Deadline for Murder (10 page)

Blair stroked his moustache and stared into his beer. "Tell you the truth, everybody was so busy going 'Fancy that!' over the shock horror revelations about Jackie that nobody else's name was mentioned. Whoever else Alison was seeing, nobody from the
Clarion
was putting their hand up. Mind you, after she got Jimmy Mills frozen out of the sports desk, everybody steered pretty clear of her."

"I didn't hear about that. What happened with Jimmy Mills?"

"It happened about a year after you went off to London. Alison's version was that Jimmy gave her a lift home after a party, came up for coffee, and raped her. She said she wasn't going to make a complaint to the police because she didn't want him to lose his wife and kids. Jimmy's version was that he'd been having an affair with her, but she'd cooled off and spread that tale to get him off her back. Jimmy had been doing regular shifts on the racing desk, but every time he was in the office when she was there, she would burst into tears and head for the loo. Eventually, the sports department decided they could do without the aggro and gave Jimmy the bullet. He was well pissed off about it."

"I can see why the lads were steering clear," Lindsay mused. "Look, Blair, if you remember anything else that might be useful, give me a bell."

"Okay. And I'll see what I can dig up about the Jedburgh affair." He got to his feet. "I'd better be getting back. Some of us have got jobs to go to," he teased.

Lindsay finished her drink and got to her feet. She'd been glad to see Blair, but she was equally glad to see him go. The envelope was burning a hole in her pocket, and she was desperate to explore its secrets. The key to Alison's death was in her hands now, she felt certain.

Thank God for infatuation, Lindsay thought, as she sprawled across the bed in Sophie's spare room. If it hadn't been for her initial obsession with Alison, she'd never have known about the existence of the envelope and its contents. She sipped a glass of whisky and water. Sophie had instantly understood when Lindsay told her she didn't feel like discussing her Special Branch ordeal. She'd simply poured her a large drink and left her to herself.

Lindsay studied the envelope, tantalising herself before she opened it. It looked just like the one she'd discovered years before when, on fire with lust for Alison, she'd spent half of one night shift avidly reading every word her new lover had ever had published in the Scottish
Daily Clarion
. The contents of the envelope had shocked Lindsay, then amused her. But it was from the moment she understood the implications of what Alison had written that Lindsay dated her ultimate disillusionment.

At the time, it had seemed a strange place to leave a document of this sort. Lindsay had eventually come to the conclusion that Alison had hidden it there to avoid accidental discovery by anyone who regularly visited her flat. Anyone routinely looking something up in her byline file would almost certainly have ignored it as journalists trawling through the files would only be looking for a specific story, it was only Lindsay's obsession with Alison that had driven her to open the envelope.

She supposed she should have left it where it was. Tampering with the evidence, Ainslie would doubtless call it. But if Alison had stuck to her old habits, the contents would be in her handwriting. There could be no dispute about their author. Lindsay pulled on a pair of thin leather driving gloves and opened the envelope. Carefully, to avoid destroying any existing prints, she removed its contents with a pair of eyebrow tweezers, then unfolded the thin sheets of airmail paper.

With a sigh of satisfaction, Lindsay surveyed Alison's secret dossier. There were about ten sheets of paper, all except the final page completely covered in the tiny neat handwriting that Lindsay recognised immediately. She turned straight to the last page. The final entry, dated the day before her death, began "Ocz kjgdodxvg kjovoj: rdoc rcvo d xvi kmjqz do rjio ws gjib ijr!" and continued for another couple of lines. Lindsay crossed her fingers and prayed that Alison was still using the same simple alphabetic cypher that she'd used when they'd been lovers.

Lindsay turned back to the first page, which dated from six years previously. She'd be in this dossier somewhere, she knew. When she'd first found the document, she'd hastily photocopied it and taken it home to study at her leisure. The code Alison used hadn't taken much working out. It had been obvious to Lindsay that Alison's secret file was some kind of record of her sexual adventuring. It had seemed a strangely childish game to Lindsay. It was almost as if by committing it to paper in this way, Alison was proving something to herself about her desirability. Although Lindsay hadn't fully understood the reasons for it at the time, she now saw it as an expression of a deep-rooted personal insecurity, an emotional stunting that had left Alison trapped in adolescence.

