Faith (58 page)

He willed himself not to faint until he reached the house next door.

‘He banged on our door just as we were sitting down to dinner,’ Mrs Edith Cameron told the two policemen who had arrived just seconds after the ambulance. ‘I couldn’t believe it. He looked like something from a horror film, all black with coal dust and soaked in blood. He could barely manage to speak, but what he did say was clear enough for me. Belle Howell stabbed him, and locked him in the cellar to die.’

Edith and her husband Henry were sedate pensioners who had lived in Crail for most of their married life. They had little to do with the Howells, and the high wall between Kirkmay House and their home meant they rarely even saw them. Edith was deeply shocked that such a thing could happen anywhere, let alone right next door to her.

‘Is he going to be all right?’ Henry Cameron asked as he watched the ambulance men lifting the injured man from his hall floor on to a stretcher.

‘His pulse is very weak and he’s lost a great deal of blood. It doesn’t look good,’ the ambulance man replied. ‘Do you know his name?’

Henry shook his head. ‘He passed out before we could ask him anything.’

The stretcher was wheeled down the garden path and lifted into the ambulance. Another minute and it was roaring off with its siren wailing.

‘Now, Mr and Mrs Cameron, if you could just run through again what happened?’ the older of the two policeman asked.

‘You’d better come into the sitting room.’ Mrs Cameron could see a bunch of people gathering on the other side of Marketgate. ‘What a shock it gave us! Are you going in next door to arrest the Howells?’

16

‘Hi, Patrick! Have you any idea where Stuart is?’ David asked breezily when he phoned the lawyer’s office.

David had rung his friend at the flat a couple of times in the last week, because he and Julia thought the kids might enjoy some time in Edinburgh seeing the sights before they went back to London, and he wanted to know if Stuart could put them up. When he got no reply, David assumed his friend had gone off somewhere for a job.

Today, with only a few more days left before they had to give up their holiday cottage in the Highlands, David thought he’d ring Goldsmith and ask if he had a contact number.

‘In the hospital in Kirkcaldy,’ Patrick replied.

‘Hospital!’ David exclaimed. ‘Why, what’s wrong with him?’

‘Surely you heard about it on the news or read about it in the newspapers?’ Patrick said, sounding puzzled. ‘It got blanket coverage.’

David felt his stomach churn over. ‘There’s no television in the cottage we’re staving at,’ he said hurriedly. ‘And I haven’t bought a newspaper since I got here. Tell me what’s happened.’

‘He was stabbed and imprisoned by the Howells out in Crail,’ Patrick began.

‘You what!’ David exclaimed. His stomach lurched again and he had to fumble for a chair to sit down on. Julia looked at him in alarm and mouthed, ‘What’s happened?’

She came and put her ear to the back of the phone as Patrick explained what he knew of the events of nine days earlier and how Stuart had eventually managed to escape to the house next door where they called an ambulance for him. ‘He was close to death,’ Patrick said, and unusually for him his voice shook with emotion. ‘Thankfully he’s out of danger now, but it’s been a very worrying time.’

It was a tremendous shock to David, and what he wanted was a detailed account of everything that had happened, what was said, done, the extent of Stuart’s injuries and how he escaped, but frustratingly, although Patrick was clearly deeply concerned about Stuart, he was still being his usual cagey self, and seemed inclined to give him only the barest of facts, namely, that Stuart’s lung had been punctured.

‘Come on, Patrick,’ David exclaimed in frustration. ‘Why did he go there? Why did they attack him, and have the Howells been arrested?’

‘I don’t know what he was doing there, or how it came about,’ Patrick admitted. ‘But Belle and Charles were arrested later the same evening, and charged with attempted murder. When they appeared in court briefly thirty-six hours later, they were refused bail and remanded in custody pending further investigations.’

‘Have you visited Stuart?’ David asked, beginning to feel angry.

‘I went there as soon as I heard about it, but he was in intensive care and not up to visitors. I haven’t been able to get there since due to pressure of work, but I do know that he has been able to give the police enough information for them to open a new investigation into Jackie Davies’s murder.’

‘He’s found evidence it was Charles?’

‘Apparently he alleges Belle killed her.’

