Faith (65 page)

For a moment nothing happened. Jackie just stood there looking utterly shocked, the knife embedded in her just as it had been in the block of wood a few seconds before.

‘Belle!’ she said, but her voice sound disembodied and blood was coming out around the knife, staining her white shirt. ‘What have you done?’

She moved towards Belle, her hands out in front of her, and Belle backed away in horror. Then, as if in slow motion, Jackie’s legs seemed to crumple, and she fell backwards to the floor.

Belle couldn’t move for a moment or two, all she could do was stare down at her sister in horror. She didn’t know if Jackie was dead already, but she guessed from the amount of blood seeping out around the knife that it had pierced her heart and she soon would be.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, and suddenly aware of the enormity of what she’d done, she knew she had to get out of there quickly.

She got a piece of kitchen roll, dampened it slightly and carefully wiped the knife handle, putting the paper in her pocket afterwards. She was sure she hadn’t touched anything else for the door had been open on both visits. Then, picking up the deed of gift document which she needed to destroy, she ran for the car to the strains of ‘Never Let Her Slip Away’ on the radio.

‘I didn’t want to drive back on that farm track,’ she told Donaldson. ‘But I had to, in case I ran into Laura.’

Donaldson wiped his sweating brow with the back of his hand, for once stuck for words.

Never before in all his years of interrogating prisoners had he ever heard such a full and clear confession.

PC Price broke the silence in the room by mentioning the tape was almost at an end.

‘I think we all need a break,’ Sandra said.

Donaldson drew deeply on a cigarette as Price drove them back to Edinburgh. ‘If only,’ he sighed.

‘If only what, sir?’ Price asked.

‘That she’d been interviewed more rigorously on the day of the murder,’ Donaldson said thoughtfully. ‘This, laddie, is a fine example of the folly of taking everything at face value. She was such a good-looking woman, a respectable guest house owner, and, it appeared, the loving and distraught sister. She wasn’t even suspected.’

‘I read in the file that after Laura Brannigan was arrested, she kept sticking up for her and saying she couldn’t have done it. Why do you think that was, sir?’ Price asked.

‘To make herself look sweet and loving, I guess,’ Donaldson replied. ‘It worked too, I really fell for her tears and the bewilderment routine, and so did the jury.’

‘It was lucky for Brannigan that Macgregor turned up when he did,’ Price remarked. ‘She must have been through hell in the last two years.’

‘Aye, poor woman,’ Donaldson agreed. ‘I wish I could boast that I had my doubts about her guilt. But I was like everyone else; once I knew she’d been a bit wild in the past I couldn’t see beyond that.’

‘Do you think Belle Howell is sorry about what she’s done to her?’

Donaldson gave a humourless laugh. ‘She’s sorry for herself, sorry she didn’t clear off when her sister asked her to. Sorry too, perhaps, that her sister is dead. But I doubt she’ll ever shed any tears for Laura Brannigan.’

18

Heavy rain was splattering against the windows and although it was only three in the afternoon it was so dark that Laura had been forced to turn on a table lamp to see to read. She was feeling very snug and happy. Lucy, Meggie’s dog, was curled up on the settee beside her, she liked the sound of the rain on the window, and at long last she felt she had a future.

Two days earlier Patrick Goldsmith had rung to say Belle had finally confessed to Jackie’s murder, and that he was pressing hard for an immediate appeal date for Laura.

It was wonderful to know that she would soon be completely exonerated, and that the two-year nightmare was over but for the formalities, yet strangely she also felt deep sadness about Belle. Meggie had burst into laughter when she admitted this; in her view there was no punishment bad enough for the woman. But Laura had known Belle for thirty-four years and loved her like a younger sister, and she couldn’t switch off her feelings.

Her heart went out to Lena too. She’d lost her husband, Toby had gone off to Australia, Jackie had been murdered, and now she had to live with the knowledge that Belle was a killer. Laura had spent the whole of the first day feeling faintly sick and troubled and she certainly wasn’t in the mood to celebrate.

But the previous day she had woken up to find that had passed. At last she felt ready to detach herself from the past and move forward. As so often when she wanted to mark a change of heart, or a new beginning, she took herself off to the hairdresser’s.

