Conferences are Murder (27 page)

“What do you want to do?” Jennifer asked, pulling up a few hundred yards away from the entrance.

“In an ideal world, I'd like to get Sophie out of there so we can drive back to Glasgow and disappear for a few days with our friends till it's time to go home,” Lindsay said.

“Let's go for it, then,” Jennifer said calmly. She picked up her car phone and called Directory Enquiries for the hotel's number. Then she keyed in the number and passed the phone to Lindsay.

“Sheffield Metro Towers Hotel, Kimberley speaking, how may I help you?”

“Room 603, please,” Lindsay said.

“May I ask who's calling?” Kimberley's artificially bright voice twittered.

“Lindsay Gordon.”

“One moment please.” The electronic bleeps of the Cuckoo Waltz assaulted Lindsay's ears for the best part of a minute. Then, abruptly, Kimberley was back. “Sorry to keep you,” she breezed with no trace of regret. “Ms. Gordon, room 603 is not
accepting any calls at this point in time, unless the caller is able to supply us with the name of room 603's pet Labrador.”

“I'm sorry?” Lindsay exploded with a giggle. “Her pet Labrador?”

“That is correct. Are you in a position to supply us with the name in question?” Kimberley asked.

“Her black, two-year-old Labrador is called Mutton, as in Cockney rhyming slang, because when he was a puppy, you could scream yourself hoarse telling him not to do something and he wouldn't take a blind bit of notice. Is that enough, Kimberley?” Lindsay said condescendingly.

“Thank you,” Kimberley said with a descending intonation. “Putting you through now.”

There was a click, a buzz, then Sophie's wary voice. “Hello?”

“Taking a poor dumb animal's name in vain,” Lindsay said. “I like it. Has it worked?”

“Like a charm. I haven't had to speak to a single hack till now. Fortunately, the reception desk thought it was a great game. They've been wonderful. Where are you, sweetheart?”

“I'm about half a mile down the road from the hotel, with Jennifer Okido. Listen, how do you feel about going back to Glasgow tonight? If the hotel have been this accommodating about keeping the vultures at bay, they'd probably smuggle you out the back door and you could just slip into the car and we could shoot off.”

“That sounds like the best idea you've had this week,” Sophie said.

 

Twenty minutes later, Lindsay and Sophie waved their goodbyes to Jennifer Okido. Sophie started the car and said, “Before we go, we need to eat. At least, I do. I was waiting for you to get back before I hit room service.”

“There's an Italian about half a mile down the hill. I noticed it the other morning. We should be far enough off the beaten track to avoid the other delegates.”

“What about the world's press?” Sophie asked.

“Are you kidding? They're staked out in a place with a bar and
sandwich service. You won't get them shifting till tomorrow lunchtime,” Lindsay snorted.

As they tucked into a tomato and mozzarella salad, Sophie said, “By the way, there was a message for you back at the hotel. The people you got to do the search for Ian's will? They've got a copy of it, and they want to know where to fax it or send it.”

“That's it?” Lindsay asked in dismay. “No details?”

“Oh yes. Simple will, one beneficiary. Laura Margaret Craig.”

Lindsay smiled grimly. “I'm glad I was right. But even with that, they'll never nail her for Ian's murder. Too much time's gone by, and the evidence was never more than circumstantial at best.” Lindsay paused while their lasagne was placed in front of them.

“At least she can't wriggle out from under with Union Jack,” Sophie consoled her. “You did a great job there.”

Lindsay shrugged. “I had some pretty serious help,” she said through a mouthful of green salad.

“What I'm still not clear about is how so many details came to be published in Conference Chronicle. It can't have been Laura herself behind it, or that story about her being a Special Branch plant would never have seen the light of day.”

Lindsay frowned. “That's true. So how did they know I'd spotted her in the corridor? Who else had the remotest notion that I was interested in Laura?”

