Death Of A Diva Read Online Free Page B

his closest, dearest (and vilest) friends are invited. And of course Robert, being Robert, has to provide the best of everything for his guests: Baccarat crystal, Wedgewood china, magnums of Krug and six grams of grade A chisel, which was sitting in the glove box of his Aston Martin, with me in the passenger seat, when the police pulled him over for doing sixty in a thirty zone.
    Of course, the other fact about Robert is that he is a member of the Bar, an officer of the court and, if he was ever done for possession of an illegal substance, virtually unemployable.
    So I took the rap. For the wraps.
    The things you do for love, figuring that, really, with your life and your career, how much harm can they possibly do you? I got – thanks to the hugely expensive solicitor that Robert hired – off with a first-offence fine and suspended sentence, Robert’s guilt-gratitude, a rather nice Cartier Tank watch (which I left when I walked out of the house in Windsor) and, now, a possible motive for murder.
    “So,” again Reid reclined in the chair, a triumphant smirk twisting his lips, his hands linked behind his head and the two stinking pits staring straight at me, “let’s start again, shall we?”
    Frost put her briefcase down on the floor and returned Reid’s stare. “Again, Inspector: what, exactly, is it you want?”
    “How about the truth. Let’s get the story straight. From the beginning.”
    “And after that?”
    “We’ll see.”
    Frost leaned in to me. “It’s your call, Danny. If you have been involved – even marginally – in anything, shall we say dubious , my advice is to zip it and keep it zipped for now. But if you want to make a statement, this is as good a time as any.”
    I looked at her, an almost motherly look of concern on her face, glanced at Reid, who was still exuding an air of triumph and then shifted my focus to the DC, who was leaned forward, a concentrated frown on his face, his green eyes sparkling attentively. Confident that my audience was paying full attention, I began.
    At, more or less, the beginning.

Chapter Six
     
                  “Christ! What. A. Dump !” As opening lines go, it wasn’t the most original; nor, for that fact, the most complimentary. But I didn’t care. It was uttered by Lyra Day, a vision in white fur as she slid from the passenger seat of a long black Merc and surveyed the dingy little public house I was standing outside of.
                  Lyra Day – for those of you who have been in comas since, say, the late seventies – was a legend, even when I was a boy. An East End girl who rose from singing easy listening tunes to edgier songs and who progressed from being just a pop star to being a song stylist . Then, when her progression to Disco Diva turned her into a Gay Icon, she had transferred to Saturday night telly where she’d been, for several years, the host of Kiss & Tell, a game show that gave rise to the catchphrase, Keep it clean, people.
                  Lyra wasn’t keeping it clean today: “I must be out of my fucking mind, letting you do this to me. Look at the fucking state of this place!” This last was addressed to a tall, thin man with a mop of salt and pepper curls and the air of a person who is permanently harassed. I guessed this was Morgan Foster, her third husband and current manager.
                  And, though it sort of pained me to admit it, she did have a point. Lyra Day had played the Palladium and she’d performed at countless Royal Variety shows. But all of that was before the break down.
                  Lyra – under the influence of a cocktail of substances and, it’s claimed, a great deal of mysterious and never subsequently disclosed personal stress – had taken to the stage at the Royal Albert Hall for the opening night of a six week concert tour of the British Isles, with a further two months of European and Australian dates lined up and had, to put it