detective wasn’t considered a designer accessory, Lindsay thought with a spurt of anger. She took a deep breath before she spoke. ‘Now, before we go any further, I want you to tell me everything you know about the events leading up to the murder.’ Lindsay took a notebook out of her shoulder bag to take down Claire’s words in her rusty shorthand.
Claire took a deep breath and went back to her vantage point at the window. ‘We’d been having a difficult time. We’d been together just over five years, and I suppose we’d started taking each other for granted. I had only recently been made a partner in my firm, and I was bringing a lot of work home. And Jackie was busier than ever. So many new magazines have been launched in the last couple of years, and they’re all hungry for strong, well-written features. But I was too absorbed in my own problems to notice the strain she was under. I suppose that was Alison’s appeal for her. Alison was in the same business, and they could talk shop together. I know Jackie had a lot of professional respect for Alison.’ Claire sighed deeply and walked across to a tray with a decanter and glasses. She poured herself a careful inch of Scotch, turning to Lindsay and saying, ‘Sure you won’t have one?’
Lindsay shook her head. ‘Go on,’ she probed.
Claire paced the floor. ‘It was the old, old story. I was the last to know. It had apparently been going on for about two months when I found out.’
‘How did you find out?’ Lindsay asked gently. She couldn’t help herself. Even with a woman she instinctively disliked so much, she still slipped straight into the persona of the professionally sympathetic interviewer.
‘I usually went to bed before Jackie. One night, I couldn’t sleep, so I got up to make myself a cup of cocoa. I came through from the bedroom and I could hear Jackie’s voice. It wasn’t that I was eavesdropping, I just couldn’t help overhearing. She was clearly having an intimate conversation with someone …’ Claire’s voice tailed off, and she traced the pattern on the crystal glass with one long fingernail.
‘What made you think it was the sort of intimate conversation you have with lovers?’ Lindsay probed.
‘For want of a better way of putting it, she was talking dirty to someone,’ Claire said with a look of distaste. ‘I was completely stunned. The idea of her having a lover had never once crossed my mind, can you believe it?’
‘Oh, I can believe it all right,’ Lindsay said, pushing the thought of Cordelia away again. ‘But how did you find out it was Alison? Did you confront Jackie then and there?’
‘I didn’t know what to do, so I crept back to bed. When she finally came through, I waited till she’d fallen asleep, then I got up and pressed the last number redial button on the phone. I got Alison Maxwell’s answering machine. The following evening, I confronted Jackie with it, and she admitted it immediately. It was almost as if it was a relief to her.’ Claire took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. ‘We had a very traumatic evening. A lot of tears, a lot of talking. At the end of it, we decided that there was still too much between us to finish it. Jackie agreed that she would stop seeing Alison. And as far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. Two days later, I came home to find Jackie in tears. She told me she’d been to see Alison to break it off, but that Alison had been completely unreasonable. She had threatened to tell me all sorts of lies about what they had done together, and to destroy Jackie’s career. Jackie was in a hell of a state. Before we could sort anything out between us, the police arrived and arrested her.’ Claire stopped pacing and stared at Lindsay in mute misery. The cool lawyer’s façade had vanished completely. ‘It was only later that I discovered that Alison and Jackie had been to bed together that afternoon. I know it sounds absurd, but I was more upset over her lying to me about that than I was about her being accused of the murder.’
‘So instead of pledging yourself to wait for her, you jumped into bed with Cordelia. Very supportive,’ Lindsay said, fighting the sympathy she was beginning to feel for Claire with her anger at Cordelia.
‘That’s not fair,’ Claire protested angrily. ‘It wasn’t like that. Neither of us planned what happened.’
Lindsay ignored Claire’s response and asked, ‘Is there anything more you can tell me that might shed some light? Did Jackie mention anyone else in connection with Alison?’
Claire shook her head. ‘No. You’ll need to ask Jackie all the details of what actually happened that afternoon,’ she grimaced. ‘Ever the lawyer, you see, I’m not giving you any hearsay evidence. I’ll also speak to Jackie’s lawyer, Jim Carstairs, so you can have access to all the legal papers. Remember – what I’m interested in is getting Jackie freed. To do that, you don’t have to provide definitive proof against any individual. You simply have to come up with enough new evidence to cast reasonable doubt on the conviction.’
‘I might not have a law degree, but I do have a qualification in Scots law for journalists, Claire. I’m well aware of the standard of proof required by the courts,’ Lindsay retorted, feeling patronised by Claire’s spelling out of the situation.
Claire flushed. ‘Very well. What do you plan to do next?’
‘I want to see Jackie as soon as that can be arranged. In the meantime, I’m going to take a look at the flats where Alison lived. I’ve borrowed a set of keys from a friend of mine who lives in the block. I want to refresh my memory on the layout. I’ll ring Jim Carstairs and arrange a time to see the papers. And I’ll look up a few contacts from my Clarion days. I’ll call you tomorrow evening and let you know how I’m going on.’
‘Where can I reach you?’ Claire asked. ‘Cordelia told me you rented your flat out when you moved to London three years ago.’
‘Yes. Unfortunately, the students who are in it now have a lease that doesn’t run out till July. So I’m staying with a friend.’ Lindsay scribbled down Sophie’s number on a sheet from her notebook. She got to her feet. ‘Goodbye, Claire. I’ll see myself out.’
Lindsay drove out of the city centre with a sour taste in her mouth. How could Cordelia have fallen for a pretentious yuppie like Claire Ogilvie? To distract herself, she studied Great Western Road as she drove out towards Alison’s flat in Hyndland. There had been a few changes here in recent years. It all looked smarter, somehow, the last-ditch hippy emporia of the seventies having finally vanished, overtaken by bookshops, up-market restaurants and interesting food shops. I like being back, she thought with surprise as she swung left off the main road and headed for Caird House. The flats were a ten-storey modern block, built by a housing association in the late seventies. Alison’s flat was on the sixth floor, two below Rosalind’s.
Lindsay left her car in one of the visitors’ parking bays, then walked down the ramp and past the barrier into the residents’ underground car park. It was almost empty in the late afternoon. Like Claire’s Merchant City eyrie, these were flats for single professionals, or couples without children. At this time of day, they would all be at work. Lindsay crossed the garage and examined the door. Unlike the ground floor entrances, this one had no entryphone, just the same seven-lever mortice lock as the other outside doors. Presumably only residents were expected to come in from the garage. Lindsay tried the key that Rosalind had given her and entered the block.
She noticed the two lifts, but ignored them and headed for the fire escape stairs. She climbed up one level and emerged through a heavy swing door into the foyer. There were two outside exits, one on either side of the block, each leading to a small landscaped parking area. Through the far door, she could just see the nose of her own car. There were no flats on the ground floor, merely boxroom storage areas and the collection area where the rubbish chutes deposited their contents. Lindsay pushed the fire door open again and climbed the stairs. She’d always used the lifts before, and wanted to see for herself how likely it was that Jackie might have been spotted from the outside as she’d sat on the stairs smoking. Small frosted glass windows provided the only daylight, killing that possibility. Overhead, fluorescent strips hummed. At the sixth floor, Lindsay emerged on to a familiar landing.
There were four flats on each landing, one at each corner of the central core. Two had one bedroom, the others had two, she remembered.