Faith - Lesley Pearse [84]
‘You’ve clearly got a real talent for it,’ he said, looking around appreciatively at the pine kitchen units, realizing they were custom-built, not flat-packed from MFI. ‘It’s a wonder our paths didn’t cross before. I used to work on Jackie’s houses and some were around here.’
‘I wasn’t here then, I was in Islington. Ivy and I were renting a little terraced house when the owner died and the relatives put it up for sale. No one wanted it with sitting tenants and the price kept going down. Laura said I ought to buy it, in fact she gave me the deposit. Ivy and I did it up, then the property boom happened in ’72. I sold it, and with the proceeds bought two others. And so on, and so on.’
‘Clever girl,’ Stuart exclaimed. He thought it was incredible that with so much stacked against her Meggie had managed to do so well. ‘And there’s me who has watched countless others make their pile while I helped them with my skills, but never had the sense to jump on the bandwagon myself!’
‘From what Laura told me about you, you were never materialistic.’
Stuart sighed. ‘Maybe if I had been we might have stayed together,’ he said. ‘She wanted money, smart clothes and all the trappings, that’s what went wrong. I was just a head in the clouds type, satisfied with very little. But tell me about her husband. You said earlier he tried to poison her.’
Meggie got up and went over to the French door that led into the garden and opened it. ‘Let’s have some lunch out here,’ she said. ‘It’s too nice to stay inside.’
Stuart joined her at the door, about to ask why she was stalling about the poison, but as he saw the garden he was distracted.
From the end of the patio area close to the house, which was full of tubs of flowers, a narrow red brick path snaked its way through a series of rose-covered arches giving only glimpses of lawn, flower beds and trees beyond. It gave the impression it was enormously long, but that was probably an optical illusion. ‘Good God, Meggie, it’s beautiful!’ he exclaimed. ‘Is it all your own work?’
She blushed and nodded. ‘Yes. And if I’m going to have to tell you about Gregory Brannigan I’d like to be relaxed for it. I’ll make us some sandwiches and open a bottle of wine.’
‘Can I do something to help?’
‘No, just go and have a look round out there. Down the bottom there’s a little summer house and I could do with your expert opinion as to whether it’s worth repairing or if it’s gone too far for that.’
Stuart wandered down the garden, Lucy the dog following him. He stopped every now and then to admire the dramatic combinations of colour Meggie had used in her planting. Orange with purple, bright pink and dark blue, then blue with yellow. Meggie had been a surprise in so many different ways, but this was perhaps the greatest of them all.
He was still very intrigued by her. She had told him so much, yet in fact had revealed little about herself. Had she ever been married? Was there a man in her life, and why wasn’t she at the trial if she cared so much for Laura? She also hadn’t said she thought her sister was innocent!
The summer house was a bit ramshackle, but he could see why Meggie was reluctant to pull it down. There were creepers almost covering it, and on the little veranda part outside was a wicker chair with fat cushions. It looked as if it was a favourite place to sit as there was a book on the table beside it. He picked it up and smiled to see it was Lorna Doone, a book he remembered Laura had loved.
He poked at the roofing felt, prodded the wood shingles on the walls, and shook the veranda rails. Looking inside, he found only one place water was coming in through, and the floor was sound.
‘Your garden does you credit, it’s astounding,’ he said as he returned to the kitchen to find Meggie loading a tray with sandwiches, glasses and a bottle of white wine. ‘As for the summer house, that only really needs a few shingles to be nailed in, and refelting. I could do it for you if you’ve got some tools and could get the felt.’
‘I’ve got tools and the felt. I got it ages ago when it began to leak at the back.