Dead Beat

3

Richard's face turned bright scarlet and then chalky white as Neil's words hit 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, nobody 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 space. What the hell 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 shit 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 realise 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.'

'Are you kidding?' I flashed back. 'After the way you've just humiliated Richard?'

T didn't think you were the kind of lady who let personal stuff get in the way of her work.' His voice was velvet. To an old fan, irresistible. 'I heard you were too good for that.'

Flattery. It never fails. I was intrigued, in spite of my anger. 'There's a lot of stuff Mortensen and Brannigan don't handle,' I hedged.

He looked around him, trying to appear casual. He seemed satisfied that no one was in earshot. 'I want you to find someone for me,' he said softly. 'But not a word to Richard, please.'

That reminded me how angry I was on Richard's behalf. 'Morten-sen and Brannigan always respect client confidentiality,' I said, sounding stuffy even to my ears. God knows what the king of thirtysomething rock was making of it all.

He grinned, flashing a display of brilliant white teeth at me. 'Come to the manor tomorrow about three,' he said, not expecting any more problems.

I shook my head. T don't know, Jett. We don't usually touch missing persons.'

'For me? As a personal favour?'

'Like the one you've just done Richard?'

He winced. 'OK, OK. Point taken. Look, Kate, I'm truly sorry about that. I shouldn't have mentioned it to Richard and raised his hopes without clearing it with Kevin. When it comes to things like contracts, he's the man who makes the decisions. He keeps me right. In the business side of things, he's the boss. But this other thing, it's personal. This is really important to me, Kate. Listening to what I want won't cost you anything. Please,' he added. I had the feeling it was a word he'd lost familiarity with.

Wearily, I nodded. 'OK. Three o'clock. If I can't make it, I'll ring and rearrange it. But no promises.'

He looked as if I'd taken the weight of the world off his shoulders. T appreciate it, Kate. Look, tell Richard what I said. Tell him I'm really sorry, would you? I've not got so many friends among the press that I can afford to lose my best one.'

I nodded and pushed my way through the crowds. By the time I'd reached the door, Jett and his problems were at the back of my mind. What was important to me now was helping Richard through the night.

When the alarm went off the following morning, Richard didn't even stir. I slid out of bed, trying not to disturb him. If how I felt was any guide, he'd need at least another six hours' sleep before he returned from Planet Hangover. I headed for the kitchen and washed down my personal pick-me-up. Paracetamol, vitamins C and B complex and a couple of zinc tablets with a mixture of orange juice and protein supplement. With luck, I'd rejoin the human race somewhere around Billy Smart's house. I had a quick shower, found a clean jogging suit and picked up a bottle of mineral water on the way out of the front door. Poor Richard, I thought as I slipped behind the wheel of the car and drove off. I'd caught up with him in the foyer, kicking his heels for want of a better target while he waited for a taxi. He'd been grimly silent all the way home, but as soon as he'd had half a pint of Southern Comfort and soda, he'd started ranting. I'd joined him in drink because I couldn't think of anything else to do or say that would make it better. He'd been shat on from a great height, and that was an end to it. It didn't make me feel any better about having agreed to Jett's request for a meeting, but luckily Richard was too wrapped up in his own disappointment to wonder why it had taken me so long to catch up with him.

I drove through the pre-dawn deserted streets and took up my familiar station a few doors down from Billy's house. It always amazes me that people don't pick up on it when I'm staking them out. I suppose it's partly that a Vauxhall Nova is the last car anyone would expect to be tailed by. The 1.4 SR model I drive looks completely innocuous – the sort of little hatchback men buy for their wives to go shopping in. But when I put my foot down, it goes like the proverbial shit off a shovel. I've followed Billy Smart to the garage where he swaps his hired cars every three days, I've tailed him in his Mercs and BMWs all over the country, and my confidence in my relative invisibility hasn't been dented yet. The only worry I have on stakeouts is a uniquely female one. Men can pee in a bottle. Women can't.

