Silent Truths (62 page)

‘You owe me two thousand four hundred pounds,’ Rhona told her. ‘Half my life savings.’

‘You’ll get a cheque tonight,’ Laurie assured her, ‘for my entire life savings.
And
I’m unemployed, remember?’

‘OK. You win that one, but I’m withholding the sympathy since Elliot offered you a job and you turned it down. Just tell me this, if things were working out between you, I mean in a romantic sense, would you have accepted him then?’

‘No,’ Laurie answered.

‘Very wise, it would only ruin it in the end. So how are things progressing on that front?’

Laurie’s heart contracted. ‘They’re not. Nothing’s been mentioned since the night I told you about.’

‘You mean you’re managing to play it cool?’ Rhona cried incredulously.

Laurie had to laugh. ‘Only because I haven’t worked up the guts to confront it again,’ she confessed.

‘Then don’t. Let him come to terms with Lysette, or whatever’s bothering him in his own sweet time, because if you go trying to force the issue you’ll just complicate it further.’

Laurie sighed. ‘But what if he ends up discovering he’s over us both?’ she said.

Rhona laughed.

‘I’m glad one of us can see the funny side,’ Laurie commented sourly. ‘Anyway, I have to go now, I’m at the prison. See you around seven at The Grapes. Gino and Flaxie are joining us, so are Murray and Gail, and Stan, of course. Do you want to stay the night?’

‘If Stan’s going to be there how can I resist?’ she drawled.

Laughing, Laurie flipped off the phone, stashed it in the glove box then, checking she had the phone cards and cigarettes Bruce had advised her to bring, she left Stan to go and feed himself while she hurried to join the small, ragged group that was just being ushered through to the visiting room.

When she got there she spotted Ashby right away, seated at the same table as before, though his head remained down as the visitors spread out to sit with their various friends or relatives.

‘Hello,’ she said, pulling out the chair opposite him and sitting down.

He lifted his head and her heart gave an unsteady beat of shock, for the deterioration of his appearance was so marked she could almost be staring at the ghost of the man she’d met before.
Nothing Bruce had said had prepared her for the shadowy, sunken eyes that were watching her now, languid and dull, red-rimmed and conveying such gloom it was as though there was no light in him at all.

Realizing it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask how he was, she glanced briefly at the couple next to them, who seemed interested only in each other. Then, pulling her chair in closer, she said, ‘I have some news.’

For a while, as she updated him on their investigation into the syndicate and its run on the euro, then told him about her visit to Sophie Long’s neighbour, he seemed to scrutinize her face, but then his eyes fell away, and by the time she’d finished she wasn’t entirely sure if he’d actually registered the fact that Marcus Gatling might have been at Sophie’s flat only an hour before he had.

‘Are you OK?’ she asked, lowering her head to peer into his thin, haggard face.

When he raised his eyes they seemed almost desolate, and not entirely connected to his surroundings. ‘How did you get on with the contacts I gave you?’ he said.

‘I’m afraid they wouldn’t speak to me,’ she told him.

As though expecting the answer he said, ‘Then you’ve done well to get as far as you have.’

His eyes drifted for a moment, then, realizing he was looking at someone across the room, she turned to see who it was. An attractive, well-groomed woman in her late thirties appeared to be watching them, but as Laurie turned round she returned her attention to the man she was visiting.
Surprised, Laurie looked at Colin, but he was staring vacantly in another direction.

‘You know, even if Marcus was there,’ he said, ‘he wouldn’t have done it. That’s not his style.’

‘But the very fact he
was
there, if it was him, means something,’ she reminded him.

He nodded. Then bringing his gaze to hers, ‘How’s Beth?’

Going with the change of subject again, she said, ‘I hear she’s getting better.’

His expression remained solemn, almost morose. ‘I don’t hear from Heather any more,’ he said. ‘Maybe she’s writing and they’re not passing the letters on.’

‘Elliot had an email from her. After what happened to Beth, I think, for Jessica’s sake she needs to distance herself for a while.’

‘Of course. She has to put Jessica first.’

