Star Struck

Chapter 1 SUN IN VIRGO IN THE 5TH HOUSE

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

From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can we have a bit of hush back there?” someone else added. I wondered what his job title was and how long I’d have to hang around the TV studios before I worked out who did what in a hierarchy that included best boys, gaffers and too many gofers to

It hadn’t started out that way. When Gloria had swanned into our office, I’d known straight off it wasn’t going to be a routine case. At Brannigan & Co, the private investigation firm that I run, we cover a wide spectrum of work. Previously, when I’d been in partnership with Bill Mortensen, we’d mostly investigated whitecollar fraud, computer security, industrial espionage and sabotage, with a bit of miscellaneous meddling that friends occasionally dropped in our laps. Now Bill had moved to Australia, I’d had to cast my net wider to survive. I’d clawed back some process-serving from a handful of law firms, added “surveillance” to the letterheading and canvassed insurance companies for work exposing fraudulent claims. Even so, Gloria Kendal’s arrival in our front office signalled something well out of the ordinary.

Not that I’d recognized her straight away. Neither had Shelley, the office administrator, and she’s got the X-ray vision of every mother of teenagers. My first thought when Gloria had swept through the door on a wave of Estée Lauder’s White Linen was that she was a domestic violence victim. I couldn’t think of another reason for the wide-brimmed hat and the wraparound sunglasses on a wet December afternoon in Manchester.

I’d been looking over Shelley’s shoulder at some information she’d downloaded from Companies House when the woman had pushed open the door and paused, dramatically framed against the hallway. She waited long enough for us to look up and register the expensive swagger of her mac and the quality of the kelly-green silk suit underneath, then she took three measured steps into the room on low-heeled pumps that precisely matched the suit. I don’t know about Shelley, but I suspect my astonishment showed.

There was an air of expectancy in the woman’s pose. Shelley’s, “Can I help you?” did nothing to diminish it.

The woman smiled, parting perfectly painted lips the color of tinned black cherries. “I hope you can, chuck,” she said, and her secret was out.

“Gloria Kendal,” I said.

“Brenda Barrowclough,” Shelley said simultaneously.

Gloria chuckled. “You’re both right, girls. But we’ll just let that be our little secret, eh?” I nodded blankly. The only way her identity was ever going to stay secret was if she kept her mouth shut. It was clear from three short sentences that the voice that had made Brenda Barrowclough the darling of impressionists the length and breadth of the comedy circuit wasn’t something Gloria took on and cast off as readily as her character’s trademark bottleblonde beehive wig. Gloria really did talk in broad North Manchester with the gravelly growl of a bulldozer in low gear.

“How can I help you, Ms. Kendal?” I asked, remembering my manners and stepping out from behind the reception desk. She might not be a CEO in a gray suit, but she clearly had enough in the bank to make sure we all had a very happy Christmas.

“Call me Gloria, chuck. In fact, call me anything except Brenda.” After twenty years of TV viewing, the raucous laugh was as familiar as my best friend’s. “I’m looking for Brannigan,” she said.

“You found her,” I said, holding out my hand.

Gloria dropped a limp bunch of fingers into mine and withdrew before I could squeeze them — the professional sign of someone who had to shake too many hands in a year. “I thought you’d be a bloke,” she said. For once, it wasn’t a complaint, merely an observation. “Well, that makes things a lot easier. I were wondering what we’d do if Brannigan and Co didn’t have women detectives. Is there some place we can go and talk?”

“My office?” I gestured towards the open door.

“Grand,” Gloria said, sweeping past me and fluttering her fingers in farewell to Shelley.

We exchanged a look. “Rather you than me,” Shelley muttered.

By the time I closed the door behind me, Gloria was settled into one corner of the sofa I use for informal client meetings. She’d

“Living a normal life must be tough,” I said.

“You’re not kidding, chuck. They see you three times a week in their living room, and they think you’re a member of the family. You let on who you are and next thing you know they’re telling you all about their hernia operation and the state of their veins. It’s a nightmare.” She shrugged out of her coat, opened her handbag and took out a packet of those long skinny brown cigarettes that look like cinnamon sticks, and a gold Dunhill lighter. She looked around, eyebrows raised.

