Silent Truths (33 page)

Still she only stared at him, fully expecting him to kill her,
the way Colin had killed Sophie Long
?

He backed off a little, and gestured for her to roll down the window. Shaking badly, she opened it a crack.

‘Do you need help?’ he asked in English. ‘Have you broken down?’

She shook her head.

He nodded and smiled. ‘OK. I just wanted to be sure. Good-night then.’

She watched him get back in his car and drive away. For several more minutes she continued to sit where she was, shaken, and disoriented by the coincidence that was making her feel as though she was in some kind of weird Buñuel movie, where people kept appearing in places they were least expected. First there was Laurie Forbes on the day Colin was arrested, and again at the publishers. Then there were Antonio and Marco, in the wine bar tonight. And now there was the man who had walked behind her in town, whistling and appearing more interested in the sky, stopping here to check she was all right. He’d shown no sign of recognizing her, but she’d recognized him. Her head was starting to throb. Did any of it mean anything? Was there some strange sort of significance to these coincidences that she was supposed to understand, and didn’t?

Putting the car into gear she drove back out on to the road. She had no theories as far as Laurie Forbes and Antonio were concerned, but if the man who’d just stopped was who she thought he was, she needed to leave Spain right now, tonight, and when she got back to England she’d call Robin immediately and tell him to do what he could to get her to LA.

Chapter 14

‘
LAURIE, IT’S SIMPLY
too gorgeous an evening to be scowling like that,’ Rhona complained from the kitchen terrace, where she was relaxing amongst Andrew and Stephen’s lovingly nurtured pot plants and alabaster statues, with a freshly blended grey goose martini. Up above was the spectacular roof terrace where Andrew and Stephen barbecued and partied with almost the same regularity as most people ate lunch, but for this evening this little outdoor haven would do.

Laurie was in the kitchen, the phone pressed to one ear as she waited for Murray Cox to come back on the line. She was looking at Rhona through the open windows and was about to respond when Murray’s voice suddenly said, ‘Laurie, sorry to have kept you. It’s a bit frantic here this evening. Now where were we? Oh yes. Elliot’s on his way back from Zurich, but I spoke to him before he left. He says can you meet him early evening tomorrow?’

‘Did you tell him what it was about?’

‘He already knew.’

Laurie’s face tightened, even though she’d guessed Ashby would have got word to him somehow. In fact she was surprised he hadn’t called her by now, or maybe they were engaged in some kind of competition on who could hold out the longest. ‘Tomorrow evening will be fine,’ she said. ‘Where?’

‘He’ll call you to set it up,’ Murray answered. ‘How are you by the way? It’s been a long time.’

‘Fine,’ she answered, softening slightly. She had nothing against Murray – in fact she’d always liked him a lot. ‘How are you?’ she asked.

‘Too busy to know,’ he responded. ‘The other lines are going berserk. Sorry, I’ll have to go, but it was nice hearing you. Hopefully we’ll get to see you before too much longer.’

‘Mm,’ Laurie answered.

After putting the phone down she picked up her own martini and looked at it appraisingly. It was bound to be lethal, knowing Rhona, but they were the best martinis in town, and no evening as balmy and tranquil as this should be without one, no matter the mood.

‘Nectar,’ she murmured after her first sip. ‘Simply nectar.’

Rhona wandered to the door and leant against the frame. She was neither tall, nor slim, nor particularly beautiful, but her luscious curves and long, narrow eyes oozed the kind of sex appeal that had made more than one man leave home. ‘So?’ she said in the seductive, guttural tones she couldn’t help.

Laurie was midway through another sip. ‘This is
too much,’ she declared after letting it steal potently into her senses. ‘You’re just too good. He’s en route from Zurich. I’m seeing him tomorrow.’

Rhona’s eyebrows went up. ‘And he knows what it’s about?’

‘Apparently. According to Murray.’

‘Aaah, Murray,’ Rhona purred. ‘Is he still working there? Of course, the place would fall apart without him. How is he, the little darling? I’ve missed him. We used to have such good times, didn’t we, dropping into that office unannounced? Do you remember how we used to plot to take on the world, put everything to rights? Amazing what we thought we could achieve after a couple of Murray’s martinis, wasn’t it? We were going off to Africa at one point, I remember, but we couldn’t decide which country needed us most.’

‘Lysette went to Uganda,’ Laurie reminded her.

