by Susan Lewis
Laurie was picturing him the last time she’d seen him, desolate and defeated, yet still confident enough in Beth’s feelings to say, ‘Believe me, if she knew something that would put them here instead of me, she wouldn’t keep it to herself.’ What a shock all this must have been for him, and knowing that it was his treatment of her that had driven her to such despair had to be making it all so much worse.
‘How did he take it?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know, I didn’t ask,’ Georgie answered.
Laurie was surprised by the coldness of the response, but said nothing. Obviously Georgie was angry, and in her shoes maybe she’d be blaming Colin too.
‘I wonder if he’ll go to Heather now,’ Georgie said. Then, seeming not to want to dwell on that, she dabbed her eyes and took more tissues from the box on the bed. ‘We’re going to cremate her and bury the ashes in our little church,’ she said. ‘I spoke to her parents … I don’t think they’ll come for the funeral.’
Laurie hardly knew what to say to that.
‘Her mother’s a terrible woman,’ Georgie said. ‘You always think even the worst people have some kind of redeeming feature, but in all the years I’ve known her I’ve never seen one in Joyce. It’s because of her that Beth has such a dreadful inferiority complex. Who wouldn’t with a mother like that?’ Looking down at her sodden, shredded tissues, she said, ‘I know this has to be very difficult for Sophie Long’s family and believe me, it’s not that I don’t feel for them, but I want to ask you, when you write about this, please don’t let people think of Beth as just a cold-blooded killer. Maybe to some that’s what she’ll always be, but there was so much more to her. She was so beautiful and gentle really, so willing to love, but afraid of it too. What she did, that’s just not who she really was.’
‘Please don’t worry,’ Laurie said. ‘When we talked, on that last day, I saw how deeply she’d been hurt, how little more she could take.’ Feeling her eyes fill with tears again, she said, ‘I’ll never forget her.’
‘No, don’t let’s ever forget her,’ Georgie agreed.
Laurie wasn’t sure now if she and Georgie would stay in touch, though they’d promised to. Initially they’d have to, of course, while Laurie wrote the story, but later it was almost inevitable they would drift apart.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Elliot asked, his eyes searching hers.
Her eyebrows went up. ‘What do you think? This story’s all-consuming.’
His expression became more intense as, tilting her face up to his, he said, ‘As soon as it’s done, we’re going to make time for us.’
She nodded, then a teasing light came into her eyes as she said, ‘I’m not sure I can wait that long.’ She was about to kiss him when Max Erwin came to stand over them.
‘We’re not home and dry yet,’ he said to Elliot. ‘I was just going through what I thought were non-urgent emails, and there’s one I think you should take a look at.’
Colin was walking towards Bruce and Georgie. Behind him was the glowering edifice of the prison, ahead a future he could hardly begin to imagine. He was, he knew, a shadow of the man who’d been arrested five months ago, a ghost about to revisit a world that had changed for ever.
As he drew closer Georgie’s face was becoming clearer. His legs felt weak; a faint sun stung his eyes. He was aware of the sporadic birdsong around him, and the rumble of distant traffic. He could feel a slight chill in the air, and smell the damp street. His footsteps made no sound as he walked; over his shoulder was a small bag containing his belongings.
Georgie looked nothing like Beth, yet he knew when he spoke to her it would be as though he was speaking to Beth. He wondered how she would respond, and was almost afraid to find out, though he doubted anything could make him feel worse than he already did.
Bruce was reaching for his hand, waiting to welcome him back. His good and patient friend who’d stood by him through this, and had misinformed the press today so that he could escape the fuss. It would only be temporary, they both knew that, but of all the things he was most grateful to Bruce for, it was this.
Bracing himself, he turned to Georgie, hoping she understood how hard this was for him too. He knew what he was going to say, he’d been rehearsing it all night, but now, confronted by her, he felt the words being choked back in his throat. He took a breath, tried again to speak, but no sound came out. Then his shoulders began to shake, and terrible soul-wrenching sobs tore from his chest.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, putting her hands on his shoulders. ‘It’s going to be all right.’
