Alexis skirted the one-way system and cut round the back of the magistrates' court. Modern concrete boxes and grimy red brick terraced shops were mixed higgledy-piggledy along almost every street, a seemingly random and grotesque assortment that filled me with the desire to construct a cage in the middle of it and make the town planners live there for a week among the chip papers blowing in the wind and the empty soft-drink cans rattling along the gutters. I tried to ignore the depressing townscape and asked, 'So how come you know her so well? What's she got to do with the crime beat?'
'I interviewed her a couple of times for features when she was still playing Margie Grimshaw in Northerners. We got on really well. Then after the dust settled and she set up Trances, I gave her a call and asked if we could do a piece about the shop. She wasn't keen, but I let her have copy approval, and she liked what I wrote. Now, we do lunch about once a month. She's got such a different grapevine from any of my other contacts. It's amazing what she picks up,' Alexis said, parking in a quiet side street of terraced houses. It could have been the set for Northerners.
'And she passes stuff on to you, does she?' I asked.
'I suspect she's highly selective. I know that after what happened to her, she's desperately protective of other people in the same boat. But if she can help, she will.'
I followed Alexis round the corner into one of those streets that isn't quite part of the town centre, but would like to think it is. I glanced in the window as we entered. The only clue that Trances was any different from a hundred other boutiques was the prominent sign that said, 'We specialize in large sizes. Shoes up to size 12'. The door itself provided the warning for the uninitiated. 'Specialists in supplies for transvestites and transsexuals', was painted on the glass in neat red letters at the eye level of the average woman.
I followed Alexis in. The shop was large, and had an indefinable air of seediness. The decor was cream and pink, the pink tending slightly too far to the candy floss end of the spectrum. The dresses and suits that were suspended from racks that ran the full length of the shop had the cumulative effect of being over the top, both in style and colour. I suspect that the seediness came from the glass cases that lined the wall behind the counter. They contained the kind of prostheses and lingerie I remembered only too well from Martin Cheetham's secret collection. In one corner, there was a rack of magazines. Without examining them too closely, the ones that weren't copies of Cassandra's magazine Trances had that combination of garishness and coyness on the cover that marks soft porn.
The person behind the counter was also clearly a client. The size of the hands and the Adam's apple were the giveaways. Apart from that, it would have been hard to tell. The make-up was a little on the heavy side, but I could think of plenty of pubs in the area where that wouldn't even earn a second glance. 'Is Cassie in?' Alexis asked.
The assistant gave a slight frown, sizing us up and clearly wondering if we were tourists. 'Are you a friend of Miss Cliff, madam?' she asked.
'Would you tell her Alexis would like a word, if she's got a few minutes?' Alexis said, responding in the same slightly camp vein. I hoped the conversation with Cassie wasn't going to run along those lines. I can do pompous, I can do threatening, I can even do 'OK, yah', but the one style I can't keep up without exploding into giggles is high camp.
The assistant picked up a phone and pressed an intercom button. 'Cassandra? I have a lady with me called Alexis who would like a moment of your time, if it's convenient,' she said. Then she nodded. 'I'll tell her. Bye for now,' she added. She replaced the handset and said decorously, 'Miss Cliff will see you now. If you'd care to take the door at the back of the shop and follow the stairs…'
'It's all right, I know the way,' Alexis said, heading past the clothes racks. Thanks for your help.'
Cassandra Cliff's office looked like something out of Interiors. It could have been a blueprint for the career woman who wants to remind people that as well as being successful she is still feminine. The office furniture – a row of filing cabinets, a low coffee table and two desks, one complete with Apple Mac -was limed ash, stained grey. A pair of grey leather two-seater sofas occupied one corner. The carpet was a dusty pink, a colour echoed in the Austrian blinds that softened the lines of the room. The walls were decorated with black and white stills of the set and stars of Northerners. A tall vase of burgundy carnations provided a vivid splash of colour. The overall effect was stylish and relaxed, the two adjectives that sprang into my mind when I first met Cassandra Cliff.
She wore a linen suit with a straight skirt and no lapels. It was the colour of an egg yolk. Her mandarin-collared blouse was a bright, clear sapphire blue. I know it sounds hideous, but on her it was glorious. Her ash blonde hair was cut short but full on top, shaped, gelled and lacquered till it resembled something out of the Museum of Modern Art. The make-up was the kind of discreet job that looks completely natural.
As Alexis introduced us, Cassie caught me studying her and the corners of her mouth twitched in a knowing smile. I could feel my ears going red, and I returned her smile sheepishly. 'I know,' she said. 'You can't help it. You have to ask yourself, "If I didn't know, would I have guessed?" Everyone does it, Kate, don't feel embarrassed about it.'
Completely disarmed, I allowed myself to be settled on one of the sofas with Alexis while Cassie ordered coffee then sat down opposite us, crossing a pair of elegant legs that certain women of my acquaintance would cheerfully have killed for. 'So,' Cassie said. 'A private investigator and a crime reporter. It can't be me you're after. The jackals that Alexis hangs out with left me not so much as a vertebra in my cupboard, never mind a skeleton. So, I ask myself, who?'
'Does the name Martin Cheetham mean anything to you?' Alexis asked.
Cassie uncrossed her legs then recrossed them in the opposite direction. 'In what context?' she said.
'In a business context. Your business, not his.'
Cassie shrugged elegantly. 'Not everyone who uses our services likes to be known by their real name. You could say that their real name is what they're trying to escape from.'
'He died yesterday,” Alexis said bluntly.
Before Cassie could respond, a teenage girl came in with coffee. At least, I'm pretty certain it was a girl. The process of pouring our coffee gave Cassie plenty of time to recover from the news. 'How did he die?' she asked. In spite of her conversational tone, for the first time since we'd arrived she looked wary.
'He was wearing women's clothing and hanging from the banisters in his home. The police think it was an accident,' Alexis said. I was content to sit back. Cassie was her contact, and she knew how to play her.
'Do I take it that you don't agree with them?' Cassie asked, moving her glance from one to the other of us.
'Oh, I think they're probably right. It's just that he ripped me off to the tune of five grand a few weeks ago, and I'm trying to get it back. Which means trying to untangle what he was up to, and who with,' Alexis said determinedly.
“Five thousand pounds? My God, Alexis, no wonder you're working with Kate.' Cassie smiled, then sighed. 'Yes, I knew Martin Cheetham. He bought a lot of stuff from Trances, and he was a regular at our monthly Readers' Socials. Martina, he called himself. Not terribly original. And before you ask, I don't think he had any particular friends among the group. Certainly, I don't know of anyone he saw socially between meetings. He wasn't someone who appeared to find it easy to open up. A lot of men really blossom when they're cross-dressing, as if they've suddenly become themselves. Martina wasn't like that. It was almost as if it was an obsession that he had to indulge rather than a release. Does that make any sense to you?'