Conferences are Murder

by Val McDermid

  “I see,” he said slowly. “And that would mean going back a few years, I take it?”

  Sophie nodded. “We need to go back ten years before the introduction of new technology, which, in most cases, means going back between fifteen and eighteen years.”

  “You’ll be after that lad that died during the union conference in 1984, then?” he asked.

  Lindsay hoped her face didn’t betray the shock she felt. Sophie’s eyebrows rose. “You remember the case? That’s extraordinary,” she said.

  “We don’t get many conference delegates popping their clogs,” he said. “You tend to remember, on account of how the tourist information lads get their bowels in a right confusion over it. If they had their way, we’d hold inquests at the bottom of a coalmine at midnight whenever they involve a holidaymaker or a conference delegate. They’ve never forgiven Neil Kinnock for falling in the sea before the Labour Party Conference. They said he made it look like Blackpool beach was a life-threatening place to go on holiday. I ask you!” He got to his feet. “The lad’s name?”

  Sophie pretended to consult her personal organizer. “Ian Ross,” she said.

  He went straight to one of the cabinets flanking the door, and stood on a set of library steps to reach the top drawer. He pulled out a bulky file and climbed down with it. “Here we are,” he said.

  “I’m impressed,” Sophie said.

  “I like to keep things methodical,” he said. “You never know when somebody’s going to need to take another look at a file. Things can take on a different perspective down the years, can’t they?” he added, almost wistfully.

  “You’re absolutely right,” Lindsay chipped in. “I wish all your colleagues were as organized. Now, will it be possible for us to make a copy of this file?”

  He looked doubtful. “I thought you’d just be wanting to have a look at the inquest report.”

  Sophie shook her head. “We really do need to examine the whole file, I’m afraid.”

  He tapped his fingers on the edge of the file. “I’m not right sure about that . . . I mean, whether the rest of the stuff’s confidential or not.”

  “The other officers we’ve dealt with in London and Manchester didn’t have a problem with that,” Sophie said soothingly. “I suppose they felt that enough time had elapsed to remove any possibility of an invasion of privacy. And of course, the study won’t be identifying particular cases by name.”

  His face brightened. “Well, if they thought it was okay, I suppose they’ll know best, being more at the heart of things. I haven’t got a photocopier in this office, but I use the one in the county council office down the hall. If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll pop down and do it now.”

  As his footsteps receded down the hall, Lindsay leaned over and planted a kiss on Sophie’s neck. “You are a bloody genius!” she said. “Pathology, epidemiology, epistemology: you didn’t leave an ology unturned. Eat your heart out, Maureen Lipman!”

  Sophie studied her fingernails in a pose of mock modesty. “Elementary, my dear Watson. When in doubt, blind the buggers with science, that’s what I always say. After all, it’s been good enough for the medical profession for centuries. Why change a winning formula?”

  “There’s just one thing niggling me,” Lindsay said.

  “What’s that, sweetheart?”

  “The fact that he knew right away who you were talking about. And his explanation didn’t ring true to me. Methinks the laddie doth protest too much, and all that. Once you’ve got your mitts on our ‘research material,’ I’m going to have another go at our local friendly copper,” she said.

  They had twenty minutes to argue about the likelihood of Laura having murdered Union Jack before the coroner’s officer returned, carrying a large manila envelope as well as the file.

  “Here we are,” he said, handing the bulky envelope to Sophie. “I took the opportunity of having a word with Mr. Entwistle, the coroner, just to make sure I wasn’t doing anything out of order, and he’s cleared it.”

  The two women rose to their feet. “Thanks, we really appreciate this, especially since my letter had gone astray,” Sophie said.

  “We certainly do,” Lindsay echoed. “And I still can’t get over your mental filing system. Fancy being able to remember the case and the year, just like that. Nine years ago!”

  The policeman shrugged. “Well, some things do stick more than others. If you’d been asking about sudden deaths among hoteliers, I’d have had a lot more to think about!”

