Faith (22 page)

She grimaced. ‘It’s not for me to say and anyway I only know the edited version. Ask her. If she could write all that about her childhood, I’m sure it would do her good to get him off her chest too.’

‘I want to try and find grounds for an appeal against her conviction,’ Stuart admitted. ‘You’d better keep that to yourself for now, until I’m sure I’ve got something to base it on. I’m meeting an old friend tonight for dinner, he’s a lawyer and I hope he’ll help me. Can you think of anyone else who might give me a different slant on what I already know?’

‘What about her sister?’ Lena suggested. ‘One of the nurses here showed me a newspaper cutting once. It was already well out of date, for I hadn’t been up to reading it at the time, but it was the story Laura’s mother had sold to the press. Talk about Judas and the thirty pieces of silver! She really sold her daughter down the river! But there was a small piece added on, a brief interview with Laura’s sister, it would be the older one, Meggie. She didn’t actually deny what her mother had said, but she said something about there being two sides to every story. Obviously the paper didn’t enlarge on it as they wanted Laura to look as evil as possible. Maybe if you got in touch with the paper you could find out where she lives. I think it was the
News of the World
.’

‘I’ll try that,’ Stuart said. ‘There’s one thing more, Lena. Did you see anything of Laura after Barney died?’

‘Of course.’ Lena looked almost indignant at the implication that she might not have done. ‘She came to Duke’s Avenue and stayed for a while with Frank and me when she was going through the worst of it. It was me who arranged for her to go to my friends in Italy to work after that. You surely didn’t think we had abandoned her then?’

‘No, Lena.’ Stuart reached out and patted her hand. ‘It was just because of the circumstances of Barney’s death, I thought Laura might have distanced herself from you.’

‘She never did blame Jackie. In fact Laura said it was her fault because she had never got Barney into the habit of putting his seat belt on. They were united in grief over him. Frank and I were too – when he was born we were almost like grandparents to him. We didn’t see him very often once she moved to Scotland, but she always brought him to visit us whenever she came back to London.’

‘Did his death change Laura’s personality?’

‘She always had more sides than a fifty-pence piece,’ Lena retorted. ‘You of all people know that! The side uppermost at that time was what you’d expect, a woman racked with guilt. It looked for a time as if she’d lost her mind.’

‘There was a great deal in the press cuttings about her being a neglectful mother,’ Stuart said gently. ‘Was that true, Lena?’

Lena sighed deeply. ‘Let’s just say I saw no evidence of it when I saw them together, but then I only saw them about once a year. I know Jackie worried about Barney, so obviously something was wrong. It certainly was true that Laura went off the rails for a while, which was why Jackie had Barney with her so often. But I don’t believe it was anywhere near as bad as the press would have us believe – she certainly didn’t hit or starve him.’

‘You say she nearly lost her mind. They made quite a bit about that too in the trial. How long was she like that for?’

‘A good six months before Frank and I brought her down here to stay with us. She stayed with us for four or five months and she was very poorly. But eventually she was well enough for me to fix her up with a job in a hotel in Italy owned by friends of ours.

‘When she returned at the end of that summer, she was much quieter and more thoughtful. She never did get back that bouncy, I-know-it-all side we had all come to know so well. She was gentler and far more caring. Jackie once said that she’d give anything to see her being a real bitch again, because that way she’d feel she was genuinely getting over Barney’s death.’

‘Really!’ Stuart exclaimed. He knew Lena had always been very observant, and not one to be easily fooled.

‘Yes. So if you thought Laura might have developed a violent streak, or the desire for revenge, she certainly didn’t. She threw herself into getting that shop in Edinburgh. Do you know about that?’

‘Not until just recently. I know very little about how Laura lived after we split up. Although I was working for Jackie for the first few years, she rarely spoke about her to me, you know how loyal she was! I was working in Germany in ’81 when Barney died, and it was Roger who rang me about it. After that my contact with Jackie was erratic. I would phone her, or send postcards, usually from airports because I was moving around quite a bit. Every now and then a letter from her would eventually reach me, but she never said much about what she or anyone else was doing, they were just her usual brand of funny letters, a joy to receive, but with very little information in them. But they fizzled out altogether by ’91 and as I was in South America with new friends myself, I didn’t think anything of it.’

