Silent Truths (8 page)

Not wanting to wallow in the depressing truth of how few people there were who mattered in her life, she turned her thoughts to someone she’d
hardly allowed herself to consider during this nightmare twenty-four hours. Thinking about her now she felt a tremor of anticipation coast through her heart. She was someone, Beth felt sure, who’d be able to help her through this in a way maybe no one else could. She’d discuss her with Georgie later, certain Georgie would have confidence in her too. In the meantime, as they pulled up outside the gates of the smart, double-fronted Queen Anne house, she felt a renewed and comforting sense of safety enfolding her.

As they moved slowly along the gravel driveway Beth looked around at the high stone peripheral walls, and thick, shimmering green foliage of the overhanging oaks and horse chestnuts. Even if the press were to find her here the walls would keep them at a distance, while the house itself would protect her from all those brazenly invasive lenses. She grimaced inwardly, and ironically, as she recalled her earlier pretence of celebrity. She thought of how easily and readily Colin had always risen to the reality of it, and how desperately he must be cringing from it now. She wondered if that was how it was going to be: as Colin sank into disgrace she would soar to her own success, show the world that she was someone who mattered too. She smiled wryly to herself. What fanciful roads opened up to a mind in crisis. She’d taken so many since all this began. They were like escape routes, and though they might eventually turn into dead ends, how much easier they were on her psyche than the despair and fear that were almost constantly overwhelming her.

A sudden screech of delight broke her reverie. It
was Blake, Georgie’s adorable year-old son, who’d appeared at the front door and was teetering dangerously on the first step. Beatrice, Georgie’s mother, was right behind him, showing her pleasure too that Georgie was home.

As she watched them Beth felt the unbearable ache of her own childless state – years of IVF that had resulted in two devastating miscarriages. Then seeing Beatrice coming towards her, she made herself smile.

‘Hello, dear,’ Beatrice said, embracing her warmly. ‘Isn’t it jolly pleasant weather we’ve been having?’

Just those few words were enough to bring tears to Beth’s eyes even as she started to laugh. ‘Beatrice, it could be dangerous to be nice to me right now,’ she warned.

‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Beatrice assured her, her dense brown eyes, that were so like Georgie’s, glowing with mischief. ‘Come along in now. I expect something stronger than tea is required. I hope so, because it’s time.’

Beth turned to Georgie and only just caught Blake as he suddenly launched himself into her arms. ‘Hello you,’ she cried, kissing his mop of tousled blond curls. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘Mummy,’ he gurgled happily. ‘Mum, mum, mum.’

Beth laughed, then laughed again as he cried, ‘Meh! Meh. Meh,’ which was his best attempt so far at saying Beth. But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about the babies she’d lost, or she never would get through this.

‘I’ve prepared your usual room,’ Beatrice told her, leading the way inside.

Beth smiled her thanks. It would be the room she and Colin always shared when they came to visit. It was even known as Colin and Beth’s room, and had its own en-suite bathroom, combined TV and video unit, king-sized bed, antique wardrobes, chests and dressing tables and a private telephone line.

The TV, she noticed almost as soon as she entered the room, had been removed. She guessed Bruce had called ahead to tip Beatrice off. They were doing it for her own good – she knew that, and even appreciated it, despite the near-frantic desire to immerse herself totally in all the debates, updates and wall-to-wall coverage the case was currently receiving. How peculiar it felt, to know that her husband’s life, and her own too, were being discussed, analysed, criticized and no doubt horribly vilified by the world at large while they remained remote from it all. Everyone would have an opinion, many would even claim to be experts, on psychology, criminology, the law in general, the law in precedent, the law in anything they could make fit. Marriage, mistresses and all aspects of infidelity would become red-hot topics. Absolutely nothing would be missed. By now they’d probably even dragged someone in from her kindergarten, her old school, previous jobs, even from her aerobics class, or her dentist’s surgery. Had they found any of Colin’s other mistresses yet? If not, they’d be there by tomorrow, or maybe they were being whipped up into Sunday exclusives. She knew how it went: no comment would be viewed too trite, and no source left untapped.

