Conferences are Murder (10 page)

“But no one knows who's behind it?” Jennifer persisted.

“Nope. It could be anyone. Photocopiers are ten a penny these days, and you wouldn't need a great deal of skill to produce the master copy. All you'd need is a couple of hours with a lap-top and a decent DTP package. Fingers have been pointing all over the place, and there are obviously one or two complete loops who'd like us all to think it's them, but nobody's got any serious idea who's behind it. I'll tell you one thing, though. It's the only topic of conversation in the bars and the smoke-filled rooms.”

“You're telling me that this . . . newsletter is the issue that everyone at conference is getting worked up about?” Jennifer asked. There was a note of incredulity in her voice that Lindsay found reassuring. It meant she wasn't the only one who was aware that in the big bad world out there, whatever appeared in Conference Chronicle was even less interesting or significant than the marital relations of the royal family.

“That's right. There are three million unemployed, the government's threatening legislation that will be the effective end of trade unionism in this country, and my union's got its
knickers in a twist because someone is getting their kicks from taking the mickey. It makes little sense to me these days either, Ms. Okido, but that's what's been going on. But I don't think it's got anything to do with Tom Jack's death, except that the article in Conference Chronicle makes it sound like I had a better motive than most for wanting rid of him.”

“You think that's why the killer chose your room?”

Lindsay sighed, perplexed. “It's the only thing I can think of. God knows, it's little enough reason. There must be a lot of people in the motive queue ahead of me. Union Jack's machinations were ruffling a lot of feathers among the rank and file. I was one of the lucky ones—I didn't have to work with him on a regular basis any more. But a lot of the ones who did were getting pretty wound up. Let me tell you, Ms. Okido, I'm not the only person who would have been happy to see the back of Union Jack as AMWU's general secretary.”

 

“And if our general secretary wasn't so concerned with furthering the sectional interests of our so-called brothers and sisters from the former Journalists' Union—an organization that was more like a gentlemen's club than a union, by all accounts—those of us who are facing redundancy on a massive scale in the print would not be in the mess we're in. They were happy enough to grab our historic traditions and a bank balance that was in the black, unlike their own, and now they want to grab our very jobs. Colleagues, it's time the National Executive and the general secretary adopted the policy of the greatest good of the greatest number and started remembering who's been paying their wages.” The red-faced man pounded the lectern, causing a shriek of feedback that cut through a couple of hundred hangovers like broken chalk screeching on a blackboard. “Colleagues, vote for the London Central Print Division's amendment to motion thirty-two. Thank you.”

Lindsay pressed “play” on her Walkman. Anything had to be better than this debate. She shifted in her seat again, trying to find a comfortable position on the hard chair. As an observer, she was seated apart from the main body of delegates, on a
small raised dais at the back of the octagonal conference hall. The observers didn't rate tables, unlike the delegates, so they were condemned to shuffling constantly through their agendas, order-papers and copies of Conference Chronicle. The latest edition had been the sole topic of conversation over breakfast for the members of the paranoid tendency, with its “revelation” that Laura Craig was a Special Branch plant. As the voices droned on around her, Lindsay amused herself by flicking through the dozen paragraphs again.

Lindsay couldn't help smiling. Pure garbage, but it was good to see Laura get a good slagging off in print. At the very least, it must have sent her blood pressure up a few notches when she'd seen it that morning. Lindsay only hoped that Conference Chronicle could maintain credibility after a crazy leap in the dark like this. Fringe scandal sheets always got carried away by the need to be more and more shocking. But if it managed to stay more in touch with reality, the flyer had the potential to be the shit-stirrer conference needed. Lindsay was wondering idly what Laura had done to upset the writer of Conference Chronicle when a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Better than the bear baiting?”

Lindsay looked up in surprise. “Dick? What are you doing here? You used to think the union was one of Britain's last bastions of conservatism!” She switched off the Walkman.

“Aye, along with the Reform Club and the House of Commons. What's so fascinating?” he asked, pointing to her headphones.

Lindsay pulled a wry face and shrugged. There was no way she was going to admit to Dick McAndrew that she'd been relaxing to the sound of whale music. “Anything's better than the massed drones of trade unionists. But you didn't answer the question. What are you doing here?”

“I'm here to see Tom Jack get his come-uppance,” Dick said bitterly, his Glasgow accent lending a threatening edge to the words. “Him and his cronies have done for me and my team, so I came along to try to do the same for him. And how's California?” Dick eased his large frame on to the chair next to Lindsay. He looked absurd, like a Hereford bull on a bicycle.

“I'm thinking of having a flyer printed. ‘California's wonderful, I love the job, we've got a terrific house on the beach where the fog rolls in just like Argyllshire, no, I don't miss running with the pack, no, I don't miss British sausages, beer or sitcoms.' How about you?” Lindsay gave him an affectionate hug. She and Dick had met years before in the Glasgow Labour Party, and had stayed friends ever since. And she owed him. A few years before, when she'd been eagerly pursuing the spy scandal that had sent her into her first overseas exile, Dick had stuck his neck out for her. She'd never had the chance to repay him. “Is
Socialism Today
still keeping the kids in shoes?”

