ess than an hour after she had left Caird House, Lindsay was heading back there, this time with Helen. "I told Rosalind I'd find you and bring you round as soon as you got back," Helen announced for the third time. "I knew you'd be going back to Sophie's flat, so I thought I'd wait for you there. I still have a key, so I can feed her bloody tropical fish when she's away." Why me, thought Lindsay wildly. Answering her unspoken question, Helen continued. "With you being there this afternoon, Rosalind thought you might have noticed somebody hanging around. And besides," she added mysteriously, "there are things involved that I don't think Rosalind will be too happy to tell the police about."

"What do you mean?" Lindsay asked.

"Oh, I'll leave Rosalind to tell you all about it. It'll be better coming from her. How did you get on with Claire? Tell all!"

Lindsay gave Helen a brief rundown on her day, punctuated at regular intervals with Helen's sharp exclamations. When she reached the meeting with Cordelia, Helen exploded in righteous anger as incandescent as her flaming red hair. "The nerve of the woman!" she declared. "I hope you sent her away with her guts in a paper bag!"

Lindsay drew up in Caird House car park, saying, "What's the point, Helen? She's got every right to her own life. I was the one who did the walking." She got out and slammed the car door, adding as they walked over to the flats, "I don't think I was doing her much good by the end. As soon as I left, her writer's block disappeared, and she wrote the best book of her career, by all accounts. I guess she's better off without me."

Before Helen could reply, Lindsay used Rosalind's spare keys to let them into the block and headed straight for the lifts. "It's the eighth floor, isn't it?" she asked, her finger hovering over the button.

"That's right," Helen replied, finally realising that Lindsay didn't want to discuss Cordelia further.

When they rang Rosalind's bell, the door was opened almost immediately by a uniformed police constable. "We're friends of Ms. Campbell," Helen announced, sweeping past him in the narrow hall. "She's expecting us." Flashing an apologetic smile at the constable, Lindsay followed Helen through to the living room.

Rosalind was sitting in an armchair, looking dazed in the midst of the chaos that surrounded her. Her violet eyes were red-rimmed, as if she'd been rubbing them, her white hair in a disarray that was all the more shocking because of the contrast with her usual neatly groomed appearance. Papers were thrown everywhere, furniture had been overturned, carpets pulled up, and pictures hurled from the walls into corners where they lay surrounded by shards of broken glass. The drawers of the desk had been pulled out and emptied on the floor, and a bottle of ink had broken, leaving a permanent blue puddle on a scattered pile of envelopes. Lindsay, who had only been in the flat a couple of times before, remembered how neat and orderly it had always been and felt a dim version of the shock that clearly possessed Rosalind.

Helen rushed impulsively across the room to hug Rosalind. "I'll make a cup of tea," Lindsay said, feeling useless. She went through to the kitchen where the burglars had also been active. All the storage jars had been emptied on the floor, and the contents of the cupboards were strewn everywhere. It didn't have the air of random vandalism, however. Odd, thought Lindsay. Almost as if they knew they were looking for something specific. Lindsay raked through the wreckage till she found a mound of teabags and put the kettle on. She stuck her head into the hall and asked the policeman if he wanted a cup of tea.

"Thanks very much," he said gratefully, following her back into the kitchen.

"How many are there of you?" Lindsay asked.

"Just me," he replied. "I was told to hang on here till the CID could send somebody round. They've made some mess, eh?" he added almost admiringly as he looked around.

"You're not kidding," Lindsay said absently as she brewed up. "I've never understood why they feel the need to do it."

"Anger and frustration, so they say. If they don't find any money or decent jewelry that they can sell easy, they take it out on the householder. I always tell the wife, leave £20 in a drawer in the living room. That way, if we do get some animal breaking in, they might not make a mess of the place."

Crime prevention from the horse's mouth, Lindsay thought wryly. She handed a mug of tea to the constable and returned to the living room where Helen was sitting with her arms round Rosalind, who looked smaller and more vulnerable than Lindsay could have imagined possible. She handed them both a cup of hot tea, then settled down to wait for Rosalind to tell her what had happened.

Rosalind took a gulp of tea then gave Lindsay a weak smile. "If I hadn't gone white at twenty, this lot would have done the trick. I'm sorry to drag you into this," she said, clutching her mug as if it were a lifebelt in a stormy sea. "But I needed your advice."

"What happened?" Lindsay asked.

"I came back from the office in Edinburgh at lunchtime because I had a report to finish for my Minister by tomorrow morning," Rosalind said. "You can never get any serious work done in that office. The Minister's in and out all afternoon, wanting his hand held about something or other, so I thought I'd just pack up the draft and bring it back here.

