Silent Truths (12 page)

‘That will be the starting figure,’ Robin Lindsay said. ‘It should go a lot higher.’

Later, with Georgie, she’d shriek, laugh and throw her arms around in girlish elation. Now, in this respectable office with its low-key ambience and dignified owner, she allowed Ava to suppress Beth’s inclinations and smile her own catlike approval.

Robin Lindsay raised his glass. ‘I’d like to tell you what a pleasure it is meeting you,’ he said,
thinking of the husband that had hurt and betrayed her, yet had always gone back to her. He thought he understood why, though it wouldn’t necessarily have been for her beauty which, though understated, was exceptional; it would, he suspected, have been for the inner qualities that he could already tell existed in irresistible and mysterious abundance. ‘I believe I’m going to enjoy having you as a client,’ he told her.

Her eyebrows rose in a gently mocking manner. ‘Why thank you,’ she responded in a voice that was dark and sensual. ‘I’m sure the enjoyment will be mutual.’ Their eyes met, and after brazening out the innuendo she said, ‘When do you think the auction will happen?’

‘Maybe next Friday. I’ll call to confirm. Would you like to be here?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I would.’

Half an hour later Georgie was slumped in a chair at the Ritz, fanning herself with a cocktail menu. ‘I think I’m going to faint,’ she laughed. ‘All that money, and he thinks it’ll go higher.’

Beth was laughing too. ‘I wish you could have heard the things he said about the book,’ she said. ‘They were incredible. If I weren’t so modest, I’d repeat them.’

‘Just tell me,’ Georgie urged. ‘I know it’s brilliant, because Colin couldn’t stop talking about it after he’d read it.’

Beth’s eyes flickered away for a moment, but as Georgie touched her hand in apology she forced a smile, then recklessly told the waiter to bring them an entire bottle of Bollinger.

‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ Georgie said.

But Beth wasn’t listening. ‘It doesn’t look as though there’ll be a problem with the identity issue,’ she said. ‘In fact I’ve asked for my own name to be kept secret at least until after the auction. Hopefully until after the publication too, though Robin Lindsay thinks that’ll be harder.’ She pulled a face. ‘I just don’t want people picking over it, analysing it, reading things into it, simply because of who I am. It’s just a book. Nothing to do with Colin, or me as his wife. It’s about Carlotta – and Ava.’

Georgie’s eyes were twinkling. She didn’t need to burst the bubble yet. ‘So did you try out the Ava character?’ she asked.

Beth grinned. ‘Yes, a bit,’ she answered. ‘She has the potential to be quite outrageous, I think.’

‘I always knew you did,’ Georgie told her. ‘She’s you, or at least one aspect of you. And now her world is waiting, while the world of Beth Ashby …’ Her smile suddenly lost its light, and her eyes fell away.

‘What?’ Beth said, her heart turning over. No more bad news. Please God, don’t let anything spoil today. ‘What is it?’ she pressed.

Georgie took a breath. Her large blue eyes came uncertainly back to Beth’s. ‘Colin wants to see you,’ she said. ‘He’s calling tonight.’

Beth’s face drained. Everything was suddenly different. The road had abruptly ended again, and she could feel herself going into a slow-burning spiral of emotions. ‘Why now?’ she said. ‘Why has he changed his mind?’

‘I don’t know. Bruce didn’t say. I only got the call an hour ago.’

It was a while before Beth could speak, as she tried to imagine what it was going to be like, seeing him in prison, hearing what he had to say, feeling the devastation of his life as though it were her own. He was so much a part of her that it
was
her own. Yet lately he’d started to feel like a stranger. She couldn’t quite envisage his face any more, or hear the sound of his voice. ‘Why is he calling first?’ she asked.

‘I imagine to set up your visit.’ Georgie paused, then said, ‘Will you go?’

Beth blinked in surprise. ‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘Why do you think I wouldn’t?’

‘What if it coincides with the auction?’

‘I don’t think that’s likely, but if it does the auction can happen without me.’

Though Georgie wasn’t surprised by the answer, it still saddened her, for she’d hoped that today’s news might have helped Beth to start breaking away. It was what she needed to do for, Bruce was certain, if things continued the way they were going, they’d never get Colin off. Which meant they had to face the fact that he was looking at a life sentence, unless he changed his plea to guilty, and even then, striking some kind of deal with the prosecution wasn’t likely. However, she was hardly going to tell Beth any of that right now.

