Common Murder

The van was behaving more erratically now, turning and slowing down at frequent intervals. At 8:12 p.m., according to the luminous dial on Lindsay’s watch, it stopped, and the engine was turned off. She could hear indeterminate, muffled sounds outside, then the doors opened. Her eyes adjusted to the surge of light and she saw they were in an underground car park. The MG was parked opposite them, the red Fiesta next to it. Stone climbed into the van and unlocked the handcuff linking Lindsay to the van. He snapped it round his left wrist and led her out into the car park.

The four of them moved in ill-assorted convoy to a bank of lifts. Stone took a credit-card-sized piece of black plastic from his pocket and inserted it in a slot, which swallowed it. Above the slot was a grey rubber pad. He pressed his right thumb to the pad, then punched a number into a console. The slot spat the black plastic oblong out, and the lift doors opened for them. Curly Perm hit the button marked 5, and they shot upwards silently. They emerged in an empty corridor, brightly lit with fluorescent tubes. Lindsay could see half a dozen closed doors. Stone opened one marked K57 and ushered Lindsay in. The other two remained outside.

The room was almost exactly what Lindsay expected. The walls were painted white. The floor was covered with grey vinyl tiles, pitted with cigarette burns. A couple of bare fluorescent strips illuminated a large metal table in the middle of the room. The table held a telephone and a couple of adjustable study lamps clamped to it. Behind the table stood three comfortable-looking office chairs. Facing it, a metal-framed chair with a vinyl-padded seat and back was fixed to the floor. “My God, what a cliché this room is,” said Lindsay.

“What makes you think you deserve anything else?” Stone asked mildly. “Sit in the chair facing the table,” he instructed. There seemed no point in argument, so she did as she was told. He unlocked the cuffs again, and this time fastened her to the solid-looking arm of the chair.

A couple of hours had passed since she had been really frightened, and she was begi

He smiled and shook his head. “Too late for those questions, Lindsay. Those are the first things an i

“Jesus Christ,” she muttered. “You people have got minds so devious you think everyone’s part of some plot. When you hemmed me in that alleyway, I was too bloody stu

“That rather depends on you,” he replied grimly. “Don’t go away, now,” he added as he left the room.

She was left alone for nearly half an hour, by which time, all her determined efforts to be brave had gone up in the smoke of her third cigarette. She was scared, and she had to acknowledge the fact, although her fear was tempered with relief that it was Rigano’s masters rather than Simon Crabtree’s who were holding her. She wouldn’t give much for her chances if it had been the other way round.

Lindsay had just lit her fourth cigarette when the door opened. She forced herself not to look round. Stone walked in front of her and sat down at one corner of the desk, facing her. He was followed by a woman, all shoulders and sharp haircut, who stood behind the desk scrutinizing Lindsay before she, too, sat down. The woman was severely elegant, in looks as well as dress. Her beautifully groomed pepper-and-salt hair was cut close at the sides, then swept upwards in an extravagant swirl of waves. Extra strong hold mousse, thought Lindsay inconsequentially; if I saw her in a bar, I’d fancy her until I thought about ru

The pungent blue smoke played its usual trick on Lindsay, flashing into her mind’s eye a night in a cafe in southern France with Cordelia-playing pinball, smoking, and drinking coffee, and listening to Elton John on the jukebox. The contrast was enough to bring back her fear so strongly she could almost taste it.

Perhaps the woman sensed the change in Lindsay, for she spoke then. “Mr. Stone tells me you are a problem,” she said. “If that’s the case, we have to find a solution.” Her voice had a cool edge, with traces of a northern accent. Lindsay suspected that anger or disappointment would make it gratingly plaintive.

“As far as I’m concerned, the problems are all on your side. I’ve been abducted at gunpoint, threatened with a knife, the victim of an act of criminal damage, and nobody has bothered to tell me by whom or why. Don’t you think it’s a little unreasonable to expect me to bend over backwards to solve anything you might be considering a problem?” Lindsay demanded through clenched teeth, trying to hide her fear behind a show of righteous aggression.

The woman’s eyebrows rose. “Come, come, Miss Gordon. Let’s not play games. You know perfectly well who we are and why you’re here.”

“I know he’s MI6 division, or at least I’ve been assuming he is. But I don’t know why the hell I’ve been brought here like a criminal, or who you are. And until I do, all you get from me is my name.”

The woman crushed out her half-smoked cigarette and smiled humourlessly at Lindsay. “Your bravado does you credit. If it helps matters any, my name is Barber. Harriet Barber. The reason you’ve been brought here, in your words, like a criminal, is that, according to the laws of the land, that’s just what you are.

“You are, or have been in unauthorized possession of classified information. That on its own would be enough to ensure a lengthy prison sentence, believe me, particularly given your contacts on the left. You were apprehended while in the process of jeopardizing an operation of Her Majesty’s security forces, another matter on which the courts take an understandably strong line. Superintendent Rigano really should have arrested you as soon as you tossed that tape on his desk.”

Thanks a million, Jack, Lindsay thought bitterly. But she recognized that she had begun marginally to relax. This authoritarian routine was one she felt better able to handle. “So am I under arrest now?” she asked.

Again came the cold smile. “Oh no,” said Harriet Barber. “If you’d been arrested, there would have had to be a record of it, wouldn’t there?”

The fear was back. But the moment’s respite had given Lindsay fresh strength. “So if I’m not under arrest, I must be free to go, surely?” she demanded.

“In due course,” said Stone.

“Don’t be too optimistic, Mr. Stone,” said Barber. “That depends on how sensible Miss Gordon is. People who can’t behave sensibly often suffer unfortunate accidents due to their carelessness. And someone who drives an elderly sports car like Miss Gordon’s clearly has moments when impulse overcomes good sense. Let’s hope we don’t have too many moments like that tonight.”

There was a silence. Lindsay’s nerve was the first to go, and she said, struggling to sound nonchalant, “Let’s take the posturing as read and come to the deal. What’s the score?”

“There’s that unfortunate bravado again,” sighed Barber. “We are not offering any deal, Miss Gordon. That’s not the way we do things here. You will sign the Official Secrets Act and will be bound by its provisions. You will also sign a transcript of your conversation with Superintendent Rigano this evening, as an insurance policy. You will hand over any copies of that tape still in your possession. And then you will leave here. You will not refer to the events of this evening or to your theories about the murder of Rupert Crabtree to anyone. On pain of prosecution. Or worse.”