ome debates are more glamorous than others. But delegates have a duty to devote as much attention to international affairs as they do to finance. Like mother used to say, eat up your bread and butter or you can't have any cake."

from "Advice for New Delegates,"

a Standing Orders Sub-Committee booklet.

Lindsay swallowed hard. Before she could open her mouth, Sophie said brightly, "No wonder you remembered! That must be pretty unusual, two people wanting details about the same person. Though I don't suppose the union man was after the kind of gory details we need," she added with a smile.

"I don't know. He wanted to know all sorts. He said the union was going to set up a trust fund for training officials as a memorial to this Ian Ross, and he was meant to write a sort of tribute to him, though why he needed to know all about the way he died I could never work out. Still, ours not to reason why, eh?" the friendly policeman said, diplomatically easing them toward the door. "I hope your research goes well, ladies," he added, opening the door for them.

By the time they got to the lift, Lindsay looked as if she was going to burst with the urgency of her desire to raid the envelope that Sophie clutched tightly to her chest. "Wait," she hissed at Lindsay as they joined the two men already in the lift. "It'll still be there in five minutes."

As they walked back to the car-park, Lindsay exploded. "I can't believe it! Union Jack was here before us! That's wild!"

"Did the union ever actually set up a memorial fund?" Sophie asked.

"Of course they didn't," Lindsay snorted. "But what I've been forgetting is that long before he was ever a full-time union official, Tom Jack used to be a bloody good investigative journalist. He knew every trick in the book, and a few that never made it that far. If he was sniffing around the inquest records, then at least one other person was as unhappy about Ian's death as we are. And maybe what he found there is the reason he's lying in the morgue now."

"It seems a bit far-fetched. He can't have had any proof, otherwise why would it take nine years for his discovery to catch up with him?"

Lindsay shrugged. "Dunno. But I'll be a damn sight closer when I've read what's in this envelope." They had reached the car, and Lindsay drummed impatiently on its roof while she waited for Sophie to unlock the passenger door. As soon as she'd banged the door shut with a teeth-rattling slam, Lindsay grabbed the envelope, ripped it open, and tipped the contents into her lap.

"I have a suggestion," Sophie said. "Why don't we go and find somewhere for lunch, then we can go through this stuff together."

"Oh, all right," Lindsay said resignedly. She shovelled the papers back into the envelope reluctantly. "I know a really good fish restaurant."

"Well, it was nine years ago," Lindsay said apologetically half an hour later. "And all these streets look the same in the fog. Try the next left."

"We've been down there already. To hell with it, Lindsay, we'll just stop at the next pub we come to and grab something there." Sophie drove straight on, then turned right down a street she thought would bring her to one of the main roads.

"That's it!" Lindsay suddenly shouted, waving her arm in front of Sophie, who was forced to stand on the brakes.

"That's it?" Sophie demanded. "It looks just like a terraced house to me."

"That's right. They fry in the front room and they've got half a dozen tables in the back. It's wonderful, I promise you."

"It had better be," Sophie said darkly as she followed Lindsay.

While they waited for one jumbo haddock and chips and one halibut steak and peas, Lindsay eagerly pulled out the coroner's reports on Ian Ross's death. She flicked through them, separating out the pathologist's report and handing it to Sophie. "There you go, darling, your area of expertise." Lindsay herself concentrated first on the report of the officer who had gone through Ian's car to see if there were any physical reason why he had lost control of the car and had failed to brake.

When she got to the list of the car's contents, she let out a low whistle. "You were right, Sophie," she said. "Ian Ross was murdered. No question about it."

"You sure?" Sophie said, sensibly not reminding Lindsay who had first mentioned the m-word.

Lindsay nodded. "Look at this," she said, waving the sheet under Sophie's nose. " 'On the floor behind the passenger seat, one plaid travelling rug with large quantity of what appear to be dog hairs, white or blond in colour.' He'd never have had a rug in the car covered in dog hairs-he'd never have allowed a dog in the car. He was hopelessly allergic. And let's not forget Laura's dog was a golden retriever. And here, 'On the floor under driver's seat, two Magic Tree air fresheners.' Ian hated air fresheners-they used to really set his chest off, yet here we have not one, but two. And the final nail in the coffin, Soph. 'In offside door pocket, one Ventolin inhaler, approximately half-full.' That's the clincher," she ended triumphantly.

Sophie frowned. "I don't understand. Surely, if he had another inhaler in the car, he would have used it in so acute an attack?"