“You're well out of touch, Gordon,” Dick replied, a scowl changing his amiable face into the grimace of a Sumo wrestler. “There is no
Socialism Today
. Just like Kinnock purged socialism from the Labour Party, Union Jack and his cronies purged
Socialism Today
from the newsagents. So I am no longer the news editor of a radical monthly magazine. I'm just another freelance desperately scratching a living off a shrinking market.” Dick stared at the floor, hands involuntarily bunching into fists.

“What's that got to do with Union Jack? Did the union refuse to bail you out of trouble?” Lindsay asked. For as long as she could remember,
Socialism Today
's finances had been less stable than Mexico's. The difference was that banks didn't fall over themselves to lend billions to struggling left-wing publishing houses.

Dick snorted. “What are you on? One of the weird American
pills that warp your sense of reality? Tom Jack didnae wash his hands of us when we were in trouble. That I could have understood, though forgiving would've been something else again. Naw, it was Union Jack himself that put the shaft in.”

“Going to stop talking in riddles and tell me the story?” Lindsay asked, the brisk words softened by her tone.

“Nothing much to tell. We ran a story about eighteen months ago alleging that Tom Jack was going behind the backs of the union executive and dealing directly with the firm of accountants who were putting together the statements of accounts prior to the merger with the other unions. Nothing wrong with that in itself, except that the piece went on to reveal that Union Jack was suggesting all sorts of creative accounting tricks to make our finances look a lot healthier than they really were. Some of the wee tricks he'd thought of were borderline illegal.”

Lindsay sucked her breath in sharply. “Pick the bones out of that, eh?”

Dick nodded grimly. “We thought we had it copperbottomed, but Union Jack insisted it was a set-up. He announced he was going to sue, and our source inside the accountants got cold feet and bottled out of going in to bat for us. So Union Jack took us to the cleaners. We couldn't even pay the lawyer's bills, never mind the damages. The four of us that owned the magazine on paper all had to dive headlong into bankruptcy.”

Dick's blue eyes had a new bleakness Lindsay had never seen there before. It wasn't surprising. He wasn't some reckless kid with no one to worry about but himself. He was an experienced professional, a man who knew the risks, but had always managed to avoid exposing his wife and children to them.

“Helen and the kids?” she asked.

“We're okay. We managed to keep the house. When I joined the
Socialism Today
management collective, the office lawyers recommended that we put it in her name, that and the car. So it could have been worse, I suppose.”

Lindsay felt anger rising, a taste as distinctive as bile. “And the union just stood by and let this happen?”

“Lindsay, the executive committee were in Tom Jack's pocket.
He said crawl, they said, how low. Sure, there were plenty of people in the union jumping up and down about it, but nobody walking the corridors of power gave a shit about a wee magazine with a dozen journalists and a nasty habit of bursting balloons. The trouble is, Lindsay, this union isnae for the rank and file any more. And until we get rid of Tom Jack once and for all, nothing's going to get any better. He's got to go.”

Lindsay stood up and stretched. “I don't think I can take any more of this debate. Are they open?”

Dick glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes ago. What are we doing, wasting good drinking time?”

In spite of the earliness of the hour, the student union bar was doing a brisk trade. Dick ordered a pint of bitter and turned to Lindsay. “What're you for?”

“D'you know, I don't think I can face drink,” she said in a tone of incredulity. “You'd better make it a mineral water.”

Dick shook his head in sorrow, but ordered it nevertheless. “You've been away too long.”

Before Lindsay could leap to her own defense, the double doors of the bar swung open and Laura Craig strolled in. Her tailored trousers and long sweater were as close as Lindsay had ever seen her to casual clothes. “Hey, Laura,” one of the delegates at the bar called. “Shouldn't you be buying the drinks? We've all read Conference Chronicle—you're the only one here that's on expenses!”

Laura smiled. “I wish,” she said. “Mine's a vodka and ginger beer. Make it a large one, or else I'll set Miss Moneypenny on you!” She moved across to the group of men, succumbing willingly to their raucous teasing.

“Played the room like a fiddle,” Lindsay said.

“You've always had the knife into the Vogue Vamp. You're not seriously telling me you believe that guff?” Dick asked.

Lindsay sighed. “Of course I don't. Even her worst enemy couldn't have come up with something that ludicrous.”

Dick emptied his glass and dumped it on the bar. “I'd better be on my way. I've got to go down to Standing Orders
Sub-Committee. I've got an emergency motion to propose for the membership and organization order-paper.”

“Oh? What about?”

“As well as having branches organized locally and according to sector, we should set up unemployed branches, since that's what this union seems to be best at presiding over.” Dick pulled a lopsided smile.

“I'm sorry about
Socialism Today
,” Lindsay said.

“So'm I. And about the philosophy, not just the magazine. See you around.”

Dick lumbered off. As he reached the door, he came face to face with Tom Jack. Lindsay saw their mouths move, but they were too distant for her to hear what they said. Not for the first time, she wished she could lip-read. Suddenly, Dick's right arm shot out, and he pushed Tom hard in the chest, so the union leader stumbled and fell back against the wall. It wasn't the first bit of rough stuff she'd seen so far at the conference. There had been a few punches flung in the bar in the early hours between warring factions. But this was the first time she'd seen anyone lay a hand on the man who seemed to be at the center of every divisive and damaging row she'd witnessed. Lindsay couldn't help feeling worried that it had been Dick who'd thrown the first blow.