Faith (47 page)

Stuart nodded. He’d heard from friends who had been called as witnesses in various cases that it was a stressful business.

‘But it also changed your mind about her innocence?’ he asked.

‘Not at the time. I thought it was just a terrible mistake when she got life. But I had to come back here and carry on. I had journalists pestering me, women coming in off the street to harangue me. And all those frightful stories about her in the papers. I realized this was someone I didn’t know!

‘I’d promised to look after this place for Laura, but suddenly there were no customers. I didn’t know what I was going to do. No money coming in, rent to find. I had nothing to live on.’

Stuart felt some sympathy for Angie then. He sensed she was genuine – the expression on her face and the tone of her voice told him that she hadn’t really known which way to turn. ‘I can imagine. I wish I’d known about it then, I would have given you some support.’

‘That was the trouble, I didn’t have any from anyone. I know it makes me sound feeble, but I got myself in an awful state.’

Stuart smiled at her. ‘Well, you’ve obviously turned the shop round now. It looks great.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, blushing a little. ‘I just had to get stuck into it, become single-minded. I would’ve gone under otherwise.’

‘I know Laura would approve of what you’ve done,’ he said. ‘But surely your old feelings for her are still there? You were good friends, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want her to stay in prison for something she didn’t do?’

‘Of course not,’ she agreed. ‘But I can’t go through all that again. I’ve built back people’s trust around here. And I don’t know that I could ever trust Laura again; there are too many lies between us.’

Stuart knew exactly how that felt, and that other people’s opinions and the poison they could drop in your ear could sway the staunchest supporter. Laura’s state of mind after her conviction must have unnerved Angie too. Most people would back away in fright at that point.

‘Look, I really do have to nip out to the bank,’ she said, looking stressed. ‘I don’t want to be rude and kick you out, so if you could just hold the fort for me for ten minutes, we can resume this conversation when I get back.’

‘By all means,’ Stuart agreed. ‘I promise I won’t try any frocks on while you are gone!’

She laughed lightly and collected her handbag from a storeroom at the back of the shop. As she was leaving she turned back to him. ‘If anyone brings anything in to sell, get them to leave it, with their phone number if they can’t wait.’

For a couple of moments after she’d gone Stuart flicked through the racks of clothes, looking at the card labels on the garments, idly wondering how the system worked. There was a code number on each, along with the price, and he supposed Angie took her commission off that price when someone bought it.

He looked over at the counter, and there beside the till was a long, thin box which looked as if it might hold a card index file. Curiosity made him go over and open it. A quick glance told him that the letter before the code number on the garment referred to the surname of the person who had brought it in.

Anderson, Ruth, for instance, had brought in a whole load of stuff, each item listed on the day it was brought in, with the individual shop price beside it. Some of the items had a sold date beside them and a further note indicating when the money had been paid to the customer.

His curiosity satisfied, Stuart was about to close the file when he thought of looking up Jackie. Sure enough, she had a card under D for Davies, and there was a long list of items, all of them marked down as sold. But when he looked closer he saw that the last few items were brought in just a month before she died. Curiously the money owing to her was paid out in early July, some six weeks after her death.

He was puzzled for a moment, but then, thinking Belle might have collected the money, he flicked through to H and Howell. To his astonishment there was an even longer list of items here, going on to three different cards. The first few items brought in had the same date as the day the money had been paid out for Jackie’s things. From then on there were many different dates, right up till just a couple of weeks ago. And she still had some items outstanding that hadn’t been sold. One of these was a size 10 green trouser suit.

He shut the file quickly, and went over to the clothes racks. They were arranged in sizes and within seconds he’d found the suit. He might never have seen Jackie wearing it, but he knew it was hers by the vivid emerald-green that she so often chose. Furthermore, Belle was probably a size 12 or even a 14.

The doorbell rang when he was still holding the suit by the hanger. He looked round and saw it was Angie. ‘No one came in,’ he said to cover his guilt. ‘I was just looking at the clothes. This one made me think of Jackie – she wore this colour a lot.’

