by Susan Lewis
‘She said they did, a couple of times. With him.’
‘And I suppose the police wanted to know what they all talked about?’
‘As if I’d know,’ Daphne responded. ‘I wasn’t blooming well there, was I? Did they talk about money or politics they wanted to know. Was there ever any mention of people who lived abroad? What kind of question’s that? I ask you. Hundreds of people live abroad, for crying out loud. How am I supposed to know if any of them did? And I told them, if he ever talked about any deals with her, or anything like that, then I wouldn’t have a clue.’
Laurie was frowning. ‘Did they give you the impression they thought he might be involved in some kind of deal?’ she said. ‘Something that might have been top secret, or even illegal, maybe?’
‘Oh yeah, we got that impression all right,’ Daphne replied. ‘Top secret, anyway, because you only had to look at where we was when they was asking all their bloomin’ questions. In this bloody great big house out in the country, with dirty great big fences and alarms and God only knows what. It was like being in a flaming prison, except you never saw luxury like it. All these paintings, and marble fireplaces, furniture straight out of a stately home. Well, it was a stately home. I’ve never been in such a posh place in me life.’
‘Where was it?’ Laurie asked.
Daphne shook her head. ‘All we know is we went north out of here, after that …’ she shrugged. ‘We reckon we must have been somewhere in Suffolk, even Norfolk. We don’t know, though. We was in the car a long time, anyway.’
Laurie waited for her to come up with more, but that seemed to be it, so she said, ‘What about the people who were questioning you? I suppose they were police?’
‘Good question,’ Daphne retorted. ‘That’s what they said, but Chas reckons they was MI5 or something like that, don’t you?’
Laurie looked at Chas, but his face was averted.
‘Do you remember any of their names, or what they looked like?’ she asked turning back to Daphne.
‘I don’t think they ever told us their names, did they?’ she said again to Chas.
This time his head came round. ‘Have you finished now?’ he growled. ‘Is there anything else you want to blab before she goes? We was supposed to say we was with relatives.’
‘What relatives?’ Daphne cried angrily. ‘We’ve hardly bloody got any, have we?’
‘But she don’t know that,’ Chas spat, jabbing a finger towards Laurie.
‘I’m afraid I do,’ Laurie interjected.
He glared at her with such menace that were it not for the underlying confusion in his eyes she might have been ready to leave. ‘Who the bloody hell’s that?’ he snarled as the Beethoven chimes started ringing down the hall.
He lumbered off to check, and was back within seconds, looking furious and pale. ‘It’s someone else from the press,’ he snarled. ‘I thought they said they was going to keep ’em away. Bloody parasites.’ His eyes shot to Laurie. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘but that’s what you are. You come here, trying to get things out of us … Well, we’ve had enough of it, do you hear me? Our girl’s dead, and all anyone wants to do is talk about that bastard –’
‘Chas, shut up,’ Daphne interrupted.
He flinched as the bell went again. ‘We’re never going to bloody get rid of them,’ he raged. Then to Laurie: ‘We gave you what you came for, now you go out there and tell them to fuck off. Go on. We’re finished here. She’s told you all you’re going to hear.’
‘Chas, where’s your manners?’ Daphne scolded angrily.
‘If I were you,’ Laurie said, slipping the tape recorder, which had continued to run, back into her bag, ‘I’d call the police. I’m sure they’ll help clear the street.’
Daphne walked down the hall with her. When they reached the front door Daphne said, ‘Which paper is this going to be in?’
Laurie took a breath. It was a good question, but she would have to bluff. So after mentioning her own paper first, she added, ‘The final decision hasn’t been made yet. We’ll let you know when it has.’
‘Do we get to see it before it comes out? Elliot said we would.’
‘Yes, of course,’ she promised.
Daphne forced a smile. Then after a couple of nods, she said, ‘Do you mind letting yourself out? I don’t want them to see me. I hate the things they shout out.’
‘No, of course not,’ Laurie assured her. Then on impulse she pulled the small woman into an embrace. ‘Thanks for talking to me,’ she said. ‘And I really am sorry about Sophie.’
