“I should really. I’m supposed to have lunch with my agent, and I’ve already put her off once. I’m torn, I must admit, between hanging on to see if I can be of any help and wanting to put as much distance as possible between me and the school. I expect I’ll go, though. Good agents are hard to find! What about you? Heading back tomorrow?”

Lindsay shrugged. “I’m aiming to get a train about three at the latest, so I can be back in Glasgow at a decent time of night. Then I’m going to get well pissed in my local. Put all of this out of my mind.”

“You seem to be doing that rather well anyway,” Cordelia commented drily.

“What do you mean?” asked Lindsay indignantly.

“Well, I couldn’t have sat on the end of a phone all day rattling off sensational stories about Lorna’s murder. I don’t know how you can be so cool about it.”

Lindsay shook her head, disappointed. “It’s the job I do. I’ve been trained to forget my feelings and do the business. And I do it very well. Don’t think I’ve enjoyed today.”

“That’s exactly what I do think. You came in here like you were coming off a high. Like you’d got a real buzz from doing the business, as you call it. I find that very strange, quite honestly.”

The remark stung Lindsay, who was not about to admit its truth. She took a deep breath and said angrily, “Look, Cordelia, at the end of the day, I have to make a living. Lorna’s murder cost me money, to be brutal about it. The feature I was supposed to write would have cleared me £150. Now, I’ve got to earn myself at least that this weekend, otherwise things start happening in my life that don’t appeal to me. Like the phone gets cut off. Like I can’t afford to have the car exhaust repaired so I can’t work. I didn’t know Lorna, so I’m not personally devastated by her death. By doing what I’m doing, I do myself the favor of earning a bit. I’m also doing the school a favor. Make no mistake about it, whether I supply the raw copy or not, all the papers are going to have their sensational stories. But at least this way, we know they’re getting accurate copy to start with. And if they get it wrong, well, Pamela Overton knows who to blame and where to find me.