never here after Thursday or before Monday morning."
I frantically scribbled all this down whist trying to get it clear in my head. One full day and three morning's work a week hardly amounted to the gruelling schedule Candida Clark had claimed.
"Thanks, Holly. I think I understand it better now. Did the two stars stay in hotels?"
"No, they both rented out houses during the run. They could be up here for nearly six months. JayJay had a house on the Golden View estate."
I knew of the place. Only for people on celebrity salaries.
"I don't know where Mr Ferrari stayed."
Again, I noted the formality whilst wondering why she would know where one star lived but not the other.
"Golden View is a long way from Willow Drive. I wonder why she went there?"
Holly shrugged but said nothing. I felt I was getting nowhere fast. I tried one last question, one angle I'd not touched on yet.
"And JayJay was happy in her work here at the studios?"
She pulled at her lower lip.
"Well ..."
"Yes?"
"I did once hear her say, 'I shall be glad when I'm out of this place', but I think she just meant she was ready to go home, you know, to the house she rented when she was up here doing the show."
It didn't sound like it to me but perhaps Holly was right. She'd certainly given me plenty to think about.
"Well, if you can think of anything else will you give me a call? Here's my home number."
I scrawled my name and number on the back of one of KD's business cards and passed it across the desk. She looked at it briefly and slid it into a drawer.
"And, Holly, I think it would be best if we kept all this to ourselves."
She gave me a conspiratorial wink, out of place on her guileless face.
"Don't worry, Miss Long. Mum's the word."
I sighed and left the office.
I'd put it off for as long as I could - in truth, I'd largely forgotten it - but now there was no way round it. It was time to watch the DVD of 'Star Steps'. I slipped the recording KD had given me into the slot in the machine, grabbed the remote control and made myself comfortable on the settee, coffee and a bar of chocolate to hand on the small table in front of me. Gritting my teeth, I pressed the 'play' button.
"Welcome to Star Steps, your date with the Stars," screamed a voice.
The screen showed a wide flight of stairs with garishly clad couples posing at the edges of each tread.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, please greet your hostess," the same voice went on in a rapturous tone. "Here she is. It's JayJay!"
The unseen audience whooped, hooted and applauded in a cacophony of sound as a celluloid version of the woman I had last seen dead, shimmied and twirled onto the stage. The skirt of her silver lame dress flared around her hips as she pirouetted in silver dance shoes to centre screen coming to rest, legs spread wide, arms stretched out above her head, all hair, mouth and teeth.
"And here is your co-host, Greg Ferrari."
Now, the camera panned upwards past the wide, white-toothed smile of Jaynee to the top of the stairs as, once again, the audience erupted into whistles and cheers.
With a balletic leap that might have put Baryshnikov to shame, a figure in black appeared at the top of the steps. To the accompaniment of applause and the plastic grins of the dance pairs to either side, Greg Ferrari tapped and spiralled his way downwards. Even I had to admit that the man could dance. His long legs moved swiftly, elegantly in a variety of steps and complex movements that dazzled the eyes and, whilst I would love to say that I never took those same eyes off his feet, in fact they were transfixed by his face. Gorgeous, Holly had called him and I could see what she meant. Quite simply, he was the most massively handsome man I had ever seen.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he took Jaynee's hands and twirled her around so fast her blonde hair flew out behind her and swayed in its own slipstream, then he pulled her to him, lifting her as if she were no heavier than thistledown,