Conferences are Murder

by Val McDermid

  Lindsay couldn’t help smiling. Pure garbage, but it was good to see Laura get a good slagging off in print. At the very least, it must have sent her blood pressure up a few notches when she’d seen it that morning. Lindsay only hoped that Conference Chronicle could maintain credibility after a crazy leap in the dark like this. Fringe scandal sheets always got carried away by the need to be more and more shocking. But if it managed to stay more in touch with reality, the flyer had the potential to be the shit-stirrer conference needed. Lindsay was wondering idly what Laura had done to upset the writer of Conference Chronicle when a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

  “Better than the bear baiting?”

  Lindsay looked up in surprise. “Dick? What are you doing here? You used to think the union was one of Britain’s last bastions of conservatism!” She switched off the Walkman.

  “Aye, along with the Reform Club and the House of Commons. What’s so fascinating?” he asked, pointing to her headphones.

  Lindsay pulled a wry face and shrugged. There was no way she was going to admit to Dick McAndrew that she’d been relaxing to the sound of whale music. “Anything’s better than the massed drones of trade unionists. But you didn’t answer the question. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to see Tom Jack get his come-uppance,” Dick said bitterly, his Glasgow accent lending a threatening edge to the words. “Him and his cronies have done for me and my team, so I came along to try to do the same for him. And how’s California?” Dick eased his large frame on to the chair next to Lindsay. He looked absurd, like a Hereford bull on a bicycle.

  “I’m thinking of having a flyer printed. ‘California’s wonderful, I love the job, we’ve got a terrific house on the beach where the fog rolls in just like Argyllshire, no, I don’t miss running with the pack, no, I don’t miss British sausages, beer or sitcoms.’ How about you?” Lindsay gave him an affectionate hug. She and Dick had met years before in the Glasgow Labour Party, and had stayed friends ever since. And she owed him. A few years before, when she’d been eagerly pursuing the spy scandal that had sent her into her first overseas exile, Dick had stuck his neck out for her. She’d never had the chance to repay him. “Is Socialism Today still keeping the kids in shoes?”

  “You’re well out of touch, Gordon,” Dick replied, a scowl changing his amiable face into the grimace of a Sumo wrestler. “There is no Socialism Today. Just like Kinnock purged socialism from the Labour Party, Union Jack and his cronies purged Socialism Today from the newsagents. So I am no longer the news editor of a radical monthly magazine. I’m just another freelance desperately scratching a living off a shrinking market.” Dick stared at the floor, hands involuntarily bunching into fists.

  “What’s that got to do with Union Jack? Did the union refuse to bail you out of trouble?” Lindsay asked. For as long as she could remember, Socialism Today’s finances had been less stable than Mexico’s. The difference was that banks didn’t fall over themselves to lend billions to struggling left-wing publishing houses.

  Dick snorted. “What are you on? One of the weird American pills that warp your sense of reality? Tom Jack didnae wash his hands of us when we were in trouble. That I could have understood, though forgiving would’ve been something else again. Naw, it was Union Jack himself that put the shaft in.”

  “Going to stop talking in riddles and tell me the story?” Lindsay asked, the brisk words softened by her tone.

  “Nothing much to tell. We ran a story about eighteen months ago alleging that Tom Jack was going behind the backs of the union executive and dealing directly with the firm of accountants who were putting together the statements of accounts prior to the merger with the other unions. Nothing wrong with that in itself, except that the piece went on to reveal that Union Jack was suggesting all sorts of creative accounting tricks to make our finances look a lot healthier than they really were. Some of the wee tricks he’d thought of were borderline illegal.”

  Lindsay sucked her breath in sharply. “Pick the bones out of that, eh?”

  Dick nodded grimly. “We thought we had it copperbottomed, but Union Jack insisted it was a set-up. He announced he was going to sue, and our source inside the accountants got cold feet and bottled out of going in to bat for us. So Union Jack took us to the cleaners. We couldn’t even pay the lawyer’s bills, never mind the damages. The four of us that owned the magazine on paper all had to dive headlong into bankruptcy.”