‘I know,’ Daphne responded, wincing as the doorbell chimed again. ‘She was a good girl. Everyone liked her.’ Her eyes came up to Laurie’s. ‘She weren’t no blackmailer,’ she said. ‘She might have been a lot of other things, but that definitely weren’t one of them. I’d stake my life on it.’
Knowing how hard it was to think ill of someone you loved, particularly when they were recently dead, Laurie hugged her again, saying, ‘I’m sure you’re right.’ Now wasn’t the time to tell her that her efforts to preserve her daughter’s good name weren’t only going to be smashed apart once the Brad Pinkton story broke, but were, in the long run, more likely to get Colin Ashby off than to send him down.
There were about a dozen reporters outside, most of whom surged forward as Laurie opened the front door and quickly let herself out. It took a moment for them to realize it was her, and their resentment once they did became almost palpable. She tried to ignore them, pushing her way through their aggressive jostling and banter, but they were making it increasingly hard for her to get past. As if being first on the scene at Beth Ashby’s wasn’t enough, how the hell had she managed this?
‘So who are you sleeping with?’ someone jeered, as she forced her way out of the gate. ‘You’ve got to be sleeping with someone.’
‘Come on, Laurie, give us a break,’ Bill Krupps from the Sun shouted. ‘We’ve been waiting round here for weeks.’
‘What did they tell you, Laurie? Do you know where they went?’
‘No,’ she answered, still struggling to break free.
‘She’s not going to tell you anything,’ a female voice sneered. ‘She’s going to keep it all for herself.’
‘Did you tape it, Laurie?’ Rob Phipps from the Star demanded, trying to grab her bag.
‘Let go!’ she cried, hugging it hard to her chest.
‘Oh, she bites,’ someone laughed.
‘Come on, Laurie, let us all have a listen.’
‘Stop it!’ she shouted, as they began roughing her up even more. ‘Let me go!’
‘Just give us the tape! A little girl like you won’t know what to do with it anyway.’
A few of them laughed, while others continued pulling her bag, and prising at her arms.
‘She gets in first with Beth Ashby,’ someone hissed, ‘and all she comes out with is four fucking words. Call yourself a reporter.’
‘Let me go!’ Laurie seethed, kicking out and twisting her shoulders away from them.
‘Let her go!’ a new voice suddenly commanded.
Momentarily surprised, they all turned round.
‘Now!’ Elliot snapped. His harsh, craggy features were uncompromising and distinctly unpleasant.
‘We were just having a bit of fun,’ Rob Phipps said, releasing the bag.
‘She’s got to learn to take a joke,’ someone else piped up.
Elliot brushed them aside, took Laurie’s arm and marched her out of the fray.
‘Well, now we know who she’s sleeping with,’ someone called after them, making the others laugh.
Rage and embarrassment swept through Laurie, turning her cheeks scarlet.
‘Just keep walking,’ Elliot muttered under his breath.
His Porsche was outside a house further up the street, where a woman was peering out through her nets.
‘Get in,’ he said.
‘No,’ she snapped, wresting her arm free. ‘Thank you for the rescue, but I’d rather g
et the train.’
His eyes held no warmth. ‘Just get in the car,’ he responded.
She didn’t move. She couldn’t allow herself to think of how much she hated him. If she did she might start screaming it.
‘Do you want everyone over there to watch this?’ he demanded.
Worse than anything else she could imagine at that moment was the spectacle of him picking her up and stuffing her into the car, so, her face taut with anger, her heart pounding with dread, she descended into the passenger seat and held her bag close. As soon as he was in the driver’s seat she said, ‘Please, just drop me at the station.’
Ignoring her, he roared away from the kerb, turned left at the end of the road, and carried on along the high street, past the Renault garage where Chas Long’s brother was a mechanic, the funeral parlour that had received Sophie’s flowers, the station entrance where Laurie needed to get out, until they were heading out into the countryside on roads she didn’t know.
‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded.
‘You’ll see.’
‘Just turn the car round and take me back to the station.’
