nose as she listened to Lindsay’s irony. ‘According to Ms Miller’s solicitor, Ms Varnavides’ agent called the police. She’d read a synopsis of the book and she believed it was more than coincidence that her client should die in an identical way.’
‘Her agent? Bloody hell, that’s one way to make sure you maximise your ten per cent!’
‘I think that’s a pretty harsh judgement,’ Sandra said stiffly.
Lindsay snorted. ‘Easy seen you’ve not encountered many literary agents. Think about it. Penny’s death is going to increase sales anyway. But murder? That’s a whole different ball game. Tie your dead author in to a gruesome murder mystery that’s linked in turn to her books and you’ve hit the jackpot. Penny Varnavides is probably going to sell more books dead than she ever did alive. But I don’t suppose any of that even crossed her agent’s mind when she rushed off to perform her civic duty.’ Her Scottish accent intensified with her sarcasm.
‘It was bound to come out sooner or later,’ the detective said. ‘I expect her publishers will be doing their bit to cash in too. Somebody will presumably have to finish her final book so they can publish it. So they’d have been bound to make the connection.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And by that stage, the waters would have been muddied by the passage of time and it would have been that much harder to nail the killer,’ Sandra observed calmly.
Lindsay nodded. ‘You’re right. In fact, you seem to be pretty good at this being right business. I don’t suppose you’d want to stick around, help me out with the investigation?’
Sandra Bloom gave the first spontaneous and open smile Lindsay had seen so far. ‘With someone as awkward as you? No offence, Lindsay, but life’s too short.’
Put in her place as firmly as few had ever managed, Lindsay grunted and squirmed round in her seat, tucking her pillow under her head and pulling her blanket over her shoulders. ‘Wake me for breakfast. Not before,’ she said firmly.
You could never confuse the approaches to San Francisco and Heathrow, Lindsay thought as she stared down at the chequerboard of small fields and housing estates. Having dozed fitfully some of the way across America and the Atlantic and read the rest of the time, she’d been stupefied with lack of sleep during the transfer at Dublin Airport. At one point she’d found herself wandering dreamlike into a Doc Marten’s shop and trying on a pair of shiny gold boots. If it hadn’t been for Sandra Bloom looming over her at the crucial moment, she might even have bought them. But now she was grittily awake, feeling faintly sick and aware that the long flight had just been a way of putting things on hold. In a few minutes, they would land, and she’d be in the thick of things. Penny’s death, Meredith’s grief and someone’s guilt would have to be dealt with. She wished she’d waited for Sophie.
Baggage reclaim, customs and immigration were swift and painless. The two women emerged into the main concourse, Lindsay apprehensive, Sandra relieved. Straight ahead, Meredith bent one arm at the elbow in a half-hearted wave. The forlorn gesture knocked Lindsay on her heels with its pathos. Then she surged forward, leaving Sandra to take charge of the abandoned luggage trolley, and swept Meredith into her arms.
For a long minute, the two women rocked each other back and forth wordlessly. For Lindsay, who knew the pain of losing a lover to death, it was as if Meredith’s agony was seeping into her by osmosis, taking her back to a place she thought she’d left far behind. All Meredith was aware of was the comfort of a familiar face, a familiar shape in her grasp.
It was Meredith who pulled back first. ‘You’ll never know how much this means,’ she said, her voice cracking.
‘Couldn’t just abandon you,’ Lindsay said. As soon as the words were spoken, she knew they were the truth. There had never really been any chance of Sandra Bloom coming back empty-handed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she added.
Meredith nodded, biting her lip, clearly battling tears. Lindsay put her arm around her and they moved away from the incoming passengers and their meeters and greeters. Out of the corner of her eye, she was aware of Sandra Bloom conferring with a woman in a dark trouser suit, a mac thrown with stylish lack of care over her shoulders. Where Lindsay and Meredith moved, they followed.
Lindsay steered Meredith into a chair in a quiet corner away from the crowds. ‘Okay?’ she asked anxiously, watching Meredith blow her already red nose and dab at puffy eyes with a crumpled tissue.
The woman in the suit stepped forward. ‘I’m Geri Cusack,’ she said, the soft blur of an Irish accent still evident enough almost to swallow the vowel on the end of her first name. ‘Meredith’s solicitor.’
More sexily slurred vowels, Lindsay couldn’t help noticing. She’d also taken in the straight shoulders and the gentler curves below, the reddish hair and hazel eyes set in a face shaped like a Pre-Raphaelite maiden. The features, though, were far too strong to appeal to any painter whose idea of womanhood fell on the submissive side of the fence. Geri Cusack, Lindsay decided, was not a woman to mess with. Wherever Meredith had found her, it hadn’t been first pick in the Yellow Pages. ‘It was good of you to bring Meredith to meet me,’ she said. ‘We’ll manage now.’
‘I don’t think you appreciate the gravity …’ Sandra Bloom started. Geri Cusack raised her hand in a warning gesture and the detective’s words trailed off.
‘Sandra, would you wait with Meredith a minute? Me and Ms Gordon need to have a word.’
Lindsay, half in love with the lawyer’s voice, followed her meekly for a few yards. ‘I meant it,’ she said. ‘We’ll manage now.’
‘That’s fine. I understand you need to ask her things it would be as well I didn’t know the answers to. That’s the way it goes in difficult cases like these. I don’t have a problem with it. I just wanted to fill you in on where we’re up to. Saturday evening, she was arrested and taken in for questioning. They were concentrating on establishing that she knew about the murder method in the book, and on where she was at the time they think Penny was killed. She doesn’t have anything approaching an alibi. But they’ve got nothing on her except the thinnest of circumstantial evidence so they’ve released her on police bail.’
‘They wouldn’t want the custody time to run out without enough evidence to charge her,’ Lindsay said sourly.
‘You know how the Police and Criminal Evidence Act works? That might come in handy. Anyway, she’s been advised not to attempt to leave the country and to report back to the police station on Friday morning. Just so’s you know.’
‘And you want what, exactly?’
Her wide mouth twitched in what looked like a half smile, half grimace. ‘My client’s instructions were to get you here so you could establish her innocence. I think I’d settle for that.’
‘Nothing too difficult, then,’ Lindsay muttered.
‘Not for you, according to Meredith.’ Her eyebrows rose momentarily. If it hadn’t been a wildly inappropriate moment, Lindsay would have been convinced she was flirting. As it was, she decided, it was simply part of a formidable armoury Geri Cusack dedicated to the greater good of her clients. ‘I’ll let you get on,’ the lawyer said.
Lindsay stayed where she was for a moment, watching Geri Cusack say farewell to her client and scoop Sandra Bloom up in her wake. Then she moved across to Meredith and sat down beside her, taking her hand and squeezing it gently. Meredith stared bleakly at Lindsay with the red-rimmed eyes of a sick and bewildered child. ‘I didn’t kill her,’ she said. ‘God knows, I felt like it, but I didn’t do it.’
The service flat in St John’s Wood was a reminder to Lindsay that Meredith and Penny inhabited a different financial dimension from her and Sophie. While Meredith was making coffee, Lindsay prowled the room, noting the deep pile of the carpet and the expensive brocade of upholstery