We shut up and moved apart as we heard Gloria’s approach. She came in twirling a rigid platinum-blonde beehive on the end of her finger. “There you go, chuck. One Brenda Barrowclough barnet.” She tossed it in my direction. Donovan stretched out a long arm and intercepted it, then handed it ceremoniously to me.
“Let’s see what you look like,” he said, a mischievous grin lighting up his eyes.
I pulled the wig over my head. It wasn’t a bad fit, and in the poor light of the streetlamps I reckoned it would be good enough to fool anyone expecting Gloria. Five minutes later and I was proving myself right, always a feeling I enjoy. At the end of the narrow lane leading to Gloria’s, I slowed to turn on to the main road. To either side, headlights snapped on and engines coughed into life. “Gotcha,” I said under my breath as I led the cavalcade down the road towards Oldham. As far as I could see, they were all nailed to my tail. I was just grateful there were no tunnels between Saddleworth and Manchester. And that it was too cold for riding motorbikes.
I drove to the office, not particularly wanting to invite the rat pack back to my own doorstep. I managed to find a parking space that wasn’t illegal enough to earn a ticket on a Saturday night, aware of the four press cars hovering nearby, trying to find nonexistent spaces where they could abandon ship and follow “Gloria.” I got out of the car, pulled the wig off and ran my hand through my hair. I wiggled my fingers at the hacks and walked round the corner to my office. Nobody followed me. Like private eyes, journos always know when they’ve just been had over by an expert. One humiliation was enough for one evening.
The office was dark and empty, Gizmo having finally remembered he had a home to go to. I brewed myself a cappuccino and stretched out on the clients’ sofa to skim the authorized version of Dorothea’s life. The two hundred and fifty pages of largish print left a lot of scope for the imagination. The rosy glow of a happy Lancashire childhood in a poor but honest family, followed by an adolescence troubled only by the upheavals surrounding the discovery of her psychic powers and the difficulties of coming to terms with a “gift” that set her apart from her contemporaries.
She had married at twenty to a man eight years older than her, referred to only as Harry. The marriage lasted less than a chapter. If Dorothea’s cursory dismissal was anything to go by, the real thing hadn’t endured much longer. Because she’d needed to support herself, she’d started charging for astrological consultations. By the time Edna Mercer had stumbled across her, she’d graduated from her front room to her own booth on a seaside pier.
Northerners had changed everything. Within months of becoming the personal astrologer to a handful of cast members, she was the most sought-after stargazer in the country. A year after Edna Mercer had plucked her from relative obscurity, she had a monthly slot on daytime TV, syndicated weekly newspaper columns and pre-recorded local radio horoscopes. Now, a few years after her book had appeared, she had been edged from pole position among astrologers by the high-profile appearances of Mystic Meg on the national lottery broadcasts, but Dorothea Dawson was still Seer to the Stars in the public’s mind. The amazing thing, the one fact that had kept her going through the tough times, was the certain knowledge that once she reached a particular point in her astrological cycle, she would be a star herself. And the moon is made of green cheese.
Bored by the book’s relentless tabloid prose and frustrated by its deliberate superficiality, I gave up on it after an hour or so. I knew that compared to the police, my chances of uncovering Dorothea’s killer were slim. They had forensic evidence and teams of trained officers who could question everybody who’d ever crossed the threshold of the NPTV compound. All I had going for me was the chance that my informal networks could produce information that was denied to the police. Cassie had been some help, but I needed a lot more.
There was one source that I suspected wouldn’t occur to Cliff Jackson if he thought from now till next Christmas. Even if it did, a private operator like me was always going to get a far better response from the anarchic community of the Internet than a copper ever would. Even the straightest suit turns into a bit of a rebel when he—or she—ventures into cyberspace.
Reluctantly abandoning the comfort of the sofa, I slouched in
I switched off the computer and checked the time. Way too early to pick up Gloria. There was no chance of Richard being home on a Saturday night, at least not before Match of the Day. But I knew someone who would be.
