Faith

by Lesley Pearse

  Robbie put her into a taxi, thrust a £20 note in her hand and said he’d come to the club the following night to see her. Laura felt sick with fear. She would stick to her story and explain that she ran into Robbie while she was in the Old Town and he asked her to come back to his hotel to talk to her. But she knew Stuart would ask why she went to his room rather than stay downstairs in the lounge. What possible reason could she give for that?

  She picked Barney up and held his little hand tightly as they walked back to Caledonian Crescent. She was aware he was talking to her, but she was too immersed in her own anxiety to listen.

  ‘You aren’t listening to me, Mummy!’ he said indignantly, pulling on her hand. ‘I said Gregor had a hamster called Will, and I asked if I could have one too.’

  ‘Maybe, darling.’ she said. ‘We’ll see tomorrow.’

  Six o’clock came, then seven, and still Stuart hadn’t come home. She bathed Barney and put him to bed.

  ‘Will Stuie read me a story when he comes home?’ Barney asked, his big, dark eyes looking anxious because he’d picked up that she was worried.

  ‘He won’t be in till late, so I’ll read to you,’ she said, and sitting down beside him she read two of his favourite Mr Men books.

  Stuart didn’t come home at all. Laura realized by one in the morning that he must have gone to his parents.

  Later, as Laura returned from taking Barney to school, she found Stuart’s father waiting in his car outside the house. She ran to him, assuming he had a message for her.

  ‘I’ve come to collect my lad’s things,’ he said as he got out of the car. His face was craggy and cold. ‘He’s nae coming back.’

  She tried to explain to Mr Macgregor once they were inside that Stuart had misunderstood what was going on the previous day, but he just shook his head. ‘My lad is nae numbskull,’ he said. ‘Just put his things together and I’ll be away.’

  Laura felt as if her heart had cracked wide open as Mr Macgregor picked up the heavy holdall with Stuart’s clothes, then moved across the living room to pick up his guitar. Somehow the guitar was everything of Stuart, and once that was gone he was really gone too.

  The sound of the key turning in the cell door told Laura it was time to get up, and she wiped the tears from her face with the edge of the duvet cover. She had only wanted to remember the happy times with Stuart, not bring back all that guilt and sadness.

  She saw in the New Year of 1975 huddled up in her bed crying. She heard a few days later from a neighbour that Stuart had gone to London and her heart shattered.

  10

  Laura waved as Stuart and David Stoyle came into the prison visiting room. She noticed that all the other women suddenly looked more animated and that they glanced at her in envy, but then one handsome male visitor at Cornton Vale was remarkable, two was astounding.

  When Stuart had asked in his last letter if his lawyer friend could come with him to visit, she had imagined him to be like other lawyers she’d met, small, pale-faced and with thick glasses. But David looked like a sportsman, not a lawyer – tall, muscular, with glowing tanned skin. In a faded denim shirt and chinos, he was certain to spawn a few fantasies tonight with some of the women in the visiting room.

  Stuart greeted her with a hug. ‘Let me introduce you to David. As I said in my letter, I persuaded him to help us.’

  Laura shook David’s hand. ‘It’s good to meet you, David, I just hope Stuart didn’t twist your arm too hard.’

  ‘He has a silver tongue when he wants something,’ David replied, and his smile was attractively shy. ‘He did tell you I’m not a criminal lawyer, didn’t he? I can’t promise I’ll be any real use to you.’

  Laura privately thought he’d already been of great use to her – it would be the talk of the block tonight that she’d had two hunks visiting. David might be rather upper-crust, but he had the whiff of the great outdoors about him, as Stuart did. A real man, she thought; he looked tough, adaptable and strong-willed.

  ‘You have already proved you’re not just a pretty face, David,’ Stuart grinned. ‘You knew all the right buttons to push with Patrick Goldsmith.’

  ‘You’ve already been to see my solicitor?’ Laura asked in surprise as they sat down opposite her at the table.

  ‘That was our first stop when I got here,’ David said. ‘But he’s not a man with fire in his belly, is he?’