She thought of Colin and felt a debilitating sadness sweep over her. It was as though
something huge and intransigent was rising up between them. They were both a part of this – he much more than her, it was true – but it was as though they were being pushed inexorably apart by a force that was running out of control.

She sat down on the edge of the bed. Outside the tall, half-open windows the garden was basking in the nostalgic warmth of a mid-evening sun. She could hear the birds singing, and smell the pungent scent of jasmine and roses. She looked at the phone, and tried to imagine herself picking up the receiver and doing what she had to.

It was already past seven o’clock, so there wasn’t really much chance she’d get through now. Before trying, though, she had to get the number from the notes at the back of her dog-eared Filofax. Having found it, she lifted the receiver and listened for the dialling tone. To her surprise it was there. So they weren’t cutting her off from the outside world entirely.

Taking her time, she punched in the number, then turned to the mirror and held her breath.

After the fourth ring a female voice answered.

‘Hello,’ Beth responded. ‘Am I too late to speak to Robin Lindsay?’

‘Not at all. Can I say who’s calling?’

Beth hesitated, then staring hard at her reflection she said, ‘Yes, please tell him it’s Ava Montgomery.’

Chapter 4

LAURIE FORBES WAS
at her desk, a slight, focused figure in the midst of newspaper bedlam. Shouting, phones, printers, TV and radio broadcasts swirled around her in a deafening cacophony, though she barely heard it as she rapidly pounded her computer keyboard reworking and researching the many megabytes of information she’d gathered on the Ashbys since Colin’s arrest. From the moment she’d received the tip-off her life had been consumed by the affair. Even now she could hardly believe her luck, finding herself first on the scene, ahead of the tabloids,
and
the police. Actually, it was
only
luck that had got her there, since she’d been covering a thwarted robbery at a nearby convenience shop – which might have made the smallest paragraph of page seven – when her mobile had rung, so she probably hadn’t received the first call, she’d just been closest to hand.

Well, that was the way it went, and she certainly hadn’t wasted any time worrying about how she’d got her break, when this story was about as front
page as they came. So far it had everything except drugs – and she was still working on that. But as far as sex, politics, glamour, crime, passion and intrigue were concerned, it was so far out there she hardly knew which angle to take next. She was literally wallowing in a surfeit of scandal, not to mention personal fame, for her by-line had appeared every day since the murder had happened, and other reporters and newscasters were calling her regularly to interview her about how she’d broken the news to Mrs Ashby and how Mrs Ashby had taken it. And all this for the new kid on the block, who’d only just got her stripes as a full news reporter after five years’ graft out in the sticks, then a year’s frustration at a desk in this glossy Canary Wharf tower, where not only one respectable broadsheet was housed.

Laurie knew very well that stumbling into such an exclusive could easily put her on the fast track to big time, provided she handled it right. Of course, all the heavyweight politicos were on the case too, so were the department editors, crime correspondents, features writers and any number of guest columnists. And then, of course, there were the tabloids, and since the broadsheets didn’t have the kind of resources their smaller friends could boast, the two reporters from news who’d been working with her had now been reassigned to the daily grind. But battling on alone was OK with Laurie. She could handle it, despite the snootiness and noncooperation of her more experienced colleagues, who, frankly, were just plain pissed off that she alone had shared that intensely traumatic moment with Beth Ashby when she’d learnt of
her husband’s arrest, while those far more seasoned and acclaimed than she had clamoured at the door, pleading for just one word, one shot, one small piece of the private hell.

OK, it was true she hadn’t exactly managed to get much out of Beth Ashby, which she was seriously hacked off about now, but, boy, had she managed to spin those few minutes into a sensation.
Who did he kill?
With those four immortal words Beth Ashby had all but condemned her husband and launched Laurie’s career. Of course, getting caught in the act had done considerably more to incriminate Ashby than Beth’s words, but that unpremeditated question had told the world that even his wife believed he was capable of murder. What the world and Laurie Forbes didn’t know yet, though, was what Ashby’s boss thought.

‘Hello,’ she snapped into the receiver, the speed of her hand sending a pile of cuttings cascading to the floor.

‘Hi. It’s me,’ the voice at the other end responded. ‘Bingo. Tonight. Six o’clock at Benitos. Do you know it?’