"When I went to print out the finished report, I realised I was nearly out of computer paper. So I drove down to Byres Road and bought a box, then came straight back. I was only gone for about twenty minutes. As soon as I got out of the lift, I knew something was wrong. The front door was open, you see. I dithered for a minute or two, wondering whether there was still someone inside, but then I decided, to hell with it, and went in. The place was empty, but it was like this. The policeman said he reckoned they must have been keeping an eye out for me and just did a runner when they saw my car come back."

"That's funny," Lindsay mused.

"What's funny about that?" Helen objected. "It's exactly what I'd do if I was a burglar."

"Well, how would they know it was Rosalind's car, unless they were specifically targeting her? In a block this big, you'd have to be dead unlucky if the one car that came in while you were turning a flat over actually belonged to that flat's owner. It looks to me as if they came here with a particular goal in mind, and they knew exactly who to keep watch for. This was no random opportunist burglary," Lindsay said.

Rosalind paled. "You mean, they were actually spying on me? Surely not! I don't have anything valuable."

"Did they steal those papers you brought home?"

Miserably, Rosalind nodded. "They walked off with the lot. And the disc from the computer with the finished report. They took all my other discs as well. Luckily, I've got back-ups of most of them safely stowed in Helen's flat."

"Do you think the intent was to steal the draft?" Lindsay asked.

"How could it be? Nobody knew what I was bringing home. Not even my secretary knew exactly what it was about. God knows what I'm going to tell the Minister. I'm not supposed to let things like that out of my sight. He'll go absolutely apeshit."

"Why?" Helen cut in, unable to restrain her natural exuberant curiousity. "What were they about, for God's sake?"

"I can't say," Rosalind said. "Official Secrets Act."

"I know all about that," said Lindsay grimly. "But look, you can trust us, Rosalind. We're not about to tell anyone. And the police are going to have to know, aren't they?"

Rosalind looked worried. "Yes, they are." She thought for a moment, then made her decision. "It mustn't go any further, and I really mean that, both of you."

"You have my word," said Lindsay.

"I won't tell a soul," Helen said. "Though God knows it'll kill me, keeping my mouth shut." She pulled a face.

Rosalind gave a faint smile. "I know you can keep quiet when you have to, Helen. The report was about the privatisation of prisons. They've been muttering about it for a while, but just like the poll tax, they've decided to try it out in Scotland first. You know the Tory theory - dump it on the Scots, that way if it doesn't work, we've not lost anything because the bloody Scots always vote Labour anyway."

"Jesus," Helen breathed softly. "That's dynamite, Ros. What exactly are they planning?"

"I really don't want to go into details," Rosalind said. "But they're planning all sorts of shit like armed guards and high security isolation units for violent offenders. It'll mean the end of any kind of rehabilitation programmes for long-stay prisoners, among other things."

Lindsay sighed. "I can see why you're so worried. And if there were rumours around that you were working on it, there would be plenty of people who'd be happy to get their hands on the proposals. Any security firms who were thinking of bidding for the contract, for starters."

"But I've already told you, no one could have known that this would be the one afternoon when the papers would be here," Rosalind protested. She looked around the room distractedly, as if the chaos would provide her with some clue.

"Yes, that is a problem," Lindsay admitted. "But I don't quite understand why you wanted my advice. I mean, the CID and the Special Branch will be running around like blue-arsed flies till they get their hands on your precious briefcase."

"That wasn't what I wanted to talk to you about. I know that you can't help me with the official stuff. I'm just going to have to pray that the police find my papers quickly. Then the relief might just stop the Minister from killing me. What I'm worried about is more personal."

Lindsay lit a cigarette and waited. After a few moments, Rosalind disengaged herself from Helen's hug, took a deep breath and said, "Did you ever meet my brother Harry?"

"The MP? No, I've never actually met him, though I knew he was your brother, of course."

"Lucky you," Helen muttered. "Harry's about as much use as a chocolate chip-pan."

"All right, Helen. I know you can't stand Harry. But he's not as bad as you make out. Harry's the Labour member for Kinradie, in the Mearns. It's a long way from being a safe seat - it's mainly a farming constituency, and it was one of the few remaining Tory seats till 1983 when Harry won it the first time. So he has to maintain a respectable stance as far as the electorate is concerned. And his constituency party has a nasty right-wing rump that doesn't like a lot of his ideas, so they're always looking for an excuse to deselect him. He's done all the right things - bought a smallholding, married a nice girl who runs the farm while he's away. The only thing he's not managed to achieve in terms of respectability is to have kids.

"There's a good reason for that - Harry's actually gay. His wife knew what she was getting into when she married him, and they're good friends. I think Angela channels all her sexual energies into growing the perfect loganberry. But Harry's always been sexually active even though he's deep in the closet. He was a teacher before he got into politics, so he's always had the habit of being really careful about it." Rosalind stopped abruptly, clearly not certain how to continue.

Helen jumped into the breach. "What Rosalind isn't telling you is that Harry has a penchant for young boys; prefers them in their teens. And, as we all know, that's still illegal in this benighted country. So Harry is no stranger to the meat racks round Blythswood Square. He likes the illicit thrill of the rent boys."