As I parked outside the O’Briens’ house, a couple of pairs of curtains in the deeply suburban close twitched open, shards of light sparking on their frosted lawns like glitter on Christmas cards. Even thick middle managers know that nobody as small as me gets into the police, so the pale stripes of curtain gaps soon disappeared. Debbie answered the door with a defiant glower that turned her beauty into a threat. “Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I thought it was the Old Bill come back for another run through the laundry basket. Bastards. Come on in.”
It was hardly a gracious invitation, but I don’t suppose I’d have been any better behaved in the circumstances. I followed her into the immaculate and characterless kitchen. I’d been right about the glasses. The cabinet was empty. I didn’t think that was because Debbie was secretly having a party in the next room. “Want a drink?” she asked.
When I started working in Manchester, the first time someone had asked me that I’d said, “No thanks, I’m driving.” He’d given me a very strange look. It took me about six months and a lot of thirsty
The silence grew thick between us while Debbie brewed up, the hiss as boiling water exploded coffee granules perfectly audible. She’s never quite sure what to make of me. Being a woman whose IQ is around the same as her continental shoe size, she can’t quite make herself believe that any woman would prefer to go out to work to support herself from choice. She also finds it hard to get her head round the notion that any heterosexual woman could spend serious time with her husband without having designs on his body. Every now and again Dennis or I or their teenage daughter Christie convinces her that our relationship is purely platonic. Then she forgets what platonic means and we have to start all over again. Sometimes I think it would just be easier if I told her I was a lesbian.
On second thoughts, perhaps not.
“Ruth says you’re going to help him,” Debbie said flatly as she plonked the mug in front of me.
“I’ll do what I can. But I’m not sure what I can usefully do. It’s not like I can track down missing alibi witnesses or anything.”
Debbie bristled. “That’s because he was here with me all night.”
“You’re sure he didn’t pop out for a packet of fags or anything?” I asked.
Debbie glared at me. “Whose side are you on? You sound like the bloody bizzies. Look, he didn’t pop out for a packet of fags because I buy his fags at the supermarket, right?” She swung away from me and yanked open one of the tall kitchen units. The cupboard contained an unbroached carton of Dennis’s brand and a half-full wrap of hers. “Even Dennis can’t smoke two hundred fags a night.”
“I’m just checking, Debbie,” I said calmly. “I’m on Dennis’s side. I only asked because if he did bob out for ten minutes, you can bet the dibble are going to find out and use that to make you look like a liar.”
She lit a cigarette, then gripped her right elbow with her left hand in a classic defensive gesture. “Look, I know I gave him a moody alibi one time. But you’ve got to when it’s your man. And
I held my hands up in a placatory gesture. “I believe you. The problem I’ve got is that I’m not up to speed with who hates who among the Cheetham Hill villains. Until I can speak to Dennis, I haven’t a clue whose doors I should be kicking in.”
Debbie sighed a long ribbon of smoke. “No point in asking me. I’ve always kept my nose out. There is one thing, though,” she added, frowning as she thought. The absence of permanent lines on her forehead demonstrated what a rare event I was witnessing.
“What’s that?
” I had little hope of a result, but my mother brought me up to be polite.
“The dog. I can’t understand how come the dog was in the corridor and Pit Bull Kelly was in the shop.”
“Pit Bull must have been attacked as he walked in the door.”
“So how did whoever killed him get out past the dog? That’s a killer dog, that. It wouldn’t let Pit Bull’s killer walk. It’d rip his throat out.”
She had a point. I sipped my coffee and thought about it. “A bit of a puzzle, that,” I said.
“Plus,” she added with a triumphant air, “if Pit Bull went down the shop to front up Dennis, he’d never have moved an inch without the dog. If Dennis had been in the shop, it would have been the dog that went through the door first, not that gutless wonder Pit Bull. Plus, if Dennis had still been using the shop, his night watchman would have been inside.”
“Of course,” I breathed.
“So the dog being in the corridor proves Dennis wasn’t there.”
Somehow, I thought a jury might need a bit more convincing than the dog that didn’t rip a throat out in the night. But at least it gave me somewhere to start.
