by Val McDermid
“ ‘Oh dear’ doesn’t even scratch the surface,” Helen said wearily. She walked round the table so she could see Meredith. “We haven’t met, have we?”
“This is Meredith,” Kirsten and Lindsay said in ragged chorus.
Meredith smiled. It looked tentative as a first rehearsal. “You must be Helen,” she said. “I’m sorry to invade your personal space like this, but I really needed to talk with Lindsay and I didn’t want to wait till she checked in tomorrow morning. This has been kind of a difficult week, I guess you know.”
Impulsively, Helen stepped forward and hugged Meredith. “You’re all right here,” she said. “It must be a complete bastard, what you’re going through.” She stood back. “You’re welcome here any time, whether Lindsay’s here or not. You need a bit of company, just get yourself round here. Okay?”
Looking slightly stunned, Meredith nodded. “I thought you English were supposed to be reserved and standoffish?” she asked with a more relaxed smile.
“She’s not English, she’s from Liverpool,” Kirsten remarked drily.
“A far-off country of which we know little,” Lindsay added.
“Very funny. Come on, K, let’s leave Lindsay and Meredith to talk down here. I need the biggest gin in the Home Counties and someone to wash my back while I slag off that scheming cow Stella and gutless Guy the porn king.”
“Porn king?” Kirsten said faintly.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” Helen promised, sliding a bottle of eighteen-year-old Macallan towards Lindsay and half-filling a tumbler with gin. She tossed in a couple of lumps of ice, a slice of lemon and a token splash of tonic, then shooed Kirsten out of the door.
“That is one helluva woman,” Meredith said.
Pouring herself a good two fingers of the golden liquid, Lindsay nodded. “Sophie’s ex. You see what I have to live up to? Ebullient. Irrepressible. Generous to a fault. And right now, possessed of a rage that would make the Eumenides look a teeny bit cross.” She took a bottle of still mineral water from the fridge and carefully added about the same again to her glass. Then she swirled the liquid round, watching the sobs of spirit subside down the glass. “How have you been?” she asked, settling down at the table, taking in Meredith’s improved appearance. She looked as if she’d had a decent night’s sleep, and her hair was washed and pulled back in a loose pigtail.
Meredith shrugged. “Up and down. I can go for whole chunks of time on automatic pilot, getting through the day. Then it comes at me out of left field, no warning. It’s like I hear her voice, or I half see her out of the corner of my eye. I get a whiff of her perfume. Or some memory ambushes me. I went to the local bakery today to buy some bread, and the baker was coming through with a tray of freshly baked cinnamon Danish and I just burst into tears. Penny loved his Danish, she’d send me down there every morning to pick some up for breakfast whenever we were in London together. I felt so stupid. I mean, how can you get emotional about a tray of Danish?” Even the recollection was enough to make Meredith’s voice tremble and her eyes grow damp.
Lindsay swished a mouthful of Scotch round her mouth, making her taste-buds snap into wakefulness and her gums tingle. She swallowed and said, “The last thing Frances ever gave me was a jar of quails’ eggs. I still have them, lurking at the back of the fridge. The oldest quails’ eggs in the world. It’s not rational, but if Sophie ever threw them away I’d probably take a kitchen knife to her, and she knows it. We’re a good pair, you and me. I have a sentimental attachment to quails’ eggs and you cry at Danish pastries. We’d better not have a day out in Harrods food hall, eh?”
“I guess.” Meredith gave a watery smile. “Did I tell you, my employers have shown a novel way of expressing their sympathies?”
“No. What have they done?”
“They fired me. Apparently, I no longer meet their criteria on security. They seem more concerned that I’m a lesbian than they are about me being a suspect in a homicide inquiry.”
“That’s terrible,” Lindsay protested. “They know your partner’s been murdered and they phone you up to sack you?”
“Fax, actually. I don’t even get to go in and empty my desk and say goodbye to my team.” Meredith sighed. “I suppose I should look on the bright side. I mean, it kind of ruins my so-called motive for murder, doesn’t it? If I’m supposed to have killed her to preserve my in-the-closet status, you’d think I’d have had the sense to realize that I’d be outed by the investigation.”
