“While you are at conference, you are a delegate and not a journalist, printer, machine minder or whatever. The interests of the union must at all times be the paramount consideration in your mind.”

from “Advice for New Delegates”, a Standing Orders Sub-Committee booklet.

The only real difference Lindsay could detect between being a witness and a suspect was that the tea came in pottery mugs rather than polystyrene cartons. The attitude of the police officers was only marginally less aggressive. And the interview room reserved for witness statements was just as charmless as the room where her previous interrogation had been recorded. Luckily, Jennifer Okido had been only too happy to sit in on the interview since her services as duty solicitor had not been required by Laura Craig. Apparently, Laura was already closeted with the city’s most experienced, most expensive and least iconoclastic criminal lawyer, a man who had made his name working both sides of the fence. So, the Special Branch had turned out for their smooth operator after all.

Lindsay’s statement had been lengthy and comprehensive, starting with the discoveries in London though not their means of entry into Media House, and ending with the confrontation in the bar. The two police officers continually fired questions at her, trying as hard to trip and trap her as they had when they had suspected her of the murder. At the end of the statement, Lindsay leaned back in her chair, unable to avoid a sense of satisfaction.

Neither policeman relaxed an inch. The younger one finished the sentence he was writing and looked up at her. “Go on,” he invited her.

“I’m finished,” Lindsay said. “That’s the lot.”

“Not according to what we’ve been told. You’ve left out the one bit we wouldn’t have found out ourselves by good detective work.”

Lindsay looked puzzled. “I’m not with you.”

“You’re supposedly able to put Laura Craig at the scene of the crime, something you omitted to mention when you were interviewed under caution before,” he replied, the cold edge of sarcastic anger in his voice. “It might have helped our inquiry along a bit if you’d told us about her then, instead of deciding to go for glory yourself.”