Faith

by Lesley Pearse

  They ordered a couple of pints from a pretty blonde barmaid and stayed at the bar to drink them.

  ‘After twenty years and only seeing him once, are you going to recognize him?’ David asked in a low voice, glancing at two lone older men right at the end of the bar.

  ‘I think so,’ Stuart said, remembering that the man’s face had haunted him for months after he left Edinburgh. ‘Besides, if he’s the kind of man I think he is, when he comes in he’ll be swaggering around letting everyone know he owns the place.’

  ‘How are we going to play it?’ David asked.

  Stuart grinned. ‘Buggered if I know,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping it will just come to me when I see him.’

  Two days earlier Stuart had received a letter from Laura in which she had told him about her relationship with Fielding. While it was pleasing to know it was never a love affair, the frank account of the kind of work the man got her into was disturbing. Yet it did explain the gossip that reached Stuart in London. He’d always assumed it was like Chinese whispers, that because she’d been seen in a couple of pin-up magazines everyone who passed on the story embellished it a little more until she became a drugged-up porn queen. But now he knew the gossip was based on truth, he understood why Jackie had often seemed extremely anxious about her friend.

  While over in Glasgow he had managed to find Katy, the woman Laura had worked with for Fielding. She looked about sixty, worn down, confused and none too clean, clearly the result of a lifetime of heavy drinking and drugs. The smell that wafted out of her front door when she opened it had almost sent him scurrying away, but he had to bite the bullet and go in to talk to her.

  He had never seen anything like her flat. It was so filthy and cluttered he could hardly bear to sit down, and things were made even more poignant when she showed him some photographs of her and Laura taken together in a club in Glasgow. Katy had been beautiful then, with her sharp cheekbones, smooth pale chocolate skin and shapely body. It seemed impossible that she had turned into this lumpy, bleary-eyed old woman in less than fifteen years.

  She was so confused that she claimed to have seen Laura a few days earlier. So when she said Robbie Fielding had The Bear in Edinburgh, Stuart thought she’d imagined that too. It was only later that day back in the city, when he ran into a couple of old friends from way back when he was doing his apprenticeship, that he discovered Katy was right. His friends told him there had been some opposition to Fielding being granted a licence because he was rumoured to have been heavily involved in pornography and drugs. They said it was generally thought he got it in the end by greasing palms, but his days as a hard man were over now for he was in his sixties.

  Stuart was no puritan – he’d looked at plenty of porn magazines in his time, and he knew all the girls in them were someone’s sister or girlfriend. But Laura’s letter, and seeing what had become of Katy, had shaken him. It was difficult for him to accept Laura had debased herself in that way. He understood that she didn’t knowingly step on to that path, that it was more of a gradual slide on to it, and once there, earning so much money, she couldn’t turn back.

  Yet even more frightening was the knowledge that if Barney hadn’t been killed at the age of eleven, and brought Laura’s ‘career’ to a sudden halt, she might be as raddled, confused and prematurely old as Katy was now.

  But setting aside the rights and wrongs of how Laura lived at that time, he found it very odd that none of it had come up during her trial. It was said that she used drugs, and the glamour modelling had been discovered – one tabloid had even printed a photograph of her scantily dressed. Yet there had been no mention of pornography. Stuart would have expected that at least one of the sleazy characters she’d mixed with during that time would have rushed off to the papers in the hopes of making a few quid.

  The most likely reason why none of it leaked out had to be that Fielding made certain it didn’t. But why? According to Laura there was no love lost between them; she said he’d once threatened to mark her for life. So it stood to reason he was afraid for himself. That could be simply because his business interests wouldn’t stand up to police scrutiny, but it could also be that he didn’t want his dealings with Jackie made known.

  Laura, however, didn’t appear to suspect Fielding of any involvement in Jackie’s murder. It seemed to Stuart that she’d only written at length about her relationship with the man because he was instrumental in getting her into the lifestyle that ultimately led to Barney’s death. Even so, she put no blame on to Fielding for it, only on herself.

