Silent Truths (13 page)

She yawned again. There was a real mystery going on there, with what had happened to that family, where they’d gone during those first days after Sophie’s death, and why they’d been so heavily guarded since. She’d give anything to be the one to crack it, though she had to admit the chances of her getting to the Longs before anyone else were about as likely as her getting to the Prime Minister, with whom she wouldn’t mind discussing his few decades of friendship with Colin Ashby. However, perseverance was the better part of valour, or something like that, so she wasn’t going to stop trying just because she was a no one.

Flipping down the cover on her mobile, she dialled the number to retrieve her messages, and turned back to her computer screen. She needed to find out where she was supposed to be tomorrow so that she could work out how she was going to
make it fit in with her Ashby investigations. Not that she’d been officially removed from the Ashby story, but Wilbur was piling her up so high with trivia and dross he might just as well come right out and admit he was blocking her. And sure enough, the first two messages she replayed were from Lucy, the news co-ordinator, telling her what she was down for the next day, which was something about some rat-infested tower blocks in Romford, and a new form of laser eye surgery being carried out at a clinic in Suffolk – both stories located out of London.

Throwing her pen down in disgust she began pacing as she moved on to the third message, which was from Andrew and Stephen, her gay friends from Limehouse, asking her to call back for an offer she couldn’t refuse. Making a mental note, she moved on to the fourth message, from Rhona, her closest friend, asking where she’d been lately, and the fifth was from her contact at the Yard who sounded characteristically reluctant to see her, though to her inexpressible delight he was agreeing to.

She was just clicking off the line with a little victory punch into thin air, when she heard the bedroom door open behind her, and turned to see her mother, bleary-eyed and dishevelled from sleep, belting her dressing gown and shaking her head.

‘Laurie, for heaven’s sake, girl,’ she grumbled, her gentle face only partially visible in the semi-light. ‘You’re driving me nuts, pacing up and down, then tapping away on that computer. Get some sleep, will you?’

‘Sorry,’ Laurie grimaced. ‘Just another half-hour and no pacing. OK? I’ve still got some prepping to do for tomorrow. Shall I make you some tea?’

‘No, I’ll make you some cocoa. It might help you switch off. What are you working on, anyway?’

‘Oh, just the usual stuff,’ she answered, turning back to the screen and reclipping her hair. ‘Is Dad awake?’

‘No, but he will be if you carry on like this.’ Mindy Forbes hesitated, then said, ‘Did you call Greg back?’

‘No.’

‘Laurie, you can’t treat him like this. He’s –’

‘Mum, it’s over between us,’ Laurie interrupted, ‘which is why I’m here, remember? It won’t be for long, though. As soon as I’ve got time I’ll find myself a place nearer to the office.’

Mindy looked long into her daughter’s face. How, she was wondering, did Laurie manage even to come into this room now, when just to stand in the doorway caused such an ache in her own heart it was as though that terrible event in their lives had happened a mere week ago, rather than a year. But Laurie had her own way of dealing with her twin sister’s death, which seemed to entail shutting it out most of the time. It was what had made her choice to return to this room when she’d broken up with her boyfriend so surprising. Mindy had dared to hope that it might prove some sort of therapy, being back in the private world the twins had always shared, but if it had, she had yet to know about it, for Laurie still wouldn’t discuss Lysette’s death with anyone, not even her father, whom she’d always found it so easy to talk to.

Even without looking round the room Mindy could sense Laurie’s chaos, spread out over the twin beds where she and Lysette had slept since they were old enough to have a room of their own. As children they’d been inseparable, even as teenagers they’d done most things together. They were so alike physically it used to turn people’s heads in the street, though their characters could hardly have been more different. Mindy had often thought that it was their differences even more than their similarities that had made them so close. They could fight too, like any sisters, but Lysette was always the one to back down first, never Laurie, and it was always Lysette who gave in when they were making such crucial decisions as to which pop idol posters to plaster over their bedroom walls, or which university they should try for, Bristol (Lysette’s choice) or London (Laurie’s choice and where they’d ended up). But for all Laurie’s bull-headedness and domineering ways, Lysette had loved her more than anyone else alive. And the same went for Laurie. Though only ten minutes older, she’d always been fiercely protective of Lysette, constantly shielding her from the beastly world out there that Lysette had never been able to see any harm in. Indeed, it had been as though Laurie’s main purpose in life was to make sure nothing bad ever happened to Lysette, which was why this past year had been so very hard on Laurie, since Lysette had taken her own life.

