Free Silent Truths by Susan Lewis Page A

when her mobile had rung, so she probably hadn’t received the first call, she’d just been closest to hand.
    Well, that was the way it went, and she certainly hadn’t wasted any time worrying about how she’d got her break, when this story was about as frontpage as they came. So far it had everything except drugs – and she was still working on that. But as far as sex, politics, glamour, crime, passion and intrigue were concerned, it was so far out there she hardly knew which angle to take next. She was literally wallowing in a surfeit of scandal, not to mention personal fame, for her by-line had appeared every day since the murder had happened, and other reporters and newscasters were calling her regularly to interview her about how she’d broken the news to Mrs Ashby and how Mrs Ashby had taken it. And all this for the new kid on the block, who’d only just got her stripes as a full news reporter after five years’ graft out in the sticks, then a year’s frustration at a desk in this glossy Canary Wharf tower, where not only one respectable broadsheet was housed.
    Laurie knew very well that stumbling into such an exclusive could easily put her on the fast track to big time, provided she handled it right. Of course, all the heavyweight politicos were on the case too, so were the department editors, crime correspondents, features writers and any number of guest columnists. And then, of course, there were the tabloids, and since the broadsheets didn’t have the kind of resources their smaller friends could boast, the two reporters from news who’d been working with her had now been reassigned to the daily grind. But battling on alone was OK with Laurie. She could handle it, despite the snootiness and noncooperation of her more experienced colleagues, who, frankly, were just plain pissed off that she alone had shared that intensely traumatic moment with Beth Ashby when she’d learnt ofher husband’s arrest, while those far more seasoned and acclaimed than she had clamoured at the door, pleading for just one word, one shot, one small piece of the private hell.
    OK, it was true she hadn’t exactly managed to get much out of Beth Ashby, which she was seriously hacked off about now, but, boy, had she managed to spin those few minutes into a sensation. Who did he kill? With those four immortal words Beth Ashby had all but condemned her husband and launched Laurie’s career. Of course, getting caught in the act had done considerably more to incriminate Ashby than Beth’s words, but that unpremeditated question had told the world that even his wife believed he was capable of murder. What the world and Laurie Forbes didn’t know yet, though, was what Ashby’s boss thought.
    ‘Hello,’ she snapped into the receiver, the speed of her hand sending a pile of cuttings cascading to the floor.
    ‘Hi. It’s me,’ the voice at the other end responded. ‘Bingo. Tonight. Six o’clock at Benitos. Do you know it?’
    ‘Yep. I’ll be there. Who are we talking about?’
    ‘The bloke you were looking for.’
    Laurie frowned. ‘Remind me.’
    ‘Minicab driver?’
    ‘Laurie! Five minutes. My office.’
    She gave the thumbs-up to Wilbur, the news editor, then ending the call returned to her computer. As she read the screen she absently slid a scrunchy off her already messy ponytail, stuck it in her mouth as she scooped up a few loose strands, then twisted it back on again.
    ‘Flaxie just called,’ she told Gino as he slumped into his chair and let his heavy bag thump to the floor. ‘He’s found the minicab driver.’
    ‘Isn’t he supposed to be covering the decay of some South London hospital?’ Gino said, loosening his tie. ‘Shit, it’s really warming up out there.’
    ‘Like you’re meant to be getting the lowdown on some plagiarist in the efashion world, whatever the hell that is,’ she reminded him. ‘Anything on Sophie Long’s parents yet?’
    He shook his head. ‘My sources tell me that no one knows