Silent Truths

by Susan Lewis

  ‘His name’s Stan Bright. You’ll like him. He’s discreet, but good.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said through her teeth, ‘I’m not –’

  ‘Have you been in touch with any of the names you were given?’ he cut in.

  Again through her teeth she said, ‘I’ve been trying. I’m not getting anywhere at the moment.’ It galled her no end to think that he’d probably have more success once he got on to it.

  ‘How are things at the office?’

  ‘They ran the manuscript story.’

  ‘I saw it. Do you believe the lost and found?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does our mutual friend?’

  Her eyes went back to Rhona. ‘No,’ she answered.

  ‘So we’re presuming someone out there does have a copy?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Does the author know that?’

  Again Laurie looked at Rhona. ‘Our friend doesn’t think so,’ she answered.

  ‘What about theories on who might have taken it?’

  ‘She hasn’t heard any.’

  He went off the line for a moment, then came back saying, ‘OK. Have you thought about how you’re going to manage this, given the resistance you’re meeting at the office?’

  Anger flared like a firework in Laurie’s head. ‘If you think you’re going to push me off this just because –’

  ‘I have some suggestions,’ he barked across her.

  She stopped, and stood mutely glaring at nothing.

  ‘Are you ready to hear them?’ he asked.

  ‘Actually I have some of my own,’ she responded. ‘I’ve put in for leave.’

  ‘Have they accepted it?’

  ‘Not yet. In fact they’re trying to send me to Kenya on a story.’

  ‘Well, there’s a surprise,’ he commented. ‘I can arrange for Gail or Jed to cover for you. That way you manage to stay on this, and the stories get filed. They’ll email them to you, you can rewrite them in your own style and forward them on to the office.’

  ‘That’s fraud,’ she retorted. ‘Or it’s criminal, anyway.’

  ‘It’s a fine line,’ he responded. ‘The other alternative is that you resign and come and join my team.’

  Her eyes expanded so large that Rhona’s did too. ‘No thank you,’ she said in a tone that meant ‘over my dead body’. ‘I’ll think about the offer of Gail and Jed, though. Anything else?’

  ‘No,’ and without saying goodbye he cut the line dead.

  ‘Pig,’ she said waspishly into the receiver.

  ‘Well, that seemed to go well,’ Rhona commented drily. ‘Sounds like you’ve really made up.’

  ‘I don’t actually have a choice in this,’ Laurie reminded her tersely. ‘Were it up to me, I’d never speak to the man again in my life.’

  ‘How could I have forgotten?’ Rhona murmured and, reaching for one of the directories, she began searching through. ‘Now, are we going to have pizza, Chinese, Japanese or fish and chips?’

  ‘Whatever you like,’ Laurie answered distractedly. She was immersed in frustration again as she revisited just how difficult this self-appointed assignment was going to be now she’d been forced to share it with Elliot Russell.

  ‘Then let it go,’ Rhona advised, when she finally blurted it out over the crispy cod and chips that had been hand-delivered from a nearby chippie, complete with salt and pepper packs and wrapped in yesterday’s paper.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Laurie demanded. ‘This is my story. I’m the one who did the Colin Ashby interview –’

  ‘I meant the anger towards Elliot,’ Rhona cut in. ‘It’s time, Laurie. Really it is. What’s passed is past, and you being like this isn’t going to change what happened. It’s just prolonging the agony.’

  ‘But he was so cruel, Rhona, you know that.’

  ‘Yes, a lot of men are, and not all of them were constantly having to deal with the kind of spiritual purity that used to make even me feel as though I had horns and a forked tongue half the time, and I wasn’t with her anywhere near as much as Elliot was. Angels are hell to live with, you know that. You’ve even admitted yourself before now that Lysette’s unshakeable belief in the goodness of man could, and very often did, bring out the worst in you. It’s the kind of perversity we’re all guilty of, to one degree or another, and Elliot’s no different, nor is he any more proud of it than the rest of us. He was constantly failing her, he knew that, and how do you think it felt to be the source of so much anguish and disappointment all the time, even if she never saw it that way? Having someone making constant excuses for your shortcomings in the holy field, assuring you that you don’t mean the bad things you say, or the unneighbourly things you do, isn’t easy, especially when you mean them with knobs on. He’s not a bad man, Laurie. At least, he’s not the evil incarnate you make him out to be, and in your heart you know it. So, for God’s sake, ease up on him, and give yourself a break at the same time.’

