‘Of course.’ Her smile was so bright she could have been plugged into the mains. ‘But you’ve been very naughty, you said you’d phone and take me out to dinner.’
Stuart had said no such thing, but he smiled anyway. ‘Pressure of work,’ he said. ‘Where’s the old man?’
‘Golf. Where else?’ she replied. ‘Come in and I’ll get you a drink.’
Stuart put his bag down in the hall and followed Belle into the kitchen. A half-empty bottle of vodka and an empty glass stood on the table; he wondered at what time today she’d started drinking. Yet her appearance was immaculate – full makeup, a pale pink swirly skirt and a white sleeveless top. She’d put her blonde hair up and she was even wearing high-heeled shoes.
‘You look gorgeous,’ Stuart said, and it was true, she did. ‘Were you just about to go out?’
‘No.’ She laughed as she said it and poured some vodka into her glass before getting a second one out of the cupboard. ‘This is just little old everyday me. If I’d known you were coming I’d have made much more of an effort.’
‘Could I have a beer, please?’ Stuart asked. ‘I can’t handle spirits this early in the day. How many guests have you got today?’
‘None, well, apart from you,’ she said, opening the fridge and getting out a beer. ‘I had a full house all week, so I’ve turned everyone away today. I need a rest.’
Stuart suggested sitting in the garden as it was such a lovely afternoon.
‘Will you go and get the chairs out then?’ she said. ‘They’re in the summer house. I’ve got to nip upstairs.’
Stuart did as she asked, pulling out two padded sun loungers and a small table for their drinks.
She came back a few minutes later, her glass topped up, carrying an ashtray and her cigarettes. ‘This is nice,’ she said as she sat down, hitching up her skirt to let the sun get to her legs. ‘I used to sit out here a lot, but it’s a bit boring sunbathing on your own. Why don’t you take your shirt off?’
That sounded an innocent enough suggestion, but Stuart was afraid if he did she’d peel her clothes off too. She did have very good legs, and she kept pulling her skirt up higher and higher.
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘Now, how are things?’
‘About the same really,’ she said, lighting up a cigarette. ‘Wishing we could get Jackie’s estate sorted and make a decision about what to do with the farm. I’m worn out with running it. Charles is no help, he’s never here.’
‘What would you like to do if everything was squared away?’
‘Well, I’ve got so fed up with people here questioning me all the time that I think now I’d like to move back to London.’
‘What do they question you about?’
‘What I’m going to do with Brodie Farm, what I’ll do if that bitch Laura gets granted an appeal. You know, all those poking-their-noses-in sort of questions.’
∗
It ought to have been a difficult situation, being compelled to make light-hearted conversation with Belle while waiting for Charles to come home. But in fact it was surprisingly easy as she was on good form. For the best part of two hours they chatted, and she didn’t once bring up anything to do with Jackie or Laura. Stuart found himself liking her in the way he did when they first met.
Back then she’d seemed so sophisticated compared to girls in Scotland. She was at drama school at the time, and he got the idea she was destined to be a real star. She had a finger on the very pulse of London, she could talk with authority about the top groups, the best clubs, and the few times he went out with her, she seemed to make things happen around her. She was fun to be with, warm and vivacious, which had been just what he needed at that miserable time in his life.
He realized later that she was very shallow, that she would never be a good actress for she wasn’t committed to it. Drama school was just part of the image she wanted to create, just as she had to have the right clothes and be seen in all the trendy night spots with people she perceived as going places. She had no originality; she was vain, lazy and avaricious. Even now her conversation centred only on celebrities, clothes and programmes she’d seen on television. Yet all the same she was full of life, amusing and very attractive. He didn’t want to think he was going to have to give her devastating news before long. She may have sponged off Jackie, but he thought that was Charles’s influence, just as drinking far too much was too.
He had spun out his one glass of beer, and resisted her efforts to get him to drink more. He’d come for a showdown with Charles and he needed to be sober for that.
Around five the sun went off the garden and it felt chilly. They went back into the kitchen and Belle said she would make them something to eat.