  “Yeah, I suppose journalists are a bit more uncommon,” Lindsay said, still desperately fishing.

  “They are that,” he said. “And this chap seemed a bit out of the normal run of things for journalists, even.”

  “How do you mean?” Lindsay asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “I’d probably have forgotten all about it if it hadn’t been for that business on the news the other day. You know, that union leader that got himself killed earlier in the week?” He cocked an eyebrow at Lindsay, who nodded casually. “Well, a few months after this Ian Ross met his maker, that selfsame union boss was here, asking all sorts of questions about him.”

  11

  “Some debates are more glamorous than others. But delegates have a duty to devote as much attention to international affairs as they do to finance. Like mother used to say, eat up your bread and butter or you can’t have any cake.”

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

  Lindsay swallowed hard. Before she could open her mouth, Sophie said brightly, “No wonder you remembered! That must be pretty unusual, two people wanting details about the same person. Though I don’t suppose the union man was after the kind of gory details we need,” she added with a smile.

  “I don’t know. He wanted to know all sorts. He said the union were going to set up a trust fund for training officials as a memorial to this Ian Ross, and he was meant to write a sort of tribute to him, though why he needed to know all about the way he died I could never work out. Still, ours not to reason why, eh?” the friendly policeman said, diplomatically easing them towards the door. “I hope your research goes well, ladies,” he added, opening the door for them.

  By the time they got to the lift, Lindsay looked as if she was going to burst with the urgency of her desire to raid the envelope that Sophie clutched tightly to her chest. “Wait,” she hissed at Lindsay as they joined the two men already in the lift. “It’ll still be there in five minutes.”

  As they walked back to the car park, Lindsay exploded. “I can’t believe it! Union Jack was here before us! That’s wild!”

  “Did the union ever actually set up a memorial fund?” Sophie asked.

  “Of course they didn’t,” Lindsay snorted. “But what I’ve been forgetting is that long before he was ever a full-time union official, Tom Jack used to be a bloody good investigative journalist. He knew every trick in the book, and a few that never made it that far. If he was sniffing around the inquest records, then at least one other person was as unhappy about Ian’s death as we are. And maybe what he found there is the reason he’s lying in the morgue now.”

  “It seems a bit far-fetched. He can’t have had any proof, otherwise why would it take nine years for his discovery to catch up with him?”

  Lindsay shrugged. “Dunno. But I’ll be a damn sight closer when I’ve read what’s in this envelope.” They had reached the car, and Lindsay drummed impatiently on its roof while she waited for Sophie to unlock the passenger door. As soon as she’d banged the door shut with a teeth-rattling slam, Lindsay grabbed the envelope, ripped it open and tipped the contents into her lap.

  “I have a suggestion,” Sophie said. “Why don’t we go and find somewhere for lunch, then we can go through this stuff together.”

  “Oh, all right,” Lindsay said resignedly. She shovelled the papers back into the envelope reluctantly. “I know a really good fish restaurant.”

  “Well, it was nine years ago,” Li
ndsay said apologetically half an hour later. “And all these streets look the same in the fog. Try the next left.”

  “We’ve been down there already. To hell with it, Lindsay, we’ll just stop at the next pub we come to and grab something there.” Sophie drove straight on, then turned right down a street she thought would bring her to one of the main roads.

  “That’s it!” Lindsay suddenly shouted, waving her arm in front of Sophie, who was forced to stand on the brakes.

  “That’s it?” Sophie demanded. “It looks just like a terraced house to me.”

  “That’s right. They fry in the front room and they’ve got half a dozen tables in the back. It’s wonderful, I promise you.”

  “It had better be,” Sophie said darkly as she followed Lindsay.

  While they waited for one jumbo haddock and chips and one halibut steak and peas, Lindsay eagerly pulled out the coroner’s reports on Ian Ross’s death. She flicked through them, separating out the pathologist’s report and handing it to Sophie. “There you go, darling, your area of expertise.” Lindsay herself concentrated first on the report of the officer who had gone through Ian’s car to see if there were any physical reason why he had lost control of the car and had failed to brake.

