PI Kate Brannigan Series Books 1-3: Dead Beat, Kick Back, Crack Down. Val McDermid

walking down the path towards him. ‘I know Maggie from Seagull.’

      ‘I’m Gavin,’ he said. ‘I live next door. We would have been going with them tonight except that we’ve got people coming for dinner. Still, I’m sure there will be plenty more chances to hear Moira sing in public.’

      My heart jolted. Moira was singing? I swallowed hard and spoke before Gavin’s helpful garrulity gave out. ‘I didn’t know it was tonight,’ I improvised.

      ‘Oh yeah, the big night. Her first engagement. She’s going to be a big success. I should know, I hear her rehearsing enough!’

      I smiled politely and thanked him for his help. ‘I’ll catch them another time,’ I said, getting back into my car. Gavin sketched a half-wave from under his box and turned into the next house. I pulled out my atlas. I groaned. Darsett was a good twenty miles away. With a sigh, I headed back towards the motorway.

Chapter 12

      Within three minutes of entering Darsett Trades and Labour Club, I knew that not even double rates could compensate me for spending Saturday night there. I don’t know enough about the northern club circuit to know if it’s typical, but if it is, then my heartfelt sympathy goes out to the poor sods who make their living performing there. The building itself was a 1960s concrete box with all the charm of a dead dog. I parked among an assortment of old Cortinas and Datsuns and headed for the brightly lit entrance.

      Being a woman, I already had problems on my hands. In their infinite wisdom, working men’s clubs don’t allow women to be members in their own right. Strange women trying to get in alone are a complete no-no. The doorman, face marked with the blue hairline scars of a miner, wasn’t impressed with my story that I was an agent there to see Moira perform, not even when I produced the business card that carefully doesn’t specify what Mortensen and Brannigan are. Eventually, he grudgingly called the club secretary, who finally agreed to let me in, after informing me at great length that I would not be able to purchase alcoholic beverages.

      I regretted this rule and the fact that I was driving as soon as I crossed the threshold. The only way to make an evening at Darsett Trades and Labour Club tolerable was to be so pissed I wouldn’t notice it. The bar, on my left, was brightly lit, packed and already blue with smoke. It sounded like a riot was in progress, an impression increased by the rugby scrum at the bar.

      I carried on through double doors under a blue neon sign that said Cabaret Room. Like the bar, the room shimmered under the glare of lights and the haze of cigarette smoke. It was crammed with small, round tables, two-thirds of which were occupied with chattering groups of men and women. Their gaiety was infectious, and I mentally ticked myself off for my patronizing response to the club.

      At the far end of the room was a small stage. A trio of electronic organ, drums and bass were listlessly playing ‘The Girl From Ipanema’. No one was listening. I looked around intently, trying to pick out Maggie in the crowd. At first, I couldn’t see any woman on her own, but on the second sweep of the room, I spotted her.

      She was standing in the shadows right at the edge of the room about halfway back. Her clothes as much as her isolation marked her out. Unlike the other women in the room apart from me, she wasn’t dressed up to the nines in teetering heels and a bright dress. Maggie wore jeans, a chambray shirt and a pair of trainers. From where I was standing, it looked like she had also avoided the cosmetic excesses of the rest of the room. She was about my height, with curly, shoulder-length pepper and salt hair. She was carrying about ten pounds overweight, but she looked sturdy rather than flabby.

      For a moment, I toyed with the idea of making the first approach to her, but decided against it. I suspected she’d leap immediately to Moira’s defence and give me the elbow without actually weighing up what I had to say, and I couldn’t blame her for that. Even if I’d been going to approach her, I was cut off at the pass. The organist finished the Stan Getz piece with a flourish and played a fanfare. A burly man leapt on to the stage and peppered the audience with a few risqué jokes, then announced, ‘Ladies and animals, put your hands together for tonight’s star attraction, a young lady who’s going all the way to the top. Let’s hear it for Moira Moore!’

      With another fanfare on the organ, he vanished into the wings. The band played the opening chords of ‘To Be With You Tonight’ and Moira walked out on to the stage. As she moved forward into the fixed spotlight, she looked nervously from side to side, as if searching for an escape route that wasn’t there. She was wearing a tight blue lurex dress which came to just above her knees. She looked painfully thin.

      As the band finished the intro, Moira leaned forward to the mike and began to sing. To say I was astonished would be putting it mildly. Could this really be the woman who’d been happy to take a back-seat, lyricist’s role because her voice wasn’t up to scratch? OK, she didn’t have the silky richness of Jett, but by any other standards Moira’s was quite a voice. Slightly husky, almost bluesy, she hit the notes perfectly, and the nerves that were obvious in her body language didn’t transmit themselves into her singing. Even the louts in the audience shut up to listen to Moira sing.

      She followed Jett’s first hit with an unadventurous selection of torch songs, ending up with a version of ‘Who Will I Turn To’ that almost had tough old Brannigan in tears. The audience loved it, clapping and cheering and demanding more. Moira looked dazed and surprised by her reception, and after a few minutes of applause, she turned and asked the organist something inaudible. He nodded and she launched into Tina Turner’s whore’s anthem, ‘Private Dancer’, with the kind of bitter attack that could only come from experience. The crowd went wild. If it had been up to them, she would have been there all night, but she looked exhausted by the end of the song and escaped gratefully to the wings.

      Like the audience, I’d been mesmerized by Moira and when I looked back to where Maggie had been standing, I realized I’d been letting pleasure interfere with work. Maggie had gone. Furious with myself, I hurried down the side of the room and through a pass door at the side of the stage.

      I was in a narrow corridor. Two doors on the left were marked Ladies and Gents, and on my right were steps leading up to the stage. Round a corner, I found three more doors. No reply to my knock on the first. Same with the second. On the third attempt, I hit pay dirt. The door opened six inches and Maggie’s face appeared in the crack. Close up, she was a pretty woman. She had small, neat features and intelligent blue eyes with laughter lines at the corners. I put her in the mid thirties. ‘Can I help you?’ she asked pleasantly.

      I smiled. ‘You must be Maggie. Hi. I’d like to see Moira.’

      She frowned. ‘I’m sorry, have we met?’ Without waiting for a reply, she went on. ‘Look, she’s too tired. If it’s an autograph you want, I can get her to sign one for you.’

      I shook my head. ‘Thanks, but I need to see her. It’s a personal matter,’ I stated calmly.

      ‘Who is it?’ a voice from inside the room called out.

      ‘No one we know,’ Maggie remarked over her shoulder. She turned back to me and said, ‘Look, this is not a good time. She’s just done a show, and she needs to rest.’

      ‘What I have to say won’t take long. I don’t like to be difficult, but I’m not going till I’ve spoken to Moira.’ I spoke firmly, with more confidence than I actually felt. I was in no doubt that Maggie could have me thrown out of there so fast my feet wouldn’t touch the sticky carpets. However, to do that, she’d have to leave Moira. I couldn’t see Darsett Trades and Labour Club being the kind of place that had a house phone in the star dressing room.

      ‘What the hell’s going on?’ Moira demanded, pulling the door open and staring belligerently at me. It should have been a moment of triumph for me, to come face to face with my quarry like this, but any satisfaction was destroyed by the irritation in her voice. ‘Are you deaf or what? She told you, I’m too tired to talk to anybody.’

      ‘I’m sorry it’s a bad time, but