V. McDermid - Final Edition

‘Can I get you a drink?’ Claire asked.

‘No thanks,’ Lindsay replied. She might have to take Claire’s money, but she was damned if she would accept anything that fell outside the ambit of a purely professional relationship. At least Cordelia wasn’t here to churn up her emotions again, she thought with a mixture of relief and regret. ‘So, you said that Jackie wants my help,’ she added, perching on the edge of a pine-framed armchair.

Claire pushed her glasses up her nose in a nervous gesture. ‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘Look, before we start, I just wanted to apologise for last night. I realise it must have been something of a shock for you, and I’m sorry if I was less than helpful.’

Lindsay shrugged. ‘What exactly did Jackie want me to do?’

Claire was clearly unsettled by Lindsay’s ungracious response to her apology, and walked over to the window to stare out at the mist-shrouded water. ‘She thought you could establish her innocence.’

‘But why? What made her think I could succeed where the police and her own lawyers had failed? Surely if there had been anything to go on you would have hired a private detective before the trial.’

Having recovered her poise, Claire turned back and sat down on the edge of the sofa. Lindsay couldn’t help picturing Cordelia curled up there beside her, watching television or just talking. She pushed the bitter thought aside and forced herself to listen to Claire. ‘We didn’t go to a conventional private detective because Jackie didn’t believe that we’d find one who would genuinely be on our side. I have to say that in my experience professionally with the breed, I wouldn’t expect to find one who was sympathetic to a gay woman. Jackie thought you’d believe her. And she thought you’d have a vested interest in finding out the truth. She knew about your own affair with Alison, knew you’d understand what she’d been put through.’

Lindsay lit a cigarette without her usual courtesy of asking permission first. Claire leapt to her feet, saying, ‘I’ll get you an ashtray.’ She disappeared through another door and returned moments later with an ostentatiously large crystal ashtray. Lindsay felt that using it would be like shouting in a museum. Claire placed it on the occasional table next to Lindsay’s chair and said, ‘Well, will you help? She didn’t do it, you know.’ There was a note of desperation in her voice that touched Lindsay in spite of herself.

Wearily, Lindsay nodded. ‘I’ll do what I can,’ she said. ‘My daily rate is £100 plus expenses. I’d expect a week’s payment in advance, as a retainer,’ she added quickly, amazed at how easily it came out.

Claire’s eyebrows rose. ‘Cordelia didn’t seem to think you’d expect to be paid,’ she said coolly. ‘But I’m used to paying for professional services. In return, I expect full reports on what you are doing.’ Claire opened her briefcase and swiftly wrote a cheque for £700. She handed it to Lindsay with a look of contempt.

‘That goes without saying,’ Lindsay replied. She glanced at the cheque and noted it was drawn on the JM Defence Account. Claire might be happy to splash out on maintaining her own high-flying image, but clearly a private detective wasn’t considered a designer accessory, Lindsay thought with a spurt of anger. She took a deep breath before she spoke. ‘Now, before we go any further, I want you to tell me everything you know about the events leading up to the murder.’ Lindsay took a notebook out of her shoulder bag to take down Claire’s words in her rusty shorthand.

Claire took a deep breath and went back to her vantage point at the window. ‘We’d been having a difficult time. We’d been together just over five years, and I suppose we’d started taking each other for granted. I had only recently been made a partner in my firm, and I was bringing a lot of work home. And Jackie was busier than ever. So many new magazines have been launched in the last couple of years, and they’re all hungry for strong, well-written features. But I was too absorbed in my own problems to notice the strain she was under. I suppose that was Alison’s appeal for her. Alison was in the same business, and they could talk shop together. I know Jackie had a lot of professional respect for Alison.’ Claire sighed deeply and walked across to a tray with a decanter and glasses. She poured herself a careful inch of Scotch, turning to Lindsay and saying, ‘Sure you won’t have one?’

Lindsay shook her head. ‘Go on,’ she probed.

Claire paced the floor. ‘It was the old, old story. I was the last to know. It had apparently been going on for about two months when I found out.’

‘How did you find out?’ Lindsay asked gently. She couldn’t help herself. Even with a woman she instinctively disliked so much, she still slipped straight into the persona of the professionally sympathetic interviewer.

‘I usually went to bed before Jackie. One night, I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to make myself a cup of cocoa. I came through from the bedroom and I could hear Jackie’s voice. It wasn’t that I was eavesdropping, I just couldn’t help overhearing. She was clearly having an intimate conversation with someone …’ Claire’s voice tailed off, and she traced the pattern on the crystal glass with one long fingernail.

‘What made you think it was the sort of intimate conversation you have with lovers?’ Lindsay probed.

‘For want of a better way of putting it, she was talking dirty to someone,’ Claire said with a look of distaste. ‘I was completely stunned. The idea of her having a lover had never once crossed my mind, can you believe it?’

‘Oh, I can believe it all right,’ Lindsay said, pushing the thought of Cordelia away again. ‘But how did you find out it was Alison? Did you confront Jackie then and there?’

‘I didn’t know what to do, so I crept back to bed. When she finally came through, I waited till she’d fallen asleep, then I got up and pressed the last number redial button on the phone. I got Alison Maxwell’s answering machine. The following evening, I confronted Jackie with it, and she admitted it immediately. It was almost as if it was a relief to her.’ Claire took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. ‘We had a very traumatic evening. A lot of tears, a lot of talking. At the end of it, we decided that there was still too much between us to finish it. Jackie agreed that she would stop seeing Alison. And as far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. Two days later, I came home to find Jackie in tears. She told me she’d been to see Alison to break it off, but that Alison had been completely unreasonable. She had threatened to tell me all sorts of lies about what they had done together, and to destroy Jackie’s career. Jackie was in a hell of a state. Before we could sort anything out between us, the police arrived and arrested her.’ Claire stopped pacing and stared at Lindsay in mute misery. The cool lawyer’s façade had vanished completely. ‘It was only later that I discovered that Alison and Jackie had been to bed together that afternoon. I know it sounds absurd, but I was more upset over her lying to me about that than I was about her being accused of the murder.’

‘So instead of pledging yourself to wait for her, you jumped into bed with Cordelia. Very supportive,’ Lindsay said, fighting the sympathy she was beginning to feel for Claire with her anger at Cordelia.

‘That’s not fair,’ Claire protested angrily. ‘It wasn’t like that. Neither of us planned what happened.’

Lindsay ignored Claire’s response and asked, ‘Is there anything more you can tell me that might shed some light? Did Jackie mention anyone else in connection with Alison?’

Claire shook her head. ‘No. You’ll need to ask Jackie all the details of what actually happened that afternoon,’ she grimaced. ‘Ever the lawyer, you see, I’m not giving you any hearsay evidence. I’ll also speak to Jackie’s lawyer, Jim Carstairs, so you can have access to all the legal papers. Remember – what I’m interested in is getting Jackie freed. To do that, you don’t have to provide definitive proof against any individual. You simply have to come up with enough new evidence to cast reasonable doubt on the conviction.’