Bible John's Secret Daughter

by David Leslie

  ‘That sounds great, you should go for it,’ he told her. ‘What’s Graeme say about it?’

  ‘I haven’t told him yet,’ she admitted.

  When she did, he was sceptical, even dismissive. ‘You’ll never make anything out of that,’ he said. ‘How much are you going to charge? Where will you get the stuff and how are you going to sell them? Take it from me, and I know from the salvage business, everybody will try ripping you off. You’ll put in a whole load of hard work and make nothing from it. I wouldn’t bother, if I was you.’

  But she had already done her homework. ‘I can buy what I need from a cash and carry and I’ve asked about taking a stall at the Barras market. As for price, I won’t know until I’ve worked out how much the stuff to go into the baskets will cost.’

  A week later, the floor of the house in Clova Street was carpeted with miniature teddy bears, Mason grumbling as he tried to pick his way between them. ‘You’ll never shift that lot,’ warned the super salesman. But having made up hundreds of baskets, she loaded them into her car and set off to the Barras, where every one was snapped up in hours. Customers even returned seeking more and when she told them she had sold out they pleaded for her to return the following week.

  As the coins rolled into the tin box where she kept her takings, she could not help but look about and wonder at the ironies life brings. This was probably close to the spot, in the shadow of the Barrowland dance hall, where just over a quarter of a century earlier – although to her it seemed like last night – a devil in human form had made her pregnant. She had to fight back tears as she remembered the day of Isobel’s birth. How she would have loved to have given one of the bears to her, to have watched the child’s face when she tickled her nose with one of the tiny toys. It all seemed so cruel, an affront to creation, that such a monster could have instigated the sheer beauty that is a newborn infant.

  When next she saw Healy, he asked how the venture had gone and appeared genuinely pleased when she told him. Others seated around the bar began chuckling when she described Mason cavorting between the bears. One broke into a version of ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, cheekily adapting one of the closing lines to fit as he sang to wild cheering and hoots of laughter: ‘See Graeme gaily gad about, he loves to curse and shout and if he steps on ’em, doesn’t care’.

  The target of the fun did not appear overly amused and the impression was that he did not like Healy complimenting her on any job she had done, or the fact that she still went out and sold catalogues. In fact, after hearing of her Barras success, the publican had taken her to one side and told her, ‘If you come up with more business ideas, Hannah, but haven’t got the cash to get them under way, come to me and I’ll back you.’

  She would later complain that Mason, especially after a few drinks, tried to humiliate her in front of others and there had been one occasion, she said, where Healy had looked him in the eye and told him, ‘She’s the class act here, not you.’

  Despite his deep involvement with the smugglers, and the importance of the tasks given to him, Mason was not entirely trusted by some of those in the plot. There was never any suggestion he told tales, except to Hannah, or was other than loyal to those who took him into the racket, but what was a cause of concern was that from time to time he took his drink in a bar that was looked on as the base for a rival group.

  The success of the Spanish hash runs depended on as few people as possible being in the know. Rivals would dearly have loved to scupper the operation in order to take it, and the accompanying wealth, on for themselves. It only needed a careless word in the wrong ear and the project would come crashing down. Mason was looked upon as a good talker, but he boasted and enjoyed the kudos that over-emphasising his own role brought. Others in the gang felt the less he knew, the better. This worry would at times lead Healy to call on Hannah at Clova Street when he knew Mason was elsewhere, even propping up Healy’s own bar.

  ‘He liked to run ideas past me,’ Hannah later claimed to a friend, ‘sounding me out on what I thought of something or other. He was especially interested in finding out what I thought when it was being proposed that he delegate something or other to Mason. What had he told me of what was going on? Was he still as reliable as he had been when it all began? How was his health, because it was known he had heart problems? How did he treat me in the house because it had been noticed that, from time to time, I’d go into a shell such was the degrading way he’d speak to me? Did I want to leave him and go back to my own place because if that was the case, they’d help me remove my belongings? But I said I’d stick it out for the time being.

  ‘I liked John so much I didn’t want to leave because that would have ended my connection with him. Whenever he was there, I always seemed to be laughing. Of course, he was a ladies’ man, that was no secret, but he flattered me and I enjoyed hearing nice things said of and to me. It was only he who kept me going through the insults I had to put up with from Graeme Mason. Had it not been for John, I would have walked out much earlier.’

  There had been an ulterior motive in asking if she intended returning to live in Simpson Way, Bellshill. The very nature of a criminal’s life requires him, on occasion, to disappear, usually to avoid the unwelcome tap on the shoulder signalling that a police officer wishes to offer him hospitality in one of Her Majesty’s prisons. Gangs in Scotland have arrangements with gangs in England to offer sanctuary should the need arise: a man might be on the run from prison and need to lie low until some arrangement can be made for him to leave the country altogether, or he might simply want to avoid another criminal element wishing him harm.

