She dashed back through to Tom Jack’s office, shouting, “And that’s what the SIGS file is for! Union Jack was comparing the signatures on the dockets with those people’s real signatures!” She came tearing back with the SIGS wallet. “He was stitching her up! He’d signed some of those phoney dockets himself, and so had other officials, but I bet she’d actually taken them up to the finance office and grabbed the dosh. He was covering his own back by stitching her up!” Lindsay sounded like an over-excited five-year-old on Christmas morning. She thumbed through the documents till she found the one she was looking for.

“Here!” she shouted triumphantly. “Look at this. It’s Peter McKellar’s signature on his application for a Press card. Now look at this expenses docket that’s supposed to cover his return train fare from Newcastle!” She thrust the documents under Sophie’s nose. While there were similarities between the two signatures, it was clear that they were by different hands.

“The one on the expenses form is much more rounded,” Sophie said. “I agree, they do look as if they’ve been written by different people. So where exactly does that take us?”

“Sophie, we’re looking at thousands of pounds here over the last nine years,” Lindsay said, awe in her voice. “Tom Jack was obviously about to expose Laura Craig. There’s no way she could survive that. She’d be facing charges of fraud, maybe even prison. One thing’s for sure, she’d never work in the labor movement again. What better motive could anyone have for getting rid of him?”

Sophie got to her feet, switching off the computer as she rose. “Personally, I’d sell my soul to someone who promised me I’d never have to work in the labor movement again. Your theory does presuppose that she knew what he was doing. I suppose you want me to have a poke about in his PC to see if there’s anything in there to support that?”

Lindsay nodded. “I bet there is! He knew that he couldn’t put off any longer a full-scale probe into the finances of the Journalists’ Union. And he was determined to head them off at the pass before they started asking too many questions about his stewardship by giving them Laura. It’s one of the great maxims of trade union politics—always have a body to trade. Once they had Laura bang to rights on the expenses fiddle, Union Jack could have laid any other swindles at her door, and he’d have come out of the whole thing smelling of roses as usual.”