"That's what you'd expect, isn't it?" Lindsay said. "But Ian didn't keep his spare inhaler in the door pocket. He kept it in the glove box. I know, because he used it when we were driving up to Blackpool. He had one in his jacket, of course, but he'd taken that off while he was driving, and he used one from the glove box. There were actually two in there, I noticed. But look at the list of what was actually in the glove box: 'One torch, one packet tissues, one pair sunglasses, one owner's manual, half packet extra strong mints, one blue Biro, one Michelin map of the Pas de Calais, one photocopied street plan of central Blackpool.' No mention of inhalers at all. When Laura set up Ian for the kill, she realised that it would be suspicious if there was no spare inhaler in the car. So she just moved it from the place where he'd expect it to be and put it somewhere it would be found afterwards."

"That's a pretty big jump, Lindsay," Sophie protested. "I mean, couldn't Ian have tried to use the inhaler, lost control of the car and just dropped it, letting it fall into the door pocket?"

Lindsay scowled. "It'd be quite a coincidence, wouldn't it?"

Sophie was saved from getting into an argument by the arrival of their lunch. Lindsay's haddock was almost too big for the stainless steel salver it arrived on. "Thank God you didn't order the giant one," Sophie said. Her eyes widened further as her own massive portion of halibut swimming in a viridian sea of mushy peas was plonked unceremoniously in front of her along with a pile of white cotton wool bread and butter.

"The only question left," Lindsay said through mouthfuls of hot haddock, "is why. I mean, we know Laura killed Ian, and then she killed Tom, but we don't know why or the reason for the nine-year gap. Hey, this is really good," she exclaimed, pointing to her haddock.

Sophie nodded agreement. Both women concentrated on their fish in respectful silence. Sophie scraped her plate clean first, and said, "There's obviously something I'm missing here. How exactly do we know that Laura killed Ian and Tom?"

Lindsay shovelled the last few chips on to her fork and paused for a moment. "She came over to our table at breakfast that day. She could easily have nicked the inhaler out of Ian's jacket pocket. She might even have been wearing a perfume he was allergic to- he once said to me he had to trot off to the cosmetic department at Selfridges every time Laura wanted to try out a new perfume, to get a whiff of it and make sure it didn't set his chest off. And then there's the water." She polished off the chips.

"Pure conjecture," Sophie said.

Lindsay swallowed the last mouthful of fish, pushed her plate aside and poured herself another cup of strong tea. "Okay. But who else had access to Ian's car to plant the rug and the air fresheners? And who knew where the spare inhaler was kept, so they could allay suspicion by moving it?"

"Well, you did for one," Sophie said.

Lindsay grinned. "Yeah, but I didn't have a set of keys for Ian's car, whereas Laura, who had lived with him for years, almost certainly did. And she had a golden retriever, so she was in a pretty good position to get her hands on a travelling rug covered in dog hairs. And she'd already established how allergic Ian was to her precious hound."

"All circumstantial, though. Where's the smoking gun? And what possible motive could she have had?"

Lindsay ran a hand through her hair. "I don't know. Yet. I've been trying to remember exactly what Ian said to me about their break-up. But it's nine years ago, and even my trained reporter's memory is having a bit of a struggle." She frowned and sipped her tea. "He threw her out. He said there were some things you can't forgive and forget. There was another bloke involved, but I never found out who. Whoever he was, he didn't stick around for long, because Laura was footloose and fancy-free just a few weeks later, I seem to remember..." Lindsay's voice trailed off in the effort of concentration.

"Wait a minute," she breathed. "Now I remember. It was Laura who confirmed my suspicion that there was another man. From what Ian said, it sounded to me like Laura was seeing someone else, and he'd found out and given her the jaggy bunnet. Then I spoke to Laura on the beach and gave her the hard word about being unfaithful. She looked really shocked, and I took it that she was surprised because Ian had talked to anyone about it. But thinking about it now, it could just as well have been because I'd hit on the wrong thing altogether."

"Not for the first time," Sophie said affectionately.

Pretending to ignore her, Lindsay continued. "Which means that the break-up might have been nothing to do with their relationship, as such."

"Meaning what?" Sophie asked.

"I wish I knew," Lindsay said. "Maybe some deep dark secret from her past. Maybe he got hold of the same story as Conference Chronicle."

"But you said that story was complete garbage," Sophie reminded her.

"So maybe I was wrong. We've got to get back and see what we can dig up about this." Lindsay pushed her chair back with a squeal. "Do you want me to drive?"

Sophie laughed. "No way. Helen's car wasn't designed with frustrated boy racers in mind. You'd have the gearbox burned out half-way there."

As she followed Sophie back to the car, Lindsay found a moment to wonder what had become of her old MGB roadster, the car that had been her partner for longer than any woman to date. Eyeing up the boxy Japanese wedge that passed for a sports car in the nineties, Lindsay felt a brief stab of regret. With a sigh, she settled into the passenger seat and returned to the attack. "I still find it hard to believe that Laura is a Special Branch plant," Lindsay confessed. "And I can't imagine why Tom Jack would keep quiet about it for all those years if he thought she was."

