Faith - Lesley Pearse [147]
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