“You really are one of the obscenely privileged minority, aren’t you?” remarked Lindsay. “I don’t know what I’m doing with you at all. In my job, I see so much poverty, so much deprivation, so much exploitation, I can’t help feeling that luxury like this is obscene. Don’t you want to change things?”

Cordelia laughed and replied lightly. “But what would you have me do? Give all I’ve got, to the poor?”

Lindsay saw the chasm yawning at her feet. She could leave the argument lying for a future day when there might be a strong enough relationship between them to stand the weight of disagreement. Or she could pursue the subject relentlessly and kill the magic stone dead. She turned away and deliberately picked up a cookery book.

That night, the love-making was more tentative, less urgent than before. The reverberations of their earlier differences had died down as they had explored each other’s history during the evening. Cordelia was already in bed by the time Lindsay came through from the kitchen with a tumbler of water. She undressed quickly. As she slid beneath the duvet, Cordelia turned on her side and they embraced. “All right?” she enquired.

“I feel a bit drained, to be honest. It’s been quite a day. Margaret, Cartwright, Paddy in prison. And tonight. I haven’t worked so hard for a long time.” She smiled ruefully. “And then, boring you with my life story. Very exhausting.”

“I wasn’t bored. But I know what you mean. I feel pretty done in too.”

“Not so tired that all you want is sleep?”

In reply, Cordelia leaned over and kissed her warmly.

More than the chaotic coupling of the previous nights, it sealed them close. For the first time, neither was trying to prove anything. Lindsay lay awake as Cordelia slept. No matter how much she buried herself in the joyous sensation of making love with Cordelia, the uncomfortable thoughts wouldn’t disappear without trace. And now that she’d actually seen for herself the way her new lover lived, those uncomfortable thoughts had a new element.

PART THREE:
FUGUE

13

It was noon before Cordelia and Lindsay pulled in beside Paddy Callaghan’s Land Rover at Derbyshire House on Friday. Lindsay had felt an increasing sense of unreality as the morning had worn on. The conversation of the evening before had all but restored her to her normal frame of mind, by recalling her past and awakening her desires for the future. Somehow that all seemed very distant from what had been happening in the last few days. It seemed absurd to Lindsay that she and Cordelia should have any pretensions about being able to solve the problem of Lorna Smith-Couper’s death. She could not shake the increasing conviction that she was taking part in some elaborate but ultimately silly game. Only the presence of Cordelia made her determined to finish what they had started.