Dead Beat (25 page)

“Well, she didn’t exactly, but there was a load of fake stuff around on the last tour. I got Kevin to call in the cops, but they apparently couldn’t find anything. But what’s that got to do with Moira?”

“It may have nothing to do with her murder at all, but I believe she had some information connecting the fake merchandise to someone who works for you,” I said cautiously.

There was a long silence from the other end of the phone. I almost thought we’d been cut off when Jett finally said, “She should have come straight to me. She knows I wouldn’t stand on for that. Do you know who it was?”

“Not yet,” I stalled.

“Well, find out, and when you do, you let me know. You hear?”

“Will do, Jett. Good night.”

He put the phone down. Before I untucked the receiver from my chin, I heard the sound of another phone clicking into place. Interesting. Someone had been listening in.

It all fitted. Moira had told Maggie that she’d seen someone

Then I remembered something that hadn’t registered at the time. When Kevin had appeared on the landing after the police arrived, he’d been suited up. Not even his tie had been loosened. Now, I know people who fall into bed with their clothes on, but Kevin didn’t strike me as one of them.

“Penny for them, Brannigan,” Richard said. The sound of his voice startled me. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

I lay down beside him and thought about sharing my ideas with him. By the time I’d decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea, his soft, regular breathing told me that the only information I’d be getting into his head would be subliminal. Richard was out for the count.

   I couldn’t believe it when the phone woke me up yet again. Blearily, I disentangled myself from Richard and grabbed the phone, checking the clock. Five past seven. This was getting silly.

“Kate Brannigan,” I barked.

“All right, kid? Sorry to wake you. It’s Alexis here.”

She didn’t need to announce herself. I’d recognize Alexis Lee’s voice anywhere. The combination of Scotch, cigarettes and Liverpool have produced a unique Scouse growl. Alexis is the crime reporter on the
Manchester Evening Chronicle
, and we’ve done each other a few favors in the past. I didn’t count waking me up as one of them.

“What the hell is so urgent you need to call me at this time in the morning?” I moaned as I dragged myself into a sitting position. Richard mumbled in his sleep and turned over. Lucky bastard.

“Jack, known as Billy, and Gary Smart,” Alexis said. “A little bird told me you could give me the SP on their little operation.”

“You woke me up for that? Listen, Alexis, I can’t tell you a damn thing about the Smarts. If it’s not already
sub judice
it soon will be.”

“I thought you were half a lawyer, Kate. You should know you can’t charge dead men.”

“You what?”

“The cops raided their warehouse in the early hours. Billy and Gary did a runner in a hired Porsche. They got as far as Mancunian Way, then Gary lost it and they went off the elevated section. Car ended up the thickness of a club sandwich on Upper Brook Street. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the bang round your place. Anyway …”

“Hang on a minute,” I protested. “I need to take this in. So they’re both dead? You’re sure?”

“Believe me, Kate, I saw the wreckage. A gerbil would have struggled to make it out alive. So that’s why I’m picking your brains. I thought it would make a nice little plug for Mortensen and Brannigan. Efficiency in contrast to the boys in blue.”

“Look, Alexis, I’d love to help, but I’ve not even had a cup of coffee yet.”

“No problem. Get some clothes on and meet me in the office canteen in quarter of an hour. Breakfast on me.”

People think private eyes are hardnosed. They sure as hell don’t know any journalists. I sighed and bowed to the inevitable. Better than having Alexis round here discussing my latest case with Richard. “Make it half an hour.”

   Now I knew I was never going to have to visit another disgusting greasy spoon on the tail of Billy and Gary Smart, bacon, eggs and fried bread held a strange appeal, even in the subterranean gloom of the
Chronicle
canteen. I tucked into breakfast while Alexis filled in the gaps in our telephone conversation. I couldn’t believe how bright and bouncy she was at that time in the morning. And she’d been up a couple of hours before me, after a tip-off from a contact in the police control room.

