Conferences are Murder (7 page)

A dull ache had started behind her eyes. The classic whisky hangover was starting to bite. Lindsay had learned at an early age the technique of drinking large quantities of whisky without becoming either aggressively drunk, maudlin or catatonic. She'd also learned that there was only one way of dealing with the after-effects. Two pints of cold tap-water. Then ten hours sleep followed by a substantial meal—preferably the traditional Scottish New Year's Day dinner of steak pie, mashed potatoes and peas, followed by sherry trifle.

They did things very differently in California. Now, on the rare occasions when Lindsay had more than a couple of drinks, it was more likely to be white wine spritzers. And the morning-after cure consisted of a handful of vitamins washed down with a liter of fizzy mineral water. Lindsay shuddered. She should be kicking down the door of this cell, demanding a lawyer right this minute. Somehow, she just couldn't summon up the energy. Instead, she swung her feet up on to the bed and lay back. She closed her eyes, placed her hands palm down on the rough blanket and breathed deeply. Area by area, she deliberately relaxed her muscles, mentally repeating, “I love and approve of myself, right where I am.” Within five minutes, the pain had eased.

Cautiously, she opened her eyes. The light in its mesh cage seemed painfully bright, so she closed them again. One of the reasons she'd left Britain was because she'd had one too many close encounters with police interviewing techniques. Because her investigative journalism had once poked the authorities in the eye with a sharp stick, it had become clear to her that she was always going to be top of the list when the command came to “round up the usual suspects.” It wasn't a role she relished.
Moving to California might have been a leap into the dark, but at least the cops wouldn't be breathing down her neck every time something criminal happened within a mile of her.

Their relationship had only just begun to find its rhythm and shape when Sophie had been offered the sort of opportunity that comes along only a couple of times in a consultant gynecologist's career. A leading hospital in San Francisco was head-hunting an experienced team to staff a new unit, and Sophie's work in Glasgow with HIV positive mothers-to-be made her the ideal choice. She had leaped at the chance and Lindsay, only too glad to escape the bitter memories Glasgow now held for her, had chosen to trust enough to go too.

They'd moved into a wood-framed house above the beach, an hour's drive from the city, with a view of the Pacific that made Lindsay feel instantly at home. The best times in her life had been lived by the sea. First, growing up in a small Scottish village on the Atlantic coast. Later, learning to be a journalist in the cozy picture-postcard world of Cornwall. And later still, escaping from the security services' awkward questions and restoring herself to sanity in a humble and repetitive daily routine on the Adriatic coast. For the first few weeks in America, she'd been happy to put her mind on hold again while she sanded and sealed floors, stripped and painted woodwork and walls, and learned the basics of surfing. She'd hardly even begun to get to know San Francisco in all its glorious charm. Then suddenly, she'd woken one morning, alert and restless, needing to find something that would give her the same fulfilment that Sophie found in her harrowing role at the hospital.

Strangely, she found it in passing on the very skills she'd declared redundant in herself. Although she knew she could never again be a working journalist, Lindsay had never doubted her abilities. Her background in mainstream newspaper journalism coupled with her single foray into enemy territory, treading on the toes of the security services, made her the ideal choice for the job she landed as a university lecturer in journalism and media studies. Although she'd been apprehensive about moving into the world of higher education, it had been less of a shock
to the system than she had anticipated. University life in California couldn't have been more different from the memories of her own student days at Oxford. Somehow, Lindsay couldn't imagine her former tutors in Bermuda shorts, playing volleyball at a Sunday afternoon beach barbecue.

The one fly in the ointment was the pressure to pile up qualifications and publications. Publish or be damned was an expression that could have been coined for her new world instead of her old one, Lindsay often thought. But when she'd chosen to write a doctoral thesis researching women's roles in the trade union movement, she hadn't expected it to be a straight road back to a police interrogation.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the door opening. Lindsay's eyes snapped open and focused on the woman who had just walked in. She was tall to start with, but the three-inch stilettos she had chosen put her near six feet. Her hair was short and neat, emphasizing the kind of bone structure that has generated the fashion industry's demand for striking black models. Her skin was the color of copper beech leaves in summer. Lindsay took in a pair of sharply tailored trousers in hounds-tooth check, a black matador jacket and a spotless white blouse open at the neck. Lindsay jumped to her feet. “You must be my solicitor,” she said as the woman moved towards her.

The solicitor shook her hand and perched on the edge of the bed. “Right. I'm Jennifer Okido,” she said.

Lindsay shuddered at the thought of how she must appear to this woman who couldn't have looked less like she'd been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. “Lindsay Gordon,” she said. “Sorry you had to be called out so early.”

“It's no problem, Ms. Gordon. I'm used to it. There aren't many firms in the city who do criminal work any longer, thanks to the Legal Aid changes. We're the largest, and I'm the senior criminal partner. By the way, I'm sorry about this, but we'll have to talk in here. Since the Strangeways riots, our police stations are so overcrowded with remand prisoners that there are no more secure interview rooms. They've all become holding cells. Now, if I can just sort out some details?” She took a pad from
her briefcase and moved swiftly through the formalities. “So what brings you back to Britain?” the solicitor asked.

