Faith (27 page)

Meggie protested, but Stuart insisted. ‘It needs doing and today is as good as any to get cracking on it. Unless of course you want me to push off?’

‘No, I don’t.’ She smiled. ‘It’s nice having you here.’

Two hours later, Stuart had removed the old roofing felt and secured all the loose shingles. As he climbed up the ladder to spread the new felt over the roof timbers, he glanced back up the garden and saw that Meggie was on her knees close to the house, pulling out weeds.

She’d got him her tools and offered to help him but he’d said he could manage alone. Apart from bringing him a cup of coffee about an hour ago, she’d stayed well away. But now as he looked at her he realized he ought to have accepted her help, for even viewing her from a distance he could sense her isolation. He was pretty certain she had no real friends; she’d probably never had anyone much in her life other than Ivy and Laura.

A wave of sympathy washed over him, for she was a good person with a lively mind and she certainly wasn’t lacking in personality. But he supposed her guilt about her past made it impossible for her to let anyone get close to her.

It had been a day of revelations, and he would need a great deal more time to think through them all. Yet the one thing which stood out for him above all else was that Laura had feared their relationship couldn’t last because he was so young and innocent.

He hadn’t of course seen himself as innocent back then. But if innocence meant not understanding that some people are damaged, that events in their past could colour the rest of their lives, then he was definitely guilty of that.

Falling hard and fast for Laura as he did, he never questioned anything she told him, and he didn’t ask about her past because he was afraid she might tell him something that would make him jealous. Indeed, the very fact that she didn’t want to talk about Gregory had convinced him that she’d loved her husband deeply. When she made no attempt to get a divorce, he felt insecure, for to him that looked as if she hoped to get back with the man.

Later, when they got the flat in Edinburgh and he was unable to find work, he was aggrieved when she took a job at the casino. If she’d got work in a shop or an office he wouldn’t have minded so much, even though back in those days he believed it was a man’s role to be sole breadwinner. But casinos to him were dens of vice and the women who worked in them were honey traps to lure the suckers in and fleece them. He believed Laura was out looking for a rich man so she could have a glamorous life – he even saw her leaving him to mind Barney as evidence she didn’t really care about her son either.

But in the light of what he now knew about her marriage, perhaps his views on how she behaved back then were distorted. She might have been afraid to file for divorce because she was frightened of Greg finding out where she was. There was no doubt the money she earned at the casino helped them through a lean time, and maybe it was better for Barney that she worked at night so he didn’t have to go and stay with a stranger.

As he tacked down the roofing felt he was reminded of his first year in London. He would be doing jobs like this one, but his mind was always on Laura and dwelling on the many rows they’d had in this last year together.

He could see her now, sitting at the dressing table doing her face, all dressed up in a glamorous dress and high heels, while he ranted at her preferring the company of gamblers rather than him and her son.

‘Please don’t go on and on about this,’ he could remember her saying, her face stubborn and cold. ‘I can’t help it that there isn’t much work in Edinburgh for you. I know you don’t like the idea of me working at the casino. But one of us has got to bring some money home or we can’t eat or pay the rent. So you’ll just have to put up with it.’

Back then Stuart had only been able to look at the problems from one viewpoint, his own. He was in fact such a dyed-in-the-wool male chauvinist that he thought men had a God-given right to make all plans and decisions, and that a woman’s role was merely one of support.

Jackie got him out of that way of thinking. She used to laugh at his old-fashioned ideas and challenge them. She once said to him, ‘Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that you drove Laura into another man’s arms? She was doing her best for both of you, but you threw it back in her face because she hurt your ego. Wise up, man, or you’ll end up with some doormat of a woman who will bore you to tears.’

Stuart smiled wryly to himself as he hammered the last tack in the roof and collected up the tools to take back to Meggie. He’d ended up without even a doormat of his own. A life spent avoiding permanent relationships because he equated them all with hurt.

He wasn’t such a tough guy after all.

8

‘Good to see you again, Stuart. I thought you were stuck permanently on the other side of the world.’ Roger Davies beamed welcomingly as he opened the door. ‘Come on in, I’ve got us a few beers in, it will be good to catch up again.’