But merely cracking the code hadn't been the answer. Translating the jumble of letters into proper English words had simply provided Lindsay with another problem. For Alison was too shrewd to leave an incriminating record of proper names. Instead, she referred to her lovers by nicknames, or where they were part of an established couple, in relation to their partners. It was often snide, seldom flattering to her conquests. Often, there were references to people before they actually became her lovers, showing each step in her campaign to include them among the notches on her bedhead. Each nickname was preceded by a date, and sometimes by a time and place. It was often followed by a comment on their performance or personality, and each neat entry ended with the ultimate childishness in Lindsay's eyes-a mark out of ten. Even the fact that Alison had given her 8.8 didn't vindicate the system for Lindsay.

She rubbed her tired eyes and put the papers to one side. She was too weary tonight for the close work involved in translating the dossier. Tomorrow, she'd get up bright and early and go down to the local print shop to make photostats of the sheets. That would save the originals from more handling than was strictly necessary. Then she could work her way through the list and see where that took her.

Lindsay rolled off the bed and undressed, leaving her clothes in a pile on the floor, too tired even to throw them on a chair. She swallowed the remains of her drink in one and crawled between the sheets. She turned out the light and started to review her day. But she was asleep before she even got as far as the prison gates.

"I spent today decoding the entries. Here's a copy of the original, and here's a copy of my version of it. I've used highlighter pens to mark the ones that I think might have some relevance to my inquiries. As you'll see, about seventy percent of her lovers were men, the rest women. Interestingly enough, although she often had several male lovers on the go concurrently, she usually stuck to one woman at a time." Lindsay handed the sheets of paper to Claire.

She had arranged a meeting with her employer to discuss her progress so far and to see if Claire could shed some light on the problem entries she'd uncovered. Lindsay had not bargained for Cordelia's presence at the meeting, and she felt distinctly uncomfortable at the sight of her former lover leaning over Claire's shoulder examining her work. They looked right together, she thought bitterly, in their designer jogging suits and trainers. Cordelia really had come home at last.

"What a weirdo!" Cordelia exclaimed as she read the entries. "But how can we be sure that this is accurate? How do you know she didn't just make it all up?"

Lindsay blushed. "The implication has to be that she told it like it was. If you'll take a look at the third page, there are several entries relating to me. Splash, she calls me. As far as I can recollect, her comments are accurate, if somewhat bitchy."

"Why Splash?" asked Claire, flicking through to the relevant section. As she reached it her eyebrows rose. She shoved her glasses up her nose and looked up questioningly.

"I suppose because Lindsay was being a little megastar and always getting the front page at the time. You know, Claire, the front page is the splash. That's right, isn't it?" Cordelia said, the smile on her wide mouth failing to reach her grey eyes. Lindsay said nothing, while Cordelia read the sentences Claire pointed out to her with her pen. Cordelia giggled. "Only 8.8, Lindsay? I thought you reckoned you were at least eleven out of ten!"

"Like wine, I've improved with age," Lindsay retorted caustically, feeling herself blush in spite of herself. "I'd like to get down to the business at hand... If you'll turn to the second-last page, you'll see the first entry which I interpret as relating to Jackie."

"The legal eagle's eager beaver: easier than I thought to get her to break the rules! 7.2." Is that the one you mean?" Claire asked bleakly. Her small, neat features looked pinched and she seemed to hunch into herself.

Lindsay nodded. She was beginning to feel sympathy for Claire. She knew how much she'd have hated it if their positions had been reversed, and she'd been hearing this about Cordelia. She wished there was a less embarrassing way of dealing with Alison's diary but forced herself to press on. "If you look further down, you'll see another half-dozen entries over the next couple of months. The last one, made a couple of days before her death, says, "Spent all afternoon doing very traditional things with champagne. She's less fun than I expected. Still a bit of mileage, though. 6.8." That must have been the afternoon before you overheard the phone call. It certainly undercuts the prosecution's argument that Alison was desperate to hang on to Jackie." Catching Claire's look of distaste, she added, "I'm sorry if this is very painful. But I think it might hold the key."

