‘Yes, please.’
Mary poured the tea.
‘I put milk and two sugars in. Was that OK?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘I had a right pig of a man,’ Mary said, settling down in a chair at the opposite side of the fireplace. ‘A right pig. To me, that is. To everybody else, he was Saint Michael. That hard done to – having to put up with me. Long-suffering and patient with me when I took a drink. What everybody didnae know was he drove me to drink. He never thought I was good enough for him. Nagged away at me all the time. Put me down. Made my life a misery. Rotten, two-faced swine.’
Mary has her Saint Michael, I have my Saint Charles, Janet thought and was moved to say, ‘I know exactly what you mean.’ Her voice acquired a bitter twist. ‘Oh yes, exactly.’
‘He took my weans as well.’ Although Mary’s voice remained defiant, she gave another sniffle of distress.
‘Oh, I am sorry.’
‘His mother moved in. She never thought I was good enough either. Treated me like dirt, the pair of them. They shut me out eventually. Without even a coat on my back. I wouldn’t have cared but it was the weans.’ She took a big gulp of tea. ‘They wouldnae let me have my weans. OK, I’d been out for a wee refreshment but, as I say, that pair would drive anybody to drink. Auld harridan his mother is. Never out of the church, though. Saint Michael and Holy Jeannie. I didnae stand a chance. But I’m no’ going to give up fighting for my weans. The Women’s Help lassies are getting me a lawyer and they’re going to help me to get a place of my own for when I get my weans back. How about you, hen?’
The situation once more struck Janet as unbelievable. It was just too awful.
‘I’d rather not say. If you don’t mind,’ she added, trying to be dignified but not unfriendly. After all, this poor woman didn’t want to be here either. Although, by the look of her, she would probably not be too unfamiliar with a tower block area like this. Or a tenement building in some sort of working-class area.
‘No, I don’t mind, Janet. I know how you must be feeling, hen. Come on, I’ll show you around and where everything is kept in the kitchen.’ Her slippers flopped on the floor as she went along the lobby and into the kitchen.
‘We take turns of cleaning the house and we each cook for ourselves. We have our own wee bit of cupboard and fridge shelf to keep our own food in. You’ll no’ feel like nippin’ out for anything today so you can have a share of mine for tonight. And I’ve plenty cornflakes and bread to do us both for breakfast.’
‘You’re very kind.’
‘Us girls need to stick together, hen. If you don’t fancy going down the road for your messages, there’s a bus stop across the road and plenty of buses to take you into town. There’s a nice park as well across the road. Lovely inside, so it is. You’ll enjoy a wee walk in that park. You’ll be OK here once you find your way around, believe me. I mean, I’d be as happy as a lark here, if I just had ma weans.’
Janet followed the drooping, shuffling figure into the kitchen and was relieved to see that as well as being fitted out in as modern a style as her own kitchen in Bearsden, it was spotlessly clean. In the bedroom, Mary guided her across to the window.
‘Would you look at that view, hen. Isn’t that something, eh?’
Indeed it was. Janet couldn’t help admiring it and she experienced – for the first time, if only for a few seconds – a joyous sense of release. Here, from her situation in the sky and stretching for miles below and far beyond like a jewel in the sun, was the city of Glasgow. It was nestling serenely in a distant, magic circle of shimmering lochs and hills. She had never seen Glasgow, or thought of it, in such a way before.
‘Magic, isn’t it?’ Mary said as if reading her thoughts.
‘Yes indeed.’
But when Janet turned back into the room, her nightmare immediately returned and, with it, her feelings of confused unreality. It was now late afternoon. She should be preparing dinner for Charles. His key would be turning in the door at any minute. Everything had to be exactly right for him, even down to the way his cutlery was set on the table. And his napkin. The meal had to be exactly at the right temperature, as well as having the right taste. Not too much seasoning. Or too little. The whole procedure was an agony of anxiety and suspense.
Janet could see an alarm clock on the bedside table. Any minute now. Her legs gave way and she sat down on the bed.
