Faith - Lesley Pearse [219]
Donaldson breathed a sigh of relief. He had the admission down on tape. It would be typed up and used as evidence. ‘Thank you, Charles,’ he said. ‘We’ll take a break now.’ He turned to the tape recorder and recorded the time the interview was terminated.
The following morning Donaldson and Price drove out to Cornton Vale to interview Belle. It was hot and sticky, and dark clouds indicated there was a storm on the way.
‘D’you reckon she’ll crack when I tell her Charlie boy grassed her up?’ Donaldson grinned wolfishly at Price.
‘I think it is quite likely, sir.’ Price replied, keeping his eves on the road ahead.
‘I met them when they first moved up here, you know,’ Donaldson said thoughtfully. ‘Even then I thought there was something fishy about them. Typical Londoners, flashy and too much to say for themselves. I couldn’t see why they wanted to live up here. If I was as rich as Charles implied he was, I wouldn’t want to be cooking breakfast and making beds for tourists.’
‘So why did they come, sir?’ Price asked. ‘Have the Met passed on any information yet?’
‘Charles was in trouble all round it seems, people after him for money, claims that some of the places his company built were unsafe, and an insurance company were investigating him for fraud. But it’s going to prove difficult to get the complete picture as most of the people he was involved with are just like him – public school rogues and as bent as a nine-bob watch.’
‘Is there anything on his wife?’ Price asked.
‘Not apart from the speed with which she stuck her mother in a nursing home after her father died. That was right after her sister was killed, even before the trial. She got power of attorney and sold the family home. A conniving bitch if ever there was one. By all accounts the mother is a lovely woman, with all her marbles. I’m glad it wasn’t me who had to go and tell her about this little lot!’
Sandra Ferguson, Belle’s lawyer, was just getting out of her car as Donaldson and Price arrived at Cornton Vale. She waved and waited for them to join her so they could all go in together.
‘Nice to see you again, Sandra,’ Donaldson said. ‘It’s close today, isn’t it? Think we’re going to have a storm?’
He had met Sandra many times before, and he liked and respected her. She was a very plain woman in her forties, with straight mousey hair, glasses and bad skin, but she had a keen mind, a good sense of humour, and she loved the cut and thrust of her job. No lawyer in Scotland was better than she at defending women who had killed or attacked an abuser. But Donaldson guessed even she would find it hard to believe in a spoilt middle-class woman like Belle Howell.
‘I hope so.’ She frowned up at the sky. ‘This sort of weather always seems to bring on a rash of domestic violence.’
‘So we can expect Howell to be extra-aggressive today then?’ he said with a chuckle.
Sandra smiled. ‘She’s a difficult one, that’s for sure.’
‘Do you believe she’s innocent?’
Sandra smile faded. ‘You know better than to ask such a thing, Ian!’
‘I will consider my knuckles rapped,’ he said.
Donaldson had to resist the desire to smirk when Belle was brought into the interview room. She looked rougher than a down-and-out on the streets of Glasgow. She had a bruise under one eye, her blonde hair was scraped back off her face, but that didn’t disguise a couple of bald patches, and her tee-shirt and tracksuit trousers were far too big for her, and an unflattering khaki colour.
Sandra showed some concern about how she got the bruise.
‘How do you think, you stupid cow?’ Belle responded. ‘I shouldn’t be in here with these animals. They stole my cigarettes and I tried to get them back.’
Sandra calmly got a packet of cigarettes out of her briefcase and handed them to Belle.