‘I think it could well be hers. Though her sister didn’t admit it when she brought it in,’ Angie replied, barely glancing at it. ‘I should have sent it to a charity shop some time ago, I normally only keep things for two months, but I’ve hung on to that one because it’s such a beautiful, expensive suit.’

Stuart was about to pursue the matter of Belle being a customer but Angie disappeared into a room at the back of the shop. When she returned she put some change into the till, then looked back at him. ‘While I was at the bank I gave what you’ve said some thought,’ she said crisply. ‘I really can’t help in any way. Everything I had to say in Laura’s defence, I said in court. There was nothing left out. I gave as good an account of her private life, and her public one too, as it was possible to give. But it turned out that I didn’t know her anywhere near as well as I thought I did. I never even knew she had a child who died.’

That surprised Stuart. ‘Maybe it was too painful for her to speak about?’ he suggested.

She gave him a long, cool stare. ‘We were here in this shop together day after day for several years,’ she said. ‘I thought we were close friends, and as such I would have expected her to open up about something as shattering and recent as that. Then there were Meggie and Ivy, they rang here quite often, but she said they were friends, not her sisters. After the trial I found myself doubting almost everything she did tell me, and although I tried to stay strong about her, in the end I found that I couldn’t.’

‘It must’ve been hard for you.’ Stuart could tell by her expression and her body language that even a charm offensive wasn’t going to bring her round. ‘I certainly didn’t come here to harangue you further. I know there were compelling reasons why she resorted to subterfuge, I also know she didn’t kill Jackie Davies; my only difficulty is finding the proof.’

‘She is a lucky girl having you on her side.’ Angie’s face softened. ‘I really do hope you find that proof. But I must get on now, I’ve a great deal of sorting out to do.’

‘Does Belle Howell often come in here with clothes?’ he asked.

Again she gave him a stern look. ‘I really can’t discuss my customers with you,’ she said.

‘I didn’t expect you to,’ he retorted. ‘It just struck me as odd that she would come such a long way to the shop which has such strong connections with her sister’s alleged killer.’

Angie shrugged. ‘I was surprised the first time she came in, and a bit uncomfortable about it too. But some women don’t like to sell their clothes too close to home.’

‘Did she talk about Laura and the trial?’

Angie blushed and dropped her eyes. ‘Yes, but that was to be expected. She was grieving for her sister and I knew her.’

Stuart sensed she wasn’t going to open up about what Belle had said to her, so he gave her a card with his Edinburgh address and phone number and asked her to contact him if anything occurred to her later that might be useful to him.

‘I thought Belle might have eaten you alive,’ Stuart joked as David came into the Smugglers Inn on the harbour in Anstruther at twelve noon the following day. ‘How’s it been?’

‘Let’s just say that two days was far too long,’ David sighed. ‘I’ve never been so glad to leave a place.’

Stuart thought he looked tired and stressed. ‘That bad, eh? Will a pint ease the pain of it?’

David smiled. ‘It’ll help. By day it was okay, but the two evenings! They both drink like fish and there was this atmosphere of imminent crisis all the time.’

Stuart got David a pint and he drank it like a man dying of thirst.

‘Did a crisis arise?’

‘No.’ David laughed. ‘But I can tell you there’s a lot of muddy water flowing about between them, so much barely suppressed hostility and bitterness. I felt I had to keep my back to the wall at all times. No wonder they don’t get any return visitors. I got chatting to the woman in the tea shop today, and when she knew I’d been staying there she said people have booked in there intending to stay for a week and they’ve left after one night.’

‘But did you find anything useful?’

‘Maybe. First we’ll have to check on Charles’s driving record, and if he’s ever been charged with dangerous driving.’

David explained what had been said. ‘Belle’s actual words were, ‘
It’s only a matter of time before you hit someone again
.’ Without the ‘
again
’ tacked on it’s just a reproach. With it, it means he’s definitely hit someone. They wouldn’t have reacted the way they did either, if it was just a minor prang.’

Stuart frowned. ‘He’d have lost his licence if he was drunk at the time.’

‘Quite. That’s if he was caught.’

‘You think he might have hit and run?’

