Faith - Lesley Pearse [43]
At that point the telephone rang and Belle hurried to answer it.
‘A booking for a long weekend,’ she said when she came back. ‘I was tempted to say we were fully booked, it’s such a drag having people here.’
‘A funny thing for a guest-house proprietor to say,’ Stuart remarked lightly.
‘You’d have to run one to find out just how tedious it can be,’ she retorted. ‘Most of the guests are earnest walkers who wear anoraks, and the rest are perishing Americans chasing their Scottish roots. I don’t know which are the most boring.’
She ranted for some minutes about the tedium of changing bed linen, of cooking breakfasts and feeling her home was not her own. ‘Jackie had the right idea, her guests were all self-catering and not in her house,’ she ended up. ‘But then when she left Roger she said she never wanted to share anything with anyone again.’
Stuart smiled. He remembered Jackie saying such things, but she didn’t really mean them. She loved people and was never happier than when she had a houseful.
‘Did they ever get divorced?’ he asked.
Belle shook her head. ‘No, they started proceedings once, then dropped it. Jackie could be very weak about Roger. She couldn’t live with him, but she liked to hold him on a string so she could tweak it in whenever she felt like it.’
Stuart thought that remark was rather spiteful, and it was tempting to reciprocate by pointing out that if Jackie hadn’t divorced Roger, he might well stand to inherit the bulk of the estate, but he thought better of that, fearing he might be shown the door.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she burst out when he made no comment. ‘That I shouldn’t say such things, not now she’s dead. But I get weary of making out she was some kind of saint. Well, she was never that, and she’d have been the first person to say so. But that evil bitch Laura took everything from me, even the right to tell the truth about my own sister.’
Stuart perked up. This was how he remembered Belle – self-centred perhaps, but passionate and with a lot to say.
‘The bitch had already heaped guilt on to Jackie for Barney’s death,’ Belle went on, her cheeks flushing with anger. ‘That was why she funded Laura’s business, but it didn’t stop the cow from pestering her all the time, turning up whenever she felt like it. Even after she’d killed her that wasn’t enough for her, she had to destroy Jackie’s reputation too by claiming she was a promiscuous lush. A life sentence isn’t enough for what she’s done.’
Stuart might have wanted to see some real emotion, but he was shocked by such venom. It was well documented that Belle hadn’t been vindictive towards Laura during the trial, in fact she came across as not believing Laura could have done it. But he supposed that the guilty verdict and her own grief for her sister had altered her view.
‘And your parents and Toby?’ he asked, gently trying to draw her away from further malice. ‘How are they bearing up?’
‘Dad died of a heart attack soon after the murder,’ Belle said. ‘I blame Laura for that too; he was only seventy-five and in good health until then. Mum’s in a nursing home now. As for Toby, well, he’s made a fortune designing stage sets, he’s become quite a celebrity because of the murder. He milked it for all he was worth. Now he’s shot off to Australia without a thought for Mother and me.’
‘I’m so sorry about your parents,’ Stuart said truthfully. He found it odd Belle thought so badly of her brother, for as he recalled they had once been very close. ‘They were very good to me when I first came to London. I feel ashamed I didn’t keep in touch with them over the last ten years. But perhaps I could go and see Lena when I go back to London. I’m sure you know how much she encouraged and supported me. I loved going to the house in Muswell Hill.’
‘That’s gone now of course,’ Belle sighed.