Conferences are Murder (18 page)

Sophie continued, working up Lindsay's body, but she was only half-way through the initial induction when a change in Lindsay's breathing pattern signalled she had already slipped over into an altered state of consciousness. Sophie continued with the relaxation, then said, “I'm going to count backwards from five, and with every number, you will go deeper and deeper, deeper and deeper. Five, four, three, two, one, zero, zero, zero.”

Lindsay's body became even more limp. Sophie did a few reflex tests to make sure Lindsay really was as deeply under as she thought, then she began to work. “I want you to imagine you're in a video library. In this video library, there are shelves of tapes, and they're all videos of your life. What you're going to do now is choose a video to watch tonight. I want you to find the tape from last night. I want you to take down the video that has the Scots-Irish night on it. Have you got that tape in your hand?”

Lindsay grunted.

“Okay,” Sophie continued in a soft, measured monotone. “I want you to put that tape in the video and press play. Now, I want you to tell me what you can see.”

“Can see the band playing, in front of me. I've got a bottle of White Horse.” Lindsay sounded defiantly proud of herself. Her voice was slightly blurred, as if she were half-asleep or half-drunk.

“What can you hear?”

“Can hear the band. They're playing an eightsome reel, but nobody knows how to dance it properly. Or else they're like me, they know but they'd rather be drinking. I can hear a lot of voices, talking, shouting, but I'm not listening to them, I'm listening to the music. It's not bad, though the fiddler's a wee bit slow on the key changes.”

“What can you smell and taste?” Sophie was checking which senses had been most important to Lindsay the night before.

Lindsay's nose wrinkled in disgust. “Cigarette smoke. Stuffy. Sweaty bodies. The band doesn't smell nice. Somebody's got a pipe.” Then her face cleared and she gave a half-smile. “I can
taste the peat in the White Horse. 'S from Islay. Proper whisky.”

“What can you feel?”

“Hot.”

“I want you to press fast forward now, and I want you to take us forward. You're outside now, you've been talking to Desmond, the Irishman who's going to Minnesota. What can you see?”

“Fountain. 'S boring. Lots of lights gone off. Big blocks of darkness against the sky. No stars out, just black.”

“What's happening?” Sophie probed.

“I told him I've got to go, it's late and I've got stuff to do. He's standing up and saying he's going back to the ceilidh, and I laugh because I think it's funny because he can hardly stand after that last swallow of Jameson's. Don't like Jameson's, doesn't taste of anything proper. So I watch him stagger off, and I go back to Maclintock Tower. I'm
really
tired. I want to go to sleep and the room not go round and I'm sort of talking to myself and I wish Sophie was here because then I wouldn't be drunk because, 's funny, but I don't get drunk when Sophie's here, not because she makes me not, just because I don't feel the need.” Lindsay stopped.

“What's happening now?” Sophie prompted her.

“I'm waiting for the lift,” Lindsay said in the irritated tone of a child who has just been asked a question they knew how to answer when they were a year younger.

“Okay, let's move forward. The lift's come to a standstill on the tenth floor, and you're stepping out. Can you see?”

“'S hard. They've only got those stupid blue nightlights, and you can hardly see to the next corner. I look to my right, then I look to my left, and I sort of see somebody moving fast round the corner.”

“Look carefully at the picture. Take it back, look at it frame by frame. What can you see?”

“'S all a bit blurry. I'm a bit pissed, you know,” Lindsay said confidentially. “Let me see. 'S not wearing shoes. 'S a leg. A leg going round the corner. The bottom bit of a leg. It's not wearing clothes. Just a leg.”

Sophie checked that Lindsay's mini-cassette recorder was still turning. “Keep looking at that frame. Now, is it a man's leg or a woman's?”

“Don't know. Quite slim. Nice leg. Probably a woman, because I think it's nice.” Lindsay giggled.

“What can you hear?”

“The lift shutting and going down.”

“What do you feel?”