‘Of course. With Elliot. He wrote some brilliant articles from there, as I recall. And Lysette got her heart broken a thousand times over. Wasn’t she arranging to smuggle a child back here, until Elliot found out and stopped her?’

‘Three children,’ Laurie corrected, remembering that time only too well. ‘She never really got over that experience,’ she said. ‘It crushed her, seeing all that tragedy. Then she and Elliot broke up for the nineteenth time, because he couldn’t make her stop pining.’

Rhona was smiling sadly to herself. ‘They were always the most unlikely couple, those two, weren’t they? Him, such a man of the world, hard-edged, down to earth, no illusions, and her so
starry-eyed and gentle and full of dreams. Yet somehow it seemed to work.’

‘If you call all that heartache working,’ Laurie responded.

Rhona’s eyes moved to hers. ‘There were good times too,’ she reminded her. ‘Lots of them, as I recall.’

‘Do they make up for the others?’

‘Lysette would probably think so.’

‘But she didn’t, did she, considering what happened in the end?’

Rhona’s eyes went down. ‘Laurie, your sister was a saint,’ she said, ‘and that would be hard for any man to live with, especially a man like Elliot.’

‘No one forced him.’

Rhona’s eyes were imbued with feeling. ‘Did it ever occur to you that it was in trying not to hurt her that he ended up hurting her so much? He really cared about her, Laurie. Deeply. That was why he found it so hard to break off the relationship.’

‘Well, we all know how he did it in the end,’ Laurie said sharply, ‘so maybe we should change the subject and decide if we’re going to order in. This kitchen is so pristine, I’m almost afraid to touch anything.’

They looked around at the immaculate shiny white and stainless-steel surfaces, and fixtures that boasted zero embellishments, such as fridge magnets, plants, hanging pans, dried herbs or pots of utensils. Everything was so designer-minimal that the dining room that was annexed to it seemed almost cluttered with its eight black-lacquered chairs, glass-topped table on a black marble plinth
and three moody monochromes of Rubayat, the precious Persian cat, that had been taken by Stephen.

‘It would feel like a sacrilege bringing anything as common as pizza into this place,’ Rhona lamented. ‘But we can always eat outside. Have you heard from Andrew and Stephen, by the way?’

‘They called last night,’ Laurie answered, sliding open a drawer that contained the local phone directories. ‘Rehearsals are due to start next Monday for Andrew’s play, and Stephen thinks he might have a commission to photograph someone’s house out on Long Island. So they’re off to a good start. Oh, who’s that?’ she said, as the phone suddenly rang. She scooped up the triangular chrome receiver. ‘Hello?’

‘Laurie? It’s Elliot.’

The surprise was like a punch in the heart. ‘Hello,’ she said coldly, looking at Rhona, who frowned curiously at the tone of her voice. ‘I thought you were on a plane.’

‘It just landed. Murray told me you called. This is the first chance I’ve had to get back to you.’

‘It’s OK. I spoke to Murray just now. I’m free tomorrow evening.’

‘Good. Is this Andrew and Stephen’s number I’ve just rung?’

‘Yes,’ she confirmed. ‘I’m looking after the cat and the house while they’re in New York.’

He paused, then said, ‘We’ll need to discuss certain aspects of you staying there, but we’ll leave it until tomorrow. Has anyone contacted you since you made the visit?’

Knowing what he meant she resisted the urge to be difficult and said, ‘No.’

‘OK. I’m hiring a private detective to keep an eye on you.’

‘
What
!’ she seethed. ‘Don’t you dare –’

‘His name’s Stan Bright. You’ll like him. He’s discreet, but good.’

‘I don’t care,’ she said through her teeth, ‘I’m not –’

‘Have you been in touch with any of the names you were given?’ he cut in.

Again through her teeth she said, ‘I’ve been trying. I’m not getting anywhere at the moment.’ It galled her no end to think that he’d probably have more success once he got on to it.

‘How are things at the office?’

‘They ran the manuscript story.’

‘I saw it. Do you believe the lost and found?’

‘No.’

‘Does our mutual friend?’

Her eyes went back to Rhona. ‘No,’ she answered.

‘So we’re presuming someone out there does have a copy?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Does the author know that?’

Again Laurie looked at Rhona. ‘Our friend doesn’t think so,’ she answered.

‘What about theories on who might have taken it?’

‘She hasn’t heard any.’

