Faith (48 page)

‘I would understand it better if she’d bundled up everything she wanted to get rid of and then took it all over in one go, but there were dozens of dates listed, with only three or four items each time, which suggests she liked to keep going there often. Why?’

‘Maybe she thought Angie would refuse to take the clothes if she realized they were Jackie’s?’ David suggested. ‘Or maybe they only take clothes according to the season. But I suspect you think she kept going there to sway Angela around to her way of thinking that Laura was pure evil.’

‘That’s the most likely reason I’ve come up with,’ Stuart agreed. ‘And it shows Belle had a lack of confidence in the conviction, doesn’t it? Like she was afraid the case might be opened again with an appeal. Speaking of which, did you check out that track behind Brodie Farm?’

‘Yes, it’s very rough, but drivable. It goes on to another lane eventually, so the killer could have escaped that way. I also rifled through the visitors’ book at Kirkmay,’ David said. ‘There was just one couple staying there the night before the murder; they’d been staying there for four days. A Mr and Mrs Langdon from Surrey. I don’t remember seeing a statement from them when I looked through the evidence file at Goldsmith’s.’

Stuart’s eyes lit up.

‘Don’t get carried away,’ David said dourly. ‘That was probably because they’d left Kirkmay House well before the event.’

‘But they might have overheard a row, or noticed the time Charles left that morning. Did you get their address?’ Stuart asked.

David nodded.

‘Then will you phone them and have a chat with them this evening? It’s a long shot, I doubt they’ll even remember anything after all this time, but it’s worth a try.’

Stuart and David went for lunch at a café on the harbour that had the reputation for making the finest fish and chips in Scotland, and they chatted more about Belle and Charles.

The sun came out about three and Stuart walked with David to where his car was parked, and after saying he’d see him later that evening back in the flat in Edinburgh, Stuart went and sat on a bench on the harbour to wait for Gloria.

He had a great deal to think about, and while Charles had jumped to first place as prime suspect, Stuart was very aware that he needed time to assimilate all the various bits of information he’d gathered, and to analyse it carefully.

The sun had brought out a rash of people, and he idly watched them as they bought ice cream, shed their cardigans and jackets, and wandered aimlessly along the harbour. He wondered how many of them were already discussing how they would love to come and live here. The thought made him smile, for if they knew what it was like in winter with the raw east wind blowing in from the sea and almost cutting you in half, they would probably forget their plan.

Jackie had been different. She’d fallen in love with Fife on her first visit and that had been a bitterly cold, grey day as he remembered. She always said she found the wind bracing, that it blew all the debris she collected up in London out of her head. She loved the lack of sophistication in the fishing towns, she said people’s lives here were meaningful and honest. But what was it that made Belle and Charles move up here? They certainly weren’t the kind to embrace Jackie’s views. And he didn’t believe Belle’s explanation to David that it was because property was so much cheaper. Who would take themselves off some four hundred miles to live in a bigger house that none of their old friends would ever see?

He didn’t believe either that they’d fallen into the trap of imagining that running a guest house was a little gold mine, as so many people had. They just weren’t that naive. Perhaps Roger was right when he said Charles was in trouble in London.

He needed to get at the truth about why they came here, and even more importantly why they stayed when they so clearly didn’t like it. But how? Would Lena know?

Somehow he didn’t think she’d tell him even if she did know. She’d lost one daughter and she wasn’t likely to dish any dirt about the other one.

‘Hello, Stuart.’

The greeting startled him and he turned to see Gloria standing behind his bench. ‘I’ve brought someone to meet you,’ she said, looking a little anxious and turning towards a man of about sixty just behind her. ‘This is Ted Baxter, a friend of Jackie’s. He’s a wee bit reluctant, so please be gentle with him.’

Stuart leapt up, guessing that the man must have been one of Jackie’s lovers, even if he was rather old. ‘Stuart Macgregor,’ he said, holding out his hand to the man. ‘I do hope Gloria hasn’t implied that I’m some kind of bloodhound. It’s good to meet you.’

Baxter’s handshake was firm and his smile was warm. ‘Jackie told me about you years ago,’ he said. ‘She said you were the best joiner she ever had, and that you were a man who could be trusted.’

