Val McDermid - Booked for murder: the fifth Lindsay Gordon mystery

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

Also by Val McDermid

Published by Spinsters Ink

Report for Murder

Common Murder

Deadline for Murder

Conferences are Murder

Published Elsewhere

Crack Down

Clean Break

The Mermaids Singing

Blue Genes

Dead Beat

Kick Back

Star Struck

The Wire in the Blood

A Suitable Job for a Woman (non-fiction)

Spinsters Ink Duluth, Minnesota, USA

Booked for Murder: The Fifth Lindsay Gordon Mystery

First published by The Womens Press Ltd.

Val McDermid, 1996

A member of the Namara Group

34 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V ODX

All rights reserved

Second edition published in April 2000 by Spinsters Ink

Spinsters Ink

32 E. First St., #330

Duluth, Minnesota 55802-2002

USA

Cover Design by Lois Stanfield, LightSource Images

Production:

Liz Brissett Helen Dooley Joan Drury Tracy Gilsvik Marian Hunstiger Claire Kirch

Jean Nygaard Kim Riordan Amy Strasheim Emily Soltis Liz Tufte Nancy Walker

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is a coincidence.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McDermid, Val, 1955

Booked for Murder: The Fifth Lindsay Gordon Mystery Val McDermid 2nd Edition

Originally published in London: Womens Press, 1996.

ISBN 1-883523-37-0

Printed in Canada

Acknowledgements

Readers often wonder how much research writers do in the pursuit of our plots. I used to think that the only way to do it was over a beer or a meal. That was before I discovered the Internet and the wonders of e-mail.

This time around, Id like particularly to thank Kathryn Skoyles, whose knowledge of the seamy side of commerce was invaluable, and Janet Dawson arid Chris Aldrich, who kindly prevented me from committing an assortment of transatlantic solecisms. Others who contributed in varying degrees, wittingly or unwittingly, were Lee DCourcy, Frankie Hegarty, Brigid Baillie, David Byrne, Chaz Brenchley, Jai Penna, and Sharon Zukowski.

Setting a book in the publishing industry holds certain dangers for an author. In a bid not to become what the Americans now term dispublished, Im bound to say that none of the editors, agents, or publishers depicted in these pages bears the slightest resemblance to the people I actually work with. Except the dog.

For Jai and Paula. They know why.

M urder, she felt fairly sure, was not the kind of Purpose of Visit calculated to speed her through the notoriously difficult U.S. immigration channels. Pleasure, she ticked, deciding it might not be entirely a lie. At least no one would suspect the truth that lay behind the occupational description of systems consultant. In spite of the books and films that indicated otherwise, hers was not a job people expected to be carried out by a woman.

She finished filling in the form and looked out of the windows of the jumbo jet. They had chased the sunset west across the Atlantic, and now it was firmly dark blue night out there. Street lights formed a glittering web when they passed above small towns. Over bigger cities, the lights seemed to be enclosed beneath a dimly glowing bowl that held them trapped, the highway lights leading away from them like chains of refugees. Somewhere out there, her target. Watching TV, eating dinner, reading a book, talking to her lover, gossiping on the phone, composing e-mail. Whatever it was, she wouldnt be doing it tomorrow. Not if the woman was successful in her mission.

She turned away from the window and pulled her paperback novel out of the seat pocket. She opened it where she had carefully dog-eared a page to mark her place and carried on reading Northanger Abbey .

A change in engine note signalled the start of the descent into San Francisco. It was a sign she noted with relief. A transatlantic, transcontinental flight was quite long enough for her body to feel permanently realigned into the shape of the aircraft seat. That might be just about bearable in first class, but back in anonymous economy it provoked the irresistible fear that she might never walk properly again. The woman stretched her spine, thrusting shoulders back and chest out. The sleeping man next to her snorted and shifted in his seat. Thankfully, hed been like that for most of the flight. She never liked talking on public transport unless she had instigated the conversation, usually for professional reasons.

She couldnt believe how quickly she cleared immigration. It had been half a dozen years since shed last set foot in America, and her abiding memory of arrival had been spending the thick end of an hour shuffling forward foot by foot in an endless queue that snaked across the concourse while sadistic immigration officers with faces impassive as hatchets questioned every new arrival. As she collected her luggage, she wondered idly what had brought about the change. It couldnt be that the Americans had become less xenophobic or less paranoid about terrorism, that was for sure, especially after Oklahoma. She only had to think about the drop in the numbers of American tourists to Britain in the wake of the IRAs abandoning of their precarious ceasefire.

Slinging her suit carrier across her shoulder, the woman headed for the taxi rank and gave the name of the hotel where she hoped a room would be waiting for her. Even though shed been up all night, she feared that sleep would abandon her as soon as her head hit the pillow. It didnt matter. She had time. According to her briefing, the best opportunity shed have wouldnt come before six in the evening of the following day.

S hed heard about the fog rolling in across the bay in the late afternoon, but shed never quite believed it could be so tangible a phenomenon. She sat among the Sunday tourists in one of the Fishermans Wharf cafs and watched the bank of fog envelop the rust-red curve of the Golden Gate, leaving the twin towers stranded above and below. She stirred the last inch of her cappuccino. It had been about the only thing shed recognized on a list of beverages. They didnt have iced mocha latte in the coffee bar where she picked up her morning carton of steaming pale brown liquid that smelled mostly of its polystyrene container. She supposed this was what they called culture shock.

Shed spent the morning on a whistle-stop sightseeing tour of the crucial highlights. None of her clients had ever sent her to San Francisco before, and she always liked to make the most of her trips at other peoples expense. Her one regret was that she hadnt had time for Alcatraz. Now she was reading through her brief one last time, making sure there wasnt something important shed failed to notice. But it was all as she remembered it. The photographswell, snapshots really. Directions to the targets home. Suggested lines of approach. And the number to call when shed achieved her mission.

The woman swallowed the dregs of her coffee and headed back to her hire car, shivering as the damp air hit her. She was wearing only a light cotton shirt over the linen shorts shed bought for last years Greek island holiday. It had seemed an appropriate outfit for the warm sun that had beaten down on her earlier. It was California in July, after all. Now the weather had turned into English autumn, she was hopelessly underdressed. She wondered whether she had time to slip back to her hotel, but decided against it.

Ten minutes out of the city, and she was as glad of her decision as she was of the cars air conditioning. The fog that had chilled her was so localised that half a dozen miles away people were still sweating in the same heat that had engulfed her earlier in the day. But at least the air conditioning meant she was clear-headed enough to pay attention to the road signs, making sure she ended up heading down the coast on Highway 1. She drove cautiously, aware that a speed limit lower than the UKs would be easy for her to breach without realizing. Attracting the attention of the Highway Patrol would definitely not be a good idea.