Hostage to Murder

by Val McDermid

  Sophie sat down and helped herself to pilau rice. “Is that how you feel? That you’re living in my shadow?” Her voice betrayed the anxiety Lindsay’s words had provoked.

  Lindsay worried at a piece of naan bread. “It’s not that. Not exactly. It’s more that I feel like I’ve been drifting. No direction of my own. It’s like the teaching job in Santa Cruz. I’d never have moved into teaching journalism if I’d stayed in the UK, but we went to the US for your career, and I had to find something to do.”

  “But I thought you enjoyed it?”

  “I did. But that was just luck. It wasn’t because I had a burning desire to teach. And if I’d hated it, I’d still have had to stick with it, because there was bugger all else I could do.” Lindsay reached for the bottle and took a swig of beer. “And now, here we are, back in Scotland because of your career, and I’m still no nearer figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.”

  Sophie opened her mouth to say something but Lindsay silenced her with a raised finger. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that’s your fault. Nobody is more pleased than me that everything’s going so well for you. I know what it means to you. But it doesn’t make it any easier for me. And you being so keen for me to hitch my wagon to Rory’s star—that just feels like you being desperate for me to take up any kind of stop-gap that’ll keep me from going out of my head with boredom and frustration. I don’t want another stop-gap, Soph, I want to feel passionate about something. The way you do.”

  Sophie looked down at her plate and nodded. “I understand that,” she said. “But you used to feel passionate about journalism. When I first knew you, ages before we got together, you really cared about what you were doing. You really believed you could make a difference.”

  Lindsay gave a bark of ironic laughter. “Yeah, well, we all thought we could change the world back then. I soon got that knocked out of me.”

  They ate for a few minutes in silence. Then Sophie reached out and covered Lindsay’s hand with her own. “Why don’t you give it a try? It sounds like Rory’s way of working is light years away from the daily grind that turned you into a cynic. It can’t hurt to put your toe in the water. Besides, when the gods drop such an amazing piece of serendipity in your lap, it seems to me it would be tempting fate to thumb your nose at it.”

  Lindsay tried to swallow her mouthful of bhuna lamb, but it seemed to have lodged in her throat. She’d never had any sufficient defence against Sophie’s kindness. Her partner had never once complained about being the sole breadwinner since they’d returned from California, and Lindsay knew she genuinely harboured no resentment about it. All she wanted was for her partner to feel as happy and as fulfilled in whatever she chose to do as Sophie was herself. She hadn’t applied any pressure, simply offered encouragement. The least Lindsay could do was kick her pride into touch and take a chance on Rory McLaren. “You’re right,” she said. “Heaven knows, I can’t afford to fly in the face of serendipity. And besides, I’ve got nothing to lose, have I?”

  Chapter 3

  Lindsay squirmed around in bed, trying to get comfortable. The weight of the duvet made her ankle ache, distracting her from the Denise Mina novel she was trying to read. “Can you bring me a couple of ibuprofen when you come through?” she called to Sophie who seemed to be taking forever in the bathroom.

  When she finally emerged and slipped into bed beside Lindsay, Sophie seemed unusually quiet. Lindsay swallowed the pills and put her book down. “Is something bothering you?” she said. “You’ve hardly said a word since dinner. Are you having second thoughts about me working with Rory?”

  Sophie looked surprised. “No, not at all. Why should I?”

  “No reason. But I couldn’t think why else you’d gone so quiet.”

  Sophie sighed. “There’s something we need to talk about. I was going to bring it up earlier, but we were talking about your future and it just didn’t seem like the right moment.”

  Lindsay eased herself on to her side and put an arm around Sophie’s waist. “That sounds ominous. I’ll never sleep now, you know. You’d better tell me what’s on your mind.”

  Sophie lay back and stared at the ceiling, one hand on Lindsay’s encircling arm. “It’s the baby thing.”

