Following Claire’s detailed instructions, she turned into a narrow alleyway which opened out into a small courtyard with several staircases leading off it. Originally, these had been the semi-slum homes of the ill-paid clerks who had tended the fortunes of the Victorian merchants and shipping magnates who had once made the city great. Over the years, the properties had deteriorated, till they were precariously balanced on the edge of demolition. But in the nick of time, a new prosperity had arrived in Glasgow and the property developers had snapped up the almost derelict slums and renovated them. Now, there were luxury flats with steel doors and closed circuit video security systems where once there had been open staircases that rang with the sounds of too many families crammed into too small a space. Lindsay surveyed the clean, sandblasted courtyard with an ironic smile, before pressing the buzzer for Claire’s flat and glowering at the camera lens three feet above her head.

The speaker at her ear crackled, and she could just make out Claire’s voice. “It’s Lindsay,” she said, and was rewarded by the angry buzz of the door release. Lindsay mounted the stairs to the third landing, where Claire stood by her open front door. Lindsay took in the details of her appearance that she had been too upset to notice the night before. The most striking thing about her was her height. She was nearly six feet tall, and her body had all the willowy sinuousness of a model. Her fine white-blonde hair was beautifully cut, like the severely tailored gray herringbone woollen suit she wore. She looked like a recruitment poster for law graduates.

“Come in,” Claire greeted her. “You’re very punctual.”

Lindsay bit back a sarcastic retort and followed her through a spacious hallway furnished with a small Turkish carpet and several pale wood bookcases. In an alcove, behind glass doors, was a collection of Oriental porcelain. Claire showed her into a huge square room with two bay windows which overlooked the river. The room must originally have been the living rooms of two separate flats, Lindsay thought to herself. Two families would have occupied the space now filled with Claire’s Scandinavian pine furniture and colorful wall hangings. Even the stereo system and the CD collection were housed in tailor-made glass-fronted pine units. It could have come straight from the pages of the kind of glossy magazine Lindsay couldn’t imagine wanting to write for. Cordelia would feel right at home here, she thought bitterly, taking in the Cartier briefcase standing beside the sofa. The room’s designer consumerism epitomized everything that had disturbed Lindsay about their life together. But Cordelia had never shared her discomfort.

“Can I get you a drink?” Claire asked.