Luckily, I didn't have long to hang around before Billy appeared. I sat tight while he did his routine once-round-the-block drive to check he had no one on his tail, then I set off a reasonable distance behind him. To my intense satisfaction, he followed the same routine he'd used on the previous Wednesday. He picked up brother Gary from his flat in the high-rise block above the Arndale shopping centre, then they went together to the little back-street factory in the mean area dominated by the tall red-brick water tower of Strangeways Prison. They stayed in there for about half an hour. When they emerged they were carrying several bulky bundles wrapped in black velveteen, which I knew contained hundreds of schneid watches.

I had to stay close to their hired Mercedes as we wove through the increasing traffic, but by now I knew their routine and could afford to keep a few cars between us. True to the form of the last two weeks, they headed over the M62 towards Leeds and Bradford.

I followed them as far as their first contact in a lock-up garage in Bradford, then I decided to call it a day. They were simply repeating themselves, and I already had photographs of the Wednesday routine from my previous surveillance. It was time for a chat with Bill. I also wanted to talk to him about Jett's proposition.

I got back to the office towards the end of the morning. We have three small rooms on the sixth floor of an old insurance company building just down the road from the BBC Oxford Road studios. The best thing I can find to say about the location is that it's handy for the local art cinema, the Cornerhouse, which has an excellent cafeteria. Our secretary Shelley looked up from her word processor and greeted me with 'Wish I could start work at lunch time.'

I was halfway through a self-righteous account of my morning's work when I realised, too late as usual, that she was winding me up. I stuck my tongue out at her and dropped a micro-cassette on her desk. It contained my verbal report of the last couple of days. 'Here's a little something to keep you from getting too bored,' I said. 'Anything I should know about?'

Shelley shook her head, and the beads she has plaited into her hair rattled. I wondered, not for the first time, how she could bear the noise first thing in the morning. But then, since Shelley's mission in life is keeping her two teenage kids out of trouble, I don't think there are too many mornings when she wakes with a hangover. There are times when I could hate Shelley.

Mostly I find myself in her debt. She is the most efficient secretary I have ever encountered. She's a 35-year-old divorcee who somehow manages to look like a fashion plate in spite of the pittance we pay her. She's just under five feet tall, and so slim and fragile-looking that she makes even me feel like the Incredible Hulk. I've been to her cramped little two-up, two-down and in spite of living with a pair of teenagers, the house is spotlessly clean and almost unnaturally tidy. However, Richard has pointed out to me more than once that I am a subscriber to the irregular verb theory of language – 'I have high standards, you are fussy, she is obsessive.'

She picked up the cassette and slotted it into her own player. 'I'll have it for you later this afternoon,' she said.

'Thanks. Copy in Bill's system as well as mine, please. Is he free?'

She glanced at the lights on her PBX. 'Looks like it.'

I crossed the office in four strides and knocked on Bill's door. His deep voice growled, 'Come in.' As I shut the door behind me, he looked up from the screen of his turbo-charged IBM compatible and grunted, 'Give me a minute, Kate.' Bill likes things turbo-charged. Everything from his Saab 9000 convertible to his sex life.

There was a fierce frown of concentration on his face as he scanned the screen, tapping the occasional key. No matter how often I watch Bill at his computers, I still feel a sense of incongruity. He really doesn't look like a computer boffin or a private investigator. He's six foot three inches tall and resembles a shaggy blond bear. His hair and beard are shaggy, his eyebrows are shaggy over his ice blue eyes, and when he smiles his white teeth look alarmingly like the ones that are all the better to eat you with. He's a one-man EC. I still haven't got the hang of his ancestry, except that I know his grandparents were, severally, Danish, Dutch, German and Belgian. His parents settled over here after the war and have a substantial cattle farm in Cheshire. Bill shook them to the core when he announced he was more interested in megabytes than megaburgers.

