Star Struck - Val McDermid

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for everyone who managed to squeeze alongside. She didn’t even seem to be sweating, the only cool person in the biggest sauna in the North West. When she finally made it to the dais, there was no shortage of hands to help her up. She turned momentarily and swiftly handed the DJ a cassette tape. ‘Any time you like, chuck. Just let it run.’

      The lad slotted it into his music deck and the opening bars of the Northerners theme crashed out over the PA, the audience swaying along. The music faded down and Gloria went straight into what was clearly a well-polished routine. Half a dozen jokes with a local spin, a clutch of anecdotes about her fellow cast members then, right on cue, the music swelled up under her and she belted out a segued medley of ‘I Will Survive’, ‘No More Tears’, ‘Roll With It’ and ‘No Regrets’.

      You had to be there.

      The crowd was baying for more. They got it. ‘The Power of Love’ blasted our eardrums into the middle of next week. Then we were out of there. The car park was so cold and quiet I’d have been tempted to linger if I hadn’t had the client to consider. Instead I ran to the car and brought it round to the doorway, where she was signing the last few autographs. ‘Keep watching the show,’ she urged them as she climbed into the car.

      As soon as we were out of the car park, she pulled off the wig with a noisy sigh. ‘What did you think?’

      ‘Anybody who seriously wanted to damage you could easily get close enough. Getting away might be harder,’ I said, half my attention on negotiating a brutal one-way system that could commit us to Chorley or Preston or some other fate worse than death if I didn’t keep my wits about me.

      ‘No, not that,’ Gloria said impatiently. ‘Never mind that. How was I? Did they love it?’

      It was gone midnight by the time I’d deposited Gloria behind bolted doors and locked gates and driven back through the empty impoverished streets of the city’s eastern fringes. Nothing much was moving except the litter in the wind. I felt a faint nagging throb in my sinuses, thanks to the assault of cigarette smoke, loud music and flashing lights I’d endured in the pub. I’d recently turned thirty; maybe some fundamental alteration had happened in my brain which meant my body could no longer tolerate all the things that spelled ‘a good night out’ to the denizens of Blackburn’s latest fun pub. Perhaps there were hidden benefits in aging after all.

      I yawned as I turned out of the council estate into the enclave of private housing where I occasionally manage a full night’s sleep. Tonight wouldn’t be one; Gloria had to be at the studios by nine thirty, so she wanted me at her place by eight thirty. I’d gritted my teeth, thought about the hourly rate and smiled.

      I staggered up the path, slithering slightly on the frosted cobbles, already imagining the sensuous bliss of slipping under a winter-weight feather-and-down duvet. As soon as I opened the door, the dream shattered. Even from the hallway I could see the glow of light from the conservatory. I could hear moody saxophone music and the mutter of voices. That they were in the conservatory rather than Richard’s living room meant that whoever he was talking to was there for me.

      My bag slid to the floor as my shoulders drooped. I walked through to the living room and took in the scene through the patio doors. Beer bottles, a plume of smoke from a joint, two male bodies sprawled across the wicker.

      Just what I’d always wanted at the end of a working day. A pair of criminals in the conservatory.

       3

      VENUS SQUARES NEPTUNE

       This is a tense aspect that produces strain in affairs of the heart because she has a higher expectation of love and comradeship than her world provides. She has a strong determination to beat the odds stacked against her.

      From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson

      It’s not every night you feel like you need a Visiting Order to enter your own conservatory. That night I definitely wanted reinforcements before I could face the music or the men. A quick trip to the kitchen and I was equipped with a sweating tumbler of ice-cold pepper-flavoured Absolut topped up with pink grapefruit juice. I took a deep draught and headed for whatever Dennis and Richard had to throw at me.

      When I say the conservatory was full of criminals, I was only slightly exaggerating. Although Richard’s insistence on the need for marijuana before creativity can be achieved means he cheerfully breaks the law every day, he’s got no criminal convictions. Being a journalist, he doesn’t have any other kind either.

      Dennis is a different animal. He’s a career criminal but, paradoxically, I trust him more than almost anyone. I always know where I am with Dennis; his morality might not be constructed along traditional lines, but it’s more rigid than the law of gravity, and a hell of a lot more forgiving. He used to be a professional burglar; not the sort who breaks into people’s houses to steal the video and rummage through the lingerie, but the sort who relieves the very rich of some of their ill-gotten and well-insured gains. Some of his victims had so many expensive status symbols lying around that they didn’t even realize they’d been burgled. These days, he’s more or less given up robbing anyone except other villains who’ve got too much pride to complain to the law. That’s because, after his last enforced spell of taking care of business from behind high walls with no office equipment except a phone card, his wife told him she’d divorce him if he ever did anything else that carried a custodial sentence.

      I’ve known Dennis even longer than I’ve known Richard. He’s my Thai-boxing coach, and he taught me the basic principle of self-defence for someone as little as I am–one crippling kick to the kneecap or the balls, then run like hell. It’s saved my life more than once, which is another good reason why Dennis will always be welcome in my house. Well, almost always.

      I leaned against the doorjamb and scowled. ‘I thought you didn’t do drugs,’ I said mildly to Dennis.

      ‘You know I don’t,’ he said. ‘Who’s been telling porkies about me?’

      ‘Nobody. I was referring to the atmosphere in here,’ I said, wafting my hand in front of my face as I crossed the room to give Dennis a kiss on a cheek so smooth he must have shaved before he came out for the evening. ‘Breathe and you’re stoned. Not to mention cutting your life expectancy by half.’

      ‘Nice to see you too, Brannigan,’ my beloved said as I pushed the evening paper to one side and dropped on to the sofa next to him.

      ‘So what are you two boys plotting?’

      Dennis grinned like Wile E. Coyote. My heart sank. I was well past a convincing impersonation of the Road Runner. ‘Wanted to pick your brains,’ he said.

      ‘And it couldn’t wait till morning?’ I groaned.

      ‘I was passing.’

      Richard gave the sort of soft giggle that comes after the fifth bottle and the fourth joint. I know my man. ‘He was passing and he heard a bottle of Pete’s Wicked Bohemian Pilsner calling his name,’ he spluttered.

      ‘Looking at the number of bottles, it looks more like a crate shouting its head off,’ I muttered. The boys looked like they were set to make a night of it. There was only one way I was going to come out of this alive and that was to sort out Dennis’s problem. Then they might not notice if I answered the siren call of my duvet. ‘How can I help, Dennis?’ I asked sweetly.

      He gave me the wary look of a person who’s drunk enough to notice their other half isn’t giving them the hard time they deserve. ‘I could come back tomorrow,’ he said.

      ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary,’ I said repressively. ‘Like the song says, tonight will be fine.’

      Dennis gave me a quick sideways look and reached for his cigarettes. ‘You never finished your law degree, did you?’

      I shook my head. It was a sore point with my mum and dad, who fancied being the

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