His depression and resignation to what was happening to him were in such contrast to the energetic and charismatic man he’d once been, that Laurie could only wonder why Bruce and Giles hadn’t managed to get him transferred from here by now. She looked down at his bony fingers, linked loosely on the table, only inches from her own, and on impulse covered them, as though trying to squeeze in some life and affection. For a moment it seemed to work as he nodded and attempted a smile. Then she sensed him retreat back into himself again.

‘Colin?’ she said softly.

He looked up, a vaguely quizzical expression in his eyes as though surprised someone knew his name.

‘Why did you want me to come today?’

‘I wanted to know about Beth,’ he answered. ‘It’s my fault, all that’s happening to her. Bruce tells me how she is, but I thought maybe you might know more.’

She kept her eyes and hands on his. Clearly, despite wanting to divorce her, he still cared about his wife a great deal. ‘We only know as much as you do,’ she said.

‘Have you seen her?’

‘Only pictures, of what they did.’

His eyes dropped for a moment. ‘Do you know what she told them?’

‘No. It’s one of the things we’re trying to find out. Do you know what she might have told them? Could it have been anything that might help get you out of here?’

His sigh was dismal, his expression falling into despair, as he said, ‘Believe me, if she knew something that would put them here instead of me, she wouldn’t keep it to herself.’ Then, sliding his hands out from under hers, he started rubbing his face.

She waited, noticing the frayed cuffs of his shirt, and jaundiced pallor of his skin. Finally he said, ‘She should know better than to mess with Gatling. She taunted him, on the plane, Bruce told me about that …’ Then, looking into her eyes, he said, ‘I hear some producer’s taking care of her now.’

‘Theo Kennedy,’ she confirmed.

It was a while before he spoke again, saying, ‘So Marcus and Leonora were at the flat before me.’

She watched him, wondering what he really thought about his wife being looked after by
another man, why he’d just let the subject go, and returned to the Gatlings as though they’d never stopped discussing them. ‘Like I said, I only found out this morning,’ she answered.

‘Have you told anyone else yet?’

‘Only Elliot. We still don’t know for certain it was them,’ she added, hating the idea of getting his hopes up only for them to be dashed again if it turned out the couple the neighbour had seen had already been identified as someone completely different. ‘Was it likely to be them?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Maybe Marcus was seeing Sophie the same way I was.’

‘But his wife was there too,’ she reminded him.

He shrugged. ‘They have their own kind of marriage.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘That they don’t do much without the other knowing about it. It helps eliminate the risk of blackmail.’

‘So you think Gatling was one of Sophie’s clients?’

‘It’s possible. I don’t think he killed her, though.’

‘What about his wife? Could she have done it?’

His laugh was mirthless. ‘Leonora would do anything if it was in the best interests of Leonora,’ he responded.

‘So how would killing Sophie Long be in her interests?’

‘I’m afraid that’s a question you’ll have to ask her.’

Though her overriding feeling was compassion for someone so broken, Laurie forced herself to put it aside and remember who this seemingly hollow
wreck of a man really was, how expertly he had manipulated interviews in the past, and wondered if in some bizarre Machiavellian way he was drawing on that skill now in order to gain information rather than give it.

‘Did you ever have an affair with Leonora Gatling?’ she asked bluntly.

‘Yes,’ he answered.

‘Did her husband know about it?’

‘Of course.’

‘Could that have had any bearing on what happened to Sophie Long?’

‘Leonora and I stopped sleeping together over ten years ago,’ he answered.

‘That’s neither a yes or a no,’ she pointed out.

‘It was a no,’ he said.

‘Are you certain about that?’

‘As certain as I can be.’

‘Has either of them made any contact with you since you’ve been in here?’

‘Not directly.’

‘But indirectly?’

‘Look at me,’ he said.

Feeling herself flush at the reference to his appearance, she glanced down at her hands.

‘They want me to plead guilty,’ he said. ‘They want this case cut and dried. Over.’

‘Which suggests they’re involved,’ she pointed out.

He didn’t say anything, so, tightening her hold on his hands again, she said, ‘How well does your wife know them?’

‘Not well.’

‘Are you certain about that?’

‘As certain as I can be.’

‘Does Heather Dance know them?’

‘No.’ And before she could ask: ‘As certain as I can be.’

