Silent Truths (72 page)

‘OK,’ she answered. Then, leaning towards him, she pressed her mouth gently to his.

He’d kissed and held her a lot since that
nightmare day, lying with her on her hotel room bed after long, gruelling hours of police interrogation, when she’d had to relive, over and over, why she’d been at Beth’s house, what they’d discussed and what had happened. The sofa cushion she’d seized to protect herself, after shoving Beth back against the wall, had saved her life, there was no question about that, though whether Beth had realized it, no one would ever know. It was pure terror that had made Laurie stay rooted to the floor, even though she’d heard Beth walking away. Then it was shock, and unmitigated horror that had kept her there, for the sound of Beth firing again had invoked such terrible images of Lysette’s final moments that she’d been unable to move. It was only after Elliot had lifted her into his arms, that she’d dared to breathe again, and then awful, animal sounds began coming from her as she tried to catch her breath. They’d clung together then, so hard, and with such relief, that they’d only let go when the police and rescue services arrived.

In the days that followed, after Laurie had been treated for shock, a swarm of reporters and detectives had flown in from London to talk to them all, but most particularly to her. Then Georgie and Bruce had arrived to take Beth’s body home. That had been the hardest time of all for Laurie, as she’d held Georgie in her arms and cried with her.

‘I can’t believe she’s dead,’ Georgie had whispered, her voice cracked with grief. ‘I just can’t make myself accept it. I should have come to get her. I knew she needed me …’

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ Laurie told her. ‘She wouldn’t want that.’

‘I know. But she only really had me.’

Laurie pulled her back into an embrace as they cried some more. ‘Have you spoken to Colin?’ she asked after a while.

‘No. Bruce has. They should be releasing him some time next week.’

Laurie was picturing him the last time she’d seen him, desolate and defeated, yet still confident enough in Beth’s feelings to say, ‘Believe me, if she knew something that would put them here instead of me, she wouldn’t keep it to herself.’ What a shock all this must have been for him, and knowing that it was his treatment of her that had driven her to such despair had to be making it all so much worse.

‘How did he take it?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know, I didn’t ask,’ Georgie answered.

Laurie was surprised by the coldness of the response, but said nothing. Obviously Georgie was angry, and in her shoes maybe she’d be blaming Colin too.

‘I wonder if he’ll go to Heather now,’ Georgie said. Then, seeming not to want to dwell on that, she dabbed her eyes and took more tissues from the box on the bed. ‘We’re going to cremate her and bury the ashes in our little church,’ she said. ‘I spoke to her parents … I don’t think they’ll come for the funeral.’

Laurie hardly knew what to say to that.

‘Her mother’s a terrible woman,’ Georgie said. ‘You always think even the worst people have some kind of redeeming feature, but in all the years I’ve known her I’ve never seen one in Joyce. It’s because of her that Beth has such a dreadful
inferiority complex. Who wouldn’t with a mother like that?’ Looking down at her sodden, shredded tissues, she said, ‘I know this has to be very difficult for Sophie Long’s family and believe me, it’s not that I don’t feel for them, but I want to ask you, when you write about this, please don’t let people think of Beth as just a cold-blooded killer. Maybe to some that’s what she’ll always be, but there was so much more to her. She was so beautiful and gentle really, so willing to love, but afraid of it too. What she did, that’s just not who she really was.’

‘Please don’t worry,’ Laurie said. ‘When we talked, on that last day, I saw how deeply she’d been hurt, how little more she could take.’ Feeling her eyes fill with tears again, she said, ‘I’ll never forget her.’

‘No, don’t let’s ever forget her,’ Georgie agreed.

Laurie wasn’t sure now if she and Georgie would stay in touch, though they’d promised to. Initially they’d have to, of course, while Laurie wrote the story, but later it was almost inevitable they would drift apart.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Elliot asked, his eyes searching hers.

Her eyebrows went up. ‘What do you think? This story’s all-consuming.’

His expression became more intense as, tilting her face up to his, he said, ‘As soon as it’s done, we’re going to make time for us.’

She nodded, then a teasing light came into her eyes as she said, ‘I’m not sure I can wait that long.’ She was about to kiss him when Max Erwin came to stand over them.

‘We’re not home and dry yet,’ he said to Elliot. ‘I
was just going through what I thought were non-urgent emails, and there’s one I think you should take a look at.’

