Faith - Lesley Pearse [52]
But as he walked down the lane, the sun on his back, he saw what Jackie must have seen – miles and miles of gently undulating fields, lush and green now with crops, a feeling of immense space. When he turned round to look back towards Crail, the sea was as blue as the sky, and suddenly he understood why Jackie had spoken of the freedom she felt here. For a girl who had grown up in London, hemmed in by houses, surrounded by people, her ears bombarded by traffic noise, it must have been wonderful to stand at her door seeing and hearing only the sounds of nature – the wind blowing the crops, birds wheeling overhead – and watching the colour of the sea change according to the weather. Stuart remembered her saying that being exposed to all the elements made her feel strong, that being able to see for miles and miles gave her power. He had laughed at the time, assuming it was another of her wacky ideas that would be thrown aside when a new one came to her. But though she stopped trying to convince others to embrace the simple life, she remained faithful to it. And now he was here in this wide open, vast space, feeling the wind tugging at his hair, he understood what she loved about it.
Brodie Farm was visible from a long way off because it stood up on slightly higher ground, surrounded by trees. Once Stuart was closer, he climbed on to a farm gate to study it in detail. The two-storey farmhouse and its single-storey outbuildings formed an open-ended square around the yard. When Jackie bought the place there were no windows on the outside walls; in fact, when she had shown him photographs of it, to him it looked like a tumbledown, forbidding fortress. He hadn’t aired his real opinion, that she was crazy to buy it, for by then he knew Jackie well enough to appreciate she had vision.
She had already drawn up tentative plans to convert each of the stables and other outhouses into guest rooms, but it was his suggestion that she put windows in the outside walls to make the rooms lighter, and give her guests the benefit of the extensive views across the countryside.
Stuart had never had the chance to see the place, not before she began the work, or during, or after, its completion. She had asked him if he’d like to manage the project, but he’d turned it down because he’d been offered work in South America, and anyway in those days he had no wish to return to Scotland, not while Laura was up there.
But it pleased him to see she had acted on his suggestion about the windows, and they, and the many trees and shrubs along the boundary of her land had softened the severity of the building. Seen now in bright sunshine, it looked so idyllic and peaceful it didn’t seem possible that a horrific murder had taken place there.
Once again he wondered what had caused Jackie to freak out that morning and phone Laura. She might have been troubled for some time, but in Stuart’s experience there was usually some dramatic incident which suddenly sent people over the edge.
Could someone have dropped in and threatened her? If they had hung around afterwards they might have heard her make the call to Laura, and panicked because they knew Jackie was likely to spill the beans when she arrived. But unless the neighbour who saw Laura and Michael Fenton’s cars was wrong, that would mean the killer had come on foot.
Stuart got down off the gate and continued along the lane, climbed over another gate near to Brodie Farm’s boundary fence and walked up the side of the field to make his way right round the property. To his surprise there was a window open upstairs in the farmhouse, and music from a radio wafted out. He was rather shocked that Belle had let the farmhouse, he had expected that she would only take bookings for the stable rooms, and leave Jackie’s home untouched. But perhaps