Hostage to Murder

‘Sammy?’ Patrick said.

‘Patrick. How’re ye?’

‘Well, Sammy. And yourself?’

‘Ah well, no complaints, you know?’

‘And the family?’ The rituals had to be observed.

‘They’re all doing fine. Geraldine’s got herself a nice wee job with the Housing Corporation.’

‘Good for her. She’ll do well there, so she will. So, Sammy, what can I do for you?’

‘Well, Patrick, it might be that I can do something for you.’

Patrick opened the humidor on his desk and selected a King Edward half-Corona. ‘Is that so, Sammy?’ he said, tucking the phone into his neck while he lit the cigar.

‘Have you still an interest in Bernadette Dooley?’

Patrick clenched the phone in his fist. Only a lifetime of dissimulation allowed him to sound unruffled. ‘Now there’s a name I’ve not heard in years,’ he said genially. But his heart was jittering in his chest, the surge of memory flashing a slideshow of images across his mind’s eye.

‘Only, when she went missing, I seem to remember you were pretty keen to find out where she’d gone.’

‘I’m always concerned about my employees, Sammy. You know that.’

‘Oh aye,’ Sammy said hastily. ‘I know that, Patrick. But I didn’t know if you were still interested?’

He couldn’t maintain the pretence of disinterest any longer. ‘Where is she, Sammy?’

Patrick heard the sound of a cheap lighter clicking. ‘I was in Glasgow last weekend – a cousin of the wife’s wedding. Anyway, I went into a supermarket to get some drinks in, and I saw Bernadette. Not to speak to, like, but it was definitely her, Patrick.’ Sammy spoke rapidly.

‘Was she working there?’

‘No, no, she was walking out with her shopping. I was at the checkout, in the middle of paying, there was nothing I could do …’

‘What supermarket would that be, now?’ Patrick said, as if it were a matter of supreme indifference.

‘I’m not sure of the name of it, like, but it’s right at the top of Byres Road. Behind the Grosvenor Hotel. That’s where the wedding was, you see. I didn’t know if you were still interested, but I thought, no harm in letting your man know.’

‘I appreciate that, Sammy. There’s a twenty-pound bet for you in the shop next time you’re passing.’ It would cost him nothing. Sammy McGuire was one of life’s losers. ‘Take care now.’

Patrick terminated the connection. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the Degas, two frown lines between his eyebrows. Few people had ever touched his heart; Bernadette Dooley had been the only one of those who had ever dared to betray him. Even now, the thought of what he had lost when she had disappeared gave him physical pain. For seven years, he’d dreamed of finding her again, convinced that their paths would have to cross sooner or later. Not a day had passed without consciousness of what had gone when she had vanished from his life. At last, he had a chance to regain the peace of mind she had stolen from him. He flicked the intercom. ‘Theresa, Sammy McGuire’s due a twenty on the house. He’ll be by later on.’

Then he hit the speed dialler again. The other end answered on the second ring, if silence could be called answering. ‘Michael?’ Patrick said softly.

‘No, it’s Kevin.’

Patrick stifled a sigh. The way it worked, you had to find a place for the stupid ones because it was bad politics to turn them away. So you put one thick one on every team and hoped the others would keep him out of trouble. Funny, it always was a him that was the thicko. You could get away with it without too many problems usually, because one dummy in a cell of four or five wasn’t too much of a liability. But in a team of two … it might be a different story. Patrick hoped not, for all sorts of reasons. ‘Put Michael on,’ he said wearily.

A long moment of silence, then Michael’s hard voice cut through the ether. ‘Patrick,’ he said.

‘Come in. I’ve got something for you.’ Patrick put the phone down. Only then did he realize his cigar had gone out.

The headlights turned into the drive. Lindsay checked that it was Sophie’s car and reached for the phone. ‘Carry out, please,’ she said when it was answered. By the time the front door closed, she was listening to the invariable, ‘Twenty-five minutes, Mrs Gordon.’ She twisted round on the window seat so she was half-facing the door. She heard Sophie’s briefcase hit the floor, heard the snick of the cloakroom door shutting, then her partner’s voice.

‘I’m home,’ Sophie called. Her shoes clicked on the wooden flooring as she turned into the kitchen. ‘Lindsay?’ She sounded puzzled.

‘I’m through here.’

