Faith - Lesley Pearse [51]
‘Aye, Laura was fond of her, she dinnae see what was in the woman’s heart. But then Laura dinnae pay attention to what folk thought of her.’
Stuart half smiled, for that last remark was very perceptive. Laura had never been one to think about the effect she might have on anyone. He was a fine example, for it never occurred to Laura that a mere lad of twenty-one would be blown away by an experienced older woman, and she couldn’t comprehend his pain and anguish when she’d grown tired of him either.
‘You don’t think Belle did the dirty deed, do you?’ he joked.
Gloria chuckled. ‘And get her pretty manicured hands dirty? I dinnae think so, Stuart. Besides, her car was in the garage that day, and it’s a good long trek out to Brodie Farm for a woman who never even walks to do her messages.’
‘So do you favour anyone else as a suspect?’
She shook her head as if amused at the question.
‘What about the many lovers?’ Stuart prompted.
She raised one eyebrow and pursed her lips. ‘That’s all best laid to rest,’ she said firmly. ‘Their families have suffered enough from their foolishness already without me making more of it. And now I must get back to work.’
Stuart left the pub and walked up the hill to the main road to catch the St Andrews bus back to Crail and his car. He felt somewhat justified in his faith in Laura now that he knew Gloria liked her and didn’t believe she was guilty; if nothing else, it proved he wasn’t totally crazy. Her views on Belle were interesting too. She hadn’t shot him down in flames either about Jackie’s lovers, which to him meant they not only existed, but she knew perfectly well who they were. He would bet that they were men she’d known all her life, and that was why she wouldn’t say anything more. He would have to find some other way to discover who they were.
Once back in his car, which was parked by Crail Tolbooth, he sat for a moment, suddenly daunted by just how difficult it was going to be to get at the truth of how Jackie died, two years on. Was he really up to it? He knew nothing about detection or law, and he knew precious little about how Jackie and Laura had lived in the last ten years and what went on between them.
But more than that, why should he care if Laura had been punished for a crime she hadn’t committed? She hadn’t given a damn about him when she played around with the man from the casino.
He could see himself on the London train, squashed between a very large woman who never stopped eating and a Glaswegian drunk who kept offering him a swig from his bottle of whisky. It was January 1975 and bitterly cold. The carriage was full of cigarette smoke which stung his eyes, but every time he closed them he saw Laura’s face, and the pain in his heart was so bad he felt he could easily die from it.
All he had in the world was about £10, a bag full of carpentry tools and a few clothes. He was scared, too, that Jackie’s offer to give him work might have been just hot air and he wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to live. He’d only met Jackie a few times on her brief visits to Scotland, and although she had seemed to be the dynamic businesswoman Laura had always described her as, he had no real proof of it. London was unknown territory to him too, he had no other contacts to find work, and if he failed to make it there he didn’t know what he was going to do.
‘But you did make it there, thanks to Jackie,’ he murmured to himself, shaking himself out of his reverie. ‘Even if you don’t owe anything to Laura, you do to Jackie. You’ve got to find out the truth for her sake.’
Instead of returning to Edinburgh as he’d intended, Stuart turned off on the lane that led to Brodie Farm, left his car outside the last cottages and began to walk the rest of the way. He had already driven here several times while checking the time it took from Edinburgh, but it was only by walking that he could get the real feel of the area, notice small landmarks and the other houses on the route which he’d hardly taken in while driving.
When Jackie had first bought Brodie Farm Stuart had been puzzled