Deadline for Murder by Val McDermid Read Free Book Online Page B

and went back to her vantage point at the window. "We'd been having a difficult time. We'd been together just over five years, and I suppose we'd started taking each other for granted. I had only recently been made a partner in my firm, and I was bringing a lot of work home. And Jackie was busier than ever. So many new magazines have been launched in the last couple of years, and they're all hungry for strong, well-written features. But I was too absorbed in my own problems to notice the strain she was under. I suppose that was Alison's appeal for her. Alison was in the same business, and they could talk shop together. I know Jackie had a lot of professional respect for Alison." Claire sighed deeply and walked across to a tray with a decanter and glasses. She poured herself a careful inch of Scotch, turning to Lindsay and saying, "Sure you won't have one?"
    Lindsay shook her head. "Go on," she probed.
    Claire paced the floor. "It was the old, old story. I was the last to know. It had apparently been going on for about two months when I found out."
    "How did you find out?" Lindsay asked gently. She couldn't help herself. Even with a woman she instinctively disliked so much, she still slipped straight into the persona of the professionally sympathetic interviewer.
    "I usually went to bed before Jackie. One night, I couldn't sleep, so I got up to make myself a cup of cocoa. I came through from the bedroom, and I could hear Jackie's voice. It wasn't that I was eavesdropping, I just couldn't help overhearing. She was clearly having an intimate conversation with someone..." Claire's voice tailed off, and she traced the pattern on the crystal glass with one long fingernail.
    "What made you think it was the sort of intimate conversation you have with lovers?" Lindsay probed.
    "For want of a better way of putting it, she was talking dirty to someone," Claire said with a look of distaste. "I was completely stunned. The idea of her having a lover had never once crossed my mind, can you believe it?"
    "Oh, I can believe it all right," Lindsay said, pushing the thought of Cordelia away again. "But how did you find out it was Alison? Did you confront Jackie then and there?"
    "I didn't know what to do, so I crept back to bed. When she finally came through, I waited till she'd fallen asleep, then I got up and pressed the last number redial button on the phone. I got Alison Maxwell's answering machine. The following evening, I confronted Jackie with it, and she admitted it immediately. It was almost as if it was a relief to her." Claire took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "We had a very traumatic evening. A lot of tears, a lot of talking. At the end of it, we decided that there was still too much between us to finish it. Jackie agreed that she would stop seeing Alison. And as far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. Two days later, I came home to find Jackie in tears. She told me she'd been to see Alison to break it off, but that Alison had been completely unreasonable. She had threatened to tell me all sorts of lies about what they had done together, and to destroy Jackie's career. Jackie was in a hell of a state. Before we could sort anything out between us, the police arrived and arrested her." Claire stopped pacing and stared at Lindsay in mute misery. The cool lawyer's facade had vanished completely. "It was only later that I discovered that Alison and Jackie had been to bed together that afternoon. I know it sounds absurd, but I was more upset over her lying to me about that than I was about her being accused of the murder."
    "So instead of pledging yourself to wait for her, you jumped into bed with Cordelia. Very supportive," Lindsay said, fighting the sympathy she was beginning to feel for Claire with her anger at Cordelia.
    "That's not fair," Claire protested angrily. "It wasn't like that. Neither of us planned what happened."
    Lindsay ignored Claire's response and asked, "Is there anything more you can tell me that might