‘Beth!’ he cried. ‘Beth, oh Beth, please forgive me.’
‘Sssh.’ Georgie wept too. ‘It’ll be all right.’
He was shaking his head. ‘It was all my fault,’ he gasped. ‘I never meant to hurt her.’
‘Let’s talk about this at home,’ Bruce said gently.
The journey back to Chelsea took less than twenty minutes, by which time Colin’s grief had subsided a little, and Georgie was perhaps more ready to listen than she’d been before.
‘I always thought,’ Colin said, as Bruce put a large Scotch in front of him, ‘that I’d celebrate the day I was released, that I’d be so relieved I’d drink champagne all night. I never imagined …’ His voice faltered, and as though to cover it he took a mouthful of whisky.
‘Better go easy on that,’ Bruce advised. ‘It’s been a while.’
Colin nodded, and looked down at the rich amber liquid.
Georgie’s eyes were expressionless as she watched him. Though she could see how difficult he was finding this, and could even on one level feel sorry for him, on another she knew she wasn’t going to help him at all.
‘Ever since you told me about Beth,’ he said, his voice dropping to a whisper on his wife’s name, ‘since I got the news …’ He swallowed hard and tried again. ‘I’ve lain awake at night, wanting to get out of that place so badly. Yet I was dreading it too, like I’ve never dreaded anything in my life, because I knew that once I was out I’d have to find a way of dealing with the truth – that two women are dead because of me. One of them my own wife.’ His eyes came up to Georgie’s, showing just how devastated and bewildered he was inside. ‘I loved her,’ he said brokenly. ‘I know you might find that hard to believe, but it’s true. She was so much a part of my life, we were so close in so many ways … All that doesn’t just go away because you fall in love with someone else. It doesn’t mean you stop caring. I never stopped caring.’
Georgie looked at Bruce. Did she need to spell out just how appalling a husband this man had been? How selfishly he had behaved over the years? How especially insensitive, even brutal he had been in the last few months?
‘I told myself a clean break would be easier,’ he said. ‘And I had to protect her from Gatling, or I thought I did … But the truth is, I was using it as an excuse not to see her. I didn’t want to deal with her pain. I was afraid of it, because I knew I couldn’t resist it. It was why I’d never been able to end our marriage before. I couldn’t bear to hurt her, yet it was all I ever seemed to do.’
Georgie’s face was pinched. ‘Aren’t you angry about what she tried to do to you?’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘How can I be when things have turned out the way they have?’
Georgie’s eyes dropped to her hands wrapped around her glass. She knew he was hoping for her forgiveness, that in some surrogate way she, as though she were Beth, would set him free from the blame. But she wasn’t Beth. She was immune to his charms, unmoved by his show of grief and regret, because were it not for him and the despicable way he had treated his wife, she wouldn’t be blaming herself for having let Beth down at the end. ‘What will you do now?’ she asked finally.
Though his dismay showed at not receiving even a glimmer of the comfort he’d hoped for, he knew in his heart that it was still much too soon. A lot of time would have to pass, and even then there were no guarantees. ‘Heather’s in Ireland,’ he said. ‘She got
in touch a couple of days ago, as soon as she heard they were releasing me.’
Georgie’s eyes came up. The mention of Heather had made her so tense it hurt.
‘I’d really like you to meet her,’ he said. ‘I think the two of you would get on well.’
Though Georgie didn’t move, the disgust that had raised every barrier in her was more than visible. That he could think she’d even consider meeting Heather Dance, never mind befriending her, only went to show how utterly self-centred and delusional he was.
‘It’s perhaps a bit soon,’ Bruce said.
Colin nodded. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’
Georgie was taking in his gaunt, still-handsome face, red-rimmed eyes and clothes that bagged over his almost skeletal frame. He might not be guilty of murder, but as far as she was concerned, the list of his other crimes was long, and almost equally as heinous. It was because of them that both Beth and Sophie Long had died, and no amount of remorse on his part was going to change that. He was accountable, and he knew it, yet he was still here, his life irrevocably altered it was true, even to some degree ruined, but he’d survive. He’d build a new life with Heather, become a full-time father, and very soon Beth would be all but forgotten.