“Sweaty and tired and drunk.”

“Can you smell anything?”

Lindsay sniffed loudly. Her face changed, and she frowned. “Perfume. Faint, but I know it. I know what it is.”

Sophie felt a thrill of excitement. This was completely new. “What is it, Lindsay?”

“Cartier. Le Must de Cartier.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure.” Lindsay's voice had grown hard and cold. She no longer sounded like an amiable drunk. “I bought it often enough. For Cordelia. Perfume for treacherous bitches.
She
wears it too.”

“Who wears it too, Lindsay?”

“Laura Craig, of course. 'Nother treacherous bitch.”

“Anybody else?”

“Nobody I know,” Lindsay said.

“I want you to carry on, frame by frame, until the moment when you open the door, then I want you to press stop. Okay?” Lindsay nodded. Sophie listened patiently for another five minutes, but there was nothing else of any significance in Lindsay's story. Gently, Sophie brought Lindsay back into full consciousness.

Lindsay sat up, stretched and yawned hugely. “Oh God,” she sighed. “That was wonderful.” She yawned again. “I feel so-o-oh relaxed.” She rubbed her eyes and swung her feet on to the floor. “Well, I suppose it was worth a try. If nothing else, I've had a good rest.”

“I'm glad I've got my uses,” Sophie said drily. “Don't you want to discuss what you came up with?”

Lindsay did a double take. “What I came up with? I don't remember coming up with anything!”

Sophie smiled. “Oh yes you did.”

Lindsay looked suspicious. “You said I was in control. You said I'd be able to remember anything that happened under hypnosis.”

“You do, in the sense that what was in your subconscious is now part of your conscious mind. But you were very deeply under. You'll have to think quite hard about what you came up with. Luckily, I was here to listen.”

“How do I know you're not just making it up?”

“Because you'll know what I'm talking about as soon as I remind you that what was niggling at the back of your mind wasn't something you saw or heard. It was something you smelled. Le Must de Cartier.”

“As used by Cordelia Brown and Laura Craig. They should rechristen it Betrayal.” Suddenly, Lindsay sat bolt upright. “Conference Chronicle must have got it right about her being a Special Branch plant. No way she could afford Cartier on what the union pays her.”

“You've completely lost me, Lindsay,” Sophie complained. “Although you do seem to have astonishing recall considering this hypnosis business doesn't really work,” she added, tongue firmly planted in her cheek.

Lindsay apologized and brought Sophie up to date on the allegations about Laura. “And there's something else I didn't go into detail about. I don't know what bearing it has on what's happened now, but old sins cast long shadows. It was another unexpected death that looked like it could have been an accident. Let me tell you a bedtime story,” Lindsay said. She put her arms round Sophie and cast her mind back nine years to her first union conference.

Succinctly, reviving her dormant journalistic skills, Lindsay outlined the circumstances of Ian Ross's death. “He died instantly,” she concluded. “And all because his inhaler ran out at the wrong time.”

Sophie, who had been listening intently, frowned. “That
can't
be right, Lindsay. It can't have happened like that.”

10

“I'm telling you, that's what happened,” Lindsay said obstinately.

Recalling in the nick of time her partner's fondness for being right, Sophie diplomatically said, “I'm sure that's what people were saying at the time, but I find it hard to credit.”

Lindsay's chin lifted. “What exactly is it you are taking issue with? I mean, I
was
there, and I've not exactly gone senile yet. I can still remember what happened, even if it was nine years ago.”

“I didn't say there was anything wrong with your recollection, sweetheart. Just that whoever told you what happened might have got it wrong, that's all.”

“Wrong about what?” Lindsay persisted, only slightly mollified.

Sophie absently massaged the back of Lindsay's neck, kneading the tight muscles as she formulated the least inflammatory approach. “How long had Ian been asthmatic?” she eventually asked.

