LITMIR.BIZ

       4

      MOON SQUARES MARS

       An accident-prone aspect, suggesting she can harm herself through lack of forethought. She is far too eager to make her presence felt and doesn’t always practice self-control. Her feelings of insecurity can manifest themselves in an unfeminine belligerence. She has authoritarian tendencies.

      From Written in the Stars, by Dorothea Dawson

      Anyone can be a soap star. All you need is a scriptwriter who knows you well enough to write your character into their series, and you’re laughing all the way to the BAFTA. I’d always thought you had to be an actor. But two hours on the set of Northerners made me realize that soap is different. About ten per cent of the cast could play Shakespeare or Stoppard. The rest just roll up to the studios every week and play themselves. The lovable rogues are just as roguish, the dizzy blondes are just as empty-headed, the salts of the earth make you thirst just as much for a long cold alcoholic drink and the ones the nation loves to hate are every bit as repulsive in the flesh. Actually, they’re more repulsive, since anyone hanging round the green room is exposed to rather more of their flesh than a reasonable person could desire. There was more chance of me being struck by lightning than being star struck by that lot of has-beens and wannabes.

      They didn’t even have to learn their words. TV takes are so short that a gnat with Alzheimer’s could retain the average speech with no trouble at all. Especially by the sixth or seventh take most of the Northerners cast seemed to need to capture the simplest sentiment on screen.

      The main problem I had was how to do my job. Gloria had told everyone I was her bodyguard. Not because I couldn’t come up with a decent cover story, but because I’d weighed up both sides of the argument and decided that if there was somebody in cast or crew who was out to get her it was time for them to understand they should back off and forget about it. Gloria had been all for the cloak and dagger approach, hoping I could catch the author of her threatening letters in the act of extracting vengeance, but I pointed out that if I was going to stay close enough to protect her, I’d be an obvious obstacle to nefarious doings anyway.

      Besides, members of the public weren’t allowed on the closed set of Northerners. The storylines were supposed to be top secret. NPTV, the company who made the soap, were so paranoid they made New Labour look relaxed. Everyone who worked on the programme had to sign an agreement that disclosure of any information relating to the cast characters or storylines was gross misconduct, a sacking offence and a strict liability tort. Even I had had to sign up to the tort clause before I was allowed into the compound that housed the interior and exterior sets, as well as the production suite and admin offices. Apart from location shooting to give the show that authentic Manchester ambience, the entire process from script conference to edited master tapes took place behind the high walls that surrounded NPTV’s flagship complex.

      A fat lot of good it did them. Northerners generated more column inches than any other TV programme in the country. The fuel for the flames had to come from somewhere, and tabloid papers have always had deep pockets. There’s not a tabloid journalist I’ve ever met who couldn’t explain in words of one syllable to a nervously dithering source that the NPTV legal threat of suing for civil damages was about as solid as the plyboard walls of Brenda Barrowclough’s living room.

      But NPTV insisted on their power trip, and I’d persuaded Gloria it would be simpler all round if we were upfront. The downside of being out in the open was that everyone was on their guard. Nobody was going to let anything slip accidentally. If my target was a member of the Northerners team, they’d be very careful around me.

      In order to be effective protection for my client, I had to be visible, which meant that I couldn’t even find a quiet corner and catch up with my e-mail and my invoices. If Gloria was in make-up, I was in make-up. If Gloria was on set, I was hovering round the edges of the set, getting in everybody’s way. If Gloria was having a pee, I was leaning against the tampon dispenser. I could have made one of those video diary programmes that would have had any prospective private eye applying for a job as a hospital auxiliary.

      I was trying to balance that month’s books in my head when a hand on my shoulder lifted my feet off the floor. Spot the alert bodyguard. I spun round and found my nose level with the top button of a suit jacket. I took a step back and looked up. The man must have been six-three, wide shouldered and heavy featured. The suit, whose tailoring owed more to Savile Row than to Armani, was cut to disguise the effects of too many business lunches and dinners, but this guy was still a long way off fat. On the other hand, he looked as if he was still only in his early forties and in the kind of trim that betrays a commitment to regular exercise. In a few years, when his joints started complaining and his stamina wasn’t what it had been, he’d swiftly slip into florid flabbiness. I’d seen the type. Greed was always a killer.

      The smile on his broad face softened the stern good looks that come with a square jaw, a broad brow and deep-set eyes under overhanging brows. ‘You must be Kate Brannigan,’ he said, extending a hand. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m John Turpin.’

      For a man who’d gone out of his way to try to persuade Gloria to keep her problems in the family, he seemed amazingly cordial. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ I said.

      ‘How are your investigations proceeding?’ he asked, smiling down on me benevolently.

      ‘I could ask you the same question.’ If the guy was trying to win me over with his affable helpfulness, the least I could do was take advantage and trawl for some information.

      His smile curved up at one corner, suddenly turning his expression from magnanimous to predatory. ‘I’m afraid I’m more of a guardian of company confidentiality than Ms Kendal,’ he said, with a note of acid in his voice.

      ‘But

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