Sophie appeared in the doorway, still elegant after a day’s work in a tailored suit and plain silk shirt. She had the grace not to ask why Lindsay wasn’t in the kitchen as usual, putting the finishing touches to dinner. ‘Hi, darling,’ she said, the smile reaching her tired eyes. Then she took in the bandaged ankle propped on a cushion and raised her eyebrows, concern on her face. ‘What on earth have you been doing to yourself?’

‘It’s just a sprain.’

Sophie crossed the room and perched by Lindsay’s foot, her hand drawn irresistibly to the neatly wrapped crepe bandage that swaddled the injured ankle. ‘Suddenly you’re the doctor?’

‘I’m the one with the sports injuries experience.’ Lindsay grinned. ‘Trust me, it’s a sprain.’

‘What happened?’ Sophie tenderly stroked Lindsay’s leg.

‘I wasn’t paying attention. I was running up the hill to the Botanics and I crashed into somebody.’

Sophie shook her head, indulgent amusement on her face. ‘So how much havoc did you create?’

‘None. She was absolutely fine. She ended up driving me home.’

‘Lucky for you her car was there.’

Lindsay shrugged. ‘She lives across the river. It was easier to give in and hobble there than to risk doing myself serious damage by walking all the way home.’

‘Still, it was nice of her to take the trouble.’ Sophie began gently massaging the relaxed curve of Lindsay’s calf.

Lindsay leaned back against the folded wooden shutter. ‘Aye, it was. And then she propositioned me.’

Sophie’s hand froze and her eyes widened. ‘She what?’

Lindsay struggled to maintain a straight face. ‘She made me the kind of offer you’re not supposed to be able to refuse, especially when it comes from a cute blonde baby dyke.’

‘I hope this is your idea of a joke,’ Sophie said, her voice a dark warning.

‘No joke. She asked me if I wanted to come and work with her.’

Sophie cocked her head to one side, not sure how much her lover was playing with her. ‘She offered you a job? On the basis of crashing into you and watching you sprain your ankle? She’s looking for a bull in a china shop?’

‘On the basis that I am still apparently a legend in my own lunchtime and she’s got a very healthy freelance journalism business that could use another pair of hands.’ Lindsay let her face relax, her eyes sparkling with the delight of having wound Sophie up.

Sophie gave Lindsay’s knee a gentle punch. ‘Bastard,’ she said. You had me going for a minute there.’ She ran a hand through her silvered curls. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she sighed. ‘Only you could manage to turn a jogging accident into a job opportunity. But how did she know you were a journalist? Is she someone you used to work with?’

‘No. She was barely in the game by the time we left for California.’ Lindsay quickly ran through the details of the encounter with Rory that she’d been polishing into an anecdote all afternoon. ‘And so,’ she concluded, ‘I said I’d think about it.’

‘What’s to think about?’ Sophie said. ‘It doesn’t have to be forever. If something else you really fancy comes up, you can always move on. Idleness makes you miserable, and it’s not like you’re snowed under with prospects.’

Lindsay pulled a face. ‘Thanks for reminding me,’ she said frostily.

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that it sounds like what Rory’s doing would be right up your street. Chasing the kind of stories that interest you. Working with a community you can feel part of.’

Lindsay drew her leg away from Sophie and swung round to face the living room. ‘Never mind that I’d be working for somebody ten years younger than me. Never mind that she only offered it because she felt sorry for me. Never mind that it feels like back-tracking to where I was fifteen years ago.’

Sophie got to her feet and moved to turn on the lamps. ‘It doesn’t sound like she felt sorry for you. It sounds like she was blown away by the chance of working with one of her heroes. Anyway, from what you’ve said, you wouldn’t be working for Rory, you’d be working with her.’

‘And who do you think is going to get first dibs on the stories? They’d be coming from her contacts, not mine. Coming on the basis of her reputation, not mine. I’d end up with the scraps from the table. The stories that don’t interest her. The down-page dross.’

Sophie leaned on the mantelpiece, casting a speculative look at her lover. ‘It might start off like that. But it wouldn’t be long before the word went out that Lindsay Gordon was back in town. You’d soon be pulling in your own stories. Where’s your fight gone, Lindsay? You’ve always had a good conceit of yourself. It’s not like you to indulge in self-pity.’

For a long moment, Lindsay said nothing. Finally, she took a deep breath. ‘Maybe I’ve been sitting in your shadow for too long.’

Sophie’s face registered shock. But before she could say anything, the doorbell rang.

‘That’ll be the takeaway,’ Lindsay said. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I didn’t feel up to standing around cooking.’