"Personally, I find it hard to believe that she'd kill to preserve her cover even if she was a right-wing infiltrator. I mean, what was the worst that could happen to her? She'd be blown, okay, but I bet the powers that be would have found her some comfortable little niche in the Civil Service. Now if we had some convenient money motive... Do we know who benefitted financially by Ian's death?"

Lindsay shook her head. "I don't remember, if I ever knew. But I could find out easily enough. Pull up at the next motorway services, and I'll set the wheels in motion."

"Okay." Sophie slotted a k.d. lang tape into the cassette and hummed along to it as Lindsay flicked through the rest of the coroner's records and the inquest report into Ian's death. At the service area, she waited in the car while Lindsay gave the details of her request and her credit card number to a London paralegal firm that specialised in company searches and birth, marriage, and death checks at St. Catherine's House.

"They'll have something for me by close of business tomorrow," Lindsay said when she returned.

"Great. Well, you've just about made out a circumstantial case for Laura killing Ian, but that doesn't bring us any closer to tying her into Union Jack's murder. If it was murder," Sophie said as they headed for the motorway.

Lindsay chuckled. "Even you can't talk me out of a murder verdict on that one," she said. "Somebody had it in for Tom Jack, it stands to reason. You don't shove someone out of a tenth floor window if you just want to put the frighteners on them."

"He could have fallen. It could have been an accident during a struggle."

"So what were they doing in my room in the first place if they weren't up to something funny?" Lindsay demanded.

"Maybe that was just coincidence. Maybe they just slipped in there to be somewhere more private than the corridor." Sophie sounded doubtful, even to her own ears. "Anyway," she continued more strongly, "what's to connect Laura?"

"The smell of her. Le Must de Cartier isn't a common perfume. I've only ever known two women who wore it, and if I'm sure of one thing in this whole twisted case, it's that Cordelia didn't kill Union Jack."

Sophie shrugged. "So, Laura was in the corridor. It proves nothing. So was Andy Spence. He had motive, especially if Tom Jack knew about his sexuality. So was Jed Thomas. He had motive, too. He wanted his boyfriend to have a crack at the top job before Jack completely wrecked his union. Your old mate Dick McAndrew didn't happen to mention where he was at the crucial time, did he? And that's just the ones you've mentioned to me."

Lindsay pouted. "I still reckon that double-dealing Laura Craig is the best bet."

Sophie smiled, but took pity. "Well, maybe she did kill him. But the one thing that sticks out a mile in this whole business isn't so much the motive. It's this nine-year gap between Ian's death and Union Jack's. Maybe if we explored the time span, it would bring us closer to unravelling what connects the deaths. If indeed there is any connection."

Lindsay stared out at the dark Pennine moors through a curtain of drizzle, pondering Sophie's words. The lowering sky seemed to swallow the afternoon light, forcing drivers to switch on their headlights. "What you're saying makes a lot of sense," she said eventually. "But I don't know where to start."

"Speaking as a scientist," Sophie said, "if I was looking at a condition that had remained dormant for a while and then had suddenly flared up again, the first question I'd ask is, 'What has changed in the immediate past to provoke this?' In other words, we should be asking not, 'Why did Tom Jack keep his mouth shut all those years if he knew about or suspected murder?' but rather, 'What has happened to alter the situation? What is different from last week, or last month, or even last year?' "

"Point taken, but I think there's a flaw in your argument," Lindsay said.

"Now, there's a surprise," Sophie teased.

Lindsay poked her tongue out at her partner. "Tom Jack may well have taken action nine years ago when he uncovered the evidence that Ian's death wasn't as simple as it appeared. Just because we can't see what he did, it doesn't mean that he sat on his hands. He could have acted in a secret, underhand way, presumably for his own ends."

"That's not a flaw in my argument, dear heart. In fact, it reinforces the point I was making. The crucial issue is what has happened to change the circumstances and turn Tom Jack into a threat. So what's different, Lindsay? What are the new circumstances?"

"Well, there's the merger for one thing. That went through with indecent haste, according to some. It all happened so quickly that there wasn't a full audit of both union's finances before they took the irrevocable step of joining forces. Apparently, Andy Spence has been complaining that the JU was less than frank about its financial problems. And as usual, people have been muttering about hands in the till. But that's nothing new."

Sophie swung off the motorway and headed crosscountry toward Sheffield. "Didn't I read something in Conference Chronicle suggesting that the finances of the former JU were riddled with corruption? And that under Tom Jack's leadership, AMWU was going the same way?"

"Yeah," Lindsay sighed. "And it was probably not far off the mark. The other thing that's changed, of course, is Tom Jack's role in the union. In the past, he was a lay official who could shunt the blame for any financial irregularities at the door of paid officials. This time around, there would have been no hiding place for Tom. Unless, of course, he intended to make himself the hero of the hour by pointing the finger at the person who was creaming cash out of the union accounts."