Faith - Lesley Pearse [96]
Stuart didn’t respond to that barb. He’d had enough and he knew he was likely to deck Roger if he stayed any longer. He picked up his jacket and left.
Once back in his hotel, he pulled a miniature whisky from the mini bar and swallowed it down in one. He felt dejected and ashamed that he’d been unable to control his temper. What was he thinking of? He had gone there expecting Roger to be vicious about Laura – he knew there had never been any love lost between them. In fact he had fully expected the man to launch into a vitriolic rant as soon as he arrived.
Roger had been warm and hospitable, so why on earth didn’t he play along at being his sympathetic best mate, make out he believed the absolute worst of Laura, and get some information out of him? He should have asked him what he was doing with this recent will he claimed to have, and where the rents on Jackie’s properties were going.
Stuart couldn’t believe he’d been so bloody stupid. He could have got Roger to tell him about Jackie’s funeral, who was there, what was said. He hadn’t even asked him where he was and what he was doing on the day of the murder.
Some detective he’d turned out to be! While talking to the prime suspect all he’d managed to do was put his back up, and have the door permanently slammed in his face.
It was hot but peaceful in the library, and as Laura catalogued the new books which had been brought in that morning, she felt a surge of gratitude that the governor had given her the job of librarian. It was probably because she was better educated than most of the other women, and she had a real love of books, but she also had a feeling it had been noted she’d been more amenable of late. Perhaps he thought that if he gave her a plum job she might stay that way.
She had always loved libraries. Right from childhood when she first learned to read she’d seen them as a kind of treasure trove. She could remember getting Nöel Streatfield books and plunging herself into the world of ballet. Black Beauty, Lorna Doone, Kidnapped and Tom Sawyer had also all given her further glimpses into a world far beyond grimy Shepherds Bush. She would often curl up in a corner of the library with a book, immersing herself so totally that the librarian had to tap her on the shoulder when it was closing time.
Reading had helped her through all the most difficult times in her life: long, lonely evenings when she was in the bedsitter in Crouch End, during her marriage to Gregory, and particularly after Barney was killed. Maybe it was escapism, but a book was far better than anti-depressants, and since she’d been here in Cornton Vale books had been a lifeline.
She could spend every day in the library now, and she could help and advise the women that came in, some of whom had never read a whole book in their lives before. She thought she might organize a kind of club to discuss books too. Even if she never got out of here, she believed she could find a narrow margin of happiness and serenity, as long as she kept this job.
Yet her mind was not on books completely today, but on her sisters, for just yesterday she’d received a letter from Meggie.
Seeing her spidery writing on the envelope had sent her spirits soaring, for Meggie had written only once since she was arrested, and she was clearly so freaked out then by the murder charge that Laura had asked her not to write again.
To find she was still loved, that Meggie and Ivy were well and happy, was like being given a drink of water when she was dying of thirst.
The two closely written pages were full of explanation and remorse at letting Laura down. ‘I was too scared for myself to come up to Scotland for the trial,’ she said at one point in the letter, and that frank admission was all Laura needed.
She of all people knew exactly how that felt. She had become an expert at avoiding anything and anyone who might expose her carefully maintained fabrications. In truth she would have been