Faith - Lesley Pearse [220]
Belle just snatched up the cigarettes, tore the packet open and lit one up. She didn’t thank Sandra for them or apologize for her rudeness.
‘Right then, we’d better get on,’ Donaldson said, putting a new tape in the machine and turning it on. He spoke into it, giving the date, time and the names of the people present.
He began by asking Belle much the same questions he’d asked her umpteen times before: what time Stuart Macgregor came to Kirkmay House on the day in question, how long they spent in the garden, what they talked about, the details of how Stuart broke the news to her about her sister’s will, and her reaction to it.
‘It was a shock and I was very upset,’ she said. ‘But then Charles came home drunk and he went mad and stabbed Stuart.’
Donaldson had already heard a great many minor variations on her story of the frightened little wife who felt compelled to assist her husband because she didn’t know what else to do. But this was the first time she’d said Charles was drunk, perhaps because it had recently occurred to her that it was a good cover for any points of his version of events which didn’t match hers.
‘It was just after eleven at night when we arrested you and your husband on your arrival back in Crail after taking Macgregor’s car to Edinburgh,’ Donaldson said. ‘We did blood tests on you both. You still had a high level of alcohol in yours, Belle, but Charles didn’t. He had drunk no more than one pint of beer in the previous eight hours.’
Belle became irate then, shouting that Donaldson didn’t know what he was talking about. Sandra tried to calm her down, but she shouted at her too.
‘Belle, we have a statement from Macgregor telling us exactly what happened that evening,’ Donaldson said. ‘We know it was you who stabbed him, we have forensic science to back it up, and your husband’s statement too. It would be far better for you to admit what you did.’
‘I have told you the truth, you arsehole,’ she screamed at him. ‘Charles is a lying bastard!’
Her face was flushed with rage, yet Donaldson felt that it wouldn’t take much more confrontation before she cracked.
‘Is he lying too when he said that you stabbed your sister on 12 May 1993?’
‘He said that?’ Her voice was suddenly an octave lower and she looked stunned.
‘He did.’ Donaldson nodded. ‘He said you took the car belonging to your guests which had been left in your drive, and drove out there because you were furious that she was going to give Brodie Farm to Laura.’
‘I didn’t, I didn’t go out of the house that day,’ she insisted, but the colour draining from her face proved she was afraid now. ‘Why would he say that?’
‘Because it is the truth and he’s tired of covering up for you?’ Donaldson suggested. ‘He told us how you had to rush to clean the car belonging to the Langdons. It must have got very muddy on that track? And you had blood on your clothes too, didn’t you? Charles got rid of those clothes for you. But we know where they are.’
Donaldson was only guessing that Charles took her clothes and disposed of them. But he reckoned that Charles had led the kind of life where he’d often had to get rid of incriminating evidence, and would know the safest way of doing it.
Sandra advised her client that she didn’t have to say anything if she didn’t wish to, but Belle didn’t appear to take that in for she suddenly erupted with rage.
‘That bastard, after all I’ve been through for him,’ she screamed. ‘He lost all our money, he forced me to go cap in hand to Jackie and move to that Godforsaken place that I hated. Me, running a guest house! Why should I be expected to clean up after people, cook them breakfast, listen to their endless complaints? Have you got any idea how demeaning that is?’
Belle glared at the two policemen. ‘And what did his nibs do? He was off at the golf club all the time! I even covered up for him when he killed a kid in