  ‘Safe’ houses are not restricted to the world of spies and the security services. There are more run by law breakers than law keepers, but absolute discretion and secrecy must be guaranteed. Such had become Hannah’s reputation for dependability that her home was used to hide out criminals. It was a favour asked of her by someone for whom she had the highest regard. Men would arrive late at night, clutching bags of basic foodstuffs, and occasionally she would turn up to ensure they had what they needed until it was time to move on. They never stayed long and to have asked questions would have been rude.

  One further sideline was put her way but by whom she would never reveal. Motors used in the commission of crime needed to be cleansed of clues that could lead to the identification of the occupants. From time to time, she would be seen washing and vacuuming unfamiliar vehicles until they were almost restored to the condition they had been in when they left the factory. For this service she was well paid, around £100 a time, a lot more than a professional car valet would expect. At least once she received £500 for scouring a car in which, she would later admit, she had found bloodstains. Again, Hannah knew better than to ask questions, which is what made her such an asset.

  For all her earning capacity, her friends noticed she rarely seemed to have money. ‘Where it all went I could never work out,’ said one. ‘She had nothing to talk about in the way of jewellery or clothes; she even made garments for a long time. Her very occasional ornaments or pieces of jewellery ended up getting lost at a pawn shop when times became really tough for her. Once or twice she splashed out on classic stuff. She had a cashmere coat and a military-type one out of Arnotts that were maybe a bit more expensive than she could afford, but she wore clothes that she had from years before, suits and stuff like that. She tended to buy from shops like Planet and Monsoon, items she knew would make up into an outfit.

  ‘We suspected the money she made from all the little jobs she had went into Clova Street and on Mason and his family because it certainly didn’t come back to her home or into her bank.’

  In fairness, when others suggested to him that Hannah must be ‘coining it’, Mason would tell them, ‘Look, she knows how to spend money. When we go off to Spain on holiday, she’s out from morning until night touring the shops and looking for things to buy. She might make it, but she knows how to get through it too.’

  At the end of Jan
uary 1996, Hannah sat at Clova Street watching morning television news when an item turned her blood cold and then sent her scurrying to the nearest newsagent’s shop. She bought a copy of The Scotsman, it having been made plain to her by Mason and his fellow conspirators that the tabloid newspapers were not to be trusted. This is what she read:

  PERMISSION has been granted for the exhumation of the body of the man police suspect of committing one of the Bible John murders. Strathclyde Police are now finalising details for the recovery of the corpse of John Irvine McInnes from Stonehouse Cemetery in Lanarkshire.

  The move comes after forensic tests linked the man to the killing of Helen Puttock after a night at Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom. She was one of three women murdered in Glasgow in the late 1960s. Last night, a Crown Office spokesman said: ‘I can confirm that the fiscal has now obtained the necessary judicial warrant and the police have been advised.’ A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police said the force was now trying to finalise details for the exhumation.

  It is understood Mr McInnes, who committed suicide in 1980, was linked with the killing after DNA found on Helen’s tights was tested against DNA from members of his family. Police have mounted a round-the-clock guard round his grave in case souvenir hunters try to break pieces from the headstone.

  The possibility that the man who had fathered Isobel was Bible John had been a knife continually cutting through Hannah. She blamed herself for not seeing, in the darkest and most dank basements of her memory, the face that must have shown strain, passion, relief and cruelty in the act that sparked life. Now, the rebirth of the Bible John story jolted her into reliving that terrible night.

  For what seemed the millionth time, she urged her brain to throw out a clue that might have existed but had stayed dormant. But the frustration of recognising that she would, in all probability, never know brought only tears.

  Over the years, the stories, rumours, had persisted, a new name cropping up from time to time. One had been that of a man who lived not far from her aunt in Bridgeton. Locals said he was a strange character who hung around the dance halls, the Barrowland in particular, not for the dancing but to watch the girls. There had been times when his pestering of young women had resulted in their menfolk throwing punches and he producing a razor. It was said that he would mingle with dancers on the crowded floor and sneakily grope females, blaming some nearby innocent when they turned angrily to protest.

  This individual had fathered children, one of whom would become a notorious Glasgow criminal. He came under close suspicion after the second murder, that of Jemima McDonald, and it was thought his movements may have been monitored by the police. But then he vanished. Rumour had it that he had upped sticks and moved to London, never to return. Hannah had heard of him and thought she knew who he was.

  Now, could it be that her attacker had been this man, John McInnes, who had lived in Stonehouse, only five miles from Bellshill? His name meant nothing to her and when photographs of McInnes began appearing they stirred nothing within her.

  On a February dawn, the police threw a tent around his grave and began digging through ground frosted so deeply that they had to bring in drilling equipment. In the process of exhuming McInnes, they also had to dig up the coffin of John’s mother. When his coffin was finally recovered, his remains were taken to a mortuary in Glasgow’s Saltmarket – by coincidence a short walk from the spot where Bible John was said to have danced with his victims. DNA samples were taken from bones and hair to be compared with that discovered on Helen’s tights.