‘Mum?’ Laurie said softly.

Mindy’s eyes had drifted to Joe, her dead daughter’s teddy bear, lying on the rose-coloured bedspread that never got turned back now.

Getting up from her chair Laurie came to hug her.

‘I still miss her so much,’ Mindy sighed tearfully. ‘I know you do too.’

Laurie didn’t answer, she just held her mother and waited for the moment to pass.

After a while Mindy pulled back, wiping her eyes with her fingers. ‘Dad’s not getting any better,’ she said.

At that Laurie’s heart turned over. She wished her mother wouldn’t tell her these things; she couldn’t bear to hear them. ‘He’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘You just fuss too much.’

Mindy smiled. ‘I worry about you too,’ she said. ‘You work too hard. You haven’t turned out the light before two o’clock in the last three weeks.’

‘There’s no need to worry about me,’ Laurie assured her. ‘I’m fine. I enjoy my work, you know that.’

Mindy cupped her cheek in one hand. Yes, she knew that, but it was an escape too, and Mindy wasn’t sure how far she should allow it to go. Not that making Laurie face up to her pain would ever be easy, but the longer this denial went on, the harder it was going to be, especially when her beautiful, headstrong daughter had such a clever and wilful mind of her own. ‘Life’s for living as well as working,’ she said, ‘and even if it is over with Greg, there are others out there –’

‘Mum, no,’ Laurie cut in gently. Living at home was too hard. She had to find somewhere else soon.

Mindy’s eyes were still watching her, seeing more than Laurie would want her to. ‘Laurie, you know it wasn’t your –’

Laurie’s fingers pressed against her lips. ‘Don’t go there, Mum,’ she said. ‘Not now.’

Resigning herself for the moment, Mindy kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ll go and make the cocoa,’ she said. ‘Try to be finished by the time I come back.’

Moments later Laurie was absorbed in her story again, typing furiously as though the speed of her fingers would somehow help her outrun those last few horrible minutes. She was making herself think about Beth Ashby now, wondering if the pain of her husband’s betrayal had left her feeling as though an integral part of her had been damaged, or maybe even lost. That was how she herself felt about Lysette – damaged and unworthy, alone, incomplete, lost without a soul. But this wasn’t about her and Lysette. Nothing would ever be about her and Lysette again. It was about Beth and Colin Ashby, and the fact that Beth surely had to know, or at least suspect, that there was more to Sophie Long’s death than was being reported, by the press and by the police. If only she could get Beth to see her, talk to her … but she might just as well put her wish list in to Santa for all the headway she was making with the Ashby lawyers. She wondered if anyone had told Beth about Brad Pinkton, or Sophie’s real profession. Of course, Beth might not have to be told; she might already know.

‘What Beth Ashby does or doesn’t know remains locked inside Beth Ashby’s head,’ Chilton, her police contact, told her when she put it to him the next day. ‘But even if she is aware of Sophie Long’s real profession, what difference does it make? Her
husband still killed the girl, and whether the victim was a sinner or a saint the crime and punishment remain the same.’

Laurie wondered how she’d feel in Beth’s shoes, whether she’d want her husband’s girlfriend to be a prostitute or a paragon. She thought probably a prostitute; it seemed, oddly, less of a betrayal.

‘What about all this ferrying back and forth to orgies Pinkton claims to have done?’ she said. ‘How is that linked to the murder?’

Chilton shook his head. He was a large man in his mid-fifties, square-jawed and partially bald, with long, cumbersome eyebrows that gave him a permanent scowl. ‘Pinkton dropped Ashby off at the flat,’ he said, ‘and less than fifteen minutes later he was picking up a customer at Paddington Station. There’s your link.’

