Death Of A Diva Read Online Free

spoke, to me, of a little too much chumminess. It felt, to be honest, like having one’s oncologist give a pet name to a particularly virulent tumour, but I shut my trap and waited for Reid to respond.
    “Oh, I dunno, Dorothy. Let’s see: I’ve got one dead singer, about four hundred quid’s worth of what I’m fairly sure will turn out to be a rather high quality Peruvian go-fast powder, a dozen or more witnesses who’ve reported hearing your client threatening to,” he snapped his fingers and Fisher opened the manila folder and handed him a sheet of paper. It was all theatre because Reid didn’t take his beady little gimlet from my own to even glance at it before continuing, “and I quote, ‘Strangle the bitch with my own hands,’ and a number of other interesting factors which, I’m rather afraid, place your client up to his ears in shit.”  Here he turned his stare on Frost, smiled a sarcastic twist of a leer and then shrugged. “So you tell me. What should I be doing?”
    “Oh, Frank,” Frost fiddled with a bangle for a moment, then turned her eyes up to lock on to his, “if I told you what I think you should be doing, I’d probably get done for verbal abuse.”
    Score one for the beige lady. Maybe she wasn’t quite as chummy as she seemed.
    Reid glowered at her. I glanced across at the still silent Fisher and saw that his lips were pursed in what seemed to be an attempt to suppress a smile. They were rather fine lips, too – full and plump and I had to remind myself that I was, as Fisher’s boss had just pointed out, up to my ears in shit and that fantasising about the blow job lips of policemen was probably not the best use of my time.
    “So where’s Lilly,” Reid returned the hulking scowl to me and for a moment I had no idea what he was talking about. Then it came to me: the name above the door – the licensee on this supposedly Free House which I was running.
    “Lilly’s on holiday,” I answered, wondering if Lilly Carver even existed.
    “Funny, that,” Reid answered, demanding, with another snap of his fingers, yet another piece of paper from the folder, “cos I’ve got comments here from a number of sources that say that the mysterious Mrs Carver ain’t been seen near that shithole for at least three years. Which I’m sure you know, Daniel , as a seasoned member of the licensed victuallers trade, would be breaking the terms of the licence. So, let’s try again: any idea where Lilly Carver is?”
    What the fuck does Lilly Carver have to do with Lyra Day being face down in my dressing room , I wondered and, in the absence of anything better to say, repeated the lie I’d been told to give if anyone ever enquired about the whereabouts of Mrs C: “Lilly’s visiting her parents in Magaluf. Her mum’s not been well, so she’s had to go away at short notice and I don’t know when she’ll be back.”
    Now it was Reid’s turn to raise an eyebrow, though the effect was less sardonic and served only to intensify his resemblance to an adult Augustus Gloop at the moment he gets sucked up by Wonka’s machine. “That what Chopper told you to say?”
    My solicitor didn’t need to raise a hand this time; I’d been struck speechless all by myself.
    I flapped my mouth for a few seconds and then: “Chopper?” Said, I hoped, with the right level of I have no idea who you’re talking about . This singularly failed to impress.
    “Anthony ‘Chopper’ Falzone,” Reid raised both hands, linked them behind his head exposing a couple of vast, darkly stained armpits and tipped the chair back on to two legs, making it squeak in a rather alarming fashion. “Businessman, entrepreneur, avoider of VAT and income tax, runner of protection schemes, loan shark syndicates, dodgy mini cab scams, seven brothels – including two for your sort – six unlicensed drinking dens, dozens of pubs ‘licensed’ to absent landlords – or, in your case, ladies – countless ice-cream vans all peddling