‘I can’t help wondering,’ she said, feeling herself start to shake, ‘how long it will be before you start cheating on Heather.’
He looked as though he’d been kicked. ‘I know I deserve that,’ he said, ‘but I swear, this has changed me. From now on I’ll never cheat on a woman again.’
Georgie’s nostrils flared with anger. ‘Then who is Jackie Peters?’ she challenged, feeling Bruce’s hand close on her shoulder.
Colin’s face immediately coloured. ‘I don’t … I …’ he stammered. ‘She’s someone who visited me in prison. That’s what she does, visit people in prison.’
‘So all the time Beth was tearing herself to pieces because you wouldn’t let her visit, you were allowing this stranger –’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ he cut in. ‘She only visited me twice, towards the end.’
‘And now you’ve arranged to have lunch with her tomorrow.’
‘She suggested it. What could I say?’
‘No?’ Georgie spat. ‘Have you ever tried it where a woman’s concerned?’
‘Georgie, please –’
‘Save it for Heather, Colin. Let her deal with your lies. I’ve already lost my best friend because of them, so I sure as hell don’t want to hear any more.’ She got to her feet, shaken by her outburst, for it was unlike her to speak so bluntly. ‘You’re pathetic, do you know that?’ she suddenly cried, rounding on him again. ‘You’re weak, spineless, self-centred and totally insensitive to anyone’s needs except your own. Not even one day out of prison and already you’re involved with two women, and you’ve got the nerve to give one of them my phone number. Where’s it going to end, Colin? How many more people are going to have to get hurt before you learn to control that monstrosity inside your pants? Or before you own up to the fact that you’re responsible for everything that happened. Everything, because she’d be alive now, if it weren’t for you. So would Sophie Long.’
Colin’s face was stricken, his eyes darting between her and Bruce, as though Bruce might come to his rescue. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Georgie, I’m so sorry. I’ll cancel the lunch with Jackie. Give me the phone, I’ll do it right now.’
‘But there’ll be others, won’t there? We both know that, because you’re incapable of resisting. So let me tell you this: after Jackie Peters called here today, I called Laurie Forbes and Elliot Russell. They might be in Mexico, but they’ve got colleagues right here in London who they were more than happy to put me on to. So you can expect to see your cosy little lunch with Miss Peters on the front page of Friday’s Sun. And I’m going to keep doing it, Colin. Every time I hear about you and some new dalliance, or whatever you call it, you’re going to find it all over the papers. Colin Ashby, the man who can’t keep it in his trousers! They’ll turn you into a laughing stock – a stigma for any decent-thinking woman; a byword for dirty old man. So don’t think you’ve got away with anything here, Colin, or that you ever will again. The press is on your case now, and so, my friend, am I.’
Though the suddenness of change of pace had at first been bewildering, it had taken little time for the almost glutinous humidity of Playita to reduce the stress and urgency they’d brought with them to a reasonable, unpanicked desire to complete the job. Though they worked constantly, throughout the day and night, the heavy, languorous air and perpetual motion of the waves slowed their thoughts as surely as it slowed their bodies – though the remoteness and calm seemed to allow an objectivity it would have been hard to muster in the frenzy of LA.
Max’s cleverly designed casa was set back from the beach, enclosed by the thick, succulent foliage of a rain forest. Its sand-coloured walls curved around an inner courtyard, where a waterfall splashed over rocks into a deep lagoon pool, and the garden was crowded with dense, rubbery leaves, and purple, red and gold flowers. At one end of the courtyard were the kitchen and sitting room, whose walls were shaped like an inverted 9, with the kitchen in the circle and the sitting room spread out in the tail. There was no front wall to the sitting room, so the springy grass and shrubbery were as much a part of it as the heavy wood furniture and clay-tiled floors. Elliot and Max worked at a long oval table, mobile phones beside their computers, stacks of documents spilling out of the hi-tech printer and fax Max kept at the house. Every now and again one or other would get up and go and dive into the pool to cool off, ease the tension from their limbs, and give themselves some moments to reflect.
