with. Is that clear?'

Kevin cast his eyes up to heaven and muttered, 'Give me strength!' I knew exactly how he felt. Melodrama was never my favourite art form. But it was Tamar who was right on the ball. She crossed the room and hugged him.

'Whatever you need is all right by me, Jett.' I tried not to vomit, but it was hard.

Before anyone else could chip in with their tuppence worth, Neil came in. 'Sorry I'm late, Jett,' he apologized. 'I've been issuing full press statements to all the nationals, and it took longer than I thought.'

'Enter stage left, the in-house vulture,' Micky sneered.

'Somebody's got to handle them,' Neil replied mildly. 'Better that it's someone who can string two sentences together.'

'Meaning what?' Micky demanded belligerently.

'My G.o.d, can't you two stop bickering for once? Have some respect for the dead,' Tamar shouted. Her shameless hypocrisy left me gasping, but no one else seemed to notice. Micky mumbled an apology and walked over to the window to watch the rain falling.

'You on the payroll, then?' Neil asked me sotto voce. I nodded. He smiled conspiratorially. 'Glad I'm not the only one making a shilling out of Moira's death.'

I'd only been there an hour and already I was heartily sick of the lot of them. Some jobs should come stamped with a government health warning. Something like: 'You lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.'

I decided it was time to start asking questions. But in the great tradition of the best-laid plans, I was thwarted by the arrival of Inspector Jackson and his merry men. Jackson marched in as if he'd taken a long lease on the place. He'd found time for a fresh suit and shirt, though the tie was the same. Maybe it held some Masonic significance I didn't recognize. Hot on his heels was an older man, who moved to Jackson's side and announced, 'Good day, ladies and gentlemen. I am Detective Superintendent Ron Arbuthnot and I will be in overall charge of this inquiry. I know some of you have given my officers initial statements, but we will be requiring you for further interviews in the course of the day. Please arrange to keep yourselves available.' The Royal Command having been delivered, Arbuthnot wheeled his tubby body round past Jackson and left us.

As soon as he'd gone, Jackson turned on me. 'Have you got some kind of death wish, Brannigan?' he hissed as he took me by the arm and led me to the door. 'I've already thrown you out of here once. Is business so bad you've got to come touting?'

'I was invited here,' I told him through clenched teeth. 'Get your hands off me. Now.'

He reluctantly let me go, then opened the door and tried to usher me through it. I stood my ground. Jett called, 'You OK, Kate? The lady's a friend, Inspector. I want her here.'

Jackson turned to Jett and flashed an insincere smile. 'I'm afraid that won't be possible, Mr Franklin. We have some questions for Miss Brannigan, and after that, we'll be needing to talk to you again. Perhaps it would be better if she came back tomorrow.'

Jett glared at Jackson. I wasn't sure if that was on my account or because Jackson had used his real name. Jett doesn't like to be reminded of its patriotic overtones. Let's face it, which of us outside the Tory Cabinet would like to be saddled with Winston Gladstone Franklin?

'It's OK, Jett,' I said rea.s.suringly. 'I'll come back tomorrow morning, OK?' There were things I wanted to do, and none of this lot were going anywhere. They would keep. Maggie Rossiter might not be so keen to talk if I waited till she'd got her emotions under control.

16.

I was in the Colcutt Arms by half-past twelve. It turned out that the only questions Jackson had for me related to what I was doing back at the manor and what I'd done for Jett in the past, nudge nudge, wink wink. I didn't like his innuendoes, and suspected he was trying to needle me into an admission of some sort. Obviously, he'd got no more change out of Bill than he had out of me. At least he wasn't challenging my version of the discovery of the body yet.

It wasn't just relief that drove me to the local pub. I was after information. I spotted the members of Her Majesty's Gutter Press in the lounge bar, and gave it a body-swerve. What the saloon bar lacked in creature comforts it made up for by the complete absence of journos. If I was going to go into my chatty pa.s.sing-motorist act, I didn't want an audience.

The harried barmaid who served me seemed as glad to escape from them as I was. She bustled through from the lounge when I pressed a bell on the bar and pushed a strand of bottle blonde hair from her forehead. She was in her forties, and looked sh.e.l.l-shocked to find herself in the throes of a lunchtime rush.

'Busy today,' I said sympathetically as she poured me a St Clement's.

'You're not wrong,' she replied. 'Ice?' I nodded. 'Last time we were this busy of a dinner time was Boxing Day.'

'Bad business up the road,' I remarked as I sipped my drink. She was happily leaning against the bar, relieved to escape the clod-hopping probings of the press. I hoped my questions fitted in the category of Great British Pub Gossip.

'That poor woman!' she exclaimed. 'Do you know, she was in here last night with a friend of hers, sitting in a corner of my lounge bar! And next thing you know, she's murdered in her own home. You're not safe anywhere these days. You'd think with all the security they've got up there they'd be all right. I said to my Geoff, it's like Fort Knox up there, and they're not safe. Makes you wonder.'

