Silent Truths (53 page)

Suddenly she wanted to scream at her father, tell him to wake up and realize that it was hardly normal for someone to come to him if they wanted information from her. Didn’t he realize he was being used? That even as he spoke he was being held hostage in his own home? In truth she hoped to God he didn’t, for it would scare him half to death.

She looked at the man facing her and felt a near murderous rage sweep right the way through her. ‘Tell the inspector,’ she said through clenched teeth to her father, ‘that his colleague has the information he’s looking for.’

She heard her father relay the message, then another voice came on to the line saying, ‘Perhaps I could speak to my colleague.’

As Laurie handed over the phone, she dug into her bag and extracted the tape from the machine. She had no choice but to hand it over now. She just hoped to God it was enough to make them leave her parents alone.

‘Everything’s satisfactory,’ the man said into the phone as he took the tape and scooped up the notebook too.

Laurie snatched the phone as he passed it back. ‘Hello? Dad? Are you there?’ she said tersely, but the line was dead. She looked at the man. ‘If anything happens to him –’

‘It won’t,’ he assured her. ‘Unless we find you’ve cheated us in some way.’

Frustration was roiling around inside her, making her want to rant and rage and tear at his face, but fear held her back.

‘Tell Elliot Russell,’ he said, getting to his feet, ‘that he’s doing himself no favours going down the road he’s on.’

‘Why don’t you tell him yourself?’ she spat. ‘Or is it only women you terrorize?’

His smile was chilling as he said, ‘Let me assure you, Laurie, you have no exclusivity on our attention.’ And slipping the tape and notebook into his pocket he turned and walked off down the carriage.

The instant he’d vanished she speed-dialled her father. ‘Dad? Are you OK?’ she demanded breathlessly. ‘Is he gone?’

‘Mum’s just seeing him out. Are you all right? You sound flustered.’

‘No. I’m fine. I’m fine. I just don’t like the idea of people coming to bother you, when they should be coming straight to me.’

‘Yes, well, I must say I found it a bit odd, but I expect they didn’t realize you’re not living at home any more. So you’ve given them what they wanted?’

‘I have. Did he say anything else? He didn’t threaten you or anything, did he?’

‘No, of course not. He’s a policeman, Laurie. Policemen don’t go into people’s homes and start threatening them for no reason.’

‘No. No. You’re right,’ she said, forcing herself to calm down. ‘I’m just … Well, maybe I should come home, make sure you’re all right.’

‘What on earth for? I told you, we’re fine. Just you avoid getting on the wrong side of the law again. It never pays.’

‘OK. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you involved. It was such a little thing.’

‘Obviously not to them. So next time, let them be the judge and spare yourself this kind of upset. Mum’s back now, do you want to say hello?’

After a quick, reassuring exchange with her mother, she rang off and called Elliot.

‘What time’s the train due in?’ he asked, when she’d finished telling him what had happened.

‘Five forty.’

‘I’ll be at the station to meet you.’

When she got there, right on time, he was waiting at the end of the platform.

‘Are you all right?’ he said, as she reached him.

Feeling the way she did, she wished she could just throw herself into his arms. ‘Yes. I’m fine,’ she
said, tears suddenly welling up in her eyes and choking her voice. ‘Sorry, I’m not crying really. It’s just a reflex action. It’s because it was my parents.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Are you sure they’re all right?’

‘They said they were. I think I should go and make certain.’

‘Leave it for a day or two,’ he advised. ‘You’ll only worry them if you go rushing over there now. Stan’s dispatched one of his colleagues to watch the place for a while.’ He was looking around the crowded station. ‘Did you see him get off the train?’

Looking around too, she shook her head.

His eyes were waiting for hers as she turned back, making her have to fight another longing for his embrace.

‘Do you think it was a genuine policeman who went to see them?’ she asked, as he took her arm and began steering her through the crowd.

‘Certainly I know Cormand’s name,’ he answered. ‘And technically speaking they’re right, it could be said that you were withholding information.’

Her head came up in surprise. ‘Whose side are you on?’ she demanded.

Laughing he opened the car door and waited for her to get in.