Stifling a sigh, I got up and removed the saucer from under the Christmas cactus. I’d only bought it two days before but already the buds that had promised pretty cascades of flowers were predictably starting to litter the windowsill. Me and plants go together like North and South Korea. I tipped the water from the saucer into the bin and placed it on the table in front of Gloria. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s the best I can do.”

She smiled. “I used to work in a cat food factory. I’ve put my fags out in a lot worse, believe me.”

I preferred not to think about it. “Well, Gloria, how can I help you?”

“I need a bodyguard.”

My eyebrows rose. “We don’t normally …”

“These aren’t normal circumstances,” she said sharply. “I don’t want some thick as pigshit bodybuilder trailing round after me. I want somebody with a brain, somebody that can figure out what the heck’s going on. Somebody that won’t attract attention. Half my life I spend with the bloody press snapping round my ankles

“You said, ‘somebody that can figure out what the heck’s going on,’” I said, focusing on the need I probably could do something useful about. “What seems to be the problem?”

“I’ve been getting threatening letters,” she said. “Now, that’s nothing new. Brenda Barrowclough is not a woman who minces her words, and there are a lot of folk out there as can’t tell the difference between Northerners and the real world. You’d be too young to remember, but when I was first widowed in the series, back about fifteen years ago, I was snowed under with letters of condolence. People actually sent wreaths for the funeral, addressed to fifteen, Sebastopol Grove. The Post Office is used to it now, they just deliver direct to the studios, but back then the poor florists didn’t know what to do. We had letters from cancer charities saying donations had been made to their funds in memory of Harry — that was my screen husband’s name. Whenever characters move out, we get letters from punters wondering what the asking price is for the house. So whenever Brenda does owt controversial, I get hate mail.”

I dredged my memory for recent tabloid headlines. “Hasn’t there been some storyline about abortion? Sorry, I don’t get the chance to watch much TV.”

“You’re all right, chuck. Me neither. You know Brenda’s granddaughter, Debbie?”

“The one who’s lived with Brenda since she was about ten? After her mum got shot in the post office raid?”

“You used to be a fan, then?”

“I still watch when I can. Which was a lot more back when Debbie was ten than it is now.”

“Well, what’s happened is that Brenda’s found out that Debbie’s had an abortion. Now, Brenda had a real down on Debbie’s boyfriend because he was black, so the audience would have expected her to support Debbie rather than have a mixed-race grandson. But Brenda’s only gone mental about the right to life and thrown Debbie out on her ear, hasn’t she? So me and Sarah Anne Kelly who plays Debbie were expecting a right slagging off.”

“And that’s what’s happened?”

Gloria shook her head, leaving a ribbon of smoke drifting level with her mouth. “Sort of,” she said, confusing me. “What happens is the studio goes through our post, weeding out the really nasty letters so we don’t get upset. Only, of course, you ask, don’t you? I mean, you want to know if there’s any real nutters out there looking for you.”

“And the studio told you there was?”

“No, chuck. It weren’t the studio. The letters I’m worried about are the ones coming to the house.”

Now I was really confused. “You mean, your real house? Where you actually live?”

“Exactly. Now, I mean, it’s not a state secret, where I live. But unless you’re actually a neighbor or one of the reptiles of the press, you’d have to go to a bit of trouble to find out. The phone’s ex-directory, of course. And all the official stuff like electricity bills and the voters’ roll don’t come under Gloria Kendal. They come under my real name.”

“Which is?”

“Doreen Satterthwaite.” She narrowed her eyes. I didn’t think it was because the smoke was getting into them. I struggled to keep my face straight. Then Gloria grinned. “Bloody awful, isn’t it? Do you wonder I chose Gloria Kendal?”

“In your shoes, I’d have done exactly the same thing,” I told her. I wasn’t lying. “So these threatening letters are coming directly to the house?”

“Not just to my house. My daughter’s had one too. And they’re different to the usual.” She opened her handbag again. I wondered at a life where it mattered to have suit, shoes and handbag in identical shades. I couldn’t help my mind slithering into speculation about her underwear. Did her coordination extend that far?