  Dick’s blue eyes had a new bleakness Lindsay had never seen there before. It wasn’t surprising. He wasn’t some reckless kid with no one to worry about but himself. He was an experienced professional, a man who knew the risks, but had always managed to avoid exposing his wife and children to them.

  “Helen and the kids?” she asked.

  “We’re okay. We managed to keep the house. When I joined the Socialism Today management collective, the office lawyers recommended that we put it in her name, that and the car. So it could have been worse, I suppose.”

  Lindsay felt anger rising, a taste as distinctive as bile. “And the union just stood by and let this happen?”

  “Lindsay, the executive committee were in Tom Jack’s pocket. He said crawl, they said, how low. Sure, there were plenty of people in the union jumping up and down about it, but nobody walking the corridors of power gave a shit about a wee magazine with a dozen journalists and a nasty habit of bursting balloons. The trouble is, Lindsay, this union isnae for the rank and file any more. And until we get rid of Tom Jack once and for all, nothing’s going to get any better. He’s got to go.”

  Lindsay stood up and stretched. “I don’t think I can take any more of this debate. Are they open?”

  Dick glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes ago. What are we doing, wasting good drinking time?”

  In spite of the earliness of the hour, the student union bar was doing a brisk trade. Dick ordered a pint of bitter and turned to Lindsay. “What’re you for?”

  “D’you know, I don’t think I can face drink,” she said in a tone of incredulity. “You’d better make it a mineral water.”

  Dick shook his head in sorrow, but ordered it nevertheless. “You’ve been away too long.”

  Before Lindsay could leap to her own defense, the double doors of the bar swung open and Laura Craig strolled in. Her tailored trousers and long sweater were as close as Lindsay had ever seen her to casual clothes. “Hey, Laura,” one of the delegates at the bar called. “Shouldn’t you be buying the drinks? We’ve all read Conference Chronicle—you’re the only one here that’s on expenses!”

  Laura smiled. “I wish,” she said. “Mine’s a vodka and ginger beer. Make it a large one, or else I’ll set Miss Moneypenny on you!” She moved across to the group of men, succumbing willingly to their raucous teasing.

  “Played the room like a fiddle,” Lindsay said.

  “You’ve always had the knife into the Vogue Vamp. You’re not seriously telling me you believe that guff?” Dick asked.

  Lindsay sighed. “Of course I don’t. Even her worst enemy couldn’t have come up with something that ludicrous.”

  Dick emptied his glass and dumped it on the bar. “I’d better be on my way. I’ve got to go down to Standing Orders Sub-Committee. I’ve got an emergency motion to propose for the membership and organization order-paper.”

  “Oh? What about?”

  “As well as having branches organized locally and according to sector, we should set up unemployed branches, since that’s what this union seems to be best at presiding over.” Dick pulled a lopsided smile.

  “I’m sorry about Socialism Today,” Lindsay said.

  “So’m I. And about the philosophy, not just the magazine. See you around.”

  Dick lumbered off. As he reached the door, he came face to face with Tom Jack. Lindsay saw their mouths move, but they were too distant for her to hear what they said. Not for the first time, she wished she could lip-read. Suddenly, Dick’s right arm shot out, and he pushed Tom hard in the chest, so the un
ion leader stumbled and fell back against the wall. It wasn’t the first bit of rough stuff she’d seen so far at the conference. There had been a few punches flung in the bar in the early hours between warring factions. But this was the first time she’d seen anyone lay a hand on the man who seemed to be at the center of every divisive and damaging row she’d witnessed. Lindsay couldn’t help feeling worried that it had been Dick who’d thrown the first blow.

  4

  “Delegates are reminded that fringe events organised under the banner of AMWU should not breach existing union policy. That means nothing racist, sexist, ageist or otherwise exclusive. (Watch out, the Gay and Lesbian Group social . . .)”

  from “Advice for New Delegates”, a Standing Orders Sub-Committee booklet.

  Lindsay tried unsuccessfully to stifle the yawn that gripped her suddenly. “Aagh,” she groaned. “I’m really sorry, the night’s beginning to catch up with me.”