  ‘I had to snort coke to get through what I did, and then I had to have more to be able to live with myself,’ she wrote with touching honesty. ‘I forgot about Barney’s needs, I was dumping him on people, even leaving him alone for long periods. Jackie knew this and that’s why she had him with her so often. If only he hadn’t been with her that day.’

  Stuart didn’t want to tell David about any of this part of Laura’s life for fear that he would judge her too harshly. David had never been in a position where his high moral values were tested, and therefore he hadn’t much understanding of those who did transgress. But for David to understand why Stuart suspected Fielding he had to know the background between the man and Laura, so Stuart had been compelled to tell him some of it. David had made no comment, just raised an eyebrow and sighed in a way that suggested he wondered what more would come out of the woodwork that night.

  They had just started on their second pints when Robbie Fielding came in.

  Stuart had retained the memory of a big, muscular man with well-proportioned features and black, slicked-back hair, so it was something of a surprise to him that he recognized the wizened, white-haired, elderly man who had just walked in as Laura’s seducer.

  Yet there was enough in Fielding’s expensive made-to-measure suit, the way his eyes scanned the entire bar, and a certain arrogance, to know it was him, even before he greeted the barmaid and Stuart heard his Geordie accent.

  It was laughable really that he’d nursed hatred for this man for so many years, building him up in his mind to be rakishly good-looking and capable of going ten rounds with Mohammed Ali. In fact he was no taller than five eight, weighing perhaps thirteen stone. A beer paunch lolled over his belt, more loose flesh hung over his collar, and he wore thick glasses.

  Stuart nudged David and smirked.

  David glanced across at Fielding, then quickly looked away. ‘You must be joking,’ he said quietly. ‘He looks as if he’s off to a pensioners’ party.’

  Fielding walked the entire length of the bar which ran right down the left-hand side of the place, and made for a specific chair with its back to the far wall. It was high-backed, of plain wood, with arms and a cushion on the seat. The barmaid poured him a glass of Scotch and took it over to him. They had a few words together, then she went back behind the bar.

  It was plain this was Fielding’s customary routine. He now had an uninterrupted view of the whole bar, and he could watch the staff for any irregularities.

  ‘I’m going to the bog and then I’ll stop to talk to him as I come back,’ Stuart said. ‘If I manage to engage him in conversation, you come down after a couple of minutes. I’ll do the just-back-from-South-America bit to see my hometown, and buy him a drink.’

  ‘Be careful,’ David frowned.

  Stuart grinned. ‘I can’t see him doing me much damage, can you?’

  Stuart walked up the bar, paused momentarily by Fielding as if he was trying to place a face he knew, then went on to the toilets. As he came back, he stopped again by the old man. ‘I’ve just got who you are,’ he said with a wide grin. ‘You stole my girl twenty years ago.’

  Fielding looked askance. ‘I did?’

  ‘Caledonian Hotel. Just before the New Year of ’75. I was mending one of the door locks and you came along the corridor with her. I could see what had been going on so I cleared off to London. I ought to shake your hand and thank you.’

  Fielding frowned. Whether this
was because he was trying to remember, or afraid to say anything that would incriminate him, Stuart couldn’t tell.

  ‘Laura Brannigan!’ Stuart said. ‘She was a barmaid at the Maybury Casino.’

  Fielding was visibly shaken. He looked round the bar as if to see whether there was anyone there he could call on if trouble started. ‘There was nothing between us, she just worked for me,’ he said defensively.

  ‘Stuart Macgregor,’ Stuart said, holding out his hand. ‘She talked about you a lot in the time she worked at the casino. And I never forget a face, especially under circumstances like that.’

  ‘You’ve got it all wrong.’

  ‘No sweat,’ Stuart interrupted him. ‘It was a long time ago and entirely unimportant now, I just recognized you and felt I had to speak. I’ve only been back in town a couple of weeks and I keep running into people from the past. It’s weird, you think you’ve forgotten everything, then up someone pops and it all comes back. How are you doing? Still at the casino?’

  Fielding shook the proffered hand but in a nervous, limp manner as if he didn’t know what else to do. ‘No, I left years ago. I own this place now.’