She watched him as he drank. They were in a secluded corner of a dingy North London pub, where they were currently the only clientele. They’d met here once or twice before; Chilton felt comfortable in the place as it was far enough away from the office, and close to his home. As a high-ranking administrative officer with the force, he was an extremely useful contact to have, though she was never in any doubt of how deeply he disapproved of their arrangement, which he would never have entered into were it not for Mindy, his beloved only cousin. It was why Laurie never pushed him too hard, for fear of losing him altogether. However, she had him to thank for the tip-off that had led her to Beth Ashby’s front door, and for several other titbits since, so presumably something in him condoned their liaison or he
wouldn’t be here. ‘Will you have another drink?’ he offered.

‘Tomato juice,’ she said. ‘What about Pinkton’s claims that he drove others?’

‘Nothing to support them,’ he replied, while signalling the barman to bring another round. ‘Which is not to say he’s lying …’

Laurie waited, confused and vaguely annoyed. Talk about smoke and mirrors. ‘So what does it say?’ she finally prompted.

‘Have you ever heard the name Marcus Gatling?’ Chilton asked.

She wrinkled her nose as she thought. ‘It seems to ring a bell,’ she said. ‘Why? Who is he?’

‘A very good question. I’d say he’s best described as a behind-the-scenes type with a lot of power in places it pays to have it. It’s generally known by those who operate in his kind of circles that he’s a close friend and adviser to the Prime Minister, but he seeks no publicity and seems to get very little.’

Laurie was immediately intrigued. ‘Meaning he has influence with the media too?’ she said. ‘To keep his name out of lights?’

‘Let’s just say it’s interesting how few people seem to have heard of him, considering how well connected he is.’

She was thinking of Wilbur now, and her thinly veiled orders to back off. Could this mean that they’d originated from a level so high that it made her giddy even to think of it? ‘So what’s this Gatling character got to do with anything?’ she asked.

Chilton waited until the barman had finished setting down their drinks, paid him, then said, ‘I
want you to understand that you’ll never be able to quote me on anything I say here today, not only because it’s all off the record, but because I have absolutely nothing to back it up.’

She nodded agreement and understanding.

‘There are certain of my colleagues,’ he said, staring down at the full head on his beer, ‘who believe that the victims to fit Pinkton’s story will be
chosen
.’

Laurie sat with that, slightly stunned that he was telling her something so crucial, and needing some time to assimilate it. ‘So are you saying,’ she ventured in the end, wanting to get this absolutely clear, ‘that someone will decide which of Brad Pinkton’s party-going politicians will be named? And even if others were involved, if it suits for them to stay in power, they’ll be eliminated from investigations, and very probably from any kind of speculation in the press?’

Chilton’s eyebrows were raised, as though impressed.

So far, so good. But she still didn’t have it quite in her grasp. ‘So Pinkton’s story will break,’ she said, ‘just not yet, and when it does it will have been … managed?’

His eyebrows were still up.

Laurie frowned. Of course it was nothing new, stories being managed, or withheld, or even killed altogether. It went on much more than the public knew about, but it was the first time it had happened to one of hers. ‘If this Marcus Gatling has the kind of power you’re talking about,’ she said, ‘why doesn’t he just stop the story altogether? I mean, why bother creating all these scapegoats
when it’s just drawing attention to a situation they’d surely rather went away?’

‘Another good question,’ Chilton commended. ‘But we think he sent Brad Pinkton to us for the very purpose of getting the orgy story into the papers.’

Laurie’s eyes widened. It took her only a beat to get there, and if she was right in the way she was thinking now, then they weren’t looking at a whitewash as she’d suspected earlier, but a smokescreen. ‘So by exposing the orgies and allowing a few carefully selected heads to roll as a result, people will think that Colin Ashby’s most likely motive for killing Sophie Long was to protect his party-going colleagues from blackmail.’

Chilton watched the barman as he walked to the dartboard and plucked out a set of darts. ‘It could certainly be interpreted that way,’ he responded.

Laurie lapsed into silence again. This was all way beyond any kind of normal logic, so it wasn’t really surprising that she kept lagging behind. And boy, was he making her work for this. Her mobile rang, but she let it go through to messages. Nothing was going to interrupt her now. ‘So do you believe that’s why Ashby did it?’ she asked.

Chilton sipped his beer through the froth at the top of his glass. ‘What we think,’ he said, ‘is what we’ve always thought – that there’s more to this, and someone somewhere is trying to put us on the wrong scent.’