David shrugged. ‘He’s the kind of weasel who would save his own skin. And Belle’s the kind that would cover it up for him if she thought it was going to affect her.’

‘Just a minute!’ Stuart’s eyes were wide with horror. ‘You aren’t thinking he was the driver who killed Barney?’

‘It struck me that it was possible, I mean, they can’t get that many hit-and-run accidents out there.’ David shrugged. ‘They’d only recently bought Kirkmay House when the accident happened. Belle said she regretted buying it before they’d even repainted the front door. Suppose Jackie knew it was Charles, but didn’t tell the police out of sisterly loyalty to Belle?’

‘I can’t see Jackie concealing that. She loved Barney,’ Stuart said thoughtfully. ‘She would have wanted the guilty person punished, even if it was her brother-in-law.’

‘Maybe she would, but by doing so, she would also bring trouble down on her sister’s head,’ David said. ‘That’s Hobson’s Choice.’

Stuart looked pensive. ‘But if Charles did do it, and got away with it, surely he would have upped sticks and moved away? I wouldn’t hang around in a place after something like that. Would you?’

‘No, but then neither of us would have run off from an accident. Nor would we continue to drink and drive like he’s doing,’ David said. ‘You said he’s always been a slime-ball, so maybe Jackie thought she could make him toe the line and become a decent person by holding this over him?’

Stuart rubbed his chin reflectively. ‘Are you trying to say that eleven years of guilt, and the pressure of being stuck in a place he didn’t want to be, might make Charles mad enough to kill her?’

David chuckled nervously. ‘I don’t know that I’d go as far as to say that. But last night I lay awake for hours thinking about it, and it seemed possible. And there could be more to it. Charles might have had another woman and Jackie found out and threatened to tell Belle. Or maybe Jackie could see, as I saw, how unhappy they were together, and told Charles to do the right thing and push off and leave her sister in peace. Either way Charles wouldn’t have liked that, not losing that big house and his income. I spoke to him for some time yesterday and I’ve never met a man with a more inflated ego.’

‘He was always like that. I couldn’t stand the man.’ Stuart grimaced. ‘But before we get carried away, we’ll have to find out more about the police investigation into the hit-and-run. They would have discovered the colour and probably the make of car, and they would have left no stone unturned in tracking it down because a child died. How could Charles have slipped through their net? His car would have been damaged, and if he’d been drinking most of that day, someone would have spoken up about it.’

‘If he had a very supportive wife, he might have been able to manage it,’ David suggested. ‘But enough of that for now. How did your investigations go?’

‘I’m meeting Gloria the barmaid at four this afternoon. I went into the pub in Cellardyke last night and we had a brief chat, but it was too busy to have a real talk. As for Angie, let’s just say she’s not batting for Laura any more.’

David ordered them another two pints. ‘Really? Why’s that?’

Stuart explained what had passed between them. ‘I was left with the impression that she’s a thoroughly honest, decent woman, but she’s lost her faith in Laura.’

‘So it was a waste of time then?’

‘Not exactly.’ Stuart grinned. ‘For one thing I was impressed by the shop – that is evidence to me that Laura was entirely stable and hard-working prior to Jackie’s death. Also, when Angie had to pop out to the bank, I rifled through her index file of customers.’

David frowned. ‘Why would you be interested in her customers?’

Stuart explained how the system worked and that he’d discovered Jackie was a customer. ‘Well, she would’ve been, she was Laura’s friend,’ David retorted.

‘Of course. But it isn’t quite so understandable that Belle collected money owing to Jackie after her death, and then continued to be a customer right up to the present. You tell me why someone would go all the way from Fife across Edinburgh to flog her togs at the shop owned by her sister’s killer, when there’s another dress agency in St Andrews, just down the road.’

David sucked in his cheeks. ‘Old habits dying hard? Maybe she felt it wasn’t Laura’s shop any more, just Angie’s. But it is a bit peculiar, especially as Belle is so rabid about Laura. You’d think she’d avoid any reminders.’

‘Even more peculiar is that I think she’s been selling Jackie’s clothes, not her own. Wouldn’t most sisters hang on to everything for a long while?’

David frowned. ‘How weird!’