Faith - Lesley Pearse [42]
He wanted and needed her to talk about it, to pour it all out so he could see another perspective, but he had to be very careful, because if he let it slip that he’d studied the case, and been to see Laura, she might suspect he had a hidden agenda.
‘What are you going to do now?’ he asked, hoping that might make her open up. ‘Are you thinking of selling up and going back to London? Or will you stay?’
Belle lit up a cigarette. ‘We can’t make our minds up,’ she said somewhat guardedly, blowing the smoke up to the ceiling. ‘I’m sure you can imagine what we’ve been through since Jackie’s death. There have been many times when we’ve just wanted to run away to a place where there are no reminders. But this house and the friends we’ve made here are precious to us.’
Stuart nodded. He thought the last part of the reply sounded insincere and very well rehearsed, for there was something about this beautiful but soulless drawing room which suggested few friends had ever come into it. As a young woman Belle had been a party animal, a vivacious, warm chatterbox who would tell anyone her life story at the drop of a hat. Maybe it was the murder that had changed her, for she was restrained now, and the bubbly personality had become stiff and cool.
But she was still a very beautiful woman. Her natural honey-blonde hair, wide blue eyes and the clarity of her complexion hadn’t changed since they first met two decades ago in London. If he hadn’t been nursing a broken heart at the time, they might well have become much more than friends for they were a similar age and got on very well.
She was as slim as a whippet in those days, her blonde hair so long she could sit on it. He used to call her Rapunzel, for she had the look of a fairytale princess awaiting a prince who would carry her off to some enchanted land. Her hair was shoulder-length now, she’d gained some weight and her blue eyes looked hard and cold, but she made up for that with her glamour. In pale blue slacks and a cream silk shirt left unbuttoned just low enough to give a glimpse of voluptuous cleavage, with long pink talons and gold jewellery, she could have stepped out of an episode of Dynasty.
Kirkmay House suited her image, for it was an impressive, large double-fronted Georgian house with all the grand embellishments of that period. Belle had furnished and decorated it in her own style with sumptuous cream sofas, pale pink carpets, huge gilt-framed mirrors and the kind of curtains, swags and pelmets that must have cost a king’s ransom. It would all have been perfect in a similar town-house in London or Edinburgh, but here in a fishing village it seemed rather overblown and ostentatious. He had been puzzled too when she showed him some of the guest rooms, for none of them appeared to be taken. In June she should have been at least half full.
‘What’s happening with Brodie Farm?’ he asked.
‘We don’t know yet,’ she said, her face tensing. ‘We found the will Jackie made back in the early eighties when she split up with Roger. In that she’d left equal shares of her entire estate, Brodie Farm and the London property to Toby and myself. But Roger claims Jackie made another will, in 1988, leaving the property in London to him.’
Stuart nodded, even though he couldn’t possibly imagine Jackie making one will, let alone two. She’d always claimed she intended to spend everything she had in her own lifetime. But if she had made one, he would have been very surprised if she hadn’t made provision for Roger. They might have been apart for years, but they’d remained very close friends, and Roger had after all funded the first couple of properties she bought.
‘He hasn’t produced