The sun came out about three and Stuart walked with David to where his car was parked, and after saying he’d see him later that evening back in the flat in Edinburgh, Stuart went and sat on a bench on the harbour to wait for Gloria.
He had a great deal to think about, and while Charles had jumped to first place as prime suspect, Stuart was very aware that he needed time to assimilate all the various bits of information he’d gathered, and to analyse it carefully.
The sun had brought out a rash of people, and he idly watched them as they bought ice cream, shed their cardigans and jackets, and wandered aimlessly along the harbour. He wondered how many of them were already discussing how they would love to come and live here. The thought made him smile, for if they knew what it was like in winter with the raw east wind blowing in from the sea and almost cutting you in half, they would probably forget their plan.
Jackie had been different. She’d fallen in love with Fife on her first visit and that had been a bitterly cold, grey day as he remembered. She always said she found the wind bracing, that it blew all the debris she collected up in London out of her head. She loved the lack of sophistication in the fishing towns, she said people’s lives here were meaningful and honest. But what was it that made Belle and Charles move up here? They certainly weren’t the kind to embrace Jackie’s views. And he didn’t believe Belle’s explanation to David that it was because property was so much cheaper. Who would take themselves off some four hundred miles to live in a bigger house that none of their old friends would ever see?
He didn’t believe either that they’d fallen into the trap of imagining that running a guest house was a little gold mine, as so many people had. They just weren’t that naive. Perhaps Roger was right when he said Charles was in trouble in London.
He needed to get at the truth about why they came here, and even more importantly why they stayed when they so clearly didn’t like it. But how? Would Lena know?
Somehow he didn’t think she’d tell him even if she did know. She’d lost one daughter and she wasn’t likely to dish any dirt about the other one.
∗
‘Hello, Stuart.’
The greeting startled him and he turned to see Gloria standing behind his bench. ‘I’ve brought someone to meet you,’ she said, looking a little anxious and turning towards a man of about sixty just behind her. ‘This is Ted Baxter, a friend of Jackie’s. He’s a wee bit reluctant, so please be gentle with him.’
Stuart leapt up, guessing that the man must have been one of Jackie’s lovers, even if he was rather old. ‘Stuart Macgregor,’ he said, holding out his hand to the man. ‘I do hope Gloria hasn’t implied that I’m some kind of bloodhound. It’s good to meet you.’
Baxter’s handshake was firm and his smile was warm. ‘Jackie told me about you years ago,’ he said. ‘She said you were the best joiner she ever had, and that you were a man who could be trusted.’
Stuart was touched and flattered by the man’s statement, but the sound of his voice struck an immediate cord. It was a very deep voice, practically a growl, and his heart leapt because he was sure this was the man Jackie called ‘Growler’.
He wore a well-worn tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, and cheap twill trousers, and he was greying and thin on top, slender and only about five feet eight. It seemed inconceivable that Jackie would have had a fling with anyone so old and ordinary. The only remarkable things about him were his voice and his slightly prominent duck-egg-blue eyes.
‘You must have got to know Jackie very well for her to have bored you with tales about her early days in the property business,’ Stuart said lightly.
‘I did,’ Ted said simply, and a look of pain crossed his face. ‘I miss her so much that sometimes I feel I can’t go on. Gloria knows this and that was why she persuaded me to come and meet you. She told me it would make me feel better.’
‘Ted would rather talk to you alone, Stuart,’ Gloria said. Her anxiety was such that her voice quivered. ‘I have already told him what you’re about. He needs assurance that anything he tells you is in strict confidence.’
‘You have that assurance,’ Stuart said, looking Ted straight in the eye. ‘All I want to do is find enough new evidence so Laura can appeal against her sentence, for I know it wasn’t her who killed Jackie. Now, shall we go somewhere where we can talk?’
Gloria took them to her cottage which was in the narrow street which ran from Anstruther to Cellardyke. The cottage was tiny, rather dark, and the wrong side of the road for a sea view, but it was a real home, not too tidy, lots of photographs of her family on the walls, comfortable chairs and a smell of something good cooking in the oven.
