Death Of A Diva Read Online Free Page A

botulism in a cone and purveyor – thanks to the two chop shops we know of – of stolen-to-order high-end motors to half the villains east of Warsaw. He the one who supplied the gear you sold Lyra?”
    He tilted his bulk forward, returning the chair to its preferred position and slapping those huge open palms against the desk with a crack that echoed round the room like a gunshot. He had a limited range, I thought, as I momentarily left my seat, but it was effective.
    Frost leapt in. “Frank: is Mr Bird charged with anything? Or is this simply a fishing expedition where you’ll name-check every villain from the Krays to Bin Laden on the off chance you can link my client to one of them?”
    “ Fishing expedition ?” Reid wrinkled his nose in distaste. “You been watching too much Law and Order , Dorothy. I’ve got witnesses who have your client chatting merrily to Jimmy Christie – known to be Chopper’s right hand man – just minutes before he claims to have popped upstairs to call his performer and found her, not only dead, but liberally sprinkled with the same class A that your client already has form for possessing. So, Danny Boy , did Falzone provide the gear? Or were you doin’ a bit of freelance to make ends meet? What? She didn’t wanna pay up so you had to take matters into your own hands ?”
    The solicitor opened her mouth and Reid looked daggers in her direction. “Look, Doll, give it a rest, OK: I’ve got enough stuff here to charge your boy with everything from breaches of the licensing laws, to possession of a class A restricted substance, possession with intent to supply, manslaughter – and possibly murder if I wanted – and stupidity: I mean, who in their right mind would open a bloody poofs palace in that neck of the woods?”
    I looked over at Fisher, who was concentrating on something in the folder, his lips pressed, now in a concentrated and angry looking frown.
    “Frank,” Frost started shuffling the papers before her on the desk and packing them into her briefcase, “you don’t have shit . If you did, I would not be asking you – for the third time – whether Mr Bird was being charged with a crime. So let’s cut to the chase: what have you got and what do you want?”
    “July twenty-third, 2004.” Reid pinned me in his stare again. “ Mr Bird was arrested in possession of six grams of what the report describes as,” another snap and another sheet of paper slid from Fisher to Reid. Fisher’s eyes – really the brightest green I’d ever seen – flashed angrily at the porcine policeman and the words v ery Victorian novel ran across my mind, even as I recalled the awful events of that distant summer night, “extremely high grade cocaine sulphate, cut with a,” he glanced down again at the page before him, “trace amount of crushed Vicodin. A little something to take the edge off, eh Danny Boy ?”
    I’ve never been a huge user of cocaine. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I’m not Saint Danny of the abstainers. Not by a long chalk. And I don’t think it’s an absolute guaranteed way to ruin your life: I’ve seen plenty of lives and families destroyed by addictions to gambling, booze and fags, but I don’t think Messrs William Hill, Johnny Walker and Lambert & Butler should all be rounded up and criminalised.
    In fact, therein lies the problem: I actually like the odd line. A little too much perhaps and when I consume it, it does rather odd things to me – I get a little too verbose and a little too chummy with the wrong sort of people – which is why I tend to avoid the stuff. I have certainly never dealt it and rarely purchased it.
    And I’ve absolutely never purchased six grams of the bloody stuff in one go, which makes the fact that the single entry on my criminal record is for possession of half a dozen grams of it rather infuriating.
    Fact is, Robert’s birthday is July thirtieth and every year he throws a big birthday bash somewhere fabulous to which a handful of