The way his eyes connected with hers, fell away, then connected again was making it impossible to tell whether or not he was lying, and for once her instincts were failing her. ‘When I was last here,’ she said, ‘you told me it wasn’t possible for your wife to know anything about the syndicate. I think those were the words you used.’

‘Then maybe what I should have said was that she’d never heard about it from me,’ he responded.

‘So now you think there’s a chance she does know?’

‘They obviously did what they did for a reason,’ he replied.

Her blue eyes were steady on his. ‘And you know that reason, don’t you?’ she challenged.

He didn’t flinch from the gaze, but he didn’t answer either.

‘What was it?’ she demanded. ‘Why did they do that to her?’

‘You know why they did it. To get information.’

‘What information?’

‘I was hoping you’d tell me that,’ he replied. ‘It was why I wanted you to come.’

Covering her exasperation with a deep intake of air, she said, ‘Tell me, do you want to get out of here?’

‘You have to ask?’ he responded.

‘Then I can only wonder why you’re not telling the truth,’ she said. ‘Or is it that the truth will keep you here?’

At that, what little spark she’d drawn earlier seemed to die, and as he almost physically sank back inside himself she could feel herself being torn by equal amounts of frustration and pity.

To Elliot on the phone later she said, ‘I don’t know what’s going on with him. I truly don’t. One minute I’m convinced he didn’t do it, the next I think he’s playing games with me, and then I’ve got no idea what to think.’

‘But at least it wasn’t a waste of time,’ he reminded her. ‘We now know that he had an affair with Leonora, for what it’s worth. That Gatling was probably a client of Sophie’s, which apparently his wife was party to, though, interestingly, it didn’t come out in the police investigation, nor was it mentioned by Brad Pinkton. And we also know that he’s in some way concerned about what Beth might have divulged during her ordeal.’

‘Is there any news on that yet?’ she asked.

‘I spoke to Tom Maykin earlier, nothing then,’ he answered. ‘His contact in LA’s gone to ground for a while, but there’s a chance we might meet up with him over the weekend.’

‘He’s coming here?’

‘No. Change of plan. Jerome and I are going to New York. Liam and Jed are meeting us there.’

‘So when will you be back in London?’

‘Monday. Tuesday at the latest. Rewind to the Gatlings. If it turns out to be them, the mystery of the fibres is probably solved. Actually, even if it’s not them.’

‘Of course.’

‘Not only that,’ he continued, ‘it has to have crossed your mind that maybe this is what Beth
Ashby’s hiding. The knowledge that the Gatlings were there.’

‘Yes, it has crossed my mind,’ she said. ‘But how would she know, unless she was there herself, and we know she wasn’t?’

‘That’s a question for Beth Ashby.’

‘OK. Here’s one for you, two actually: let’s suppose she did know the Gatlings were there, and they’ve now managed to beat it out of her, is it likely they’d have let her go? And if she did know, why not tell the police right at the beginning?’

‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ he responded. ‘I’ll let you ponder that while I’m in New York. Where are you now?’

‘In the car with Stan, on the way back to the house. Oh, listen, someone’s beeping. I’m hoping it might be Chilton. I’ll call you back.’ Switching lines, she said, ‘Laurie Forbes.’

‘OK,’ Chilton said with no preamble. ‘There are no reports of any unidentified persons coming out of the house at the time in question. Male or female.’

‘What about identified persons?’

‘None of those either.’

‘So Mrs Karowski was the only one who spotted the rotund man with a squashed angry face and good-looking older woman with dark hair worn in a French pleat?’

‘It would seem so. You can’t withhold this evidence, you know?’

‘I’m not intending to. Nor is Mrs Karowski.’

‘So do you have any idea who this couple might be?’

‘I have a theory, yes. And if I’m right, I’m going
to be fascinated to see how the police handle it.’

As she rang off Stan was pulling up outside the house, so leaving him in the car with his radio poker –
radio poker!
– she went inside to shower and change before popping across the road to the pub. By the time she was ready to leave she was back on the phone to Elliot.

‘I keep going over and over this,’ she told him, ‘and no matter how illogical or even impossible it might seem, I can’t help wondering if, in some way, shape or form, Heather Dance is playing a role in this that we haven’t yet fathomed.’