  Laura sniggered. Patrick Goldsmith was the duty solicitor who came to the police station when she was first arrested. She had been told many times since that she should have got a solicitor of her own choice. But as she didn’t know any other criminal lawyers, and he seemed genuinely to believe in her innocence, she saw no reason to ask for someone else.

  But his anaemic appearance and manner should have been enough to set alarm bells jangling. He had a limp handshake, pale skin, thin lips and thick glasses. There was no colour in him, and certainly no fire.

  ‘You’ve got him taped,’ she said. ‘And what was his reaction to you two poking your noses into his case?’

  ‘Surprised you had two such formidable friends,’ Stuart said with a touch of pomposity. ‘He’s apathetic of course, doesn’t believe we can find any new evidence to qualify for an appeal, but we’re banking that his guilt at not putting together a strong defence for you will make him go the extra mile this time.’

  ‘Have you dug up anything positive yet?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Lena is prepared to make a statement that she knew Jackie had several men friends, which if nothing else would prove you weren’t making that up,’ Stuart said.

  ‘How was she? Laura asked eagerly.

  ‘Bright as a button, and I can guess what you really want to know: no, she doesn’t believe you are guilty.’

  ‘Really?’ Laura’s face blushed pink with pleasure. ‘Of all the people involved, she’s the one whose opinion matters most to me.’

  ‘I thought as much,’ Stuart nodded. ‘Oh, and I told Goldsmith about that lane by the farm. The real murderer could have got in and out that way unseen by the neighbour.’

  Laura thanked him for going to see Meggie and told him that she’d had a letter from her. She had hundreds of questions she wanted to ask about her sisters and Lena, but time was short and she knew Stuart had questions too.

  ‘Have you remembered any names of men friends Jackie might have mentioned?’

  ‘She wasn’t one for using real names,’ Laura said glumly. ‘You probably remember she always gave nicknames to people who were transient in her life.’

  Stuart smiled. ‘She used to call me “Chisel”. There was a plasterer she used she nicknamed “Bucket Head”. I never knew what his real name was.’

  ‘There was someone she called “Growler”,’ Laura remembered. ‘She was very cagey about him, she only made the odd remark that he’d been round the night before or something. That made me think he was married. I would think she called him that because he had a deep voice. I know he drank whisky too – she mentioned having to go out to get some more for him once. But there must be millions of Scotsmen with a deep voice and a love of whisky, so that’s no help.’

  ‘He could have been a policeman,’ Stuart said. ‘You know, PC Growler! The very nature of a cop’s job makes it a lot easier for them to have affairs than other men. And keep it hushed up.’

  ‘How could you track him down?’ Laura asked.

  ‘I could try going back to see Gloria, the barmaid in Cellardyke,’ Stuart said. ‘I think she knew more about Jackie than she was prepared to tell me. A second visit and a few drinks might make her open up.’

  ‘I really liked Gloria,’ Laura said, smiling as she remembered the many chats they’d had in the past. ‘And she did know Jackie very well – they used to drop in on each other all the time.’

  ‘She liked you too,’ Stuart said. ‘And just for the record, she’s another firmly on your side.’

  Laura beamed. Discovering that two people she cared about were on her side was like striking gold. />
  ‘Is there anyone that might want to stitch you up, Laura?’ David asked.

  ‘A cast of millions,’ she said ruefully. ‘But it isn’t feasible that any of them could have done it. How could they be sure I’d turn up at the right moment?’

  ‘On the face of it I agree that it’s not likely,’ Stuart said. ‘But the more I’ve puzzled over it, the more I’m sure whoever did do it knew both of you well enough to gauge your reactions accurately. I’m certain there was an incident at Brodie Farm earlier that morning, and I think it’s very probable that the person involved overheard Jackie call you. Maybe they knew that whatever game they had would be up if the pair of you put your heads together. But they must have had a real grievance against you too, or why would they wait to kill Jackie until you were due to arrive?’

  ‘To muddy the waters?’ Laura suggested.