As Roger led the way into the huge kitchen at the back of Pembroke Villas in Kensington, Stuart was pleased to see everything was still much the same as when Jackie was living here. He had helped with the construction of adding a conservatory to the already large room because Jackie wanted guests to be able to lounge on settees in comfort while she was cooking.

The greenery from the garden had grown considerably and draped itself over the glass roof, the sofas were shabby now, and there was more clutter than in the old days. But it had retained some of Jackie’s artistic flair along with the character and sense of comfort and conviviality she had been so keen on.

Stuart had already explained to Roger on the phone that he hadn’t heard of Jackie’s death until his return to the UK, and that he’d been to see Belle and Lena. Roger appeared to have moved on considerably for he didn’t linger on the sadness of Jackie dying, and hardly mentioned Laura’s trial. He was more interested in talking about sailing, which he’d recently taken up, and said he was considering retiring early and going to live in Spain.

Just as when he visited Belle, Stuart had no intention of revealing his views on Laura, only to get yet another perspective on the events. He was also genuinely anxious to see Roger for his own sake, as they’d always got on well in the past.

It was a bit of a shock to find him so aged. Stuart knew he had to be around fifty-seven, but he looked far older than that. The little hair that remained was white and he had a big paunch and bags under his eyes. He looked nothing like the blond, blue-eyed Adonis he’d been when Stuart met him twenty years ago.

‘It’s nice to be here again,’ Stuart said, sitting down on one of the sofas. ‘We had some good times in this kitchen.’

‘I think that’s why I’m so reluctant to sell,’ Roger said as he got a couple of beers from the fridge. He stood still in the middle of the kitchen, looking around him. ‘It certainly doesn’t make a lot of sense for me to rattle around alone in a house of this size. But I’ve got so much stuff and it’s a daunting prospect to have to sort it all out and get rid of it.’

‘That’s the one and only advantage of keeping on the move,’ Stuart said. ‘You don’t get to hoard anything. But I’m beginning to think it’s time I settled down somewhere. I can’t roam for ever.’

They chatted and laughed for a couple of hours, about mutual friends, old times and the property market and drank a large number of beers. It was only once the pizza they’d ordered arrived that Stuart reminded himself this wasn’t purely a social call.

Belle had implied Roger would have a long list of grouses, but so far he hadn’t voiced any. He had only mentioned Jackie in relation to incidents and people who were part of their set in the seventies. He seemed very balanced; he was neither dismissive about his wife’s value, nor too sentimental. Stuart felt he’d accepted what had happened, and was in the process of putting a new life together, for he even mentioned a new woman friend.

Once they’d finished the pizza, and were both very mellow, Stuart thought it was time to broach more thorny issues. ‘Do you still keep in touch with Belle and Charles?’ he asked.

‘Not if I can help it,’ Roger said with a chuckle. ‘I never liked Charles, he was too up himself. And Belle became a whinging bitch within a few years of marriage to him.’

Stuart grinned. ‘I didn’t see Charles when I called on them, he was out somewhere. Can’t say I was disappointed either. But fancy them running a guest house! A bit of a comedown, isn’t it?’

‘Charles claimed at the time that he wanted less stress and more golf,’ Roger said. ‘But I think it was more likely that he was short of readies. There was a rumour going around at the time he left London that he was in a spot of bother over one of his construction sites. But then there were always rumours about Charles, you’ll probably remember that he was always one for sharp practice.’

‘That’s why I gave him a wide berth,’ Stuart agreed. ‘Mind you, most of the property developers back in the seventies were the same. Jackie had the right idea – every place of hers I worked on was tip-top. No cutting corners, good design, quality fittings.’

‘She believed in doing up each place as if she was going to live in it. J used to argue with her about it when she first got started.’ Roger smiled ruefully. ‘I said she couldn’t make any profit that way. But I was wrong – her integrity showed, and they sold fast. A smaller profit but a quick turnover is more valuable in the long run.’