Traditionally, the serious players in Manchester’s drug wars have been the black gangs of Moss Side and the white gangs of Cheetham Hill. The Cheetham Hill lads have been around longer, their criminal roots deep in the cracks between the paving stones
The Kellys were one of the oldest families, and most of them stuck to the old ways. Protection rackets and schneid sports gear, long firm frauds and small-time thieving, that was the Kellys’ style. The team of brothers had always had contempt for the drug lords, which was about the only good thing you could say for them.
I had to endure three boozers where I drank beer straight from the bottle because I wasn’t prepared to risk the glasses before I found a pair of grieving Kelly brothers. The Dog and Brewer was the kind of dump where your feet stick to the carpet and the fag ash forms a paste on the bottom of ashtrays that nobody has bothered to dry after rinsing them under the tap. Most of the punters had the blurred jawlines and bleary eyes of people who have smoked and drunk so much for so long change seems pointless. The women wore clothes that might have flattered them fifteen years before but now insulted them even more than the flabby men in ill-fitting casual clothes who were buying them drinks. Tom Jones was rejoicing loudly that again he’d touch the green, green grass of home.
I brazened out the eyes on me and bought a bottle of Carlsberg. “Any of the Kelly boys in?” I asked the barman, my fingers resting lightly on the fiver on the bar.
He looked at the money and gave me the once-over. I obviously didn’t look like a cop, for he jerked his head towards two shaggyhaired men in padded flannel work shirts at the far end of the bar. Before I could turn back, the fiver was gone. One good thing about lowlife dives is that the information comes cheap.
I picked up my bottle and pushed through the crowd until I was standing next to the two men. Their blue eyes were bloodshot, their stubbled cheeks scarlet with the stout and whisky they were pouring down their throats. “I’m sorry for your loss, gentlemen,” Evening Chronicle buy you a drink?”
The taller of the two managed a half-hearted leer. “I’ll let you buy me a drink any time, darling.”
I signalled the barman and blew a tenner on drink. “Hell of a shock,” I said, raising my bottle to clink against their glasses.
“I told him he was a dickhead, going up against Dennis O’Brien. Hard bastard, that one,” the smaller brother slurred.
“I heard the dog was supposed to be good protection,” I said. “Bit of a handful, I heard. They say he gave the Old Bill a hard time.”
The taller one grinned. “Thank fuck for that. I’m Paul, by the way, and this is Little Joe.”
I shook the outstretched paw. “I’m Kate. How come Patrick went to see O’Brien on his own? If the guy’s so tough?”
Little Joe snorted. “Because he was a big girl’s blouse. He was always trying to prove he was a hard man, our Patrick, but he was about as hard as Angel Delight. He was complaining that Dennis O’Brien had muscled in on his racket, and we all got so fucked off with listening we told him to go and sort O’Brien out if he was so pissed off.”
“And he’d had enough to drink to think he was man enough to take on that South Manchester scumbag.” Paul shook his head. “He was an eejit, Patrick.”
“Especially when he had a drink in him.” Little Joe shook his head too.
“And a draw,” Paul concluded.
“So he’d been drinking and smoking dope before he went off to the Arndale to front up O’Brien?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Little Joe confirmed. “I mean, what kind of bastard has to top some drunken tosser just to make a point? O’Brien could just have broken a few bones and chucked Patrick out on his ear. He didn’t have to go and kill him. Anybody could see Patrick was an eejit.”
“What about the dog, though?” I persisted.
Paul gave a contemptuous bark of laughter. “Yeah, well, even a hard nut like O’Brien might have thought twice about taking on that mad bastard dog. I can’t figure out how the dog didn’t rip his throat out.”
Suddenly, Little Joe’s eyes were full of tears. “He didn’t have to kill him, though, did he? The bastard didn’t have to kill my baby brother.” His hand snaked out and grabbed my lapel. “You tell them that in your paper. My baby brother was a big soft lump. Even with a drink and a draw in him, he wouldn’t have done to O’Brien what that shit O’Brien done to him. You tell them, d’you hear? You tell them.”
