Deadline for Murder

by Val McDermid

  Lindsay looked up from the paper, hoping that her feelings of shock were reflected on her face. “I knew nothing about this,” she protested. “Ask Bill Grace. He’ll tell you he didn’t get it from me.”

  “We’ve already spoken to Mr. Grace,” Fraser replied. “I bet you can guess exactly what he told us.”

  “He refused to reveal his sources, I suppose. But surely if you asked him to confirm that it wasn’t me, he’d tell you that, at least?” Even as she asked the question, Lindsay knew it was a vain hope. In Bill’s shoes, she’d have admitted nothing.

  “We did ask him, believe me, Miss Gordon. He simply said that he was not prepared to answer any questions at all relating to the source of his information. He made the perfectly reasonable point that if he started cooperating with us to the extent of eliminating people, we could go right through the names of every working journalist, civil servant, and politician in Scotland till we got to a name he wasn’t prepared to eliminate. So I’m afraid you’re still very much in the frame.”

  Lindsay sighed. “Look, Chief Inspector. A year ago, I had a very bad time with the forces of law and order. So bad that I ended up leaving the country till the fuss died down. I’m sure your extensive inquiries will have already told you that. I’ve only just come home. Believe me, I’m looking for a quiet life these days. Do you really think I’d want to put myself in the same position all over again just to drop some junior Tory minister in it?”

  Fraser pulled out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to Lindsay, who accepted gratefully, having smoked the last of hers twenty minutes before. He lit up, puffed for a few moments, then said, “I’m not a psychologist. I don’t pretend to understand what goes on in the minds of people like you. I’m a policeman, and what I’m trained to do is investigate crime. That means acquiring as many facts as possible and then making logical deductions. Now, the facts I have before me are these. A story based on a report stolen in a burglary yesterday has surfaced in a newspaper. A journalist who has a track record of writing this sort of anti-establishment story, who used to work for the very paper which carried the story, was on the spot. Not only in the building itself, but carrying a set of keys to the very flat that was burgled. Do you not think that I’d be failing in my duty to the taxpayers who pay my wages if I didn’t pull that journalist in for questioning?”

  Lindsay cursed silently. She’d been praying that Rosalind hadn’t told the police that she had the spare keys to the flat. She’d have to try something else if she was ever going to get out of there. “Come on, get serious,” she mocked. “Rosalind Campbell’s a friend of mine. Do you really think I’d stage a break-in and reduce her flat to a shambles just so’s I could get a story? If that’s how you think friends behave, you must have a bizarre personal life.”

  Fraser shrugged, his beefy shoulders straining his suit seams. “I’ve only got your say-so for this bosom friendship. You might have been stringing this woman along all the time. And besides, if you hadn’t made a shambles of the place, we’d have been all the more certain it was you, wouldn’t we? On the other hand, maybe you and Miss Campbell were in it together.”

  Lindsay shook her head incredulously. “I just don’t believe you guys. Byzantine doesn’t begin to describe your thought processes. For God’s sake, why would Rosalind conspire with me to wreck her own flat?”

  “We know one or two things about Miss Campbell too,” Fraser said flatly. “We know, for example, that she’s an active member of the Labour Party. Maybe she wanted this story to get out. I mean, what could be more damaging to the Tories?”

  Lindsay stubbed out her cigarette angrily. “If Rosalind had wanted the story to get out, don’t you think she could have used her Labour Party contacts to leak it that way? She’s not stupid, she could have covered her tracks easily enough.”

  “Maybe she wanted her flat redecorated on the insurance. Like I said, I’m not a psychologist. And all my years in the force have taught me that nine times out of ten, the obvious answer is the right one. You were on the spot. You had keys to the flat. And you’ve got the contacts to place that story,” Fraser summed up, ticking off the points on his short, thick fingers. “Either you start to cooperate, or I’m going to charge you.”

  “Fine. At least that way I’ll get to see my lawyer.”

