MAGGIE MADDISON ON THE CASE

At the music festival, it seems a young singer has been poisoned – but can PI Maggie discover the motive?

Winchester’s music festival took place a few miles outside the city – a long weekend of traffic, food vans and sleep-deprived teenagers. It brought a buzz to the city, money into the shops and was, mostly, harmless fun.

With it came an assortment of sprained ankles, dehydration and other medical emergencies. That was how Maggie Maddison found herself in a bright orange vest bearing the legend First Aider and wandering around in the midday sun.

As a former district nurse, she was more than qualified. In spite of her career change to private detective work, she’d looked forward to the weekend.

“Excuse me, love, could you come with me? Bit of an emergency.” A man with a lanyard giving backstage access guided her behind an enormous tented structure. “She’s with me,” he told unsmiling security officers.

“Could I ask –” Maggie began.

“Not out here,” he urged, opening a door reserved for the festival headliners.

In a dressing room, a young woman lay limp and groaning on a day bed.

“Tell me what happened,” Maggie said, going to her side and feeling her pulse.

“She’s due on stage in fifteen minutes. I’m her manager,” said the man.

“What’s her name, please?” Maggie pulled a small torch from her pocket and shone it into each eye in turn.

“Mystique,” an older woman said.

“Is there something you can give her so she’ll be able to perform?”

Maggie did her best to hide her sigh. “Her real name,” she said. “And I can’t give her anything until I know what’s caused her to be ill.”

“Sally,” her manager said. “She was fine until half an hour ago, then she started getting weird.”

“Hi, Sally,” Maggie said. “I’m a first aider. Can you talk to me?” There was barely a murmur. “Any current illnesses?”

The manager looked to the older woman enquiringly.

“No,” she said. “I’m her mother.”

“OK,” Maggie said, counting Sally’s breaths per minute. “So no medication?” “None,” the mother confirmed.

“She hasn’t had an accident, a blow to the head, been out in the sun?”

“Nothing like that. We were travelling in an air-conditioned coach all day,” her manager confirmed.

Sally batted away some unseen object from above her face and frowned into the air, a look of fear flitting across her face.

“Pass me a glass, please,” Maggie said. Pushing the tumbler down over a rash on Sally’s arm, she was relieved to see it disappear under pressure. Not meningitis, then – yet the young woman was covering her eyes, clearly light-sensitive.

“I need to know what she’s eaten and drunk in the last couple of hours,” Maggie said. “And if she’s a regular drug user, you have to be honest with me about it. There’s no point hiding anything. Her pupils are dilated to an extreme, she’s flushed, feverish, her pulse is erratic and her breathing’s irregular. I suspect she’s hallucinating too.”

“She doesn’t take drugs,” her manager said. “It’s part of the deal with her record label. They require random drug testing. Sally’s not like that, anyway.”

“What’ll happen?” her mother asked. “She needs an ambulance. A doctor will decide on treatment. It’ll be quicker if we can figure out what she’s taken.”

Another young woman walked in and stood open-mouthed, hands on hips.

“Fantastic. Isn’t she getting enough attention? What now, stage fright?”

“That’s enough, Elizabeth,” the mother said. “Your sister’s ill. Apparently she needs an ambulance. We’ll have to see if the festival organisers will push our slot back until tomorrow.”

“Yes, good idea,” her manager agreed. “I’ll get the publicist on the line.”

Maggie was already on the phone organising an ambulance. Twenty minutes later, Sally aka Mystique was in the care of paramedics, her mother and sister at her side.

“The police may well get involved,” Maggie told Sally’s manager. “It’ll be hard to keep the story from the media.”

“Sally can’t afford bad publicity,” the manager said. “If she’s thought to be unreliable we’ll lose bookings. She’s already competing against a new generation of artists. The record label isn’t happy about sales as it is.”