by Susan Lewis
‘Here, I’ll pass you over,’ Mindy said.
‘Dad! Are you all right?’ Laurie demanded, hardly waiting for him to take the phone.
‘Of course I am,’ he chuckled. ‘You know what your mother’s like. She fusses too much.’
‘But you went to hospital.’
‘It was just a dizzy spell. Nothing more. The old ticker’s in good working order, they tell me, I just have to go for my regular check-up at the end of the month. So how’s your day been? Where are you?’
‘On my way to see Andrew and Stephen. I’m moving into their house at the weekend, remember? But listen, you don’t have to help. They’ve said they’ll come and get me …’
‘That’s good. The more the merrier.’
‘Dad, you’ve got to take it easy. I know you hate it, but that heart attack was serious. We nearly lost you, and –’
‘Oh, that’s enough now,’ he grumbled. ‘It was over six months ago and Andrew and Stephen are always a bit of fun. You’re surely not going to deprive me of that, are you?’
‘No, of course not. But –’
‘No buts. You just go on getting your by-line on the front page and the only thing this old heart’ll be doing is bursting with pride. OK?’
Though she was still shaking and her face was bloodless Laurie managed a smile. ‘OK,’ she said, making a decision right there and then to stop telling him about the Ashby affair. After today’s developments, all round, it would be better for him not to know.
‘What time shall we expect you back tonight?’ he asked.
‘Nine. Ten at the latest.’
‘We’ll wait up then. And Laurie, don’t shout at your mother.’
Ringing off before she shouted at him too, she quickly pressed in the password to continue her messages. Everything had been so tense at home, so unbearable and wrong since Lysette had gone, it was as though they weren’t a proper family any more. But it was OK, she was moving out of there at the weekend; she wouldn’t have to deal with the pressure on a daily basis any more. She might even find a way of making it up to them that they’d lost the most precious of their girls, because the other had failed them all so badly.
After checking her final messages and leaving a few of her own, she forced herself to sit quietly throughout the rest of the journey, as she tried to come up with a way to get the Long family interview without having to go through the detestable experience of dealing with Elliot Russell. The trouble was, if there were a way of doing it without him, she’d almost certainly have found it by now, for God knew how hard she’d already tried. So was she going to have to resign herself to calling him, or should she just let the Long interview go and follow up on Rhona’s lead to Beth Ashby? That was good, it had to be said, but there were no guarantees with it, whereas with the Long family there were.
Half an hour later her taxi pulled up outside Andrew and Stephen’s townhouse on Ropemaker’s Fields, where the evening sunlight was pinging off the windows and the mouth-watering aroma of barbecued steaks and home-grown hemp drifted down from the roof terrace above. Shielding her eyes as she looked up and waved to Andrew, she felt a warming lift in her heart, for by then she’d come to the conclusion that there actually might be a way of getting to the Long family without having to go through Elliot Russell. It would never have been possible before today, but now that he’d called to tell her the option was there … She smiled slyly to herself. No, she didn’t mind double-crossing Elliot Russell. In fact, after what he’d done to Lysette, it wouldn’t only be a pleasure, it would be an absolute joy.
Chapter 10
BRUCE WAS SITTING across a graffiti-scratched table from Colin, in a room of solid grey walls and grimed, opaque windows. Giles Parker, the QC who was leading Ashby’s case, was leaning his shoulders against the door, arms folded, head bowed as he listened to what was being said. It was late in the day for a legal visit, but Parker had been in court until now presenting legal arguments on another high-profile case, so this was the first opportunity he’d had to come since the story had broken on Heather Dance and her child.
‘You surely realize how this is being interpreted out there,’ Bruce was saying. ‘So why the hell didn’t you prepare us? We’re on your side, for God’s sake, but the press are making fools of us with what they know that we don’t. Is that how you want it to go in court? Because that’s exactly what’ll happen if you don’t start telling us what we need to know.’
Colin looked at him. There was a bruise under his left eye and a small cut on his upper lip.