Stuart was touched and flattered by the man’s statement, but the sound of his voice struck an immediate cord. It was a very deep voice, practically a growl, and his heart leapt because he was sure this was the man Jackie called ‘Growler’.

He wore a well-worn tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows, and cheap twill trousers, and he was greying and thin on top, slender and only about five feet eight. It seemed inconceivable that Jackie would have had a fling with anyone so old and ordinary. The only remarkable things about him were his voice and his slightly prominent duck-egg-blue eyes.

‘You must have got to know Jackie very well for her to have bored you with tales about her early days in the property business,’ Stuart said lightly.

‘I did,’ Ted said simply, and a look of pain crossed his face. ‘I miss her so much that sometimes I feel I can’t go on. Gloria knows this and that was why she persuaded me to come and meet you. She told me it would make me feel better.’

‘Ted would rather talk to you alone, Stuart,’ Gloria said. Her anxiety was such that her voice quivered. ‘I have already told him what you’re about. He needs assurance that anything he tells you is in strict confidence.’

‘You have that assurance,’ Stuart said, looking Ted straight in the eye. ‘All I want to do is find enough new evidence so Laura can appeal against her sentence, for I know it wasn’t her who killed Jackie. Now, shall we go somewhere where we can talk?’

Gloria took them to her cottage which was in the narrow street which ran from Anstruther to Cellardyke. The cottage was tiny, rather dark, and the wrong side of the road for a sea view, but it was a real home, not too tidy, lots of photographs of her family on the walls, comfortable chairs and a smell of something good cooking in the oven.

She made them a pot of tea, put it down on the coffee table and then said she was going out. ‘Make yourselves at home. I’ll be back about half past five.’

‘I’m a surveyor,’ Ted said awkwardly as the door closed behind Gloria. ‘As you probably know, the first cottage Jackie bought up here was just along the road. That’s how I met her – she called me to survey it. Later, whenever she wanted to buy another place, or was just considering one, she always called me.’

‘I remember her telling me she’d found someone good,’ Stuart said. He didn’t actually remember any such thing, but he could see how nervous Ted was and wanted to put him at his ease.

Ted gave a watery smile. ‘We became good friends, and as I knew the best tradesmen around here I used to give her a bit of advice, call in and check on work in progress, that sort of thing.’

‘So you must have known her almost as long as me,’ Stuart said. ‘She got the idea about buying a place here the first time she visited Laura and me in Edinburgh and I brought her out this way to show it off.’

Ted nodded. ‘Nineteen years. I just wish I could go back to the beginning again and do everything differently.’

Stuart raised an eyebrow questioningly.

‘Well, as you probably realize, I’m married.’ Ted blushed furiously. ‘It was never a happy marriage, and I should have left my wife the moment I knew I was falling in love with Jackie, and taken the chance that she felt the same way about me. But I didn’t think a beautiful and highly intelligent woman like her could possibly want me. Besides, she was married too, and some ten years younger than me.’

There was something very touching about this frank admission and Stuart thought he could understand why Jackie had liked Ted.

‘Were you lovers all that time?’ Stuart asked gently.

‘Dear me no, that came years later.’ Ted looked quite shocked at the suggestion. ‘I called her Mrs Davies and she called me Mr Baxter for a whole year before we even began using Christian names. We’d chat over cups of tea, and I learned about her family, her husband, about Laura and Barney and you too, Stuart. She was so vivacious, so full of ideas, and funny too. Of course all the tradesmen who did jobs for her liked her – she was unique and very special.’

‘Yes, she was,’ Stuart agreed. ‘I never met anyone who worked for her that wasn’t a little bit in love with her. Me included.’

‘I was a bit jealous of you, if truth be told,’ Ted admitted ruefully. ‘You see, she used to talk about you a lot, especially after you left Edinburgh and went down to work for her in London. She was worried about YOU because Laura had broken your heart, but she also liked you a great deal. I thought it was only a matter of time before you were ousting that husband of hers.’

‘There was nothing like that between us,’ Stuart said.

‘I knew that later, but when a man wants a woman every other male is a threat.’ Ted smiled wryly. ‘Anyway, in ’77, Peggie, my wife, had a riding accident which left her paralysed from the waist down. Jackie still wasn’t living here all the time then of course, only coming up for holidays. I remember calling in on her one evening after visiting Peggie in hospital. I was very down because I didn’t know how I was going to cope when she came home and became dependent on me for everything.’