  The police anticipated this operation, so distressing to John McInnes’s relatives, would be over in three weeks, but the tests carried out in Scotland proved nothing. It might have been expected that in the light of the hurt the exhumation had caused the proper procedure would have been to end it there and then. But a decision was taken to have the results checked by experts at Cambridge, then yet again by scientists in Germany. Was all this to heap blame on a dead man? Whatever the thinking that led to the delays, the three weeks became five months before it was formally announced that there was no evidence to link him to Helen’s murder. The body was reburied, but for Hannah the reopened wound could never heal. She did not know it, but ahead lay an even worse ordeal.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE DECEIVERS

  About the time members of the family of John McInnes were learning that their appalling trauma had been a waste of time, Hannah Martin was making a discovery that would have a deep and lasting impression on her and, as a consequence, on others as well.

  She was still living with Graeme Mason on Clova Street, but the affection she had felt for him after their initial meeting was fading fast. He had dragged her down so many times in the presence of others that she now thought of him as cheeky and derogatory, delighting in ridiculing her while they were in company. She never showed the hurt that swelled within her, but hurt she was. Hannah had felt like this many times in her life and remembered each occasion.

  Mason, she was sure, did not like hearing Healy compliment her on the small tasks she carried out for him, or that she continued selling catalogues; in fact, she was convinced Mason was jealous of the publican. As time passed, she knew she thought more of Healy than of the man whose bed she shared each night and wished it was Healy lying next to her. It was an impossible thought, of course, but one that gave her pleasure.

  In the future she would talk of how she had ploughed what money she earned, either through doing odd jobs, such as valeting or loaning out her home in Bellshill, into the Clova Street address or rather into ensuring that those who visited it, youngsters especially, were given a good time. At Christmas, she would buy a tree, decorate it and leave presents beneath the branches, imagining perhaps her own daughter being one of those ripping open carefully wrapped gifts and squealing with joy at discovering what lay inside. Apart from Isobel’s birthday, this was the time she missed her daughter most and wondered where she was.

  There was an inevitability that her affair with the salesman would drift to nothing. Two factors would set the seal on its eventual destruction. Mason, before meeting Hannah, had had a relationship with someone else whom we will call ‘Daisy’. One night, as they lay in bed talking, Hannah asked him what had brought it to an end and was startled to hear his reply. ‘I found the bitch in bed with another woman. To be honest, I’d always suspected she was bisexual because she had a way of looking at other females, as if she was asking them questions about their own sexuality with her eyes rather than her lips. Thinking of her in bed shagging another woman was just as bad as if it had been a man. But when I caught her at it, I told her I wanted nothing more to do with her.’

  ‘Where is she now? Do you ever see her?’ Hannah asked.

  ‘No, I’ve had nothing to do with her since then and I haven’t a clue what she’s up to. She was the cause of my wife and I breaking up. My wife was and still is a lovely person, who has been very good and kind to me, even though we’re not together.’

  One night in the Thornlie Arms, while Mason was deep in conversation with Healy, Hannah mentioned the other woman to one of the regulars whom she’d come to know and like. ‘Any idea where she went?’ she asked.

  The man gave her a puzzled look. ‘Yes, she still lives around here and comes in now and again,’ he told her. ‘She and Graeme sometimes go drinking together.’

  The words were a cruel blow. She had been cheated on many years ago, an act that had led to a night of madness, and now it seemed as though she was living through an action replay. From that day on, she would never again trust Mason. She wondered what other deceits were being played upon her, and would soon learn the answer.

  One afternoon, sitting in the house on Clova Street, catching up on paperwork for Kays, the telephone rang and naturally she answered as Mason was out. She assumed he was working at the office, and so the likelihood was that the call was for her. When she picked up the receiver, she would discover it was for neither of them.

  ‘Is Mr Bal
mer there?’ asked a woman’s voice.

  ‘Mr Balmer? Sorry, I think you have the wrong number. Isn’t it Mr Mason you want?’

  The caller repeated the number written down on her notepad as that which Mr Balmer had given and, sure enough, it was that of the Clova Street address. There was no doubt she had dialled correctly.

  ‘Well, can I take a message and when Mr Mason comes home he can sort it?’

  ‘Right. Tell him Vardy Continental called. Can he ring us about the bus we are servicing for him?’

  ‘Vardy Continental? His bus? You sure?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Positive? And it’s definitely Mr Balmer?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the name we have here.’

  Later on in the day, when Mason came home, Hannah told him of the call and was astonished by his outburst. ‘It’s my phone! You should have let it ring!’ he stormed.

  ‘But I thought it might be for me.’

  ‘And I thought you were going out, that’s why I told them to call!’ he shouted back.

  The argument was short but bitter, with Hannah demanding to know what was going on. ‘What’s all this about a bus? Is this something to do with what you’ve organised? Is it connected to our trips with the money?’ she asked.

  Having already claimed to be the mastermind behind the scheme, he could hardly now pretend he did not know the details. At first, he fobbed her off by telling her to mind her own business, an order that only made her angrier. She knew she had taken risks for him and so was entitled to know what was going on. He, on the other hand, would have known how closely kept a secret was the drug-smuggling racket. Only a tight circle was supposed to be in the know, although as time had gone by more had learned many of the details. In time, the nagging rows sparked by her fury at being kept in the dark wore him down.