  ‘Never!’ Stuart exclaimed. ‘I used to drink here when I was a joiner’s apprentice. Can I get you something?’

  Fielding hesitated.

  ‘Go on, have one, there’s no hard feelings,’ Stuart said. ‘Best thing that ever happened to me as it turned out. I went off to South America and had a ball.’

  Fielding smiled weakly.

  ‘Any idea what became of Laura?’ Stuart asked. ‘Did she go back south?’

  ‘You haven’t heard then?’

  Stuart wanted to laugh at the man’s expression. He still looked nervous, yet his dark eyes were gleaming as if he relished being able to pass on some information that would cut Stuart down to size.

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘She’s in prison, doing a life sentence for murder.’

  Stuart looked suitably staggered. ‘You’re joking!’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I wouldn’t joke about something like that,’ Fielding said indignantly. ‘Ask anyone. Her trial was last year.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Stuart said, shaking his head as if in disbelief. ‘Well, you’d better have a drink now, and you can tell me all about it. Scotch, isn’t it?’

  When David joined Stuart and Fielding some five minutes later, he was dumbfounded by his friend’s ability to play the part of a slightly slow-witted exile from Scotland who just wanted to catch up on what had happened in the city in his long absence. If David hadn’t known better, he would have thought Stuart had never harboured any ill feelings towards this man.

  ‘Guess what!’ he exclaimed, looking up at David with a boyishly excited grin. ‘An old girlfriend of mine is in prison for murder! Come and sit down with us, I’ve got to hear all about this.’

  Stuart introduced David to Fielding and the older man launched into his story. Stuart played a blinder; he had exactly the right kind of awed and respectful manner to make anyone want to hold his attention.

  ‘Not Jackie Davies?’ Stuart exclaimed as Fielding mentioned the victim’s name. ‘But I knew her! She was Laura’s oldest mate.’

  David listened as Stuart incredulously talked about when and how he’d first met Jackie, the way anyone would if they’d just heard that person had been murdered.

  Fielding gave a fairly accurate account of the crime, but he added nothing more than had been in the newspapers.

  ‘But why would Laura kill her?’ Stuart asked. ‘They were best mates.’

  ‘Laura’s boy was killed in a car accident when Jackie was driving.’

  ‘Barney?’ Stuart gasped. ‘He’s dead?’

  Fielding nodded. ‘A terrible accident,’ he said. ‘It was back in the early eighties. A hit-and-run driver went straight into Jackie’s sports car and it turned over. The boy was thrown out, killed instantly. Jackie had only minor injuries.’

  ‘Oh no,’ Stuart said, and tears welled up spontaneously in his eyes.

  David had realized even from the little Stuart had told him about Laura’s son that he had had deep feeling for him, and this was proof of the depth of them. Suddenly David felt a real pang of sorrow himself, imagining what it would be like if he lost his Abi or William in such a way.

  ‘And there I was hoping I might run into Barney,’ Stuart said sadly. ‘I cared for him like he was mine. Only today I was thinking he’d be twenty-something now.’

  Fielding sighed deeply, and David saw he was affected too. ‘He was only eleven and a great kid,’ Robbie said, his voice much softer, looking directly at Stuart with understanding. ‘I was well pissed off with Laura at the time he died, but I wouldn’t wish such a thing on my worst enemy.’

  ‘So did she kill the other woman out of revenge?’ David chimed in. He felt uncomfortable dwelling on the death of a child and wanted them to move on.

  ‘It looked that way,’ Fielding said. ‘It never seemed right that she waited so long to do it though; it was eleven years later when she killed Jackie. Mind you, she was always a screwball, too much booze and drugs. I heard she went right off the rails after the boy died. But Jackie wouldn’t hear anything bad of her – strange, that!’

  ‘You knew Jackie too?’ Stuart looked very surprised.

  Fielding nodded. ‘Yeah, I did some business with her. She wouldn’t have got that place out in Fife but for me.’