‘She was very busy with Brodie Farm then,’ Lena said. ‘I didn’t hear from her that much either, but she was very proud of how well Laura was doing in the shop. She said it was always really busy and Laura was in her element because she loved clothes and knew what was good. She worked at it tirelessly by all accounts. I saw Laura sometimes as she had a contact down here for ballgowns she used to hire out, and she’d come and stay with me.’

‘So how was she?’ Stuart asked, knowing Lena wouldn’t be easily fooled.

‘Well, to the rest of the world she might have looked like she was over it, but I saw the deep sadness in her. Of course any woman who’d lost a child would be the same.’

‘And Jackie? It must have changed her too?’

‘Oh yes.’ Lena sighed deeply. ‘She needed some kind of anaesthetic to dull the pain. Mostly she used work, often putting in a sixteen-hour day on the house and garden. But there was drink too, and occasionally men. There was someone special, mind you! I think the problem there was that he was married. Now and then she would phone me late at night when she’d been drinking and she’d cry and say she felt hopeless. But the next day she’d be fine again and she’d apologize for worrying me. I couldn’t help but worry, I just wished she’d tell me the whole story so I understood. But she would laugh it off and make out everything was fine. I used to tell myself that she had Belle nearby, and Laura in Edinburgh, but I wish now that Frank and I had gone up there more often.’

Lena sat back in her chair, and Stuart could see she was growing tired. He had so much more he wanted to ask her, but not today.

‘I ought to go now,’ he said, getting up. ‘It’s been great to find you haven’t changed, and if it’s okay, I’ll come again.’

‘Please do, Stuart.’ She smiled up at him. ‘It has been so good to talk to you. Toby will be pleased to hear you came too. He wanted to contact you while we were waiting for the trial. He went out to Brodie Farm and looked through all Jackie’s papers, but he couldn’t find an address or phone number for you.’

‘I’ve been something of a nomad,’ Stuart said. ‘But I’ll be back here for a while now, and I’ll keep in touch.’

She got up out of her chair stiffly. ‘Do what you can for Laura,’ she pleaded, putting one hand on his arm. ‘She’s lost the two people she cared about most, and I know how that feels.’

‘Well, hello, David, you old bastard!’ Stuart exclaimed when he walked into the bistro in Putney and found his old friend already there, sitting at a table. David was the same age as himself, but despite being a lawyer, he had the look of a sportsman: clear, tanned skin, muscular and very fit. ‘You look great – receding hair makes you look even more intelligent.’

David laughed and stood up. ‘Glad you’ve lost none of your incisive wit. Good to see you again.’

David already had a beer and he ordered one for Stuart. They told the waiter they’d order food later.

Stuart had met David Stoyle on the plane flying out to Columbia back in the eighties. Stuart was going as a joiner to a new site the oil company had acquired in Bogotá. David was one of the company lawyers. Had they not been given seats next to each other, they would probably never have met, much less become close friends, because management and the manual workforce didn’t normally socialize.

David was from a rarefied white-collar world. He’d been to public school and university, and though not a snob or a stuffed shirt, he normally mixed with people from a similar background to himself. But stuck on a long flight side by side with someone of the same age, both a little apprehensive about the unknown quantity of their destination, they soon got talking.

By the time they got off the plane with thick heads from too much whisky, their friendship was sealed. They had discovered they shared the same passion for climbing and were both adventurers at heart. David loved rugby, sailing, cycling and running. Stuart loved football, playing the guitar and chess. Yet their different interests and backgrounds didn’t matter, and they knew that they would be searching each other out constantly in the next few months. As Stuart said at the time, ‘We’re mates now.’

Back then David had a fine head of light brown curly hair which became attractively blond-streaked in the sun. He was a good-looking man with a fine physique and bright blue eyes that won him many female admirers. Over the years Stuart had taken a mischievous delight in pointing out that his friend, who had so many great advantages over lesser mortals, was actually losing his hair. But then David took equal pleasure in teasing Stuart about his skinny legs.

