Prime Deception (20 page)

‘Yes, very. So I had a little look, made some calls, to see if I could discover the problem.’

‘And?’

‘And there were some ingredients missing.’

‘Oh?’

‘But there is no recipe; there is just the cake, as though someone misplaced the recipe, which would explain why it tastes so bad.’ The contact’s voice was low and steady, ensuring that Charles absorbed every word.

‘Well, thank you for looking into that, I’ll make sure to compensate you for the cake.’

Charles hung up and smiled. He smiled, not because he had uncovered a hole in Lorna’s case, but because he now had an excuse to call Laurie back to London earlier than she had intended. His fingers still tingled from where they had stroked her soft cheek.

Then, perhaps out of guilt, Charles called Elaine. When she didn’t answer he assumed it was because she was already at the gala which he was currently missing. He anticipated that his absence would be met with some negativity and so he quickly ordered a bouquet of flowers online to be delivered the following day. When he was on the final page of the order, he contemplated ordering a second bouquet and having it sent to Laurie, anonymously of course. It was a gesture which Lorna would have adored but Charles felt uncertain how Laurie would perceive it. He really didn’t know Laurie very well at all, but he vowed to get to know her. Everything about her intrigued him.

‘Shall I take you straight home, sir?’ Henry asked from the front seat, aware of the late hour and the failing light.

Charles pondered for a moment before responding.

‘No, it’s late, I’ll just go and check in at a hotel rather than risk disturbing Elaine.’

‘Of course, sir.’

Charles didn’t feel like playing the role of the loving husband that night. Like Laurie, he craved solitude and wanted to have only his thoughts for company.

Laurie wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to return to London. Home was not the haven it had once been but it was a welcome change from the relentless pace of city life. She spent a lot of time just sat in Lorna’s room, on her twin’s bed, just contemplating things. Lorna’s bedroom was untouched since her death, right down to the untidy array of clothes she had sprawled across the stool by her vanity unit, forever waiting to be worn.

There were three CDs piled next to the small stereo system which sat on the floor on the far side of the room. Laurie went over and studied them. They weren’t to her personal taste, but they were the music which Lorna enjoyed. The top CD was by her favourite band, and one of their songs had been played at her funeral. Switching the stereo on, the familiar song immediately flooded the room and for a moment, Laurie tried to pretend that everything was normal.

She sat on the bed and let the melody wash over her, imagining that instead of being gone, Lorna had merely left the room for a moment and would soon return, full of excitement about her latest adventure. The two girls would lie on the bed and gossip and giggle together for hours, the stereo providing a comforting soundtrack to their discourse.

Leaning her head back in the pillows, Laurie tried to breathe life into her memories, thinking that if she imagined it all hard enough, things might just return to normal. It was a foolish notion, but lying there, listening to the music her sister had so loved playing, Laurie felt comforted for the first time in a long while.

‘What is this?’ The tranquility within the room was quickly shattered when Laurie’s father threw the door open, a look of furious disgust on his face.

‘Dad?’ Laurie sat up, bewildered by his hostile attitude.

‘How can you do this to me? To your mother?’ he raged, before stomping across the room and switching the stereo off, plunging the bedroom in to a deathly silence and returning it to the morgue it had become.

‘Sorry, what?’ Laurie shrugged helplessly, unsure what she had done to offend her father.

‘You shouldn’t be in here!’ he cried angrily. ‘Do you have any idea how upset your mother is? To hear that music, are you that fucking insensitive?’

Laurie went to respond but she was so taken aback by the unprovoked attack on her that words failed to materialise. She just sat, open mouthed, bewildered by the situation.

‘You are not to come in here!’ her father roared. ‘This is your sister’s room!’

Laurie wanted to point out how, when Lorna was alive, this room was as much hers as her sisters. It felt absurd to suddenly make it out of bounds. And Lorna was dead, which meant that she held no claim at all over the room. Laurie fought the urge to spit angry words at her father, and refused to let him have her tears. She had grown accustomed to this sort of behaviour over the past couple of months.