‘God, I
hate
it that someone can do that,’ she seethed as he started the engine, ‘and on a train of all places. I felt so … powerless!’

‘You did the right thing handing the tape over,’ he assured her. ‘You presumably remember what was on it?’

‘Yes, I do,’ she answered, her heart sinking like
lead. ‘That’s the worst part of it. It wasn’t one of my tapes, it was Georgie Cottle’s, with a phone message from Beth Ashby outright admitting, even threatening, to go public with what she knows about Gatling if he doesn’t leave her alone.’

Elliot’s alarm showed. ‘Did she say what it was?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Then that could be a problem.’

‘Don’t, I feel terrible enough,’ she groaned. ‘Absolutely dreadful in fact.’

‘But you didn’t have a choice,’ he reminded her forcefully. ‘There’s no knowing how far they’re prepared to go with this, and there’s no point running the risk of your father’s health to find out.’

As the absolute dread of that prospect shuddered through her she fell silent, for she didn’t want even to think about it, never mind discuss it. ‘I shouldn’t have gone without Stan,’ she mumbled after a while.

‘Yes, why did you?’ he challenged.

Her eyes slid sideways towards the passing traffic. Should she tell him it was to prove to herself that she wasn’t afraid to go somewhere alone? But no, she couldn’t, because if he knew how badly this was all getting to her he’d make her give it up and that was the last thing she wanted.

Fortunately his phone rang then, and by the time he finished the call he seemed to have forgotten the question.

‘You know, I don’t think I’m feeling up to The Grapes tonight,’ she said pressing her fingers to her temples.

‘That’s good, because it’s not where we’re going.’

She turned to him in surprise.

‘There’s a new place, just opened near the Opera House,’ he said. ‘I thought we’d go there instead.’

‘What do you mean? Is everyone going?’

‘No, just us.’

She had an immediate physical reaction to that, which, thank God, he couldn’t see. ‘What is it? A pub?’

‘No. A restaurant.’

She frowned. ‘So we’re going for dinner?’

‘That’s the general idea in a restaurant.’

‘Why?’

‘Because we both need to eat? Don’t we?’

She nodded. ‘Yes. I suppose so.’

‘And we also,’ he added, ‘need to talk.’

Her heart immediately turned over, for though she might like to tell herself it was about the story, she knew it was a follow-up to what she’d said on the way back from France. She was thinking fast, trying to come up with a way out of it. She’d never dreamt he’d bring it up again this soon; had even dared to hope he might have forgotten it altogether, but obviously he hadn’t and now all reasonable excuses were eluding her. Unless she claimed to be too shaken up by what had happened on the train. Which she was. It had been horrible – so bad, in fact, it had completely stolen her appetite. Not only that, it had actually made her nauseous. So no, what she needed to do was go home and have a quiet evening alone, burn some essential oils, listen to soft music, soak in the bath, slide into bed early …

But just over an hour later she was in a discreet, candlelit corner thanking a waiter as he passed her
a menu, and agreeing they should go straight to wine.

As it turned out there was no opportunity to talk over dinner. His phone hardly stopped ringing and, thanks to the rowdy group that took over the next table, he had to keep going outside to take the calls. It also meant that what small snatches they did spend together, they could hardly hear each other above the din, so in the end they passed on dessert and coffee and ran back through the rain to the car.

‘Sorry it didn’t quite work out,’ he said, as they drove down through Covent Garden and turned on to the Strand.

‘The food was good,’ she responded. ‘And the wine. I take it from all those phone calls that something’s happening.’

‘Quite a lot actually,’ he confirmed. ‘But the details are changing by the minute.’

‘It’s moving forward, though?’

‘I’d say so. Still no paper trail of any substance, but the targeting of the euro is emerging as a five-possibly six-year strategy that’s due for completion around January or February 2003.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Tens of billions for those who stage the run, and that’s just on the currency play.’

‘What about introducing the US dollar into Britain?’

‘Still no evidence of that, but we won’t rule it out. One way or another it’ll be part of the story, either as a red herring we were thrown, or as a fact.’

‘So what’s stopping us going to print right away?’ she said.