‘Are you all right, hen?’
‘I was just remembering,’ Janet said faintly.
‘Och, try not to worry, hen.’ Mary sat down on the bed beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘He’ll no’ get you in here. By jove, he’d better no’ try or he’ll have me to deal wi’. I’ll protect you, hen. Kick him up the arse, so I will.’
Janet couldn’t help a half-laugh, half-sob escaping. It was so ridiculous really. This undersized woman, with her bad posture and her drink problem, was so common. She was not the type of person Janet would normally allow anywhere near her, never mind touch her. But nothing was normal any more.
‘You’re very kind.’
‘And you’re beginning to sound like a broken gramophone record, hen.’
Another weak laugh escaped and, all at once, Janet was grateful for wee Mary’s arm around her shoulders.
7
Glasgow Green was not only the oldest park in the city but the oldest in Britain. In 1450, James II granted the Green to Bishop William Turnbull. Bishop Turnbull gifted the common lands of Glasgow Green to the people of Glasgow. It was bordered by the River Clyde and the Gorbals to the south, Saltmarket and the High Court to the west and the Calton and Bridgeton districts to the north and east. Public executions took place on the Green up until 1865. Many’s the time John Ingram had visited the Green, strolling under the impressive McLellan Arch, designed by Robert and James Adam, and past Nelson’s Monument, erected by public subscription and the first monument in Britain to be erected in Viscount Horatio Nelson’s honour. There had long been a Glasgow insult of ‘He’ll die facing the monument’, because the worst criminals always used to be hanged outside the High Court and facing Nelson’s Monument.
For years, Ingram had enjoyed the different events that took place on the Green. In his youth, it was the Football Centre and the place where the heavy horses were stabled and exercised. Later there was the World Pipe Band Championship and annual fireworks display. Not to mention the pop concerts, funfairs, local events, like rowing regattas, and charity events, like the Great Scottish Run.
There had been a great deal of building all round the area including, most importantly for his purpose, high-rise flats.
He’d left the shop in the care of the three barbers – one middle-aged man and two younger men – he had been employing for quite a long time and knew were dependable. He had been staying off work a lot recently because of his continuing search of all the parks. Not that the men seemed to mind. They were probably quite glad not to have the boss breathing down their necks all the time.
He found a few possible buildings in the Glasgow Green area and hung around them all morning before going back into the Green and the People’s Palace, a museum devoted to the social and cultural history of Glasgow. At the rear of the building were the Winter Gardens, a massive glass conservatory filled with shrubs and flowers. There he had lunch in the café under the glass roof among the hothouse plants.
Then it was out again for the afternoon to stalk the houses and the rest of the park. All the time he fingered the cut-throat razor in his jacket pocket, a relic from his father’s day in the barber’s shop. He’d give Angela another chance to be decent and make it up to him. He had just wanted to meet her and allow their relationship to develop naturally. He kept trying to explain to her over the phone. She always sounded so sympathetic and understanding. So why, oh why, did she keep refusing him? That’s what he wanted to know, needed to know. He realised that it must be just the money but he didn’t want to believe it. After all, the money didn’t amount to all tha
t much. It wasn’t as if she was making a fortune out of him.
And surely there was one decent, loyal and loving woman in the world. He had thought he had found her in Angela. He wanted it to be her. He wanted it so much that he could hardly credit her stubborn and evasive attitude to his perfectly reasonable requests. He had assured her they could meet in a busy public place if it was nervousness that was holding her back. It would be her choice. He would go along with anything and everything she said. What more could he do?
Well, he knew what to do now if she continued to refuse his simple and reasonable request. He would track her down. He could and would find her – even if it took him weeks, months, years. He could be as stubborn as she was. No, far more than stubborn. Dedicated.
