“The fact that I won’t be able to finish what I started. I desperately wanted to get Jackie off the hook. But you heard Claire. I’m fired. No one’s going to give me an ounce of cooperation now, are they? And I was so close, Sophie,” Lindsay complained.

“Yes, but it’s not all over,” Sophie said. “You’ve got all the information you were ever going to get via official channels like Jim and Claire and Jackie and Mrs. Maxwell. And there’s nothing to stop you ferreting away at that. You can still find out the truth if you really want to.”

“Oh yes? And who’s going to believe a word I say after that fiasco?” Lindsay objected.

“Well, Jim Carstairs seems to think that all is not lost,” Sophie replied. “All he’s really interested in is his client, you know. I don’t think he’s too bothered about whose toes you might have stepped on.”

“Maybe.”

“Look, I’ve got an idea. You brought all that stuff back from Mrs. Maxwell’s yesterday. Why don’t you put everything that happened tonight on the back burner for now and go through all Alison’s papers? You said yourself that if it hadn’t been for the advent of Alex, the final solution might have been there. Why not give it a try? You could go through all the papers, and I’ll have a look at what she’s got stored on computer disk,” Sophie encouraged.

Lindsay shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I just want to forget all about it. I’d rather get pissed out of my brains.”

“It’ll still be there in the morning,” Sophie said persuasively. She knew Lindsay well enough to realize that the best way to get her to forget the disaster of the evening was to give her something demanding to focus on. “And it’ll look much worse through the eyes of a hangover. Come on, humor me. Let’s give it a go.”

“If you insist,” Lindsay agreed reluctantly.

Sophie got to her feet and grabbed Lindsay’s hand. “Come on, then, let’s go.” She leaned over to kiss her. “It’s not the end of the world, you know. I still think you’re very special.”

They settled down in the study, Lindsay with Alison’s papers and correspondence, Sophie with her computer disks. “Lucky you’ve got the same computer,” Lindsay commented as she watched her lover efficiently working her way through Alison’s computer files.

“Not luck, really,” Sophie said. “Half the world have got Amstrad PCWs. Cheap, cheerful, and designed for techno-illiterates.”

After an hour, they stopped for a break. While Sophie defrosted a carton of chile tomato sauce and Lindsay watched over a bubbling pan of tagliatelle, they compared notes.