‘I wish I’d bought one of her places back then,’ Stuart said. ‘She offered me a small top flat in Battersea Bridge Road and as I recall it was a couple of thousand. Typical dumb Scot, I thought the mortgage would be a millstone round my neck. I saw a flat just like it offered for sale the other day and it was a hundred and fifty thousand! And that, I’m told, is a bargain!’

Roger laughed. ‘Property prices are ludicrous in London now. A young couple just starting out have no chance of getting a home like this one. Jackie tried to talk Belle into buying that flat in Battersea too. It was before she married Charles. But that little bimbo thought Battersea was too downmarket for her!’

‘I bet she’s sick about that now,’ Stuart sniggered. ‘I suppose back then she thought she ought to be living across the bridge in Chelsea. She was always a bit preoccupied with status, funny really when you think how Lena and Frank were, they didn’t give a toss about such things. By the way, have you got any idea why Belle implied Lena had gone senile? I found her bright as a button.’

‘Well, Belle likes to divide and rule. She wouldn’t have wanted you to see Lena, just as she wouldn’t want you to see me or Toby if he was still around.’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘I dare say because of just what we are doing right now. Discussing her. She wouldn’t want me telling you that she sold the house in Duke’s Avenue with undue haste.’

‘Did she?’

Well, Lena
was
in a bit of a state. But wouldn’t anyone be if they’d just lost both their daughter and husband?’ Roger exclaimed with indignation. ‘I don’t think it warranted shipping her off to an old folks’ home though. A bit of TLC would have put her right in my view.’

‘You think Belle ought to have taken her up to Scotland to live with her?’

Roger frowned. ‘I don’t think Lena would have wanted that, too many reminders of Jackie. But I think Belle should have come down and stayed with her for a while. She had no ties, she could even have got someone up there to run the guest house while she was gone. But then, Belle was always spoilt and self-centred. I dare say she told you I was a first-class ratbag, that’s what she usually does.’

Stuart noted that Roger sounded jovial enough, but he thought he heard an undercurrent of bitterness.

‘She did say you’d got a more recent will than the one she found,’ Stuart said cautiously, hoping this might make Roger reveal his true feelings.

‘I bet she said I “claimed” to have one.’ Roger laughed humourlessly. ‘And I assure you it is no claim, it’s kosher. She likes to rubbish the idea that Jackie and I remained friends, but we did.’

Stuart was dying to ask why Roger hadn’t actually produced this will if he really had it, but he thought he’d better leave that for later.

‘I can testify to that,’ he said. ‘Jackie always spoke of you in very affectionate terms to me. That must have made it so much harder for you when she was killed.’

‘I would say it was the worst day in my life when I got the news,’ Roger said simply, and for the first time that evening a shadow of sadness passed over his face. ‘I never really liked Laura; throughout our marriage I did my best to loosen her grip on Jackie, but I never succeeded. I wish I could feel smug that I was right about her all along, but there’s no satisfaction in that – all I feel is a terrible sense of loss.’

Stuart didn’t know where to go from there for it was patently obvious that Roger had never had a moment’s doubt that Laura was responsible.

‘So how did you react when you heard who killed Jackie?’ Roger asked before Stuart could think of his next question. ‘I remember of course that you left Scotland because of her.’

Stuart bristled, not liking the implication in Roger’s remark. ‘I left Scotland because there was no work for me there,’ he said.

‘You don’t believe she did it!’ Roger made a kind of chortling sound in his throat. ‘Oh, come on, Stu, she did you up like a kipper, you were broken when you came to London.’

‘Maybe, but I never saw anything in Laura to suggest she could kill someone. Certainly not Jackie, they were closer than sisters.’

‘Well, we’ve all heard how close Laura was to her sisters! She didn’t even admit she had any,’ Roger said spitefully, his eyes narrowing. ‘Her father was a criminal, the mother sells her sordid story to the press for a few bob. The two older brothers have been in and out of nick since they were kids.’

It was only then that Stuart remembered how Roger had talked down to him when they first met. He took the view that all manual workers were beneath him, and that snobbish attitude only changed later because of Jackie’s influence.

‘Laura couldn’t help the family she was born into,’ Stuart said indignantly.