"abling bodies are reminded that the laws of libel apply as firmly to draft motions as they do to the media we all work for. Publishers of fringe flyers would be well advised to remember this too. And don't forget the ever-present risk of slander in the bar. When you've had a few too many, keep your insults to yourself."

from "Advice for New Delegates,"

a Standing Orders Sub-Committee booklet.

It was strange, you know," Lindsay said, gazing into the middle distance somewhere beyond Jennifer. "Sometimes it was like we'd all been frozen in aspic some time in 1984. The rhetoric was the same, the attitudes, even the faces. As if the last nine years just hadn't happened. And then I'd look around, and suddenly it was all different. There we were, sitting in a conference hall with the very same people who'd supposedly been our enemies and our rivals. Talking about streamlining our administration, improving our public profile, developing new services to meet changing needs, like some post-Thatcherite corporation. And Union Jack still at the heart of it, cutting his coat according to what would keep him in power."

"When did you actually first speak to him?" Jennifer glanced at her watch as she asked the question.

"I'm sorry, I keep getting sidetracked. It's probably the drink. I've had more than I should have tonight. On Monday evening, after the women told me about the redundancies, I went over to the bar to get a round of drinks in. On the way, I had to pass Tom and his NEC cronies. Being Tom, he couldn't let me pass without getting into my ribs."

Ey-up lads, lock up your daughters. The Gay Gordons are back in town," Tom roared as Lindsay tried to slip unnoticed past the bunch of fixers gathered round the general secretary. "What happened? The Yanks realise they'd been sold a pup?"

"Nice to see you too, Tom." Lindsay tried to carry on toward the bar, but he moved to block her way. He was trying to push her into behaving like some butch blundering dyke, trying to make her shove him out of the way. As if she'd make any impact on that stocky, bullish figure in her path. Lindsay smiled sweetly, shaking her head. "Still the same old charmer, eh?"

"Well, Lindsay, it's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it, haven't they? Otherwise, we'd fall into the hands of some of them dangerous radicals. You know the ones-they're out there, ready and waiting to turn us into a matriarchy, leaving us lads to be nothing but the playthings of you lasses," Tom said, leaning so close she could smell the beer on his breath and see the individual hairs in his thick, curly beard. He hadn't changed much, she thought, either superficially or more deeply. These days, there were grey hairs among the brown in his hair and beard, but his warm brown eyes were still the same, holding the eyes of his audience, whether it was one person or a thousand, forcing them to be the ones to look away first.

"You should be so lucky, Tom," she said.

He smiled the familiar smile, his full sensual lips barely parting. His crooked teeth were the only chink in his armour that Lindsay had ever noticed. But even that he turned to an advantage.

She had heard him once in full flood, explaining how he would never have his teeth fixed because every time he looked in the mirror they reminded him of the importance of a free National Health Service and of how his working-class roots had prevented him from having the gleaming white smile of the bosses. It was a performance that had to be seen to be believed. He winked confidentially and said, "Oh, but I am lucky, Lindsay, I'm a very lucky man."

"I wonder if you'll still be saying that at the end of the week," Lindsay mused softly.

Jack's brows dropped in a frown that seemed to promise the wrath of God. "I hope you're not threatening me already, Lindsay. Bloody hell, woman, you've only been back in the country five minutes."

"You sound very paranoid, Tom. Fancy you feeling threatened by a little woman like me! As it happens, it's not me you've got to worry about. Maybe you should have taken more time to consider the consequences when you decided to behave like management." Lindsay moved to one side, hoping to get away.

Jack's scowl deepened and his nostrils flared. "You always were full of piss and wind," he said. All the fun had gone out of it now. The rest of the group had fallen silent, shifting uneasily, almost imperceptibly moving back from the two antagonists.

"It used to take more than that to rattle you, Tom," Lindsay said matter-of-factly. "I didn't realise that dumping union staff on the dole queue was such a sore point with you."

"Just what gives you the right to come back here and monopolise the high moral ground? You've got no right, no right at all to treat me like a piece of shit. If you were a bloody delegate at this conference, I might just listen to what you have to say. But you're a nobody now. Do you hear? A nobody!" Jack shouted at the top of his powerful bass voice.

Taken aback by the force of his onslaught, Lindsay held her hands up, palms facing him. "Hey, Tom, cool it. I was just putting a point of view."

"You've got no right to a point of view in this union any more. You don't even live in this bloody country. Listen to me, Lindsay Gordon, and listen good. You've done your share of trouble-making in this union. You and your cronies wasted enough of the JU's time and money with your daft feminist schemes and gay rights propaganda. Well, you're not going to hijack the AMWU. So you can stop right there."

