Dead Beat (9 page)

“We run an open door policy here,” Jude explained as we made our way back downstairs. “We have to. As it is, we have to turn more away than we can treat. But they’re free to go any time. That

I knew better than to ask about their success rate. It would only depress Jude to talk about it, and she seemed so happy to have a new volunteer on her hands I didn’t want to disappoint her any more than I was going to have to do anyway. As we reached the front door, I shook Jude’s hand and asked when I should turn up the following evening.

“Come about half past eight,” she said. “The meeting starts at seven, but we have a lot of confidential stuff to get through first. You’ll have to ring the bell when you get here because the front door’s locked at six.”

“Open door policy?” I queried.

“To keep people out, not in,” Jude pointed out with a wry smile. “See you then.”

“I can hardly wait,” I muttered under my breath as I walked down the path and headed back to the car. I felt a complete shit, having raised her hopes of finding another volunteer. Maybe I could pitch Jett into giving them a substantial donation once I’d reunited him with Moira. After all, he’d said he’d be happy to give everything he owned to get her back.

   It was just after eight when I drew up at the foot of the carriage turning-circle outside Colcutt Manor. On the way back to Manchester, I’d dictated a report for Shelley to type up and fax to Jett so he’d know I wasn’t just sitting around collecting my daily retainer. I pulled off the motorway to hit the ASDA superstore. I wandered around the aisles trying to fill my trolley only with the essential items on my mental shopping list, but I fell by the wayside at the deli counter, as usual, and loaded up with a dozen little treats to cheer myself up. Then I called the manor to ask for the fax number. I asked to speak to Jett. That was my first mistake.

“I’m sorry, Jett’s unavailable at present,” Gloria informed me, unable to keep the spark of pleasure from her voice.

“Gloria,” I warned, “I haven’t got the energy to play games right now. Let me speak to him, please.”

“He really is unavailable,” she protested, her voice going from silky to sulky. “They’re in the recording studio. But he left a message for you,” she admitted grudgingly.

“And are you going to tell me or are we going to play twenty questions?”

“Jett said that he wants you to come round and give him a progress report.”

“I have a progress report right here. I’m about to drop it off in my secretary’s in-tray. It’ll be on your desk tomorrow morning,” I told her.

“He wants you here in person,” she retorted smugly.

I sighed. “I’ll be there in an hour.” I dropped the phone back in the cradle and stomped back to the car. Unfortunately, the trolley wouldn’t go in a straight line, so the effect wasn’t quite what I’d had in mind. Luckily there were no small children around to laugh. That saved me the aggravation of an assault charge.

I really wasn’t in the mood for trekking over to Colcutt. Apart from anything else, my carton of double choc chip ice cream would have melted by the time I got home. But I couldn’t see any alternative. If I refused, it would give Gloria more ammunition than she’d need to see me off. Besides, we were charging Jett such astronomical fees I could hardly deny him a face-to-face. Maybe I could ask permission to put my ice cream in their freezer.

At least Gloria had grown out of the silly childishness with the entryphone. This time she let me in right away. I was surprised to find the circle in front of the house crammed with the kind of motors the likes of me don’t even know the price of. Top of the range Mercs, BMWs, even a couple of Porsches. It looked like a march past of Billy Smart’s hire cars. For somebody who was working hard only an hour ago, Jett sure knew how to throw an impromptu party I thought as I opened the front door to a blast of Queen.

I looked uncertainly round the hall, not sure where to start a search for Jett. The music seemed to be coming from everywhere rather than one specific room, though the noise of raised voices was definitely on the left somewhere. I’d just set off on the long walk to what was probably once the ballroom when Tamar

She giggled tipsily as I grabbed at her to steady myself. “Well, well, well,” she gurgled. “If it isn’t our very own Sherlock Holmes. Come to check your burglar alarms, have you? Well, you’ve picked the wrong night.”

I pasted a smile on my tired face. “Why’s that, Tamar?”

“Celebration. World and his dog all celebrating the fact that we’ve finally got one bastard track that everyone’s happy with. Jett’s actually managed to write something that hasn’t put the entire household to sleep.” She hiccuped and pulled away from me to head unsteadily towards the din. “Whoops,” she muttered. “Not supposed to say that to the hired help. Anyway, what exactly are you doing here?” she added, pirouetting so that her sequined jacket sparkled, and fixing me with a bleary stare.