‘I’m sorry,’ Laurie said as she walked out, refusing to look at her father. Then she stopped on the landing, and added as an afterthought, ‘I’m still here. You should remember that sometime.’ And then she returned to her own bedroom. She didn’t see her father enter Lorna’s bedroom and place his head into his hands and sob.

Whilst she had been out of the room, Laurie had received a text from Charles. It was brief and ambiguous but it provoked her interest.

My contact found something. Can you get to London any sooner than planned? x

London wasn’t a place Laurie liked, it was actually somewhere she quite passionately disliked. But home was no longer a sanctuary. Her parents were becoming increasingly fragile which meant that she had stayed too long. Her presence was resurrecting their suppressed feelings about Lorna and Laurie felt cruel to linger there. She knew she must leave them to handle their grief. She just hoped that they wouldn’t be left too scarred by it all and could one day be her parents again. She missed feeling loved.

There was only one person in Laurie’s life who was a constant, but she kept pushing him away. She found that she felt guilty to be loved, to be held and consoled, as though she should be suffering and miserable and alone, because if Lorna did take her own life, that was exactly how she had felt.

Arthur Dolan was of Irish decent and had been Laurie Thomas’ boyfriend since they were both thirteen. He had always been patient of her relationship with her twin, knowing that he would never completely have Laurie to himself. Through the years their loved blossomed and, despite time apart when they each went to university, their union remained strong. Arthur adored Laurie and would do anything for her. But since Lorna died, the girl whose name he had emblazoned across his heart had become a stranger. He tried to be understanding, to give her the space and distance she needed to heal, but he missed her and what they had once had.

Laurie decided to call Arthur, even though the young couple had not spoken in three weeks, and when they did speak, it was always brief and tense. Laurie anticipated that despite their many years together, Arthur would soon wish to sever their union, as her enforced solitude would test even the most patient of men.

‘Laurie!’ Arthur Dolan scrambled to answer his mobile phone, surprised to be receiving a call from his absentee girlfriend. He had all but fled the office where he worked when he saw her name appear on the display.

‘Hi, Art,’ Laurie tried to sound cheerful but the incident with her father had left her mood more sour than usual.

‘Hey, how … how are you?’ His voice was soft and full of concern.

‘The same,’ Laurie answered flatly.

‘Oh,’ Arthur echoed, disappointed.

‘I’m home now, but going back to London for a little while longer.’

‘What, why? You hate it there!’ Arthur raged angrily. He wanted Laurie to remain home, to let him complete his duties as her boyfriend and attempt to help her heal.

‘I’m close to finding out what happened to Lorna.’

‘Laurie,’ Arthur sighed into his phone. As much as he wanted to understand his girlfriend’s pilgrimage of justice, he couldn’t help but worry that the answer she eventually uncovered would not be the one she wanted and would cause even further damage to her.

‘I have to do this, Art. I need to know what happened.’

‘Yeah, I know you do.’

‘Once I know, things can go back to normal again. I can finally put everything behind me.’

‘I really hope so.’

‘I know so.’

Lorna had never liked Arthur. She was jealous of his bond with Laurie and would mock his quiet demeanour. When he came to the house, she would be subtly rude, mocking his clothes or his current hairstyle. It came to the point where Laurie felt she had to confront her twin about her negative attitude.

‘Why don’t you like Arthur?’ Laurie had asked one afternoon when they were lying side by side on Lorna’s bed. It was a summer day and the window was open, letting in a warm breeze which played with their hair.

‘It’s not that I don’t like him,’ Lorna began, choosing her words carefully. ‘It’s just …’ her words fell away and when Laurie turned to face her twin she saw that she was crying.

‘It’s just that one day you are going to marry him and leave me and then I’ll be all alone!’

‘Oh, Lorna,’ Laurie wrapped her arms around her sister. ‘I’d never, ever leave you. We will always be together, I promise.’

‘Forever and always?’

‘Forever and always.’

Ironically, despite her protests, it had been Lorna who left Laurie. Laurie suppressed a sob as she sat on her own bed, talking to Arthur.

‘I miss you so much,’ she admitted to him, fearful that she was close to losing the only other person who mattered to her.

‘I miss you too,’ Arthur replied and the warmth and sincerity in his voice comforted Laurie.

