Lindsay tilted her head back to rinse the shampoo out of her hair. “We’re going to see a man about an inquest. Or at least, I am. You don’t have to come if you don’t want.”

“How could I resist?” Sophie asked, gloomily picking up her toothbrush and squeezing an inch of toothpaste on to it. “At the risk of sounding dense, why Blackpool?”

“Because that’s where Ian was murdered.”

Sophie cast her eyes heavenwards. “Me and my big mouth,” she muttered. “You’d think I’d know better by now.”

Lindsay lathered herself with shower gel and said, “Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? If what you said about asthma was right, then Ian’s death obviously wasn’t accidental, was it? We could have a serial killer stalking AMWU, you know.”

“Has anyone ever told you you were born at the wrong time? You’d have made a great Victorian melodrama writer. What about suicide?” Sophie said through a mouthful of foam.

“Nah,” Lindsay said definitely. “Not Ian’s speed at all. No, mark my words, it was murder. And unless my nose is mistaken, Ian’s killer has struck again. What a grade A bitch!”

“Hang on a minute,” Sophie said, climbing into the shower as Lindsay swilled the last of the suds from her body. They embraced briefly, bodies slippery under the stream of water. “I know how unlikely it is that Ian didn’t have an inhaler. I also believe you saw someone—possibly Laura—leaving the scene of Tom Jack’s death. But where’s the evidence that either of them was murdered? And if they were, where’s the link? And what’s the connection to Laura?” Sophie watched her lover’s jaw set stubbornly. She sighed. “All right, Gordon, tell me what your famous nose says about the woman.”

“You mean, apart from the fact that she’s a snotty, patronizing, fashion-obsessed careerist who probably secretly votes Tory? Oh, and a heartless homophobe to boot? This is the woman who told me that one less dyke in the world was no great loss. That was, oh, about six weeks after Frances died.”

Sophie raised her eyebrows. “So it’s just possible you might be a tiny bit biased?”

Lindsay couldn’t fight the smile. “Never let the facts get in the way of a bit of honest prejudice, that’s me. But I bet you a bottle of the Islay malt of your choice that it is her.” She shrugged. “All I have to do now is prove it.”

Sophie sighed. “So why are we delving into ancient history? Surely it’s going to be a lot easier to come up with evidence of something that happened a couple of days ago rather than a nine-year-old death that everyone thinks was accidental anyway?”