Free The Wire in the Blood by Val McDermid Page A

and the Princess of Wales, you get no peace these days when you’ve got a terminal illness,’ she said out loud. ‘I’m the lucky one,’ she went on, moving from bureau to filing cabinet as she cleared her desk in preparation for a guilt-free weekend. ‘I don’t have to listen to the Authorized Version for the millionth time.’ She imitated Jacko’s upbeat, dramatic intonation. ‘“I was lying there, contemplating the wreck of my dreams, convinced I had nothing left to live for. Then, out of the depths of my depression, I saw a vision.”’ Betsy made the sweeping gesture she’d seen Jacko deploy so often with his living arm. ‘“This very vision of loveliness, in fact. There, by my hospital bed, stood the one thing I’d seen since the accident that made me realize life might be worth living.”’
    It was a tale that bore almost no relationship to the reality Betsy had lived through. She remembered Micky’s first encounter with Jacko, but not because it had been the earth-shaking collision of two stars recognizing their counterparts. Betsy’s memories were very different and far less romantic.
    It was the first time Micky had been the lead outside broadcast reporter on the main evening news bulletin. She’d been bringing millions of eager viewers the first exclusive interview with Jacko Vance, hero of the hottest human story on the networks. Betsy had watched the broadcast at home alone, thrilled to see her lover the cynosure of ten million pairs of eyes, hugging herself in delight.
    The exhilaration hadn’t lasted long. They’d been celebrating together in the flickering glow of the video replay when the phone had interrupted their pleasure. Betsy had answered, her voice exuberant with happiness. The journalist who greeted her as Micky’s girlfriend drained all the joy from her. In spite of Betsy’s frostily vehement denials and Micky’s scornful ridicule, both women knew their relationship was poised on the edge of the worst kind of tabloid exposure.
    The patient campaign Micky had gone on to wage against the sneak tactics of the hacks was as carefully planned and as ruthlessly executed as any career move she’d ever made. Every night, two separate pairs of bedroom curtains would be closed and lights turned on behind them. The lamps would go off at staggered intervals, the one in the spare room controlled by a timer that Betsy adjusted to a different hour each night. Every morning, the curtains would be drawn back at diverse times, each pair by the same hands that had closed them. The only places the two women embraced were behind closed curtains out of the line of sight of the window, or in the hallway, which was invisible from outside. If both left the house at the same time, they parted at the bottom of the steps with a cheerful wave and no bodily contact.
    Giving the presumed watchers nothing to chew on would have been enough to make most people feel secure. But Micky preferred a more proactive approach. If the tabloids wanted a story, she’d make sure they had one. It would simply have to be a more exciting, more credible and more sexy story than the one they thought they had. She cared far too much for Betsy to take chances with her lover’s peace of mind or their relationship.
    The morning after the ominous phone call, Micky had a spare hour. She drove to the hospital where Jacko was a patient and charmed her way past the nurses. Jacko seemed pleased to see her, and not only because she came armed with the gift of a miniature AM/FM radio complete with earphones. Although he was still taking strong medication for his pain, he was alert and receptive to any distraction from the tedium of life in his side ward. She spent half an hour chatting lightly about everything except the accident and the amputation, then left, leaning over to give him a friendly peck on the forehead. It had been no hardship; to her surprise, she’d found herself warming to Jacko. He wasn’t the arrogant macho man