Double Blind by Carrie Bedford Page B

Spreading them out on my desk, I added a photo of Eliza Chapman that I’d printed from one of the old articles on the Internet. In the lamplight, I stared at the images, trying to see the relationships between them. If I could work out the links, perhaps I could save some lives.
    Chris was working in Scott’s campaign office and going to all his campaign events. Was he doing that to support him, as appeared to be the case, or to watch him, the way I suspected the binoculars man was? And if so, with what objective? Revenge, like Eliza Chapman? Chris, Eliza and binoculars man were all possible suspects if Scott’s aura indicated death by murder.
    I checked the time frequently, wondering when Anita might be free. I wanted to make sure she was all right, and tell her about Chris, but she’d told me she was on duty until mid-afternoon. I moved the photos around, shuffling them like cards to see if I could wheedle any information out of them. After a while, I got up and made more tea, throwing on jeans and a sweater while the kettle boiled.
    Cup in hand, I walked back towards the desk, happy to see there was a break in the rain. Pale sunlight filled the room. The light gave substance and depth to the photos, and I stared at them for a full minute, wondering if I was imagining things. Picking up the two pictures that had caught my attention, I carried them to the window for a closer examination. Chris resembled Scott. He had the same eyes, hazel with a gold-colored ring around the iris. Could they be related?
    I went back to the desk to send an email to Colin Butler, telling him that I had some news and that I needed his help. To my surprise, he responded almost at once. When he suggested meeting in a pub not far from where I lived, I jumped at the chance to get out of the flat.
    I arrived at the pub before Butler did, and took a mineral water to a table near the window. The bar was packed with lunchtime patrons, their chatter competing with the sound from two televisions showing replays of the previous weekend’s football matches. Black beams held up sagging plaster ceilings. The floor undulated and creaked underneath tired red carpeting. When Butler arrived, I gave him a little wave, not sure that he would recognize me. In brown cord trousers and a brown jacket belted around a substantial gut, he reminded me of a bear. He shambled to the bar and then joined me at the table.
    “So, Kate, what did you make of Eliza Chapman?” he asked, taking a long swallow of his drink.
    “Well,” I said carefully, “She has a good reason to dislike Scott for cheating, but her hostility to him is extreme. She seems a little unbalanced, to be honest.” I’d told Butler by email about Eliza’s account of the pilfered thesis, but I hadn’t mentioned her story of the pregnant girlfriend. That seemed like malicious gossip, not something that a journalist at a serious newspaper would be interested in. But my discovery about Chris changed all that.
    “There was something else,” I said. “She said he got his girlfriend pregnant, and then dumped her when his family told him to.”
    Butler’s bushy eyebrows ascended towards his thinning hairline. “Tell me more.”
    I gave him a brief summary of what Eliza had told me about Scott’s relationship with Phoena Stamos. “So Scott behaved badly, but why did it bother her so much?” I mused. “I mean, I’ve had friends who’ve shown significant lapses in judgment, but it doesn’t mean I hate them for it. Her reaction seems irrational.”
    He wiped foam from his lip and nodded. “I think she was in love with Scott.”
    I hadn’t thought of it, but it made sense in terms of explaining her animosity towards him. The woman scorned and all that.
    “What makes you think so?”
    “Just something she said when I interviewed her about the scandal with the vaccine dosage,” he said. “She didn’t name Scott, just mentioned the pain of some unrequited love in her past. She never married, you