Free Star Struck by Val McDermid Page B

“I need a hand in here.”
    “No problem,” the big man said. “I’ll be hearing from you then, Kate.”
    Somehow I doubted it. Before I could say anything more, I noticed Gloria rushing off the set and into the make-up caravan. Grateful for the chance to get out of the northerly wind that was exfoliating the few square centimeters of skin I had allowed to be exposed, I ran across and climbed aboard.
    Gloria was sitting in front of a mirror, blowing on her hands as a make-up artist hovered around her. “Here she is,” Gloria announced. “Me and my shadow,” she sang in her throaty contralto. “Are you as cold as I am?”
    “How many fingers have you got left?”
    Gloria made a show of counting. “Looks like they’re all still here.”
    “In that case, I’m colder,” I said, waving a hand with one finger bent over.
    “Freddie, meet Kate Brannigan, my bodyguard. Kate, this is Freddie Littlewood. It’s his job to stop me looking like the raddled old bag I really am.”
    “Hi, Freddie.”
    He ducked his head in acknowledgment and gave me a quick once-over in the mirror. He had a narrow head and small, tight features framed by spiky black hair. With his black polo neck and black jeans like a second skin, he looked as if he’d escaped from one of those existential French films where you don’t understand a
    “It’s surprising how often she gets things right,” Gloria said mildly as he expertly applied powder to her cheeks.
    “And how often she causes trouble,” he added drily. “All those sly little hints that people take a certain way and before you know it, old friends are at each other’s throats. You watch, now she’s got you all wound up and scared witless, I bet this week she’ll tell you something that starts you looking out the corner of your eye at one of your best friends.”
    “I don’t know why you’ve got it in for Dorothea,” Gloria said. “She’s harmless and we’re all grown-ups.”
    “I just don’t like to see you upset, Gloria,” he said solicitously.
    “Well, between me and you and the wall, Freddie, it wasn’t what Dorothea said that upset me. I was already in a state. I’d been getting threatening letters. I’d had my tires slashed to ribbons. All Dorothea did was make me realize I should be taking them seriously.”
    I could have clobbered her. I’d told her to carry on keeping quiet about the threatening letters and the vandalism, to let everyone think it was Dorothea’s eerie warning that was behind my presence. And here she was, telling all to the man perfectly placed to be the distribution center of the rumor factory. “Nice one, Gloria,” I muttered.
    It’s not the people you go up against that make this job a bitch; it’s the clients, every time.
     
     
     

Chapter   7
     
     
SUN CONJUNCTION WITH MERCURY

She has a lively mind. Her opinions are important to her and she enjoys expressing them. Objectivity sometimes suffers from the strength of her views. Exchanging and acquiring information which she can subsequently analyze matters a lot.

From
Written in the Stars
, by Dorothea Dawson
     
     
     
    When she finally finished filming her outdoor scene with Teddy, Gloria announced we were going shopping. I must have looked as dubious as I felt. “Don’t worry, chuck,” she laughed as I drove her into the NPTV compound. “We won’t get mobbed. How do you think I manage when I’ve not got you running around after me?”
    I was gobsmacked by the result. I’d seen her in plain clothes already, not least when she’d first come to the office. But this was something else again. I thought I was the mistress of disguise until I met Gloria. When she emerged from her dressing room after a mere ten minutes to slough off Brenda Barrowclough, I nearly let her walk past me. She’d cheated; this wasn’t the outfit she’d worn when I’d driven her to work that morning. Wearing jeans and cowboy boots under a soft nubuck jacket that fell to mid-thigh, the