Dead Beat (11 page)

Jett was going to love this, I thought to myself as I made a note of Maggie Rossiter’s address. It’s one thing to know with your head that a lot of whores prefer relationships with women. I can’t say I blame them. If the only men I ever encountered were johns or pimps, I’d probably feel the same way. But when the woman concerned was your former soul mate … That was a whole different ball game.

I reluctantly called Colcutt Manor to give Jett an up-to-date report, but Gloria informed me gleefully that he was out. No, she didn’t know where he could be reached. No, she didn’t know when

I copied Moira’s files on to the disc where I was storing Jett’s information, then switched off the computer. The office seemed unnaturally quiet, not just because I was alone in it, but because all the other offices in the building are occupied by sensible people who think working from Monday to Friday is quite enough to be going on with. I locked up behind me and walked down to the ground floor. Luckily, I emerged on Oxford Road just before the afternoon matinee at the Palace Theater spilled its crowds on to the pavement. I’d left the car at home since parking near the office is impossible thanks to Saturday afternoon theatergoers and shoppers. Besides, the walk would do me good, I’d thought. That was before the rain came on.

I plodded up past the BBC and headed across to Upper Brook Street. By the time I got home, I was wet through. I hoped Richard had been sitting far enough back in the stands to avoid a soaking. I had a quick shower to warm me up, then I stood in front of the wardrobe wondering which outfit would be the key that would get me across Maggie Rossiter’s doorstep.

I settled on my favorite Levis and a cream lambswool cowlnecked sweater. Thoroughly inoffensive, making no statement that a lesbian social worker could disagree with, I hoped. I went through to the kitchen to fix myself a plate of snacks from my supermarket blitz, and washed it down with a small vodka and grapefruit juice. I was in no real hurry. I was aiming to get to Maggie’s home in Bradford between six thirty and seven. With any luck I’d catch them before they went out for the evening.

As it turned out, my timing was diabolical. I found Maggie’s house easily enough, a neat brick terrace in a quiet street only a mile away from the motorway. I parked outside with a sinking heart as I registered that the house was in darkness. I walked up

As I walked back down the path, a small calico cat rubbed itself against my legs. I crouched down to stroke it. “Don’t suppose you know where they’ve gone, do you?” I asked softly.

“Darsett Trades and Labour Club,” a deep male voice said from behind me. I nearly fell over in shock.

I stood up hastily and stared in the direction of the voice. A tall dark hunk was standing by the gate with a box of groceries. “I’m sorry?” I asked inadequately.

“I’m the one who should be sorry, startling you like that,” he apologized with a smile that lit up twinkling eyes. I shrugged. Eyes like that I’d forgive most things. “If you’re looking for Maggie and Moira, they’ve gone to Darsett Trades and Labour Club,” he said.

“Oh, right,” I hedged. “I didn’t realize they were out tonight. I’ll catch up with them later.”

“You a friend of theirs?” the hunk asked.

“Friend of a friend, really,” I replied, walking down the path towards him. “I know Maggie from Seagull.”

“I’m Gavin,” he said. “I live next door. We would have been going with them tonight except that we’ve got people coming for dinner. Still, I’m sure there will be plenty more chances to hear Moira sing in public.”

My heart jolted. Moira was singing? I swallowed hard and spoke before Gavin’s helpful garrulity gave out. “I didn’t know it was tonight,” I improvised.

“Oh yeah, the big night. Her first engagement. She’s going to be a big success. I should know, I hear her rehearsing enough!”

I smiled politely and thanked him for his help. “I’ll catch them another time,” I said, getting back into my car. Gavin sketched a half-wave from under his box and turned into the next house. I pulled out my atlas. I groaned. Darsett was a good twenty miles away. With a sigh, I headed back towards the motorway.

   Within three minutes of entering Darsett Trades and Labour Club, I knew that not even double rates could compensate me for spending Saturday night there. I don’t know enough about the northern club circuit to know if it’s typical, but if it is, then my heartfelt sympathy goes out to the poor sods who make their living performing there. The building itself was a 1960s concrete box with all the charm of a dead dog. I parked among an assortment of old Cortinas and Datsuns and headed for the brightly lit entrance.

