Silent Truths (29 page)

‘Mr Ashby,’ she said, stopping at the other side of his table.

He looked at her with vague surprise.

‘I’m Laurie Forbes,’ she told him.

At first he appeared confused, then his eyes
closed tightly in what seemed to be frustration. ‘I presumed you were a man,’ he told her, his voice thickening with anger. ‘Why the hell didn’t they tell me you were a woman? All this time waiting …’ He pressed his fists to his temples and clenched his teeth in rage.

Sitting down quickly, she said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realize they hadn’t told you. But please don’t let it make a difference. I’m very interested in your story. I’ve already done a lot of work on it.’

‘You don’t understand,’ he growled. ‘I’m already trying to protect the women in my life, I can’t take responsibility for you too.’

‘I promise you, I can do that for myself,’ she retorted.

His expression was almost derisive. ‘Look at you,’ he declared. ‘You’re hardly out of pigtails …’ His eyes closed again and for one startling moment she thought he was going to cry. ‘I should have known, when I hadn’t heard of you,’ he seethed. ‘The name Laurie Forbes. What a fool. I’m just not thinking straight. I can’t in here … Jesus Christ, is someone having a joke on me somewhere?’

‘Mr Ashby,’ she said gently, ‘I’m really sorry I’ve disappointed you. I swear I had no idea you thought I was a man, but it doesn’t change the fact that I truly do want to help you. Giles Parker said you were ready to talk.’

He was shaking his head. ‘No. Not to you.’

‘Look, I don’t believe you killed Sophie Long,’ she told him earnestly. She wasn’t entirely sure she meant that, but it just might go some way towards breaking down his resistance. She took a breath to continue, but was forced to wait for an uproar
nearby to subside. Then, leaning towards him, she said quietly and urgently, ‘Please let me help you. I’ll do everything I can to make you forget I’m a woman.’

He looked at her sadly. ‘At any other time that might be funny,’ he responded, ‘but here and now … Well, let me tell you this, naivety can be a good thing when you’re starting out in the world, but it’s not going to work for this. Does Wilbur know you’re here? Of course he does. It’s a coup –’

‘No, actually, he doesn’t,’ she interrupted. ‘I’ve been instructed to leave the story alone. Threatened, almost,’ she added.

His eyes filled with dismay. ‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me?’ he said, more to himself than to her.

‘Why doesn’t it?’ she prompted.

His eyes returned to hers and he shook his head. ‘No, do as they tell you,’ he said bleakly. ‘Laurence Goldman’s not going to rock any boats, and certainly not this one. So go home, Laurie Forbes, and stop putting yourself and your boss’s knighthood in jeopardy.’

‘Would you walk away from this if you were me?’ she challenged. ‘No, of course not. You didn’t get to the top by always toeing the line and bowing to every bit of pressure that came your way.’

‘Laurie, you’re a girl,’ he said in a pained tone. ‘You’re not even a woman.’ He looked at the annoyance in her lovely young face, then, as though to temper his rejection, he said, ‘You write well, though. I’ve been reading some of your articles since knowing you were coming.’

‘You don’t have to patronize me,’ she responded.

He shook his head, and said, ‘It’s the truth. Your article this morning, about my wife … I didn’t know about her success until I read your piece. She didn’t – no one told me.’

Laurie looked at his hands on the table and was almost tempted to cover them with her own, for his misery couldn’t have been more pronounced. It seemed he was genuinely hurt that he’d found out about the book in a newspaper, which in turn made her curious to know why his wife hadn’t told him. ‘I submitted the story a few days ago,’ she said, ‘right after I found out. Then I didn’t hear anything until last night when Wilbur called to tell me it would be in today. I suppose, as exclusives go, it was pretty innocuous so they decided to let it run. Have you read the book?’

He nodded. ‘It’s good. Better than good. She’s got talent.’

‘Of course, everyone’s going to be wondering now if any of the characters are based on you,’ she said. ‘Are they?’

He only looked at her.

‘By the time it comes out,’ she continued, ‘everyone’s going to be looking for things that might allude to what’s happened.’

‘It was written before,’ he reminded her.

‘I know, but that won’t stop them looking.’

He was shaking his head. ‘Beth doesn’t know anything,’ he told her.

