A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) by Michael Kerr

more for a few days’ work than a regular working stiff can make in five years.  But when the carpet gets pulled and you end up on the floor, stunned and without a clue as to what happened, then everything that follows is an anticlimax.  What I am trying to say is, that Marsha couldn’t cope with the fall.  A part of her could never accept that what she had was temporary and inevitably ran its course.  When the paparazzi quit hounding her and the phone stopped ringing, she became bitter.  She resented the grey, faceless men and women who used other people’s talent or assets, only to unceremoniously dump them with less thought and energy expended than they would employ to flush a toilet. She got hooked on coke, but it was no cure.  You can never run away from who or what you are.  After going through rehab, she decided to get back at life and become a user, not a product that could be discontinued at the stroke of a pen.”
    “ How did hooking do that?” Matt asked, wanting to move it along.
    “ At first, she told me that when she had amassed enough money, she planned to open an agency―”
    “ Modelling?”
    “ Yes.  But even with what she charged, she knew that it would be a long time before her dream would be realised.  That was when she started filming her clients and keeping records.”
    “ To blackmail them?”
    Caroline nodded.
    “Who was she squeezing?” Matt said.  “How many were paying for her silence?”
    “ Only one that I know about.  Damon Lee.”
    Matt recalled seeing Lee on one of Marsha’s videos.  He had not worn the right type of dress ring, but there was always the possibility that the killer did not put it on every day.  Lee was an international film star, who if the tabloids were to be believed, was reputed to be in line for the role of Bond, should Daniel Craig bow out.  Lee was on the A list, up there with Pitt, Depp and the like.  Marsha had been aiming high, making powerful enemies.
    “ I told her that she was playing with fire,” Caroline said.  “But she said, ‘Cassie, you’ve got to be as ruthless as they are, or you don’t get your foot back on the ladder’.”
    “ Think, Caroline,” Matt said.  “Who else was on her list of prospective marks?”
    “ She talked a lot about Colin Westin.  Said that someone like him could pay enough to turn everything around.  But I don’t think she would be stupid enough to try to blackmail him.”
    “ Why do you say that?”
    “ Because Westin is a very powerful and dangerous man.  No one who knows him would be foolish enough to take him on.  The only rules he plays by are the one’s he makes.”
    “ Give me an example.”
    “ He wanted to buy out a large bottling plant in Belfast.  The main hurdle was the managing director, who was trying to negotiate better terms than Westin was prepared to meet.  The man was killed in a hit-and-run a few weeks later, and the deal went through without another hitch.”
    “ That could have been a coincidence,” Pete said, speaking up for the first time.
    “ Do me a favour,” Caroline said with a sneer.  “Cops don’t believe in coincidence. And if you knew the man, you wouldn’t have even suggested it.  Check him out.  People are either with him, or end up with a lot of grief.”
    “ You think he would be capable of doing that to Marsha?” Matt said, tapping his briefcase.
    “ I know that he is capable of having something like that done.  He wouldn’t necessarily get his own hands dirty, but has the connections to do whatever it takes to protect all his interests, and Marsha knew that.  I find it almost impossible to believe that she would be so stupid to think he would pay her a penny under duress.”
    “ You said almost,” Matt said.
    “ She had changed.  Become a little unpredictable.  I’m not a hundred percent certain that she knew where the line was anymore.  She might have crossed it.”
    There was nothing more.  Ten minutes later, Matt and