Now, Alison's sexual preferences might be alien to most people, but her emotional responses were identical to ours. She didn't want Jackie to depart from her life. Like most of us, faced with losing someone we care about, she used emotional blackmail in a bid to hold on to her lover. What she didn't realize was that she was trying to blackmail a killer. The threat of losing the things that mattered to her drove Jackie Mitchell over the edge.

"Jackie Mitchell was the only other person in that flat on the afternoon of 16 October. Jackie Mitchell was overheard quarreling angrily with Alison Maxwell. And Jackie Mitchell's scarf was the weapon that choked the life out of Alison Maxwell. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is anhell was I supposed to do? Answer me that! How long was I supposed to wait before I started to put my life back together again? Have you any idea how much time, energy, and money I spent trying to find you? I rang everyone I could think of, I went everywhere I thought you might be. I even went to bloody New York!"

"And how long did it take you to steal Jackie's girlfriend?"

Both Claire and Cordelia looked shocked by Lindsay's question. But it was Claire who collected herself first and said in conciliatory tones, "It wasn't like that. I was looking for you, and a mutual friend introduced me to Cordelia, who was in Glasgow at the time, also trying to get a lead on your whereabouts.