‘Yep. I’ll be there. Who are we talking about?’

‘The bloke you were looking for.’

Laurie frowned. ‘Remind me.’

‘Minicab driver?’

‘Laurie! Five minutes. My office.’

She gave the thumbs-up to Wilbur, the news editor, then ending the call returned to her computer. As she read the screen she absently slid a scrunchy off her already messy ponytail, stuck it in her mouth as she scooped up a few loose strands, then twisted it back on again.

‘Flaxie just called,’ she told Gino as he slumped into his chair and let his heavy bag thump to the floor. ‘He’s found the minicab driver.’

‘Isn’t he supposed to be covering the decay of some South London hospital?’ Gino said, loosening his tie. ‘Shit, it’s really warming up out there.’

‘Like you’re meant to be getting the lowdown on some plagiarist in the efashion world, whatever the hell that is,’ she reminded him. ‘Anything on Sophie Long’s parents yet?’

He shook his head. ‘My sources tell me that
no one
knows where they are. Not even close family.’

‘Someone must,’ she corrected.

‘Yeah, well, you find that someone, because I sure as hell can’t.’

Laurie paused for a moment and rested her chin on her hand. ‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘The same day as their daughter gets murdered they just up and disappear.’

‘Personally, I’d call it survival,’ he responded, catching a high-five with one of the sports subs as he passed.

‘I’ll tell you what else is weird,’ she continued, her large blue eyes narrowing in thought. ‘I mean, I actually lie awake at night thinking about this. For a man who was so smart, who always knew what he was doing every step of the way …’ She shook her head. ‘He had his whole life mapped out. He’d just achieved a lifetime goal, and until two weeks ago he had to be one of the most popular men in politics, not to mention journalism. And then he goes and does something like this.’

Gino looked up, his dark, irregular features drawn in a frown. ‘He’s not the first man to screw
up when sitting atop the world,’ he remarked. ‘So what’s your point?’

‘I don’t know,’ she answered, still trying to make the links. ‘Except, after all this delving into his life I feel I know him pretty well by now, and this … Well, it just doesn’t add up.’

‘What about the evidence? That more than adds up.’

‘I know. And as I’ve personally interviewed Mrs Come-clean-with-everything-but-the-size-of-his-willy, and the gay couple across the landing who heard raised voices around the crucial time, I’m not about to argue over whether or not he did it. There’s just something about it that’s bugging me, that’s all.’

Gino’s attention was shifting to his computer screen. ‘Has his wife been to see him yet?’ he asked, keying in his password.

Laurie jumped on it. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Which is something else that’s weird. The statement the lawyers put out makes it clear she’s going to stand by him, so why hasn’t she been to see him?’

‘She might already have gone in on the floor of one of their cars,’ Gino suggested.

Laurie shook her head. ‘Milly over in crime’s got an inside source at Wandsworth, so if she had we’d know by now. Not that Milly would tell me, of course. But she’d hardly omit it from her own reports.’

‘So where is the wife?’

‘She was in London yesterday, but it was in one of the tabloids this morning that she went back to the Cotswolds last night.’

‘Any idea what she was here for?’

‘Funny that, but she didn’t call to tell me,’ Laurie responded.

Gino’s bushy eyebrows arched. ‘And I don’t suppose the Prime Minister’s returned your calls yet either,’ he commented, over the squeal and crunch of Internet connection.

‘Oh, I’m sure there’s a message on my machine somewhere,’ she replied, mimicking the absurd response she’d got from Diana Cambourne, the political editor, when she’d plucked up the nerve to ask her if she’d had any contact with Downing Street.

‘And there’s something else you can put on your weird list,’ Gino told her. ‘A deafening silence from Number Ten that seems to be extending even to the political insiders.’

‘That’s top of my list,’ she informed him, ‘along with the whereabouts of Sophie Long’s family.’

Gino took a call, then, turning back to his computer screen, said, ‘Of course you know who could be hiding the Longs, getting the inside scoop all to himself.’

When Laurie didn’t respond he looked up. Her pretty face had darkened with anger.

‘I didn’t mention his name,’ Gino cried defensively, though his eyes were simmering with humour.