Colin was walking towards Bruce and Georgie. Behind him was the glowering edifice of the prison, ahead a future he could hardly begin to imagine. He was, he knew, a shadow of the man who’d been arrested five months ago, a ghost about to revisit a world that had changed for ever.

As he drew closer Georgie’s face was becoming clearer. His legs felt weak; a faint sun stung his eyes. He was aware of the sporadic birdsong around him, and the rumble of distant traffic. He could feel a slight chill in the air, and smell the damp street. His footsteps made no sound as he walked; over his shoulder was a small bag containing his belongings.

Georgie looked nothing like Beth, yet he knew when he spoke to her it would be as though he was speaking to Beth. He wondered how she would respond, and was almost afraid to find out, though he doubted anything could make him feel worse than he already did.

Bruce was reaching for his hand, waiting to welcome him back. His good and patient friend who’d stood by him through this, and had misinformed the press today so that he could escape the fuss. It would only be temporary, they both knew that, but of all the things he was most grateful to Bruce for, it was this.

Bracing himself, he turned to Georgie, hoping she understood how hard this was for him too. He knew what he was going to say, he’d been
rehearsing it all night, but now, confronted by her, he felt the words being choked back in his throat. He took a breath, tried again to speak, but no sound came out. Then his shoulders began to shake, and terrible soul-wrenching sobs tore from his chest.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, putting her hands on his shoulders. ‘It’s going to be all right.’

‘Beth!’ he cried. ‘Beth, oh Beth, please forgive me.’

‘Sssh.’ Georgie wept too. ‘It’ll be all right.’

He was shaking his head. ‘It was all my fault,’ he gasped. ‘I never meant to hurt her.’

‘Let’s talk about this at home,’ Bruce said gently.

The journey back to Chelsea took less than twenty minutes, by which time Colin’s grief had subsided a little, and Georgie was perhaps more ready to listen than she’d been before.

‘I always thought,’ Colin said, as Bruce put a large Scotch in front of him, ‘that I’d celebrate the day I was released, that I’d be so relieved I’d drink champagne all night. I never imagined …’ His voice faltered, and as though to cover it he took a mouthful of whisky.

‘Better go easy on that,’ Bruce advised. ‘It’s been a while.’

Colin nodded, and looked down at the rich amber liquid.

Georgie’s eyes were expressionless as she watched him. Though she could see how difficult he was finding this, and could even on one level feel sorry for him, on another she knew she wasn’t going to help him at all.

‘Ever since you told me about Beth,’ he said, his voice dropping to a whisper on his wife’s name, ‘
since I got the news …’ He swallowed hard and tried again. ‘I’ve lain awake at night, wanting to get out of that place so badly. Yet I was dreading it too, like I’ve never dreaded anything in my life, because I knew that once I was out I’d have to find a way of dealing with the truth – that two women are dead because of me. One of them my own wife.’ His eyes came up to Georgie’s, showing just how devastated and bewildered he was inside. ‘I loved her,’ he said brokenly. ‘I know you might find that hard to believe, but it’s true. She was so much a part of my life, we were so close in so many ways … All that doesn’t just go away because you fall in love with someone else. It doesn’t mean you stop caring. I never stopped caring.’

Georgie looked at Bruce. Did she need to spell out just how appalling a husband this man had been? How selfishly he had behaved over the years? How especially insensitive, even brutal he had been in the last few months?

‘I told myself a clean break would be easier,’ he said. ‘And I had to protect her from Gatling, or I thought I did … But the truth is, I was using it as an excuse not to see her. I didn’t want to deal with her pain. I was afraid of it, because I knew I couldn’t resist it. It was why I’d never been able to end our marriage before. I couldn’t bear to hurt her, yet it was all I ever seemed to do.’

Georgie’s face was pinched. ‘Aren’t you angry about what she tried to do to you?’ she said.

He shook his head. ‘How can I be when things have turned out the way they have?’

Georgie’s eyes dropped to her hands wrapped around her glass. She knew he was hoping for her
forgiveness, that in some surrogate way she, as though she were Beth, would set him free from the blame. But she wasn’t Beth. She was immune to his charms, unmoved by his show of grief and regret, because were it not for him and the despicable way he had treated his wife, she wouldn’t be blaming herself for having let Beth down at the end. ‘What will you do now?’ she asked finally.