‘Will you tell him about the book?’ she asked.

Beth was inside her own head. ‘I don’t know,’ she answered distractedly. ‘Maybe. But maybe not. I know he’s read it, but he’s never heard of Ava
and, who knows, I might want it to stay that way. At least for now.’

Georgie smiled. On the whole it was an answer she liked, since it meant Beth was prepared to keep something for herself.

Beth smiled too and wondered if Georgie had any idea of how afraid she was now – of herself, of Colin and of what might have changed his mind about seeing her.

Just before seven thirty that evening Bruce and Georgie left Beth alone in the study of their London flat. It was a small room, full of books and papers on the law, with framed photos of Georgie and Blake on the roll-top desk. From the window Beth could see across the street to where a few people were crammed on to a terrace, enjoying the evening warmth and wine.

Ever since Georgie had told her Colin was going to call Beth had been trying to come up with all the reasons why he might have decided on now. Bruce was claiming not to know, though she could tell he was hopeful that this new contact might, in some way, improve their chances of getting him off. It was bizarre how Bruce seemed to want Colin’s freedom more than Colin did. Her heart jarred on the thought of him in prison – not only now, today, but for another twenty-five, maybe even thirty years. Her hand went up, as though to stave off the horror.

She looked at the phone. The digital clock beside it showed seven thirty-one. It was already a minute past the time he’d said. Please God, he wasn’t going to let her down. He couldn’t have brought her to this
point only to destroy her all over again. It was going to ring any second. Her heartbeat skimmed the top of her chest. She was so tense her whole body hurt. She tried to imagine what they would say. What did a wife say to a husband who was in prison for killing his girlfriend? A part of her wanted to run away from it, flee into oblivion, but nothing was going to make her get up and leave that room now.

The phone rang.

The noise jolted through her like volts. She stared at it, feeling sick with dread, and so full of relief and love that she wanted to cry. He was so close now, at the other end of the line. All she had to do was pick it up.

‘Hello?’ she said softly into the receiver.

‘Beth? Is that you?’ It was his voice, low and intimate, and so profoundly familiar it could break her heart in two.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘It’s me.’

‘How are you?’

She took a breath, but for a moment her voice failed. ‘I’m not sure how to answer that,’ she finally managed.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She swallowed hard, and dashed away the tears. ‘How are you?’ she asked.

There was a pause before he answered and she wondered if someone at his end was listening. ‘We need to talk,’ he said. ‘Will you come?’

She wouldn’t turn him down – she couldn’t – but nor could she say yes right away. ‘Why now? Why not before?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. Then after a beat, ‘I didn’t kill her, Beth.’

Tears were clogging her throat. She could see his face, tense, pale, needing her to believe him.

‘She was dead when I got there,’ he said.

She thought of his missing trousers, his hands on the tights, the lack of any evidence to say anyone else had been there before him. She didn’t know what to say. Then suddenly all the emotion she’d been struggling to suppress broke through the dam. ‘Oh God,’ she cried brokenly. ‘Colin. Oh God …’

‘It’s all right,’ he told her. ‘It’s going to be all right. We’ll get through this.’

But they wouldn’t, surely he must know that. Even if he got out of this horrible mess nothing was ever going to be all right again. How could it be?

‘Has anyone called you?’ he asked.

‘You mean from … No.’

He was silent, and once again her heart began filling up with despair. She wished she knew how to make this easier for him, but she couldn’t. None of his colleagues had called, not even to ask where they might send his personal belongings. She wondered if Bruce had told him that they’d already cleared out his office, and that Alan Dowling had now resumed his former position.

‘So will you come?’ he asked softly.

‘Yes.’

His relief was almost audible and her arms felt heavy with the desire to hold him. ‘Bruce will let you know when,’ he said. ‘He’ll bring you.’

They were silent for a few moments then, not knowing what else to say, but not wanting to let go yet. She wondered again who might be listening.

‘Will you bring some things for me?’ he asked.

‘Of course. What do you need?’

‘Cigarettes. Phone cards.’

‘Is there anything else?’ she asked, thinking how pathetic his needs were now.

‘No.’