Being a woman, I already had problems on my hands. In their infinite wisdom, working men’s clubs don’t allow women to be members in their own right. Strange women trying to get in alone are a complete no-no. The doorman, face marked with the blue hairline scars of a miner, wasn’t impressed with my story that I was an agent there to see Moira perform, not even when I produced the business card that carefully doesn’t specify what Mortensen and Brannigan are. Eventually, he grudgingly called the club secretary, who finally agreed to let me in, after informing me at great length that I would not be able to purchase alcoholic beverages.

I regretted this rule and the fact that I was driving as soon as I crossed the threshold. The only way to make an evening at Darsett Trades and Labour Club tolerable was to be so pissed I wouldn’t notice it. The bar, on my left, was brightly lit, packed and already blue with smoke. It sounded like a riot was in progress, an impression increased by the rugby scrum at the bar.

I carried on through double doors under a blue neon sign that said Cabaret Room. Like the bar, the room shimmered under the glare of lights and the haze of cigarette smoke. It was crammed with small, round tables, two-thirds of which were occupied with

At the far end of the room was a small stage. A trio of electronic organ, drums and bass were listlessly playing “The Girl From Ipanema.” No one was listening. I looked around intently, trying to pick out Maggie in the crowd. At first, I couldn’t see any woman on her own, but on the second sweep of the room, I spotted her.

She was standing in the shadows right at the edge of the room about halfway back. Her clothes as much as her isolation marked her out. Unlike the other women in the room apart from me, she wasn’t dressed up to the nines in teetering heels and a bright dress. Maggie wore jeans, a chambray shirt and a pair of trainers. From where I was standing, it looked like she had also avoided the cosmetic excesses of the rest of the room. She was about my height, with curly, shoulder-length pepper and salt hair. She was carrying about ten pounds overweight, but she looked sturdy rather than flabby.

For a moment, I toyed with the idea of making the first approach to her, but decided against it. I suspected she’d leap immediately to Moira’s defense and give me the elbow without actually weighing up what I had to say, and I couldn’t blame her for that. Even if I’d been going to approach her, I was cut off at the pass. The organist finished the Stan Getz piece with a flourish and played a fanfare. A burly man leapt on to the stage and peppered the audience with a few risqué jokes, then announced, “Ladies and animals, put your hands together for tonight’s star attraction, a young lady who’s going all the way to the top. Let’s hear it for Moira Moore!”

With another fanfare on the organ, he vanished into the wings. The band played the opening chords of “To Be With You Tonight” and Moira walked out on to the stage. As she moved forward into the fixed spotlight, she looked nervously from side to side, as if searching for an escape route that wasn’t there. She was wearing a tight blue lurex dress which came to just above her knees. She looked painfully thin.

As the band finished the intro, Moira leaned forward to the mike and began to sing. To say I was astonished would be putting it mildly. Could this really be the woman who’d been happy to take a back-seat, lyricist’s role because her voice wasn’t up to scratch? OK, she didn’t have the silky richness of Jett, but by any other standards Moira’s was quite a voice. Slightly husky, almost bluesy, she hit the notes perfectly, and the nerves that were obvious in her body language didn’t transmit themselves into her singing. Even the louts in the audience shut up to listen to Moira sing.

She followed Jett’s first hit with an unadventurous selection of torch songs, ending up with a version of “Who Will I Turn To” that almost had tough old Brannigan in tears. The audience loved it, clapping and cheering and demanding more. Moira looked dazed and surprised by her reception, and after a few minutes of applause, she turned and asked the organist something inaudible. He nodded and she launched into Tina Turner’s whore’s anthem, “Private Dancer,” with the kind of bitter attack that could only come from experience. The crowd went wild. If it had been up to them, she would have been there all night, but she looked exhausted by the end of the song and escaped gratefully to the wings.

Like the audience, I’d been mesmerized by Moira and when I looked back to where Maggie had been standing, I realized I’d been letting pleasure interfere with work. Maggie had gone. Furious with myself, I hurried down the side of the room and through a pass door at the side of the stage.