Lindsay tried the deep-breathing techniques she'd learned at a seminar in Sausalito. They failed. She flushed a deep scarlet and took a step toward him. "Don't you dare talk to me like that, you conniving turncoat bully," she said in a low voice that attracted more attention in that crowded bar than shouting would have done. "And don't try blowing smoke in everybody's eyes. What you and that National Executive you've got tucked in your back pocket are doing to the head office staff is nothing to do with feminism, and you know it. It's to do with good old-fashioned bad management and the broken promises between employer and employee. The only reason most of the people you're getting rid of are women is the age-old reason. They're cheap to pay off. How did you put it to me back in '86, when the Daily Nation was making me redundant? Let me get it right..." Lindsay closed her eyes momentarily, as if deep in thought. "Oh yes, now I remember. Quote: 'The reason why women get paid less than men is that they will keep taking these low-paid jobs.' End quote."

For a brief, terrifying moment, she thought Tom Jack was going to hit her. His eyes widened, and his hands bunched into fists at his side. He staggered slightly, then with perceptible effort, he regained control of himself. "If you've got the sense you were born with, you'll stay out of my road," he said quietly, his voice tight with suppressed anger. "There's plenty of rules in the rule-book for getting rid of the likes of you."

Lindsay shook her head theatrically, playing up her air of astonishment as she moved past Jack and made for the bar. " 'A working-class hero is something to be,' right enough," she said to no one in particular.

Not what you'd call a private confrontation, then," Jennifer said wryly. "Have another," she said, pushing the cigarette packet towards Lindsay.

"I'll pass, thanks all the same. Not only was it not private, it hit the headlines. By breakfast next morning, everyone in the place knew we'd had a run-in." Lindsay summarised the couple of paragraphs that had appeared about their fight in Conference Chronicle's "Gossip and Innuendo" section.

Jennifer looked alert, like a cat hearing the tin-opener at the opposite end of the house. "Who produces this Conference Chronicle, then?" she asked.

Lindsay shrugged. "I wish I knew. And so does everyone else. Half of the delegates and officials want to lynch whoever it is, and the rest want to buy them a large drink. I've never known any fringe publication generate this kind of interest. You always get the odd scurrilous flyer round conference, but nothing this organised. It's incredibly well-informed. It takes on the left as well as the right, it has a go at full-time officials, lay activists, the lunatic fringe, the boringly predictable establishment. I know it's a dreadful old clich¨¦, but truly, nothing seems to be sacred to Conference Chronicle. It's reasonably witty, it's competently put together, and it's delivered as if by a band of paper-boy fairies that no one's seen or heard. Certainly, the distribution's a hell of a lot more efficient than the members of the old distribution union ever managed!"

"But no one knows who's behind it?" Jennifer persisted.

"Nope. It could be anyone. Photocopiers are ten a penny these days, and you wouldn't need a great deal of skill to produce the master copy. All you'd need is a couple of hours with a lap-top and a decent DTP package. Fingers have been pointing all over the place, and there are obviously one or two complete loops who'd like us all to think it's them, but nobody's got any serious idea who's behind it. I'll tell you one thing, though. It's the only topic of conversation in the bars and the smoke-filled rooms."

"You're telling me that this... newsletter is the issue that everyone at conference is getting worked up about?" Jennifer asked. There was a note of incredulity in her voice that Lindsay found reassuring. It meant she wasn't the only one who was aware that in the big bad world out there, whatever appeared in Conference Chronicle was even less interesting or significant than the marital relations of the royal family.

"That's right. There are three million unemployed, the government's threatening legislation that will be the effective end of trade unionism in this country, and my union's got its knickers in a twist because someone is getting their kicks from taking the mickey. It makes little sense to me these days either, Ms. Okido, but that's what's been going on. But I don't think it's got anything to do with Tom Jack's death, except that the article in Conference Chronicle makes it sound like I had a better motive than most for wanting rid of him."

"You think that's why the killer chose your room?"

Lindsay sighed, perplexed. "It's the only thing I can think of. God knows, it's little enough reason. There must be a lot of people in the motive queue ahead of me. Union Jack's machinations were ruffling a lot of feathers among the rank and file. I was one of the lucky ones-I didn't have to work with him on a regular basis any more. But a lot of the ones who did were getting pretty wound up. Let me tell you, Ms. Okido, I'm not the only person who would have been happy to see the back of Union Jack as AMWU's general secretary."

And if our general secretary wasn't so concerned with furthering the sectional interests of our so-called brothers and sisters from the former Journalists' Union-an organisation that was more like a gentlemen's club than a union, by all accounts those of us who are facing redundancy on a massive scale in the print would not be in the mess we're in. They were happy enough to grab our historic traditions and a bank balance that was in the black, unlike their own, and now they want to grab our very jobs. Colleagues, it's time the National Executive and the general secretary adopted the policy of the greatest good of the greatest number and started remembering who's been paying their wages." The red-faced man pounded the lectern, causing a shriek of feedback that cut through a couple of hundred hangovers like broken chalk screeching on a blackboard. "Colleagues, vote for the London Central Print Division's amendment to motion thirty-two. Thank you."