Though his dismay showed at not receiving even a glimmer of the comfort he’d hoped for, he knew in his heart that it was still much too soon. A lot of time would have to pass, and even then there were no guarantees. ‘Heather’s in Ireland,’ he said. ‘She got in touch a couple of days ago, as soon as she heard they were releasing me.’

Georgie’s eyes came up. The mention of Heather had made her so tense it hurt.

‘I’d really like you to meet her,’ he said. ‘I think the two of you would get on well.’

Though Georgie didn’t move, the disgust that had raised every barrier in her was more than visible. That he could think she’d even consider meeting Heather Dance, never mind befriending her, only went to show how utterly self-centred and delusional he was.

‘It’s perhaps a bit soon,’ Bruce said.

Colin nodded. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’

Georgie was taking in his gaunt, still-handsome face, red-rimmed eyes and clothes that bagged over his almost skeletal frame. He might not be guilty of murder, but as far as she was concerned, the list of his other crimes was long, and almost equally as heinous. It was because of them that both Beth and Sophie Long had died, and no amount of remorse
on his part was going to change that. He was accountable, and he knew it, yet he was still here, his life irrevocably altered it was true, even to some degree ruined, but he’d survive. He’d build a new life with Heather, become a full-time father, and very soon Beth would be all but forgotten.

‘I can’t help wondering,’ she said, feeling herself start to shake, ‘how long it will be before you start cheating on Heather.’

He looked as though he’d been kicked. ‘I know I deserve that,’ he said, ‘but I swear, this has changed me. From now on I’ll never cheat on a woman again.’

Georgie’s nostrils flared with anger. ‘Then who is Jackie Peters?’ she challenged, feeling Bruce’s hand close on her shoulder.

Colin’s face immediately coloured. ‘I don’t … I …’ he stammered. ‘She’s someone who visited me in prison. That’s what she does, visit people in prison.’

‘So all the time Beth was tearing herself to pieces because you wouldn’t let her visit, you were allowing this
stranger
–’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ he cut in. ‘She only visited me twice, towards the end.’

‘And now you’ve arranged to have lunch with her tomorrow.’

‘She suggested it. What could I say?’

‘No?’ Georgie spat. ‘Have you ever tried it where a woman’s concerned?’

‘Georgie, please –’

‘Save it for Heather, Colin. Let her deal with your lies. I’ve already lost my best friend because of them, so I sure as hell don’t want to hear any more.’
She got to her feet, shaken by her outburst, for it was unlike her to speak so bluntly. ‘You’re pathetic, do you know that?’ she suddenly cried, rounding on him again. ‘You’re weak, spineless, self-centred and totally insensitive to anyone’s needs except your own. Not even one day out of prison and already you’re involved with two women, and you’ve got the nerve to give one of them
my
phone number. Where’s it going to end, Colin? How many more people are going to have to get hurt before
you
learn to control that monstrosity inside your pants? Or before you own up to the fact that you’re responsible for everything that happened.
Everything
, because she’d be alive now, if it weren’t for you. So would Sophie Long.’

Colin’s face was stricken, his eyes darting between her and Bruce, as though Bruce might come to his rescue. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Georgie, I’m so sorry. I’ll cancel the lunch with Jackie. Give me the phone, I’ll do it right now.’

‘But there’ll be others, won’t there? We both know that, because you’re incapable of resisting. So let me tell you this: after Jackie Peters called here today, I called Laurie Forbes and Elliot Russell. They might be in Mexico, but they’ve got colleagues right here in London who they were more than happy to put me on to. So you can expect to see your cosy little lunch with Miss Peters on the front page of Friday’s
Sun
. And I’m going to keep doing it, Colin. Every time I hear about you and some new dalliance, or whatever you call it, you’re going to find it all over the papers. Colin Ashby, the man who can’t keep it in his trousers! They’ll turn you into a laughing stock – a stigma for any decent-thinking
woman; a byword for dirty old man. So don’t think you’ve got away with anything here, Colin, or that you ever will again. The press is on your case now, and so, my friend, am I.’

Though the suddenness of change of pace had at first been bewildering, it had taken little time for the almost glutinous humidity of Playita to reduce the stress and urgency they’d brought with them to a reasonable, unpanicked desire to complete the job. Though they worked constantly, throughout the day and night, the heavy, languorous air and perpetual motion of the waves slowed their thoughts as surely as it slowed their bodies – though the remoteness and calm seemed to allow an objectivity it would have been hard to muster in the frenzy of LA.