“It’s outrageous,” Lindsay said. “Can’t you sue them?”
Meredith shrugged. “I don’t think so. And why would I want to prolong my connection with them by one single minute? A week ago, it would have been the end of the world to lose my job. Now? It’s no big deal. I can get another job. I can’t get another Penny.” For a moment, they both sat silent, reflecting. Then Meredith straightened up in her chair. “Enough moping. How’s your investigation going? Have you made any progress?”
“Not as much as I’d have liked,” Lindsay admitted. “I found out a few interesting things. First, and this is probably the most significant thing from your point of view, there’s no closed circle of knowledge about the murder method. Penny and Baz had an animated discussion about it on the editorial floor, overheard by everybody who was close by at the time. Every one of them probably told at least one other person, and chances are it was all over the publishing world by teatime. Second, whoever killed her probably hadn’t been a regular visitor to the flat because he or she didn’t know the procedures for locking up. Third, did you know about the film and TV deal that Catriona’s been working on?”
Meredith frowned. “A TV deal? With Penny?” She sounded as thunderstruck as Lindsay had felt when she’d heard Helen’s news.
“Straight up. Galaxy Pictures in a co-production with the BBC via an independent UK production company. Three Darkliners books in nine episodes planned initially, with more if they get the audience figures. I’m told the deal’s near completion.”
Meredith shook her head. “Somebody’s feeding you a line. You know what Penny thought about adaptations. She said it was like hiring cannibals as baby-sitters. They might promise to be good, but you couldn’t be sure what they’d get up to as soon as your back was turned.”
“You know that, I know that. But the industry gossip says different. I guess we have to work on the premise that Catriona Polson still hadn’t told Penny what was on offer.”
Meredith shook her head in amazement. “No wonder she wanted to get me out of the way in a police cell,” she said. “I mean, I know that as literary executor, she can do pretty much what she wants in terms of deal-making, but I’m not going to sit on my hands and let her push this through. Even if it’s a fait accompli, I can still make sure the world knows that Catriona Polson is taking the grossest advantage of Penny’s death.”
Lindsay rolled her glass between her hands and gazed into the amber glow. “Do you think it’s a motive for murder, though?”
Meredith stopped short and stared. “You think she might have killed Penny?”
Lindsay shrugged. “She’s a strong possibility. A lot depends on her personal and corporate financial situation, which I know absolutely nothing about. But if she’s strapped for cash, or if she’s just looking to get rich quick, then she’s got motive. And she’s big enough to have overcome Penny if there had been any struggle.”
Meredith dropped her face into her hands and rubbed the skin round her eyes. “I suppose so,” she said, her voice muffled. She looked up. “You know, I can imagine how the passion between lovers leads to killing in the heat of the moment. And I can imagine the casual violence between strangers erupting into murder, because the person you’re fighting is a stranger, not a real person with emotions and dreams and a family and a life. What I cannot grasp is what drives a person to kill someone who is a friend or a business associate. It’s not a relationship that should contain the kind of passion that leads to murder. But at the same time, it’s a killing
that means you’re involved in the aftermath. I really do not understand it.”
“Me neither, but it happens.” Lindsay swallowed another rich mouthful of whisky and continued. “Catriona’s definitely a contender. She’s the only person so far with a known motive.”
“Apart, supposedly, from me,” Meredith said bitterly.
Lindsay ignored the comment and carried on. “We shouldn’t lose sight of Baz, though.”
“Baz, her editor?” Meredith said, looking startled.
“There’s another one?”
“No, no, I was just a little surprised, that’s all. I hadn’t really considered her. I mean, thinking about what you were saying about Catriona, surely Baz is a little on the small side to struggle successfully with Penny?”
“Maybe there wasn’t a struggle. Hey, what are you doing?” she demanded, outraged, while Meredith took a cigarette out of a packet on the table that Lindsay had assumed belonged to Kirsten.
