Star Struck

Chapter 8 MOON IN TAURUS IN THE 12TH HOUSE

The emotional swings of the moon are minimized in this placing, leading to balance between impulsiveness and determination. She is sociable, but needs to recharge her batteries in solitude which she seeks actively. Imaginative and intuitive, she has an instinctive rapport with creative artists though not herself artistic.

From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson

This time it was Alderley Edge, the village that buys more champagne per head of population than anywhere else in the UK. Donovan had been there to serve a subpoena on a company director who seemed to think the shareholders should fund the entire cost of his affair with a member of the chorus of Northern Opera. The detached house was in a quietly expensive street, behind tall hedges like most of its neighbors. Donovan had borrowed his mother’s car and sat patiently parked a few doors down from the house for about an hour waiting for his target to return.

When the man came home, Donovan had caught him getting out of his car. He’d accepted service with ill grace and stormed into the house. Donovan had driven home via his girlfriend’s student residence bedsit to pick up some tutorial handouts for the essay he was writing. He’d arrived home to find the police waiting. They hadn’t been interested in an explanation. They’d just hauled him off in a police car to the local nick where they’d informed him he was being arrested on suspicion of burglary.

By the time I arrived, tempers were fraying round the edges. It turned out that at some point during the day, a neighbor of the company director had been burgled. And another nosy neighbor had happened to jot down Shelley’s car number because, well, you

The police computer spat out Shelley’s address in response to the car registration number, and the bizzies were round there in no time flat. Things were complicated by the fact that the bloke Donovan had served the subpoena on decided to get his own back and denied all knowledge of a young black process-server with a legitimate reason for being in the street.

It took me the best part of an hour to persuade the police that Donovan was telling the truth and that I wasn’t some gangster’s moll trying to spring my toy boy. Thighs like his, I should be so lucky.

The one good thing about the whole pathetic business was that Shelley had been out when the police had turned up. With luck, she’d still be out. As I drove him home, I said, “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, you doing the process-serving.”

“I’m serving the papers properly, what’s the problem?” he said defensively.

“It’s not good for your image or your mother’s blood pressure if you keep getting arrested.”

“I’m not letting those racists drive me out of a job,” he protested. “You’re saying I should just lie down and let them do it to me? The only places I have a problem are the ones where rich white people think that money can buy them a ghetto. People don’t call the cops when you go to serve paper in Alderley Edge, or when I turn up on a doorstep in Hulme.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking it through,” I said, ashamed of myself for only seeing the easy way out. “The job’s yours for as long as you want it. And first thing tomorrow, I’ll get your mother to have some proper business cards and ID printed up for you.”

“Fine by me. Besides, Kate, I need the money. I can’t be scrounging off my mother so I can have a beer with my mates, or go to see a film with Miranda. The process-serving’s something I can fit around studying and having fun. You can’t do that with most part-time jobs.”

I grinned. “You could always get an anorak and work with Gizmo on the computer security side of things.”

Donovan snorted. “I don’t think Gizmo’d let me. Have you noticed he’s got well weird lately?”

“How can you tell?” I signalled the right turn that would bring me into the narrow street of terraced brick houses where the Carmichael family lived.

“Yeah, right. He’s always been well weird. But this last few weeks, he’s been totally paranoid android about his files.”

“He’s always been secretive about his work,” I reminded him. “And not unreasonably. A lot of what we do for clients on computer security is commercially sensitive.”

“There’s secretive and there’s mentally ill. Did you know you even need a password to get out of his screen savers?”

“Now you are exaggerating,” I said.

“You think so? You try it the next time he goes to the loo. Touch a key when one of the screen savers is running and you’ll be asked for a password. You didn’t know?” Donovan’s eyebrows rose in surprise. He opened the car door and unfolded his long body into the street. Then he bent down and said anxiously, “Check it out. I’m not making it up. Whatever he’s up to, he doesn’t want anybody else to know. And it is your hardware he’s doing it on.”

