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

my way to the kitchen and back again without a ball of string or a map. Instead, I sat down and put an arm round him. ‘Jett,’ I said softly. ‘We’re going to have to get our story straight or the cops are going to get very heavy with you. Listen. I was passing on my way home from a job and I dropped in for a drink. We were talking for the best part of an hour, then you went down to the rehearsal room to get Moira to join us, and that’s when you found the body. I was already here. Understand?’ I could only pray that the pathologist wouldn’t come up with a time of death that made a nonsense of the alibi I was handing him.

      ‘I got nothing to say to the cops,’ he informed me.

      ‘Jett, unless you want to spend tonight in a cell, you’re going to have to stick to our story. In their eyes, you’re the number one suspect, especially if we tell them the truth. Promise me you’ll keep to my version.’ I repeated the tale to him and made him recite it back to me.

      We were interrupted by the distant sound of the gate intercom. Jett showed no signs of moving, so I headed back towards the hall. Gloria had beaten me to it. She was wearing a heavy red silk kimono with, appropriately enough, black and gold dragons embroidered all over it. Either she had ears like a bat or she’d been on her way downstairs anyway when the intercom sounded. She was carrying out her usual friendly interrogation over the entryphone when I butted in and said curtly, ‘Let them in. Jett knows all about it.’

      She pressed the gate release button then turned furiously towards me. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, police in the middle of the night. I suppose Moira’s doing drugs or something. I wish he’d never hired you in the first place. Then we would all have been happy.’

      I already felt put upon, which is the only excuse I can offer for snapping back at her, ‘Moira won’t be doing drugs or anything else ever again. Somebody made very sure of that tonight. Moira’s dead.’

      Before I could properly judge her reaction, there was a tattoo of knocks on the front door. I pushed past Gloria and opened the door. Two uniformed officers stood on the doorstep, the flashing blue light on top of their car washing them in an eerie glow. ‘Miss Brannigan, is it?’ the older of the two asked politely.

      ‘That’s me. You’d better come in. Are the CID on their way?’

      ‘That’s right, miss,’ he said as they walked into the hall, looking around them curiously. They’d drink out on this for months, murder in the rock star’s den. ‘Can you show me where the uhh …’

      ‘You’d better wait here, Gloria,’ I said loftily. ‘Someone will have to let the other officers in.’

      As I turned away to lead them to the rehearsal room, a man’s voice echoed down the stairwell. ‘What the fuck is going down?’ I glanced up to see Kevin leaning over the gilt banister, looking as spruce as if he was heading for a meeting with his bank manager. Didn’t anybody ever sleep in this house?

      ‘You’d better get yourself down here,’ I called back.

      ‘What the hell are you doing here, Brannigan?’ he ranted as he turned the corner of the stairs. Then he saw the cops and stopped dead. ‘Oh shit, what are they doing here? What’s going on?’

      ‘Moira’s been killed,’ I blurted out before anyone else could speak.

      Kevin missed a step and almost tumbled to the foot of the stairs, just catching himself in time on the banister. ‘You what?’ he gasped. ‘There’s got to be some mistake. Gloria, what’s she playing at?’

      ‘I don’t know, Kevin. I just came downstairs and found her here.’

      ‘No mistake, I’m afraid,’ I interrupted. ‘I’ve seen the body. You’d better go and sit with Jett. He’s in the drawing room.’

      Kevin shook his head like a man who thinks he’s trapped in a bad dream and moved across the hall towards the door. Gloria took a couple of steps after him, then hesitated. The policemen conferred almost inaudibly, then the younger one stepped back towards the front door. ‘I’ll have to ask you not to leave the building, sir,’ he said to Kevin.

      ‘Listen, sonny, I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got an artiste to look after,’ he said self-importantly. ‘I’ve got a right to be here. Why don’t you ask her what the hell she’s doing on the premises? She’s the outsider here,’ he complained sharply, pointing to me.

      The older policeman looked exasperated. All he wanted to do was get to the murder scene before the CID arrived and started treating him like a turnip. At this rate, he’d end up looking like a complete wally who hadn’t even managed to keep tabs on the occupants of the house. Ignoring Kevin’s histrionic gesture, he said, ‘Miss, if you could just show me the way?’

      I led him to the door. Wild horses wouldn’t have dragged me across the threshold again. I handed him the key and nodded at the door. ‘In there. I checked for a pulse, but there wasn’t one.’

      ‘Touch anything else, miss?’ he asked as he unlocked the door.

      ‘No.’ I leaned against the wall as he let himself in. All I wanted was to climb back into bed and pull the duvet over my head. It didn’t seem to be an available option. Wearily, I pushed myself back into action. Apart from the young constable, whose radio was crackling like an egg in a hot frying pan, the front hall was empty. I didn’t feel up to Kevin and Gloria, so I sat on the bottom step of the stairs and wondered gloomily why I’d already stuck my neck out to protect Jett. He wasn’t a friend, simply a client who’d paid his bill promptly. I know that’s rarer than a socialist at a Labour Party meeting, but it still wasn’t reason enough for my quixotic behaviour.

      The sound of the intercom brought Gloria scuttling back from the drawing room. This time, the door opened to reveal two plain clothes officers, a uniformed sergeant and an inspector. They hadn’t wasted any time. They had a brief conference with the officer on the door, and the CID disappeared in the direction of the rehearsal room. The inspector went off to the drawing room. The sergeant turned to Gloria and me, pulled out his notebook and asked, ‘Who else is in the house?’

      I shrugged and Gloria pursed her mouth in a self-satisfied smirk. She didn’t care if it took murder to keep me in my place. Then she rattled off efficiently, ‘Jett is in the drawing room with his manager, Mr Kleinman. Mr Webster, Jett’s official biographer, will either be in his office or in bed. Miss Spenser, Jett’s companion, is in her room upstairs.’

      ‘Thank you,’ the officer interjected, desperately trying to keep up with her flow. He scribbled on for a moment then said, ‘And you ladies are … ?’

      ‘I’m Gloria Seward, Jett’s personal assistant and private secretary. And this is Kate Brannigan,’ she added, her tone spelling out that I was an insignificant menial, there to make up the numbers. I held my tongue. The time to reveal my profession would come soon enough. Once they knew I was a private eye, it would be straight into quarantine for me, and I wasn’t ready for that yet.

      The sergeant, a hard-eyed man in his late thirties, finished writing and said, ‘So that’s everyone, is it?’

      Gloria ran through her mental checklist, then her hand flew to her mouth. I really didn’t think anyone did that any more. I forgot Micky,’ she wailed. ‘I’m sorry. Micky Hampton is Jett’s record producer. He’ll probably be in the studio – that’s in the cellar.’

      ‘Don’t worry, it’s hard to remember everything at a time like this. You’ve obviously had a bit of a shock. I’m sorry to ask this, but we’re going to have to interview everyone as soon as possible. I’d appreciate it if one of you ladies could get everyone together,’ he said.

      ‘I’ll go,’ I piped up. I think Gloria should be with Jett right now.’

      The look she shot at me was pure poison, but there was really nothing she could do about it. After all, she was the one who’d set herself up as Jett’s little helper. The policeman nodded and I swiftly got directions from Gloria. Jett clearly wasn’t going to let me walk away from this