  ‘Possibly, but most murders are done on the spur of the moment out of panic or extreme anger. Most of us would calm down and change our minds if we had to wait. But if you had a grudge against the person who was due to arrive, you could nurse your wrath, knowing it would be killing two birds with one stone. So let’s think who could be mad enough with Jackie to kill her, and hate you enough to want to see you punished for it.’

  ‘Jackie’s husband, Roger, could fit those criteria,’ David pointed out. ‘I’m not convinced from what you’ve told me about him that his separation from Jackie was as amicable as he claimed. And he had a lot to gain if Jackie died. You also said he flew off the handle about Laura.’

  ‘But Goldsmith said he was questioned by the police, and that he was proved to be in London at the time,’ Stuart said. ‘Besides, the forensic report stated that the position of the stab wound indicated it was either made by a woman or a man less than five feet nine. Roger is well over six feet tall.’

  ‘That might be correct if the attacker just struck out wildly, but not if they aimed for her heart with the intention of killing. And people do fake alibis,’ David said sagely. ‘You know him pretty well, Stuart – does he have the kind of friends who would lie for him?’

  ‘I don’t know about friends,’ Stuart replied. ‘His alibi was that he was seen on his building site on both the day of the murder and the following one. A great many men come and go on a building site in the course of a day; anyone would be hard pressed to remember exactly who was there and who wasn’t. But anyone thinking his job was on the line might say he saw him there.’

  ‘Then maybe we should find the man who gave him the alibi and question him?’ David suggested.

  ‘That could prove difficult. Builders come and go, as I said, and even if we could track him down, I doubt he’d tell us anything different,’ Stuart sighed.

  ‘Roger would cheerfully see me hang just for a parking fine.’ Laura frowned. ‘He’s always disliked me. But I can’t really believe he’d kill Jackie. Things were good between them. Jackie would have told me if there was anything wrong.’

  ‘Would she?’ Stuart questioned. ‘I’m not so sure about that, Laura, not if it had anything to do with you, like helping you get your shop.’

  ‘Maybe, but she would have told Belle. There’s no love lost between her and Roger, so if she knew he’d been hassling Jackie she’d have jumped right in and told the police the minute she got the news Jackie was dead.’

  Stuart looked disappointed.

  ‘Okay, let’s put Roger aside for now,’ David suggested. ‘Laura, you implied that there were many people who have a grudge against you. So suppose we narrow that field and you think how many of them also knew Jackie?’

  ‘There’s Stuart,’ Laura said with a grin. ‘But we can safely rule him out. Charles, Belle’s husband, has never liked me either because I tried to talk her out of marrying him. He referred to me as the cuckoo in the nest. He did have some up-and-downers with Jackie too, the main one being that she influenced Belle in moving to Scotland.’

  Stuart told them how he’d seen Charles’s car at Brodie Farm. ‘Could he have been having an affair with Jackie? Or could Jackie have had something on him that she threatened to tell Belle about?’

  ‘The last is a possibility,’ Laura said thoughtfully. ‘There was a certain tension between them. But we can rule out Jackie having an affair with him. She wouldn’t have touched him with a bargepole, she had always despised him.’

  ‘Why did he agree to move near her then?’ David asked.

  ‘I never really got to the bottom of that.’ Laura frowned. ‘I was pretty preoccupied at the time, but I got the idea Charles had a few business problems and had to liquidate his assets back in London. Property up here was much cheaper, and I assumed at the time he was going to do some developing. But they hadn’t been in Crail very long when Barney was killed. After that I was so out of it for a long time that I didn’t take any interest in what he or Belle was doing.’

  ‘He couldn’t have killed Jackie anyway because he was playing golf at St Andrews at the time of her death,’ David pointed out. ‘The police had to phone the bar there to get him to come home when they broke the news to Belle.’

  ‘That alibi is as fuzzy as Roger’s,’ Stuart retorted. ‘The golf course is huge, he could have come and gone several times during the day without anyone noticing. Just because he was in the bar when the police called doesn’t mean he was there all day.’

  ‘Then we’ll investigate him,’ David said. ‘Anyone else, Laura?’

  ‘There is Robbie Fielding,’ she said tentatively, looking at Stuart to see if he remembered that name.