‘Same as always. We’re still hoping to root out evidence to prove that the syndicate actually exists,
and
who’s operating it. If we don’t get that evidence by December, we’ll go anyway, because the speculation alone will kill the strategy. If we can tie in the real truth of why Sophie Long was murdered, and even confirm who did, or didn’t do it, all the better.’

She nodded, and turned to look out of the window. This conversation was merely a variation on one they’d had several times this past week, and though she’d stepped back from the financial investigation herself, concentrating more on the Colin Ashby / Sophie Long side of the story, she was naturally interested to know how his side of things was progressing. Tonight, though, she was preoccupied with the confession she was working up to, for despite the evening’s distractions, she knew it was unlikely he’d forgotten their decision to talk, and though she wasn’t looking forward to it one bit, she wasn’t going to put it off any longer either. The problem now, though, was knowing how to begin.

They drove on in silence, through the dark, almost deserted City streets, where pools of white streetlight shone out of wet roads, and the wind carried stray litter along the pavements and gutter. The radio was tuned to a classical station, but the music was turned down low, so she could hear the hum of the heater above it. From the corner of her eye she could see his hands on the wheel. She’d always loved his hands, for the way they were both elegant and masculine, seeming to exude strength and ruggedness as well as tenderness and care.
They could almost be a metaphor for the man himself, she thought, then averted her eyes as shame swept through her for the way she’d tried to turn him into a monster. Headstrong, arrogant, impatient and occasionally ruthless he might be, but his sense of what was right would never have allowed him to do to anyone what she’d done to him. It was what made her transference of guilt so unacceptable, because she’d known he’d take it, and even now, no matter what she said, he’d probably still want to shoulder it, because he’d never agree that her role in Lysette’s death could negate his. Maybe it couldn’t, but that wouldn’t change how deeply he was going to resent, or even despise her when he discovered how, in her guilty and cowardly heart, she’d hidden the truth of that last phone call, and encouraged the world to believe that it was his cruelty and neglect that had finally pushed Lysette over the edge, when there was no doubt in her mind, if she’d let Lysette come to her that night, she’d be alive today.

Suddenly pushing aside the dread of his reaction, she took a breath and said, ‘You should know that it wasn’t your fault Lysette killed herself. It was mine, because she called me after you threw her out that night and I wouldn’t see her. She begged me to let her come over, but I just kept on refusing. I was terrible to her, cruel and unfeeling. She couldn’t bear to be alone while you were with another woman, and I couldn’t bear her to be with me.’

She stopped, tense and fearful, eyes fixed on an unfocused place ahead. ‘After,’ she said, pushing her voice over the strain in her heart, ‘when they
told me she was dead, I wanted to die too. All I could hear was her pleading with me to listen, and me saying no. Now I’d never be able to hear her again, never be able to say yes. I can’t tell you how terrible it was. Nothing had ever felt like that before, and I know it never will again. I wanted to punish myself in the worst possible way, but I didn’t know how. I couldn’t do to my parents what she’d done, though God knows I wanted to. I was so angry, and desperate. I needed someone else to blame, or something that would allow me to hide from the truth, and pretend that last call had never happened. I never told anyone about it. Not until the police traced it to me, did I ever even admit she’d made it, and then all I said was that she’d told me you’d thrown her out because you had another woman. But it didn’t stop there, because once I realized that people were angry with you, I saw how I could avoid the blame if I told them you’d actually said she should go ahead and kill herself, because if that was what she wanted at least it would get her out of your life. So I told them. I was suffering so much, and I wanted you to suffer too. I wanted everyone to blame you, because I hated you … My sister was dead because of you. You’d found another woman and Lysette and I … We didn’t matter any more. We were history for you, so I wanted everyone to despise you for what you’d done to us.’

She stopped again. A few minutes ago they’d pulled up outside Andrew and Stephen’s house, but he hadn’t turned off the engine, or even released it from the gears. She turned to look at him. His face was lost in shadow, so there was no
way of knowing what he was thinking, but though she longed to know, she dreaded it too. If only he’d turn off the engine, at least it would be a sign he wanted her to continue.