Faith (62 page)

When Meggie returned from taking their mother home, Laura was sitting in the kitchen drinking a glass of wine. ‘I hope you turned her gas tap on before you left her,’ she said.

Meggie half smiled. ‘No chance, it’s all electric. She really is a piece of work, isn’t she? So that’s how Jackie found out about us all! I suppose you’re really mortified?’

‘Yes and no,’ Laura said thoughtfully. ‘It kind of explains what Jackie meant in her letter to Stuart, when she said, “Tell Laura I understand.” She was intuitive about people, Meggie, she might have hoped to learn all the ins and outs, but Mum asking her for money would have been enough for her.’

‘She’d have been appalled by the way she lives too,’ Meggie said sadly. ‘It’s really squalid. Over the years both Ivy and I have tried to improve things, but as fast as we buy her new curtains or a nice armchair, she sells them. We’ve given up now, just like Freddy has. So either Ivy or I go round there once a week and clear up, throw out all the bottles, put some money in the electric, and take her clean clothes. Sometimes I think we must be mad to do it, we never get any thanks.’

‘You know, you turned out just fine,’ Laura said, and getting up she put her arms round her sister and hugged her. ‘It’s a real miracle.’

Meggie disengaged herself from Laura and put her hands on either side of her sister’s face. ‘It isn’t a miracle, Laura, it was you. I remember you giving us our breakfast, taking the washing to the laundrette, doing our hair. Always there for us. I was angry and hurt when you left without telling us. But you even came back to Barnes at just the right time. Another month or so and I’d have been a lost cause, I’d have got pregnant by some thug, ended up just like Mother, I guess. But you were like a guiding light, you led me out of that.’

‘I didn’t lead you very well if you went on the game!’ Laura said, her eyes filling up with tears.

‘I did what I had to do,’ Meggie said firmly. ‘I’d learned that from you. I know you used to nick food and clothes for us all when we were in Shepherds Bush, and I went on the game for the same reason, to make sure Ivy didn’t go hungry. The end justifies the means. I don’t regret any of it now. The only thing that makes me sad is that you’ve spent your whole life believing you are a bad person. You aren’t!’

Laura began to cry then, and Meggie led her into the sitting room, sat her down on the settee and cuddled her as she cried.

‘They call families like ours dysfunctional nowadays,’ Meggie murmured against her hair. ‘They have social workers running round after them, they get handouts and all kinds of help. Look at us, our dad rarely did a day’s work and ended up in prison, Mark and Paul are probably locked up somewhere too, and our mum is a hard-drinking slut who would sell her own grandchild if she thought she’d make a few bob. But because of you, us three younger ones got our act together and broke the mould. You should be proud of that. Your new life begins today, Laura. Stop looking backward with regret and start looking forward with optimism.’

Laura had no idea how long she cried that evening or even exactly why she was crying. All she knew was that after she stopped, she felt cleansed.

Meggie ran a bath for her, and later came and tucked her into bed as if she were a small child.

‘Do you remember the story you used to tell Ivy and me?’ she asked, sitting on the bed beside her sister and stroking her forehead. ‘The one about the three little girls who had to do all sorts of difficult and dangerous tasks to get the magic box that held the three wishes?’

Laura shook her head, she couldn’t remember it.

Meggie smiled down at her. ‘Well, Ivy and I remember it very well, we often laugh about it. You used to change the tasks each time you told us it. Sometimes they had to outwit a grizzly bear, sometimes they had to swim across a river full of crocodiles, you made it more dangerous each time. But one by one they got there, and each had their wish. You always wished for a cottage in the country by a river. Ivy and I never understood why, because we wanted something to play with like a doll’s pram or a bike.’

Laura smiled. She did remember the bit about the cottage and how she used to fall asleep thinking about how pretty it would be.

‘Ivy was round here the evening Mr Goldsmith rang to tell me about the court hearing,’ Meggie went on. ‘We were talking afterwards about all you’d been through, and Ivy said she thought you were almost at the magic box, and you’d soon get your wish. Will it still be the cottage by a river, Laura? Or will it be to have Stuart back?’

