‘It’s the concierge. He’s dialled 999. It’s Sandra’s husband, right enough. He’s been shouting for Sandra. But he won’t know what floor we’re on and Monty’s managed to lock the entrance door.
Sandra was gasping and sobbing.
‘I knew he was going to kill me. I knew it.’
Rita was wild-eyed and clutched Bobby and Susie against her. ‘He’s obviously a madman. He’s going to kill the lot of us.’
‘Oh my God!’ Sandra’s voice flew high in hysteria. ‘Oh my God!’
Taken aback, the children began to wail. Betty put her hand over Sandra’s mouth.
‘You’re frightening the children.’
Wee Mary said, ‘See bloody men!’
14
Monty could see the increasingly agitated figure outside. He’d managed to lock the door by pressing the emergency button at his desk and had phoned 999. As soon as he’d said the man had a gun, he had got instant action. He was told an armed response team was on its way. His brother-in-law was a police officer and had once told him something that few ordinary Glasgow folk knew. There was always an armed response team cruising around Glasgow twenty-four hours a day. Monty could only hope that it was in the Springburn area at the moment and not over in Govan or elsewhere.
Meantime he prayed the door would hold. He also frantically dialled everybody’s number and told them to get out of their flats and on to the fire escape stairway. Outside, the man had gone totally berserk and was throwing himself at the door. It was shuddering and groaning ominously with each assault. Monty could feel the cold sweat of fear trickling down his chest, his shirt sticking to his chest. ‘Sweet Jesus, let the bloody door hold!’
There was a momentary pause outside as the maniacal figure stopped to regain his breath and rethink his strategy.
He tried lifting his foot high and stomping it out, smashing against the lock.
The door still held.
Where were the bloody polis? It seemed an age since he’d called them. Monty clung on to the edge of his desk, knuckles white with tension.
Outside, the man stepped back and, with his left hand, covered his face with his jacket collar. He pointed the gun towards the door and, shutting his eyes, pulled the trigger. There was an almighty bang as the shot was fired; his first effort hit the door frame. This time aiming properly, he fired again and the entire reinforced glass door disintegrated before him. Arms crossed over his face, he burst into the foyer.
‘For God’s sake, son, screw the nut. Ye’ll get yersel’ killed.’ Monty desperately tried to get him to listen but the man was incensed.
‘Where’s that bitch? Where’s my fucking wife?’
Still gamely trying to calm things down, Monty continued to talk in a quiet, soothing voice. ‘It’s no’ worth it. Think this through.’
They both were talking simultaneously, Monty quietly and the intruder shouting and waving his gun.
Eventually the man lost patience and, leaping over the desk, grabbed Monty by his shirt front. He jabbed the barrel of the gun hard into Monty’s temple repeatedly, emphasising his words, ‘Tell me where she is or your head will be sprayed all over that fucking wall.’
Monty could hold out no longer. Now really in fear of his life, he pointed to the lift. ‘The tenth floor, that’s where the refuge is.’ His final act of defiance was to direct the madman to the wrong floor. Hopefully that would at least give the armed police time to arrive and the residents time to escape down the stairs.
Then no sooner had the lift creaked closed, than there was the screeching of tyres braking under stress. Monty looked through the shattered door to see police cars and vans outside, vomiting out sinister black-clad policemen, armed to the teeth and wearing armoured Kevlar chest protectors.
Monty shouted, ‘He’s on the lift going to the tenth floor. He’s mad and he’s gonnae kill somebody for sure.’
Some policemen stayed in the foyer covering the lift doors and directing residents who were nervously emerging from the stairs to gather outside on the street. The rest of the police crashed through the fire doors out on to the stairwell. ‘Go, go, go!’ They thundered up the stairs, hearts pounding from both exertion and adrenalin.
Cursing inside the lift, the gunman impatiently thumped his fist into the wall. What was wrong with this piece of shit of a lift? It seemed to creep upwards.