“It’ll be OK,” I said, trying to reassure myself as much as Donovan. “Gizmo wouldn’t take risks with my business.” Which was true enough, I thought as I drove home. Except that what Gizmo thought was fair game didn’t necessarily coincide with the law’s view. And if he didn’t think it was wrong, why would he imagine it might be risky?

The response to the Chronicle’s story sharply polarized the Northerners cast in a way I hadn’t seen before. Up to that point, I’d been beginning to wonder whether I could possibly be right about

“What happened to that lot?” I asked as soon as Gloria closed the dressing room door behind us.

Rita Hardwick, who shared the room and played rough and ready tart with a heart Thelma Torrance, paused in stitching the tapestry she passed the slack time with. “Got the cold shoulder, did she?” she said with grim good humor.

“Yeah,” I said, not caring about showing my puzzlement. “Yesterday, everybody’s everybody’s pal and today, it’s like we’ve got a communicable disease.”

“It happens when you get a big show in the papers,” Gloria said, putting her coat on a hanger and subsiding into a chair. “It’s basically jealousy. The people below you in the pecking order resent the fact that you’re important enough to make the front page of the Chronicle and have the story followed up by all the tabloids the next day.”

I’d already seen the evidence of Gloria’s importance to the tabloids. When I’d arrived to collect her that morning, we’d had to run the gauntlet of reporters and photographers clustered round the high gates that kept Gloria safe from their invasive tendencies.

“Aye,” said Rita. “And the ones above you in the pecking order reckon you need cutting down to size before you start snapping too close at their heels. Not that there’s many above you these days, Glo.”

“Stuff like this shows you who your real friends are,” Gloria added.

“Aye, and we’ve all got precious few round here,” Rita said, thrusting her needle ferociously into the material. “There’s plenty would stab you in the back soon as look at you if they thought they could get away with it.”

If a bit of newspaper coverage was all it took to create a poisonous atmosphere like the one we’d just walked through, I hated to

Gloria shook her head. Rita disagreed. “There’s been a lot of stories about the abortion issue, Glo. Brenda and Debbie have been all over the tabloids.”

“But that’s Brenda, not me. The punters don’t know the difference, but the people who work here do.”

“It doesn’t make any odds to some of that lot,” Rita said. “Eaten up with jealousy, they are.” She glanced at her watch. “Bloody hell, is that the time? I’ve got an appointment with Dorothea in five minutes.” She shoved her sewing into a tapestry bag.

“You’re all right. I didn’t see the van when we parked up.” Gloria gave me a considering look. “You wanted a word with Dorothea, didn’t you, chuck?”

Rita stared. “By heck, Kate, I’d not have put you down as a lass who wanted her horoscope reading.”

I bristled. “The only stars I want to ask Dorothea Dawson about are the ones that work for Northerners.”

Rita giggled. “If that crystal ball could talk …”

“Aye, but going to Dorothea’s like going to the doctor. You can say owt you like and know it’ll go no further,” Gloria said. “Rita, chuck, do you mind if I just pop in ahead of you for a quick word with Dorothea, to see when she can fit Kate in?”

“Be my guest. I’ll walk across with you.”

The three of us left the studio building and crossed the car park. Over at the far end, near the administration block, I noticed a camper van that hadn’t been there when we’d arrived shortly before. It was painted midnight-blue, but as we drew closer, I could see there was a Milky Way of golden stars arcing across the cab door and the van’s side. The door into the living section of the van had a zodiac painted on it in silver, the glyphs of the signs picked out in gold. Even I could recognize the maiden that symbolized my Virgo star sign. I also identified the familiar three-legged symbol of Mercedes Benz. I didn’t need my background information from

Rita knocked and a familiar husky voice told us to come in. I expected a full blast of the histrionic mystic, complete with joss sticks and Indian cotton, but when it came to her personal environment, Dorothea clearly preferred the opulent to the occult. Leather, velvet, shag-pile carpet and wood paneling lined the luxurious interior. In the galley, I could see a microwave and a fridge. On a pull-out shelf sat a laptop and a portable color printer, an ensemble that must have cost the thick end of three grand. Instead of a bloody awful tape of rainforest noises backed by Pan pipes and whales singing, the background music sounded like one of those “not available in the shops” collections of Romantic Classics. The only concession to the mystic world of the zodiac was the dining table, surrounded on three sides by a bench seat. It was covered in a dark-blue chenille cloth and on it sat a massive crystal ball. If it had had a set of finger holes, we could have gone ten-pin bowling.

