Faith - Lesley Pearse [149]
‘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.’
‘What do you reckon?’ David asked as they walked back up the Grassmarket to the flat they’d rented. They were both disappointed that they hadn’t managed to get anything out of Fielding that suggested he had a motive to kill Jackie, or indeed any information about his personal and business life. The abrupt way he had cut them off suggested he was suspicious of their interest in him too.
‘Fielding’s a weasel,’ Stuart spat out. ‘But somehow I don’t think he had a hand in her death.’
‘Why?’
‘He would never have owned up he knew Jackie if he had. He might be old but he’s no fool. Besides, it struck me that he had liked and admired her, as much as a slime-ball like that is capable of such emotions.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘You go over to Fife tomorrow, book into Kirkmay House and see what you can get out of Belle and Charles. I’ll go and see Angela, the woman that took over Laura’s shop. I’ll join you in Fife so we can compare notes. I want to have another chat with the barmaid in Cellardyke and see if she knows who Growler is. I’ll meet you in the Smugglers Inn, on the harbour in Anstruther, at lunchtime on Tuesday. Is that okay?’
‘Fine,’ David replied. ‘But how did it feel facing Fielding again after all these years?’
‘Bit of an anti-climax, really,’ Stuart said thoughtfully. ‘He’s just an old man still playing at being a hard nut. Shame he didn’t say anything to wind me up, I could have reinstated the nightly brawls there used to be in that pub. He deserves a punch in the nose for dragging Laura into all that.’
David said nothing for a little while. He was thinking over everything he knew about Laura and what had been added to it tonight.
‘What if she did really do it, Stuart?’ he said eventually.
‘She didn’t,’ Stuart replied.
‘But how can you be so sure? Lies, porn, drugs and child neglect. Why not murder too?’
Stuart turned to him and caught him by the lapels of his jacket. For a second David thought he was going to head-butt him, something he’d seen him do to other men in the past.
‘I know her,’ he growled. ‘I lived with her for over two years and I saw right down to her soul. She could lie and cheat, she wanted stuff I couldn’t give her then, but she had no violence in her. I can still see right down to her soul, past all the crap life has thrown at her since we parted. And I tell you she didn’t do it.’
‘Okay, Stu.’ David took a step back from his friend. ‘I’m just worried you’re getting in over your head. You aren’t the same man that left Edinburgh twenty years ago, and I doubt she’s the same woman either. If only we could have got Fielding to talk more about her ruining his business!’
‘She didn’t,’ Stuart said. ‘She started a brand-new one. He’s just pig-sick cos he hadn’t jumped in there before her.’
David realized then that Stuart hadn’t told him everything in Laura’s letter. ‘So what was the business then?’
‘Blue movies. And she made a lot of money.’
Laura couldn’t settle to read that evening. She was twitching with anxiety, wondering what Stuart and David were doing and who they were talking to. Remembering the past was bad enough, but when she’d come to write it down, it looked even worse. She hadn’t been able to get further than telling Stuart she’d gone into making blue movies. But perhaps it was a mistake to leave why, and how, to his imagination. If he had tracked Robbie down and persuaded him to talk, he would almost certainly distort the truth.
From the day she was stupid enough to spend the afternoon with Robbie in his hotel room, her feelings had fluctuated between gratitude to him