Free Silent Truths by Susan Lewis Page B

where they are. Not even close family.’
    ‘Someone must,’ she corrected.
    ‘Yeah, well, you find that someone, because I sure as hell can’t.’
    Laurie paused for a moment and rested her chin on her hand. ‘It’s weird, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘The same day as their daughter gets murdered they just up and disappear.’
    ‘Personally, I’d call it survival,’ he responded, catching a high-five with one of the sports subs as he passed.
    ‘I’ll tell you what else is weird,’ she continued, her large blue eyes narrowing in thought. ‘I mean, I actually lie awake at night thinking about this. For a man who was so smart, who always knew what he was doing every step of the way …’ She shook her head. ‘He had his whole life mapped out. He’d just achieved a lifetime goal, and until two weeks ago he had to be one of the most popular men in politics, not to mention journalism. And then he goes and does something like this.’
    Gino looked up, his dark, irregular features drawn in a frown. ‘He’s not the first man to screwup when sitting atop the world,’ he remarked. ‘So what’s your point?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ she answered, still trying to make the links. ‘Except, after all this delving into his life I feel I know him pretty well by now, and this … Well, it just doesn’t add up.’
    ‘What about the evidence? That more than adds up.’
    ‘I know. And as I’ve personally interviewed Mrs Come-clean-with-everything-but-the-size-of-his-willy, and the gay couple across the landing who heard raised voices around the crucial time, I’m not about to argue over whether or not he did it. There’s just something about it that’s bugging me, that’s all.’
    Gino’s attention was shifting to his computer screen. ‘Has his wife been to see him yet?’ he asked, keying in his password.
    Laurie jumped on it. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘Which is something else that’s weird. The statement the lawyers put out makes it clear she’s going to stand by him, so why hasn’t she been to see him?’
    ‘She might already have gone in on the floor of one of their cars,’ Gino suggested.
    Laurie shook her head. ‘Milly over in crime’s got an inside source at Wandsworth, so if she had we’d know by now. Not that Milly would tell me, of course. But she’d hardly omit it from her own reports.’
    ‘So where is the wife?’
    ‘She was in London yesterday, but it was in one of the tabloids this morning that she went back to the Cotswolds last night.’
    ‘Any idea what she was here for?’
    ‘Funny that, but she didn’t call to tell me,’ Laurie responded.
    Gino’s bushy eyebrows arched. ‘And I don’t suppose the Prime Minister’s returned your calls yet either,’ he commented, over the squeal and crunch of Internet connection.
    ‘Oh, I’m sure there’s a message on my machine somewhere,’ she replied, mimicking the absurd response she’d got from Diana Cambourne, the political editor, when she’d plucked up the nerve to ask her if she’d had any contact with Downing Street.
    ‘And there’s something else you can put on your weird list,’ Gino told her. ‘A deafening silence from Number Ten that seems to be extending even to the political insiders.’
    ‘That’s top of my list,’ she informed him, ‘along with the whereabouts of Sophie Long’s family.’
    Gino took a call, then, turning back to his computer screen, said, ‘Of course you know who could be hiding the Longs, getting the inside scoop all to himself.’
    When Laurie didn’t respond he looked up. Her pretty face had darkened with anger.
    ‘I didn’t mention his name,’ Gino cried defensively, though his eyes were simmering with humour.
    ‘It might be funny to you,’ she retorted, ‘but that man is nothing less than Satan to me, and you know it.’
    She was right, he did know it, and since he was one of the few who was aware of the history behind her loathing of Elliot Russell he felt bad now formocking it.