  Laurie pushed her food away. ‘What I know is the way he treated her and what he said that night,’ she responded tightly. ‘I can’t forgive it, Rhona. If I did it would be like saying it was all right, and it wasn’t. It was so not all right that I can hardly express how bad it was.’ She swallowed hard, but it was still a moment before she could speak with a steady voice. ‘Have you got any idea how much I still miss her?’ she said. ‘And being here, in this house …’ She couldn’t go on.

  ‘We all miss her,’ Rhona said. ‘We all loved her. It was impossible not to. She left a gap in all our lives, and I know how often you two used to come to this house, so I understand how difficult it must be for you now. But we have to move on, darling. It’s what she would want, especially for you. She adored you, more than anyone. Maybe even more than she adored Elliot. You were everything to her –’

  ‘Stop!’ Laurie cried. ‘Don’t say any more. Please. It’s hard enough without hearing you –’

  ‘I know it is,’ Rhona said forcefully, ‘but, Laurie, you’ve got to face it. She’s not coming back, and if she’s up there watching you, which I firmly believe she is, then the last thing she’d want to see is you tormenting yourself and Elliot the way you are. So if you won’t let go for yourself, then for God’s sake, do it for her.’

  Laurie’s heart was unbearably full as her eyes turned towards the gradually darkening sky, where a plane was grazing across the pale orb of the moon, and recently lit streetlamps were reflecting in the small stretch of river that was visible between the buildings, over by Limekiln Dock. How many times had she asked herself if Lysette really was out there somewhere, watching and forgiving, and loving, the way she always had? She didn’t know and she never would, so why keep putting herself through this?

  ‘Don’t let’s talk about it any more,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’ll find a way to handle it.’ She looked down at her drink, took a sip, then said, ‘Actually, he’s making the inevitable joining of forces as easy as he can, so I suppose I’m grateful to him for that.’

  Rhona’s eyebrows arched. ‘So much so soon,’ she commented drily. ‘Why? What’s he doing?’

  Laurie shrugged. ‘Well, if tonight’s conversation was anything to go by, he seems to be going straight into it. No preamble, or agonizing, or pussy-footing around what went before. There’s a job to be done, we’re both going to do it, so let’s get on with it. In other words, his attitude is totally professional, not at all personal, and I know what you’re going to say, I should be treating it the same way.’

  ‘Hooray! I knew you’d get there in the end,’ Rhona cheered.

  Laurie slanted her a look.

  Rhona’s hands went up in defence. Then, turning serious, she said, ‘Listen, I know you can’t tell me everything that’s going on with the story, and frankly I don’t want to know, but from the little I’ve managed to glean, it seems pretty obvious that you really do need his help.’

  ‘I’ve just said I’m going to take it. I’ve made the call. The meeting’s set up. What more
do you want?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Rhona answered. ‘I think it might be trust. I wish you’d trust him, because you just might need to. These are powerful people you’re dealing with –’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Laurie snapped.

  Rhona threw out her hands in exasperation. ‘Colin Ashby’s not powerful?’ she cried.

  ‘Not where he is right now.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Rhona scoffed.

  ‘You’re right,’ Laurie conceded. ‘In fact, there are all kinds of anomalies and peculiarities I’ve come up with since talking to him – even while I was there in fact – that are making me wonder if there isn’t some kind of weird but brilliant master plan behind all this.’

  ‘You could almost stake your life on it,’ Rhona responded. ‘Men in his position – well, they just aren’t like us mere mortals. They play all kinds of games with rules that are about as easy to decipher as a Chinese thesaurus. And before you’ve even decided which way up it goes, you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll have changed the system completely.’

  Laurie’s fingers were tapping on the table, as her thoughts ran back over the interview. ‘There’s something odd about his relationship with his wife,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s been bugging me since I spoke to him, and I’m still no closer to pinning it down now. Of course, if I could speak to her …’

  Rhona groaned. ‘Just don’t get me involved in that again,’ she pleaded.

