Dead Beat (29 page)

“I know that you’ve charged Kevin with attempted murder after what he did last night, but there are still a few loose ends to be tied up. I asked you to come because I didn’t want you to turn round and say things were being done behind your back.” I turned to Jett. “I know you didn’t want him here, but things have gone too far to be kept in the family. I’m sure you don’t want Moira’s killer to get away with it just because you left it all to me and I couldn’t deliver.”

Jackson was shaking his head in disbelief. “You are unreal, Brannigan. I should nick you right now for this grandstanding.”

“Give me half an hour, Inspector. Then you can throw the book at me if you’re still so minded.”

Jackson muttered something under his breath that I didn’t catch. I don’t think I was supposed to. He moved across the room to stare at an undistinguished oil landscape on the far wall.

Jett drained his glass and handed it to the hovering Gloria, who bustled over to the drinks. She threw a quick glance back at Jett as if to gauge what strength he needed, then poured. I noticed it was almost as large a measure as he’d poured for himself. Maybe I’d been underestimating Gloria.

The awkward silence was broken by Tamar and Micky, who entered together just on ten to five. Tamar ignored me and headed straight for Jett, who gave her a perfunctory kiss and steered her towards the sofa.

Micky moved to my side and touched my elbow. Through the cloud of cigarette smoke, I could see the worried look on his face. “When are they going to let Kevin out on bail?” he murmured.

“I doubt if they will. He’s already facing one serious charge, and there’s a possibility he’ll be on a murder charge by morning,” I explained softly.

He shook his head. “This couldn’t have come at a worse time. We’re at a crucial stage with the album. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

I was spared having to answer by Neil’s entrance. He was positively bouncing with bonhomie as he crossed the room and greeted me with a kiss on the cheek. I was so surprised I couldn’t move out of the line of fire fast enough. Micky moved away, disgust written all over his face.

“I know it’s tasteless to say so,” Neil whispered in my ear, “but Kevin’s arrest is going to make my book a bestseller. I’ve been on to my publisher this afternoon, and we’re going to have the book ready to roll as soon as the trial finishes.”

“Why don’t you get yourself a drink,” I said through clenched teeth. The guy gave a whole new meaning to sleaze.

He winked at me and made his way over to the bar. The distant sound of the gate intercom buzzer caught everyone’s attention and Gloria moved automatically towards the door to the hall.

“It’s all right, Gloria, I’ll get it,” I said, moving swiftly across the room to head her off at the pass. I went out into the hall, closing the door behind me, and opened the gates for the final arrival.

I stood in the doorway and watched as the car slowly made its way up the drive. It pulled up at the foot of the steps, in a kind of

   I cleared my throat and said, “People, if I could have your attention for a moment?” The murmur of conversation triggered off by Maggie’s arrival ended as abruptly as if I’d pushed the mute button on their remote control. Jackson turned towards me and leaned against a marble-topped pier table.

“You all know about Kevin’s arrest, and I expect that most of you think that it’s only a matter of time till he’s charged with Moira’s murder. But then, you already thought that about Maggie when she was arrested. However, I was hired to find a killer, and I suspect that most of you think that’s exactly what I’ve done. But until I’ve cleared up some loose ends that are still remaining, I’m afraid I can’t regard the case as being closed. That’s why I’ve asked you all together. There are some inconsistencies in the stories I’ve been told, and I thought the best way to deal with them was to have you all together. It’s a shame Kevin can’t be here, but we’ll just have to work around that.” I looked around at their expressions, some hostile, some fascinated.

I took a deep breath and continued. “I hadn’t been working the case for very long when I discovered that someone in this house had already been trying to get rid of Moira.

“Gloria, who is a diabetic, had noticed syringes going missing from her room. It was only a matter of time before she got round to telling Jett, who at the very least would have confronted Moira and accused her of returning to her old habits. But not content with that, the person who stole the syringes also purchased some heroin. According to Maggie, every few days some heroin and a syringe would appear in Moira’s room, facing her with a temptation that most people in her shoes would have found it impossible to resist.

