Faith - Lesley Pearse [226]
All at once she got up and dashed out to the car, sure that by now Jackie would have calmed down enough to promise not to tell Laura about Charles. Once she agreed to that she’d surely also agree to give them some money so they could leave Scotland.
As Belle got out of the car at Brodie Farm, she could hear Jackie singing along with the radio. It was Whitney Houston’s ‘And I Will Always Love You’, and the passion Jackie was putting into it, even if her voice was abysmal, was another reminder that she hadn’t even bothered to confide in her sister about this man she was going off with.
Belle walked straight in without knocking, and Jackie wheeled round in surprise.
‘I’ve got nothing more to say to you,’ she said icily. ‘You and I are finished, Belle. Go away.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ Belle said.
‘Oh, but I do. You know, Belle, every time you walk in that door or phone, I get a knot in my stomach because I know you want something. I don’t think you’ve ever come to me because you just want to spend time with me. It’s always that you’ve got a problem, or you need money. Well, that’s it, no more. I’m going to be as selfish as you are. So bugger off.’
Out of the corner of her eye Belle saw that document again. It was on the work surface, and she guessed Jackie had got it out because she was going to show it to Laura when she arrived; perhaps they would even take it to her solicitors together.
All at once white-hot, uncontrollable rage welled up inside her. She wasn’t going to let Laura have the farm. And she wasn’t going to let Jackie tell her about Barney either. She had to be stopped.
‘Go on, piss off, you make me sick,’ Jackie said, and turned dismissively back to the sink.
The kitchen knives were all there, right at hand, gleaming stainless steel embedded in a block of wood. One second Belle was just looking at them, the next she held a long triangular one in her hand.
‘Are you still here?’ Jackie said, without turning. ‘I wondered what the bad smell was. Get out now, before I throw you out.’
She turned round, and she laughed when she saw the knife. ‘Oh, do grow up,’ she said.
Jackie had said that same thing to Belle so many times and on every occasion it had hurt. This time it was like pulling a trigger, Belle ran at her with all her force, and the knife went straight into the left side of Jackie’s chest.
For a moment nothing happened. Jackie just stood there looking utterly shocked, the knife embedded in her just as it had been in the block of wood a few seconds before.
‘Belle!’ she said, but her voice sound disembodied and blood was coming out around the knife, staining her white shirt. ‘What have you done?’
She moved towards Belle, her hands out in front of her, and Belle backed away in horror. Then, as if in slow motion, Jackie’s legs seemed to crumple, and she fell backwards to the floor.
Belle couldn’t move for a moment or two, all she could do was stare down at her sister in horror. She didn’t know if Jackie was dead already, but she guessed from the amount of blood seeping out around the knife that it had pierced her heart and she soon would be.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, and suddenly aware of the enormity of what she’d done, she knew she had to get out of there quickly.
She got a piece of kitchen roll, dampened it slightly and carefully wiped the knife handle, putting the paper in her pocket afterwards. She was sure she hadn’t touched anything else for the door had been open on both visits. Then, picking up the deed of gift document which she needed to destroy, she ran for the car to the strains of ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’ on the radio.
‘I didn’t want to drive back on that farm track,’ she told Donaldson. ‘But I had to, in case I ran into Laura.’
Donaldson wiped his sweating brow with the back of his hand, for once stuck for words.
Never before in all his years of interrogating prisoners