She watched his eyes, wondering if that were true, but they told her nothing.

After a while he sat back and looked at her frankly. ‘Beth and I are divorcing,’ he said. ‘There’s an exclusive for you.’

Though surprised, she kept her expression neutral and fixed her gaze on his. ‘Why?’ she asked.

He gave a dry, almost bitter laugh. ‘Why does anyone divorce? The marriage is over.’

‘Was it over before this?’

‘Of course. We just hadn’t got round to admitting it.’

‘So why now?’

‘I’ve held her back for too long, and as your colleague Elliot Russell informed the world, I have a child by another woman.’

She nodded. Somewhere in the back of her mind she was having difficulty with the exclusive on a divorce. It seemed a strange thing to offer, though right at that moment she couldn’t work out why. ‘Do you intend to marry Heather Dance?’ she asked bluntly.

He said nothing, but as she looked into his ravaged face she got the impression that the answer was probably yes, if it ever became possible. ‘You know, you owe it to those who love you,’ she said, ‘as well as to yourself, to do everything you can to get out of here.’

‘Ah,’ he responded, ‘there speaks Giles Parker who sends me a girl-child to do the job of at least three grown men. Now why would he do that? I guess because he doesn’t know what’s involved.’

‘So what is?’

He didn’t answer.

‘I’m not working alone,’ she assured him. ‘I have colleagues who are helping me.’

‘Which colleagues? Do I know them?’ There was a glimmer of hope in his voice. ‘You’ve got some good people on your paper.’

Of course he was referring to the boomers whom he’d obviously know, and who would be as likely to work with her as they would to give up the front page for a fiver. Unfortunately, Gino and Flaxie’s names would mean nothing to him, and besides, she hardly even dare mention them when they didn’t know anything about Goldman’s warning, or Wilbur’s deepening concern.

For him her hesitation was answer enough. ‘Ah yes, I forgot, they’re being made to toe the official line,’ he commented. ‘Amazing the power of a mortgage and an offspring’s education. So now tell me this: where are you intending to get the story printed, considering your own employer’s reluctance?’

‘There’s more than one paper,’ she reminded him. ‘And, I imagine, once the whole truth is out, plenty will be more than eager to run it.’

‘Now that’s a fact,’ he responded drily. ‘So what are your theories on the truth, Laurie Forbes?’

‘I have no theories, exactly, but I do know that Sophie Long was a professional escort who very probably entertained several of your colleagues too. I also hear that there are some fibres from the scene that have yet to be matched.’

He was nodding. ‘Good,’ he told her. ‘But forget the professional escort link. It’s got nothing to do with what’s really going on. Doesn’t even come close.’

‘So why is the story being held back? It’s still interesting, and immoral enough to excite the tabloids.’

‘It’ll run when they’re ready.’

‘When who’s ready?’

‘Amongst others, the
News of the World
. They’ve had the story prepared for a while.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Elliot Russell told Heather, when he interviewed her. Do you know Elliot Russell?’

Deliberately ignoring the question she said, ‘You still haven’t told me why they’re holding the story back.’

His brown eyes regarded her for some time as he debated which way to go. All his male instincts were warning him against getting her involved any further, but time was not on his side.

‘If I trust you with any of this,’ he said in the end, ‘I want your word you’ll take it to Elliot Russell.’ She froze, but he seemed not to notice as he continued, ‘If you don’t know him, just call and tell him you’ve spoken to me in person and he’ll see you straight away. Or get Giles Parker to make the call for you. Russell’s got the experience, the contacts, the staff, all the back-up this is going to need. In fact, he’s probably about the only reporter I know who’s equipped to deal with this, now that the staffers’ hands are being tied, and I’m not even sure how far he can get. Until today I was concerned about his high profile, but frankly, when compared to you and the kind of problems you present … well, I don’t want to be rude, so let’s just say, on your own you’re going to be finished before you’ve begun. With Russell, you might just stand a chance. So, is it a deal? Do I have your word you’ll take this to Russell?’

Laurie eyes were widening as she fought to keep out the resistance. He had no idea what he was asking, and now was hardly the time to tell him,
when he’d just agreed to give her the biggest break she’d probably ever get in her career.