Finally, after what seemed an age, it arrived at floor ten. He burst out on to the landing, red eyes staring, waving his gun around in front of him. He grabbed the first door handle he saw and thrust his shoulder forward. Locked. This time he brooked no delay and blasted the lock to smithereens.
The armed response team heard the shot. They redoubled their efforts and pounded upwards.
The door swung back crazily on its hinges as the gunman burst into the flat. An empty flat. Cursing, he went back out on to the landing. He tried the next door. He listened intently. He thought he could hear whimpering inside.
Stepping back from the door, he fired once more, smashing the lock. Then suddenly the fire escape door burst open.
‘Drop the gun!’
The gunman swung round on them, gun raised. Three shots immediately hit him square in the chest, knocking him back. Slowly, eyes vacant now, he slid down the wall to sit slumped at its foot. A large red streak smeared the wall behind him.
Not just Sandra but all the women in the refuge were in a state of collapse. Even Betty and Dorothy were visibly shaken. They tried their best, however, to calm all the women down as well as comfort Sandra.
‘It’s all over,’ they kept repeating. ‘We’re safe now.’
Sandra was sobbing uncontrollably.
‘He was my husband.’
Wee Mary suddenly burst out, ‘So what? For God’s sake, Sandra, ye’re well rid of him. Think yersel’ lucky he’s gone.’
Betty had phoned for the doctor and she kept striding impatiently over to the window hoping for a sight of his car.
At last she was able to call out, ‘Here’s the doctor. He’ll soon make you all feel better.’
She hastened from the room to open the door and wait for the doctor emerging from the lift. By the time he had entered the room, Sandra had collapsed back in her chair, eyes closed, breathless, moaning sounds issuing from tightly closed lips.
All the others were white-faced and wide-eyed.
As the doctor attended to Sandra, his soothing voice and presence had a calming effect on everyone, even before he gave them prescriptions for medication.
After he’d gone Betty said again, ‘It’s all over. We’re safe now.’
And they all tried to believe her.
15
The last thing on earth John Ingram expected, as he sat in the car watching for Angela and her husband, was a mad gunman. At first he was paralysed with shock and fear. He just sat hunched forward, unconscious of a lock of black hair covering one side of his face, long fingers glued round the steering wheel, eyes bulging. The man was bawling and waving a gun about. In his shocked state, Ingram thought the man was bawling out Angela’s name. He couldn’t move. Then he heard the first shot and panicked. The car stalled. It seemed an eternity before he managed to get it going. He had no recollection of how he drove through the busy streets and eventually arrived in Bearsden.
Automatically he parked the car in the car park behind the shops. He half-ran to his close. Up the stairs, two at a time, into his flat and then he collapsed on to a chair, heart leaping up to his throat. After a time, he was able to pour a double whisky and knock it back. He managed to light a cigarette. Gradually he calmed down.
It took him the best part of a week, however, to return to normal. He worked every day in the shop. He chatted to the other barbers and to the customers as if nothing unusual had happened. But he couldn’t get the incident out of his mind.
He read about it in the paper and watched a report about it on STV and discovered it wasn’t Angela but a woman called Sandra the man was after. His relief was overwhelm
ing.
The occupants of the high-rise flats – or most of them – had been evacuated. Now there would have been a good chance to see Angela and maybe the husband too, as they all streamed out of the building. If only he had waited and kept watching. Apparently there was a women’s refuge somewhere in the building and this Sandra person was hiding in it. The gunman had tracked her down.
Probably he’s suffered the same or similar cruel treatment from his Sandra, as I have suffered from my Angela, Ingram thought.
The poor guy had been caught, killed in a shootout with the police. He must have been mad, thinking he could get away with brandishing a gun for all to see and bringing everyone’s attention to him by bawling abuse in a public place. He was just asking to be caught.
‘But I’m not mad,’ Ingram thought. ‘I’ll quietly wait and watch and, once I find Angela’s husband, I’ll follow him away from the building. I’ll take my time. I’ll follow him to his work. Any place away from the Balgray Hill. I’ll get him on his own. No one will ever know. An open razor is so efficient. And quiet.’