He continued driving, revving the engine hard, squealing fast round bends, never taking his eyes from the road.
Were it anyone else she might have protested further, but with him she was afraid to. There was just too much emotion wrapped up in this situation, this man, for her to trust herself to speak, so she kept her eyes averted, not wanting to look at him even for an instant.
‘It’s OK, you don’t have to thank me for getting you in to see the Longs today,’ he said, finally.
She stayed silent.
‘So, can I assume you’ve got something worth listening to?’
‘The interview’s mine,’ she snapped.
His eyebrows went up, but he said no more until he’d pulled into the car park of a country inn and held out his hand. ‘The tape,’ he said, when she looked at his open palm. ‘I want to hear it.’
‘I told you –’
‘Give me the damned tape,’ he growled.
Knowing she had no choice, she reached into her bag, rewound the tape, then set her machine down next to the gear stick. No way was she handing over the actual cassette, he’d just have to listen to it like this.
It took no more than twenty minutes to replay. When it was over he sat staring out at the fields, his long fingers drumming tunelessly on the wheel.
‘Do you know where they were staying?’ she finally made herself ask. ‘Do you recognize the description?’
‘I can hazard a pretty good guess,’ he responded.
‘Well?’ she prompted, when he didn’t elaborate.
‘Did you know that forensics have come up with some unidentified hairs and fibres?’ he said, still staring straight ahead.
Her eyes widened. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘How do you know?’
‘I just do. Are you familiar with the name Marcus Gatling?’
Recalling Chilton asking her the same question she felt the stirrings of intrigue. ‘Yes,’ she answered.
‘What do you know about him?’
‘That he and Colin Ashby have been friends since their time at Oxford. That he’s some kind of heavyweight in the business world … What do you know about him?’
‘That it was probably his house the Longs were at. That he made Colin Ashby an offer, which Ashby refused.’
‘What kind of an offer?’
‘That’s a question for Ashby.’
Inwardly she groaned. ‘So you’ve managed to get an interview with him too,’ she responded.
‘Wrong.’
He turned to look at her and as their eyes met a horrible burning seared through her chest. Immediately she reached for the Sony player. He was just as quick, but as his hand closed over hers she drew back sharply, recoiling from the physical contact. ‘I’m no longer officially on this story,’ she said, turning to look out of the side window so he wouldn’t see the heat on her face. ‘That tape could get me back on it.’
When he made no comment more anger lashed through her. ‘I did that interview,’ she seethed. ‘The tape belongs as much to me –’ She stopped as he threw open the door and got out.
‘Come on, let’s get a drink,’ he said.
As she walked into the pub behind him, memories of Lysette were tearing so painfully through her that she could hardly bear it. How could her sister have loved a man like this? He was a monster. A demon. He had no heart, no soul, no care in the world for anyone but himself.
‘What’ll you have?’ he asked when they reached the bar.
‘Bloody Mary, with ice.’
As he ordered she glanced round the shadowy interior with its gnarled wood furniture and small niche windows. A group of German tourists was gathered round a table next to an old-fashioned pinball machine, studying their maps and drinking lager, while a middle-aged couple who looked decidedly illicit, canoodled in a dimly lit corner booth.
‘There are tables outside, on the patio,’ Elliot said, nodding towards an open door at the back. ‘Why don’t you go and sit down?’
Though it was cooler inside, the view down over the valley to a red-roofed town and cathedral towers and spires in the distance was more pleasing than the throb of the jukebox, so selecting a long wooden table and benches in the shade of an oak she nodded to an old man who was just leaving, and sat down.
Elliot joined her a few minutes later with two bloody Marys and a couple of bags of crisps. ‘In case you’re hungry,’ he said throwing them on to the table.
She was, but would be damned before she’d accept them.
‘OK,’ he said, after downing half his drink, ‘we need to clear the air and this seems as good a place as any to do it. I know you blame me for Lysette’s death, and believe you me, I’ve spent a long time blaming myself too …’
‘I don’t want to discuss it,’ she said through her teeth. ‘What you –’
‘Laurie, listen to me. I had no idea she’d do what she did –’
‘Stop it!’ she cried, putting her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t want to hear your excuses. If it weren’t for you she’d be alive now, and nothing you say’s going to change that. You killed her, Elliot. It was you who killed her.’
