Free Conferences are Murder by Val McDermid Page A

corridor surrounded this central block, and the rooms were on the outside. Lindsay found hers as she rounded the third corner. She unlocked the door and stepped into the small room, skidding on a sheet of paper that had been slipped under the door. Picking it up, she immediately recognized the Conference Chronicle she’d already seen downstairs. With a wicked smile, she picked it up and placed it on the desk. There were quite a few activists from the former Journalists’ Union who deserved to get their come-uppance. It looked like Conference Chronicle might just provide that as the week went on. Now that was something to look forward to!
    The room seemed even more basic than the ones she’d inhabited as a student. The chair by the desk was plain wood, with no padded seat to ease the long hours that went into the production of an essay. Maybe the former polytechnic actively discouraged its students from writing lengthy analyses, she thought. The theory gained more weight as she noticed the room contained only one bookshelf. A wobbly armchair had a rip in its cracked plastic, revealing a lump of yellowish wadding. Lindsay slid open the wooden door of a built-in unit, to reveal a small hanging space, a few drawers and a tiny wash-basin with a tarnished mirror above it. The off-white walls were pockmarked with gray hollows where the adhesive pads that held up student posters had been removed. Considering how modern the block appeared from the outside, everything inside was astonishingly tatty. At least the room was light. A tall window stretched the
width of the room, high as the ceiling, ending about two and a half feet above floor level.
    Lindsay swiftly unpacked her bag. Two pairs of leggings, a pair of jeans, a pair of black needlecord trousers. Two sweatshirts, three polo shirts, two oversize washable silk shirts (one cream, one russet). A handful of underwear, another of socks. Sponge bag, towel, black leather cowboy boots, a swimsuit and a dressing-gown. Two paperback novels, a box of microcassettes for the tape recorder in her handbag, a couple of spare notebooks and three liter bottles of Badoit. Lindsay pulled a face as she stowed the last of her things. Why was it that you needed as much for a week away as you did for six months?
    Then she’d headed back to the lifts, pricked by her Calvinist conscience to seek out someone who could give her impending thesis the blast from the past it so desperately needed. There would be plenty of opportunity for play; all she had to do was justify it with a little work.
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    â€œI take it the deceased was one of those faces from the past you were looking for?” Jennifer asked, underlining something in her notes.
    â€œNot exactly,” Lindsay said. “I mean, I knew him from way back, but he wasn’t high on the list of people I was eager to see again. This thesis is about how the cause of women has been furthered, not hindered,” she added, acid in her voice.
    â€œSo when did you meet up with him again?”
    â€œIt was in the bar that evening. I’d noticed him earlier, when I was going into dinner. He was in a huddle in a corner with Laura Craig and Andy Spence. Andy used to be the deputy general secretary of the National Union of Printworkers. When the NUP amalgamated with the JU and the other print unions, their general secretary retired and Andy stood against Tom Jack for the AMWU top job. He lost that election, but he was definitely the people’s choice for the number two job.”
    â€œYou seem very well informed, considering you live in San Francisco,” Jennifer observed.
    â€œI’m still a member of the union, so I get my monthly copy of
Media Worker News . It’s usually only a couple of months out of date. That keeps me in touch with the factual stuff. As far as gossip’s concerned, I rely on global village syndrome,” Lindsay said. “San Francisco’s one of those cities where people are always