  Lindsay felt a pit opening in her stomach. Sophie’s desire for a child had been an intermittent bone of contention between them for the past couple of years. Whenever Sophie had tried to discuss it, Lindsay had either stonewalled or blanked it. She might not have much of a life plan, but she knew for certain that parenthood wasn’t part of it. So she’d worked on the principle that if she ignored it, Sophie would eventually get the message and it would all go away. And inevitably, the attrition of time would render it academic. But since they’d come back to Scotland, the subject had surfaced more regularly. Every few days, Sophie had raised the topic and Lindsay had tried to sidestep it. “You know how I feel about that,” she said.

  “Yes. I know how you feel about that. But I don’t think you have the faintest idea of how I feel about it. Lindsay, it’s all I think about,” Sophie said, anguish unmistakable in her voice. “Everywhere I go, all I seem to see are pregnant women and women pushing babies in prams. I’m so envious it makes me feel violent. I can’t even get away from it at work, because it’s what I deal with all day, every day.” Sophie blinked hard, and Lindsay couldn’t avoid seeing the sparkle of tears in her eyes. “Lindsay, I’m desperate. I’m nearly forty. Time’s running out for me. Already, the chances are that I’m not going to be able to conceive without some sort of clinical intervention. And there isn’t a fertility clinic in the whole of Scotland that will treat lesbian couples. Not even privately. If I’m going to have any possibility of a baby, I need to start doing something about it now.”

  “Look, you’re just broody. It’ll pass. It always has before,” Lindsay said wretchedly.

  “No. You’re wrong. It never passed. Sure, I stopped talking about it, but that was only because you were so negative about the whole thing, it felt like pushing a boulder uphill. Just because I stopped talking about it doesn’t mean it wasn’t always there, constantly nagging away at me. If I don’t have a child, there’s always going to be a hole in my life that nothing else will fill.”

  Lindsay drew her arm away and rolled on to her back. “You’re saying I’m not enough for you. That what we have isn’t good enough.”

  Sophie shuffled on to her side and reached for Lindsay’s hand. “That’s not what I’m saying. I love you like I’ve never loved anyone else. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But this need in me—it’s different. It’s a kind of desperation. If you’ve never felt it, you can’t know what it’s like. If you could walk for five minutes inside my skin, you’d maybe comprehend how this is consuming me. I need to try, Lindsay. And I need to try now.”

  Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut. Please, let this not be happening, she thought. “I don’t want a child.” She spoke slowly and deliberately.

  “You’d make a great parent.”

  “That’s not the issue. The issue is that I don’t want to.”

  “But I need to.”

  Lindsay jerked upright, oblivious to the stab of pain in her ankle. “So what are you saying? You’re going to go ahead anyway? Regardless of how I feel?”

  Sophie turned away. Her voice was shaky with tears. She feared she was driving Lindsay further from her with everything she said, but she couldn’t keep the churn of emotions secret any longer. “Lindsay, if I have to lose you to have the chance of a child, then I’ll do it. This is not about choice, it’s about compulsion. This isn’t some whim, some spur of the moment desire for a designer accessory. It feels like life and death to me.”

  Her words shook Lindsay like a physical blow. She pulled her knees up to her chest, gripping them tightly with her hands. She knew her lover well enough to realise that this was no empty ultimatum. Sophie didn’t play games like that. And she was sufficiently resolute to carry out her stated intention.


  This was the moment Lindsay had always dreaded, ever since the issue of motherhood had first raised its head between them. Her life had been bound to Sophie’s for so long, she couldn’t imagine what it would be without her. She didn’t even want to try. But if she didn’t give in, that would be exactly what she would have to face. “I can’t believe you’re making me choose between losing you or having a child with you,” she choked out.

  “I can’t either,” Sophie said. Her chest hurt, as if she was being physically rent in two. “Surely that alone tells you how powerless I feel? I’m in the grip of something I’ve got no control over, and it’s killing me. But I’ve got to try, Lindsay. I’ve got to.”

  “I’ve got no choice either then, have I?” Lindsay said bitterly.

  There was a long silence. Then Sophie said, “You have got a choice. You can stay with me and try to make a family with me and our child. Or you can choose to walk away.”

  Lindsay snorted. “Some choice. At least you’ve got a chance of getting something you want out of this. I don’t. Either I lose you, which would break my heart, or I have to be a parent to a child I don’t want. This is emotional blackmail, Sophie.”

