“That’s right. There are three million unemployed, the government’s threatening legislation that will be the effective end of trade unionism in this country, and my union’s got its knickers in a twist because someone is getting their kicks from taking the mickey. It makes little sense to me these days either, Ms. Okido, but that’s what’s been going on. But I don’t think it’s got anything to do with Tom Jack’s death, except that the article in Conference Chronicle makes it sound like I had a better motive than most for wanting rid of him.”

“You think that’s why the killer chose your room?”

Lindsay sighed, perplexed. “It’s the only thing I can think of. God knows, it’s little enough reason. There must be a lot of people in the motive queue ahead of me. Union Jack’s machinations were ruffling a lot of feathers among the rank and file. I was one of the lucky ones—I didn’t have to work with him on a regular basis any more. But a lot of the ones who did were getting pretty wound up. Let me tell you, Ms. Okido, I’m not the only person who would have been happy to see the back of Union Jack as AMWU’s general secretary.”

“And if our general secretary wasn’t so concerned with furthering the sectional interests of our so-called brothers and sisters from the former Journalists’ Union—an organization that was more like a gentlemen’s club than a union, by all accounts—those of us who are facing redundancy on a massive scale in the print would not be in the mess we’re in. They were happy enough to grab our historic traditions and a bank balance that was in the black, unlike their own, and now they want to grab our very jobs. Colleagues, it’s time the National Executive and the general secretary adopted the policy of the greatest good of the greatest number and started remembering who’s been paying their wages.” The red-faced man pounded the lectern, causing a shriek of feedback that cut through a couple of hundred hangovers like broken chalk screeching on a blackboard. “Colleagues, vote for the London Central Print Division’s amendment to motion thirty-two. Thank you.”