There was silence while they both chewed that over with their pasta. “Do you suppose . . .” Sophie started, then trailed off. Lindsay gave her an inquiring look. Sophie sighed. “It's just a thought. But loads of people knew you were nosing around into Union Jack's death. And anyone who's been around the union long enough to remember there was a curious death at the Blackpool conference would also probably remember that it was Laura Craig's ex-lover who died. When you said you'd been to Blackpool smack-bang in the middle of the conference office where anyone could have heard, then mentioned it in passing to dozens of other people . . . Well, anyone could have jumped to the conclusion that the link between the two deaths was Laura and guessed that she was your number one suspect. Don't forget, you and your
doings were hot gossip round the conference hall. It's not surprising it made it to the Conference Chronicle.”

Lindsay sighed. “You're right, I had forgotten.” She ate another mouthful, her face screwed up in distaste.

“Something wrong with your food?” Sophie asked.

Lindsay shook her head. “No. It's you. Sometimes you really piss me off.”

Sophie knew her lover too well to be offended. “Oh yeah? Just because I remembered you'd been shooting your big mouth off ?”

“No. Because I'm sitting here, congratulating myself on a job well done and you have to remind me that there's still a hulking great mystery floating around in the atmosphere. I still don't know who's behind Conference Chronicle, and now you've reminded me, it's going to bug the hell out of me.”

Sophie grinned. “It'll just have to remain one of the mysteries of the universe, won't it?”

Lindsay scowled. “Not necessarily.” Then her eyes twinkled in an evil grin. “After all, we've not left town yet.”

Sophie put her head in her hands and groaned. “Me and my big mouth. Why couldn't I have held my tongue till we were safely back in Glasgow?”

“Look at it this way. It's saved you having to drive all the way back. Let's go through this logically,” Lindsay said. “After the dramatic events of tonight, there's bound to be a Conference Chronicle tomorrow morning. So whoever is behind it has to be writing it and distributing it tonight. Okay so far?”

“Can't argue with that.”

“Thinking about it logically, they must be using a photocopier somewhere within the campus,” Lindsay went on slowly, thinking out loud.

“How do you work that one out?” Sophie asked.

“Elementary, my dear Hartley. At least one of the morning issues has featured events that didn't take place till late the night before. In other words, it happened way too late for any commercial operation to have done the copying. Which only leaves the conference center.”

“Unless someone's got one of those portable desktop computers.”

Lindsay shook her head obstinately. “The quality's too good. Besides, they cost more than your average conference delegate would be willing to spend just to make life a misery for a handful of union activists. There's also the sheer volume of paper the writer has gone through. Best place to hide a needle is a sewing-box, not a haystack. I'd still put my money on the conference center.”

“Surely if it was that easy, someone would have discovered who's responsible before now?” Sophie asked.

Lindsay shrugged. “Well, who would actually have bothered? Only the victims—everybody else was enjoying it too much. Besides, they wouldn't waste good drinking and bonking time in the pursuit of idle curiosity. And it was too late for the victims anyway.”

“So?”

“So get that lasagne down your neck. We've got an appointment with a photocopier.”

 

“I told you you're crazy,” Sophie muttered as she stumbled over another small shrub. The soft Yorkshire rain was inching down the inside of her jacket collar and she'd already stripped a layer of skin off her knuckles. She was closer than she'd ever been to falling out with Lindsay.

“There's got to be a way in,” Lindsay repeated, oblivious to Sophie's hostility, thrusting her way through the undergrowth that covered the steep slope behind the hexagonal building.

“Why? The place is all locked up. Everyone with any sense has gone home. The entire building is in darkness. It's ten o'clock at night. The editor of Conference Chronicle is almost certainly getting legless in a bar somewhere. Oh shit!” Sophie cannoned into Lindsay's back as she stumbled on the slope.

“There!” Lindsay exclaimed triumphantly. “An open window.” She pointed at a small frosted-glass window that was cracked open an inch.

“Oh whoopee,” Sophie groaned. “It's too high,” she added, giving the window a second look.

“Not if I climb on your shoulders,” Lindsay enthused. “Come on, over here.”