‘For God’s sake, Colin,’ Bruce cried, slamming the table. ‘You want to get out of here, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘Then stop holding back like this. What’s just happened, all this about Heather Dance, it doesn’t need to be disastrous if you just tell us how she fits into your life, whether she’s got anything to do with what happened.’
‘She fits in exactly the way it says in the paper,’ Colin responded. ‘We’ve been together for four years, we have a daughter, and their home is mine too whenever I can get there. She had nothing to do with Sophie Long’s murder.’
‘How can you be so certain?’ Parker demanded.
‘I just know,’ Colin answered.
Parker stared at him, his harsh, narrowed eyes and thin mouth showing his anger. Colin was the first to look away.
‘Did Sophie Long know about Heather Dance and the child?’ Bruce asked.
‘No.’
‘Did your wife?’ Parker snapped.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. It was because of her that I didn’t want anything about them to come out.’
‘Well, it’s certainly out there now,’ Parker said shortly. ‘Did you know that Heather Dance was going to be as forthright as she was in talking to the press? I presume you spoke to her before she spoke to them.’
‘As a matter of fact I told her to be,’ Colin responded.
Parker frowned. ‘Why?’
Colin didn’t answer right away, he merely turned his head and stared at nothing, almost as though he was alone in the room. His face, bony with weight loss and taut with fatigue, had aged ten years in less than ten weeks.
‘Why?’ Parker repeated.
‘Because I want Beth to divorce me,’ Colin said wearily, ‘and since Elliot Russell was already on to Heather, I thought this would force Beth to do it.’
Bruce’s eyes closed as he thought of the way Beth had suffered since the news had broken. God only knew what it would do to her if she heard him utter those words. ‘That’s a pretty despicable way of treating her,’ he remarked bitterly. ‘She’s never done anything to deserve that.’
‘No,’ Colin answered. ‘But I have a child with Heather. I’ll always be responsible for Jessica. And I’ve let Beth down so badly. She’s better off without me.’
Parker took a pen from his inside pocket, went to make a note on the pad he’d left on the table, then said, ‘We established a few weeks ago that you’re trying to protect those you love. I could comment that you have a strange way of doing it, but what is much more relevant is why you’re doing it. I’m a busy man, Mr Ashby. I also want to help you, but if you continue to deny us the facts, I’m afraid you’ll make that impossible.’
Colin looked down at his hand resting on the table. His mind and body ached with the strain of holding back, but after what had just happened with Heather he didn’t dare to weaken now. ‘All I can tell you,’ he said, ‘is what I’ve told you before – that I believe Sophie’s murder was set up to put me exactly where I am. Who was the mastermind behind it, and who carried it out, I can’t say.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ Bruce interjected.
‘Can’t, because I don’t know.’
‘But you have your theories.’
‘Of course. But Sophie’s dead, I’m here, and I have good reason to believe Beth could be in danger too.’
‘Why?’
‘They’ll be afraid of what she might know.’
‘They?’ Parker repeated.
Colin’s face went blank.
‘Then what might she know?’ Parker said, hiding his exasperation.
‘Nothing. She doesn’t know anything.’
‘Are you certain of that?’
‘As certain as I can be. There’s also a very good chance they’ll use her to put pressure on me to stay silent.’
‘Use her? In what way?’
‘They could threaten her. Or worse.’
‘So to get her out of danger, you divorce her?’ Parker stated.
Colin’s eyes flickered to his, but he made no response.
Parker glanced at Bruce. Bruce was watching his friend, sensing how embattled and confused he was. He appeared to have no idea of the rules he should be playing by and, unless he opened up, he was likely to make some very serious mistakes.
‘It won’t surprise you to hear that there are plenty of journalists eager to speak to you,’ Bruce said. ‘Perhaps you’d be more forthcoming with one of them?’
Colin shook his head.