Stuart made himself a cup of coffee, but she was still drinking vodka. Her laughter had grown louder and she kept forgetting what she was going to say, but she was still steady on her high heels, and not obviously drunk.
She had just got a curry out of the freezer, remarking that it would take forty-five minutes to cook, then suddenly she came round his side of the table, bent over, took his face in both her hands and kissed him on the lips.
It wasn’t a gentle, affectionate kiss, it was a full blown, I-want-to-go-to-bed-with-you kiss. She pushed her tongue into his mouth and insinuated her breasts against his shoulder.
Stuart was alarmed that she had taken the odd flirtatious remark he’d made as proof he’d come here for this.
‘No, Belle,’ he said, nudging her away. ‘It’s not right, you are a married woman, and I came to see you and Charles.’
‘Don’t be coy,’ she said, taking one of his hands and putting it on her breast. ‘You came purposely to see me knowing Charles would be out playing golf. You want to find out what you missed all those years ago.’
Stuart snatched his hand away. ‘Belle, you are drunk, and that’s not what I came for. I needed to talk to you and Charles together. I’ve got something to tell you.’
Her seductive kitten look vanished, replaced by suspicion. ‘What?’
Stuart felt angry with himself for not foreseeing Belle might react like this. He realized his plan just to sit it out with her until Charles came home was foolish and ill-conceived. The man might not arrive back for hours, if at all.
‘Look, I’ll go,’ he said, getting up. ‘I’ll stay the night somewhere else and come back and see you both in the morning.’
‘You’ll do no such thing,’ she said, her face becoming flushed. ‘You’ll tell me whatever it is now. That wanker of a husband of mine relies on me for everything. It’s not a partnership, I’m the one that keeps everything together.’
Stuart thought that was probably true, but he could hardly tell Belle that he needed Charles there to see his reaction to the news.
‘Come on, tell me,’ she insisted.
‘It isn’t right for me to tell you alone,’ he insisted. Yet as he spoke he realized that a lawyer imparting such news would talk directly to her; after all Jackie was her sister, Charles merely the brother-in-law. Perhaps it was best to tell her now, let her have the hysterics that would inevitably follow, and when Charles came in and she relayed it to him, Stuart could sit back and watch the fireworks. That seemed so cruel to her though, especially as for the last two hours he hadn’t given her any inkling he was about to drop a bombshell.
‘It’s about Jackie’s will,’ he said nervously.
‘What’s that got to do with you?’ she asked, putting her hands on her hips belligerently.
‘I’m the executor.’
‘Don’t talk rubbish,’ she snapped. ‘It’s Grant Spender, her accountant in London.’
‘He might have been the executor for the will you found, but Jackie made a far more recent one. I collected it from her solicitor a couple of days ago.’
‘What solicitor?’
‘Mr Calder of Conway and Calder in Portobello.’
She swayed a little on her feet, and her mouth opened and shut. ‘B-b-but,’ she stuttered.
<
br /> ‘But what, Belle?’ Stuart asked. ‘This one was duly signed and witnessed six months before she died. I take it she didn’t tell you she’d made one?’
He thought she was behaving oddly, and that most people would want to rush you to tell them what was in it.
‘No, she didn’t,’ Belle said and she reached on to the table for a cigarette and lit it. She took a long drag, then looked hard at him. ‘Well, what’s in it?’
‘She hasn’t left you anything, Belle,’ he said as gently as he could. ‘I’m sorry, that’s why I wanted Charles to be here too.’
Belle’s face seemed to crumple before his eyes, her mouth sagged and her eyes drooped. The high colour she’d had minutes before vanished and now, even with her artful makeup, she looked pale.
‘Nothing?’ she whispered. ‘Nothing at all?’
‘No, not even this house. I believe it belonged to her.’
With one hand she grabbed the back of a chair for support, with the other she drew deeply on her cigarette. Suddenly she looked old and Stuart felt very sorry for her.
He got her to sit down and made her a cup of coffee.