“I’m smoking,” Meredith said out of the side of her mouth as she lit up. “I know, I know. But I need it right now. I can stop again when all of this is behind me. Don’t make me feel any worse than I already do, Lindsay,” she pleaded with a crooked smile.
“I’d probably be doing the same thing in your shoes,” Lindsay said sadly. “Anyway, as I was saying, if I could only pin down a motive, Baz would be my favorite suspect rather than Catriona.”
“Why so?” Meredith asked, her voice sharp.
“Something happened between her and Penny that changed their relationship. I don’t know what it was yet, but it was obviously something pretty important. They went from being easy together, enjoying each other’s company, to being stiff and formal on this last trip. There’s no evidence of any similar rift with Catriona. Plus Baz is really uncomfortable talking about Penny.”
“Of course she is,” Meredith protested. “She’s in shock. She’s grieving. They’d known each other a long time. They were friends.”
“Not any more they weren’t. When Penny died, they were awkward and distant with each other. They had a row in the middle of the editorial floor about the very murder method that Penny used in the book.”
“What do you mean, a row?” Meredith demanded.
“Baz said it was a ridiculous, impractical way of killing someone, but Penny was adamant that it should stay in.”
“And you think Penny invited Baz round to give her a demonstration of how well it would work?” Meredith asked sarcastically. “Use some logic here, Lindsay. That argument says to me that if Baz was going to kill Penny, this is the one method she absolutely wouldn’t use because she believed it wouldn’t work.”
“Unless it was a double bluff,” Lindsay countered. “Because she backed down, Baz did, and she never backed down with her authors. Maybe she was thinking ahead and already setting up a defense for herself.”
“She’s not like that,” Meredith protested angrily. “I know this woman. If she was going to kill anyone, that’s not the way she’d behave.”
There was a sudden silence. Lindsay looked at Meredith, a strange suspicion growing as she stared at her friend sullenly smoking. She could almost hear crackling inside her head as connections slipped into place. “It was Baz,” she said slowly. “Your fling. It was with Baz.”
“You’re out of your mind,” Meredith blustered, too quick to convince.
“It was Baz, I’m right. You slept with Baz the last time you were in London. That’s why you wouldn’t tell Penny who you had your fling with. Because it was Baz and it would poison their professional relationship.”
“This is bullshit,” Meredith tried. She had more chance of stopping a runaway train with one hand.
“But Baz felt awkward with Penny, knowing why you two had split up. And Penny, who as we both know, was very sensitive to atmosphere, twigged there was something wrong. And she put two and two together, and that’s why she wanted to get into Baz’s office that night. It was Baz, wasn’t it?” Lindsay demanded, slamming her drink on the table. The remaining whisky seemed to rise and fall in a pillar, spilling only a few drops as it settled down.
“You’ve got no grounds for saying that,” Meredith said.
Seeing she was about to capitulate, Lindsay kept up the pressure, her voice rising inexorably. “You dragged me over here to sort this mess out for you. I can understand you not levelling with your lawyer, because it looks bad that the prime suspect’s last lover was not the victim but one of the other suspects. But you should have levelled with me, Meredith!”
Meredith ground out her cigarette and pushed herself away from the table, the chair legs shrieking a protest as she half turned away from Lindsay. “It was a one-off, for both of us. Her lover was visiting her family in Ireland. We were both lonely and feeling sorry for ourselves. She was just as keen as I was that nobody should find out we’d slept together. She had a lot to lose, after all—her lover as well as her professional relationship with Penny. And that brought her a lot of kudos there at Monarch. She cares too much about what people think of her professionally to fuck around with that.”
“I think Penny guessed,” Lindsay said flatly. It was neither her place nor her inclination to condemn. Fidelity wasn’t hard between her and Sophie. But she had no feelings of self-righteous ness on that count. She knew how easy it was to slip out of that habit when a relationship was on a rocky road where reassurance had become a rarity.
“She didn’t say anything directly to Baz,” Meredith said.
“Penny wouldn’t have. Not without evidence. And that’s what she was looking for in Baz’s desk and her computer. She bribed one of the staff at Monarch to smuggle her in after everyone had gone home for the day. She was looking for some piece of evidence to confirm her suspicions. I think she found it.”