Sophie frowned. ‘Of course I don’t mind. Why would I mind, for God’s sake?’

‘Because you’ll be paying for it. You’d better go and answer the door. If we wait for me to stagger out there, it’ll be cold by the time we get to eat it.’ She pushed herself upright and began to limp towards the kitchen, using whatever furniture was available as a prop.

By the time Sophie returned with a carrier bag full of Indian food, Lindsay had managed to put plates and cutlery on the kitchen table. Sophie dumped the takeaway on the table and headed for the fridge. ‘You want a beer?’

‘Please.’ Lindsay busied herself with unpacking the foil containers and tossing the lids into the empty bag. When Sophie returned with a couple of bottles of Sam Adams Boston Lager, Lindsay looked up. ‘I’m sorry. That was out of order.’

Sophie sat down and helped herself to pilau rice. ‘Is that how you feel? That you’re living in my shadow?’ Her voice betrayed the anxiety Lindsay’s words had provoked.

Lindsay worried at a piece of naan bread. ‘It’s not that. Not exactly. It’s more that I feel I’ve been drifting. No direction of my own. It’s like the teaching job in Santa Cruz. I’d never have moved into teaching journalism if I’d stayed in the UK, but we went to the US for your career, and I had to find something to do.’

‘But I thought you enjoyed it?’

‘I did. But that was pure luck. It wasn’t because I had a burning desire to teach. And if I’d hated it, I’d still have had to stick with it, because there was bugger all else I could do.’ Lindsay reached for the bottle and took a swig of beer. ‘And now, here we are, back in Scotland because of your career, and I’m still no nearer figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.’

Sophie opened her mouth to say something but Lindsay silenced her with a raised finger. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that’s your fault. Nobody is more pleased than me that everything’s going so well for you. I know what it means to you and how hard you’ve worked for it. But it doesn’t make it any easier for me. And you being so keen for me to hitch my wagon to Rory’s star – that feels like you being desperate for me to take up any kind of stopgap that’ll keep me from going out of my head with boredom and frustration. I don’t want another stopgap, Soph, I want to feel passionate about something. The way you do.’

Sophie looked down at her plate and nodded. ‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘But you used to feel passionate about journalism. When I first knew you, ages before we got together, you really cared about what you were doing. You really believed you could make a difference.’

Lindsay gave a bark of ironic laughter. ‘Yeah, well, we all thought we could change the world back then. I soon got that knocked out of me.’

They ate for a few minutes in silence. Then Sophie reached out and covered Lindsay’s hand with her own. ‘Why don’t you give it a try? It sounds as though Rory’s way of working is light years away from the daily grind that turned you into a cynic. It can’t hurt to put your toe in the water. Besides, when the gods drop such an amazing piece of serendipity in your lap, it seems to me it would be tempting fate to thumb your nose at it.’

Lindsay tried to swallow her mouthful of bhuna lamb, but it seemed to have lodged in her throat. She’d never had sufficient defence against Sophie’s kindness. Her partner had never once complained about being the sole breadwinner since they’d returned from California, and Lindsay knew she genuinely harboured no resentment about it. All Sophie wanted was for Lindsay to feel as happy and as fulfilled in whatever she chose to do as she was herself. She hadn’t applied any pressure, simply offered encouragement. The least Lindsay could do was kick her pride into touch and take a chance on Rory McLaren. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘Heaven knows, I can’t afford to fly in the face of serendipity. And besides, I’ve got nothing to lose, have I?’

3

Lindsay squirmed around in bed, trying to get comfortable. The weight of the duvet made her ankle ache, distracting her from the Denise Mina novel she was trying to read. ‘Can you bring me a couple of ibuprofen when you come through?’ she called to Sophie, who seemed to be taking forever in the bathroom.

When she finally emerged and slipped into bed beside Lindsay, Sophie seemed unusually quiet. Lindsay swallowed the pills and put her book down. ‘Is something bothering you?’ she said. ‘You’ve hardly said a word since dinner. Are you having second thoughts about me working with Rory?’

Sophie looked surprised. ‘No, not at all. Why should I?’

‘No reason. But I couldn’t think why else you’d gone so quiet.’

Sophie sighed. ‘There’s something we need to talk about. I was going to bring it up earlier, but we were talking about your future and it just didn’t seem like the right moment.’