He went on to take a first in computer sciences at UMIST. While he was working on his Ph.D., he was headhunted by a computer software house as a troubleshooter. After a couple of years, he went freelance and became increasingly interested in the crooked side of computers. Soon, his business grew to include surveillance and security systems and all aspects of computer fraud and hacking. I met him towards the end of the first year of my law degree. He had a brief fling with my lodger, and we stayed friends long after the romance was over. He asked me to do a couple of legal jobs for him – process serving, researching particular Acts of Parliament, that sort of thing. I ended up working for him in my vacations. My role quickly grew, for Bill soon discovered it was easier for me to go undercover in a firm with problems than it was for him. After all, no one ever looks twice at the temporary secretary or data processor, do they? I found it all infinitely more interesting than my law degree. So when he offered me a full-time job after I'd passed my second year exams, I jumped at the chance. My father nearly had a coronary, but I appeased him by saying I could always go back to university and complete my degree if it didn't work out.

Two years later, Bill offered me a junior partnership in the firm, and so Mortensen and Brannigan was born. I'd never regretted my decision, and once my father realised that I was earning a helluva lot more than any junior solicitor, or even a car worker like him, neither did he.

Bill looked up from his screen with a satisfied smile and leaned back in his chair. 'Sorry about that, Kate. And how is Billy Smart's circus today?'

'Sticking to the pattern,' I replied. I brought him quickly up to date and his look of happiness increased.

'How long till we wrap it up?' he asked. 'And do you need anything more from me?'

'I'll be ready to hand over to the clients in a week or so. And no, I don't need anything right now, unless you want to get a numb bum watching Billy for a day or two. What I did want to discuss with you is an approach I had last night.' I filled him in.

Bill got up from his chair and stretched. 'It's not our usual field,' he said eventually. 'I don't like missing persons. It's time-consuming, and not everyone wants to be found. Still, it might be straightforward enough, and it could lead us into a whole new range of potential clients. Plenty of schneid merchants around in the record business. Go and see what he wants, Kate, but make him no promises. We'll talk about it tomorrow when you've had a chance to sleep on it. You look as if you could do with a good night's sleep. These all-night rock parties are obviously too much for you these days.'

I scowled. 'It's nothing to do with partying. It's more to do with mounting surveillance on a hyperactive insomniac' I left Bill booting up his AppleMac and headed for my own office. It's really only a glorified cupboard containing a desk with my PC, a second desk for writing at, a row of filing cabinets and three chairs. Off it is an even smaller cupboard that doubles as my darkroom and the ladies' toilet. For decoration, I've got a shelf of legal textbooks and a plant that has to be replaced every six weeks. Currently, it's a three-week-old lemon geranium that's already showing signs of unhappiness. I have the opposite of green fingers. Every growing thing I touch turns to brown. If I ever visit the Amazonian rainforests, there'll be an ecological disaster on a scale that even Sting couldn't prevent.

I sat down at my computer and logged on to one of several databases that we subscribe to. I chose the one that keeps extensive newspaper cuttings files on current celebrities, and I downloaded everything they had on Jett into my own computer. I saved the material to disc, then printed it out. Even if we decided not to go ahead with Jett's assignment, I was determined to be fully briefed when we met. And since Jett himself had deprived me of my best source, I would have to do the best I could without Richard's help. It didn't take me long to go through the printout, which ironically included a couple of Richard's own articles. I now knew more than I had ever wanted to about any pop star, including Bjorn from Abba, focus of my own pre-teen crush. I knew all about Jett's poverty-ridden childhood, about his discovery of the power of music when his deeply religious mother enrolled him in the local church's gospel choir. I knew about his views on racial integration (a good thing), drugs (a very bad thing), abortion (a crime against humanity), the meaning of life (fundamentalist Christianity heavily revised by a liberal dollop of New Age codswallop), music (the very best thing of all as long as it had a good tune and a lyric that made sense – just like my dad) and women (the object of his respect, ho, ho). But among all the gossipy pieces of froth were a couple of nuggets of pure gold. If I were a gambling woman, I'd have felt very confident about putting money on the identity of the person Jett wanted found.