He went off the line for a moment, then came back saying, ‘OK. Have you thought about how you’re going to manage this, given the resistance
you’re meeting at the office?’

Anger flared like a firework in Laurie’s head. ‘If you think you’re going to push me off this just because –’

‘I have some suggestions,’ he barked across her.

She stopped, and stood mutely glaring at nothing.

‘Are you ready to hear them?’ he asked.

‘Actually I have some of my own,’ she responded. ‘I’ve put in for leave.’

‘Have they accepted it?’

‘Not yet. In fact they’re trying to send me to Kenya on a story.’

‘Well, there’s a surprise,’ he commented. ‘I can arrange for Gail or Jed to cover for you. That way you manage to stay on this, and the stories get filed. They’ll email them to you, you can rewrite them in your own style and forward them on to the office.’

‘That’s fraud,’ she retorted. ‘Or it’s criminal, anyway.’

‘It’s a fine line,’ he responded. ‘The other alternative is that you resign and come and join my team.’

Her eyes expanded so large that Rhona’s did too. ‘No thank you,’ she said in a tone that meant ‘over my dead body’. ‘I’ll think about the offer of Gail and Jed, though. Anything else?’

‘No,’ and without saying goodbye he cut the line dead.

‘Pig,’ she said waspishly into the receiver.

‘Well, that seemed to go well,’ Rhona commented drily. ‘Sounds like you’ve really made up.’

‘I don’t actually have a choice in this,’ Laurie reminded her tersely. ‘Were it up to me, I’d never speak to the man again in my life.’

‘How could I have forgotten?’ Rhona murmured and, reaching for one of the directories, she began searching through. ‘Now, are we going to have pizza, Chinese, Japanese or fish and chips?’

‘Whatever you like,’ Laurie answered distractedly. She was immersed in frustration again as she revisited just how difficult this self-appointed assignment was going to be now she’d been forced to share it with Elliot Russell.

‘Then let it go,’ Rhona advised, when she finally blurted it out over the crispy cod and chips that had been hand-delivered from a nearby chippie, complete with salt and pepper packs and wrapped in yesterday’s paper.

‘What do you mean?’ Laurie demanded. ‘This is
my
story. I’m the one who did the Colin Ashby interview –’

‘I meant the anger towards Elliot,’ Rhona cut in. ‘It’s time, Laurie. Really it is. What’s passed is past, and you being like this isn’t going to change what happened. It’s just prolonging the agony.’

‘But he was so
cruel
, Rhona, you know that.’

‘Yes, a lot of men are, and not all of them were constantly having to deal with the kind of spiritual purity that used to make even me feel as though I had horns and a forked tongue half the time, and I wasn’t with her anywhere near as much as Elliot was. Angels are hell to live with, you know that. You’ve even admitted yourself before now that Lysette’s unshakeable belief in the goodness of man could, and very often did, bring out the worst in you. It’s the kind of perversity we’re all guilty of, to one degree or another, and Elliot’s no different, nor is he any more proud of it than the rest of us. He
was constantly failing her, he knew that, and how do you think it felt to be the source of so much anguish and disappointment all the time, even if she never saw it that way? Having someone making constant excuses for your shortcomings in the holy field, assuring you that you don’t mean the bad things you say, or the unneighbourly things you do, isn’t easy, especially when you mean them with knobs on. He’s not a bad man, Laurie. At least, he’s not the evil incarnate you make him out to be, and in your heart you
know
it. So, for God’s sake, ease up on him, and give yourself a break at the same time.’

Laurie pushed her food away. ‘What I know is the way he treated her and what he said that night,’ she responded tightly. ‘I can’t forgive it, Rhona. If I did it would be like saying it was all right, and it wasn’t. It was so not all right that I can hardly express how bad it was.’ She swallowed hard, but it was still a moment before she could speak with a steady voice. ‘Have you got any idea how much I still miss her?’ she said. ‘And being here, in this house …’ She couldn’t go on.

‘We all miss her,’ Rhona said. ‘We all loved her. It was impossible not to. She left a gap in all our lives, and I know how often you two used to come to this house, so I understand how difficult it must be for you now. But we have to move on, darling. It’s what she would want, especially for you. She adored you, more than anyone. Maybe even more than she adored Elliot. You were everything to her –’

‘Stop!’ Laurie cried. ‘Don’t say any more. Please. It’s hard enough without hearing you –’