  Laurie’s look was sheepish. ‘Sorry,’ she said, for the umpteenth time. ‘Is she back from Spain yet, do you know?’

  ‘Apparently, yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And nothing. You know what a long lead-time there is for a book. She’ll have a couple of editorial meetings, get shown the jackets, taken out to lunch a few times and if we’re lucky we’ll have proofs by the end of the year.’

  ‘No chance before that?’

  Rhona shook her head. ‘After the break-in, or whatever it was, there’s just no way I could risk it,’ she said.

  ‘What about reading it yourself, and telling me what’s in it?’

  ‘No one can get their hands on it now,’ Rhona replied. ‘There are probably a max of four copies, and they’re all in Stacey’s office. I hear they’re being checked in and out like library books, but in this instance you have to put up a damned good case for wanting it. Someone told me that Stacey’s even doing the copy-editing herself in order to keep the number of eyes to a minimum.’

  ‘Then there’s got to be something in it for all this secrecy,’ Laurie commented.

  Rhona shrugged. ‘All I’ve been told is that Mrs Ashby is furious about the cat being out of the bag. She thought the pseudonym would help guard her privacy, so I don’t expect you’re her favourite person, now you’ve told the world she’s Ava Whatshername.’

  ‘Montgomery. I wasn’t top of her love list anyway,’ Laurie reminded her.

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Rhona agreed.

  They sat quietly then, listening to the distant sounds of boats on the river, the squawking of crickets, other people out on their verandas. Laurie was ruminating on it all again, until eventually she said, ‘Have you ever heard of someone called Marcus Gatling?’

  Rhona frowned. ‘No. Should I?’

  ‘Not necessarily. What about Leonora Gatling?’

  Rhona shook her head. ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Marcus Gatling’s wife.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’m glad you cleared that up,’ Rhona responded gratefully.

  Laurie looked at her. ‘They’re an interesting couple,’ she said. ‘I’ve been doing some research into them these past few days …’ She stopped, looked at her watch in the candlelight and groaned. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve still got a piece to write for tomorrow’s edition and it has to be in by nine. That gives me all of fifteen minutes. Feel free to stay if you like – if not, let yourself out quietly, this is a respectable neighbourhood.’

  Chuckling, Rhona got to her feet and began clearing the table. ‘Go on,’ she said, ‘I’ll see to this, then I’ll keep my street-carousing to a minimum and call you tomorrow. Sleep well,’ she added, giving Laurie a peck on the cheek.

  By ten o’clock Laurie had filed the story and completed over an hour’s research on the web, trying to track down more about Marcus Gatling and his mysterious wife. There was almost nothing about her, except a few charity patronages and her connection to him, but once again his name was cropping up in all sorts of interesting places, such as the boards of obscure-sounding foreign banks, specialized insurance companies, specific types of brokerage firms, as well as several non-executive directorships in what appeared to be new, or developing companies, ranging from shipping to petrochemicals to telecommunications. In fact, as far as she could see it, if there were megamillions to be made, Marcus Gatling was very definitely out there making them. Curiously, though, she’d found nothing so far about his friendship with Colin Ashby, which was most surprising in that it didn’t seem to have been mentioned by anyone in the coverage of Sophie Long’s murder, when all the delving into Ashby’s life should surely have unearthed such a long, and presumably beneficial, association.

  After programming in a few more searches, she downloaded her findings into the appropriate file, saved it, closed it, then called up the one that contained her interview with Ashby. The transcript, of necessity, had come straight from memory, which she’d done immediately after returning from the prison, and had been adding to ever since as missing details resurfaced in her mind. As she scanned through it now she wondered whether she’d put her own slant on it by making it read as though he was trying to mislead her, or if that really was how it had been. She didn’t recall feeling particularly duped, or handled, at the time. However, she was aware that not everything had seemed quite what it should.