  ‘You must’ve been the minder she spoke about when I was working for her,’ Stuart exclaimed, looking for all the world as if he admired the man. ‘I can remember her showing me some plans for a farm in Fife, she said she’d run into some problems, but she had someone up here who had promised to sort it for her. I think that was in ’76 or ’77. So was that you?’

  Fielding seemed to puff up with self-importance. ‘Aye, it would be. I had something of a reputation back then for being the kind no one messed with. Laura was still working for me at the time, and she introduced me to Jackie.’

  ‘Was it strong-arm stuff that was required?’

  David noticed that Fielding did that extraordinary shirt cuff-tugging movement that he’d often observed hard men went in for. ‘Just a question of showing the wankers who were trying to block the sale who was boss,’ he said airily.

  ‘They were after the place too then?’ Stuart asked.

  David had a job not to laugh. Stuart was such a straightforward man that it had to be infuriating to him that Fielding wouldn’t just come out and say what the problem was.

  ‘Aye, that’s right, but they wanted her out of the running, so they could get it cheaper,’ he said. ‘They’d already tried all the usual stuff of putting the frighteners on her. Well, I gave them some of their own medicine.’

  ‘Who were they then? Local people?’ Stuart asked.

  ‘You’re a nosy bastard,’ Fielding said sharply.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ Stuart grinned. ‘It’s only because at the time I kind of had a feeling she was having a hard time with someone up here, and I thought I was Jack the Lad then and wanted to give anyone a kicking that was bugging her. But you’d know all about that. Most of us guys were half in love with her. I’m sure you were too.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded giving her one,’ Fielding said and laughed uproariously.

  To David that was the most telling remark the man had made so far. Fielding clearly had no romance in his soul, only lust. But such men usually claimed to have made a conquest even when they hadn’t, and as such he suspected Fielding had actually held Jackie in high esteem.

  They had another round of drinks, then another, and there were moments when David felt sure Stuart would forget why they had come in here and reveal his true interest in Fielding. But he didn’t. He skilfully wove questions about Jackie and Laura into general conversation about Edinburgh and its characters, and there was no doubt Fielding was warming to him for at one point he apologized to Stuart for his part in the break-up with Laura. ‘If I’d ever met you I wouldn’t have m
ade a play for her,’ he said.

  ‘All’s fair in love and war,’ Stuart laughed. ‘I went off to London with a right hump, but that’s the way it is when you’re young. I got over it and like I said before, I ought to thank you, for without that I might have stayed here and carried on working for peanuts.’

  ‘You were well out of it. Laura was one hell of a treacherous bitch,’ Fielding blurted out. ‘She tried to ruin my business.’

  David felt that was the only time that evening that Fielding had said something without thinking about it first. It was probably the whisky, for he looked stricken the moment the words were out.

  ‘She did? What kind of business would that be?’ Stuart jumped in.

  Fielding hesitated. His hand waved involuntarily as if he was trying to search for a plausible alternative to the truth. ‘Employment. I ran an agency for models, promotion girls and the like.’ He smiled then, as though he was pleased with what he’d come up with.

  ‘I once saw a picture of Laura in a men’s magazine,’ Stuart said. ‘Page three stuff. Was it you got her that?’

  ‘Aye. She was too old really, but I wanted to help her out. She was skint, and I was always a soft touch for single mothers. Worst day’s work I ever did though – she poached my girls and set up on her own.’

  ‘She didn’t! The ungrateful little minx,’ Stuart exclaimed.

  David had to bite back a chuckle for Stuart sounded as though he was entirely on Fielding’s side. ‘Did you get back at her for it?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t have to,’ Fielding growled. ‘Whatever she and her pal made went up their noses or down their throats, and they were small fry anyway. I called all the shots in Glasgow at that time and I knew they wouldn’t get very far.’

  ‘Laura worked in promotions in London before I met her,’ Stuart said, seemingly innocently. ‘I heard she was pretty good and knew the business well.’

  Fielding looked at him sharply. ‘You knew her before she got into drugs, laddie. You wouldn’t like what she became.’ He got up stiffly from his seat. ‘It’s time I checked my tills, nice talking to you both. Be lucky.’