Lindsay eased herself on to her side and put an arm round Sophie’s waist. ‘That sounds ominous. I’ll never sleep now, you know. You’d better tell me what’s on your mind.’

Sophie lay back and stared at the ceiling, one hand on Lindsay’s encircling arm. ‘It’s the baby thing.’

Lindsay felt a pit opening in her stomach. Sophie’s desire for a child had been an intermittent bone of contention between them for the past couple of years. Whenever Sophie had tried to discuss it, Lindsay had either stonewalled or blanked it. She might not have much of a life plan, but she knew for certain that parenthood wasn’t part of it. So she’d worked on the principle that, if she ignored it, Sophie would eventually get the message and it would all go away. And inevitably, the attrition of time would render it academic. But since they’d come back to Scotland the subject had surfaced more regularly. Every few days, Sophie had raised the topic and Lindsay had tried to sidestep it. ‘You know how I feel about that,’ she said.

‘Yes. I know how you feel about that. But I don’t think you have the faintest idea how I feel about it. Lindsay, it’s all I think about,’ Sophie said, anguish unmistakable in her voice. ‘Everywhere I go, all I seem to see are pregnant women and women pushing babies in prams. I’m so envious it makes me feel violent. I can’t even get away from it at work, because it’s what I deal with all day, every day.’ Sophie blinked hard, and Lindsay couldn’t avoid seeing the sparkle of tears in her eyes. ‘Lindsay, I’m desperate. I’m nearly forty. Time’s running out for me. Already, the chances are that I’m not going to be able to conceive without some sort of clinical intervention. And there isn’t a fertility clinic in the whole of Scotland that will treat lesbian couples. Not even privately. If I’m going to have any possibility of a baby, I need to start doing something about it now.’

‘Look, you’re broody, that’s all. It’ll pass. It always has before,’ Lindsay said wretchedly.

‘No. You’re wrong. It never passed. Sure, I stopped talking about it, but that was only because you were so negative about the whole thing, it felt like pushing a boulder uphill. Just because I stopped talking about it doesn’t mean it wasn’t always there, constantly nagging away at me. If I don’t have a child, there’s going to be a hole in my life that nothing else will fill.’

Lindsay drew her arm away and rolled on to her back. ‘You’re saying I’m not enough for you. That what we have isn’t good enough.’

Sophie shuffled on to her side and reached for Lindsay’s hand. ‘That’s not what I’m saying. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone else. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But this need in me – it’s different. It’s a kind of desperation. If you’ve never felt it, you can’t know what it’s like. If you could walk for five minutes inside my skin, you’d maybe comprehend how this is consuming me. I need to try, Lindsay. And I need to try now.’

Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut. Please, let this not be happening, she thought. ‘I don’t want a child.’ She spoke slowly and deliberately.

‘You’d make a great parent.’

‘That’s not the issue. The issue is that I don’t want to.’

‘But I need to.’

Lindsay jerked upright, oblivious to the stab of pain in her ankle. ‘So what are you saying? You’re going to go ahead anyway? Regardless of how I feel?’

Sophie turned away. Her voice was shaky with tears. She feared she was driving Lindsay further from her with everything she said, but she couldn’t keep the churn of emotions secret any longer. ‘Lindsay, if I have to lose you to have the chance of a child, then I’ll do it. This is not about choice, it’s about compulsion. This isn’t some whim, some spur of the moment desire for a designer accessory. It feels like life and death to me.’

Her words shook Lindsay like a physical blow. She pulled her knees up to her chest, gripping them tightly with her hands. She knew her lover well enough to realize that this was no empty ultimatum. Sophie didn’t play games like that. And she was sufficiently resolute to carry out her stated intention.

This was the moment Lindsay had always dreaded, ever since the issue of motherhood had first raised its head between them. Her life had been bound to Sophie’s for so long, she couldn’t imagine what it would be without her. She didn’t even want to try. But if she didn’t give in, that would be exactly what she would have to face. ‘I can’t believe you’re making me choose between losing you or having a child with you,’ she choked out.

‘I can’t either,’ Sophie said. Her chest hurt, as if she was being physically rent in two. ‘Surely that alone tells you how powerless I feel? I’m in the grip of something I’ve got no control over, and it’s killing me. But I’ve got to try, Lindsay. I’ve got to.’

‘I’ve got no choice either then, have I?’ Lindsay said bitterly.

There was a long silence. Finally Sophie said, ‘You have got a choice. You can stay with me and try to make a family with me and our child. Or you can choose to walk away.’

