But Christmas was coming and the goose was anorexic. Business had been as slow as a Post Office queue and even staff as unorthodox as mine expect to be paid on time. Besides, I deserved a festive bonus myself. Eating, for example. So I’d sent my better judgement on an early Yuletide break and agreed to take on a client who’d turned out to be more accident prone than Coco the Clown.
For once, it wasn’t my fault that the client was in the front line. I’d had no say in what was happening out there on the street. If I’d wanted to stop it, I couldn’t have. So, absolved from action for once, I stood with my hands in my pockets and watched Carla Hardcastle’s arm swing round in a fearsome arc to deliver a cracking wallop that wiped the complacent smirk off Brenda Barrowclough’s self-satisfied face. I sucked my breath in sharply.
‘And cut,’ the director said. ‘Very nice, girls, but I’d like it one more time. Gloria, loved that smug little smile, but can you lose it at the point where you realize she’s actually going to thump you? And let us see some outrage?’
My client gave a forbearing smile that was about as sincere as a beggar asking for tea money. ‘Whatever you say, Helen, chuck,’ she rasped in the voice that thrilled the nation three times a week as we shovelled down our microwave dinners in front of Manchester’s principal contribution to the world of soap. Then she turned to me with an exaggerated wink and called, ‘You’re all right, chuck, it’s only make believe.’
Everyone turned to stare at me. I managed to grin while clenching my teeth. It’s a talent that comes in very handy in the private-eye business. It’s having to deal with unscrupulous idiots that does it. And that’s just the clients.
‘That’s my bodyguard,’ Gloria Kendal – alias Brenda Barrowclough – announced to the entire cast and crew of Northerners.
‘We’d all worked out it wasn’t your body double,’ the actress playing Carla said, apparently as sour in life as the character she played in the human drama that had wowed British audiences for the best part of twenty years.
‘Let’s hope you only get attacked by midgets,’ Teddy Edwards added. He’d once been a stand-up comedian on the working men’s club circuit, but he’d clearly been playing Gloria’s screen husband for so long that he’d lost any comic talent he’d ever possessed. I might only be five feet three in my socks, but I wouldn’t have needed to use too many of my Thai-boxing skills to bring a lump of lard like him to his knees. I gave him the hard stare and I’m petty enough to admit I enjoyed it when he cleared his throat and looked away.
‘All right, settle down,’ the director called. ‘Places, please, and let’s take it again from the top of the scene.’
‘Can we have a bit of hush back there?’ someone else added. I wondered what his job title was and how long I’d have to hang around the TV studios before I worked out who did what in a hierarchy that included best boys, gaffers and too many gofers to count. I figured I’d probably have long enough, the way things were going. There was a lot of time for idle reflection in this job. When Gloria was filming, silence was the rule. I couldn’t ask questions, eavesdrop or burgle in pursuit of the information I needed to close the case. All there was for me to do was lean against the wall and watch. There was nothing remotely glamorous about witnessing the seventh take of a scene that was a long way from Shakespeare to start with. As jobs went, minding the queen of the nation’s soaps was about as exotic as watching rain slide down a window.
It hadn’t started out that way. When Gloria had swanned into our office, I’d known straight off it wasn’t going to be a routine case. At Brannigan & Co, the private investigation firm that I run, we cover a wide spectrum of work. Previously, when I’d been in partnership with Bill Mortensen, we’d mostly investigated white-collar fraud, computer security, industrial espionage and sabotage, with a bit of miscellaneous meddling that friends occasionally dropped in our laps. Now Bill had moved to Australia, I’d had to cast my net wider to survive. I’d clawed back some process-serving from a handful of law firms, added ‘surveillance’ to the letterheading and canvassed insurance companies for work exposing fraudulent claims. Even so, Gloria Kendal’s arrival in our front office signalled something well out of the ordinary.
Not that I’d recognized her straight away. Neither had Shelley, the office administrator, and she’s got the X-ray vision of every mother of teenagers. My first thought when Gloria had swept through the door on a wave of Estée Lauder’s White Linen was that she was a domestic violence victim. I couldn’t think of another reason for the wide-brimmed hat and the wraparound sunglasses on a wet December afternoon in Manchester.
I’d been looking over Shelley’s shoulder at some information she’d downloaded from Companies House when the woman had pushed open the door and paused, dramatically framed against the hallway. She waited long enough for us to look up and register the expensive swagger of her mac and the quality of the kelly-green silk suit underneath, then she took three measured steps into the room on low-heeled pumps that precisely matched the suit. I don’t know about Shelley, but I suspect my astonishment showed.
There was an air of expectancy in the woman’s pose. Shelley’s, ‘Can I help you?’ did nothing to diminish it.
The woman smiled, parting perfectly painted lips the colour of tinned black cherries. ‘I hope you can, chuck,’ she said, and her secret was out.
‘Gloria Kendal,’ I said.
‘Brenda Barrowclough,’ Shelley said simultaneously.
Gloria chuckled. ‘You’re both right, girls. But we’ll just let that be our little secret, eh?’ I nodded blankly. The only way her identity was ever going to stay secret was if she kept her mouth shut. It was clear from three short sentences that the voice that had made Brenda Barrowclough the darling of impressionists the length and breadth of the comedy circuit wasn’t something Gloria took on and cast off as readily as her character’s trademark bottle-blonde beehive wig. Gloria really did talk in broad North Manchester with the gravelly growl of a bulldozer in low gear.
‘How can I help you, Ms Kendal?’ I asked, remembering my manners and stepping out from behind the reception desk. She might not be a CEO in a grey suit, but she clearly had enough in the bank to make sure we all had a very happy Christmas.
‘Call me Gloria, chuck. In fact, call me anything except Brenda.’ After twenty years of TV viewing, the raucous laugh was as familiar as my best friend’s. ‘I’m looking for Brannigan,’ she said.
‘You found her,’ I said, holding out my hand.
Gloria dropped a limp bunch of fingers into mine and withdrew before I could squeeze them – the professional sign of someone who had to shake too many hands in a year. ‘I thought you’d be a bloke,’ she said. For once, it wasn’t a complaint, merely an observation. ‘Well, that makes things a lot easier. I were wondering what we’d do if Brannigan and Co didn’t have women detectives. Is there some place we can go and talk?’
‘My office?’ I gestured towards the open door.
‘Grand,’ Gloria said, sweeping past me and fluttering her fingers in farewell to Shelley.
We exchanged a look. ‘Rather you than me,’ Shelley muttered.
By the time I closed the door behind me, Gloria was settled into one corner of the sofa I use for informal client meetings. She’d taken off her hat and tossed it casually on the low table in front of her. Her own hair was a subtle ash-blonde cut in a gamine Audrey Hepburn style. Somehow it managed not to look ridiculous on a woman who had to be nudging sixty. She had the clear skin of a much younger woman, but none of the Barbie-doll tightness that goes with the overenthusiastic face-lift. As I sat down opposite her, she took off the