I first met Alexis a week after I started working for Bill. One of her contacts had told her there was a new woman PI in town, and she’d come along to try to persuade me into a profile in the paper. I’d refused, not wanting to run the risk of being recognized on the job. But we’d hit it off, and over the years she’d become the kind of friend I could go shopping with and count on to tell me when an outfit made me look like a candidate for Crufts. And her

But this morning, she wasn’t interested in my latest discoveries in skin care. She was being professional. Her untamable mop of thick black hair was growing more unruly by the minute as she ran one hand through it while taking notes with the other. After half an hour, she knew almost as much about the Smarts as I did.

The surprise of her news had worn off, and I’d begun to feel sorry for Billy and Gary. OK, they’d been villains, but they hadn’t been the kind of villains who cause individuals pain. They hadn’t been burglars, or armed robbers or killers. They hadn’t deserved to die like that just for ripping off a few big companies who would barely notice the hole in their balance sheets. I said as much to Alexis, albeit off the record.

“Yeah, I know. We’re going to run a reaction piece about the number of people who die as a result of police chases. It’s well out of order. Mind you, I think I’m going to have to give Richard a warning,” Alexis added, her blue eyes giving a twinkle as she smiled. I swear she practices that twinkle in front of the mirror to charm cops and victims of crime alike.

“A warning? What about?”

“Well, there seems to be a lot of death and destruction hanging around you these days.” Alexis lit a Silk Cut and blew a plume of smoke over her shoulder. She’s always had interesting manners.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied. I drained my polystyrene cup of coffee-flavored dishwater and tried to look innocent.

“Come on, supersleuth. It’s me you’re talking to. Everybody knows you’re working on Moira Pollock’s murder. I’ll admit, I was surprised to find you off your usual white-collar beat, but then I heard on the grapevine that it was you that found the body. Care to go on the record about it?” Alexis’s voice was offhand, but her eyes were hard.

I shook my head. “No way. Sorry. I can’t even confirm what you’ve just suggested, on or off the record.”

Alexis shrugged. “Oh well, it was worth a try. We’ll just have to make do with Neil Webster’s copy. Not that I’ve any complaints on

“Really?” I was interested, in spite of my desire to keep Alexis’s nose out of my business for once.

“You can come upstairs and have a read through it if you want. That’ll keep you quiet while I write my copy, because I know you’ll want to check it. After all this time, I’d have thought you’d trust me to spell Brannigan,” she grumbled good-naturedly.

I jumped at the chance. Neil was more accustomed to interrogating people than I was. Maybe there was something in his reports that I’d missed. Either way, as Alexis said, it would pass the time.

   Alexis hadn’t exaggerated, for once. Neil’s copy was all she’d claimed for it. Dramatic, detailed and accurate. That was what puzzled me. “Alexis?” I interrupted the rush of her fingers over the keyboard at the next terminal.

“Mmm?” she paused, keeping her eyes on the screen.

“Are these stories arranged in the order they came in?”

“Probably. They arrive in a special directory for electronically transmitted copy, and then whoever is on the newsdesk sends a copy of anything crime related into my electronic desk. The dates on the files refer to the last time I entered it, but the order they’re listed in is the order in which they were put there,” she explained, pointing out what she meant with her pen.

“This first batch of copy from Neil. When did it arrive?” I asked.

“Not sure. It was waiting in the transmission desk when the day staff came on duty, that’s all I know.”

“What time would that be?”

“The early newsdesk guy comes in at half past six. I was in around half past seven myself that morning. He told me the copy had come in overnight. I helped myself to a printout and went over to Colcutt. Got bloody nowhere, of course. I’m busy telling my desk that nobody’s talking, nobody’s even reachable, and he seems to think that I can fly over the gates and pick up all the stuff Neil isn’t telling.”

“Poor you,” I sympathized absently. “Is there any way of telling exactly when Neil’s copy arrived in your transmission desk?”

Alexis ran a hand through her hair. The effect would have frightened small children. “Not that I know of. Not at this end. Maybe he date-stamps his files, but we don’t keep any copy

I nodded, and she returned to her story. I wondered how exactly I could get the information I needed. It seemed to me that a lot of the details in Neil’s copy were only generally known at the manor much later than he’d transmitted them. I needed to know who’d given him that information, for as far as I was aware, it was known only to me, Jett and the killer. If Jett had told him, there was no problem. If it had come from anyone else, then I’d have my killer. Unless, of course, Jett was the killer. God, this was all so complicated. I yearned for a nice, clear set of fraudulent accounts.