He was still watching her, quizzically, as though sensing he’d somehow hit a nerve.

‘What about,’ she said, hedging, ‘letting me evaluate the danger for myself?’

His answer was unequivocal. ‘Sophie Long,’ he responded.

Her heart skipped a beat, for this was the third time Sophie’s name had been used like a warning. ‘Why was she killed?’ she demanded, as eager to get him off the subject of Elliot, as she was to learn.

‘Because of what I know. They either thought I told her, or they did it to put me right where I am now.’

She was shaking her head. ‘It doesn’t add up,’ she responded. ‘If you and/or Sophie Long have information they don’t want you to have, then why not kill you both and be done with it?’

‘A question I ask myself constantly,’ he replied.

‘Did she have the information?’

‘Not that I was aware of. No. It’s not possible.’

‘Why?’

‘It just isn’t.’

‘If you’re so sure of that, how come someone else wasn’t?’

‘Another question I frequently ask myself,’ he admitted. ‘Now, before we go any further, do I have your word you’ll take what I tell you to Elliot Russell?’

Her heart sank, but it was clear he wasn’t going to give up on that, so deciding she’d work out later how to get out of it, she said, ‘OK. You have my word.’

His eyes narrowed suspiciously.

‘You have my word,’ she repeated forcefully.

Still he looked at her, though whether he was concerned about trusting her, or having second thoughts about everything, she couldn’t tell.

In the end he said, ‘I want you to understand that there’s enough money involved in this to make it worth everyone’s while to get rid of you
and
Russell, if they have to, and that’s a fact. You’ve probably been in this business long enough to have some idea just how many cover-ups there are in a year, particularly in areas of extreme sensitivity, such as government policies and economic programmes. In other words, if certain people don’t want certain information to get out, believe you me, it generally doesn’t. And there’s no one in this who’s going to want this information out there. No one.’

She started to speak, but stopped when he raised a hand.

‘I don’t know how knowledgeable you are about high finance,’ he said, ‘or the kind of people who are key players in the international banking communities, currency markets, commodity exchanges and so on, but believe me, there are those out there who go hunting billions, and I mean billions, as though it were some sort of sport. It doesn’t matter that they’re already worth more than half a dozen small countries put together, this is a big man’s game where all the big men stand to win and to hell with the little people who get hurt in the chase. I had no idea it was happening until I was invited to join.’ His expression became bitter. ‘And like a bloody fool I turned them down. Don’t ask me
why. I’m no more averse to making money than the next man, so maybe I’m just an old-fashioned bloke with morals who cares about his country and the people in it. And did I want to get out there as a government spokesman, spewing all that rubbish about why we’re not joining the euro, why interest rates are on the climb, why the economy’s taking a downturn, whatever I might have to say, knowing that I’m benefiting from whatever disaster’s afoot?’ He was shaking his head. ‘I couldn’t do it.’

Laurie’s mind was buzzing, but only when she was convinced he’d stopped for the moment did she start asking the dozens of questions she had forming. The first had to be the most important, and the answer could be earth-shattering. ‘Are you saying that the government knows about this, this –’

‘Syndicate,’ he supplied. ‘It’s an international syndicate. And no, I’m not saying that, because I don’t know who’s involved. Obviously there are only a select few, but if you’re thinking about the Prime Minister, and I know you are – well, let’s just say if he knows I still don’t believe he’s a part of it.’

‘So give me some names,’ she challenged.

He inhaled deeply, then shook his head. ‘You need to speak to those whose strings are being pulled by the syndicate, such as certain brokerage firms, merchant banks, economic policy makers … There are a couple of people here, in London, that you could try talking to.’

Her pen was poised.

‘Can you remember them?’ he said. ‘It might be better than writing them down.’

Her pen disappeared.

‘Sandra Chettle,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘She’s with the Bank of England. And Philip Buck. He’s with Morton Shields. Have you got that?’

She nodded.

‘I don’t know how far you’re going to get with them, but once you’ve told Elliot Russell all this he’ll probably have some ideas of his own on where else to try. The fact that you’ve been here, talking to me, means that you should expect a visitor in the next day or so.’

‘By “visitor” you mean someone wanting details of what we’ve discussed?’