Claire nodded sadly. "I understand that." She took a deep breath and visibly pulled herself together, flicking her hair away from her face. "I just find the whole thing deeply sick. Most people grow out of that sort of silly childishness by their early teens. Alison Maxwell must have been really screwed up. But I still can't forgive the way she screwed up other People to make herself feel better. Now, Lindsay, what do you make of these other entries? And why have you picked them out in particular?"

"I've disregarded the bulk of the entries because they relate to affairs that ended at Alison's instigation when she had grown tired of the individual. Once she had decided it was the end of the line, that was it, you see. No recriminations, no exposure, just goodnight Vienna. And I've set aside for now any of the ones where she was clearly not happy with the outcome but where she seems to have taken no action. I've marked ones where she appears to have done something to cause damage to the person who upset her. Those people might reasonably be deemed to have some kind of grudge. I've also left ones that were still current at the time of her death."

Claire nodded, completely restored to her brisk, cool legal persona. "Fine. Can we go through these now?" Cordelia, obviously feeling left out of the conversation, got to her feet and refilled everyone's glasses with chilled Chardonnay.

"Thanks," Lindsay acknowledged curtly. "Starting in reverse order. The very last entry is one I am completely confounded by 'The political hot potato. With what I can prove, it won't be long now. Let's hope for some originality between the sheets!' I haven't the faintest idea who that refers to. But then, it's three years since I spent any time with Alison. It's unlikely that I would know."

"It looks as if it's someone she hadn't actually slept with yet, since there's no rating," Cordelia chipped in.

"You could be right," Lindsay agreed reluctantly. "What I propose, Claire, is that if you don't understand any of these references either, I'll discuss them with Jackie to see if she's got any ideas."

Claire nodded. "I can't imagine that many of them would mean much to me, but I'll certainly try to help. But what about your former colleagues at the
Clarion
? Surely they might have a better idea?"

"I'd already thought of that," Lindsay said. "It's a distinct possibility, which I've got covered. I don't want to raise your hopes, though. Anyone who was having an affair with Alison at the time of her death has had plenty of time to cover their tracks, don't forget. Now, if we could get started? 'Ali and his technicolour dream ceiling. He's starting to feel too secure. Time his cage was rattled a little. 6.3.' I rather think that might refer to Alistair Anderson."

"The painter?" Claire asked, surprise showing in her blue eyes.

"That's right. He was an old buddy of Alison's. She used to use him as a public escort when she needed a man on her arm. He painted the mural on her bedroom wall, and he did one on Ruth and Antonis' ceiling. Their sexual relationship was still current."

Claire shook her head, bemused. "I know Alistair. He wouldn't hurt a fly. Unless..."

"Unless what?" Cordelia demanded, settling herself down on the sofa next to Claire and reaching out for her hand.

"Unless someone was trying to stop him painting, I suppose."

"If you know him, why don't you see what you can do by way of checking him out?" Lindsay said. "I only ever met him once at a party, so I've no excuse for talking to him, really."

"How on earth do I do that?" Claire asked. "I thought that's what I was paying you for."

"It would be easy," Cordelia interjected, seeing Lindsay's angry flush and knowing how near an explosion was. "Don't forget, Claire, I know Lindsay's methods," she added lightly.

"We could invite him round for dinner, work the conversation round to Alison's death and ask him if he remembers what he was doing at the time, all very casually, a bit like the what-were-you-doing-when-Kennedy-was-shot conversation."

Claire shrugged doubtfully. "I suppose so. Well, Lindsay, what other little jobs do you have for me?"

"There's one I've marked on the last page. 'Davina's Duck. Wonder when he's going to settle his account? I told him I'd make him pay for flaunting her under my nose, and I meant it. 7.1.' Mean anything to you?"

Claire nodded slowly. "Davina and Donald Mottram, I suspect. Donald's an accountant with Porterhouse's. Davina was very into the arts. I've seen them at a few openings and parties where Alison was, too. But they split up a few weeks ago. Davina ran off with Bill Herd the ethnologist to some South Pacific island. I wonder if that had anything to do with Alison's death?"

