V. McDermid - Final Edition

Cordelia, who has never visited South Africa, admitted, ‘I was terrified that I wouldn’t get it right. I was aware of the sensitivities around this issue, and I didn’t want to be seen as another white liberal trying to hijack a subject I knew nothing about from personal experience. But although I haven’t gone through the traumas myself, I could relate very strongly to the emotions and the responses of the characters. I knew a lot about South Africa from reading and talking to Black people who had escaped from the regime, and I drew heavily on what they’d told me.’

News to me, thought Lindsay self-critically. She couldn’t remember Cordelia ever showing more than the general interest expected of a right-on feminist in the whole issue of racial oppression. Had she really known so little about what was going on in her lover’s mind?

With another deep sigh, she read on.

Not only has Cordelia got it right, she’s won plaudits from a wide spectrum of Black activists and writers, who privately have expressed their astonishment that a white writer could have written so passionate and accurate an exposé of the grim truth of life in the RSA.

Lindsay signalled for another cappuccino and quickly read on to the end of the article. To her relief, there was no mention of her and the spy scandal that had led to her exile. It would have been an obvious point for the interviewer to pick up on, given its tenuous parallels with Cordelia’s plot. Maybe it really had been the nine-day wonder Cordelia had predicted. If that was the case, then there truly was no reason why she shouldn’t go home. Or maybe it was simply that Cordelia had excised her so thoroughly from her life that she had insisted on no mention of Lindsay’s name. After all, what right had Lindsay to assume that Cordelia would want her back?

There was only one way to find out. Lindsay carefully folded up her paper, got to her feet and took the first step on the road home.

Glasgow, Scotland, February 1990

‘I always maintained that Glasgow was the only truly European city in Britain,’ Lindsay stated smugly as she stared out of the taxi window at the rows of sandblasted tenements glowing yellow in the streetlights. ‘But I didn’t realise till now how right I was.’

‘Listen to it,’ muttered her companion. ‘Nine months in Italy and suddenly she’s an expert on European culture.’ Eight years of friendship had given Sophie Hartley the right to snipe at Lindsay’s occasional pomposity and she never hesitated.

‘Listen,’ Lindsay argued. ‘Nothing you’ve told me about this wine bar we’re heading for sounds British to me. A place where writers, actors, lawyers and politicians go to drink good wine, eat serious food and put the world to rights sounds like café society in Paris or Vienna or Berlin, not bloody Glasgow. I know it’s three years since I lived here, but it seems to me that everything’s changed.’

Sophie smiled. ‘It’s got yuppified, if that’s what you mean. Every other car a BMW. Don’t forget, it’s the European City of Culture now,’ she teased.

‘As if I could,’ Lindsay replied ironically. ‘Every corner shop has got posters up advertising some cultural beanfeast. Everything from opera to open days, from puppets to psychodrama. I don’t even recognise the streets any more. Where there used to be nice wee bakeries selling cream doughnuts and every other sort of cholesterol-packed traditional Scottish goody, there are wholefood cafés. I tell you, Soph, I felt less of a stranger in Venice than I feel in Glasgow these days,’ she added with a sigh.

‘Well, you shouldn’t have stayed away from us so long, should you?’ said Sophie mercilessly, choosing to ignore the fact that she had been Lindsay’s first port of call after her duty visit to her parents in the Highlands.

‘I didn’t have much of a choice. I never wanted to be a bloody hero. All I wanted was to be the best journalist I could be.’

‘Don’t be so melodramatic, Lindsay. If those mad bastards in the secret service had really wanted you, they’d have come and got you, wherever you were. Spy scandals are ten a penny these days. A couple of months after you broke the story, your average 007 would have been hard pressed even to remember your name, never mind what lid you had lifted.’

‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ Lindsay said gloomily. ‘You make it all seem worthwhile.’

Sophie laughed. ‘Come on, Lindsay, you’re still in one piece, and you’ve got the satisfaction of knowing you did the right thing. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.’

Before Lindsay could reply, the cab driver pushed back his glass partition. ‘Youse gonny sit there blethering all night while the meter runs?’ he enquired pleasantly.

‘Sorry,’ Sophie said, pushing Lindsay out of the cab and paying the driver. Lindsay watched her as she searched her bag for her wallet. Time was being kind to Sophie, she thought. Now she had passed thirty, she seemed to have grown into her bones. In her twenties, her high cheekbones, straight nose and strong jaw had given her face a raw, unfinished look. But age had softened the impression, producing a striking image of humour and strength of character. Her curly brown hair was shot with grey now, giving an effect that other women paid their hairdressers fortunes for. Tonight, she was wearing a silky cobalt-blue jogging suit under a padded ski jacket, and Lindsay envied her style.

Sophie turned round and caught Lindsay’s scrutiny. One eyebrow twitched upwards in amusement. ‘You look like you’re sizing me up for the kill,’ she remarked wryly. ‘Come on, this is it,’ she said, pointing down an alley between the tall, Victorian buildings. A large square sign swinging in the evening air proclaimed ‘Soutar Johnnie’s’ above a painting of a cobbler working at his last. ‘We’ll have a drink and something to eat here before we meet Helen and Rosalind at the Tron Bar after their Labour Party meeting. Let’s just hope my radiopager doesn’t go off,’ she added as she led the way down the alley.

‘You’re not on call tonight, are you?’ Lindsay asked.

‘Technically, no. But if one of my patients goes into labour, they’ll probably call me in. The price of being a specialist.’ Sophie was a consultant gynaecologist at Stobhill Hospital, where she was in the vanguard of those treating the city’s growing numbers of HIV-positive women, mainly prostitutes and drug addicts.

Sophie pushed open the polished wooden door of the bar and Lindsay followed her in. She stopped on the threshold, taken aback. There had been nowhere quite like this when she had been a struggling freelance journalist in the city, and it was a shock to a system accustomed to the functional, masculine atmosphere of the old-fashioned city-centre pubs. The bar was well lit, with square tables and comfy looking chairs scattered around. Food was being eaten at several tables, and even at first glance it looked completely different from the old pub staple of pie and peas. And, to Lindsay’s astonishment, quite a few of the patrons appeared to be drinking coffee rather than alcohol. Very Continental, she thought wryly as she followed Sophie to the horseshoe-shaped mahogany bar.

Lindsay joined Sophie and studied the long list of wines scrawled on the blackboard behind the bar. Her astonishment grew as she read it. Not a single Liebfraumilch or Lambrusco to be seen! The wine list was as varied and interesting as the clientele, who ranged from a few long-haired hippies who looked like reluctant refugees from the sixties, to well-barbered young men in double-breasted suits. Sophie meanwhile had caught the attention of the barman, a huge bull of a man with a mop of thick black curls and a black patch over one eye. ‘Hi, Cosmo,’ Sophie said as he approached. ‘Give us a bottle of the Australian Chardonnay and two glasses, please.’