Her hair colour was now back where she’d started. She had been through a full circle from mouse to red, on to black, dark brown, blonde and a dozen different variations and permutations along the way, and finally she was back to mouse again. Not as dreary as she remembered it as a child of course, that was only the base colour, with blonde highlights to create some definition. But what was astounding was that it had taken ten years off her real age, and she had a glow about her that she hadn’t seen for years.

Last night she’d gone out to Soho for a celebration dinner with her sisters. It was just the best evening ever, they had laughed so much that the restaurant owner had given them a free bottle of wine. He said he was grateful to them for creating such a happy atmosphere in his restaurant.

The conversation had come round once again to Stuart, with both Meggie and Ivy urging her to encourage him more. Laura hadn’t been able to come back with her usual excuse that she was all used up, because she realized that wasn’t true any longer. She was fizzing inside, a dozen different plans for her future suggesting themselves.

But Stuart hadn’t phoned for a week now, and when Laura had tried to ring him at the flat in Edinburgh the previous day, he hadn’t been there. She had no doubt he would surface again before long, but in her heart she knew Meggie and Ivy were reading too much into his interest in her. She was sure he only felt friendship, nothing more. Perhaps that was just as well; after all it was a well-known fact that old loves can rarely be rekindled.

Lucy suddenly cocked her ears and began barking.

‘Shush,’ Laura said, stroking her. ‘It’s only someone walking by.’

A ring at the doorbell proved this wasn’t so, and Lucy jumped off the settee in readiness. Laura frowned; she was much too comfortable to get up and she thought it was probably only a door-to-door salesman at this time of the afternoon. Her sisters had gone out to view a property and if it was them coming back they’d have let themselves in with their key.

When the bell rang again and Lucy continued to bark, Laura groaned and got up. She thought if it was Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses intent on converting her, she’d give them a piece of her mind.

Lucy had a habit of darting out when anyone came to the door, so Laura shut her in the sitting room before opening the front door.

Two men were standing there, wet from the rain, and they had none of the usual missionary characteristics like plain dark suits or a few religious tracts in their hands.

The younger one was tall and muscular in jeans and a denim jacket. She thought he was around thirty and he had a shaved head and a ring in one ear. The other was an elderly man in a long, dark, trench-style raincoat. He looked familiar, and he was looking at her as if he expected her to know him.

‘Come on now, Laura!’ he said reprovingly.

‘Robbie!’ she gasped. Even if he had aged dramatically, his Geordie accent was just the same. ‘How did you know where I was?’

‘It’s never hard to find someone when you’ve got friends in the right places,’ he said, grinning at the younger man. ‘So how about inviting us in?’

Laura felt a twinge of panic. Robbie Fielding was one man she never wanted to see or hear from again, and if she’d run into him out in the street she would have walked on by without speaking. She certainly didn’t want him in the house for she despised him, and his companion looked like hired muscle.

He smiled at her hesitation. She remembered his teeth being good, but they were now stained brown, with several missing. ‘Come on, just a cup of coffee for an old pal. You wouldn’t want to leave me out here in the rain, would you?’

As far as Laura was concerned she could have cheerfully watched him drown in the Thames and not lifted a finger to help him, but she couldn’t say anything along those lines for fear of him turning nasty. ‘It isn’t convenient right now. What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I was in London and I had a couple of things I wanted to talk over with you about Belle.’ He moved forward and put one foot inside the door before she could gather herself. ‘I also wanted to say how glad I was that you’ve got your appeal.’

Suddenly he was right through the door, pushing it wide open and nearly knocking her over, the other man following him. Laura’s stomach lurched and she cursed herself for answering the door.

‘By the way you are looking gorgeous,’ he said over his shoulder as he walked straight down the hall into the kitchen. He stopped inside the kitchen, turning back to her, and waved a hand at his friend. ‘And this is Andy, my right-hand man.’

‘My sister will be back any minute,’ she said, declining to acknowledge Andy. ‘And we’ve got people coming for dinner, so please make this snappy.’

He took a seat at the table, the other man doing likewise, and Robbie got out his cigarettes.