‘Do you know why she did this?’ he asked. ‘Did you do something to her?’
Belle didn’t answer, just carried on smoking, but he could see a muscle twitching in her cheek.
‘Who did she leave it all to then?’ she suddenly roared out.
Stuart backed away a little. ‘Toby has the house in Kensington, Roger gets the rest of the London property, with the exception of a house she left to me.’
‘Oh, you’re all right then,’ she said viciously. ‘She leaves her killer’s old boyfriend a house but nothing for her sister.’
‘It was a big surprise to me,’ he said.
‘So who’s got the farm and all the stuff up here?’ she asked, picking up the vodka bottle and pouring another glass.
‘Laura.’
He expected her to rage, but she just looked up at him silently with eyes as cold and hard as stone. She picked up her glass and drank the neat vodka in one long gulp. Then she suddenly hurled the glass across the room. It hit the wall by the back door, shattered and fell to the floor.
‘That bitch,’ she screamed out, jumping to her feet. ‘She must have forced Jackie to do this. She can’t have the farm, it should be mine.’
A click behind him made Stuart turn to see Charles coming through the front door. David had described how ludicrous he had looked in his golfing gear, and he was right. To Stuart he looked like a character out of an American comedy, and he could hardly credit that a man who had once boasted about his Savile Row suits would allow himself to be seen in Rupert Bear trousers and a bright yellow sweater. But then it was some fifteen years since they last met, and maybe moving to Scotland had changed the man’s idea of style.
More disturbing, though, was to find that a man who had once looked something like Rock Hudson now had a heavily lined face and bags beneath his eyes.
The hall between them was some sixteen feet in length, too long a distance for Stuart to be able to smell if Charles had been drinking, but he didn’t look as if he had. He was completely steady on his feet as he put his car keys on the hall table, looking at Stuart with puzzlement. ‘Stuart, isn’t it? What on earth are you doing here? And what’s going on?’ he asked. ‘I heard Belle yelling.’
Belle leapt up, rushed out to Charles and began pummelling his chest with her fists. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she yelled. ‘Jackie made another will and she’s left us nothing, nothing at all.’
‘Calm down, for God’s sake,’ Charles said irritably, pushing his wife away from him. ‘Hysterics never help anything.’
He came into the kitchen, sat down at the table, folded his arms and looked sharply at Stuart. ‘Why have you come here? And what has Jackie’s will got to do with you anyway?’ he demanded to know.
All at once Stuart realized that it hadn’t been a good move to come here. Belle was drunk and hysterical and Charles was sober and icy calm. Stuart began to explain, in much the same way he had to Belle, but she kept interrupting, and it was difficult to concentrate on how Charles was taking it.
He appeared to be unshaken, but then Stuart remembered he’d always been a cool customer.
‘But how did you get involved enough to discover there was another will?’ Charles asked, narrowing his eyes.
‘Because I’ve been helping Laura to lodge an appeal.’
‘You have been helping her?’ Belle shrieked. ‘When you last came here you said you wanted to offer your condolences!’
‘That is what I came for,’ Stuart said, but he kept his eyes on Charles because he guessed she’d never told him that he’d called. ‘But I also didn’t believe Laura killed her. Anyway, to answer your question, Charles, I spoke to someone who had witnessed a document for Jackie, and I had to check up whether she had lodged it officially or not. That took me to the lawyer who handled the purchase of Brodie Farm.’
‘So you’ve been poking your nose in our family’s business to help that scumbag?’ Charles sneered.
‘It is quite obvious from a letter left with the will that Jackie didn’t consider her a scumbag,’ Stuart retorted. ‘Actually, she left me the impression that was her view of you!’
‘How dare you!’ Charles hissed at him.
‘I dare because I can guess what you did to enrage Jackie,’ Stuart said. ‘It wasn’t just that you’d been sponging off her for years, was it?’
‘I don’t know what you are suggesting, but you can get out of this house now.’ Charles rose to his feet threateningly.
‘I’ll go when I’m good and ready.’ Stuart stood up too. ‘You killed Barney, didn’t you? But you were too much of a coward to stop and face what you had done. You just shot off to London to lie low.’