“Jett wanted to see me,” I said. Well, it was more or less true.

“About burglar alarms? At this time of night? Today?” Then the incredulity vanished from her voice, replaced by suspicion. “You’re not really installing a new alarm, are you?”

I shrugged. It wasn’t my job to tell her my business. Apart from the rules of confidentiality, if Jett hadn’t told her what I was doing, I certainly wasn’t about to bring her wrath down on my head. “That fucking bitch,” she swore under her breath. She tossed her expensively tousled hair back from her forehead and stormed down the hall. Curious, I followed her back towards the front door and into the office, where Gloria sat at her word processor, apparently doing the housekeeping accounts, judging by the pile of bills beside her. She glanced up at Tamar, then coolly carried on typing.

“You told me she was here to sort out a burglar alarm,” Tamar accused Gloria, a mottled flush rising from her neck to her cheeks.

Gloria’s fingers didn’t even falter. “And that’s what I’ll tell you now if you ask properly instead of barging in here like a spoilt child,” she said primly. She stopped typing and ran a hand over her blonde hair, pulled back so tightly that in the light from her desk lamp it looked like it had been painted on.

“She’s looking for Moira, isn’t she?” Tamar raged.

“Why don’t you ask Jett? He’ll tell you anything he wants you

Instead, Tamar, who seemed to have sobered up under the influence of so much adrenaline, pushed past me and went back up the hall at a speed I wouldn’t have believed possible on four-inch stilettos. I threw a vague smile in Gloria’s direction and followed her. The cabaret was worth the trip.

I caught up with Tamar on the threshold of what looked like it had once been a Regency ballroom. The plaster swags were still in place. But everything had been painted gold and black. It would have given the National Trust an apoplexy, or a surfeit, or one of those other things they were always dying of way back then. There were no Regency bucks there tonight, however, just a couple of dozen ageing rockers with a fascinating array of bimbettes on their knees, arms or various other parts of their anatomy. It was hard to tell in the dim light.

Jett was leaning on the gilded mantelpiece, his arm round Kevin in a friendly sort of way. As we approached, I could see the unfocused look of a man who is on his way to being seriously drunk. It was quite an achievement for someone who had been in the studio just over an hour before. It must have been some track he’d just laid down. Tamar landed like a cloudburst on his parade.

“Why didn’t you tell me she was looking for Moira?” she hissed.

Jett turned away from us and stared bleakly at the wall. Tamar grabbed his arm and repeated her question. Kevin quickly moved behind her, gripped her tightly above both elbows and stepped back. She had no choice but to move with him. Using the same grip, he turned her round and frogmarched her out of the door. She was so astonished she didn’t say a word till they were halfway across the room. But then her yells caused less of a stir than a mugging in Moss Side. As far as everyone else was concerned, it was just a bit of good clean fun.

I moved closer to Jett. “You wanted a report,” I said. “I’m making progress. I know where she was a few months ago. By tomorrow night, I should have a current address.”

He turned his head to face me. When I got a whiff of the alcohol

There wasn’t a way to soften the blow. I called it like I saw it. “She might be. She was on the streets, Jett. She was doing smack as well. But she’d checked into a clinic to clean herself up. Like I say, I’ll know more tomorrow. I’ll fax you a full update in the morning.” He didn’t look like he was in the mood for details now.

He nodded. “Thanks,” he mumbled. I felt like the last of the great party poopers as I trudged across the room. I found Tamar halfway up the stairs, just where they split into two. Tears had done serious damage to her make-up. She looked like an aerial shot of a war zone. “Don’t bring her back,” she pleaded with me. “You’ll spoil everything.”

I sat down beside her. “What makes you think that?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, pushing herself upright. She ran a hand through her hair like a tragedy queen. “Your kind never do. You just create havoc and walk away. Well, I’m telling you nobody wants Moira back. Not even Jett, not deep down. He doesn’t want her back out of love, or out of his desperation to make a good album. He wants her back so he can play the lead in the parable of the prodigal son,” she complained cynically. “The thing he needs most of all right now is to feel good about himself, and she’s the perfect vehicle. I mean, where’s the kick in getting it on with me? I don’t need saving, I don’t need putting on track in my karmic journey. Moira’s a fucking godsend, literally.”