‘So what’s the real reason for insisting on meeting up with me tonight?’ David asked after they’d caught up with some of their news and ordered steak. ‘I know there is one or you would have invited yourself to my house. Julia thinks you want to lure me away to the Third World but are too cowardly to do your presentation in front of her.’

Stuart laughed. Julia had been David’s girlfriend when they met; now they were married with two children, Abigail and William. David was always jetting off to some far-flung place with his work, and as Stuart was often there too, as project manager, Julia jokingly blamed him for making her a grass widow.

‘Julia can rest assured I have no interest in luring you away anywhere,’ he said. ‘I just wanted you to point me in the right direction to get help for a friend.’

As concisely as he could, Stuart explained about Laura and how he hoped he could find grounds for an appeal against her conviction. ‘I’ve already been to see her lawyer in Edinburgh, and quite frankly I think the man is a tosser. I kind of hoped you might be up for rescuing a damsel in distress.’

‘Company law is quite different to criminal law, Stu,’ David said, and Stuart noticed that when he frowned two little vertical lines appeared between his eyebrows. ‘I might know the basics, but I’m no Perry Mason.’

‘No, you’ve demonstrated how well-formed and sturdy your legs are on numerous occasions.’ Stuart grinned as he got a mental picture of the TV detective who solved his cases in a wheelchair. ‘I know it isn’t your department of expertise, but you are the only lawyer I know. I don’t for one moment expect you to drop everything and handle the case yourself. But you must know other lawyers who might. You see, it seems to me that because both Laura and Jackie were English, the Scottish police didn’t really put themselves out to investigate fully. There’s the track by the farm for a start, which could have been the escape route for the real killer. I don’t think they questioned guests who’d stayed at Brodie Farm just before the event. And they definitely didn’t make much effort to discover who Jackie’s lovers were. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them was actually in the police. So I think Laura needs someone to act for her who has no connection with anyone in Edinburgh or Fife.’

‘It’s an interesting case,’ David said thoughtfully. ‘And I do know a couple of criminal lawyers who could probably be tempted, if we had something really strong and juicy as bait.’

Stuart noted that David said ‘we’. That could have been just a manner of speaking, but then he knew David liked a challenge, and he had often remarked in the past that company law was very dry and there was precious little satisfaction to be had from it.

‘Are you involved in anything much at the moment?’ Stuart asked in what he hoped sounded like a casual manner.

David laughed and reached across the small table to slap Stuart on the shoulder. ‘As it happens, I’m doing very little. Julia loves the Highlands and with the school hols coming up, we could rent a cottage up there somewhere. I could do a bit of climbing with you, and maybe get to see the scene of the crime and speak to the law firm that defended Laura.’

Stuart’s grin spread from ear to ear. ‘I knew I could count on you. Best day’s work I ever did was sit next to you on that plane.’

It was after midnight when David got home, a little wobbly on his feet from too much to drink. Julia was lying on the settee in her pyjamas, reading.

‘So what did the Flying Scotsman want?’ she asked.

David smiled. He thought Julia looked very cute and schoolgirlish in her pyjamas, her hair tumbling over her shoulders.

‘I think I’ve found where he left his heart,’ David said. ‘And we’ve got to spring her from prison.’

As he expected, Julia’s face lit up with keen interest. Over the years they had seen Stuart with dozens of different women because he attracted them like moths to a lantern. But Julia had always said she thought he’d left his heart somewhere, for no matter how promising any new relationship looked, Stuart appeared uninterested in it becoming permanent. It drove her mad, for she really liked the man; he was kind, honest, generous and great fun. Sensitive when necessary, tough at the right times too.

Because she and David were so happy together, she wanted the same for everyone she liked. And especially Stuart because she always felt that he actually longed for permanence, to give up travelling and return to his native Scotland and have a real home.

David told her the bare bones of the story. Julia gasped, for she vaguely remembered reading about the murder at the time. ‘And Laura was an ex-girlfriend?’

‘His first and perhaps only love,’ David replied thoughtfully. ‘Of course, he isn’t the kind to wear his heart on his sleeve, but there was something about the way he spoke of her that made me feel it.’