‘That’s a bloody lie,’ Charles shouted and leapt towards Stuart.
Stuart caught him by the shoulders, forcing him back to arm’s length. ‘I know what you did,’ he snarled at him. ‘You killed the boy, you could easily have killed Jackie too, but all you cared about was your own skin. You disgust me. Why didn’t Jackie turn you in? I bet she wanted to, but she couldn’t bear the thought of Laura knowing it was a relative of hers that did it.’
‘That slag didn’t give a toss about the kid,’ Charles flung out, trying to get away from Stuart. ‘She was a junkie whore, she dumped him on Jackie all the time so she could screw more men and take more drugs. But you know all that, she chucked you out so she could find a rich man to fuck.’
Stuart’s blood came up and he head-butted Charles. His legs buckled under him and as Stuart bent to yank him up again, Belle screamed.
‘Are you proud of your old man?’ Stuart shouted. ‘He’s the reason your sister turned against you. You’ve got nothing now, and I’m going to make certain the whole world knows why.’
Stuart was looking down at Charles, not watching Belle, when something very hard hit him on the back of the neck and he toppled forward on to the other man. He was stunned momentarily, and as he tried to get up he saw Belle was holding a white marble rolling pin in her hands and her face was contorted with rage.
‘You won’t be saying anything about us,’ she roared at him. ‘You’re finished!’
She brought the heavy rolling pin down on his shoulder before he could move out of the way. He staggered under the force of the blow and Charles seized the opportunity to get to his feet. ‘Enough, Belle,’ he yelled. ‘Let him go.’
‘Let him go!’ she screamed derisively. ‘I haven’t finished with him yet,’ and she lifted the rolling pin again to hit Stuart.
He managed to dodge that blow, but still dazed from the first one, he didn’t know Charles was behind him until he locked him in a half nelson.
‘You always did think you were better than anyone else,’ Charles hissed in his ear. ‘But you won’t get the better of me. You’re leaving here now, and don’t you ever come back.’
He began pushing Stuart towards the do
or into the hall. Stuart didn’t struggle because however undignified it was to be forcibly thrown out, it was better than being killed, which for a moment or two he had thought was Charles’s intention.
Belle brushed past as Charles forced him to the front door. ‘Open it,’ Charles ordered her.
Stuart felt a cold chill when he saw that Belle had a curious, almost gloating expression on her face. She wasn’t attempting to open the front door, but stood with her back to it. Then he saw what she was holding by her side.
A large French cook’s knife.
In fright he tried to free himself from Charles’s grip just as she lunged forward, the knife held at her shoulder height. Charles released his arms and shouted for Belle to stop. Stuart tried to dodge, but she was too quick and she plunged the knife into him.
It was like a weird, slow-motion dream. He felt no real pain but the knife was sticking out of his chest and his cream shirt was turning crimson with blood. Belle had moved back from him now, and she was panting as if she’d run a mile, but her expression was not one of horror at what she’d done, only a crazed gloat.
‘You’re a mad fucking cow. You won’t get away with this one,’ he heard Charles yell at her.
Stuart felt himself growing dizzy. He thought it odd that he could feel a pain in his neck, but not his chest. He was aware of Charles pulling the knife out of his chest, and how frightened he looked, but Stuart’s legs were folding under him.
He was aware he was now on the floor. He could feel the softness of the carpet and smell the wool. He could hear Belle and Charles arguing, but they seemed a long way off.
‘It’s through his heart. He’ll die unless we call an ambulance,’ Charles screamed at her, but Stuart couldn’t make out what Belle’s reply was, even though she was shouting. He didn’t care anyway, for he was drifting off.
The next thing Stuart was aware of was being very cold. It was dark and he automatically reached out for blankets, but when his fingers met cold, dank concrete, he suddenly realized he wasn’t in bed, but on the floor.
It came back to him then. Belle’s face contorted with hatred as she lunged at him with a knife.
Faith Page 44
