journalists because I realised I couldn’t do the job any more. It was costing me too much to burst into people’s lives and turn them upside down. Yes, I got caught up in murder investigations a couple of times and managed to uncover some stuff that the police didn’t. But none of that makes me competent to sort out Meredith’s problems.’
‘You’re probably right,’ Sandra Bloom said sympathetically. ‘It takes a lot of skill and experience to be a good detective. You might have the rudiments of the skills, but you certainly haven’t got the experience. Frankly, I think Meredith Miller would be better off hiring almost any private investigator in London. That’s what I told her lawyer. But Ms Miller wasn’t having any. It was Lindsay Gordon or nobody.’
Lindsay’s scowl deepened. ‘I told you, emotional blackmail doesn’t work.’
‘Fair enough.’ Sandra Bloom’s smile was placatory. ‘And I fully appreciate why you don’t want to get involved. It can get hairy out there on the streets. You don’t want to be out on the front line unless you really know how to handle yourself. No, better Ms Miller has nobody out there batting for her than she has somebody who doesn’t know what the hell to do next.’
The smile was starting to make Lindsay feel patronised rather than soothed. ‘I didn’t say I was totally clueless,’ she muttered.
‘Of course not,’ Sandra continued blithely. ‘But you said yourself, you’re a long way off being a pro. But you appreciate I had to come and double check.’ She took a step towards the front door. ‘I can go back now with a clear conscience. Once she realises that she can’t count on having an investigator who’s one of her closest friends, I know she’ll settle for a regular firm of private investigators. I know a couple we can recommend to her. Thanks for your time, anyway.’ Another step towards the door. ‘I’ll tell Ms Miller that you fully sympathise, but you’re unable to help.’
Lindsay dropped her empty bottle on the floor with a clunk. She sighed. ‘OK. You win. I’ll come back. You can stay here tonight, and first thing tomorrow, we’ll sort out a flight.’
Sandra Bloom’s smile quirked upwards at one corner. It was the only sign that she’d succeeded in a carefully worked-out plan. ‘Not quite,’ she said. ‘I’ve got reservations for an overnight flight.’
Lindsay looked at her watch. ‘Tonight? No chance. I’ve got to discuss this with my partner, I’ve got to pack, I’ve got arrangements to cancel …’
‘And Ms Miller could be under arrest by morning.’
Lindsay stood up and glowered at Sandra Bloom. ‘Have you ever met my partner? Sophie Hartley?’
Sandra Bloom shook her head, puzzled. ‘Why? Should I have?’
‘I think the two of you took the same guilt-tripping course,’ Lindsay growled, picking up the bottle and stomping through to the kitchen.
Five hours later, she was in flight. Because college had broken up for the summer, she had no teaching burden to rearrange. Writing the book could wait; she’d reached the point where any distraction was welcome. It had taken less than half an hour to pack the assortment of light and heavy clothes an English summer normally demands. Lindsay’s attempts to contact Sophie had taken rather longer since Sod’s Law – anything that can go wrong will go wrong – was the only exception to itself, operating like clockwork as usual. Inevitably, Sophie and her cronies hadn’t been in their usual restaurant, so Lindsay hadn’t been able to speak to her lover. She’d ended up leaving a written explanation stuck to the tin of camomile tea that she knew Sophie would hit as soon as she came home. Hopefully, Sophie wouldn’t be too upset, given that their own summer trip to the UK was due to start in a week’s time anyway.
As the night slipped away under the plane’s wings, Lindsay wondered what she would find at the end of her journey. One thing was certain. Her own mourning had to go on hold if she was to be any use to Meredith at all. And in spite of her initial resistance to Sandra Bloom, Lindsay wanted to do what she could for Meredith. She’d always had a soft spot for her, not least because of Meredith’s response to her techno-fear.
It had happened after her last brush with murder. She and Sophie had been telling the story to Meredith and Penny one weekend when the four had been camping down at Big Sur. By lantern light, Sophie had revealed how, without her computer expertise, Lindsay would never have uncovered the truth behind the death of trade union boss Tom Jack. Both Meredith and Penny had been open-mouthed with astonishment to discover that someone who worked in the communications industry was a virtual electronic illiterate.
‘Doesn’t make me a bad person,’ Lindsay had mumbled uncomfortably.
The others hooted with laughter at her discomfiture. ‘You don’t have to be a nerd to know a bit from a byte,’ Meredith told her. ‘Hey, it’s only scary because you don’t understand it.’
‘I’ve tried to teach her,’ Sophie said.
Meredith snorted. ‘That’s like husbands teaching their wives to drive. Never try to teach your beloved anything technical. It’s the fast lane to divorce. Nah, Sophie, leave it to me. I’ll have her writing code by the end of the year.’
It had never gone that far, but Meredith had taught Lindsay more about hardware, software, hacking and net-surfing than she’d ever needed to use. The only question it had left unanswered was what exactly Meredith did for a living that meant she had all this stuff at her fingertips. There was no secret about who she worked for – a software and electronics complex in Silicon Valley, south of San Francisco, whose income, everyone knew, came from the Pentagon. Whenever Lindsay or anyone else asked for something approximating a job description, Meredith would simply smile and shake her head. ‘I kill bugs. You want more details, you have to need to know, babe,’ she’d say. ‘And just being curious don’t count as a need.’ Lindsay had sometimes wondered if even Penny had known.
Somehow, though, Meredith’s silence about that crucial area of her life hadn’t been a barrier between her and Lindsay. While Sophie was undoubtedly closer to Penny, Lindsay and Meredith forged a complicit bond where they played the childish role to the other pair’s sensible maturity, running off to play computer games or to chase the dog along the beach when the conversation grew too serious for their mood.
But it wasn’t all frivolity between them. Meredith regularly printed out obscure snippets and articles from the Internet that she thought might interest Lindsay, and often as they walked along the sand the two had debated the thorny issues around freedom of information and the preservation of personal privacy. From theoretical debate, their dialogues had moved to the personal, each sharing issues in their relationships with lovers, friends and colleagues. While Lindsay was unequivocal in her conviction that Sophie was her closest friend, she knew too that Meredith had an important place in her life. ‘I have to have somebody to whinge about Sophie to,’ she’d said once, only partly joking. She might have few complaints about her partner, but she knew herself well enough to realise that the way to keep them in perspective was to release them to someone who could point out that she was overreacting. For Meredith, coached in a life of secrecy both professionally and personally, talking to Lindsay, no matter how sparingly or obliquely, was often her only outlet. It wasn’t so surprising that she had sent Sandra Bloom after her.
Remembering what Meredith had taught her about the relentless logic of computers, Lindsay sifted through the little she knew about Penny’s death. She sighed and shifted in her seat. ‘How did the police get on to the idea that it wasn’t an accident after all?’ she asked Sandra Bloom.
The detective looked up from her copy of Sense and Sensibility. ‘The murder method was identical to the one outlined in Ms Varnavides’ new book,’ she said, her tone patiently condescending.
‘Yeah, I got that first time around, thanks. What I mean is, what tipped them off to the fact that Penny died the same way as her fictional victim? I’m having some trouble getting my head round the idea of some cop sitting down with Penny’s laptop and scrolling through her files on the off chance of finding something that would turn an accident into