  “You think I don’t know that? You think I want to behave like this?” Sophie turned to face Lindsay, tracks of moisture glistening on her cheeks. “You think I like myself like this?”

  Lindsay tried to stay resolute, to keep her eyes on the opposite wall. But it was more than she could manage. She slid down the bed and reached for Sophie. “You know I can’t leave you,” she mumbled into Sophie’s hair.

  “And you know I don’t want you to. What would be the point in having a baby without you there to share it with?”

  For a long time, they clung to each other, their tears salt against each other’s skin. Then Lindsay leaned back. It was going to be a long night; time they made a start on what had to be said. “So. What’s your next step?” she asked, resignation heavy in her voice.

  Café Virginia was suffering its daily identity crisis in the hiatus between the after-work drinkers and the evening players. The music had shifted into more hardcore dance, making conversation more difficult, and there was a strange mixture of outfits on display, from business suits to teeshirts that clung to nipples and exposed midriffs.

  The quietest place in the bar was the corner booth where Rory McLaren ran her business and held court. Nobody else ever sat in the booth, mostly because of the foot high scarlet neon sign that said, RESERVED. Rory had wanted it to say GONNAE FUCK OFF? but Mary the bar manager had vetoed it on the grounds that it would be too big for the table. Rory was hammering out the finishing touches to a memo on a story proposal for the Herald feature pages, occasionally pausing to sip at her bottle of Rolling Rock. She looked up, sensing company heading her way and saw a sharp-suited Asian woman with gleaming hair in a shoulder length bob weaving her way through the tables towards her.

  Sandra Singh flopped on to the bench seat opposite Rory, dumping raincoat, handbag and briefcase beside her. “That jerk Murray,” she spat.

  “Thought as much,” Rory said, giving Sandra the quick once over. “Love the earrings.”

  “A wee shop in Cambridge. I’m going to kill him, I swear to God. Three weeks hammering out the new format and then this morning it’s, ‘the network disnae like it.’ I tell you, some days I wish I’d never left newspapers.” She raked in her handbag and came out with a packet of Marlboro Red and a matchbook from last night’s restaurant.

  “You don’t mean that.” Rory leaned out of the booth and waved to the bar, holding up two fingers.

  Sandra’s grin was even sharper than her suit. “You’re right, I don’t.” She sighed. “I just wish I did. So, any news?”

  “You could say that. Looks like I might have got myself a partner.”

  Sandra snorted smoke. “As in, you got laid?”

  Rory’s attempt at dignity wouldn’t have fooled a drunken child of two. “Sandra, there’s more to life than sex.”

  Sandra’s laugh attracted every woman in the place. “You didn’t get laid, then.”

  “I’m talking business here, fool.”

  Sandra nodded acknowledgement to the barmaid who placed two sweating bottles in front of them. “You serious? I thought the whole point of this was being a one-man band?”

  “I thought so, yeah. But this one’s really special.”

  Sandra took a long swallow of her beer. “So you’re planning on getting laid?”

  Rory shook her head in affectionate exasperation. “No. Focus your mind above the waist for once, would you? I’m not looking for a shag, I’m looking to build a business. Listen, do you remember me telling you years back about Lindsay Gordon?”

  Sandra frowned. “Lindsay . . . ? Oh, wait a minute. The great lesbian icon hack. The one that turned you on to the beautiful game. This would be that Lindsay Gordon?”

  “One and the same. Well, you’ll never guess what happened. You couldn’t write this, people would just say, ‘Yeah, right, and then the Pope said abortion was fine by him.’ But this is the absolute, no messing, God’s honest truth.” Rory gave Sandra the full version of her meeting with Lindsay, punctuated by her friend’s regular interruptions.

  “That’s wild,” Sandra finally said. “So she said she’d think about it?”

  “That was just for show. You could tell she’s gagging to get back in harness.”

  “You wish.” Sandra finished her cigarette and her beer. “Sorry, babe. I’m out of here. In fact, I never was in here. Got a date with a beautiful boy from Radio Clyde.” She stood up, gathering her universe. She leaned across the table and kissed Rory on the cheek. “See you, darlin’.”