I promised I’d tell them. I promised several times. I listened to the Kelly boys telling me the same things a few more times, then made my excuses and left. I carried my own haze of stale smoke and spilled drink into the car and made for the city center.
I virtually had to drag Gloria off Donovan in the end. She’d been taking advantage of having a driver to attack the champagne with the brio of an operatic tenor. As she slid from happy to drunk to absolutely arseholed, so her amorousness had grown, according to Donovan, who I found with a slew of red lipstick below one ear and one shirt-tail hanging down the front of his trousers. He was keeping Gloria upright by pure strength, lurking in a corner near the revolving doors.
“Why didn’t you sit her down in a quiet corner of the bar?” I hissed as we steered her into the street. It was like manipulating one of those wooden articulated models artists use, only life-sized and heavy as waterlogged mahogany.
“Every time I sat down she climbed on my lap,” he growled as we poured Gloria into the passenger seat of her car.
“Fair enough.” I slammed the door and handed him my car keys. “Thanks, Don. You did a good job in very trying circumstances.”
He scratched his head. “I expect it’ll be reflected in my pay packet.”
Like mother, like son. “It would be nice to find my car outside my house sometime tomorrow, keys through the letterbox. I’ll talk to you soon.” I patted his arm. It was like making friends with one of the Trafalgar Square lions.
Gloria was snoring gently when I got behind the wheel. The engine turning over woke her up. She rolled towards me, hand blindly groping for my knee. “I don’t think so,” I said firmly, returning it to her own lap.
Her eyes snapped open and she looked at me in astonishment. “Hiya, chuck,” she said blearily. “Where did Donovan go?”
“Home to bed.”
She gurgled. I hoped it was a chuckle and not the overture to a technicolor yawn. “Lucky girl,” she slurred. “Poor old Glo. Whatchou been up to, then? Bit of nookie with the boyfriend?”
We turned into Albert Square where the giant inflatable red-and-white figure of Santa Claus clutched the steeple that rises out of the middle of the town hall roof. It looked vaguely obscene in the garish glare of the Christmas lights. I jerked my thumb upwards. “He’s seen more action than I have tonight. I’ve been trying to find out about Dorothea’s past,” I said, more to fill the space th
an in any hope of a sensible response.
“Bloody tragic, that’s what it was. Tragic,” Gloria mumbled.
“Murder always is.”
“No, you daft get, not the murder, her life. It was tragic.” Gloria gave me one of those punches to the shoulder that drunks think are affectionate. The car swerved across two lanes and narrowly missed a bus. Gloria giggled as I wrestled with the wheel.
“What was tragic?” I asked, my jaw clenched so tight the muscles hurt.
“She never got over losing him.” She groped in her evening purse for a cigarette and lit up.
“Losing who? Her husband?”
“Flamin’ Nora, Kate. When did a woman ever regret losing a no-good waste of space like her old man?” she reproached me. “Her son, of course. She never got over losing her son.”
“I didn’t know she’d had a son.”
“Not a lot of people know that,” Gloria intoned in a very bad impersonation of Michael Caine. “She had a son and then she had post-natal depression.”
“And the baby died?”
“’Course he didn’t die,” she said scornfully. “He got taken off her. When she got put away.”
This was beginning to feel like one of those terrible black-and-white Northern kitchen sink dramas scripted by men with names like Arnold and Stanley. “When you say ‘put away,’ do
“Tha’s right,” she said. “Put away in the loony bin. He did that to her. Her old man had her put away because having the baby had sent her a bit off her rocker. Christ, every woman goes a bit off her rocker when she’s had a littl’un. If they put us all away just because we went a bit daft, there’d be a hell of a lot of men changing nappies. Right bastard he must have been.”
“So Dorothea’s baby was adopted then, is that what you’re saying?”
“Aye. Taken off her and given to somebody else. And they gave her electric shocks and cold showers and more drugs than Boots the Chemist and wondered why it took her so bloody long to get better. Bastards.” She spat the last word vehemently, as if it was personal, her eyes on the swirl of pinprick snowflakes tumbling thinly in the cones of sulphur-yellow streetlights.