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

press. I mean you are not to talk to anyone about the method or timing of this incident. Is that understood?’ I nodded. Then he added, ‘We’ll let you know when we want to see you again. And keep your nose out. Leave this to the professionals.’

      I’d be only too happy to do just that, I thought as I drove down the drive. But somehow, I had the feeling Jett wasn’t going to give me that option.

      It was just after three a.m. when the electronic gates opened silently before me and I drove out into the lane, waving goodbye to the patrol car that had followed me down the drive. I slowed down as I approached Colcutt village, searching in the glove box for something more soothing than Tina Turner. As I hit the bend, a figure appeared in my headlights. It froze momentarily, then disappeared into the darkness of the verge.

      I braked the car to a halt and jumped out. I ran back the few yards to where the figure had disappeared. There was no trace of anyone. The only sound to break the silence of the night was the soft mutter of my engine. I might have been dreaming, but I didn’t think so. I had only seen Moira’s lover once, but I’d have recognized Maggie Rossiter anywhere.

Chapter 15

      When people find out what I do for a living, they always ask if it’s dangerous. They usually seem disappointed when I confess that the hardest thing to deal with is lack of sleep. I get very ratty if I’m kept away from my bed. I’d been asleep for a mere four hours after my run-in with Jackson when the phone rang insistently.

      I picked up the phone. ‘Who is it?’ I growled.

      ‘Good morning to you, too,’ Shelley replied. ‘Bill wants to talk to you. Are you coming in or do you want to speak to him now?’

      ‘Both,’ I replied. Bill’s no stickler for regular office hours, and he knows me well enough to know that if I’m not in the office at nine there’s a good reason. So for him to get Shelley to roust me out of bed, it had to be important.

      ‘Kate,’ his voice boomed in my ear as Shelley connected us. ‘What’s this you’ve been up to now?’

      ‘How did you get to hear about it?’ I asked wearily, climbing out of bed and heading for the kitchen.

      ‘The news about Moira was on the radio this morning, and I got into the office to find a string of increasingly hysterical messages from Jett and a demand for a meeting from a pompous asshole called Inspector Cliff Jackson. It didn’t take a lot of working out,’ he reported.

      ‘What did Jett want?’

      ‘You, basically. A lot of moaning about why did you run out on him when he needed you and instructions to get yourself back over there asap. I think you’d better come in and brief me on what’s been going on before we decide whether we want to have any further involvement. OK?’ It was the nearest Bill was ever going to get to a direct order.

      Twenty minutes later, I was filling him in. When I got to the bit about the story I’d concocted for the police about the body’s discovery, he shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘I don’t think that was one of your brightest moves, Kate,’ he complained.

      ‘I know. But anything else made Jett look like the killer.’

      ‘And how do you know he wasn’t?’ Bill challenged me.

      ‘I saw the state he was in. It wasn’t the kind of reaction I’d expect from a man who had just killed his so-called soul mate. It was more like he couldn’t believe it till someone else had confirmed it. Besides, if I’d told the truth, Jett wouldn’t have been cluttering up our answering machine all night. He’d be down the nick in an interrogation room.’ I knew it sounded weak even as I told it, but the strength of my own gut feeling about Jett’s innocence didn’t allow for compromise.

      ‘I trust your instincts, Kate. But the cops sure as hell won’t. We’ll have to make damn sure they don’t find out the truth. And I suppose that means you’ll have to stay close to whatever’s going on,’ he added. He chewed his beard restlessly, a sure sign that he’s worried.

      ‘At least Jett seems to want that,’ I tried. It wasn’t much of a consolation, but it was the only one I could see right then.

      ‘Jett might, but I don’t,’ Bill flashed back. ‘We don’t do murders, Kate. We do white-collar crime. We’re not geared up to compete with the police on something like this. Besides, I’m not happy about putting you in the front line when there’s someone out there killing people.’

      ‘I can handle myself,’ I replied huffily.

      ‘I know you can. It’s the other poor fuckers I’m worried about,’ he said with a tired smile. ‘Seriously, though. I really wish you hadn’t got us involved. But now we are, you’d better brief me fully.’

      I gave him a quick résumé of events, leaving out only my glimpse of Maggie. I don’t know why I held that back; maybe I was worried about her being the obvious scapegoat, even to a supposedly new man like Bill.

      ‘Jackson wanted to know the nature of the job we did for Jett,’ I finished up. ‘I hid behind client confidentiality.’

      ‘You did right. Leave Jackson to me. You’d better have a listen to Jett’s messages then get yourself over to Colcutt.’

      It was after eleven when I drew up outside the electronic gates. Half a dozen cars were parked along the verge, and I recognized a couple of national newspaper reporters. The news of Moira’s death had broken too late for that morning’s editions, but they were determined to make up for lost time. As I pulled up to speak to the police constable, who looked cold and miserable in the thin drizzle of rain, car doors suddenly opened and the pack descended. Luckily, Jett had had the sense to tell the police I should be admitted. He’d also remembered to leave me the security code for the gate in one of his messages. I was halfway through the gates before the first journalist reached me. I put my foot down and left him shaking off the spray from my tyres.

      At the house, another freezing copper let me in. There was no one in sight, but the constable on duty at the door of the rehearsal room grudgingly told me that Jett was in the kitchen. I found him there alone, slumped at an old pine farmhouse table, a mug of tea sitting in front of him. He barely glanced at me when I crossed the room to the kettle. I put it on to boil and picked up his mug. Nothing like making yourself at home. His untouched tea was stone cold, so I made us both fresh.

      ‘You shouldn’t have gone,’ he greeted me. ‘I wanted you here.’

      ‘I didn’t have any choice,’ I explained patiently, like I would to Davy, Richard’s five-year-old. ‘The cops bounced me as soon as they found out who I was.’

      Jett lifted his mug to his lips, but lowered it untasted. His skin had taken on a strange dullness, the colour of slate. His eyes were bloodshot, but not puffy with tears. ‘You liked her, didn’t you?’ he asked.

      ‘Moira? I hardly knew her, but yes, I liked what I saw of her. She had courage, and a sense of humour,’ I replied.

      He nodded, as if I’d confirmed something. ‘That’s why I want you to find out who killed her. Somebody in this house, somebody I trusted, took her life away. You’re going to find out who.’

      I felt like I’d stumbled on to the set of an episode of Murder, She Wrote. I took a deep breath and tried to bring the conversation down to earth. ‘Don’t you think you should leave this to the police? They’ve got the manpower and the facilities to investigate murder, Jett. I haven’t.’

      He warmed his hands on the mug. ‘You don’t understand, Kate. This isn’t going to be solved by fingerprints and alibis. This is going to be solved by understanding people. The Old Bill, they didn’t know Moira. And they sure as hell don’t understand any of us. The people in this house, we don’t talk the same language as these cops. Not even Mr Respectable Kevin. But you’re different. You live with Richard, you know this life. You