Lindsay pressed "play" on her Walkman. Anything had to be better than this debate. She shifted in her seat again, trying to find a comfortable position on the hard chair. As an observer, she was seated apart from the main body of delegates, on a small raised dais at the back of the octagonal conference hall. The observers didn't rate tables, unlike the delegates, so they were condemned to shuffling constantly through their agendas, order-papers and copies of Conference Chronicle. The latest edition had been the sole topic of conversation over breakfast for the members of the paranoid tendency, with its "revelation" that Laura Craig was a Special Branch plant. As the voices droned on around her, Lindsay amused herself by flicking through the dozen paragraphs again.

We can exclusively reveal today that full-time official Laura Craig gets more than one pay packet. The tough-talking broadcasting journalists' organiser has another full-time job-stool pigeon for the Special Branch.

For the last fifteen years, her role has been to undermine the whole trade union movement by working to ensure that the former Journalists' Union was such a laughing-stock that its own members could only hold it in contempt. That in turn meant that influential media figures judged the rest of the TU movement by the pathetic and politically naïve behaviour of their own union.

So those journalists in turn helped create the climate of opinion which allowed the Thatcher government to systematically strip working people of their rights and demolish their confidence in the whole TU movement.

Craig orchestrated the damaging strikes at BBC TV in 1984, ITN in 1986, IRN in 1988, and BBC Radio in 1990 and '91. All of these actions damaged the union both financially and politically. She has also been a vociferous supporter of strikers in other sectors of the JU, an invariable face on every picket line. One opponent of her hard-line approach, general secretary "Union" Jack, once said, "You'll never see a bandwagon rolling past without Laura clinging to it by her beautifully painted fingernails."

Craig, 40, was recruited to secret government service when she was a student at the LSE. She was planted on the BBC graduate training scheme, and quickly became actively involved in the JU. In spite of that, she also achieved rapid promotion in the radio news field, something so unusual for a union official at Broadcasting House that BBC bosses are still citing her as an example that being an activist doesn't stop you being a success.

When she applied for the job as full-time organiser for the broadcasting sector, she seemed the obvious choice. And so another union was infiltrated by those who have a vested interest in the status quo.

Lindsay couldn't help smiling. Pure garbage, but it was good to see Laura get a good slagging off in print. At the very least, it must have sent her blood pressure up a few notches when she'd seen it that morning. Lindsay only hoped that Conference Chronicle could maintain credibility after a crazy leap in the dark like this. Fringe scandal sheets always got carried away by the need to be more and more shocking. But if it managed to stay more in touch with reality, the flyer had the potential to be the shit-stirrer conference needed. Lindsay was wondering idly what Laura had done to upset the writer of Conference Chronicle when a familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Better than the bear baiting?"

Lindsay looked up in surprise. "Dick? What are you doing here? You used to think the union was one of Britain's last bastions of conservatism!" She switched off the Walkman.

"Aye, along with the Reform Club and the House of Commons. What's so fascinating?" he asked, pointing to her headphones.

Lindsay pulled a wry face and shrugged. There was no way she was going to admit to Dick McAndrew that she'd been relaxing to the sound of whale music. "Anything's better than the massed drones of trade unionists. But you didn't answer the question. What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see Tom Jack get his come-uppance," Dick said bitterly, his Glasgow accent lending a threatening edge to the words. "Him and his cronies have done for me and my team, so I came along to try to do the same for him. And how's California?" Dick eased his large frame on to the chair next to Lindsay. He looked absurd, like a Hereford bull on a bicycle.

"I'm thinking of having a flyer printed. 'California's wonderful, I love the job, we've got a terrific house on the beach where the fog rolls in just like Argyllshire, no, I don't miss running with the pack, no, I don't miss British sausages, beer, or sitcoms.' How about you?" Lindsay gave him an affectionate hug.

She and Dick had met years before in the Glasgow Labour Party and had stayed friends ever since. And she owed him. A few years before, when she'd been eagerly pursuing the spy scandal that had sent her into her first overseas exile, Dick had stuck his neck out for her. She'd never had the chance to repay him. "Is Socialism Today still keeping the kids in shoes?"

"You're well out of touch, Gordon," Dick replied, a scowl changing his amiable face into the grimace of a Sumo wrestler. "There is no Socialism Today. Just like Kinnock purged socialism from the Labour party, Union Jack and his cronies purged Socialism Today from the news agents. So, I am no longer the news editor of a radical monthly magazine. I'm just another freelance, desperately scratching a living off a shrinking market." Dick stared at the floor, hands involuntarily bunching into fists.

