“Oh God, they’ve tied her up well and truly, haven’t they? It’s all circumstantial and I doubt if they’d get a conviction before a jury if that’s all they’ve got. But it hangs together, especially since, from what you said about motive, they obviously know all about the drugs business,” said Lindsay, slicing onions savagely.

“What drugs business?” Cordelia interrupted, bewildered.

“Paddy’s supposed motive. I thought from what you said that you knew all about it,” Lindsay replied, and proceeded to tell Cordelia the depressing tale. As she led the way back to the living room, she added, “So what are we going to do? How do we go about making this mess any less chaotic?”

They sat down. Cordelia stretched out on the faded chintz sofa and looked appraisingly round her at the spacious, high-ceilinged room. Lindsay had painted the walls chocolate brown, with cream woodwork, picture rail, and ceiling. The room was big enough, with its huge bay window, to stand it. On the walls were Lindsay’s black and white photographs of buildings and street scenes in Edinburgh, Oxford, Glasgow, and London. Book cases stretched the length of one wall; along another was a massive carved oak sideboard, which Lindsay had inherited when she bought the flat and which she feared she would have to leave behind if she ever left as it was so enormous. There was a stereo which Lindsay had built into a series of cupboards under the bay window, with shelves for records and cassettes alongside. She said, “I like this room. But it seems very heartless of me to be relaxing here while Paddy languishes in some spartan bloody cell. How could they be so stupid? Any fool can see that Paddy couldn’t hurt a fly. She might demolish people verbally, but violence is something she’d simply find beneath that dignity of hers. Not her style at all.”

“So what are we going to do about it?”

“Will you come back to Derbyshire with me? When we were talking on Sunday night, you seemed to have one or two ideas about other people with motives. We can see Paddy and find out if there’s anything she can tell us. If we can get people to talk to us, maybe we can find out things the police have missed. I know it all sounds a bit School Friend and Girl’s Crystal stuff, but perhaps we can just pull something off. After all, we’re starting from a different premise. We know Paddy didn’t do it.”

Lindsay thought for a moment. “I can’t go anywhere till tomorrow night. I’ve got to work tomorrow. I can cancel Thursday and Friday, but I can’t afford to let the Clarion down tomorrow. We could go down then.”