Val McDermid - Common Murder

“Then I moved to London and it seemed like everything changed. I realised how much of her life I just hadn’t been a part of. All the time she spent alone in London was filled with people I’ve got the square root of sod all in common with. They patronise the hell out of me because they think that being a tabloid hack is the lowest form of pond life.

“They treat me like I’m some brainless bimbo that Cordelia has picked up. And Cordelia just tells me to ignore it, they don’t count. Yet she still spends great chunks of her time with them. She doesn’t enjoy being with the people I work with, so she just opts out of anything I’ve got arranged with other hacks. And the few friends I’ve got outside the business go back to Oxford days; they go down well with Cordelia and her crowd, but I want more of my life than that. And it never seems the right time to talk about it.

“About once a fortnight, at the moment, I seriously feel like packing my bags and moving out. Then I remember all the good things about her and stay.”

Lindsay stopped abruptly and leaned over to refill her glass. She took another long drink and shivered as the spirit hit her. Deborah slowly massaged the knotted muscles at the back of her neck. “Poor Lin,” she said. “You do feel hard done by, don’t you? You never did understand how compromise can be a show of strength, did you?”

Lindsay frowned. “It’s not that. It just seems like me that’s made all the compromises-or sacrifices, more like.”

“But she has too. Suddenly, after years of living alone, doing one job where you really need your own space, she’s got this iconoclast driving a coach and horses through her routines, coming in at all hours of the day and night, thanks to her wonderful shift patterns, and hating the people she has to be nice to in order to keep a nice high profile in the literary world. It can’t be exactly easy for her either. It seems to me that she’s got the right idea-she’s doing what she needs to keep herself together.”

Lindsay looked hurt. “I never thought I’d hear you taking Cordelia’s side.”

“I’m not taking sides. And that reaction says it all, Lin,” Deborah said, a note of sharpness creeping into her voice.

“I’m trying to make you see things from her side. Listen, I saw you when the two of you had only been together for six months, and I saw you looking happier than I’d ever seen you. I love you like a sister, Lin, and I want to see you with that glow back. You’re not going to get it by whingeing about Cordelia. Talk to her about it. At least you’re still communicating in bed-build on that, for starters. Stop expecting her to be psychic. If she loves you, she won’t throw you out just because you tell her you’re not getting what you need from her.”

Lindsay sighed. “Easier said than done.”

“I know that. But you’ve got to try. It’s obviously not too late. If you were diving into bed with me to prove you still have enough autonomy to do it, I’d say you were in deep shit. But at least you’re not that far down the road. Now, come on, drink up and let’s get to bed. You can have Cara’s bunk if you can’t cope with sharing a bed with me and keeping your hands to yourself.”

“Now who’s being arrogant?”

Lindsay stood by the kettle waiting for it to boil, gazing at Deborah who lay languidly in a shaft of morning sunlight staring into the middle distance. After a night’s sleep, the clarity she had felt after the conversation with Deborah had grown fuzzy round the edges. But she knew deep down she wanted to put things right between her and Cordelia, and Deborah had helped her feel that was a possibility.

She made the coffee, and brought it over to Deborah. Lindsay sat on the top of the bed and put her arms round her friend. Lindsay felt at peace for the first time in months. “If things go wrong when it comes to court, I’d like to take care of Cara, if you’ll let me,” she murmured.

Deborah drew back, still holding Lindsay’s shoulders.

“But how could you manage that? With work and Cordelia and everything?”

“We’ve got a crèche for newspaper workers’ kids from nine till six every day. I can swap most of my shifts round to be on days, and I’m damn sure Cordelia will help if I need her to.”

Deborah shook her head disbelievingly. “Lindsay, you’re incredible. Sometimes I think you just don’t listen to the words that come out of your mouth. Last night, you were busily angsting about how to get your relationship with Cordelia back on an even keel. Now today you’re calmly talking about dumping your ex-lover’s child on her. What a recipe for disaster that would be! Look, it’s lovely of you to offer, and I know she’d be happy with you, but I hope that won’t be necessary. We’ll look at the possibilities nearer the time, and I’ll keep it in mind. What counts is what’s going to be best for her. Now, let’s go and get Cara, eh? She’ll be wondering where I am.” They found Cara with Jane, and after a bread and cheese lunch, the four of them went for a walk along the perimeter fence. Lindsay and Cara played tig and hide-and-seek among the trees while Jane and Deborah walked slowly behind, wrangling about the business of peace and the problems of living at Brownlow.

They made their way back to the camp, where the adults settled down in the meeting bender for a long session. Three hours later, it had been agreed that the women charged the day before should, if they were willing, opt for prison for the sake of publicity and that a picket should be set up at the gate of Holloway in their support. Jane offered to organise the picket. Lindsay thought gratefully that at least that way her friend could make a small escape without offending her conscience. It had been a stormy meeting, and Lindsay was glad when it was over. Even though she had, by now, experienced many of these talking-shops, she never failed to become slightly disillusioned at the destructive way women could fight against each other in spite of their common cause.

Deborah went off to collect Cara and put her to bed, and Lindsay joined Willow and Jackie and their friends in their bender. There were a couple of guitars, and soon the women were singing an assortment of peace songs, love songs, and nostalgic pop hits. Deborah joined them, and they sat close. Lindsay felt she couldn’t bear to wrench herself away from the sisterhood she felt round her. Sentimental fool, she thought to herself as she joined in the chorus of “I Only Want To Be With You.”

Just after ten, the jam session began to break up. Most of the women left for their own benders. Lindsay and Deborah followed. “I’m going to have a word with Jane about the Holloway picket,” said Lindsay. “You coming?”

“No, I’ll see you at the van.”

“Okay, I’ll not be long.”

Deborah vanished into the darkness beyond the ring of benders to where the van was parked near the road. Lindsay headed for Jane’s makeshift surgery and found the harassed doctor sorting through a cardboard box of pharmaceutical samples that a sympathetic GP had dropped off that evening. She stopped at once, pleased to see Lindsay in spite of her tiredness and began to explain the picket plans. Although Lindsay was itching to get back to Deborah, it was after eleven when she finally set off to walk the fifty yards to the van.

The first thing that caught her eye as she moved beyond the polythene tents was bright lights. Now that the army had cleared the ground round the perimeter fence, it was possible to see the temporary arc lights from quite a distance. That in itself wasn’t extraordinary as workmen occasionally sneaked in a night shift to avoid the picketing women.

She stopped dead as she caught sight of three figures approaching the camp, silhouetted against the dim glow from the barracks inside the fence. Two were uniformed policemen, no prizes for spotting that. The third was a tall, blond man she had noticed in the area a couple of times before. Her journalistic instinct had put him down as Special Branch. She was gratified to find that instinct vindicated. She glanced around, but the only other women in sight were far off by a campfire. Most of them had already gone to bed.