Val McDermid by Conferences Are Murder

Author:Conferences Are Murder
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781932859096
Publisher: Spinsters Ink Books
Published: 2010-04-07T05:00:00+00:00

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"Head Office staff are present to ensure that SOS has the clerical and administrative back-up it needs to keep the wheels of conference turning. The staff are not there to meet your every need and solve your problems. This is not the time to ask for one of those yellow forms to apply for a Press card--if the staff don't cave your head in, rest assured that the nearest member of SOS will."

from "Advice for New Delegates,"

a Standing Orders Sub-Committee booklet.

As they walked towards the conference office, Lindsay finished reading the Chronicle's latest contribution to the troubles of the Amalgamated Union of Media Workers. She let out a soft whistle and said, "Hey, Sophie. Listen to this."

Handy Andy's commitment to change in the union is pointed up by the close eye he was keeping on Union Jack and his yes-men cronies throughout the conference. As well as being overheard taking Union Jack to task about the amount of AMWU's limited cash flow, the big man was putting across the bar in the course of his "legitimate" conference expenses (in other words, buying drinks for everyone he could hope for support or favours from), the deputy GS somehow managed to be one of the first on the scene after Lindsay Gordon discovered her late general secretary had bequeathed her Yorkshire's answer to air conditioning--"Open t' bloody window."

One imagines the police are inquiring just what Handy Andy was doing at three in the morning on the tenth floor of a building that's a good 200 yards away from the bedroom where he should have been catching up on his beauty sleep. Perhaps they should remember that sometimes the alibi looks like provoking more trouble than the offence, especially now they don't string 'em up any more.

Bloody hell! Someone's really got their knife into Andy."

"No more than they did into you in this morning's edition. Now you seem to be in the clear, I suppose they've got to find someone else to sling their mud at. And who better than the one man who stands to gain most," Sophie said.

"Well, he does and he doesn't," Lindsay said. "He'll only take over the top job on a temporary basis, till they can organise an election for a new general secretary. And there's no guarantee he'll win. Union Jack beat him last time, but even if he does do a good job as caretaker, there will be a lot of people who see him as being tarred with the brush of Tom Jack's appalling administration. I'll obviously need to talk to him, though. Maybe I can collar him this evening in the bar."

They turned into the office. Most of the harried staff didn't even look up as they entered. Eyes were focused on word processors, duplicating machines, and photocopiers as AMWU's administrative staff struggled to generate the mountains of paperwork that had to be reprinted because of the disruption Tom Jack's death had brought to the agenda. Brian Robinson from the Standing Orders

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