She made them a pot of tea, put it down on the coffee table and then said she was going out. ‘Make yourselves at home. I’ll be back about half past five.’
‘I’m a surveyor,’ Ted said awkwardly as the door closed behind Gloria. ‘As you probably know, the first cottage Jackie bought up here was just along the road. That’s how I met her – she called me to survey it. Later, whenever she wanted to buy another place, or was just considering one, she always called me.’
‘I remember her telling me she’d found someone good,’ Stuart said. He didn’t actually remember any such thing, but he could see how nervous Ted was and wanted to put him at his ease.
Ted gave a watery smile. ‘We became good friends, and as I knew the best tradesmen around here I used to give her a bit of advice, call in and check on work in progress, that sort of thing.’
‘So you must have known her almost as long as me,’ Stuart said. ‘She got the idea about buying a place here the first time she visited Laura and me in Edinburgh and I brought her out this way to show it off.’
Ted nodded. ‘Nineteen years. I just wish I could go back to the beginning again and do everything differently.’
Stuart raised an eyebrow questioningly.
‘Well, as you probably realize, I’m married.’ Ted blushed furiously. ‘It was never a happy marriage, and I should have left my wife the moment I knew I was falling in love with Jackie, and taken the chance that she felt the same way about me. But I didn’t think a beautiful and highly intelligent woman like her could possibly want me. Besides, she was married too, and some ten years younger than me.’
There was something very touching about this frank admission and Stuart thought he could understand why Jackie had liked Ted.
‘Were you lovers all that time?’ Stuart asked gently.
‘Dear me no, that came years later.’ Ted looked quite shocked at the suggestion. ‘I called her Mrs Davies and she called me Mr Baxter for a whole year before we even began using Christian names. We’d chat over cups of tea, and I learned about her family, her husband, about Laura and Barney and you too, Stuart. She was so vivacious, so full of ideas, and funny too. Of course all the tradesmen who did jobs for her liked her – she was unique and very special.’
‘Yes, she was,’ Stuart agreed. ‘I never met anyone who worked for her that wasn’t a little bit in love with her. Me included.’
‘I was a bit jealous of you, if truth be told,’ Ted admitted ruefully. ‘You see, she used to talk about you a lot, especially after you left Edinburgh and went down to work for her in London. She was worried about YOU because Laura had broken your heart, but she also liked you a great deal. I thought it was only a matter of time before you were ousting that husband of hers.’
‘There was nothing like that between us,’ Stuart said.
‘I knew that later, but when a man wants a woman every other male is a threat.’ Ted smiled wryly. ‘Anyway, in ’77, Peggie, my wife, had a riding accident which left her paralysed from the waist down. Jackie still wasn’t living here all the time then of course, only coming up for holidays. I remember calling in on her one evening after visiting Peggie in hospital. I was very down because I didn’t know how I was going to cope when she came home and became dependent on me for everything.’
‘I expect Jackie got the whole sto
ry out of you,’ Stuart said. ‘She was always good at that.’
‘That’s exactly what happened,’ Ted replied. ‘I blurted out the whole thing – that we’d never had a good marriage and that she was so bitter and angry about the accident that I knew it was going to be hell from now on.’
‘What advice did Jackie give you?’
‘To buy a plot of land and build a bungalow suitable for a disabled person in a wheelchair. She thought that Peggie would accept her disability in a new home specially designed for her. She even offered to help me by getting in touch with people who specialized in aids for the disabled and understood what was needed. She suggested I could get a carer in during the day while I had to work which would relieve the pressure on me. That kind of sealed my friendship with Jackie because she was the only person I could admit to how scared and frantic I felt. I certainly couldn’t admit it to my son or daughter, not even to the doctor.’
‘Did you act on her advice?’
‘Yes, I did. I bought a plot of land by the golf course in St Andrews, found the best architect in Fife, and really got stuck into it. Jackie came out a few times while it was being built; she was very encouraging and supportive.’
‘Tell me, Ted, did she have a nickname for you?’ Stuart asked.