  He smiled in a way that sent a chill down her spine. “Eventually. I wasn’t planning on charging you for a wee while yet. I’d like you to have every chance of showing your willingness to help us out.”

  Fraser had backed her into a corner. She’d have to cooperate if she was to have any chance of getting home tonight. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you for finally telling me what all of this is about. I suppose I’d better keep my end of the bargain. I’ll answer your questions now.”

  Fraser nodded. “Very wise. Let’s start from the beginning. When did you get the keys of the flat?”

  “Rosalind gave them to me the night before the break-in.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t she explain that to you?”

  “It’s you I’m asking. Why did she give you the keys?”

  “I wanted to take a look at the block,” Lindsay said, aware of how feeble her story sounded.

  “Thinking of buying a flat, are you?”

  “No. A friend of mine was murdered there last year. I’ve been asked to make some inquiries relating to her death,” Lindsay said defensively.

  “So you think the police didn’t manage to get the right person for Alison Maxwell’s murder?” Fraser demanded.

  He’d done his homework, Lindsay thought. “Something like that,” she said.

  “And you decided to come along on your white charger to show the woodentops how it should really be done, eh? I thought you said you were looking for the quiet life these days?”

  Lindsay shrugged. “I’m just doing a favor for a friend, that’s all.”

  “And I suppose that while you were there, you thought you’d just pop in to Miss Campbell’s flat for a cup of tea, since you had the keys burning a hole in your pocket. Seeing that report on her computer screen must have been a hell of a temptation. I can’t say I blame you. Any journalist worth their salt would have been hard pressed to ignore it.”

  “I didn’t go near Ros’s flat. I was never on the eighth floor. I went straight to the sixth floor, had a look round then I left,” Lindsay stated.

  “Surely you don’t expect me to believe that?” Fraser asked incredulously. “Missing out on the chance of a nice little earner like that? Come on, admit it, Miss Gordon, it happened just like I said. I’ve heard all the excuses. Now, how about coming up with the truth? It would save us all a lot of time in the long run.”

  Lindsay shook her head vigorously. “You’re way off beam. Look, even supposing I had let myself into Rosalind’s flat and seen the report, I wouldn’t have needed to stage a burglary. I know about computers, for God’s sake. All I would have had to do would have been to make a copy of the file on to another disk and walked out of there with it in my pocket. No one would have been any the wiser. When the story broke, no one would have been able to trace it back to me or to Rosalind. Like I said, Rosalind is a friend of mine. I wouldn’t have wrecked her flat just to cover my back, not when I could have protected both of us by quietly copying the disk.”

  For the first time, Lindsay thought she saw a flicker of doubt in Fraser’s blue eyes. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Maybe all that sophisticated logic didn’t occur to you on the spur of the moment. Maybe you just saw the chance and acted on it.”

  “Look, apart from anything else, I wasn’t even in the building long enough to make such a thorough job of it,” she protested.

  “Protesting a wee bit too much, aren’t we?” Fraser asked sarcastically. “Just run through your movements yesterday afternoon for me. Let me work it out for myself.”

  “I was with a lawyer called Claire Ogilvie until about quarter past three. Then I drove straight to Caird House. I walked up from
the garage to the sixth floor, stood on the landing for about three or four minutes, then traveled down in the lift with Ruth Menzies from Flat 7B. Then I drove to Wunda Wines on Dumbarton Road, bought two bottles of Italian wine, and drove back to my friend’s flat. Where your boys picked me up today. I arrived there about four. A woman called Cordelia Brown, who’s staying with Miss Ogilvie, was waiting for me in the street. I spoke to her for a few minutes, then went upstairs. My friend Helen Christie told me about the burglary, and we went round to Rosalind’s flat. Inspector Ainslie saw me there later.”

  “I’ll want a statement to that effect,” Fraser said, getting to his feet. “Do you want to call your lawyer before you commit yourself to paper?”