Angela, he must accept whether he wanted to or not, was selfish and money-grubbing. She had betrayed his trust. He had been such a trusting fool, opening his heart to her and making himself vulnerable. How could she be so cruel? What had he done to deserve such treatment? When his wife had betrayed him, he’d kept asking himself the same heartbroken question. His emotions kept seesawing between the same desolation, longing and wild hatred.
He stood for a few minutes, staring around. A couple of young women appeared and stood nearby. Their attention was on the huge building of Templeton’s carpet factory. Or at least it had once been a carpet factory. Now it operated as the Templeton Business Centre. There had been a terrible fight way back in the eighteen hundreds to stop the factory being built in case it spoiled the appearance of the Green. Eventually permission had been gained for a building modelled on the Doge’s Palace in Venice. Now there it still stood, an exotic assortment of coloured brick, with circular and pointed windows.
The girls were admiring it. One of them had blonde hair. But it was cropped short and he could hear her American accent. She was reading from a guidebook. ‘And the façade collapsed on 1st November 1889, killing twenty-nine women and girls.’
He wandered about, hands dug deep into his pockets, watching every woman he came cross. Or at least, blonde women. Angela had told him her long fair hair was her best feature. He saw one girl with hair that answered the description but she was only a child, skipping along, holding on to her mother’s hand.
His own hair was black as night and straight with a long lock that kept sliding down to shadow one side of his face, no matter how often he smoothed it back. He was tall and lanky. Angela said she liked tall, slim men. He wasn’t good-looking, he’d told her. His eyes were too small and deep-set, his nose too long and his lips too thin. Angela said she thought men with deep-set eyes and thin lips were sexy. She had built up his self-confidence. Only to undermine it again.
He felt sick and tired, depressed too, and frustrated to the point of tears. He suddenly began loping towards the monument in an effort to release his frustration. Once in the Saltmarket, he sped past the Justiciary Courts with their Greek-columned façade until, becoming out of breath, he was forced to slow his pace again. Head moving forwards and backwards over his long neck with its protruding Adam’s apple, he looked like a featherless crane as he forced his legs to keep pacing along until he reached a bus stop. He caught a bus to take him to Bearsden Cross. He had a nice big flat there above his shop in the nearby Drymen Road.
Obviously it had not been good enough for his wife, though. Not even Bearsden was good enough. If she’d confessed, explained to him why she’d married him, he maybe could have found it in his heart to forgive her. Maybe they could have worked something out. But no. Just like Angela, there was no explanation for rejecting him. Well, his wife maybe got off scot-free but Angela was not going to. Oh no!
In the sitting room, a clock weakly tick-tocked through the heavy silence. The hall and the sitting room had wood-panelled walls. He had once been proud of the panelling. He’d had the job done (at great expense) by a local joiner after he’d seen pictures of panelled walls in stately homes. He’d thought it would impress his new wife and she would feel proud too.
Now the walls depressed him. They made the place look dark, lonely and abandoned – like himself. He sank his long, lean frame into a chair and lifted the phone.
‘Angela?’
‘John.’ There was the usual lift of pleasure in her voice. ‘How are you?’
‘Lonely.’
‘Never mind, dear. I’ll soon cheer you up.’
‘No.’
‘Darling, you know that I can always make you feel loved and happy.’
‘No.’
‘Oh dear, you are in a strange mood tonight.’
‘If we could just meet. I keep telling you that if you feel a bit nervous, we could …’
‘No, definitely not.’
‘But why not?’
‘Trust me. It’s impossible.’
‘But why?’ he repeated.
‘Darling.’ Her voice acquired its sexy purr. ‘Just relax and listen.’
At first he had enjoyed the way her soft Highland voice could thrill and excite him. Now it was a torment that hardened his bitterness into hatred.
‘What are you wearing?’ he cut in at one point.
‘Something new. It’s called a boob tube. It stretches tight over my breasts and leaves my shoulders and arms bare. It’s bright red in colour …’
He could vividly imagine how she must look in that. She had so often described her big breasts. Sitting hunched alone in the dark room, he could have wept.
‘I need to see you,’ he said without hope. ‘Just to see you.’