  “It’s okay. I’m in no hurry,” Jennifer reassured her. “What’s most important is that we get as many of the facts clear at this stage so we can convince the police there’s no point in holding you here.”

  “Okay. I can’t think of anything else that happened during Tuesday that has any bearing on anything. I spent most of the day doing interviews for my thesis with the women who were around during the big equality issue rows of the eighties, getting them to dredge their memories for the human stories behind the dry recorded facts of motions passed and leaflets issued. All very boring stuff to someone who wasn’t involved at the time, I suspect.” Lindsay avoided the revelation that she too had found much of it excruciatingly tedious, and was beginning to wonder how she was going to give her supposedly groundbreaking thesis the bite she wanted it to have. “Anyway, while I was interviewing, one of the guys I used to work with in Glasgow when I was a reporter on the Scottish Daily Clarion came over and invited me to the Scots-Irish Ceilidh Night.

  “The JU always held one. You could only go if you were Scots or Irish, regardless of where you worked. A handful of outsiders always used to get invited if they were prominent in the union and had the right political credentials—and I mean right. In spite of which, I’m ashamed to say I’ve always enjoyed it. The music was always terrific—we’ve got some really talented singers and musicians in the union, and it always felt to me like the music and the dancing was at least as important to the people there as the rest of the Celtic male-bonding stuff. So when I was invited, I handed over my tenner like a shot. We each chip in a tenner for the drink.”

  Jennifer couldn’t hide the look of surprise. “That’s a lot of drink,” she commented.

  “The Celts are a thirsty people. Historically, we’ve got a lot of sorrows to drown. Anyway, it always used to be one of the few events at conference where political differences were forgotten as we forged our sentimental bonds of spurious camaraderie. Unfortunately, like so many other things in the trade union movement, it’s changed beyond recognition.”

  The joyous energy of the jigs and reels that filled the room did nothing to dissipate the atmosphere of simmering rancor that filled the post-graduate common room of Wilberforce Hall. For once, the old Celtic alliances were failing to diminish the strains of AMWU’s newly discovered tensions. The brains who had dreamed up the terms and conditions of the most complex merger in the history of the British trade union movement had somehow failed to consider the volatile effect of lumping printers, clerical workers, broadcasters, researchers, journalists, camera crew and distribution workers together to find common cause, something they’d signally failed to achieve in the 500-year history of the mechanical mass media.

  As the drink flowed, so too did the old resentments. At first, Lindsay had managed to steer clear of disputes by grabbing a bottle of White Horse and squeezing into the corner behind the fiddler, two guitarists, concertina player and tin whistle blower who were currently providing the music.

  But her hiding place was exposed soon after midnight when the impromptu band took a break and gave way to a Newcastle printer who played the Northumbrian pipes. Their mournful notes always made her feel melancholy. Or maybe it was just the whisky. Either way, she wished Sophie was with her, instead of at a conference a hundred miles away. If Sophie was here, the atmosphere would be irrelevant, Lindsay told herself.

  Her maudlin thoughts were interrupted by a familiar face, bleary with drink. Stewart Grant had been one of her fellow reporters on the Daily Nation in London years before. A diehard misogynist, Grant had been one of those who had exploited her grief at Frances’ death in a series of supposedly innocent remarks whose barbs twisted like fish hooks in her stomach. Even before then, she’d never liked him. But his behavior when she’d been at her most vulnerable had turned dislike to contempt in a handful of sentences.

  “Hey, if it’s not Lindsay Gordon, come back to lord it over us. You’ve got some nerve, lady,” he slurred.

  “As usual, Stewart, you make as much sense as a square toilet seat. Go away and bother somebody else, eh?”

  He giggled, a high, edgy sound. “Cannae face the truth, eh?” He turned back to face the room. “Hey, guys, come and see this. It’s no’ often you get a chance to see one of the rats that deserted the sinking ship. They’re usually running too damn fast. Get a load of this.” He turned back to Lindsay and leered. “You always did wish they all could be California girls, didn’t you? Mind you, I cannae imagine them going for the likes of Flash Gordon. A wee bit more taste they’ve got over there, I’d say.”