17

‘Come on now, Charlie boy.’ Detective Inspector Ian Donaldson leaned closer to Charles across the interview table. ‘Belle’s told us you killed Jackie Davies. You were savage because she was going to give Brannigan the farm and turn you out of Kirkmay House. But I don’t suppose you meant to kill her, whatever Belle says.’

‘Belle said I killed her?’ Charles exclaimed, his eyes wide with shock. ‘Why, the lying bitch!’

Donaldson looked sideways at PC Price, the second officer in the room, and winked surreptitiously so Charles’s lawyer wouldn’t see.

When Charles and his wife were first arrested Charles had called James Rafferty, a lawyer who was a golfing partner of his. Rafferty came into the police station with another lawyer friend for Belle. The two lawyers had lengthy interviews with their clients and were present during the initial questioning by the police.

Both Belle and Charles stubbornly refused to admit anything, even though the hall carpet at Kirkmay House was splattered with Stuart Macgregor’s blood, and when his car was eventually found in Edinburgh, clear imprints of both their sets of fingerprints were inside it.

Rafferty and his friend bowed out of defending them rather smartly after the first court appearance when both Belle and Charles were remanded in custody. Setting aside the fact that it was obviously a case they could never win, and that further investigations by the police were likely to result in still more serious charges, it was generally thought that Rafferty was concerned about his image. Being seen as a friend of the accused was not to his liking.

Charles’s young and inexperienced replacement lawyer, Colin Urquhart, was clearly out of his depth, not just with the seriousness of the charge, but with his client. Charles had blustered and roared at him because Rafferty had departed. He wouldn’t talk to Urquhart, yet kept on demanding that he get him out of prison.

Sandra Ferguson had been appointed to defend Belle now, and her task was proving equally difficult because Belle was hysterical and uncooperative.

Each time the police came to question Charles at the men’s prison they found that he appeared to be shrinking, physically and mentally. Today he looked as if he hadn’t slept for a week, his eyes had deep shadows beneath them, and he was gradually losing his concentration.

Urquhart too appeared to be wilting. He kept wiping perspiration from his thin pale face, and seemed intimidated by Donaldson who was old enough to be his father, a good nine inches taller, and twice his size in girth. He had made a spirited effort to guide his client through the police questioning at first, but he had gradually faded out. Maybe it was because he knew Belle had committed the crime, not Charles, and that if he let him make a statement to that end, perhaps he could go home.

Donaldson was taking full advantage of the situation. Belle had steadfastly pretended complete ignorance of the murder of her sister and there was no real hard evidence to prove she did it. She certainly hadn’t claimed Charles was responsible. But she had stated that it was he who stabbed Stuart Macgregor and that against her wishes he had locked the injured man in the cellar.

But Donaldson wasn’t too concerned about that crime. Forensic science and Macgregor’s evidence were enough to convict Belle for it. What he wanted was to get at the truth about the murder of Jackie Davies. He was inclined to believe Macgregor’s theory that the trouble between the two sisters sparked off because Charles was the hit-and-run driver who killed Barney Brannigan, but so long after the event it would be well-nigh impossible to prove.

The press were having a field day now Laura Brannigan’s conviction looked unsafe, and Donaldson knew only too well that the investigation for the 1993 murder had been flawed and shoddy. But that could be brushed under the carpet if the right culprit was brought to trial quickly. And if it needed trickery to do that, he didn’t care.

‘No one at the golf club can verify you were definitely on the course that morning,’ Donaldson said.

‘I
was
at the golf club,’ Charles insisted. ‘You know I was there too because one of your men telephoned me there to tell me about my sister-in-law’s death.’

‘Yes, we know you were there in the afternoon. The usual bunch that prop up the bar confirm that, just as they could tell me exactly what time you left the clubhouse the day you stabbed Stuart Macgregor. They seem to watch one another like hawks up there, yet not one person remembered seeing you between eleven and two on the day Jackie Davies was killed.’

‘I was there and I didn’t stab Macgregor either,’ Charles shouted back. ‘That was Belle!’

‘Come now, Charlie boy, Macgregor is a big man – a little woman like Belle couldn’t do that much damage to him!’

‘I was holding him with his arms behind his back, trying to throw him out,’ Charles said heatedly. ‘I asked Belle to open the front door but instead she lunged at him with the knife.’

