Faith - Lesley Pearse [171]
‘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.’
Stuart nodded. That was exactly the impression he’d formed too from Laura, and it was good to hear the same from a man who had no reason to want to defend her.
‘Did Jackie tell you about Laura’s life, or did you only find out during the trial?’
‘A bit of both,’ Ted said. ‘Jackie was a loyal friend, she wasn’t one for dishing dirt. But in the two years prior to Barney’s death she had confided in me about the pornography and the drugs. She didn’t want to, but I asked a great many questions about why she had Barney there so often, and why she often seemed so worried sometimes. She had to talk to someone. And once our affair began we hoped that one day we could be together for ever.’
‘Why then didn’t she call you on the day she died?’ Stuart asked.
‘That is a question I’ve asked myself a million times,’ Ted said with a sigh. ‘I’ve also asked myself just as many times why I didn’t sense something bad was happening to her and go over there. I didn’t hear about it till the evening when it was on the news. They only said that a woman had been killed in an isolated house near Crail, nothing much else, but even before they showed a picture of the house I kind of knew it was Jackie. But to go back to your question about why she didn’t phone