Star Trap by Simon Brett Page B

There were none of the sudden right-angled swerves up side-roads beloved of gangsters in movies. They drove sedately round the one-way system and into Neville Street, where they swung off the main road and came to rest at the entrance of the Dragonara Hotel. Gerald, who hadn’t been expecting the stop, overshot, screeched to a halt and reversed to a spying position, flashed at by the righteous headlights of other drivers in the one-way street.
    The party disembarking from the Corniche still did not take any notice of their pursuers. The four of them walked straight into the foyer and the driver slid the car away to the hotel car park.
    â€˜Well . . .’ said Gerald.
    â€˜Well, I guess we’ve found out where he’s staying.’
    â€˜Yes. Yes, we have.’
    â€˜I could have asked him and saved us the trouble.’
    â€˜Yes, but at least this way we can tell if he’s lying.’
    â€˜What on earth do you mean? Why should he lie about staying in the newest, poshest hotel in Leeds?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’ They both felt very foolish.
    â€˜By the way, Gerald, why aren’t you staying at the Dragonara? I thought that was your usual style.’
    â€˜I didn’t know it existed. Polly, my secretary, booked me into the Queen’s. More traditional, I think . . . I’m only here for the one night. I suppose I could try and get transferred, see if there’s a room here.’
    â€˜What good would that do?’
    â€˜Well, then I’d be in the hotel, I could spy, I . . .’
    â€˜What are we spying on? What do we want to find out?’
    â€˜I don’t know.’
    â€˜All we want to do is see that Kevin McMahon doesn’t get a chance to have a go at Christopher Milton.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And since he’s got Dickie Peck and his driver in the hotel there with him, I think we’re superfluous.’
    â€˜So what should we do?’
    â€˜Go to our several beds,’ said Charles, with mingled desire and depression at the thought of his.
    â€˜All right. I suppose we’d better. Mind you, we’re going to feel pretty silly in the morning if we hear that Christopher Milton’s been murdered.’
    They needn’t have worried. Christopher Milton survived the night unharmed. But Kevin McMahon was found beaten up in the car park by the bus station.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    CHARLES DIDN’T HEAR about the new accident until he reached the theatre for rehearsal. A silent breakfast with Ruth had been followed by a silent lift in her Renault 5L to the city centre. She started work at nine, so he had time to kill. They parted in silence and he wandered off in the direction of the Dragonara for no apparent reason.
    To occupy his mind with trivialities, he pretended he was trailing the man in front of him. The head he followed was completely bald with enormous ears like the handles of a loving cup. Charles varied his pace, playing a game with himself, committing details to memory, checking the time. At five to nine the man went in the front entrance of the Dragonara and the game was over.
    Charles looked round for someone else to use as a dummy and then felt a wave of hopelessness. What was the point of playing at detectives when his performance was so abysmal on occasions that required real detective abilities?
    The ‘what was the point?’ gloom deepened to embrace his emotional life too. Another night of angry sex with Ruth had depressed him. What was the point of it? He had left Frances to get away from the ties and twists of a ‘relationship’, hoping to find some kind of freedom. And he had accepted the limitations which the emotional free-lance shares with all other free-lances – delays between engagements and sudden terminations of contracts. But it wasn’t just that. Casual sex didn’t give him enough and anything deeper soon got claustrophobic. If he was going to go through all the hard work of