David left Julia and the children and drove straight down to the hospital in Kirkcaldy. The long drive, and the inevitable hold-ups because of the holiday traffic, only increased his anxiety and by the time he reached Stirling he had a thumping headache.

For as long as he’d known Stuart he’d always been something of a madcap. He would be the first to take up a challenge, always inclined to take the side of the underdog, impulsive, daring and often reckless. Perhaps that was what David liked and admired most about him, but at the same time it had often infuriated him too.

The night before Julia flew into Edinburgh, David had sensed Stuart wanted some kind of action. If he’d known that leaving him to his own devices would lead to him risking his life, he would have insisted he came up to the Highlands too. But his old friend wasn’t the kind anyone could lead around by the nose. And it certainly wouldn’t have occurred to him just how many people would have grieved for him if he had been killed.

It was such a relief when he walked into the ward to find Stuart sitting up in bed, grinning like a Cheshire Cat. Apart from his chest being swathed in bandages and his pale face, he looked remarkably well.

‘It’s a good job I didn’t rely on you to rescue me,’ he joked. ‘Some mate you are turning up nine days too late!’

David didn’t consider himself to be an emotional man, but he felt like hugging Stuart just because he was alive. He listened to the story of exactly what had transpired in Kirkmay House: the fight in the kitchen, how Belle stabbed him and how he got out of the cellar. Although he chuckled along with Stuart as if he was relating some schoolboy adventure, in fact his blood ran cold and he felt sick at the thought of what could have happened.

But he found he couldn’t hide his true feelings for long. ‘You harebrained imbecile!’ he blurted out once he’d heard the whole story. ‘What on earth possessed you to go there?’

‘I just wanted to stir things up,’ Stuart grinned. ‘I succeeded too, didn’t I?’

‘Stir things up!’ David shouted, forgetting that he was supposed to be a calm, mild-mannered man. ‘You could easily be dead now, or so badly injured you’d never work again. The ward sister told me it was touch and go when you were brought in here. Didn’t you think of those who care about you before you took such risks? You’ve got an elderly mother and a brother and sister, not to mention friends like me who love you!’

Stuart had the grace to look a little sheepish. ‘Okay, maybe it was a tad extreme, but at least the police have arrested them both, they are looking into Jackie’s murder again, and Laura will almost certainly get bail if Patrick can get an emergency hearing in court for her.’ He paused, then went on, a sly grin twitching his lips, ‘I never realized you loved me, Davey! Good job I didn’t know that in some of the remote places we’ve been together!’

David had to laugh then, but that was another thing he liked about Stuart – he could find humour in anything. And the man was right. Laura’s appeal in the High Court of Justiciary could now go through unchallenged, as long as the police had sufficient evidence that she hadn’t committed the crime.

‘It’s good to see you,’ Stuart said. ‘I’m sorry you had to cut your holiday short and drive all this way. Do you know if they’ve found my car yet?’

‘No, I don’t. Funnily enough, I was more concerned about you than your car,’ David retorted. ‘But I’ll find out for you. It will serve you right if Charles parked on double yellows and it’s been towed away. Anyway, you won’t be driving for some time.’

‘You can be a bit of an old woman, you know,’ Stuart retorted. ‘Now, stop worrying about me and go back to the Highlands.’

David asked him about bringing Julia and the children back to stay in the flat the following week. ‘We could look after you, and we’ll keep the kids out of your hair.’

‘That’s still full of dried blood,’ Stuart grimaced, putting one hand up to touch his hair. ‘I still feel as if my lungs are full of coal dust too. But it would be good to have you all around for a bit. I’m sure Julia can be trusted to wash up occasionally.’

‘She can be trusted to wash your hair, feed you and tell you you’re a hero.’ David smiled. ‘She was horrified when we found out what had happened to you.’

‘Make out I’m more of a wounded soldier than I really am.’ Stuart laughed. ‘By the way, did you know that Belle’s been taken to Cornton Vale?’

‘Shit!’ David whistled through his teeth. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask where Belle had been taken. ‘Do you think she’ll come in contact with Laura?’

‘Belle will be on the remand block. But knowing Laura as I do, I’ve no doubt she’ll find a way of getting to her. I wrote to her a couple of days ago and warned her to keep away, but I don’t hold out much hope of her obeying. If I’d been locked up for two years for something I hadn’t done, I’d want revenge too.’