Laura waved a finger at him. ‘Please don’t, my sister doesn’t like smoking in her house.’

He put them back in his pocket and frowned. ‘You aren’t very welcoming!’

‘Why should I be, Robbie? You are part of a past I’d rather forget.’

Only the previous evening Laura had told her sisters that she felt her recovery was mainly due to there being no reminders of her past here. Now Robbie turning up was like opening the old wound. Suddenly she was anxious and tense again, just the way she had been for much of the time when she was working for him.

He looked so old and seedy, like a stereotype of a dirty old man. He might never have been exactly handsome, but he’d had a fine physique and the kind of bearing that got him noticed. His hair was a dirty grey now and very thin, and he had a large and wobbly stomach. The trench coat he was wearing and the dark suit beneath it might be good quality, but the cheapness of his soul showed on his lined and sunken face. It made her squirm to think of all those afternoons she’d spent with him in hotel rooms.

‘I think I deserve a little gratitude for stifling some of that past for you,’ he said, fixing her with his dark eyes.

‘With the amount of mud that was slung at me, a little more wouldn’t have made any difference.’ She shrugged.

‘Oh, I think it would have,’ he said. ‘And now more than ever! How would you start out again if everyone knows what you were?’

Her stomach churned as she realized his sole purpose in coming here was to blackmail her.

‘It won’t work, Robbie,’ she said firmly. ‘For one thing, I’ve got no money, and for another, everyone whose opinion counts with me already knows the whole truth.’

He grinned wolfishly. ‘But a few well-chosen photographs landing on the desk of a tabloid editor’s desk on the day of your appeal would kind of hinder your future,’ he said. ‘And you’ve got money coming to you.’

‘Piss off, Robbie,’ she said angrily. ‘Clear off now or I’ll call the police.’

‘And tell them what?’ he said scornfully. ‘That an old lover has turned up? That happens a lot in your life, doesn’t it? Where is golden boy now? Still nursing his wounds from sticking his nose in other people’s business?’

‘I think the police would be very pleased to be called to eject you from this house,’ she said tartly. ‘And I think they’d be keen to question you about your relationship with Mr Calder.’

‘One of your biggest problems was that you always thought you were smarter than you really were,’ he said scornfully. ‘It seems you still have that problem. I can click my fingers and Stuart Macgregor will be dead. So don’t mess with me, hen. Or you’ll regret it.’

A cold shudder ran down her spine. Katy had claimed that Robbie had killed people who got in his way. Laura had always laughed at that, sure Robbie had spread the story to keep people in fear of him. But perhaps it wasn’t just a myth.

‘Whatever proposition you’ve got in mind, you’d better put it to me and then go,’ she said.

‘I want ten thousand pounds,’ he said.

Laura gave a humourless laugh. ‘You are joking of course?’

‘I never joke about money and you’re bright enough to know I’m more than capable of sending photographs of you to every newspaper in the country.’

‘I’ve seen some of ’em, and they’d shake yer mum and the rest of yer family,’ Andy piped up.

Laura gave him a withering glance. He sounded like he looked, a thug with no more than two brain cells. But his accent was a London one, and she had a feeling Robbie had picked him up here, not brought him down from Scotland.

‘I suppose you cooked up some deal with Charles and Belle?’ It was a stab in the dark as she knew there was no proof Robbie had ever met the Howells. ‘I bet you were savage when they were arrested before you could make them pay up.’

He just stared at her, the fact that he made no comment suggesting she was right.

‘How did you find out Belle killed Jackie?’ she went on. ‘Did Charles shoot his mouth off?’

Something flittered across his face, perhaps recognition that he’d underestimated her intelligence.

Laura sensed she was getting very close to the truth. ‘He always was a loud-mouthed prat! But how lucky for you that you had Calder in your pocket. So what was the deal you made? You’d make sure Calder kept quiet about the new will as long as Charles and Belle gave you a chunk of what they’d inherit on the old one?’

‘You always did have too much to say for yerself,’ he retorted. ‘I haven’t come here to chew the cud with you. I want money, or I’ll start sending those pictures out.’

‘Send them,’ she bluffed. ‘I don’t care, and you’re an old man now, Robbie. You don’t frighten me.’