This was of course exactly what Macgregor had said, so Donaldson knew Charles was telling the truth. ‘But if you didn’t stab him, why didn’t you call an ambulance for him?’ he asked.

Charles hung his head. ‘I don’t know. I wanted to but Belle wouldn’t have it. I suppose I panicked.’

‘You panicked because you stabbed him and you knew it would come out that you’d killed your sister-in-law too. You drove his car back to Edinburgh, knowing he was lying in your cellar bleeding to death. And if he hadn’t escaped, you would have disposed of his body. Any jury would pass a guilty judgement on those facts. You, Charlie, are going to do a long, long stretch!’

Charles opened and shut his mouth like a goldfish, he looked desperate and terrified. Sweat was pouring off him. ‘I didn’t stab him, or Jackie,’ he burst out. ‘It was Belle who did both.’

A tingle went down Donaldson’s spine. ‘Belle killed her sister? Come on now, Charlie! How could she? Her car was in the garage, she couldn’t have walked there and back in the time. How low can a man go to try and blame his wife for something he did?’

Donaldson had met many men like Charles Howell in his police career. They probably began cheating, lying and bullying at prep school, and by the time they left their illustrious public schools, they had the confidence and the connections to embark on a career of trickery. Charles had almost certainly spent his entire life ducking and diving, cutting corners and cheating people. Now it was payback time.

Prison had brought the man to breaking point. He was scared to death, exhausted and no longer in control of himself, and although Donaldson had a touch of sympathy for him, he wasn’t going to let that stop him grinding the man down a little further.

‘You drove up to Brodie Farm, you had an argument with your sister-in-law, and as you were leaving you heard her talking on the phone to Mrs Brannigan, asking her to come over. You knew only too well that when Brannigan got there, Jackie would tell her all kinds of things you didn’t want getting out. You had to prevent it at all costs. And best of all you realized that if you timed the killing right, then Laura Brannigan would be blamed.’

‘No, no, no,’ Charles banged on the table, his face turning a deep red with anger. ‘It was Belle, not me. I swear it was. We had guests who had left their car at our place and she drove out to the farm in that. I don’t think she meant to kill Jackie, but when she’s in a temper she can do anything. I
am
guilty of covering up for her, but I had to, she’s my wife.’

Donaldson breathed a sigh of relief. He had the admission down on tape. It would be typed up and used as evidence. ‘Thank you, Charles,’ he said. ‘We’ll take a break now.’ He turned to the tape recorder and recorded the time the interview was terminated.

The following morning Donaldson and Price drove out to Cornton Vale to interview Belle. It was hot and sticky, and dark clouds indicated there was a storm on the way.

‘D’you reckon she’ll crack when I tell her Charlie boy grassed her up?’ Donaldson grinned wolfishly at Price.

‘I think it is quite likely, sir.’ Price replied, keeping his eves on the road ahead.

‘I met them when they first moved up here, you know,’ Donaldson said thoughtfully. ‘Even then I thought there was something fishy about them. Typical Londoners, flashy and too much to say for themselves. I couldn’t see why they wanted to live up here. If I was as rich as Charles implied he was, I wouldn’t want to be cooking breakfast and making beds for tourists.’

‘So why did they come, sir?’ Price asked. ‘Have the Met passed on any information yet?’

‘Charles was in trouble all round it seems, people after him for money, claims that some of the places his company built were unsafe, and an insurance company were investigating him for fraud. But it’s going to prove difficult to get the complete picture as most of the people he was involved with are just like him – public school rogues and as bent as a nine-bob watch.’

‘Is there anything on his wife?’ Price asked.

‘Not apart from the speed with which she stuck her mother in a nursing home after her father died. That was right after her sister was killed, even before the trial. She got power of attorney and sold the family home. A conniving bitch if ever there was one. By all accounts the mother is a lovely woman, with all her marbles. I’m glad it wasn’t me who had to go and tell her about this little lot!’

Sandra Ferguson, Belle’s lawyer, was just getting out of her car as Donaldson and Price arrived at Cornton Vale. She waved and waited for them to join her so they could all go in together.

‘Nice to see you again, Sandra,’ Donaldson said. ‘It’s close today, isn’t it? Think we’re going to have a storm?’