  Stuart gave her a long, cool look. ‘Casino Man?’ he said.

  Laura nodded, wishing she didn’t have to remind him of her betrayal.

  ‘He was once my boss, David,’ she said, avoiding looking at Stuart. ‘First in the casino, and later I did some modelling for him. I pulled a fast one on him and started my own company. At the time he put the word out that he was going to mark me for life.’

  David was looking at her with keen interest. ‘Did he know Jackie?’

  ‘Yes, very well. He was instrumental in her getting Brodie Farm.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly, but she was after it and couldn’t get it. At the time I was still on friendly terms with Robbie, and I introduced them to each other. I think he must have leaned on someone, because the next thing the farm was hers at a very low price. I was a bit worried about that because I knew he was a slimy bastard and I warned Jackie that he never did anything for nothing. It is quite possible that he came back to her, calling in his debt.’

  The two men exchanged glances, and Laura blushed. Even after everything she’d been through over the years, the period between Stuart leaving her and Barney’s death was the part of her life she would most like to erase. Stuart knew about the glamour modelling – Jackie had told her that he’d seen her in a magazine and shown it to her. But he probably hadn’t known that it was Robbie Fielding who got her into it. Or what it led to.

  ‘Did the police investigate him?’ David asked.

  Laura shook her head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I didn’t ever tell them about him because it didn’t occur to me then that he could be a suspect. Things were quite bad enough for me without my having to admit the kind of work I’d done for him.’

  ‘Is he still in Edinburgh?’ David asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Laura said. ‘The last time I saw him he was driving through Morningside, but that was over three years ago. It panicked me a bit, I got the idea he could be keeping tabs on me. I asked around about him and I was told he owned a pub somewhere around the Grassmarket. But as I say, that was three years ago, he might not be there now.’

  Stuart had said nothing during her interchange with David, but suddenly he leaned towards Laura across the table. ‘You’d better tell us about you and him.’

  Laura licked her lips nervously. ‘Must I?’

  Stuart nodded. ‘We can’t investigate him without knowing what went on b
etween you.’

  ‘There isn’t time before the bell goes, and anyway –’ She stopped, reluctant to admit that she was too ashamed to talk about it to them.

  ‘Could you write it down?’ David asked, perhaps understanding her reluctance. ‘You probably need time on your own to get it all straight anyway.’

  Laura shot him a grateful glance. ‘Yes, that might be better,’ she said. ‘I blanked out so much of the past when Barney was killed.’

  Stuart had a distant look in his eyes. She wondered whether that was because he was thinking back to the events in the Caledonian Hotel.

  But she decided she was wrong when he suddenly suggested David should book into Belle’s guest house for a couple of nights. ‘I think you could gain her confidence, get her to talk about Charles and have a snoop round.’

  ‘Will I be safe with her?’ David grinned. ‘You said she was something of a maneater!’

  ‘Belle!’ Laura exclaimed. ‘Of course she isn’t!’ Stuart chuckled. ‘Sometimes those closest to people can’t see them clearly,’ he said. ‘But you’ll be all right, David, just bang on about Julia and the kids, that should put her off.’

  David told Laura that his wife and children were flying up to Scotland for a holiday in Oban in a fortnight’s time when school broke up for the summer, but until then he was at Stuart’s disposal.

  ‘I’ve rented a flat,’ Stuart said. ‘That’s near the Grassmarket too, so we might run into Fielding.’

  ‘We’ve got a lot of ground to cover to find something to base your appeal on, Laura,’ David said quickly, glancing at Stuart as if afraid he was about to take the law into his own hands. ‘But I’m hopeful. Just from what I know already it seems clear to me that the police didn’t investigate very thoroughly, and your solicitor didn’t build up much of a defence.’

  Stuart took out a card and pen and wrote down his address for her. ‘Write to me here about Casino Man,’ he said. ‘We are going to try and get permission for another visit in two weeks’ time. It shouldn’t be a problem, they make special arrangements for people who have to come a long way to get here. In the meantime keep your chin up, I’ll ring Meggie tonight and tell her I’ve seen you. Is there any message that you’d like me to pass on?’