As David was visiting Stuart, Laura was busy in the library, but it wasn’t revenge that was in the forefront of her mind, only a desperate need to know the truth.

She had first heard the news about Stuart being taken to hospital from Beady, a week earlier. Beady had reported excitedly that when a photograph of him was flashed on to the screen, she recognized him as Laura’s visitor.

Laura’s initial reaction to the information that Belle and Charles had been arrested for Stuart’s attempted murder was one of incredulity. She could understand them being furious that she was to inherit Brodie Farm, and her sisters to get Kirkmay House, but it made no sense that they’d taken their anger out on Stuart. She was convinced that it would turn out that it was merely a brawl between the two men which had gone too far.

When Patrick Goldsmith came to visit her the following day, and told her that Stuart had been convinced for some time that it was Charles who killed Jackie, it began to make some sense. Laura could imagine Stuart going over to Crail with the sole purpose of provoking Charles. She had just about got her head round that, when Patrick went on to say that Stuart was alleging it was Belle who had stabbed him. Furthermore, Stuart was convinced that it was she who had killed Jackie, not Charles.

But Patrick was a lawyer through and through. He used words like ‘allegedly’ and ‘it seems likely’, not once revealing his own personal opinion. Nor did he share with her any inside information gathered from the police, or even tell her the street gossip about it.

He didn’t stay long with her either, leaving her with the news that the police had made a statement to the effect that they were opening a new investigation into Jackie’s murder, and as such he should be able to get an emergency appeal for her on the grounds that it had been an unsafe conviction.

Laura was left totally bewildered. While it sounded very much to her as if her appeal was in the bag, and freedom was around the corner, Patrick’s coolness suggested she shouldn’t count on it.

That night she would have given anything to be able to phone Stuart or David for a clearer explanation and their take on the situation. Ever since she was sentenced she had watched other prisoners fighting over phone cards, spending a whole evening queuing for their turn on the phone, and never once felt the desire to ring anyone herself. Suddenly everyone was prepared to stand back and let her make as many phone calls as she liked, but apart from Meggie there was no one she could call, for she couldn’t contact either of the men.

Meggie didn’t know about the attack on Stuart as it hadn’t reached the newspapers in England, which made it tough on Laura as she had to explain the whole thing before she could even attempt to get to the real point of her call. She never did get there, for Meggie swung between delight in speaking to her sister and anxiety about Stuart, not really taking in what Laura was trying to say. Once her phone card ran out, she was left just as bewildered and unsure about everything as she had been before.

By the next day the whole prison was buzzing with the news that the press had gone into an orgy of rehashing Jackie’s murder and Laura’s trial. Beady brought one newspaper in for her with a large photograph of Laura on the front page and a headline, ‘
Has she been wronged
?’

The press interest in Laura, and Belle’s arrival on the remand block, was the talk of the prison now. Laura found it quite amusing that all those who had so often scornfully disbelieved her protests that she was innocent were now sucking up to her. But rather more worrying was the general opinion among her fellow prisoners that she should get hold of Belle and wreak her revenge.

She did want to get hold of Belle, but not to attack her. She just wanted to know the truth. It was patently obvious that Belle had stabbed Stuart, and he wouldn’t have said she killed Jackie too unless he was certain of it, but Laura still couldn’t quite believe it. She wouldn’t until she heard it from Belle herself.

Nobody seemed to understand that, least of all Patrick Goldsmith who had merely shrugged and said that nothing was proved yet, but it would all come out eventually at her trial.

Laura couldn’t wait that long. She had been the person who found Jackie dead, she’d even pulled the knife out of her. And there had been times in the darkest moments while she’d been in this place when she’d begun to think she must have done it, but blanked it out, just as the police psychiatrist had suggested.

She had always thought of Belle as a younger sister, and as such she’d taken it in her stride when Belle was sometimes offhand with her. She did think it was unkind to banish her to stay at Brodie Farm just after Barney was killed, but she’d put that down to Belle being overwrought and not thinking straight. She had been nasty on several occasions after that too, but Laura had never had any inkling that Belle hated her. Yet she must have done if she would let her be wrongfully imprisoned for life. And that was what she wanted to know. Why she hated her.