I was in a narrow corridor. Two doors on the left were marked Ladies and Gents, and on my right were steps leading up to the stage. Round a corner, I found three more doors. No reply to my knock on the first. Same with the second. On the third attempt, I hit pay dirt. The door opened six inches and Maggie’s face appeared in the crack. Close up, she was a pretty woman. She had small, neat features and intelligent blue eyes with laughter lines at the corners. I put her in the mid thirties. “Can I help you?” she asked pleasantly.

I smiled. “You must be Maggie. Hi. I’d like to see Moira.”

She frowned. “I’m sorry, have we met?” Without waiting for a

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I need to see her. It’s a personal matter,” I stated calmly.

“Who is it?” a voice from inside the room called out.

“No one we know,” Maggie remarked over her shoulder. She turned back to me and said, “Look, this is not a good time. She’s just done a show, and she needs to rest.”

“What I have to say won’t take long. I don’t like to be difficult, but I’m not going till I’ve spoken to Moira.” I spoke firmly, with more confidence than I actually felt. I was in no doubt that Maggie could have me thrown out of there so fast my feet wouldn’t touch the sticky carpets. However, to do that, she’d have to leave Moira. I couldn’t see Darsett Trades and Labour Club being the kind of place that had a house phone in the star dressing room.

“What the hell’s going on?” Moira demanded, pulling the door open and staring belligerently at me. It should have been a moment of triumph for me, to come face to face with my quarry like this, but any satisfaction was destroyed by the irritation in her voice. “Are you deaf or what? She told you, I’m too tired to talk to anybody.”

“I’m sorry it’s a bad time, but I need to talk to you,” I apologized. “It’s taken me a long time to find you, and it’s important for you that you listen to what I have to say.” I tried a conciliatory smile which produced a scowl from Maggie, standing like a bulldog in front of Moira.

Moira sighed and pulled her white bathrobe more tightly round her. “You’re damn right, it’s a bad time. I suppose you’d better come in. Let me tell you, sister, this better not be bad news.”

I waited for Maggie to move reluctantly away from the door before I entered the tiny dressing room. There were two small Formica-topped tables in front of mirrors, a corner sink unit, three chairs and several hooks on the wall. Moira sat down in one chair facing a mirror and carried on removing her make-up. Maggie leaned against the wall, arms folded.

I pulled a chair over beside Moira and sat down. “I don’t think it’s bad news, but that’s for you to decide. My name’s Kate

“So what’s your interest in me?” she challenged.

“Jett asked me to find you,” I told her, watching for her reaction. The hand with the make-up removal pad shook and she quickly lowered it to the table.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said in a low voice.

“He wants to work with you again. He bitterly regrets what happened all those years ago,” I tried. My instincts told me that with Maggie in the room, I should steer well clear of the emotional arguments.

Moira shrugged. “I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.”

“I think you should go now,” Maggie piped up.

I ignored her. “Look, Moira, Jett is desperate to reach you. He says his work has gone down the tube since the two of you stopped writing songs together. As a fan, I have to agree with him. And I bet you do too. He just wants to meet you, to talk about the possibilities of making music together again. That’s all. No strings.”

Moira laughed, a harsh bark. “Oh yeah? And what’s Kevin going to say about that? If you’ve been looking for me, you know what my life’s been like the last few years. I’d be too much of a skeleton in the cupboard for Mr. Clean. Never mind what Jett will think.”

“Jett knows all about it. And he didn’t tell me to stop looking just because you’d been on the game, or on smack. He wants to talk to you. He doesn’t care what’s happened in between,” I argued as fiercely as I could.

Moira ran a hand through her short curls. “I don’t think so,” she said softly. “Too much water under the bridge.”

“You heard her,” Maggie interjected. “I really think you’d better go now before you upset her any more.”

I shrugged. “If that’s what Moira wants, I’ll go. I told Jett he might be wasting his money, asking me to find you. I told him you might not want to be found. But he’s not going to be satisfied with that. And the next private eye he hires might not do things my way.”

“Don’t you threaten us!” Maggie exploded.

“I’m not threatening you,” I flashed back. “I’m simply trying to be straight with you. Jett wants to find you. Whatever that takes. You might do a runner after tonight, but you’ve got to leave traces. Someone else will track you down, just like I did. And next time, it could be Jett knocking on your door. Don’t you think it would be better to meet him on your terms, when you’re prepared for it, rather than have him catching you by surprise?”