Gloria produced a sheet of paper. She started to pass it to me, then paused. I could have taken it from her, but it was an awkward reach, so I waited. “Usually, letters like this, they’re semi-literate. They’re ignorant. I mean, I might have left school when I were fifteen, but I know the difference between a dot and a comma. Most of the nutters that write me letters wouldn’t know a paragraph

Now she passed the letter across. It was plain A4 bond, the text printed unidentifiably on a laser printer. “Doreen Satterthwaite, it’s time you paid for what you’ve done. You deserve to endure the same suffering you’ve been responsible for. I know where you live. I know where your daughter Sandra and her husband Keith live. I know your granddaughter Joanna goes to Gorse Mill School. I know they worship at St Andrew’s Church and have a caravan on Anglesey. I know you drive a scarlet Saab convertible. I know you, you bitch. And soon you’re going to be dead. But there’ll be no quick getaway for you. First, you’re going to suffer.” She was right. The letter sounded disturbingly in control.

“Any idea what the letter writer is referring to?” I asked, not really expecting an honest answer.

Gloria shrugged. “Who the heck knows? I’m no plaster saint, but I can’t think of anybody I’ve done a really bad turn to. Apart from my ex, and I doubt he could manage a letter to me that didn’t include the words, ‘you effing bitch.’ He certainly can’t manage a conversation without it. And besides, he wouldn’t threaten our Sandra or Joanna. No way.” I took her response for genuine perplexity, then reminded myself how she made her living.

“Have there been many of them?”

“This is the third. Plus the one that went to Sandra. That were about the sins of the mother. To be honest, the first couple I just binned. I thought they were somebody at the wind-up.” Suddenly, Gloria looked away. She fumbled another cigarette from the packet and this time, the hand that lit it shook.

“Something happened to change your mind?”

“My car tires were slashed. All four of them. Inside the NPTV compound. And there was a note stuck under the windscreen wipers. ‘Next time your wardrobe? Or you?’ And before you ask, I

“That’s serious business,” I said. “Are you sure you shouldn’t be talking to the police?” I hated to lose a potential client, but it would have verged on criminal negligence not to point out that this might be one for Officer Dibble.

Gloria fiddled with her cigarette. “I told the management about it. And John Turpin, he’s the Administration and Production Coordinator, he persuaded me not to go to the cops.”

“Why not? I’d have thought the management would have been desperate to make sure nothing happened to their stars.”

Gloria’s lip curled in a cynical sneer. “It were nowt to do with my safety and everything to do with bad publicity. Plus, who’d want to come and work at NPTV if they found out the security was so crap that somebody could walk into the company compound and get away with that? Anyway, Turpin promised me an internal inquiry, so I decided to go along with him.”

“But now you’re here.” It’s observational skills like this that got me where I am today.

She flashed a quick up-and-under glance at me, an appraisal that contained more than a hint of fear held under tight control. “You’re going to think I’m daft.”

I shook my head. “I don’t see you as the daft type, Gloria.” Well, it was only a white lie. Daft enough to spend the equivalent of a week’s payroll for Brannigan & Co on a matching outfit, but probably not daft when it came to a realistic assessment of personal danger. Mind you, neither was Ronald Reagan and look what happened to him.

“You know Dorothea Dawson?” Gloria asked, eyeing me out of the corner of her eye.

“‘The Seer to the Stars’?” I asked incredulously. “The one who does the horoscopes in TV Viewer? The one who’s always on the telly? ‘A horse born under the sign of Aries will win the Derby’?” I intoned in a cheap impersonation of Dorothea Dawson’s sepulchral groan.

“Don’t mock,” she cautioned me, wagging a finger. “She’s a brilliant clairvoyant, you know. Dorothea comes into the studios

I bet she had. Gifts from all the stars of Northerners. “And Dorothea said something about these letters?”

“I took this letter in with me to my last consultation with her. I asked her what she could sense from it. She does that as well as the straight clairvoyance. She’s done it for me before now, and she’s never been wrong.” In spite of her acting skills, anxiety was surfacing in Gloria’s voice.

“And what did she say?”

Gloria drew so hard on her cigarette that I could hear the burning tobacco crackle. As she exhaled she said, “She held the envelope and shivered. She said the letter meant death. Dorothea said death was in the room with us.”