Lindsay ran a hand through her hair and pulled a wry face. “I'm beginning to wonder myself,” she said. “My doctoral thesis is a study of how women have worked within the trade union movement to achieve changes in media attitudes towards them. That's why I came back for the Amalgamated Media Workers' Union's first annual conference. Years ago I used to be active in the Journalists' Union, which has been swallowed up by the new union, and I needed to talk to people who were involved in the equality struggles of the seventies and eighties. I thought that coming to the conference would be a good way of catching several of them in the same place.”

Jennifer nodded as she jotted notes with a shiny silver fountain pen. “And you arrived here when?”

Lindsay closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Monday afternoon,” she said.

 

The foyer of Wilberforce Hall was buzzing. But the focus of attention wasn't the long trestle table where arriving delegates were registered and supplied with their conference packs. It was the photocopied A4 sheets that the earlier arrivals were waving under the noses of their friends and acquaintances as soon as they put their noses across the threshold. As Lindsay joined the queue, the pony-tailed young man behind her was accosted by a woman in her mid-forties.

“Have you seen this, Liam?” the woman demanded in a harsh Ulster accent. “It's outrageous! Look what they're saying about Fearghal O'Donovan!”

Lindsay sneaked a look over the young man's shoulder as he took the brandished sheet of paper. She read:

Lindsay reached the end of the piece ahead of the young man. She couldn't keep a smile from her lips. There were a lot
of journalists who'd be walking round with sanctimonious smirks on their faces when they saw that. All their wild claims about the corruption and nepotism of the traditional print unions would be vindicated by that one anonymous article. The air would be thick with the sound of “I told you so.”

“Sure, they can't prove a thing, so,” the young man protested in the softer Dublin accent. “They shouldn't be let away with the likes of this, though. Fearghal'll be biting the carpet. Where did you get it?”

The woman, red-faced in her anger, said, “It was shoved under my bedroom door. Everybody's got one. It's a scandal, so it is.”

“Who's behind it?” the young man asked, handing the sheet back as the queue moved forward.

“It'll be them bloody journalists, trying to run everything their way. As if it's not enough that their man got the general secretary job, they have to stoop to telling lies about a decent man who'll stand up to them.” She was building up a fine head of steam. Lindsay hoped the woman wouldn't round on her and demand to know which sector of the union she belonged to.

“What's Fearghal saying to it?” the young man asked.

The woman snorted. “Let me tell you, that man's a saint. He's gone to see Standing Orders Sub-Committee about an emergency motion to clear his name. And in the face of this,” she added, waving the offending article, “I don't doubt they'll see things his way. I've never seen the like, not in all my years as a union official. What we've got to do is, we've got to organize a proper investigation into who's doing this.”

The young man shrugged. “It'd be a waste of time, Brid. Anybody could have done it.”

“Only someone with access to a photocopier,” she said triumphantly.

“Brid, think about it. There must be half a hundred places in a city the size of Sheffield where you can get photocopying done. If it is a journalist, they could have pals on the local paper who are only too happy to run them off copies in the office. Plus, don't forget, you can get these wee portable ones now, just
the size of a briefcase. I bet half the journalists here, if they haven't got one, they'd know where to hire one from. It'd be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“I don't know what this union's coming to,” the woman said. She continued grumbling, but Lindsay tuned her out, scanning the room for anyone she knew. She was dying to find someone who could fill her in on all the latest gossip. She had enough experience of the internecine war-fare of union politics to know that Conference Chronicle would be the one topic of conversation in the bars that night. There would be plenty of candidates for the position of scapegoat, she felt sure.

It was a long time since Lindsay had watched a witch-hunt. This time, she wanted a front row seat.

2

Jennifer crossed her legs and propped her notepad on her thigh. Lindsay had fallen silent. “It would be helpful if you could run through what's happened since you got here,” she said, gently.

Lindsay rubbed a hand over her face and muttered, “Sorry. I'm shattered. Monday. Well, I hadn't even signed in before I saw the first issue of Conference Chronicle. The place was jumping. I kept having conversations with people I hadn't seen for five years that all began, ‘Lindsay! It's been ages. Have you
seen
Conference Chronicle?' ”

 

She'd been deep in thought when a loud shriek closely followed by a bear-hug brought her sharply back to the here and now. Kathy Dean, a civil service press officer, was bouncing up and down in front of her. “Lindsay!” she yelped. “Lindsay Gordon! Is it really you? Hey, no one said you were coming! Are you back for good?”

Lindsay shook her head. “Just for conference. I'm only here as an observer.”

“It's great to see you,” Kathy said with a wide smile. “It's
been . . . what? Three years since you were last at conference. And judging by this,” she continued, waving a copy of Conference Chronicle, “it's not going to be short of controversy.”

“I've seen it,” Lindsay admitted. “I don't remember anything this wild in my days as a young radical.”

“I tell you, when they find out who's responsible, I'm going to hire them to come and work in my department and produce scurrilous gossip sheets about my bosses,” Kathy said with a chuckle. “Look, I've got to run now, Lindsay, but it's great to see you. The bar tonight?”