Faith - Lesley Pearse [186]
David was suddenly in the kitchen doorway. ‘Leave those dishes, I’ll do them,’ he said. ‘I’ve had more experience of that than soothing irate Scotsmen.’
Stuart banged his fist down on the draining board. ‘Don’t patronize me, smart arse,’ he hissed. ‘Just give me the sodding name and address.’
‘Okay,’ David said coolly, turning and walking away. ‘But if you blow it when you get there because you haven’t given yourself time to calm down, don’t blame me.’
He wrote down the name and address and handed it to Stuart. ‘We can go to the prison tomorrow afternoon,’ he said. ‘Try to stay out of trouble until then.’
Stuart had always had a soft spot for Portobello. Before his world was expanded by having an annual family holiday in Fife, just across the Forth, this was where they went for a day out. The sea was always freezing, but he and Fiona and Angus always raced to be the first one in, even if their hearts did almost stop with the cold. He remembered that his mother made a kind of large towelling bag that they changed under. They never bought food in a cafe, his mother would take sandwiches in a bread bag, and sometimes they had an apple each too.
His dad would play cricket with them. The stumps, bat and ball were all packed in an army kit bag, along with the picnic and the swimming things. He could remember his father lugging it along over his shoulder, and he often made jokes that his entire kit when he was in the Army hadn’t weighed so much.
In the last twenty years, Stuart had seen many beautiful beaches all around the world, with white soft sand, palm trees and warm turquoise sea, yet however exotic or sophisticated they were, his mind always turned back to Portobello. He would remember the hand-knitted woolly trunks he had, the joy of taking off his shoes and socks and feeling sand between his toes. Even the bus ride to get there had been seeped in adventure because from the top deck he could peer down into people’s houses and gardens, and believe he was going to the ends of the earth, not just a few miles.
Stuart parked his car in a side road close to the promenade because he intended to take a walk along it after calling at the solicitors in the High Street. It was four o’clock now, and he expected they closed at five. His anger was fading, in fact he wasn’t sure why he had got so irate earlier. It would serve him right if David jumped ship and went home.
Conway and Calder Solicitors were at number 156, but Stuart crossed over the road to look in an antique shop window just before he got there. He knew Julia collected old blue and white china, and he thought if they had something suitable he might take it back to David as a peace offering.
There wasn’t anything blue and white, and as he turned to go back across the street, he saw a familiar figure coming out of the solicitor’s office. It was none other than Robbie Fielding.
Stunned, Stuart turned back to the antique shop window so Fielding wouldn’t notice him. His head told him there was no reason why the man shouldn’t have the same solicitor as Jackie, in fact he could have recommended her to them. Yet in his heart he sensed sinister undertones.
Once Fielding had gone, Stuart went across the street and into the office. A fresh-faced blonde of about twenty was at the reception desk and she smiled at him.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked.
‘I’d like to see Mr Calder, please. I’m afraid I haven’t got an appointment, but Mr Goldsmith spoke to him earlier and said I would be coming. I’m Stuart Macgregor.’
‘If you’d just take a seat, Mr Macgregor, I’ll check if he can see you,’ she said, and promptly disappeared through a door at the back of the office.
She came back and said that Calder was on the phone to a client at the moment, but if Stuart would like to wait he would see him as soon as he’d finished.
It was some fifteen minutes before a thin-faced man of about fifty, wearing a dark grey suit and gold-rimmed glasses, put his head round the door. ‘Mr Macgregor? If you’d like to come this way. I’m sorry I had to keep you waiting.’
Stuart was a