‘I expect Jackie got the whole story out of you,’ Stuart said. ‘She was always good at that.’

‘That’s exactly what happened,’ Ted replied. ‘I blurted out the whole thing – that we’d never had a good marriage and that she was so bitter and angry about the accident that I knew it was going to be hell from now on.’

‘What advice did Jackie give you?’

‘To buy a plot of land and build a bungalow suitable for a disabled person in a wheelchair. She thought that Peggie would accept her disability in a new home specially designed for her. She even offered to help me by getting in touch with people who specialized in aids for the disabled and understood what was needed. She suggested I could get a carer in during the day while I had to work which would relieve the pressure on me. That kind of sealed my friendship with Jackie because she was the only person I could admit to how scared and frantic I felt. I certainly couldn’t admit it to my son or daughter, not even to the doctor.’

‘Did you act on her advice?’

‘Yes, I did. I bought a plot of land by the golf course in St Andrews, found the best architect in Fife, and really got stuck into it. Jackie came out a few times while it was being built; she was very encouraging and supportive.’

‘Tell me, Ted, did she have a nickname for you?’ Stuart asked.

Ted smiled. ‘Yes, a ridiculous one. She called me “Growler”. Why d’you ask that?’

‘She mentioned that name to Laura. I just wanted to check it was you.’

‘I never actually met Laura,’ Ted said thoughtfully. ‘I feel I have because Jackie talked about her so often, but then I didn’t really know any of her other friends either. I know Belle and Charles Howell of course, I did the survey on Kirkmay House for them, but once Jackie and I began our affair we had to be so careful that I never called at the farm if she had anyone else there with her.’

‘So when did it start?’ Stuart asked, relieved that the man was finally getting to the point.

‘In 1980, a year before Barney was killed. I often saw the wee boy when he was staying with her. She loved him like he was her own. I called round one afternoon and she was crying because she was worried that Laura was neglecting him. I gave her a cuddle and it just flared up.’

Ted closed his eyes for a moment. He often relived the events of that afternoon for it was the most astounding, wonderful and thrilling day of his whole life.

The front door of the farmhouse was open because it was a warm, sunny day in May. He called out to Jackie and she called back to ask him to come in. She was on her knees cleaning out a kitchen cupboard, and when she looked round he saw she was crying.

He instinctively knew the cause of it was Barney, for she often became choked up when she spoke of him. But this was the first time he’d actually seen her cry about anything.

When Peggie cried her face became red and puffy, her mouth wobbled and she looked ugly. But Jackie looked beautiful. She was wearing a faded denim dress with studs down the front, her legs were bare, and her hair was tied up in a ponytail, making her look closer to her early twenties than her real age of thirty-seven. Her complexion was flushed but only delicately so, and the tears were trickling down her cheeks like dew drops.

He went over to her and lifted her up, embracing her tightly. ‘Don’t cry, you’ll see him again soon,’ was all he said.

He didn’t actually mean to kiss her lips, he wasn’t bold enough for that. But suddenly her mouth was on his and she was kissing him. It must have been ten or twelve years since he’d last experienced a real kiss, so long ago that he’d forgotten how arousing kissing was. It was like drowning, he could feel himself sinking and sinking into it, and never wanting it to end.

Stuart’s chuckle brought him out of his reverie. ‘It was that good, was it?’ he said. ‘You went off down the time tunnel then.’

Ted smiled sheepishly. ‘You can have no idea how it was for me,’ he said. ‘All those years I’d thought the love was just on my side. But it wasn’t, she felt the same way.’

‘It must have been tough for you. I mean, having a disabled wife,’ Stuart said.

Ted looked hard at the younger man at first, thinking that remark was veiled sarcasm, but he saw only sympathy and understanding.

‘Sometimes I felt as if I was being crucified,’ Ted said glumly. ‘I had turned myself inside out to make things right for Peggie – the bungalow was beautiful, the garden had been landscaped – but although she’d been home from the hospital for getting on for three years, she was making no attempt to help herself. She had in truth become a monster, Stuart, nothing pleased her, she acted like she hated me.