Meredith swung back to face Lindsay, reaching again for the cigarettes. “Baz wouldn’t have left anything incriminating in her desk.”
“No? What about e-mail?”
Meredith’s gray eyes widened in shock. “Ah, shit,” she said softly. “Yes, there would be an e-mail trail a yard wide.”
“Still think Penny didn’t know?”
Meredith sighed a stream of smoke. “I guess it’s possible she found out. Depends if Baz has her files well protected or not.”
Meredith’s words snagged Lindsay’s memory. She’d completely forgotten about Penny’s missing computer. Clearly, investigating murder and jet lag didn’t go together. “Speaking of computer files, do you know where Penny’s laptop is?”
“Her laptop? Isn’t it in the flat?”
“No. The power lead is still plugged into the wall, but there’s no computer. Do you happen to know if the police took it?”
Meredith shook her head. “They haven’t got it. I know because I got my solicitor to ask if they had taken anything of Penny’s from the flat. I wanted to know if they had the answering-machine tape, right? And it turns out that all they took away was the answering-machine tape.” Meredith’s expression was wry.
“This is weird. Not only is the computer itself missing, but there isn’t a single floppy in the place, not even a box of blanks. And there isn’t a single copy of the manuscript lying around either. What was in Heart of Glass that’s so dynamite?”
“You think someone killed her to prevent the book being finished?” Meredith’s tone reflected Lindsay’s own incredulity that a novel could provoke such passion.
“I know it’s bizarre, but it’s looking a lot like it. The only way we’re going to know for sure is if we can track down a copy, and I haven’t the first clue how we’re going to do that.”
They sat in silence until Meredith reached the end of her cigarette. “She was always paranoid about back-ups. She always backed up on to floppies at the end of the working day. She kept one set in the house and another tucked into the back of her personal organizer. And the third set she took down to Half Moon Bay once a week,” she said slowly.
“What? She never left them with us.”
Meredith shook her head. “I know. She used to drop them off with her best friend from high school, Carolyn Coogan. She and her husband, John, both teach math up in Pacifica. They live on the other side of the highway from you, about a mile south. She’d drive down one evening a week, or sometimes in the small hours of the morning. If she was late, she’d leave them in the mailbox.”
“Couldn’t she just have posted them?”
“By US Mail? Puh-lease! Penny wouldn’t trust her disks to them, but she wanted a set somewhere they’d be safe if the house burned down, and where she could have easy access to them if it became necessary. So she’d bring them down herself.”
“That explains why she used to drop in unannounced so often. She always said she’d just come down for a walk by the ocean. She’d borrow the dog and off they’d go, then she’d sit down for a beer afterwards,” Lindsay said. “Obviously she can’t have been doing that while she was over here. Do you think she’d have made alternative arrangements in England? Maybe left the disks with somebody she knew in London?”
Meredith shrugged. “It’s possible. I’d say it’s more than likely. But I don’t know how we find out.”
“If need be, we go through every single person in her address book,” Lindsay said grimly.
“Oh, great,” Meredith sighed. “Lindsay, I think you’re going to have to handle that one by yourself. I’m not ready to talk to all those people yet.”
“Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Oh, one other thing.”
“What?”
“This murder by exploding beer bottle. It’s really off the wall. Where did she get the idea for that?”
“You ever notice her scar? On her left forearm, about two inches long? Well, years ago, before she knew me or you guys, she was on holiday in Austria and it was a real hot summer like this one. She had some bottles of this wheat beer sitting on the kitchen table, waiting to go into the fridge once there was room for them. She accidentally knocked against the table, the bottles rocked back and forth, and one of them exploded. She said it was like a bomb going off. Glass everywhere. And one chunk of glass embedded itself in her arm. I guess she should have had the cut stitched, but she didn’t want to go to hospital in a strange country, so her girlfriend closed it with surgical tape. That’s why she had such a noticeable scar. She always said one day she was going to use it in a book.”