  “Do us all a favor, Stewart. Go and find a tall building and jump off.” She got to her feet and tried to push past him, but she was too late. A handful of his cronies had moved forward to form a tight ring around her.

  “D’you know the boys, Flash?” Stewart demanded. “All real journalists. None of your equality reps here, eh, boys?” There was a chorus of “no way”s. “Naw, we get out there at the rock face and do the business. Out there, stitching up the punters, shafting the oppos, getting stuck into the real job. But you couldnae hack it, could you, Flash? Naw, it all got too much for you. You had to go running off with your tail between your legs to the soft life in the States.”

  “Not that we’ve got anything against America,” one of the other drunken Scots piped up. Lindsay vaguely remembered the face. He’d been a reporter with the Glasgow Tribune when she’d worked for the Scottish Daily Clarion.

  “Of course not,” another added. Lindsay recognized Chic McBain, a down-table sub-editor on the Clarion. “Some of my best pals work in America now. You know why that is, don’t you Flash? It’s because there’s no jobs here for them. And do you know why that is, Flash Gordon?”

  “I’m sure you’re going to give me the version according to macho man,” Lindsay said wearily, “so why don’t I just shut up and save time?”

  “It’s because when people like you were our union reps back in the eighties you were too busy playing politics and screaming about AIDS and sexism instead of fighting for jobs. Youse all just stood back and let Thatcher and Tebbit kick the union movement to death. Youse said yessir, no sir, to the Maxwells and Murdochs and Carnegie Wilsons while they decimated our jobs and wrecked our industry. And then you buggered off to a cushy number in the sun while we run about the country like headless chickens, desperate for casual shifts anywhere that’ll pay our bus fare.” Chic stopped suddenly, his flow of invective in need of fuel.

  He stumbled away, in search of more whisky, while Stewart, refreshed by support, returned to the attack. “Squandered our birthright, you and your pals did,” he shouted, his bloodshot eyes blinking wildly as he thrust his purple face close to hers. For the first time since the harangue had started, she felt slightly nervous, not convinced that she could get out of this unscathed. “Did you come back to laugh at us? Is that what you’re doing here, drinking our whisky?” Stewart yelled. “It’s not on, you bitch, it’s not on!”

  Lindsay’s heart sank even further as she saw Tom Jack shoulder his way through the men who su
rrounded her. All she needed right now was for the general secretary to add his weight to the bully boys.

  “You’re damn right it’s not on,” Union Jack roared loud enough to stop the Northumbrian piper in mid-phrase. His pipes died with a wheezing groan.

  Lindsay steeled herself for his onslaught. But to her astonishment, he moved to her side and grabbed Stewart Grant by the shirt-front.

  “This is supposed to be a ceilidh,” Union Jack growled. “Who the hell do you think you are, turning it into a war? Bloody hell, it’s come to a pretty pass when a Yorkshireman’s got to tell a bunch of drunken Jocks how to behave at a ceilidh.”

  Stewart’s mouth kept opening and closing without a sound.

  “This isnae anything to do with you, Tom,” Chic said, his voice placatory. “We were just having a wee word with Lindsay here.”

  “Anything you’ve got to say to Lindsay, there’s a time and a place for, and it’s not here. And as long as I’m general secretary of this union, anything that happens at conference is to do with me. You’d all do well to remember that. Now, Lindsay, I want a word with you.” Abruptly, Tom pushed Stewart away from him and steered Lindsay across the room to a quiet corner.

  “I’ll not forget this, Tom Jack,” Stewart spluttered vainly at their retreating backs.

  “Neither will I,” Lindsay said. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

  “Oh, I’ll want paying back,” Tom said with a broad wink. “I’ve not got where I am by giving owt for nowt. There’s something I want to discuss with you. What you might call a proposition. Something you can help me with.” He looked around and realized there were eager ears all round. He drew Lindsay close and said softly in her ear, “I’ve had a few drinks, so this isn’t the time. Tomorrow, during the first order-paper. There’s a coffee shop about half a mile down the hill from the conference center. Polly’s it’s called. I’ll see you there.” He stepped back. “I’ll see you later, Lindsay. I know we can do business together.”