"What's that got to do with Union Jack? Did the union refuse to bail you out of trouble?" Lindsay asked. For as long as she could remember, Socialism Today's finances had been less stable than Mexico's. The difference was that banks didn't fall over themselves to lend billions to struggling left-wing publishing houses.

Dick snorted. "What are you on? One of they weird American pills that warp your sense of reality? Tom Jack didnae wash his hands of us when we were in trouble. That I could have understood, though forgiving would've been something else again. Naw, it was Union Jack himself that put the shaft in."

"Going to stop talking in riddles and tell me the story?" Lindsay asked, the brisk words softened by her tone.

"Nothing much to tell. We ran a story about eighteen months ago alleging that Tom Jack was going behind the backs of the union executive and dealing directly with the firm of accountants who were putting together the statements of accounts prior to the merger with the other unions. Nothing wrong with that in itself, except that the piece went on to reveal that Union Jack was suggesting all sorts of creative accounting tricks to make our finances look a lot healthier than they really were. Some of the wee tricks he'd thought of were borderline illegal."

Lindsay sucked her breath in sharply. "Pick the bones out of that, eh?"

Dick nodded grimly. "We thought we had it copper-bottomed, but Union Jack insisted it was a set-up. He announced he was going to sue, and our source inside the accountants got cold feet and bottled out of going in to bat for us. So Union Jack took us to the cleaners. We couldn't even pay the lawyer's bills, never mind the damages. The four of us that owned the magazine on paper all had to dive headlong into bankruptcy."

Dick's blue eyes had a new bleakness Lindsay had never seen there before. It wasn't surprising. He wasn't some reckless kid with no one to worry about but himself. He was an experienced professional, a man who knew the risks, but had always managed to avoid exposing his wife and children to them.

"Helen and the kids?" she asked.

"We're okay. We managed to keep the house. When I joined the Socialism Today management collective, the office lawyers recommended that we put it in her name, that and the car. So it could have been worse, I suppose."

Lindsay felt anger rising, a taste as distinctive as bile. "And the union just stood by and let this happen?"

"Lindsay, the executive committee were in Tom Jack's pocket. He said crawl, they said, how low. Sure, there were plenty of people in the union jumping up and down about it, but nobody walking the corridors of power gave a shift about a wee magazine with a dozen journalists and a nasty habit of bursting balloons. The trouble is, Lindsay, this union isnae for the rank and file any more. And until we get rid of Tom Jack once and for all, nothing's going to get any better. He's got to go."

Lindsay stood up and stretched. "I don't think I can take any more of this debate. Are they open?"

Dick glanced at his watch. "Ten minutes ago. What are we doing, wasting good drinking time?"

In spite of the earliness of the hour, the student union bar was doing a brisk trade. Dick ordered a pint of bitter and turned to Lindsay. "What're you for?"

"D'you know, I don't think I can face drink," she said in a tone of incredulity. "You'd better make it a mineral water."

Dick shook his head in sorrow, but ordered it nevertheless. "You've been away too long."

Before Lindsay could leap to her own defence, the double doors of the bar swung open, and Laura Craig strolled in. Her tailored trousers and long sweater were as close as Lindsay had ever seen her to casual clothes. "Hey, Laura," one of the delegates at the bar called. "Shouldn't you be buying the drinks? We've all read Conference Chronicle-you're the only one here that's on expenses!"

Laura smiled. "I wish," she said. "Mine's a vodka and ginger beer. Make it a large one, or else I'll set Miss Moneypenny on you!" She moved across to the group of men, succumbing willingly to their raucous teasing.

"Played the room like a fiddle," Lindsay said.

"You've always had the knife into the Vogue Vamp. You're not seriously telling me you believe that guff?" Dick asked.

Lindsay sighed. "Of course I don't. Even her worst enemy couldn't have come up with something that ludicrous."

Dick emptied his glass and dumped it on the bar. "I'd better be on my way. I've got to go down to Standing Orders Sub-Committee. I've got an emergency motion to propose for the membership and organisation order paper."

"Oh? What about?"

"As well as having branches organised locally and according to sector, we should set up unemployed branches, since that's what this union seems to be best at presiding over." Dick pulled a lopsided smile.

"I'm sorry about Socialism Today," Lindsay said.

"So'm I. And about the philosophy, not just the magazine. See you around."

Dick lumbered off. As he reached the door, he came face to face with Tom Jack. Lindsay saw their mouths move, but they were too distant for her to hear what they said. Not for the first time, she wished she could lip-read. Suddenly, Dick's right arm shot out, and he pushed Tom hard in the chest, so the union leader stumbled and fell back against the wall. It wasn't the first bit of rough stuff she'd seen so far at the conference. There had been a few punches flung in the bar in the early hours between warring factions. But this was the first time she'd seen anyone lay a hand on the man who seemed to be at the centre of every divisive and damaging row she'd witnessed. Lindsay couldn't help feeling worried that it had been Dick who'd thrown the first blow.