Lindsay snorted. ‘Some choice. At least you’ve got a chance of getting something you want out of this. I don’t. Either I lose you, which would break my heart, or I have to be a parent to a child I don’t want. This is emotional blackmail, Sophie.’

‘You think I don’t know that? You think I want to behave like this?’ Sophie turned to face Lindsay, tracks of moisture glistening on her cheeks. ‘You think I like myself like this?’

Lindsay tried to stay resolute, to keep her eyes on the opposite wall. But it was more than she could manage. She slid down the bed and reached for Sophie. ‘You know I can’t leave you,’ she mumbled into Sophie’s hair.

‘And you know I don’t want you to. What would be the point in having a baby without you there to share it with?’

For a long time, they clung to each other, their tears salt against each other’s skin. Then Lindsay leaned back. It was going to be a long night; time they made a start on what had to be said. ‘So. What’s your next step?’ she asked, resignation heavy in her voice.

Café Virginia was suffering its daily identity crisis in the hiatus between the after-work drinkers and the evening players. The music had shifted into more hardcore dance, making conversation difficult, and there was a strange mixture of outfits on display, from business suits to T-shirts that clung to nipples and exposed midriffs.

The quietest place in the bar was the corner booth where Rory McLaren ran her business and held court. Nobody else ever sat in the booth, mostly because of the foot-high scarlet neon sign that said RESERVED. Rory had wanted it to say GONNAE FUCK OFF? but Cathy the bar manager had vetoed it on the grounds that it would be too big for the table. Rory was hammering out the finishing touches to a memo on a story proposal for the Herald feature pages, occasionally pausing to sip at her bottle of Rolling Rock. She looked up, sensing company heading her way, and saw a sharp-suited Asian woman with gleaming hair in a shoulder length bob weaving her way through the tables towards her.

Sandra Singh flopped on to the bench seat opposite Rory, dumping raincoat, handbag and briefcase beside her. ‘That jerk Murray,’ she spat.

‘Thought as much,’ Rory said, giving Sandra the quick once-over. ‘Love the earrings.’

‘A wee shop in Cambridge. I’m going to kill him, I swear to God. Three weeks hammering out the new format and then this morning it’s, “the network disnae like it.” I tell you, some days I wish I’d never left newspapers.’ She raked in her handbag and came out with a packet of Marlboro Red and a matchbook from last night’s restaurant.

‘You don’t mean that.’ Rory leaned out of the booth and waved to the bar, holding up two fingers.

Sandra’s grin was even sharper than her suit. ‘You’re right, I don’t.’ She sighed. ‘I just wish I did. So, any news?’

‘You could say that. Looks like I might have got myself a partner.’

Sandra snorted smoke. ‘As in, you got laid?’

Rory’s attempt at dignity wouldn’t have fooled a drunken child of two. ‘Sandra, there’s more to life than sex.’

Sandra’s laugh attracted every woman in the place. ‘You didn’t get laid, then.’

‘I’m talking business here, fool.’

Sandra nodded acknowledgement to the barmaid, who placed two sweating bottles in front of them. ‘You serious? I thought the whole point of this was being a one-man band?’

‘I thought so, yeah. But this one’s really special.’

Sandra took a long swallow of her beer. ‘So you’re planning on getting laid?’

Rory shook her head in affectionate exasperation. ‘No. Focus your mind above the waist for once, would you? I’m not looking for a shag, I’m looking to build a business. Listen, do you remember me telling you years back about Lindsay Gordon?’

Sandra frowned. ‘Lindsay …? Oh, wait a minute. The great lesbian icon hack. The one that turned you on to the beautiful game. This would be that Lindsay Gordon?’

‘One and the same. Well, you’ll never guess what happened. You couldn’t write this, people would say, “Yeah, right, and then the Pope said abortion was fine by him.” But this is the absolute, no messing, God’s honest truth.’ Rory gave Sandra the full version of her meeting with Lindsay, punctuated by her friend’s regular interruptions.

‘That’s wild,’ Sandra finally said. ‘So she said she’d think about it?’

‘That was just for show. You could tell she’s gagging to get back in harness.’

‘You wish.’ Sandra finished her cigarette and her beer. ‘Sorry, babe. I’m out of here. In fact, I never was in here. Got a date with a beautiful boy from Radio Clyde.’ She stood up, gathering her universe. She leaned across the table and kissed Rory on the cheek. ‘See you, darlin’.’