“But she did resist, and so the first thing I had to ask myself was if the killer was the same person who’d been trying to get rid of her earlier. But you weren’t the killer, were you, Tamar?”

Tamar was on her feet. “You poisonous
bitch
,” she screeched at me. “You poisonous, lying
bitch
!” Then she whirled round to face

“I can prove what I’m saying,” I replied coldly. “The pusher who sold you the heroin identified your picture. You might have tried to get rid of Moira, but I’m satisfied you didn’t kill her. There’s a big difference between offering someone the option of death and actually facing up to your victim and caving her head in.”

Tamar clutched Jett’s arm and fell to her knees in a histrionic show of supplication. He shrugged her arm off roughly and hissed, “Get away from me, slag.”

She collapsed on the floor and began to sob noisily. Micky moved across to her and jerked her to her feet. “For fuck’s sake, get a grip,” he shouted angrily, dragging her away and thrusting her into an armchair.

“Get on with it,” Jett snapped.

“Gloria wasn’t telling me the whole truth either,” I reported. She looked startled and gazed at me with a terrified fascination.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she stammered. “I haven’t lied to you.”

“You came downstairs on the night of the murder and saw someone leaving the rehearsal room. You denied it, but there’s only one person you’d lie to protect, and that’s Jett. It was Jett you saw leaving the room, and you lied about it.”

“I never,” she shouted, like a small child who’s been caught out lying about a broken piece of crockery. “I never did.”

“What you didn’t realize was that Jett had admitted to having been in the rehearsal room earlier. But that was before Moira arrived there. So there was no point in your lie.”

Gloria collapsed into the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands. “Is there anything else you’ve lied to me about?” I asked gently.

She looked up, tears streaking her cheeks, and shook her head mutely. I was inclined to believe her.

“Micky.” As I said his name, he moved a couple of steps nearer to me, his long arms dangling at his sides like a caricature of a Western gunslinger. “I want to ask you about events in this room immediately after Moira died.”

“I’ve already told you all I know,” he said mutinously.

“All I want is some more detail,” I said persuasively.

“Tell her what she wants to know,” Jett growled.

Micky looked as if he wanted to argue, but he quickly remembered which side his bread was buttered. “OK, fire away,” he complained.

“Can you tell me where you were sitting and who you were talking to?”

“I sat down on that chair over there,” he said, pointing to the one where Tamar was currently leaving salt stains on the silk upholstery. “Kevin was stood next to me, by the bar. He poured me a drink, and we talked about Moira being killed. You know, what a shock it was, that kind of thing. He was worried about the effect it would have on Jett. Whether he’d be able to finish the album, whether the bad publicity would affect sales, the usual kind of Kevin shit.”

“Did he say anything at all about how she’d been killed?”

“Only that nobody seemed to be telling exactly what had happened. He said it must have been a burglar, or somebody she’d brought back with her from the village.”

I hoped to hell Jackson was keeping an eye on everyone. I was concentrating too hard on what I was doing to check the reactions around me. “Did Kevin talk to anyone else apart from you?”

Micky’s forehead concertinaed as he thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he eventually sighed. “Neil came over and asked what he wanted doing about the press. Kevin told him to deal with it, and to put out a story on it, just giving the bare bones of what had happened. He said he wanted it all handled in-house, and that Neil should make it clear that any other journalist who tried to get an interview would be wasting their time and his.”

I felt that warm feeling in my gut that tells me I’ve cracked it. “And that’s all he said?”

Micky nodded. “Yeah. Neil fixed himself a drink and kind of drifted off to the corner. He was sitting scribbling in a notebook. I suppose he was getting a story together.”

“When did you and Kevin separate?” The crucial question.

Micky looked exasperated. “I don’t know what this has got to do

I turned my head towards Neil. His eyes were calm and clear as they met mine, as if he were offering me some kind of challenge.

   The temptation to go for the high melodrama was almost overwhelming till I looked at Jett. It didn’t take much perception to see that the guy was near the end of his rope. So I didn’t point dramatically and say, “Inspector, there is your murderer.”