“Nice to see you all, ladies,” Dorothea Dawson said as we piled through the door. She was smaller than I expected from TV. But then, they all were. Her hair was pure silver, cut in a chin-length bob that hid the fact that her jaw was too heavy for her small features. Her skin was criss-crossed with the fine wrinkles of an apple that’s been left lying around too long. Either she was older than she sounded or she’d loved the sun too much when she was younger. “And you must be Kate Brannigan,” she said, acknowledging me with a nod, assessing me with eyes like amethyst chips.

“Saw me in your crystal ball, did you?” I asked more pleasantly than I wanted to. I’ve never liked charlatans.

“No, I saw you in the Manchester Evening Chronicle,” she said with wry amusement. I found myself liking her in spite of all my prejudices against people who prey on the gullible. “You want to talk to me about my last session with Gloria?”

“Good guess,” I said.

“And I want you to cast her horoscope,” Gloria butted in, as usual incapable of holding her tongue.

Dorothea cocked her head, a knowing smile on her lips. “Virgo, with … an air sign rising, at a guess. Probably Gemini, with such a smart mouth.”

I tried not to look as surprised as I felt. A one-in-twelve chance of getting my sun sign right multiplied up to a one-in-a-gross chance of hitting the sun sign and the ascendant. Not that I believed any of that rubbish; I only knew my rising sign because I’d spent half an hour the night before on the computer with some astrological chart-casting shareware I’d pulled down from the Internet. But however she’d reached her conclusion, Dorothea was right. “I couldn’t say,” I lied, determined to show her my skepticism. “Gloria can give you my details.”

“I have a very full diary today,” Dorothea said, sounding far more like a businesswoman than she had any right to. She looked businesslike too, in a high-necked Edwardian-style white blouse under a soft black wool crepe jacket. A silver and amethyst brooch the size of a credit card was pinned to the jacket, like an abstract representation of her hair and eyes. She flicked open a desk diary on the seat beside her while Gloria produced a piece of paper with a flourish. “That’s Kate’s time, date and place of birth.”

Dorothea put it on the seat beside her without a glance. “I couldn’t possibly take you through your chart and answer your questions, Kate.”

“It’s the answers to my questions I’m interested in.”

Dorothea raised one eyebrow. I used to do that, but I grew out of it. “Pity. You should always seize opportunity when it presents itself. Who knows when you’ll get a second chance to find out what really makes you tick?” She sounded amused.

“I’ll manage somehow,” I said.

“I’m sure you will, and that’s without reading your chart. Gloria, you’re my final appointment today. How would it be if I saw Kate then? Or are you in a hurry to get home?”

“That’s fine, Dor,” Gloria said. “We’ll get out your road now and let Rita get her money’s worth. See you at half past five.”

She shooed me out ahead of her into the car park. “We’d better get a move on,” she said. “I’m due in make-up and I’m not frocked up yet.”

“Gloria, is Dorothea normally fully booked?” I asked, trailing in her wake.

“Oh aye. If you’re not one of her regulars, you can wait a month or more for her to fit you in unless you’re prepared to go to her consulting room.”

“All half-hour appointments?”

“That’s right. From nine till half past five,” Gloria confirmed.

“Just as a matter of interest, how much does Dorothea charge?”

“For half an hour, she charges twice what you do for an hour, chuck.”

It was one of those bits of information that stops you dead in your tracks. I’m not cheap. Well, only where Richard’s concerned, but even he hasn’t worked that out yet. Four times my hourly rate was serious money. Sometimes I wonder if I’m in the right business.

The day passed. Wardrobe, make-up, rehearsal, film. No diverting phone calls, no murderous attacks on the client. No chance either of finding out who had written the poison-pen letters or the identity of the mole that Ross Grant wanted me to drag kicking and screaming into the daylight; thanks to the Chronicle, nobody was talking to me. I supposed the cast members had fallen out of love with me because for today I was more famous than them. The crew were just too busy and besides, the novelty of having a real live private eye about the place had worn off.

