Free Conferences are Murder by Val McDermid Page B

happy to scrounge a bed for a couple of nights.”
    â€œI see. So, you saw Tom Jack with Spence and . . . now, who exactly is Laura Craig?”
    Lindsay rubbed her eyes hard with her knuckles. Anything to put off thinking about Laura. There were silver threads in that flowing crest of wavy brown hair now, and the laughter lines round the blue eyes were fast approaching crows’ feet. But the rest of the picture stayed the same. That mouth that could smile or sneer, but not much in between. Good figure, conventionally elegant clothes. It was hard to imagine Laura Craig in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt up a ladder painting the ceiling.
    â€œI don’t suppose you smoke, do you?” Lindsay asked.
    Jennifer shook her head. “I carry them for clients, though,” she said, taking a packet of Benson & Hedges out of her briefcase. She tossed them to Lindsay with a brushed chrome Zippo. Lindsay noticed a chased silver ring on the third finger of her left hand.
    She opened the packet and slowly drew out a cigarette. “I haven’t smoked for over two years,” she said. “Funny, I couldn’t have imagined anything making me start again. Sophie’ll kill me.” Jennifer raised an eyebrow plucked to a smooth arc without a stray hair in sight. “Sophie is the woman I live with. She’s a doctor.” Lindsay lit the cigarette and cautiously inhaled. Her head seemed to float away like a helium balloon on a piece of string, but the smoke was less irritating than she’d feared. She knew then that, like an alcoholic, she’d never be able to have the odd one. She was an addict. Only the nightmare thought of having to rerun the battle to give up made her crush out the cigarette on the floor after the third drag.
    Jennifer recrossed her legs and said, “Laura Craig?”
    â€œShe’s been a full-time official in the JU since the late seventies, responsible for about half the journos in broadcasting. The
rest of them were in a different union, and when the JU merged with them, Laura decided she was going to be the one in sole charge. So she made sure that everybody who mattered was convinced that the other official was an idle sod who didn’t have the confidence of his members. He took voluntary redundancy with record speed.”
    â€œI take it she’s not one of your favorite people,” Jennifer said mildly, making another note on her pad.
    â€œI’ve never been crazy about empire builders. Besides, we’ve got history,” Lindsay said abruptly.
    â€œRelevant history?”
    â€œI can’t imagine how it could be,” Lindsay said. “Call it a clash of personalities.”
    â€œSo, you didn’t interrupt them to say hello?”
    â€œNo. I went on into dinner with a few cronies from the old days that I’d run into in the bar. It wasn’t till a lot later that I actually managed to have a chat with Tom.” Oh boy, the euphemisms were piling up. Lindsay thought. “Having a chat” was one description of what she and Tom had been doing. She’d put money on that not being the words the witnesses would come up with.
    Â 
    The bar was a seething mass of thirsty activists. Lindsay pushed her way through the crowd, making slow progress. If she’d had a drink for every person who’d hugged her, shaken her hand or clapped her on the back and asked how San Francisco was, she’d have been drunk before she was half-way across the room. Suddenly, it began to feel uncomfortably like she’d never been away.
    She spotted the gap at the bar between the two men, each waving money at the harassed bar staff and shouting orders incomprehensible in the general hubbub. Lindsay ducked under their arms, brandished a tenner and made eye contact with one of the barmaids. After the woman had finished pouring the three pints of bitter in her current order, she glanced across at Lindsay, who mouthed “Budweiser,” held