On the opposite side of the courtyard, tucked in behind twisting vines and climbing bougainvillaea, were the round bedroom bungalows, whose outer walls were washed rusty pink and whose roofs were like fans of red tiles. Inside, the decor ranged from ochre yellow to leaf green to dazzling blue. Bright Mexican tiles surrounded the showers and added their own kind of sprightliness to the walls and cupboards. Laurie had set up a small card table in the bigger of the two bedrooms, having pushed the large oak bed to one side, so that the mosquito net could tumble down around her.
As she worked small lizards scuttled around in the shadows while exotic birds chirruped and hooted in the trees outside. Pulling everything together, from the day she’d first met Beth Ashby, to the way her bosses had blocked the story, to how she’d been attacked in her own home and later abducted off the street, to having her parents threatened, to ultimately losing her job, then the details of her final meeting with Beth was having a profound effect on her. In a way it was as though it was happening all over again, and each time she looked up, when Elliot came in with a drink, or if her mobile phone rang, she was slightly startled by her surroundings, for they felt so removed from the events she was writing about that for a few disoriented moments she couldn’t be sure where she was.
Though she was managing more sleep than Elliot or Max, taking herself into the other bedroom where she could lie on a single bed beneath a net and a fan, her naps were still short, for the damp, penetrating heat seemed to stir her memories into weirdly disturbing dreams. Occasionally she woke up to find Elliot on the next bed, his expression stern in sleep, yet the vulnerability of his closed eyes and loosely clenched hands never failed to make her heartbeat quicken. Sometimes she would just lie there, watching him, longing to go and lie with him, but he needed what little sleep he could get, and with Max still there such physical closeness would only add to their growing frustration.
It was on the morning of the fourth day that she finally finished Beth’s story. After emailing it to Elliot to read when he could, she peeled off her shorts and wearing only the briefest of bikinis, she wandered out to the pool and slipped quietly into the sparkling water. Though she swam several lengths, she soon had to stop, for it was as though the weight of Beth was pulling her down and stealing her breath. She moved into the shade and sat in a deck chair. Though she co
uldn’t see them behind a luxuriant hibiscus bush, she could hear Elliot and Max talking, and somewhere, from a villa nearby, came the unmistakably vibrant sounds of Mexican music. Her heart felt fragile and full. Being here, in this almost limbo-like world, had made it possible for her to think about Beth in a less painful way than when she’d been in LA, though all the time she’d been writing, it was as though Beth was watching her from the shadows, pressing her for sympathy and understanding, and maybe even forgiveness.
Now, sitting here, shielded by a jungle of exotic trees and flowers, she felt Beth’s power finally starting to ebb, for the story was no longer exclusively theirs, holding them together with invisible bonds. Soon Elliot would read it, then Max, then editors in New York and London – then the rest of the world. It felt right to let it go, though she knew that in their way they would always be linked now.
A shadow fell over her and her heart tightened as she looked up into Elliot’s face. Weariness showed in his eyes, as distinctly as the two-day stubble on his chin. His body, too, seemed tired, yet its strength was as immutable as the blue sky that framed him, and the chemistry they shared was like the powerful tow of the sea. Under his scrutiny all her senses responded, causing desire to slake a long, painful path through her most intimate parts, and a tiny breath of pleasure to escape her lips.
Dropping down in front of her he folded his arms on her knees and looked up at her. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked quietly.
She nodded and reached out to touch his face. He turned his mouth into her palm and kissed it.
‘Have you finished?’ she asked.
‘Just about.’ His eyes came back to hers and she felt herself moving into a tide of longing. Taking her hand he pulled her forward and covered her lips with his own. She knew he was as aroused as she was, and heard him moan softly as she spread her hands over the hard muscles of his chest. Her legs were parted, her knees resting against his hips. His hands moved to her shoulders, down over her breasts to her waist. Then, sitting back on his heels, he took her hands and said, ‘Max is leaving tonight.’