She looked as if she was going to say more, but Kevin appeared at the head of the stairs. “For God’s sake, Tamar, pull yourself together. I don’t bloody want it any more than you do. But at least if you keep him happy, maybe he won’t fall for her shit again. OK?”

He glared at me as he came downstairs. “Thanks for your contribution to the celebrations,” he said sarcastically. “Have you found her yet?”

I shook my head.

“Good,” he commented bitterly. “Take as long as you like. I’d rather pay your exorbitant fees for six months than have her back here.” That made me realize just how serious Kevin was about Moira.

Tamar sighed and headed upstairs. I followed Kevin down to the hall, in time to see Gloria lock her office behind her and head towards the ballroom. Good old Gloria. Nothing could make everyone’s life a misery like her literal interpretation of the boss’s instructions. Now she’d be able to toddle off and offer the hero a shoulder to cry on. He sure as hell wouldn’t be getting any offers of comfort from Tamar tonight.

   I dropped the tape off in Shelley’s in-tray and headed home, determined to have some time to myself. I was in luck. Richard had gone to sit in on an Inspiral Carpets rehearsal session. The first time he’d come home talking about the band, I couldn’t believe my ears. Thought he’d finally started taking an interest in interior design. Silly me.

After a languid bath, I booted up the computer. Until I met Bill, I’d always thought people who played computer games were intellectual pygmies. But Bill introduced me to role-playing adventures, so different from arcade shoot-em-ups that I can hardly bring myself to mention them in the same breath. The way the games work is that the player takes on the role of a character in the story, explores locations, achieves tasks, and solves complex puzzles. A really good game can take me up to a couple of months to complete. From there, I discovered strategy simulations, and that was the end of my relationship with the television set. Can’t say it shows signs of missing me.

I loaded up Sierra’s Leisure Suit Larry and spent a bawdy hour as the eponymous medallion man in the white polyester suit, looking for love in all the wrong places, from a whore’s boudoir to a filthy toilet. I’ve played the game half a dozen times, but it’s one of the old favorites I always go back to whenever I want to relax rather than stretch my mind on a fresh set of puzzles. By the time I went to bed, I was feeling more laid back than any carpet, inspiral or otherwise. I almost didn’t mind when the alarm went off at six, catapulting me into another wonderful day of chasing the Smarts. We’d been to Glasgow and back by mid-afternoon, when I abandoned them to the delights of a late lunch in Chinatown and

The drive back to Bradford to the strains of Tina Turner almost seemed relaxing after the stresses of chasing Billy and Gary up the motorway. But I couldn’t afford to let myself become too confident. The hardest part of the day still lay ahead. I sat in the car till half past seven, then walked up the path to the Seagull Project. I rang the bell and waited.

After a few minutes, I heard feet thundering down the stairs and the door was opened by Andy. He looked surprised to see me. “I’ve come for the meeting,” I told him. “I know I’m early, but I was in the area, and I thought I could wait inside rather than go to the pub on my own.” I gave him the full hundred-watt smile.

He shrugged and said, “I don’t see a problem with that. Come on in. You can wait in Jude’s office.” I followed him through and sat down, pulling a Marge Piercy novel out of my bag and trying to look as if I were settled for the evening.

“Help yourself to a coffee,” he said, gesturing towards a tray containing all the paraphernalia for brewing up. “Someone’ll come down for you when we’re ready. I’m afraid it’ll be about three quarters of an hour at least.”

“Thanks,” I said absently, already appearing immersed in my book. I waited till I heard his footsteps reach the top of the stairs, then I counted a hundred elephants. I put my book away and moved quietly across the room. I inched the door open and listened. There was a distant hum of conversation, too low to make out individual voices.

I pulled the door further open and stuck my head into the hall. If I’d seen anyone, I was looking for the loo. But the coast was clear. There was no one in the hall or on the stairs. I crept out of the room, closing the door quietly behind me, and moved quickly across the hall and down the side of the stairs towards the room where the records were kept. I paused outside the door.