His face had turned pale, and his eyes showed the anguish he felt at her words. ‘I swear, if I’d known …’
When he stopped she rounded on him bitterly. ‘If you’d known what?’ she snarled. ‘That she’d kill herself because you told her you’d met someone else, so she should stop bugging you now? That was the word you used, wasn’t it? “Bugging.” A year and a half you’d been putting her through all kinds of hell, taking advantage of her in a way any normal person would be ashamed of, then you tell her there’s someone else on the scene now so she should get out and stop bugging you. Just what kind of man are you? No, don’t answer that, I’ll tell you. You’re one who’s not fit to tread the same earth as a decent human being.’
‘Which is exactly how I felt for a long time after she died,’ he responded.
‘But you’ve let yourself off the hook now, is that it? Or no, you want me to do it for you. That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? Get me involved in what could be one of the most sensational stories of the decade, give my career a little boost, and I might just forgive you for killing my sister. Well, forget it! In fact, you can just go straight to hell. She was my twin, for God’s sake. She was so much a part of me that I only feel half alive now she’s gone. Have you got any idea what that feels like? How it is to lose someone you’re so close to you can actually feel their pain? And I felt hers over you. God, did I feel it. And the sick, sad part of it was, the worse you treated her the more she loved you. Dear God, why couldn’t you have been kind to her? She was so sweet and good. She’d never hurt anyone. The whole world mattered to her, but no one as much as you, and you had to go and destroy her.’
He said nothing, only stared at the horizon and occasionally blinked. He’d thought noth
ing, not even her loathing, could make him feel any worse than he already did, but she was coming close. It didn’t help either that he’d somehow forgotten how alike they were. A part of him was still reeling from the shock of seeing her when she’d come out of the Longs’ earlier. She could so easily have been Lysette. They even sounded the same, though only the timbre of their voices. The words they used had always been different. But maybe this was what he wanted, why he was here – to suffer Laurie’s hatred as though it were Lysette’s, even though he knew Lysette had been incapable of hating a single living soul.
Laurie looked at his hand lying on the table, the tapering fingers, the dark hair curling over his knuckles and watchstrap, and for one insane moment she thought she might smash her glass into it. Why was God allowing him to remain on this earth, when he’d done what he had to her sister? It didn’t make any sense. He should be dead and Lysette should be here. She deserved to live, while he didn’t even deserve to be remembered. She pushed a fist to her mouth to stifle a sob. Why had he brought her here? Why was he making them both suffer like this, when it was over, Lysette was gone and nothing was ever going to bring her back.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t know what else to say, except I’m sorry.’
Laurie turned her face away, but the tears were coming so fast she could hardly catch her breath. ‘I told you not to bring it up,’ she choked. ‘You’re not decent enough even to utter her name, so just don’t.’
‘Can I ask how your father is?’ he said quietly. ‘I heard about his heart attack.’
‘Just stay away from my family,’ she gasped furiously, crying harder than ever. ‘We’ve got nothing to do with you any more. Do you hear me? Nothing! As far as you’re concerned we’re as dead as my sister.’
He picked up his glass, but didn’t drink. He’d truly believed he was ready to handle this, but now he wasn’t so sure.
For a long time they sat in the difficult, memory-filled silence, barely hearing the traffic on the road nearby, or noticing the sun glinting on the leaves overhead. It was so hot and humid that sweat was beading on their faces, while the flowerbeds wilted and the grass turned to straw. All either of them could think about was Lysette with her gentle, poetic heart, angelic soul and total inability to see bad in anyone. Everyone who’d known her had loved her, so why couldn’t Elliot? Why had he withheld what she’d craved so deeply that in the end, unable to stand the pain of his rejection, she’d driven her car so fast into a motorway bridge that she hadn’t stood a chance of survival? She’d even told him she was going to do it, and his answer had been ‘be my guest’.