"God, Helen," Rosalind protested, "you make him sound like some kind of sleazeball pervert. He's not like that. He's had a steadyish relationship on and off for years with Tom McNally."

"One of his former pupils," Helen interjected.

"Yes, one of his former pupils. But Harry never laid a finger on him while he was still at school. It was only after he'd gone to university that they started sleeping together," Rosalind said defensively.

"I still don't see what this has got to do with me. Or the burglary," Lindsay said, trying to break up the conversation between the other two women before it became a row.

"Sorry, I'm not explaining things very clearly," Rosalind apologised. "It must be the shock of all this. Harry spends quite a lot of time in Glasgow, seeing Tom and... other boys. When he's here, he uses my flat. I'm quite often away because of work."

"And because of Bill," Helen muttered. She got to her feet and began to wander round the room, unable to keep still. It was a constant source of amazement to Lindsay that in spite of Helen's phenomenal level of nervous energy, she still fought a constant battle with her weight.

"Yes, and because of Bill. That's the bloke I've been seeing recently. He lives in Edinburgh," Rosalind explained. "So Harry makes a lot of use of my spare room. Even when I'm here, it's not really a problem. We've always got along fine. But the spare room's been turned over as well. He has a desk in there with a locked drawer. The drawer has been forced and everything in it has been taken."

"What exactly was in it? Do you know?" Lindsay asked.

"I'm not exactly sure," Rosalind said. "I've tried to get hold of him at the House of Commons, but he's not in his office. I'm waiting for him to call me back. But I know he has a Polaroid camera in there, and I suspect he takes pictures of the boys he brings back here. They'd be dynamite in the wrong hands. A blackmailer or a journalist could really have a field day with them. But what really worries me is the HIV test results."

"My God, he's not got AIDS, has he?" Helen asked. "Poor bastard. Even creepy Harry Campbell doesn't deserve that!"

Rosalind ran a hand through her tousled white hair and shook her head. "I don't know. I've been nagging him about having the test for ages. He's been with so many rent boys over the last few years, I've been scared stiff he'd be HIV positive. I thought he should find out, if only so he wouldn't infect anyone else. He's always resisted me, but a couple of months ago, he finally gave in and went for counselling and had the test. I know he went back for an appointment last week and he told me they'd given him the all-clear. But if there's anything in writing - appointment cards or a letter saying he's not HIV positive, then the only place I can imagine it would be would be that drawer. He thought he was safe here." Rosalind's eyes quivered with tears. She was suffering a delayed reaction to the shock of the burglary, Lindsay realised.

"How can I help?" she asked gently.

Rosalind pulled herself together with difficulty. "I wanted to ask whether you thought I should tell the police," she said. "And I wondered if you'd seen anybody hanging around when you were here."

"I didn't notice anything," Lindsay said. "But when did it actually happen?"

"About four o'clock."

Lindsay shook her head. "It must have been just after I left," she said. "But as far as the police are concerned, I would be inclined to say nothing about photographs or blood tests. The police are a leaky sieve. Too many coppers are too pally with journalists for something like that to stay under wraps. Unless Harry is prepared to let the cat out of the bag, you'd better keep that stuff to yourself. They'll be pulling out all the stops to get your stuff back, and if they catch the guys who did it, they'll get their hands on the other stuff too. Then you'll get it all back with no one any the wiser. Hopefully." She could already picture the headlines. The combination of AIDS, porno pictures and an MP would have the press pack on the doorstep faster than a major earthquake. To the tabloids, an all-clear result would be just as damning as a positive one. The fact of Harry having taken the test would be an admission of guilt in itself.

Rosalind nodded, but looked far from optimistic. "You're right. But I needed someone else's viewpoint before I could bring myself to make the decision. Harry would never survive a scandal."

Before she could say more, the door opened, and two men walked into the room. The taller of the two, a balding man in his thirties whose shoulders looked one size too big for his sports jacket, said, "Which one of you ladies is Rosalind Campbell?"

Rosalind got to her feet and said, "I am. And you are?"

"Inspector Ainslie. Special Branch. I'll have to ask you two ladies to leave while we talk to Miss Campbell. I'm afraid we'll have to get the place fingerprinted too. If you ladies would be good enough to leave your names and addresses with the constable, then we can get your prints later if we need them for elimination," he said authoritatively.

Lindsay and Helen picked up their coats and prepared to leave. "I'll drop you back at Sophie's, Lindsay. Give me a ring when the boys in blue are finished, Ros. I'll come round and help you clear up," said Helen on the way out.

They travelled down in the lift in silence. As they emerged into the car park again, Lindsay turned to look back at the block of flats, twinkling with lights in the early evening darkness. "Not exactly a safe place to live, is it?" she said softly. "First Alison, now this."