Quite suddenly Parker picked up his briefcase and began packing it. ‘I’ll continue preparing your defence,’ he said brusquely, ‘but as I’ve told you on several occasions, a defendant’s unsubstantiated claims of unnamed other parties being involved in the killing, though admissible as evidence, is not going to carry any weight with a jury. In other words, we’re getting nowhere, Mr Ashby.’
Colin looked at Bruce.
‘You have to give us more than this,’ Bruce told him.
‘Can they prove I did it?’ Colin asked.
‘In a way that will satisfy a jury, undoubtedly yes,’ Parker answered.
Colin’s face turned paler than ever as he lowered his eyes and his shoulders seemed to slump. ‘I should have just accepted their damned offer,’ he groaned, burying his face in his hands. ‘I didn’t want to be part of it, but if I’d gone along with them, none of this would be happening.’
Parker and Bruce exchanged glances. At last something new.
‘What offer?’ Bruce said.
Colin was staring down at the table, shaking his head. ‘It’s no good, Bruce, I can’t tell you,’ he answered. ‘All I can do is let my silence over time prove that I’m not prepared to tell anyone what I know.’
‘But surely to God, man, it can’t be worth losing your freedom for,’ Bruce protested.
Colin looked up. ‘By putting Elliot Russell on to Heather, they were telling me that they know who and where she is,’ he said. ‘In their language, that is a threat.’
Bruce turned to Parker. ‘If this woman needs protection –’ Parker said.
‘She’s got it, to a degree, now that people know who she is,’ Colin interrupted. ‘It’s the best we can do.’
‘What about Beth?’ Bruce asked.
Colin’s eyes, bleak and anguished, came up to his. ‘How is she?’ he asked.
‘How do you think?’
Colin wiped a hand over his face. It was shaking, and bruised. That his life had been reduced to this, and he wasn’t doing anything to help get himself out of it, was simply beyond Bruce’s understanding.
‘Can I give her a message?’ Bruce asked.
‘Just tell her I’m sorry.’
‘She wants to see you.’
Colin shook his head.
‘Then at least speak to her on the phone, man.’
Colin’s eyes went down, as again he shook his head.
‘You’ll speak to your mistress, but not your wife! How the hell do you think that’s going to make her feel?’
‘She has to let go,’ Colin answered. ‘We both do.’
Parker was picking up his briefcase again. ‘It’s clear that you don’t want this investigation to go through official channels,’ he said, ‘so perhaps you’ll reconsider speaking to one of your former colleagues in the media, and let them try to help you. We’re certainly prepared to work with them, so you know where to get hold of us if you decide to take this option.’
Colin rose to his feet. ‘I’m sorry Heather and Jessica were sprung on you like that,’ he said.
Parker shook his hand. ‘Committal proceedings are scheduled six weeks from now,’ he told him. ‘September the third. Time is not on our side.’
Colin nodded gravely, and Bruce could see he felt sick.
Parker was still grasping Colin’s hand. ‘You’re either a very foolish or very honourable man,’ he said, ‘I just hope you realize, before it’s too late, that neither one is going to help you.’
The street on which Sophie Long’s family lived was typical of that part of Essex, two facing rows of sixties orange brick semis, symmetrical lawns rolled out like flags, fussily clipped privets and the ubiquitous frills and folds of John Lewis nets at every window. There was no one about – not a neighbour, not a reporter, not even a dog. Even so, Laurie felt as though a thousand eyes were watching her, not least of all Elliot Russell’s. Since she was about to steal his thunder she was struggling with a minor bout of conscience. However, she wasn’t going to worry too much about that, since her plan, simple and obvious as it was, was hardly going to bump her off to moral Siberia even if it worked, which it just might not. Mrs Long had expressed preference for a woman, so she was here, as that woman, ready to claim Elliot had sent her. Which, in a way, he had. He just didn’t know he’d done it today.
She detected no movement of the nets, either upstairs or down, as she walked up the Longs’ crazy-paved front path. Nor was there any sound from within after the resonance of the doorbell’s four Beethoven chords finally died away.