  Lindsay nodded, and at last she was escorted to a phone. She caught Jim Carstairs just as he was leaving his office, and he promised to come right away. To her surprise, Lindsay found her hand was shaking with relief as she replaced the receiver. Being in the hands of the police again had clearly frightened her more than she was prepared to admit to herself.

  An hour and a half later, she stood with the lawyer in the police station car park, having written out a full statement of her movements the previous day.

  “I don’t think they’re going to give up on you that easily,” Carstairs said.

  “No,” Lindsay sighed. “It looks like I’ve got a burglary to solve now as well as a murder.”

  8

  Lindsay drove past the floodlit car park of the Daily Clarion and parked on the street just past the modern skyscraper that housed the plant and offices of Scotland’s top tabloid newspaper. She got out of the car, shivering as the damp evening chill made her fasten her sheepskin jacket, and walked toward the security office by the back door, the entrance used by the paper’s many staff. It felt strange to be taking the familiar route back into a building that had once been as much home to her as her own flat. What felt even more strange was her certainty that inside she’d find the answers that would lead her to Alison Maxwell’s killer.

  Disneyland, she thought with a smile as she crossed the forecourt. That’s what the printers had christened the building when it opened, moving the Clarion titles into the vanguard of the new technology. They’d been the first national daily paper to use computerized typesetting and full color printing, and the initial hiccups in the system had led to the nickname, as frustrated workers had spent their shifts muttering, “This disnae work, that disnae work. This is Disnaeland.”

  Lindsay pushed open the door of the security office and walked into the stuffy room with its familiar odor of stale smoke, sweat, and faint but unmistakable traces of printer’s ink. The big balding man sitting at the desk that looked out over the forecourt got to his feet and exclaimed, “It’s wee Lindsay! How’re ye doing, hen? We havenae seen you here for a few years!” He leaned forward to shake her hand and the buttons of his shirt gaped over his enormous beer gut, revealing a grubby white vest.

  “I’m fine, Willie, just fine,” Lindsay replied, dredging his name up from her memory. “I’ve been working abroad, but I’m back in Glasgow for a while. I just thought I’d pop in and see the boys. Do I need to sign the visitors’ book before I go up?”

  Willie roared with laughter. “You?” he finally wheezed. “Don’t be daft. I know fine who you are. You’re no’ some IRA terrorist, are you? Away you go and see your pals.”

  In the lift, instead of pressing the button for the third floor and the newsroom, Lindsay pressed the second-floor button. After she’d left the police station, she’d decided there was no time to waste in her pursuit of Alison Maxwell’s murderer and Rosalind’s burglar. The key to both of those lay, she believed, inside the Clarion building. And it was better to make a start at night when there were fewer people around. Besides, she had always got on well with the night duty librarian. She no longer had any right to use the Clarion library, but she couldn’t see Martin refusing her.

  Lindsay walked down the corridor, past the canteen where the tempting aroma of homemade soup nearly made her take a detour. Again, memory assailed her. Just after she’d first got it together with Cordelia she’d still been working in Glasgow, and when Cordelia came up from London they’d often spent Lindsay’s meal breaks in a quite corner of the canteen, grabbing every chance to be together. Ironic, really, thought Lindsay. It was a murder that had brought them together and now another murder had driven them apart.

  She carried on into the library. As always, the sight filled her with awe. On one side of the room, banks of ceiling-high metal cases housed quantities of newspaper cuttings, filed and cross-referenced, stored in huge mechanically driven carousels that were supposed automatically to produce the relevant cardboard folder. But this was Disnaeland, and at least one machine was usually out of order at any given time. On the other side of the room was the morgue—ordinary filing cabinets, crammed full of cuttings no longer current because they referred to events of more than fifteen years ago, or their subjects were dead. Above the filing cabinets there were rows of reference books. In a small annexe, there was a photocopier, a collection of back numbers of the daily and Sunday papers, and several tables where reporters could work away from the hurly-burly of the newsroom.