Ted smiled. ‘Yes, a ridiculous one. She called me “Growler”. Why d’you ask that?’
‘She mentioned that name to Laura. I just wanted to check it was you.’
‘I never actually met Laura,’ Ted said thoughtfully. ‘I feel I have because Jackie talked about her so often, but then I didn’t really know any of her other friends either. I know Belle and Charles Howell of course, I did the survey on Kirkmay House for them, but once Jackie and I began our affair we had to be so careful that I never called at the farm if she had anyone else there with her.’
‘So when did it start?’ Stuart asked, relieved that the man was finally getting to the point.
‘In 1980, a year before Barney was killed. I often saw the wee boy when he was staying with her. She loved him like he was her own. I called round one afternoon and she was crying because she was worried that Laura was neglecting him. I gave her a cuddle and it just flared up.’
Ted closed his eyes for a moment. He often relived the events of that afternoon for it was the most astounding, wonderful and thrilling day of his whole life.
The front door of the farmhouse was open because it was a warm, sunny day in May. He called out to Jackie and she called back to ask him to come in. She was on her knees cleaning out a kitchen cupboard, and when she looked round he saw she was crying.
He instinctively knew the cause of it was Barney, for she often became choked up when she spoke of him. But this was the first time he’d actually seen her cry about anything.
When Peggie cried her face became red and puffy, her mouth wobbled and she looked ugly. But Jackie looked beautiful. She was wearing a faded denim dress with studs down the front, her legs were bare, and her hair was tied up in a ponytail, making her look closer to her early twenties than her real age of thirty-seven. Her complexion was flushed but only delicately so, and the tears were trickling down her cheeks like dew drops.
He went over to her and lifted her up, embracing her tightly. ‘Don’t cry, you’ll see him again soon,’ was all he said.
He didn’t actually mean to kiss her lips, he wasn’t bold enough for that. But suddenly her mouth was on his and she was kissing him. It must have been ten or twelve years since he’d last experienced a real kiss, so long ago that he’d forgotten how arousing kissing was. It was like drowning, he could feel himself sinking and sinking into it, and never wanting it to end.
Stuart’s chuckle brought him out of his reverie. ‘It was that good, was it?’ he said. ‘You went off down the time tunnel then.’
Ted smiled sheepishly. ‘You can have no idea how it was for me,’ he said. ‘All those years I’d thought the love was just on my side. But it wasn’t, she felt the same way.’
‘It must have been tough for you. I mean, having a disabled wife,’ Stuart said.
Ted looked hard at the younger man at first, thinking that remark was veiled sarcasm, but he saw only sympathy and understanding.
‘Sometimes I felt as if I was being crucified,’ Ted said glumly. ‘I had turned myself inside out to make things right for Peggie – the bungalow was beautiful, the garden had been landscaped – but although she’d been home from the hospital for getting on for three years, she was making no attempt to help herself. She had in truth become a monster, Stuart, nothing pleased her, she acted like she hated me.
‘Then suddenly I get a glimpse of heaven, but a glimpse is all I am ever going to have. I couldn’t be with Jackie for more than a couple of hours here and there, I had to go home and take care of Peggie. Can you imagine washing a woman, helping her to the toilet, cooking her meals and cleaning the house when all the time she is sullen and bitter? She acted like the accident was my fault, nothing I could do or say would please her. And she’s still that way. I can understand why people kill, I’ll admit now there have been times when I have been sorely tempted.’
Tears began to flow down Ted’s face, and Stuart leaned forward and squeezed the man’s arm in sympathy. ‘I might not have been through that myself, man,’ he said softly. ‘But I can imagine.’
Ted mopped his face with a handkerchief and tried to pull himself together. ‘When Barney was killed I thought our love affair would die too. Jackie took it so hard, and I couldn’t be there all the time to comfort her.’
‘Did she ever say anything about the accident to you?’ Stuart asked.