  When she got to the list of the car’s contents, she let out a low whistle. “You were right, Sophie,” she said. “Ian Ross was murdered. No question about it.”

  “You sure?” Sophie said, sensibly not reminding Lindsay who had first mentioned the m-word.

  Lindsay nodded. “Look at this,” she said, waving the sheet under Sophie’s nose. “ ‘On the floor behind the passenger seat, one plaid travelling rug with large quantity of what appear to be dog hairs, white or blond in color.’ He’d never have had a rug in the car covered in dog hairs—he’d never have allowed a dog in the car. He was hopelessly allergic. And let’s not forget Laura’s dog was a golden retriever. And here; ‘On the floor under driver’s seat, two Magic Tree air fresheners.’ Ian hated air fresheners—they used to really set his chest off, yet here we have not one, but two. And the final nail in the coffin, Soph; ‘In offside door pocket, one Ventolin inhaler, approximately half-full.’ That’s the clincher,” she ended triumphantly.

  Sophie frowned. “I don’t understand. Surely, if he had another inhaler in the car, he would have used it in so acute an attack?”

  “That’s what you’d expect, isn’t it?” Lindsay said. “But Ian didn’t keep his spare inhaler in the door pocket. He kept it in the glove box. I know, because he used it when we were driving up to Blackpool. He had one in his jacket, of course, but he’d taken that off while he was driving, and he used one from the glove box. There were actually two in there, I noticed. But look at the list of what was actually in the glove box; “One torch, one packet tissues, one pair sunglasses, one owner’s manual, half packet extra strong mints, one blue Biro, one Michelin map of the Pas de Calais, one photocopied street plan of central Blackpool.” No mention of inhalers at all. When Laura set up Ian for the kill, she realized that it would be suspicious if there was no spare inhaler in the car. So she just moved it from the place where he’d expect it to be and put it somewhere it would be found afterwards.”

  “That’s a pretty big jump, Lindsay,” Sophie protested. “I mean, couldn’t Ian have tried to use the inhaler, lost control of the car and just dropped it, letting it fall into the door pocket?”

  Lindsay scowled. “It’d be quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it?”

  Sophie was saved from getting into an argument by the arrival of their lunch. Lindsay’s haddock was almost too big for the stainless steel salver it arrived on. “Thank God you didn’t order the giant one,” Sophie said. Her eyes widened further as her own massive portion of halibut swimming in a viridian sea of mushy peas was plonked unceremoniously in front of her along with a pile of white cotton wool bread and butter.

  “The only question left,” Lindsay said through mouthfuls of hot haddock, “is why. I mean, we know Laura killed Ian and then she killed Tom, but we don’t know why or the reason for the nine-year gap. Hey, this is really good,” she exclaimed, pointing to her haddock.

  Sophie nodded agreement. Both women concentrated on their fish in respectful silence. Sophie scraped her plate clean first, and said, “There’s obviously something I’m missing here. How exactly do we know that Laura killed Ian and Tom?”

  Lindsay shovelled the last few chips on to her fork and paused for a moment. “She came over to our table at breakfast that day. She could easily have nicked the inhaler out of Ian’s jacket pocket. She might even have been wearing a perfume he was allergic to—he once said to me he had to trot off to the cosmetic department at Selfridges every time Laura wanted to try out a new perfume, to get a whiff of it and make sure it didn’t set his chest off. And then there’s the water.” She polished off the chips.

  “Pure conjecture,” Sophie said.

  Lindsay swallowed the last mouthful of fish, pushed her plate aside and poured herself another cup of strong tea. “Okay. But who else had access to Ian’s car to plant the rug and the air fresheners? And who knew where the spare inhaler was kept, so they could allay suspicion by moving it?”

  “Well, you did for one,” Sophie said.

