Dead Beat. Val McDermid
grandiosely named Holiday Inn Midland Crowne Plaza. It’s one of those extraordinary Manchester monuments to the city’s first era of prosperity. One of the more palatable byproducts of the cotton mills of the industrial revolution. I can remember when it used to be simply the Midland, one of those huge railway hotels that moulder on as relics of an age when the rich felt no guilt and the poor were kept well away from the doors. Then Holiday Inn bought the dinosaur and turned it into a fun palace for the city’s new rich – the sportsmen, businessmen and musicians who gave Manchester a new lease of life in the late eighties.
Suddenly, in the nineties, London was no longer the place to be. If you wanted a decent lifestyle with lots of buzz and excitement packed into compact city centres, you had to be in one of the so-called provincial cities. Manchester for rock, Glasgow for culture, Newcastle for shopping. It was this shift that had brought Richard to Manchester two years before. He’d come up to try to get an interview with cult hero Morrissey and two days in the city had convinced him that it was going to be to the nineties what Liverpool was to the sixties. He had nothing to keep him in London; his divorce had just come through, and a freelance makes his best living if he’s where the most interesting stories are. So he stayed, like a lot of others.
I followed him out of the taxi, feeling like partying for the first time since I’d come home. Richard’s news had given me a real adrenalin rush, and I couldn’t wait for the official confirmation of what he already suspected. We headed straight to the bar for a drink to give Jett and his entourage time to get over to the hotel.
I sipped my vodka and grapefruit juice gratefully. When I became a private eye, I tried to match the image and drink whisky. After two glasses, I had to revert to my usual to take the taste away. I guess I’m not cut out for the ‘bottle of whisky and a new set of lies’ Mark Knopfler image. As I drank, I listened with half an ear while Richard told me how he saw Jett’s autobiography taking shape. ‘It’s a great rags to riches story, a classic. A poor childhood in the Manchester slums, the struggle to make the music he knew he had in him. First discovering music when his strict Baptist mother pushed him into the gospel choir. How he got his first break. And at last, the inside story on why his songwriting partnership with Moira broke up. It’s got all the makings,’ he rambled on. ‘I could probably sell the serial rights to one of the Sunday tabloids. Oh, Kate, it’s a great night for us!’
After twenty minutes of bubbling enthusiasm, I managed to cut in and suggest that we made our way to the party. As soon as we emerged from the lift, it was clear which suite Jett had hired for the night. Already a loud babble of conversation spilled into the hall, overlaying the mellow sounds of Jett’s last album. I squeezed Richard’s hand and said, ‘I’m really proud of you,’ as we entered the main room and the party engulfed us.
Jett himself was holding court at the far end of the room, looking as fresh as if he’d just got out of the shower. His arm was draped casually round the shoulders of a classic Fiona. Her blonde hair hung over her shoulders in a loosely permed mane, her blue eyes, like the rest of her face, were perfectly made up, and the shiny violet sheath that encased her curves looked to me like a Bill Blass.
‘Come on, let’s go and talk to Jett,’ Richard said eagerly, steering me towards the far side of the room. As we passed the table where the drinks were laid out, a shirtsleeved arm sneaked out from a group of women and grabbed Richard’s shoulder.
‘Barclay!’ a deep voice bellowed. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ The group parted to reveal the speaker, a man of medium height and build, running slightly to paunch round the middle.
Richard looked astonished. ‘Neil Webster!’ he exclaimed with less than his usual warmth. ‘I could ask you the same thing. At least I’m a bloody rock writer, not an ambulance chaser. What are you doing back in Manchester? I thought you were in Spain.’
‘A bit too hot for me down there, if you catch my drift,’ Neil Webster replied. ‘Besides, all the news these days seems to happen in this city. I thought I was about due to revisit my old haunts.’
Their exchange gave me a few minutes to study this latest addition to my collection of Journalists Of The World. Neil Webster had that slightly disreputable air that a lot of women seem to find irresistible. I’m not one of them. He looked to be in his late thirties, though a journalist’s life does seem to accelerate ageing in everyone except my own Peter Pan Barclay. Neil’s brown hair, greying at the temples, looked slightly rumpled, as did the cream chinos and chambray shirt he was wearing. His brown eyes were hooded, with a nest of laughter lines etched white in his tanned skin. He had a hawk nose over a full pepper and salt moustache and his jaw line was starting to show signs of jowls.
My scrutiny was interrupted by his own matching appraisal. ‘So who’s the lovely lady? I’m sorry, my love, that oaf you came with seems to have forgotten his manners. I’m Neil Webster, real journalist. Not like Richard with his comic books. And you’re …?’
‘Kate Brannigan.’ I coolly shook his proffered hand.
‘Well, Kate, let me get you a drink. What’s it to be?’
I asked him for my usual vodka and grapefruit juice, and he turned to the bar to pour it. Richard leaned past him and helped himself to a can of Schlitz. ‘You didn’t say what exactly you were doing back here,’ Richard pressed Neil as he handed me my drink. I tasted it and nearly choked, both at the strength of the drink and the impact of Neil’s reply.
‘Didn’t I? Oh, sorry. Fact of the matter is, I’ve been commissioned to write Jett’s official biography.’
Richard’s face turned bright scarlet and then chalky white as Neil’s words hit him. I felt a cold stab of shock in my own stomach as I shared his moment of bitter disappointment. ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Richard said in an icy voice.
Neil laughed. ‘Quite a surprise, isn’t it? I’d have thought he’d have gone for a specialist. Someone like you,’ he added, twisting the knife. ‘But Kevin wanted me. He insisted.’ He shrugged disarmingly. ‘So what could I say? After all, Kevin’s an old friend. And he’s the boss. I mean, nobody manages a top act like Jett a dozen years without knowing what’s right for the boy, do they?’
Richard said nothing. He turned on his heel and pushed his way through the growing crowd round the bar. I tried to follow, but Neil stood in my way. ‘I don’t know what’s rattled his cage, but why don’t you just let him cool down,’ he said smoothly. ‘Stay and tell me all about yourself.’
Ignoring him, I moved away and headed towards Jett. I could no longer see Richard’s dark head, but I guessed that’s where he’d be. I reached Jett’s couch in time to hear Richard’s angry voice saying, ‘You as good as promised me. The guy’s a wasted space. What the hell were you thinking?’
The adulatory crowd that had been eagerly congratulating Jett and trying to touch the hem of his garment had fallen back under the force of Richard’s onslaught. He was towering threateningly above Jett, whose Fiona looked thrilled to bits by the encounter.
Jett himself looked upset. His honey-sweet voice sounded strained. ‘Richard, Richard. Listen to me. I wanted you to do the book. I said that all along. Then out of the blue, Kevin dumps this guy on me and tells me I have to play ball, that he knows who’s the best man for the job. And it’s too late for me to do anything about it. Kevin’s already signed the man up on a contract. If I don’t play, we still have to pay. So I have to play.’
Richard had listened in silence, his face a tight mask of anger. I’d never seen him so upset before, not even when his ex-wife was being difficult about his access to Davy. I reached his side and gripped his right arm. I know what he’s like when he’s angry. The holes in the plasterboard walls of his hall bear eloquent testimony to his frustrations. I didn’t think he’d hit Jett, but I didn’t want to risk it.
He stood and stared at Jett for what seemed like an eternity. Then he spoke slowly and bitterly. ‘And I thought you were a man,’