“You shouldn't go in by yourself,” Sophie protested uselessly as Lindsay dragged Sophie over to the wall and started to scramble up her body, depositing sticky yellow mud on her clothes as she went.

Lindsay prized the window open and gripped the sill. “Why the hell not?” she gasped as she pulled herself up, nearly kicking Sophie in the head as she struggled for leverage. “We're only talking one maverick journo here, not the Boston Strangler.”

As Lindsay hauled her upper body over the sill, Sophie recovered her breath and said, “Not necessarily. There is one other way Conference Chronicle could have known that Laura was in the right place at the right time to have been spotted by you and translated into prime suspect for Union Jack's murder.” Lindsay's legs suddenly stopped thrashing. “That's right, sweetheart. Whoever writes Conference Chronicle might just be Union Jack's real killer.”

Lindsay's voice, muffled by her position, floated back to Sophie. “We just passed a fire exit. About twenty feet back. I'll open it from the inside, okay?” She gave a final heave and pulled herself over the sill. There was an ominous crash, followed by, “Don't worry, I'm all right, I just knocked some chairs over.”

Lindsay groped round in the dark till she found a door and emerged into the gloom of a corridor dimly lit by emergency lighting. Cautiously, she headed in the direction of the fire door she'd spotted from the outside. Praying it wasn't alarmed, she pushed down on the bar and felt the door give. Sophie grabbed the edge and hauled it towards her, slipped inside then grabbed Lindsay in a tight hug. “I didn't mean to scare you,” she said.

“I know, I know, you just didn't want to miss the fun,” Lindsay mock-grumbled.

“I just like to keep you on your toes. What's the plan of action?”

Lindsay shrugged. “I guess we just wander round till we find our rogue photocopier.”

Sophie ran a hand through Lindsay's tousled hair. “That's what I love about you, Gordon,” she said fondly. “Always first on the block with a clear strategy.”

They moved down the silent corridors, trying to keep quiet. On the ground floor, the conference hall occupied the central area of the building, surrounded by a corridor. The opposite side of the corridor was lined with different sized offices, like a motley ring of covered wagons. It was easy to eliminate them simply by walking the corridors; there were no strips of light showing under doors, no telltale humming and paper-shunting of photocopiers to be heard. It took less than fifteen minutes for Sophie and Lindsay to be certain that wherever Conference Chronicle was being produced, it wasn't on the ground floor.

At the head of one of the flights of stairs to the basement floor, Sophie paused. “Sure this is wise?” she asked. “Maybe there was a silent alarm on that door. We could be living on borrowed time.”

“That's a chance I'm prepared to take,” Lindsay said. “I've come this far, I'm not bottling out now.”

The implication that her bottle had gone, clearly meant to sting Sophie into action, merely amused her. But the thought of Lindsay charging headlong and alone into a potentially explosive situation did persuade her to stick by her lover's side as she plunged down the stairs. “Into the valley of wossname,” she muttered under her breath as she followed.

The basement was home to medium-sized committee rooms and more small offices. As they turned the first corner at the foot of the stairs, both women stopped dead in their tracks. A slender shaft of light spilled on to the floor at their feet. And they could both hear the fast shuffle and hum of a state-of-the-art photocopier.

17

Lindsay was poised to indulge her taste for drama by flinging the door wide and leaping through it like the SAS when Sophie calmly gripped the handle and silently opened the door a crack. She peered through, then moved to one side to let an impatient Lindsay see beyond her. For a seemingly endless thirty seconds, Lindsay just stood and stared. Then she pushed the door open and stood silhouetted in the gap. “I don't believe I'm seeing this,” she said wonderingly.

The small office looked like a miniature business center. It contained a few desks, one with a PC, another with an Amstrad PCW, a third with an electronic typewriter, all firmly chained to the floor. A fax machine sat on a small side table, and against the far wall stood a photocopier, which was spitting out sheets of paper at an impressive speed. Standing by the photocopier, transfixed with shock, was a tall black woman with an immaculate Grace Jones flattop.