Instead, I took a swig of my drink and said casually, “Neil, why did you lie to me about what Kevin said to you?”

He smiled disarmingly and spread his hands out in a gesture of innocence. “But I didn’t, Kate. You’re surely not going to take Micky’s word against mine? A cokehead who relies on Kevin for the pennies in his bank account? He’s got every reason to lie to protect Kevin. But me? Why should I lie to you?”

“There’s only one reason why, Neil. You killed Moira.” A strange stillness seemed to have descended on the room. I’d certainly captured their attention now.

If I’d expected Neil to cave in, I was swiftly disappointed. He grinned and said, “I hope Mortensen and Brannigan have made a good profit this year. When I sue you for slander, I want it to be worth my while.”

I returned his grin. “I know I only managed to complete two years of law school, but it’s always been my understanding that truth is an absolute defense in slander actions.”

“But you have to prove truth,” Neil parried swiftly. “And I fail to see how you’re going to provide proof of something I didn’t do.” His smile had a triumphant edge that almost made me doubt what I knew to be true.

“But there is proof, Neil. Right under this roof is all the proof I need.”

He shook his head at me incredulously. “She’s out to lunch

Just then, Jackson moved forward into the room. “I’d be interested in seeing your idea of proof, even if no one else is,” he said. I had an idea how much it cost him to utter those words, and I had to grant him a reluctant respect.

“If you’ll follow me, Inspector, we need to make a little visit to Mr. Webster’s office,” I said formally.

“Wait a minute,” Neil said, showing traces of apprehension for the first time. “What the hell do you think you’re going to find there?”

“My proof,” I said, stalking out of the room. I didn’t need to look back to know that I could easily have passed for the Pied Piper.

Neil overtook me on the threshold and snapped loudly enough for Jackson and everyone else to hear, “Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at? All this because your precious boyfriend wasn’t good enough to write Jett’s biography?”

“This has got nothing to do with Richard,” I informed him and everyone else within earshot. The tension was beginning to eat into me, and I didn’t know how long I could maintain my cool façade.

“Oh no?” he sneered.

Ignoring him, I went straight to his computer, sat down in front of it and switched it on. Jackson leaned over my shoulder, while the others crowded round behind him. Neil hung back slightly, but his eyes were glued to the screen. I briefly looked through the text files in the directory where he stored his stories, then I moved over to his communications program and keyed into it. “For those of you who aren’t familiar with computers,” I said as I hit the keys, “this is a program that sends material over the telephone lines to another computer. Journalists use it to file copy electronically to newsdesks.”

I chose the “text edit” option and called up the first story he’d sent out about Moira’s killing. I slowly scrolled through the story till only the last line remained off screen. “As you’ll see, Neil had all the details of how Moira was killed. No problem with that if the story was filed after the police gave you all the details of how Moira

“Which it was,” Neil blustered. “And you can’t prove otherwise.”

In silence, I brought the last line up on the screen. It gave the date-stamp on the story. 2:35 a.m.

“It’s a set-up,” Neil shouted wildly. “She’s set this up, can’t you see? She’s the only one who knows enough about computers. She’s framed me.” His face was glossy with sweat and his eyes flicked nervously round the room.

“You can confirm that evidence with the company who transmit the electronic mail, I should imagine, Inspector,” I said coldly.

“Neil Webster,” Jackson intoned, pushing through the press of bodies. “I must warn you …”

The rest of his official caution was drowned by the sound of breaking glass as Neil threw himself through the window in a sparkling shower of splinters.

   A soft kiss tickling the back of my neck woke me up. “I hear you nailed the bastard,” Richard murmured into my ear. “Well done.”

I groaned softly and rolled over on to my back. I could feel the warmth of his naked flesh next to mine, and the prospect of snuggling into him was more tempting than I wanted to admit. So I complained, “Couldn’t it wait till morning?”

“I only just heard about it. I went in to the
Mirror
to drop off some copy, and they told me Neil had been arrested, thanks to some nifty footwork by Mortensen and Brannigan,” he said proudly.