My ears p.r.i.c.ked up at the news of Moira's meeting in the pub, but I didn't want to pounce too eagerly. 'I sometimes wonder if it's all the security that attracts them,' I responded, playing along with the Pa.s.sing Vagabond theory. 'You know, like a challenge or something.'

'Well, all I can say is we've never had any trouble in this village till we had so-called rock stars living here.' Her mouth pursed, revealing a nest of wrinkles she'd have been mortified to see in a mirror.

'Do they come in here much?' I asked casually.

'One or two of them. They've got a journalist living up there, writing some book about Jett, he's never out of here normally. I don't know when he gets his writing done. He's in here for a couple of hours most dinner times and he gets through half a dozen pints every session. Not that I'm complaining-I'm glad of the custom in the winter months. Sometimes I wonder why we bother opening up in the middle of the day. What we take across the bar hardly covers the electricity,' she grumbled.

'Nice place, though,' I complimented her. 'Been here long?'

'Five years. My husband used to be a mining engineer, but we got tired of living abroad, so we bought this place. It's hard work, especially doing the bed and breakfast, but it's better than living with a load of foreigners,' she replied. Before I could ask more, the bell from the lounge summoned her.

To ensure her return, I called, 'Do you do food?'

'Just sandwiches.'

I ordered a round of roast beef, and when she returned, I said, 'It must have been a shock for you, one of your regulars getting murdered.'

'Well, she wasn't exactly a regular. She's been in a few times the last couple of days when her friend was staying here. But she'd only been in the once before that, with a crowd of them. The only way I knew it was her was with her being black. Not that I'm racist,' she added hastily. 'It's just that we don't get many of them round here.'

I could believe her. I remembered only too well how the police inspector in one of the nearby Cheshire towns had defended his policy of arresting any blacks he saw on the street by announcing, 'None of them live around here so if they're walking our streets they're probably up to no good.'

'Her friend must have been in a h.e.l.l of a state when she heard the news,' I tried, checking the gender of the friend. I was pretty sure it must have been Maggie, but it would be nice to make sure. I took a bite out of the sandwich. Even without the information about Moira's visit, the trip had been worthwhile. The bread was fresh and crusty, the meat pink, sliced wafer thin and piled thick, with a generous smear of horseradish. I nearly choked on it when I heard her reply.

'I don't even know if she has heard the news,' the landlady replied. 'When I got up this morning, there was an envelope on the hall table with the money she owed and a note saying she'd had to leave early. I knew she was checking out today, but I didn't expect her to be off at the crack of dawn.' She sounded slightly aggrieved, as if she'd been done out of a good piece of drama.

'You mean she just cleared off in the middle of the night? Funny, that,' I remarked, trying not to sound like a private eye who's one happy step ahead of the police.

'No, not the middle of the night. She didn't actually leave till about half-past six. Our bedroom's at the back, you see. The car woke me up, and I got up because I thought she might have gone off without paying. I didn't even know about the murder myself then.' She clearly saw nothing suspicious in Maggie's behaviour, and I was grateful for that. There would be at least one suspect I'd get to before the police.

'Perhaps she had a phone call or something,' I hazarded.

'Not while she was here,' the landlady replied positively. 'I'd have known. I think she probably just woke up early and decided to get an early start. To be honest, I was surprised she wasn't staying at the manor. Their friends don't usually put up here.'

I could have come up with a couple of good reasons why Maggie Rossiter hadn't been willing to accept Jett's hospitality, but I wasn't about to share them. I finished my sandwich, exchanged a few routine complaints about the weather, and set off for Leeds.

It was still drizzling when I pulled up outside Maggie's terraced house. Crossing the Pennines hadn't worked its usual trick of transforming the weather. Through the drift of rain, the house looked miserable and unwelcoming. There were no lights on to combat the gloom. Mind you, if my lover was lying dead in a morgue somewhere, I don't think I'd feel like a hundred watt glare.

Maggie took her time answering the door. I'd just decided she wasn't home when the door opened. When she saw me, she started to close it again. I moved forward quickly enough to insinuate my shoulder in the gap.

'What the h.e.l.l do you think you're playing at?' she demanded feebly, her voice cracked and shaky.

'We need to talk, Maggie,' I said. 'I know it's the last thing you feel like, but I think I can help.'

'Help? You do resurrections?' Her voice was bitter, and tears shone in her red-rimmed eyes. My professional satisfaction at getting to her first withered in the face of her obvious grief.

'I'm trying to find out who killed Moira,' I told her.

'What's the use? It's not going to bring her back, is it?' Maggie rubbed her eyes impatiently with her free hand, as if she hated showing me her humanity.

'No, it's not. But you've got to grieve. You know that. And finding out what happened is the first step in the process. Maggie, let me come in and talk to you.'