“I don't know. Since he was a kid, I think. Certainly as long as
I knew him. He didn't make any secret of it. He used his inhalers wherever he happened to be—in the middle of the office, in the car, down the pub. Mmm, that's wonderful, gimme more!” Lindsay groaned, leaning back into Sophie.

“And did he use his inhalers often?” Sophie asked, moving out across the firm trapezius muscles that Lindsay had built up on the volleyball court and in the surf.

“Mmm,” Lindsay breathed. “Yeah, every few hours or so, I guess.”

“And did you ever see him have an acute attack?”

“Only the once. The day after we arrived at Blackpool. Laura brought her golden retriever over to our table in the bar at lunchtime. The dog was next to Ian. He took his inhalers right away, but it didn't seem to help. He was really wheezing and struggling for breath. Don't suppose I have to tell you, you'll have seen it often enough. Oh, God, Soph, that's perfect, just there,” she added as Sophie dug her thumbs in around Lindsay's spine.

“QED,” Sophie said, trying to keep the note of triumph out of her voice.

“What is?” Lindsay groaned.

“The point I was trying to make. Any asthmatic whose condition was bad enough to require the use of inhalers every few hours and who was prone to acute attacks provoked by specific allergens would never have been caught out with one empty inhaler,” Sophie said.

“But they must run out some time,” Lindsay objected.

Sophie nodded. “Of course they do. But asthmatics have a healthy respect for their illness. They know it can kill. When I was a student, I shared a flat with a woman who had relatively bad asthma, and she had inhalers like most people have personal jewellery. There was always at least one in her bag, usually a couple. There was one tucked down the seat of her armchair, one in the bathroom, one in the cutlery drawer and one by her bed. Whenever we were going out anywhere, she always gave her inhaler a shake to check there was enough in it to cope if she had an acute attack. It was a reflex. And she
wasn't paranoid. From what I've seen of asthmatics, she was pretty typical. That's why I don't believe what you've told me about Ian's death. I find it inconceivable that he didn't have a spare inhaler either on his person or in his car.”

“So how come nobody pointed that out at the time?” Lindsay asked.

“Speaking purely as a subscriber to chaos theory, I'd assume that the coroner was a lawyer rather than a doctor and that no one involved on the official side knew much about asthma. But you're right to ask the question,” she added. “It's curious that it didn't crop up.”

Suddenly, Lindsay jumped to her feet. “The hot water!” she exclaimed, hitting the heel of her hand against her forehead. “Of course, the hot water!”

Sophie sat patiently, watching Lindsay bouncing on the balls of her feet like a runner waiting for the starting-pistol. “The hot water?” she asked.

Lindsay closed her eyes and summoned up a picture from the past. This time, she didn't need hypnotherapy to reach the information.

“Ian used to drink herbal tea, so he just used to get the waitress to bring him a pot of boiling water and he'd dunk his own bag. Anyway, on the morning he died, Laura cannoned into our table and sent his pot of water flying. It looked just like a regular bit of clumsiness, and they had a bit of a shouting match. Laura ended up marching off to the kitchen and getting him another pot. And that's how she did it,” Lindsay concluded triumphantly.

Sophie sighed. “Did what, Lindsay?”

“D'you remember that woman who was at Paige's birthday party? The allergy specialist?”

Sophie nodded. “The one from Sonoma?”

“That's right. Well, she was telling me how they do allergy testing. They make a concentrated extract of the allergen and put it in solution. Apparently, you have to be really careful with labelling, because the liquids are mostly colorless, odourless and tasteless. Just the sort of thing you could dump
into a pot of hot water without anyone noticing, don't you think?”

Sophie shook her head, bemused. “That's a bit of a jump, isn't it?”

“Logic, that's what it is.”

Sophie couldn't help chuckling. “Fine. So what next, Sherlock?”

Lindsay flopped on the bed and stretched out. “I suppose a quick bonk would be out of the question?”

“You suppose right. On the other hand, the offer of a long, slow, sensuous night of passion might just persuade me . . .”