It was another week before he saw Angela and her husband. He could hardly contain his excitement when he spotted the lovely blonde-haired girl in the white trouser suit emerge. Then rage rushed in like a red-hot flood burning away every other emotion. She was hanging on to the man’s arm, gazing lovingly up at him.
‘How could she have lied to me so convincingly?’ Ingram asked himself incredulously. Night after night, her voice had caressed him. Her words had been not only loving but passionate. She swore she loved him and him alone. Obviously she was just making a fool of him. Listening to him, not with the loving, caring sympathy she had led him to believe but with secret yawns and probably even laughter. Probably her husband had been there. His head throbbed to bursting point with fury at the thought.
The man wasn’t even good-looking. A stocky-built guy with red hair. He was dressed in a cheap T-shirt and denims with ragged holes and frayed edges. The couple walked along past his car. The man was so close he could read the words on his T-shirt – ‘I still hate Maggie Thatcher’.
A bloody Communist to boot!
He watched them stroll into the park. He got out of the car and followed them. He fingered the razor in his pocket. He waited for his chance. But it was Sunday and the park was full of strolling lovers and children kicking balls and old people sitting on benches. He had to give up eventually. People were beginning to stare at him. Or so he imagined.
At least now he knew what they both looked like. There would be other, better opportunities. He wasn’t the fool Angela obviously took him for. He wasn’t going to get caught.
He still could hardly credit it when he phoned at his usual six o’clock and she answered him as if nothing had happened. Her voice, as usual, was so loving, so soft, so gentle. He had once asked her if she came from the Highlands because of the lovely lilt in her voice. It had none of the broad Glasgow accents. She said both her parents originally came from up north.
‘Are you all right, John?’ she asked. ‘You’re very quiet this evening. I hope you’re not still upset about us not meeting. I can’t explain, John. But believe me, it would be a terrible disappointment to you if we ever did meet.’
Why would that be then? he thought derisively. Because you’d bring your husband along?
‘You’re probably right,’ he managed. ‘I won’t mention it again.’
But we will meet, he determined, and I will more than just mention it. I’ll tell you what a lying, two-faced, money-grubbing bitch you really are. At the same time, he wished it could have been different. He longed to the point of tears for it to be different. Now he knew that in appearance at least, she was even more beautiful and desirable than he had imagined.
Again he went back to working normally in the shop. His work was proving something of a therapy. It helped to distract him and calm him down. After a few days he felt enough in control of his thoughts and emotions to return to Balgrayhill Road. This time he had no luck. There was no sign of Angela or the red-haired man. He arrived on the hill day after day and returned home night after night, still without a glimpse of either of them.
Then one day he had to take a bus into town to an alteration tailor to have a suit taken in. He was thin at the best of times but recently he’d lost weight and his clothes were now hanging too loosely on his tall skeletal frame. He could hardly believe his eyes. There, sitting in the driver’s seat of the bus, was the red-haired man.
16
The trouble was, wee Mary had gone back on the ‘hard stuff ‘. Janet, Alice, Sandra and Rita had a secret conference about it while Mary was out at the shops one day. She kept all right during the day when Betty and Dorothy were on duty. Once the girls went off duty in the evening, however, it was clear to see that Mary got steadily drunk. On several occasions now, she’d drunk herself into oblivion and Janet, with the help of Sandra, had to put the unconscious Mary to bed.
Opinion was divided on what should be done. Should they report wee Mary to Betty? Or should they wait in the hope that once Mary got over the trauma of the gunman incident, she would return to normal and need nothing more than her daily teapot of beer?
As if the one dreadful trauma was not enough, they all had to suffer another. It brought the problem with Mary to a climax.
Janet had, for the first time, gone into town for the evening. It had given her great pleasure to dress in her designer label outfit and Hermes scarf. There had been a concert in the Royal Concert Hall and she had persuaded Sandra to attend it with her. Sandra’s nerves had been in a terrible state and the doctor had to give her a sedative. However, she shared Janet’s love of classical music and it was an evening of Mozart that they gone to. They had invited Mary to come with them but she had laughed.
