V. McDermid - Final Edition

‘My God,’ Helen groaned as she subsided into a chair, after planting a cursory kiss on the top of Sophie’s head. ‘What a night we’ve had! That lot couldn’t organise an explosion in a fireworks factory!’

Lindsay watched fondly as Helen and Rosalind launched into a double-act recitation of the evening’s meeting. No matter how down Lindsay felt, Helen had always had the power to make her laugh. They’d met at Oxford, the only working-class students reading English at St Mary’s College. They’d instantly formed an alliance whose main weapon had been satire, a desperate wit born of their never-admitted feelings of inferiority. After university, their ways had parted, Lindsay choosing journalism, Helen arts administration. Now, she ran her own television and film casting agency, and, with what was left from her boundless supply of energy, she had thrown herself into local politics.

But the two women had stayed in touch, and even when Helen and Sophie had set up home together eight years earlier, there had been no diminution of the close friendship that still bound Lindsay and Helen. In fact, Lindsay had gained a friend in Sophie. When Helen and Sophie had split up eighteen months before, Lindsay had feared that she would be forced to choose between her two friends. But to her amazement, the ending of their love affair had been remarkably without rancour, and they had remained the closest of friends. The only real change, as far as Lindsay could see, was that they now lived separately. Neither had formed any lasting relationship with anyone else, although, according to Sophie, Helen had recently been spending time with a young actress she’d spotted in a pub theatre group and placed in a new television series.

Lindsay suddenly became aware that Helen was looking enquiringly at her. She pulled herself back into the painful present. ‘I’m sorry,’ she confessed, ‘I didn’t catch what you said.’

‘Pearls before swine,’ Helen sighed. ‘Here am I, bringing you despatches from the front line of British politics, and you’re daydreaming about some leggy blonde, no doubt. I said, what kind of evening have you had, Lindsay?’

‘Ask Sophie,’ Lindsay replied wryly. ‘She’s already told me it’s given her enough ammo to sing for her supper for months to come. You might as well practise on the experts, Soph.’

Sophie pulled a face, then launched into a detailed account of their earlier encounter at Soutar Johnnie’s. Before she could finish, Helen had exploded. ‘My God, what a complete shit for you, Lindsay!’ she exclaimed. ‘I had no idea she was still around, did you, Sophie? We saw her a couple of times after you first left, Lindsay. She was desperate to get in touch with you and thought you might have been in contact with one or other of us. But I thought she’d gone back to London. Poor you!’

With her usual detachment, Rosalind had been listening. As Helen paused for breath, she cut in. ‘You will take it on, though, won’t you? I can’t imagine you sitting back and letting Jackie rot.’

Reluctantly, Lindsay nodded. ‘I don’t suppose I’ve got much choice.’

‘Well at least Claire can afford it,’ Rosalind said.

‘Afford what?’ Helen demanded.

‘Afford Lindsay,’ Rosalind replied.

‘What do you mean, afford me?’ Lindsay asked, puzzled.

‘You’ve got to be realistic about it,’ Rosalind said patiently. ‘You’ve got no job and no prospect of one, if I understand you correctly. If you refuse to help and Claire wants to pursue this, she’s going to have to go to a private detective. There is no reason on God’s earth why you should be prepared to do it for free. And Claire Ogilvie can certainly afford to pay.’

Lindsay looked stunned. ‘I’m not taking money from that bloody designer dyke,’ she replied angrily. ‘What do you take me for?’

‘Ros is right,’ Sophie said quietly. ‘If Claire wants you to do a job, she should be prepared to pay the going rate.’

‘It feels like taking money under false pretences,’ said Lindsay stubbornly. ‘I’m hardly Philip Marlowe, am I?’

‘You’ve got skills and specialist knowledge,’ Rosalind argued. ‘It’s unprofessional not to charge her for exercising them. I can’t imagine Claire dishing out free professional advice, can you?’

‘But I don’t know where to start,’ Lindsay said weakly, knowing she had been outflanked by Rosalind. And, given the tenacity of her friends, she knew she’d actually have to go through with the business of charging Claire for her services.

‘I might just be able to help you there,’ Rosalind said with a slow smile.

Lindsay rang off and threw the cordless phone to the other end of the sofa. Burned my boats now, she thought with a scowl. ‘Why do I let myself get talked into these things?’ she muttered as she walked through to the big, airy kitchen of Sophie’s tenement flat. Lindsay poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down to think. She had agreed to meet Claire in an hour’s time, and she wanted to get everything straight in her head before then.

Recalling Alison Maxwell wasn’t difficult. They had met the first time Lindsay had been hired to do a shift on the Scottish Daily Clarion . Lindsay had been standing at the library counter waiting for a packet of cuttings. She turned to find herself faced with a woman who seemed to have stepped out of her most secret fantasies, the ones she guiltily felt shouldn’t inhabit the mind of a politically aware feminist. The vision had sandy blonde hair, and an almost Scandinavian cast to her high-cheekboned features. She was a couple of inches taller than Lindsay, with slim hips, and a cleavage that was impossible to ignore. ‘Hi,’ she said in a rich, cultivated Kelvinside accent. ‘I’m Alison Maxwell. Features department.’

Lindsay had fallen head over heels in lust. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ she croaked, feeling gauche and adolescent. ‘I’m Lindsay Gordon. I’m doing a shift for the newsdesk.’

‘Ah,’ said Alison. ‘Pity you’re not a photographer, then I could call you Flash Gordon.’

‘If I get the front page tonight, then you can call me Splash Gordon instead.’

Lindsay hadn’t made the front page splash that night, but she’d still been Splash from then on to Alison. To Lindsay’s surprise, the feature writer seemed determined to include Lindsay in her busy social life, inviting her out to dinner, to parties and to her flat for drinks. It wasn’t long before they became lovers. But it was Alison who made the first move. If it had been up to Lindsay, they would never have got beyond a peck on the cheek when they parted. Lindsay would have been happy to leave Alison on her pedestal, having no confidence at all in her own power to attract a woman so different from her previous lovers.

At first, Lindsay was in a daze of lust fulfilled by exotic and imaginative sex. But once the initial infatuation wore off, she began to see Alison more clearly, and she grew to dislike and distrust what she saw. Lindsay gradually came to understand that Alison Maxwell was a woman who was incapable of simple human relationships. She was too in love with power to have love left over for people. That power was usually exercised through the nuggets of information she’d acquired in the bedroom. It took only a matter of days for Lindsay to discover that she was far from being Alison’s only lover. In a matter of weeks, she had reached the bitter conclusion that Alison was sexually omnivorous.

Faced with this, Lindsay had made up her mind to end their relationship. That was when she had discovered the cruellest streak in Alison. For Alison was a woman who only let go when she was ready. She had to have control over every situation, and that included the ending of her sexual relationships. When Lindsay had announced her intention to sever their connection, Alison had wept and raged, and finally threatened. She would claim that Lindsay had got her drunk and seduced her. She would make sure everyone knew what a twisted little dyke Lindsay was. And she’d make sure that Lindsay never did another day’s work at the Clarion . Her venom had unnerved Lindsay, and she had allowed herself to be swallowed up in the passion of their reconciliation.