Conferences are Murder (5 page)

“Almost makes you feel sorry for the new man in her life.”

 

Lindsay didn't want to think about how much whisky she'd drunk. She knew she'd only had three and a half hours sleep after the Scots/Irish ceilidh, but lack of sleep was only a tiny component of the pounding, gut-churning hangover that had invaded her body. She felt like the ball in a rugby match somewhere towards the end of the first half: it was bad already, but she knew it was going to get worse. At least it was the final morning of the conference. She could probably lay her head on her arms and sneak a couple of hours' kip at the delegation
table. Someone would happily hang on to her card and vote in her stead. The hangover would pass. Her guilt at not being in a fit state to carry out her duties as a delegate would probably hang around for longer.

As she slowly crossed the hotel dining-room, she managed to grasp that she was far from the only one who looked like they used to be members of the human race. As she passed the buffet table laden with fruit juices and cereals, she gave a shudder and slunk into her seat at the table she shared with Ian, Siobhan and a sub-editor from the
Evening Standard
who hadn't yet managed to make it to breakfast. “Coffee?” she croaked. Siobhan passed her the pot. Lindsay's shaking hand knocked over the salt-cellar as she reached for the milk. Ian moved his pot of hot water out of Lindsay's line of fire.

“You're not fit to be let out,” he commented, looking up from his copy of
The Watchman
. “And that poison won't help.” Self-righteously, he dunked his herbal teabag in his cup, then dropped it in the ashtray.

Ignoring him, Lindsay drained her first cup of coffee and shuddered as the shock hit her system. “Come on then, Siobhan, don't keep me in suspense. Did you crack it?”

Siobhan giggled. “Sure did. Four men in four nights.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Monday, Toby Tranter from Brighton; Tuesday, Peter Little, the Manchester branch chairman; Wednesday, Danny Stott, that radio reporter from Newcastle with the cutest bum at conference. And then last night. I'll be glad to get home. I need the rest.”

“So who was the lucky guy last night?” Lindsay asked.

“Search me. I went for a meal with the Racial Equality Caucus, and I got pissed as a newt. We ended up back in my room, and when I awoke, he'd gone,” she reported.

Ian tutted. “I don't know, you spent the seventies slagging us men off for treating you like sex objects, and the minute you get liberated, all you do is do exactly what you gave us a bad time for,” he said in mock reproach.

“Shut up, Ian,” they chorused.

Lindsay added, “You're failing to understand that by definition, the oppressed cannot themselves be oppressors. Go back and read your Germaine Greer again.”

Ian pulled a face. Then he said, “You sure you did it? I mean, if you can't even remember the guy's name, I'm not sure we can award you the Legover of the Conference award.”

Siobhan giggled. The sound was like a hot wire splitting Lindsay's head in two. She'd been right about that giggle. “Oh, we did it all right. Take my word for it, Ian, I know we did it. Let me tell you, it's only his name I can't remember. I can recall
everything
else about him.” She ticked items off on her fingers. “He was Irish, he had freckles, he had brown hair and ginger pubes . . .”

“Enough, enough,” Lindsay groaned. “I already feel naseous.” She eyed a piece of toast, wondering if she could stand the noise crunching it would make inside her skull. Before she could decide, Ian helped himself to the last piece. Lindsay looked around for a waitress, and spotted Laura standing a couple of tables away, talking to one of the delegates.

Their conversation ended, and she walked towards the exit. As she approached their table, she turned back to call something to the man she'd been talking to. She carried on walking and cannoned into their table, sending Ian's plate of toast, his cup of rosehip tea and his pot of hot water flying.

The confused hubbub that followed made Lindsay feel like her ears were bleeding. Ian was on his feet, shouting more from shock than anger. “You stupid, clumsy bitch,” he yelled. “You could have really hurt someone. Why don't you look where you're going, for Christ's sake?”

“Oh for God's sake,” Laura said in exasperated tones. “It's only a bit of water. It hasn't even splashed your trousers. Do you have to make such a fuss?” She crouched down and picked up the empty pot. “If it's such a big deal, I'll fetch you some more.” She marched past a waitress who had scurried up, and straight through the door into the kitchen.

The waitress brought Ian clean crockery, but before she could bring fresh supplies, Laura had returned with a rack of
wholemeal toast and a fresh pot of hot water. She dumped them unceremoniously on the table, saying, “I didn't do it deliberately, you know. There was absolutely no need to make such an exhibition of yourself. Why don't you grow up, Ian? Most women prefer men to small boys, you know.”

Laura marched off, head held high. Grimly, Ian stared at the table as he poured himself a cup of water and dropped his herbal teabag in.

“At least you know she didn't do it deliberately,” Siobhan said.

“How d'you figure that out?” Lindsay said, right on cue.

“If she'd done it on purpose, his balls would be in the burns unit by now!” Siobhan said raucously as Ian winced.

Lindsay cautiously worked her way through a slice of toast, discovering that if she sucked it before chewing, the noise was just about bearable. Ian sipped his tea in silence, absorbed once more in his newspaper. Siobhan shovelled a cooked English breakfast down her neck, eyes swivelling constantly round the room in search of potential prey.

At five to nine, Ian glanced at his watch, folded his paper and got to his feet. “I'll see you two at the Winter Gardens in a bit,” he said. “I've got to pop to the shops. I promised my sister's kids I'd bring them back a present from the seaside. Somebody told me there's a really good toy shop up the back of the town, so I'm going to take a drive up there.”