  At a table among the filing cabinets, Martin Cameron the night librarian was sitting in front of a pile of the day’s papers, carefully clipping items that were destined for the library’s extensive files. He was so engrossed he didn’t hear Lindsay enter, and looked up in surprise when she rang the bell for attention. As he recognized her, his pale face lit up in a welcoming grin and he struggled to his feet. “Lindsay Gordon!” he exclaimed. “What a nice surprise. Come on through.”

  She lifted the flap in the counter and threaded her way through the filing cabinets to his side. She’d known Martin for years, and he’d always been her favorite among the bunch of oddballs who seemed to find their way behind the counter of newspaper libraries. They all had their foibles. Martin’s had been importuning night-shift journalists into chess games which he won with depressing regularity. “Hi, Martin,” Lindsay said. “Good to see you. How are you?”

  He shrugged. “I can’t complain, well I could, but you don’t want to hear my problems. What brings you back to this den of vice?”

  “I need some help, and I thought you might be able to oblige,” Lindsay said, perching on the edge of his desk.

  “For you, Lindsay, anything!” Martin laughed. “I’d guessed it wasn’t just my company you were after.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Lindsay said. “Seeing you is a bonus.”

  Martin smiled. “You always were a smooth operator. So what can I do for you?”

  “I’d like you to have a look at the files relating to Jackie Mitchell’s trial. And Alison Maxwell’s byline files,” Lindsay said.

  Martin’s eyebrows rose. But years of servicing the seemingly bizarre demands of journalists had rendered him immune to any serious curiosity. “Nasty business, that was,” he said. “You always did ask for funny things. Everything from famous murder cases of the fifties to the life and career of Tallulah Bankhead, as I recall,” he said over his shoulder as he walked toward the cuttings store. He pressed a button, and the hydraulics shuddered into noisy life. A few moments later, he returned with a bulging folder. “That’s the stuff about the murder and the trial. You can get started on that while I find Alison’s stuff in the morgue.”

  Martin began searching through one of the filing cabinet drawers while Lindsay took out her notebook and started reading the files of cuttings from the Clarion and other papers relating to Alison’s murder and to Jackie’s trial. It was full of sickening detail, and Lindsay noticed with distaste how the tabloids had gone to town on Jackie and Alison’s sex lives. It was the kind of thing that was routine procedure in cases like this. She’d done it herself on occasion. But it left a nasty taste in the mouth when the stories referred to people she knew. She was glad she’d taken the decision not to earn her living like that any more. She’d grown tired of havin
g to justify to herself the things she did in the name of journalism.

  Lindsay worked through the file, noting down various details that were new to her. But she found little to suggest any new avenues to explore.

  “There’s Alison’s files. Do you want a coffee?” Martin asked as he deposited two thick A4 manila envelopes in front of Lindsay.

  “I could murder a mug of canteen soup,” she replied, glad of the chance to be left alone with Alison’s cuttings. She knew exactly what she was looking for, and judging by what she’d read and been told, no one else had found it. Although Lindsay had discovered its existence years before, she believed it would still be there.

  Martin left the library, and Lindsay immediately opened the two envelopes. She hastily flicked through the first bundle, which consisted entirely of yellowing clippings from the second half of Alison’s career at the Clarion. Impatiently, Lindsay pushed them aside and started to search the other bundle. These clippings were older, the paper more brittle, and there were a few photographs and photostat sheets of typewritten copy among them. But there was still no sign of what Lindsay was looking for. She went through the pile again, this time opening out the larger cuttings that had been folded up to fit the envelope.

  She struck gold on her third attempt. As she unfolded a cutting about Scottish rock bands, a slim white envelope fell out. Across the front was typed “Confidential background,” and the flap was tucked in at the back. Thank God Alison hadn’t changed her habits! Without opening it, Lindsay stuffed the envelope in her pocket. When Martin returned with her soup, she was seemingly engrossed in a feature about comedian Billy Connolly.

  “Mmm,” said Lindsay, drinking a mouthful of the rich chicken broth. “That was just what I needed. I didn’t realize how hungry I was till I walked past the canteen.”