‘Only that the other car came round the bend in the middle of the road straight towards her and she heard Barney scream. She said the next thing she remembered was a fireman talking to her, explaining how he had to cut away part of the car to get her out. Miraculously she wasn’t that badly hurt. I saw her car later that day and it was so badly crushed you wouldn’t have thought anyone could have survived the crash, but all she had was a broken arm, and some very nasty cuts and bruises.’
‘Did she recognize the driver of the other car?’
‘She said she didn’t.’
‘Did you believe her?’
Ted hesitated. ‘No, to be honest I didn’t. I don’t know why, after all it was in summer when there are lots of strangers around. I just got the idea in the back of my mind that she was hiding something, but I couldn’t keep probing, she was too upset about the wee boy.’
‘Were the police thorough in their investigation?’
Ted nodded. ‘They called everywhere, a virtual house-to-house search. Every garage owner was questioned, they called in at every pub and hotel. But if the other car wasn’t too badly damaged it could have got half-way to the Forth Bridge before the ambulance even arrived; another couple of hours and it could well have been in England.’
‘Is it at all possible that the driver could have been Charles Howell?’ Stuart knew he shouldn’t ask such direct questions but he had to.
Ted looked horrified. ‘No, it can’t have been. Whatever makes you think such a thing?’
‘Just something someone said,’ Stuart replied.
‘Well, they had no business to be saying such things,’ Ted said indignantly. ‘Besides, he was down in London at the time.’
‘How do you know that? Stuart asked.
‘Because Jackie told me. Belle went in to visit her in the hospital the evening it happened. She said Charles couldn’t come with her because he was in London. He flew back the following day, stayed a few days until Jackie was discharged from hospital, then went back to London to collect his car. I remember it clearly because Belle stayed at the farm with Jackie to look after her, and that meant I couldn’t go there.’
‘He left his car in London, did he?’
‘Yes, well, it was an emergency, Belle needed him and driving it back would have taken too long.’
From what Stuart remembered of Charles he was hardly the type
to rush home just because Belle needed him. ‘Isn’t it possible he was having his car repaired?’
Ted looked shocked. ‘Surely not!’
‘I sincerely hope I’m wrong,’ Stuart said. ‘I’ve never liked Charles, but I don’t want to think he was responsible for killing Barney. But tell me, Ted, how was Jackie with Charles after that accident?’
‘I don’t think I was ever with them both together,’ Ted said, frowning as if he was trying to remember. ‘Jackie had never really liked him. What she actually said was that he was “an insincere, lying, womanizing bastard”.’ Ted half smiled. Jackie didn’t mince her words about people.’
Stuart laughed. ‘It was one of the things I liked best about her,’ he said. ‘But can you remember her making any remarks about him after Barney’s death?’
‘She did say once that she’d make sure he never got a penny of her money when she died,’ Ted said. ‘I asked how she was going to do that when he was married to Belle.’
‘And what was her answer?’
Ted smiled. ‘She laughed and said something about Belle being almost as greedy as Charles and if she offered Belle money to leave him, she’d take it. But I didn’t take any of that seriously. Jackie often made off-the-cuff remarks. Besides, Charles was a good ten years older than Jackie. I thought he’d pop his clogs long before she did.’
‘Would you say that Jackie disliked him more after Barney’s death?’
‘Not that I noticed. She spoke about him in much the same way she always had – witheringly! Nothing to give me the idea he might be responsible, and I’m sure that is what you are getting at. But that first year was hideous: Jackie was grieving for the boy, full of guilt that he’d died while in her care, and worried about Laura too. I felt powerless to help, I couldn’t even stay overnight to hold and comfort her. So I wasn’t taking note of things she said about Charles or Belle.’
‘Did she think Laura blamed her?’
‘She did in the first year. And she couldn’t understand why Laura didn’t attack her for it, verbally or physically. But from what I understood Laura held herself responsible, no one else. You must understand that I never met Laura, so my opinion is only based on gut reaction to what I was told. But after she went off to work in Italy, Jackie often showed me cards and letters from her, and believe me, there was no blame, no nasty little digs or sarcasm in them. I’d say Laura felt her boy’s death was her punishment for the kind of life she’d been living.’
Faith Page 38