"One way to find out," Lindsay said. "I know Donald Mottram slightly. Rosalind went out with his brother once. I can check that one out. Next is 'Macho the Knife. Brought his work into the bedroom. All that was missing were the stirrups to stir me up.' He didn't score too well, either. A mere 5. And she makes a snide remark later about his wife having to nurse his ego, which might mean he's married to a nurse. He sounds like a gynaecologist to me. And one of their encounters took place at GWI, which I take to be the Western Infirmary. I'll ask Sophie if she can think of anyone there who might fit the bill. But I've saved the best--or the worst, depending on your point of view--till last. Look at the one I've highlighted in blue."

"Greek God. She'll never sell a work of art that wonderful. 8.4," Cordelia read out.

"That's the one. It can only refer to Antonis Makaronas," Lindsay said.

"Who is...?" Claire asked.

"Ruth Menzies' husband. Ruth was Alison's best friend. Ruth runs an art gallery off Byres Road. They live in the flat above Alison's. And as you'll no doubt remember, at Jackie's trial, Ruth gave evidence that she was in the flat that afternoon. I don't know if Antonis was at home, or how long Ruth claims she was there for. Ruth met Antonis a couple of years ago when she was on a business trip in Greece. He was a self-styled writer playing bouzouki in a taverna to make ends meet. It was love at first sight, at least on Ruth's side. They were married days later, and Ruth came home with a suntan and a husband. She supports them both while he supposedly is writing the Great European Novel. Except that it now looks like he was running his fingers over Alison rather than a word processor keyboard. It's got to be one hell of a motive for both of them. If I was a gambling woman, I'd be giving very short odds on one of that pair as my chief suspect."

Claire smiled grimly. "You've certainly come up with some interesting leads. Well done."

"Thanks," Lindsay said drily. "There's also someone who used to work at the
Clarion
with an axe to grind against Alison. A guy called Jimmy Mills. Alison made some extremely unpleasant allegations about him, and he lost all his shifts on the sports desk as a result. I'll be checking that out too."

Before Lindsay could say more the phone rang, and Claire jumped to her feet. "Excuse me," she said, hurrying out of the room. "I'm expecting a call from a client. I won't be long."

Left alone with Cordelia, Lindsay felt wrong-footed. She stood up and picked up her jacket. "I'd better be going anyway," she said awkwardly. "I'll just wait and see if Claire's got anything else to say, then I'll be on my way."

"Don't rush off," Cordelia said, getting to her feet. "Look, Lindsay, I know this is all a bit difficult, but I want us to stay friends. I'd hoped that if I could help you by working with you on this business that maybe we could build some bridges."

"I think we've burned all our bridges, don't you?" Lindsay said bitterly, walking over to study one of the quilted wall-hangings. "Besides, you seem to get along much better without me. Judging by what the critics have to say about the new book, I'd say that my departure was the best thing that ever happened to you, professionally speaking."

"Have you read it yet?" Cordelia asked, moving towards her.

Lindsay deliberately walked away from her, putting a sofa between the two of them. Her face felt as if the muscles had seized and it seemed to take an extraordinary effort to speak. "No," she said. "I guess I got used to getting complimentary copies of Cordelia Brown books. I haven't got back into the habit of actually buying them."

Cordelia flushed and then frowned. Somehow, she kept her voice even and friendly. "I haven't got any spare copies here, but I'll let you have one when I get back to London," she said.

"Don't bother. I'm sure I can afford a copy, on what Claire's paying me," Lindsay retorted sharply, not trusting herself to be anything other than combative. "You really don't owe me anything, Cordelia."

"That's not true, you know that." Whatever Cordelia might have been going to say was lost as Claire walked back into the room.

The awkward silence that greeted her brought an angry frown to her face. Her eyes glittered behind her glasses, and she moved swiftly to Cordelia's side. "Are you off, then?" she demanded.

Lindsay nodded. "I've got work to do. I'll speak to you as soon as I've got anything to report. Let me know how you get on with Alistair," she said abruptly. "I'll see myself out."

Lindsay rushed out of the flat and ran down the stairs. Catching her breath in the street outside, she was overwhelmed by the desire to kick and punch and gouge someone, anyone, but preferably Claire bloody Ogilvie. Shaking with emotion, she slumped in her car seat. When was she going to stop loving Cordelia?