  On her way out, she passed a baby dyke, black leather waistcoat over white teeshirt, black jeans, dyed black cropped hair, bottle of Rolling Rock in her hand. “She’s all yours,” Sandra told her, patting her on the arm. The baby dyke flushed scarlet and edged towards the booth.

  “I got you a drink, Rory,” she said, a nervous smile twitching at the corners of her mouth.

  “Thanks. You want to sit down?”

  The kid squirmed into the seat Sandra had left. “You pay folk for stories, eh?” she scrambled out.

  “Depends. What’s your name?”

  “I’m Kola. Wi’ a K. Ma pal Ginger says you gien her a fifty for something she told you last year.”

  Rory nodded. Ginger had tipped her the wink about a candidate for the Scottish parliament with a sideline in cigarette smuggling. She’d got a splash in the Herald and follow-ups in all the dailies the next day. “I remember. How’s Ginger doing? I’ve not seen her about the place for a while.”

  “She’s went tae London. She got taken on by BHS. The clothes are shite, and so’s the money, but she’s having a ball. So will you pay me for a story?”

  “Let me hear what you’ve got and I’ll tell you what it’s worth. OK?”

  Kola thought about it. It was a bit more complicated than buying a drink or scoring some E so it took a minute or two. “How do I know you won’t just write it anyway?”

  “You don’t. You have to trust me. But you know I didn’t let Ginger down.”

  Kola nodded, her face clearing, relieved at having the decision made for her. “Right. OK. It’s about Madonna.”

  Rory fought to keep her face straight. Whatever was coming, she didn’t think it was going to keep the cats in Whiskas for life. “Madonna? We’re talking the singer, not the one with the statues in the cathedral?”

  It was beyond Kola, who frowned. “Aye, the singer. Her and that Guy Ritchie, they’re gonnae buy a big house out in Drymen.”

  Stranger things have happened, Rory thought. 4, 6, 11, 24, 39 and the bonus ball is 47. At least Drymen was the right sort of territory for someone like Madonna. Big houses, country estates, high walls and gamekeepers with shotguns. “In Drymen?” she echoed.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” Kola accused her with the tired hurt of someone used to being taken for a liar.r />
  “It’s a bit... surprising,” Rory said. “Gonnae tell me where you heard this?”

  “It’s right enough,” Kola said defensively. “The folk that work for her have been on the phone to an estate agent out there.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me how you know that, Kola,” Rory said, suddenly wondering if the baby dyke might not be as daft as she looked.

  Kola sighed in exasperation. “I’m shagging his wife.”

  Chapter 4

  People would cross the road if they saw Michael Conroy walking towards them. Whether they knew him by sight or by repute or not at all, they instinctively knew better than to block this man’s piece of the pavement. His eyes were the greenish amber of a bird of prey; his narrow face involuntarily called up memories of a wood-axe. He looked precisely what he was. Dangerous and mean. To Patrick Coughlan, this limited his usefulness. He’d never have dreamed of sending Michael undercover unless the aim was to scare the shit out of everybody he came into contact with.

  Michael didn’t mind. His idea of being a soldier wasn’t pretending to be a librarian in North London or working on a building site in Derby while other people did the dirty work. He liked what he’d spent the past fifteen years doing. Ceasefire didn’t suit him and he knew it.

  He sat in the chair facing Patrick, his eyes calm and watchful. Dressed in an olive green combat jacket and blue jeans, he would have fitted in perfectly with any group of squaddies in a bar anywhere. Entirely self-contained, he cleaned his nails with the blade of a penknife, an absent-minded habit that he was unaware was marked down on the file MI5 had held on him for some years.

  Kevin O’Donohue was the gopher. A thin, wiry greyhound, he fetched and carried without the wit to question what or why. Loyal to the point of stupidity, he was reliable only in the sense that he didn’t have enough brains to act on his own initiative. He did what he was told, and mostly he did it well enough. Michael tolerated him for his sister’s sake. Geraldine got Kevin’s share of intelligence in the genetic share-out. It wasn’t imbecility that had got her caught in the aftermath of the Docklands bomb. Just bad luck. Michael hadn’t seen her for three years, but he’d kept his word and made sure Kevin was sorted. Kevin, of course, had no idea of this pact.