Alexis hit a key with a flourish and swivelled her chair to face me. “All done. Want a look?”

I read the copy. It was good. It made Mortensen and Brannigan look efficient and subtle, as opposed to the police, who came out smelling of the stuff you put on roses. I pointed out a couple of minor corrections, to keep Alexis on her toes. Muttering about “nit pickers anonymous,” she made the changes.

As I got to my feet, she said, “When you’ve got anything to report on Moira’s murder, give us a tip-off, eh? And if you’re going to point the finger and get the cops to make an arrest, my edition time’s ten a.m.”

I was still smiling when I parked outside the office ten minutes later. I was first in, by five minutes. Shelley looked shocked to find me at my desk when she walked in at five to nine. I winked and said, “We never sleep.”

“I can tell,” she replied. “Next time you kindly grant me a holiday, remind me to borrow those bags under your eyes.”

I was desperate to get back to the manor and ask more questions, but I knew it would be too early for the night owls. Instead, I decided to ring DI Tony Redfern to ask what they’d found in the Smarts’ lock-up.

Tony sounded almost relieved that someone wanted to talk to him about anything other than the fatal car chase, so he gave me all the details I needed to write my report. I’d only just put the phone down on him when Shelley buzzed me. “I’ve got Inspector Jackson on the line for you,” she said. “He sounds like he’s just been stung by a wasp.”

“Thanks for the warning. Put him through, would you?” My heart sank. The events of the morning had put my appointment with Jackson right out of my mind. Besides, I couldn’t imagine what more he thought he could get out of me than he’d done the previous afternoon.

“Good morning, Inspector,” I greeted him.

“Why am I speaking to you over the phone instead of face to face?” he demanded.

“I thought we covered the ground yesterday afternoon, Inspector. Besides, I’ve been a little busy this morning with your colleagues in the Greater Manchester force. If you’d like to check with Detective Inspector Redfern …”

“I’m a busy man, Miss Brannigan, and I’m in the middle of a murder inquiry. When I make appointments, I expect them to be kept.”

His dignity had obviously taken more of a bruising than I’d realized after Kevin’s entry yesterday. Time to smarm. “I appreciate that, Inspector. Perhaps we could make it another time?”

“How soon can you get round here?”

“I’m really sorry, Inspector. But I’m tied up for the rest of the day. Perhaps tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow morning, same time,” he snapped. Obviously he didn’t feel he could push it. I suppose I should have felt relieved I wasn’t actually a suspect.

“That’s a date,” I promised. “Sorry about today, it went clean out of my mind with the other business. By the way, have you charged Maggie Rossiter yet?”

There was a silence. Then he said stiffly, “Miss Rossiter was released at eight-thirty this morning.” The line went dead.

Surprise, surprise. They’d had their hands on Maggie for thirty-six hours and they hadn’t been able to manufacture enough of a case to hang on to her. I flicked open my notebook and called her number. She answered on the third ring. “Maggie? Kate Brannigan here. I’ve just heard that you’d been released, and I wanted to tell you how pleased I was.”

She cut in, her voice remote and cool. “Yes, well, I owe that to Moira.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My next-door neighbor, Gavin, picked up the post this morning. He noticed a letter to me in Moira’s handwriting. It was posted second class the night she was killed. She must have dropped it in the box on her way to meet me. She was like that, you know. Thoughtful, romantic, even. Take it from me, it’s not the letter of someone who’s splitting up with her lover.”

“So Gavin got it to your solicitor, did he?”

“That’s right. He’s got a friend with a fax machine, so he opened it and sent it straight over to my solicitor. She brought it round to the police station right away.”

And of course, with no motive, the police case collapsed. They had nothing at all to base a charge on. No wonder Jackson was looking for someone to kick.

“Thank God that’s over,” I said.

“Don’t be too sure,” she replied glumly. “I got the distinct impression that they haven’t given up on the idea of pinning it on me. Let’s face it, if they can’t stick it on the dyke or the black, they’ll be less than happy. I’d make sure you’re covering your client’s back, if I was you, Kate.”