‘Och, you know fine it’s no’ ma thing. I couldn’t even spell the man’s name. But thanks for askin’. Away ye go, the pair of ye, an’ enjoy yersels.’
So they had gone. And it had done Sandra good. They had both thoroughly enjoyed the evening. They’d treated themselves to a taxi home. They’d had to share the lift with the awful man from the thirtieth floor who was a terrible drunk and who sang at the pitch of this voice and tried to dance with Sandra. But up to that point, it was the only incident that had spoiled the lovely evening.
They smelled burning the moment they unlocked the flat door. They both ran along the lobby and into the living room. At the first sight of Mary, Sandra immediately fainted. Somehow Janet managed to pull the unconscious body of Mary away from the electric fire. Her arm had burned through the flesh to the bone. Once she’d separated Mary from the fire, Janet ran to the phone and dialled for an ambulance. Then she dragged Sandra away from the living room in case she came to and saw the extent of Mary’s horrific injuries. As soon as Sandra did come to, Janet helped her into the kitchen, sat her on a stool and gave her a drink of water. She gulped at some water herself.
‘I’ve just sent for an ambulance. We’ll have to wait until it comes. I’m frightened to touch Mary in case I make things worse. We’ll have to wait for the ambulance,’ she repeated. ‘She must have got drunk and fallen unconscious on to the fire.’
‘We shouldn’t have left her,’ Sandra moaned.
‘Mary wouldn’t want us to be prisoners in the house because of her. Anyway, this was the first night out we’ve had and we asked her to come with us.’
‘Oh my God,’ Sandra caught her fingers in her curls. ‘That smell. It’s burning flesh. It’s …’
‘Be quiet, Sandra.’ Janet’s voice was unusually sharp and authoritative. ‘Pull yourself together. You’re not doing yourself or anybody any good acting like a drama queen.’
Within minutes, they could hear the faint wail of the ambulance approaching in the street below. Janet went to open the door in readiness for the ambulance men emerging from the lift.
‘It’s Mary McFee,’ she told them immediately they appeared. ‘Through in the living room. She fell against the fi
re. It’s her arm. She’s unconscious.’
The men strode past her and along the lobby. Janet didn’t follow them. She couldn’t face seeing Mary’s injuries again. She could only pray that she was still alive. The ambulance men reappeared with the still-unconscious woman on a stretcher.
‘Where are you taking her?’ she asked.
‘The Royal,’ one of the men said. ‘Best to phone in the morning and see how she is. There’s no point in an elderly lady like yourself coming out at this time of night to hang about – probably for hours – in a hospital waiting room. Phone and see how she is in the morning and when she’ll be allowed any visitors.’
Reluctantly, Janet closed the door after them and returned to the kitchen.
‘They’re taking her to the Royal,’ she told an ashen-faced Sandra. ‘We’ll find out how she is tomorrow.’
‘I feel sick.’
‘Be sick then. I’m going to open all the windows, then put the kettle on.’
Sandra began retching over the sink. Janet opened the kitchen window, then hurried away to open the rest in an effort to get rid of the smell. She felt far from well herself. Averting her eyes from the electric fire, she switched it off.
Poor Mary, she kept thinking. Poor wee Mary. She’d really ruined everything for herself now. Drink was not allowed in the refuge. It was a strict rule. There would be no hiding the fact that she was drunk and a danger to herself and others. She stank of whisky. She must have spent most of her benefit money on it.
But at least, Janet prayed, let her survive this. Please don’t let her die.
Both she and Sandra asked Alice for one of her sleeping tablets but it was quite a time before they were able to return to their flat and collapse into bed. Alice and Rita insisted on being told everything and it was shock, horror all over again.
Next morning, even before Betty and Dorothy came on duty, Janet phoned the hospital. Mary had survived but she’d had her arm amputated. Janet felt unwell again. She had to go and sit down and leave Sandra to tell Betty and Dorothy.
A Deadly Deception Page 9