By the time five rolled around, I was beginning to think that I should start charging boredom money the way that some people charge danger money. I was convinced by now that whoever was writing threatening letters to Gloria was getting satisfaction from knowing they’d frightened her enough to hire me. Given the number of opportunities to cause her serious harm, even with me in tow, it was significant that we’d not even had so much as a near miss in the car. I’d accompany her on her weekend personal appearances, then I intended to call it a day.

Her face restored to street levels of make-up and Brenda’s outfit back in wardrobe where it belonged, Gloria was ready for her session with Dorothea. “Walk me across to the van, chuck,” she said. “I’ll see Dorothea on my own, but if you come over about five

An unrelenting sleet was falling as we joined the dozens of people scurrying across the car park, desperately seeking shelter. I’d helped myself to one of the umbrellas in an equipment skip by the entrance to the outdoor set, and I wrestled with the gusty wind to keep it over Gloria’s head. At the caravan, I knocked. I heard Dorothea tell Gloria to come in. She disappeared inside and I closed the umbrella and sprinted for Gloria’s car, parked only a few spaces away. Waiting for her there, I could at least listen to the radio.

I closed my eyes and leaned back in the seat, the day’s news washing over me. The traffic reporter warned about drifting snow on trans-Pennine routes. “Great,” I muttered, wondering how bad the road to Saddleworth would be. If the weather was going to close in, it might be worth suggesting to Gloria that she spend the night in my spare room to save myself the double journey over snowy moorland roads.

Almost before I knew it, the twenty-five minutes were up. I abandoned the condensation-fogged car and legged it for Dorothea’s camper. I knocked on the door of the van and Gloria called, “Just coming, chuck.” The door opened, the warm light from inside spilling on to the tarmac and revealing the waterlogging that was creeping up the sides of my brown ankle boots. “I’ll send her right back,” Gloria said over her shoulder as she emerged, closing the door behind her.

I did my trick with the umbrella and escorted Gloria back to her dressing room. The production area already felt deserted. Nobody on Northerners loved their job so much they wanted to hang around after the end of filming on a Friday. I was slightly concerned about leaving Gloria vulnerable in her dressing room. Both Rita and Dorothea knew about my appointment with the astrologer, and either could have mentioned it unthinkingly to a third party. Given the speed rumor moved at in NPTV, the cleaners and secretaries all probably knew Gloria would be alone in a virtually empty building from six o’clock.

“I want you to lock the door behind me, OK?” I told her. “And

Gloria grinned. “All right, boss. Whatever you say.”

I waited outside the door until I heard the Yale lock snap into place behind me. Then I hurried out of the building and ran back across the car park to Dorothea’s van. There was no answer to my knock, but I knew she was expecting me to return. Besides, it wasn’t the kind of night where you hang around in freezing sleet waiting for someone else to stop playing power games. I opened the door and stepped into the dimly lit interior.

Dorothea Dawson lay sprawled across her chenille tablecloth, one side of her head strangely misshapen and dark with spilled blood. A few feet away, her crystal ball glowed in the lamplight at the end of a flecked trail of scarlet clotting the deep pile of the champagne-colored carpet.

I backed away momentarily, dragging my eyes from the compelling horror before me. I stared wildly around, checking there was no one else in the confined space. Then the thought hit me with the force of a kick to the stomach that Dorothea might still be alive. For a long moment I didn’t know if I could bring myself to touch her.

But I knew that if she died because I’d been squeamish the guilt would far outweigh the revulsion I felt now. I tried to swallow whatever it was that was preventing me from breathing and inched forward, carefully avoiding the track the crystal ball had left. I stretched my hand towards Dorothea’s outflung arm and grasped her wrist. Her skin was the same temperature as mine, which made it all the more horrible that I couldn’t find a pulse.

I backed away, appalled. I’d been right to warn Gloria to take care. There was a killer out there.

I’d been catastrophically wrong about the target, though.