Ignoring his plea, as he knew she would, she continued to torment him.
He managed a calm ‘Goodnight’ eventually, without betraying a hint of his seething anger. He went through to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. The cold water didn’t help. He wanted to go out again and search for her but he was too exhausted.
In the kitchen he took one of the local bakery’s sandwiches from the fridge and returned to his chair to eat it without knowing what it tasted like. He couldn’t concentrate on anything except his plans to find Angela. He couldn’t even sleep for thinking about her and what he was going to do to her. He writhed about in bed and was glad to get up early and go downstairs to open the shop. He had everything set up and ready by the time his three employees arrived.
Dave, the oldest, had a spare set of keys and he said, ‘I could have opened up, Mr Ingram. How’s your Aunty? A bit better, is she?’
‘What?’ For a moment, Ingram didn’t know what the man was talking about. Then he remembered he’d told the men that he had to go and see to an old aunt who was ill and lived alone. ‘Oh, she’s still pretty poorly. I’ll have to go back again today. Are you sure you’ll manage OK, Dave?’
‘No bother. Don’t worry, we’re managing fine. But here, you missed a rare bit of gossip.’
‘Did I?’ he murmured absently.
‘Yes. Old Mr Cameron was in for his short back and sides.’
‘Enough said.’
Mr Cameron was well known as a right old woman. Any titbit of gossip and he was in his element.
‘Nothing juicy surely? Not in Bearsden.’
‘Juicy enough. You know Mr Peacock?’
‘He’s not done anything shocking,’ Ingram said. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘His wife’s done a runner.’
‘No! Not Janet Peacock! Run off with someone else?’
Despite his wayward thoughts, Ingram’s interest was awakened.
‘No, of course not. She’s ancient.’
‘Not that ancient. He’s in his sixties and she could be a year or two younger than him.’
‘Would you fall for a woman of that age?’
‘Definitely not but she’s maybe gone off with another old guy.’
‘What they’re saying is, she must have gone off her head. She takes funny turns, apparently. They’ll probably lock her up in some loony bin when they find her.’
‘She must be mad, leaving a man like that and a place like that. He’s obviously
loaded. But that’s women for you.’ Ingram’s mouth betrayed a twist of bitterness. ‘There’s no telling what they’ll do or why they do it.’
The shop door bell tinged and a customer entered. Ingram said, ‘Can I leave you boys to it then?’
‘Sure. Away you go, Mr Ingram,’ Dave said. ‘We’ll manage fine.’
Out on the main Drymen Road, he walked along to the bus stop and caught a bus into town without knowing where he would go after reaching the centre of the city. All he knew was that parking a car was hellishly difficult in town. For what he needed to do, it would be easier to take the bus and then walk about. Once in the city centre, he decided to go into the information office in George Square. The place was filled with books about Glasgow and maps and souvenirs. He browsed for a while until he found a book about Glasgow tenements. He also bought a couple of maps. It was a hot day and a few people were relaxing in the seats between the flower beds and the tall grey statues.The magnificent City Chambers dominated the square at the east end, towering over the Cenotaph. It was hard to imagine that originally the square was a grazing ground for sheep. Once it had been a favourite place for drowning cats and dogs and slaughtering horses.
By lunch time, office workers, students and tourists were packing the square, many eating sandwiches and drinking coffee from the baker’s across the road. The pigeons were mobbing the ground in front of each seat, pecking and jostling for crumbs. Ingram interrupted his reading to purchase a sandwich.
The book he’d bought was all about the redevelopment of Glasgow housing and how, because Glasgow in the nineteenth century was in the throes of industrial and commercial expansion, its working-class housing had an immediate need for growth. The tenements at the centre of the old city around the High Street and Saltmarket had fallen into decay and demolition work there and in the adjoining areas such as Townhead and Calton had begun.
There were pictures of the outside of slum tenements and the cramped conditions of the inside of some of them.
A Deadly Deception Page 4