Lindsay nodded. “I’ve got work to do. I’ll speak to you as soon as I’ve got anything to report. Let me know how you get on with Alistair,” she said abruptly. “I’ll see myself out.”

Lindsay rushed out of the flat and ran down the stairs. Catching her breath in the street outside, she was overwhelmed by the desire to kick and punch and gouge someone, anyone, but preferably Claire bloody Ogilvie. Shaking with emotion, she slumped in her car seat. When was she going to stop loving Cordelia?

10

Lindsay’s fury had subsided by the time she returned to Sophie’s. The sudden recollection of a thought that had drifted across her mind as she’d been dropping off to sleep drove thoughts of Cordelia far away. Fraser had been too quick off the mark with Alison Maxwell’s name. He was Special Branch, not CID. He would normally have had no involvement in a routine homicide like Alison’s. Yet as soon as she’d mentioned murder in connection with Caird House, he’d known instantly whose murder she was talking about.

Could there be any link between Ros’s burglary and Alison’s death? It seemed too much of a coincidence that the break-in had happened on the very day that Lindsay had started her inquiries, and at a time when she was actually in the building. But the idea of Ros and Alison as lovers was ridiculous, even to Lindsay’s suspicious mind. Although her two closest friends, Helen and Sophie, were gay, Ros herself had never been interested in women except as friends. Lindsay had sat through too many slightly drunken conversations with the three women to believe that even Alison Maxwell’s charisma could have disrupted Ros’s lifelong exuberant heterosexuality. Besides, there was nothing in Alison’s notes that sounded even remotely like Ros.

If there was a link, it had to be Harry. The idea of some sexual connection between them seemed unlikely. Perhaps they shared a lover? Could Harry Campbell be the “political hot potato” of Alison’s dossier? As Lindsay threw herself down on the couch, the headline of an article about vaccines in a medical journal lying on the side table caught her eye. “I wonder,” she muttered aloud.

Harry had visited the AIDS clinic for his test. But if anyone was a candidate for the terrifying virus, it had to be Alison, given the extent of her promiscuity. Could Alison have seen him there? Could she even have been blackmailing him? Lindsay wouldn’t put it past her.

It was about time she started asking some questions. Lindsay leaned over and picked up the phone. She dialed a number and drummed her fingers impatiently on the arm. “Come on, Ros,” she muttered to herself. “Answer the goddamn phone.” On the seventh ring, Rosalind answered. “Hi, Ros, it’s Lindsay.”

“Have you got some news for me?” Rosalind demanded eagerly.