‘I can’t say that I understand it all, what you are doing,’ Arthur continued. ‘But I’ve told you that I’m happy to wait until you’ve got it all figured out in your head. I’m just worried you are only hurting yourself even more. I just want this all done and dusted. Then we can be us again.’

‘I’d like that,’ Laurie whispered as tears silently washed down her cheeks.

‘I love you Laurie Thomas, you know that. Just come back to me.’

‘I will.’

Laurie told herself that once she had uncovered the truth that she would finally lay Lorna to rest. But she needed this closure, this reassurance, because without it she was living in limbo. Despite evidence to the contrary, Laurie couldn’t believe that her twin sister would ever abandon her. She went to her dressing table and removed a locket from a small wooden box. It was half a heart, engraved with the words ‘Forever and Always’. Lorna had the second half of the heart and had been buried with it. They were friendship necklaces, which the twins had bought when they were twelve and visiting their grandmother in Wales. They had both cherished their necklaces and worn them religiously every day for years. But as they grew older they became more fashion conscious and the necklaces were resigned to rest in jewellery boxes. But Laurie wanted to wear hers now; wanted to have Lorna with her. She needed her twin to be her angel upon her shoulder as she feared that in returning to London, she was headed for danger.

Charles felt sick with excitement at the prospect of seeing Laurie again. She had texted him earlier that morning to say that she was travelling back down and the Deputy Prime Minister had instructed Faye to usher the girl into his office the moment she arrived. He noticed Faye scowl in disapproval but he no longer troubled himself with what she thought of him.

In his mind, Charles tried to imagine how he could manipulate the conversation so that he and Laurie had to meet beyond the office. He toyed with the idea of pretending that his contact would be meeting them at a restaurant, and then displaying dismay when the man didn’t show. But this was a reckless notion; as much as Charles wanted to extend the boundaries of their meetings, he knew it was ultimately impossible. His face, his identity, was public property. He couldn’t do anything without the entire nation looking on.

Meeting at a hotel was a far too obvious suggestion. It was not Charles’ intention to scare Laurie away from him, he merely wanted to create an arena where he could capitalise on the moment they had briefly shared at the crash site. A moment where she surely had felt the same magnetic connection between them as he had.

An email from Faye flashed up on Charles’ computer screen stating that Laurie had arrived and she was sending her in. His assistant was so appalled by the situation that she could no longer bring herself to converse with him via phone. Charles would smooth things other with Faye another time – concoct some fabrication of a story about why he had to meet with Laurie.

‘Hi.’ Laurie’s golden halo of hair tentatively crept round his office door.

‘Laurie, come in.’ Charles instructed.

With heavy limbs, Laurie entered the office. Gone was her pristine Lorna-themed attire, replaced by clothes in which she felt more comfortable. She still looked smart, wearing a knee length navy skirt with a beige cardigan and dark ballet style pumps on her feet. Her hair was partly pulled back, revealing more of her beauty.

‘You look … different,’ Charles commented.

‘I look like me,’ Laurie replied bluntly. Her face appeared as pained and angry as Faye’s had earlier. Charles assumed it was because she was displeased to be back in London. He hoped that her sour demeanour was in no way attributed to him personally.

‘So how are you?’

Laurie rolled her eyes with impatience at the Deputy Prime Minister’s attempt to make small talk.

‘How I am is irrelevant,’ she replied angrily. ‘All I care about is the information your contact gave you. The sooner I know the truth, the sooner I can return home and start picking up the pieces of the life I’ve left behind there.’

It pained Charles to think of this life of which Laurie spoke, because it did not involve him. She wanted to sever their ties to one another as quickly as possible. Rather than be displeased by this, Charles rationalised that she was merely acting out of fear of what had almost transpired between them at the crash site.

‘Anyone would think that you weren’t pleased to see me!’ Charles mocked, but behind the humour he was being earnest.

The warning words from the journalist suddenly circled Laurie’s mind for the umpteenth time. She could not risk angering the Deputy Prime Minister; it was imperative that she appease him, just for the time being. Even though she had sworn not to, she channelled Lorna once more, mimicking how her twin would bat her eyelashes and toss her hair at men in a flawless attempt to get her own way.