She waited, knowing he was going to tell her he loved her. But then the line went dead and his failure to say it was more heartbreaking than anything else.

Chapter 6

IT WAS GAINING
fast on midnight and Laurie was exhausted. For more than a week now, whilst whizzing through all her official assignments, which had taken her up and down the country, over to Ireland once and to Holland twice, she’d been trying desperately to find out why no one had run the minicab driver’s story. She knew for a fact that Elliot Russell had it, because Pinkton had confirmed it when she’d refrained from clocking him one the day after he’d reneged on giving her the exclusive. So where was it? Why hadn’t it made a single paper or broadcast yet?

Obviously it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that someone was blocking it, but no amount of inveiglement, threats, or even limited begging had so far managed to extract a credible reason from Wilbur as to why Pinkton’s story didn’t make the grade. After all, she had it now, and if Elliot Russell wasn’t going to run with it, there was no reason why they shouldn’t. OK, she understood that since the man wasn’t prepared to
name names it might not be wise to start throwing mud when it might stick on the wrong faces. But it wasn’t only about the high-fliers Pinkton claimed to pick up regularly from significant political locales, was it? It was about Sophie Long providing sexual favours in return for money. Now
that
was a story.

So why all the secrecy?

‘Laurie, just leave it alone,’ was what Wilbur had instructed when she’d taken it to him for the third time in as many days, twice on the phone, then in person. ‘It’s not for us.’

‘Why?’ she’d demanded.

‘I’m just telling you, leave it alone.’

‘Wilbur, for God’s sake …’

His hawkish face came over the desk at her. ‘You don’t think someone out there,’ he growled, pointing towards the politicos’ desks, ‘isn’t already on this? You think the first time I heard it was when
you
brought it up?’

She flushed at the allusion to her junior, outsider status. ‘So just tell me why you’re not running it,’ she challenged.

‘I don’t have to tell you anything. Just let it drop and go back to where it’s safe.’

At that her eyes boggled. ‘Safe?’ she repeated.

‘From them out there,’ he snarled. ‘They don’t like the way you’re treading on their toes, and I don’t blame them. You’re overstepping the mark, Laurie. You haven’t earned your place yet, so don’t screw it up before you even get there.’

Her face was taut. ‘I come to you with a perfectly good story and you tell me to drop it, because one of those precious baby-boomers, who think they’ve
got a God-given right to the world, might not like me getting there first?’

‘I told you, I’m already aware of who, or what, Sophie Long was. It’s not going to change anything, so –’

‘You’re in on the cover-up!’ she suddenly cried. ‘You’re a part of it, aren’t you?’

At that his head dropped forward in exasperation. Then sitting back down in his chair he said, ‘Laurie, you’ve got to learn to hold some things in. You’re too hot-headed, and outspoken, and it’s not doing you any good. Now, take my advice and let this go.’

‘What if I can find out who else Pinkton drove?’ she challenged. ‘If I can get some more names –’

‘You’ll be wasting your time,’ he responded. ‘You won’t get them, and you could do yourself a lot of harm trying. Now take your backside out of here and don’t let me see you again until you’ve got the five hundred words on Concorde I asked you for first thing this morning.’

And that was as far as she’d got, which wasn’t quite a brick wall, but for the little it had told her it might just as well have been. However, it was interesting to know that others in the office were aware of Sophie Long’s status, and Pinkton’s taxi service, though no one, besides her, it seemed, was trying to get it its place in the sun. She wondered if any of her colleagues on other papers, or in TV were having the same problem, but she could hardly ask when it would be tantamount to tipping them off if they didn’t already know about Sophie and Pinkton. So what she needed to find out was why the boomers were happy to sit on the story.

Stretching and yawning, she sat back in her chair, rubbing her tired eyes. She’d heard her parents going to bed a while ago, but knew even if she tried to sleep right now she’d be unable to, for her mind was just too fired up over this. Sophie Long’s family had long since returned to their home in Essex, though no one had managed to get near them yet, which was weird when the family in these cases generally had something to say. She’d been calling their number day and night, but to no avail, and every trip out there showed the same thing – the place surrounded by press, but no one even getting close, since the police were guarding the front and back of the house, and there were rumours that not all the helicopters buzzing overhead were weather, traffic and news.