“I wish he'd said a bit sooner,” Siobhan grumped as Ian strode off. “I was relying on him to give us a lift. Now we're going to be late.”

 

Lindsay and Siobhan slipped into their chairs at twenty past nine. The hall was less than half-full, which was more than could be said for the platform. A man with a hoarse voice was proposing a motion which appeared to have something to do with child care. Lindsay shoved her voting card at Siobhan, made a pillow of her forearms on the table and carefully lowered her head. She was drifting in the comfortable half-world between sleep and wakefulness when Siobhan dug her in the ribs and
announced in a voice loud enough to turn heads three tables away, “That's him, Lindsay! That's the man I was with last night!”

Siobhan's urgent revelation caused enough stir to ripple forward to the platform. The young man at the podium was thrown off his stride mid-sentence as he struggled to see what was going on. He clearly couldn't believe it was the power of his oratory that had caused the commotion. It took only moments for him to realize who was at the center of it. Even at that distance, Lindsay could see him flush. A slow ripple of mirth began in the corner of the hall.

Overcome with confusion, he gabbled, “Support the amendment,” turned tail and fled. By then, the ripple had become a wave of laughter. The noise around their table was so loud that Lindsay could scarcely make out the words of Paul Horne, who arrived at the delegation table pale and sweating.

“Say again?” she said.

Paul's lips trembled as he struggled for his rapidly disintegrating self-control. “It's Ian. He's dead.”

4

It was hard to imagine the crumpled concertina of red metal had ever been a Ford Escort. It didn't look as if it could ever have been longer than a Mini. The signpost it had hit first had sliced the car almost in two, before the brick wall of the shopping center had compressed it to half its length. As she watched a salvage crew struggle to get the wreckage away from the shattered wall, the churning in Lindsay's stomach had nothing to do with the amount of alcohol she'd consumed. She turned away and threw up unceremoniously in the gutter.

When she recovered herself, she saw Paul had turned away and was staring unseeingly at the traffic.

“I was passing when it happened,” he said emptily. “I'd popped out for five minutes to buy some rock for the kids. He came round the corner at the end of the street there like a bat out of hell. The car was fishtailing all over the road. I didn't even realize it was Ian. If I thought anything at all, I thought it was some teenage joyrider.”

Lindsay tentatively put out a hand and touched Paul's arm. He gripped her fingers tightly.

“He just kept going faster and faster. Then he tried to take the bend, but he must have been doing seventy, and it's a really tight turn. He was completely out of control. He just kept going faster and faster.” Paul shook his head. “Then I saw his face, in a kind of blur, and I realized it was Ian. I knew he didn't have a chance.”

“Let's go somewhere and have a cup of tea,” Lindsay suggested gently, steering Paul towards a nearby café. Luckily, it was the lull between morning coffees and lunches, and they had no trouble finding a quiet table. Because Paul's dramatic announcement hadn't penetrated the general laughter, Lindsay had been able to get the shocked branch chairman out of the hall before he could cause general consternation. Outside the conference, he had simply said, “Come and see,” and led her in silence to the scene of the accident.

As they waited for the waitress to bring them a pot of tea, Paul started to shiver, like a dog in a thunderstorm. “He looked . . . he looked really weird,” he said in a puzzled voice. “His eyes were really staring, and it was like he was pushing himself up on the steering-wheel. And he'd gone a funny color. Sort of purply.” “He had bad asthma,” Lindsay said. It didn't seem very helpful, but she couldn't think of anything else to say.

“I know,” Paul said. “Ian's been my friend for years. But I've never seen him in a real state with it. Not like that.” The waitress deposited a tray on the table. Lindsay poured the tea and Paul instantly clutched a cup, warming his hands like a man dying of cold. “He looked completely out of control, and I've never seen him like that. He always had his drugs with him, always.”

Lindsay sighed and lit up a cigarette. “Maybe he didn't take them soon enough. I don't know. I don't know anything about asthma.”

Paul shook his head. “I do. My eldest son is mildly asthmatic. But I've never seen him like that either, not even when he was a baby and he couldn't use inhalers. But Ian was always really careful, really methodical. Well, he would be, wouldn't he? Look what an organized branch secretary he was.” Paul gave a hysterical laugh. “Listen to me. The poor bastard's in the past tense already.”

“You're sure he was dead?” Lindsay asked, clutching at straws.

Paul gulped his tea. “I'm sure. No one could get the door open. We tried. The fire brigade had to cut it open. When they finally got him out, they . . .” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat noisily and said, “He didn't come out in one piece, Lindsay. His face was covered when they took him away. They didn't have their siren going or their light flashing.” He stared into his cup.

Lindsay felt numb. It was too much, after Frances. Her grief had overloaded in an emotional short circuit that left her incapable of feeling anything more. In self-preservation, her mind was moving only in practical channels. “I think you should go to the hospital, Paul. You're in shock.”

Paul gave a short sharp bark that was a long way from laughter. “I can't go to hospital. You think I'm in a state? You just wait. Who's going to tell Laura? I should do that, I saw him die, I was their friend.” The shivering started again.

Lindsay gently took the cup from him and placed it on its saucer. She took his hands in hers. “You're not the person to tell her, Paul. Not right now.”

She saw a sudden flash of relief as his eyes met hers. It disappeared as suddenly as it had come. “But I should,” he said guiltily.

Lindsay shook her head. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I'll tell her,” she said softly. She released Paul's hands and lit another cigarette. “I know what it feels like,” she added distantly.