She waited, listening hard and feeling much more apprehensive than she wanted to admit. Was someone watching her through the little brass peephole? If so, did she look friendly, or menacing in its distorting lens? What a terrible job this was really, trying to force her way into a family’s private grief. It made her think of the time Gino had told her she had too much human decency to make a really good reporter, which had made them all laugh when he’d said it, but she was starting to wonder if he might have a point.
She pushed the bell again, waited for the percussive vibrations to fade, then turned an ear towards the door without actually touching it. Nothing. No radio, TV, voices, vacuums or even footsteps, just the whine of a strimmer in the next street and the sluggish subsong of a young chaffinch somewhere nearby. She wondered if the Longs were in the back garden, and if so could she get round there. There was a gate at the side, but it didn’t only look locked, it had such an air of unscalability that surely not even a burglar would try. For one hilarious moment she had an image of herself tumbling into their back garden, bruised and dishevelled, startling them out of their wake.
‘Who is it?’ a male voice suddenly shouted.
Startled, she called out her name, adding, ‘Elliot Russell said I should come.’
‘Elliot who?’ the voice called back.
‘Russell,’ she answered, her heart sinking with anger and dismay. This man, presumably Chas Long, hadn’t even heard of Elliot Russell, so the bastard had set her up. He’d guessed she’d do this, had no doubt informed the world, and now she could already see the boomers’ smirking faces as she walked back into the office. ‘He said you’d prefer to talk to a woman,’ she added, not quite ready to give up yet.
There was a long pause, then the same voice said, ‘We was expecting you tomorrow.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she cried, taking heart. ‘He said he’d called to change it to today. Didn’t he speak to you?’
‘Hang on,’ the man said.
Silence resumed. She continued to stand there, waiting, burning in the sun’s scorching rays and hardly daring to breathe as with all her might she willed those inside to let her in. Please, please, please, God, she fervently prayed. Any minute now her tabloid colleagues would arrive back from lunch, first one, then two, then in droves, ready to pick a fight on the doorstep, either to get in there first, or to ruin it for her. They’d surround the place, as the
y had for weeks, anything to totally decimate what little chance she stood of getting over that threshold.
Time ticked relentlessly on. Someone backed out of a garage down the street, threw her a suspicious look, then drove away. Her skin was on fire, there was no shade, not even from the small slab of an overhead porch. Maybe they thought if they kept her waiting long enough she’d just go away. Should she ring that dreadful bell again, remind them she was still there? She could call them on her mobile if she had their new number.
Then quite suddenly the door swung open and a short, narrow-faced man in his mid-forties, whom she recognized as Chas Long, told her to come in.
‘He should have called,’ he said grumpily. ‘We’re trying to get him on the phone, but the missis says we can’t leave you standing out there in that heat.’
Laurie hid her horror well. It hadn’t occurred to her that they might call Elliot to check. Shit. What was she going to do now? He would be bound to blow her cover, and she’d be back out the door a lot quicker than she’d managed to get in.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as Chas Long closed the door behind her. ‘I hope it’s not inconvenient. I didn’t realize no one had got your agreement to the change.’
‘Then it’s lucky for you we was here,’ he grunted. ‘Go on through to the kitchen. The wife’s holding on to speak to Elliot.’
Deciding that all she could do now was brazen it out, Laurie walked along the thickly carpeted hallway towards what must be the kitchen. Chas Long followed, then suddenly lunged awkwardly ahead of her to open the door.
‘Thank you,’ Laurie smiled.
The fake walnut wood kitchen wasn’t large, but was spotlessly clean and seemed to have all the modern gadgets and appliances, which included a cosy little breakfast niche over by the back door, where Daphne Long and her fifteen-year-old son, Simon, were sitting, almost huddled together behind two giant glasses of Coke.
Seeing Laurie, Daphne waved her to come in and pointed to the neat little cordless phone she had pressed to one ear, indicating she was on it. She was a petite, peroxide blonde with a sun-weathered face, a taut little body and chunks of gold jewellery on her fingers, wrists, one ear and throat.