  Getting up from the dining table, she went to answer the phone, which was ringing in the kitchen. A movement in the corner of her eye caused her to spin round quickly, but it was only Ruby, the cat, descending the wooden staircase that led to Andrew’s top-floor study. She hadn’t wanted to use the study herself; since everything was so polished and orderly she’d been afraid of leaving a smear on the desktop, or a footprint in the carpet. However, it didn’t appear Ruby had any such qualms, and seeing him now reminded her that she should pop up and close the skylight before going to bed.

  After talking to Wilbur about her next day’s assignment, she rang Gino to see how much he could cover, then returned to her computer. By the time she’d read through the Ashby transcript again and made more copious notes, she was ready to admit that she’d actually welcome someone else’s take on it now, and if that someone else had to be Elliot Russell, then she’d just have to suffer it. Indeed, if anyone had a theory on the wife-and-mistress aspect that still kept niggling her, he would, since he’d met the mistress, maybe even the wife, before all this had happened. He might even have discovered a link between the murder and this high finance syndicate. In fact, hadn’t he just returned from Zurich? And wasn’t one of the banks bearing Gatling’s name on its board in that city?

  Resting her chin on her hand she gazed out at the night, and wondered just how straight Elliot intended to play this with her. Maybe she’d wait to hear what he told her before she revealed too much to him. Actually, there was a chance he didn’t even know about this syndicate yet, though she supposed holding its existence back from him wasn’t going to get them very far – nor, come to that, was hogging any other details in her Ashby folder. She just wished it didn’t all feel so horribly disloyal to Lysette, moving on ahead with Elliot, as though none of it mattered any more. Of course, Rhona was right, Lysette wouldn’t want her storing up all this resentment, but it wasn’t up to Lysette, was it? It wasn’t Lysette who’d lost her twin in such a horrible, violent way. It wasn’t Lysette who was having to cope with all this guilt and failure and longing, and worst of all, the empty place inside. Nor was she ever going to come back to tell them that she really d
id forgive them, or that she was in a much better place, so they must stop worrying and get on with their lives.

  The ache circling round her heart was relentless as she got up to go and close the French windows. Thinking of Lysette was always painful, but tonight it felt particularly so, for it was reminding her of the suffering she had seen in Elliot’s face the day they’d stopped at the pub. Obviously she didn’t need Rhona to tell her that Lysette’s death hadn’t been easy for him either, but thinking of him, without anger and blame, was just too hard. She needed it to fuel the hate, for without it everything would fall apart. It was the real reason she was going to find it so hard to work with him, because she had no idea, if she was with him all the time, how long she could keep the hate going, and if it wasn’t there to protect her … But no, she wasn’t going any further with that, she was simply going to print out her notes and take them downstairs to the master bedroom, where she was still having problems with messing up the exquisite four-poster bed and all those feathered and fluffy cushions that just never looked the same when she arranged them as when Stephen had waved his pillow-scatter wand. Maybe she should have taken the guest room, further along the hall, with its minimal frills and fancies, though it was pretty nice having a walk-in closet and en-suite bathroom.

  After checking everything was locked, she slotted the chain on the front door, double-turned the keys, then took them into the bedroom with her. It was one of the things she loved most about this house, its upside-downness. Bedrooms on the ground floor, sitting room, kitchen and dining room on the middle floor, playwright’s study, summer kitchen and party terrace on the top floor. How many rowdy get-togethers and out-of-hand soirées had she and Lysette been to, up on that terrace? Too many to count. Elliot had always been there too, but that was something else she wasn’t going to dwell on. She’d just put some music on the built-in sound system, cool herself down in the power shower, then climb into the mountainous feather bed with the TV remote, and review her notes.

  It was probably somewhere around dawn when she woke with a start, to find the bedside light still on, and her notes scattered across the single white sheet that partially covered her. Not sure whether it was a dream, or a noise from outside that had startled her, she lay quietly for a moment to see if it happened again. Everything was perfectly still, except a few twittering birds and a car that crossed the end of the street. She heard a vague rumble somewhere in the distance, which was probably the first DLR train of the day. Yawning, she began stacking her notes into an untidy pile and was just putting them on the nightstand when she heard something again. It was a kind of muffled rustling sound. Frowning, she looked across at the door, which was slightly ajar. Whatever it was it didn’t sound close, so it was either outside – or somewhere upstairs.