  Lindsay grinned. “Yeah, but I didn’t have a set of keys for Ian’s car, whereas Laura, who had lived with him for years, almost certainly did. And she had a golden retriever, so she was in a pretty good position to get her hands on a travelling rug covered in dog hairs. And she’d already established how allergic Ian was to her precious hound.”

  “All circumstantial, though. Where’s the smoking gun? And what possible motive could she have had?”

  Lindsay ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t know. Yet. I’ve been trying to remember exactly what Ian said to me about their break-up. But it’s nine years ago, and even my trained reporter’s memory is having a bit of a struggle.” She frowned and sipped her tea. “He threw her out. He said there were some things you can’t forgive and forget. There was another bloke involved, but I never found out who. Whoever he was, he didn’t stick around for long, because Laura was footloose and fancy-free just a few weeks later, I seem to remember . . .” Lindsay’s voice trailed off in the effort of concentration.

  “Wait a minute,” she breathed. “Now I remember. It was Laura who confirmed my suspicion that there was another man. From what Ian said, it sounded to me like Laura was seeing someone else and he’d found out and given her the jaggy bunnet. Then I spoke to Laura on the beach and gave her the hard word about being unfaithful. She looked really shocked, and I took it that she was surprised because Ian had talked to anyone about it. But thinking about it now, it could just as well have been because I’d hit on the wrong thing altogether.”

  “Not for the first time,” Sophie said affectionately.

  Pretending to ignore her, Lindsay continued. “Which means that the break-up might have been nothing to do with their relationship, as such.”

  “Meaning what?” Sophie asked.

  “I wish I knew,” Lindsay said. “Maybe some deep dark secret from her past. Maybe he got hold of the same story as Conference Chronicle.”

  “But you said that story was complete garbage,” Sophie reminded her.

  “So maybe I was wrong. We’ve got to get back and see what we can dig up about this.” Lindsay pushed her chair back with a squeal. “Do you want me to drive?”

  Sophie laughed. “No way. Helen’s car wasn’t designed with frustrated boy racers in mind. You’d have the gearbox burned out half-way there.”

  As she followed Sophie back to the car, Lindsay found a moment to wonder what had become of her old MGB roadster, the car that had been her partner for longer than any woman to date. Eyeing up the boxy Japanese wedge that passed for a sports car in the nineties, Lindsay felt a brief stab of regret. With a sigh, she settled into the passenger seat and returned to the attack. “I still find it hard to believe that Laura is a Special Branch plant,” Lindsay confessed. �
�And I can’t imagine why Tom Jack would keep quiet about it for all those years if he thought she was.”

  “Personally, I find it hard to believe that she’d kill to preserve her cover even if she was a right-wing infiltrator. I mean, what was the worst that could happen to her? She’d be blown, okay, but I bet the powers that be would have found her some comfortable little niche in the Civil Service. Now, if we had some convenient money motive . . . Do we know who benefited financially by Ian’s death?”

  Lindsay shook her head. “I don’t remember, if I ever knew. But I could find out easily enough. Pull up at the next motorway services and I’ll set the wheels in motion.”

  “Okay.” Sophie slotted a k.d. lang tape into the cassette and hummed along to it as Lindsay flicked through the rest of the coroner’s records and the inquest report into Ian’s death. At the service area, she waited in the car while Lindsay gave the details of her request and her credit card number to a London paralegal firm that specialized in company searches and birth, marriage and death checks at St. Catherine’s House.

  “They’ll have something for me by close of business tomorrow,” Lindsay said when she returned.

  “Great. Well, you’ve just about made out a circumstantial case for Laura killing Ian, but that doesn’t bring us any closer to tying her into Union Jack’s murder. If it was murder,” Sophie said as they headed for the motorway.

  Lindsay chuckled. “Even you can’t talk me out of a murder verdict on that one,” she said. “Somebody had it in for Tom Jack, it stands to reason. You don’t shove someone out of a tenth-floor window if you just want to put the frighteners on them.”