Seductively licking her lips, she smirked at him as she gave her breasts a jiggle. ‘Gonna miss these, ain’t you, Ernest? Couldn’t keep your eyes or your hands off them the minute we were alone, you dirty old man. Or the rest of me either.’ She shuddered violently. ‘Ugh. At least I haven’t got to suffer you slobbering all over me any longer. Having sex with you was like having a fat walrus on top of me. And you’ve got bad breath.’ Her tone changed to that of a mother scolding her errant young child. ‘But next time you eye up your secretary, or any other woman come to that, I’d think twice about it if I was you, as you’ll never know if they’re setting you up like I did. Now I’ve got my future to be getting on with, with the man I love, and a wonderful future it is too, thanks to you, so hand over my money and I can get off.’
He was shaking with anger, knowing he had no choice but to part with an amount of money that would have substantially added to his retirement escape fund. What an idiot he had been not to see through her ploy. He had learned a valuable lesson, though. He’d only five years to go before he retired and collected his substantial golden handshake and pension, and this situation had made him realise how close he had come to losing all that, not to mention what his wife would have done to him had Lena blabbed.
Opening the top drawer of his desk, he took out a bulky envelope, which he looked at for several long moments, loath to be parting with it, before he resentfully held it out to Lena. She made to snatch it, but he pulled it back out of her reach and snarled, ‘If I hear one word about how you got this money…’
‘And just how did she get the money, Ernest?’
At the sound of the unexpected voice, and the very last one he wanted to hear considering the circumstances he was in, Ernest jumped up from his seat and stared frenziedly over at his wife. He had been so consumed with anger at having to part with such a large sum through his own stupidity that he hadn’t heard her arrive.
Stuttering, he blustered, ‘Err… err… hello, dear. What are you doing here?’ It was only then he noticed that she wasn’t alone. He looked bewilderedly at Gem, Solly and Tom behind her in the doorway, all strangers to him, but when his eyes settled on John Smith, they widened in alarm and he demanded, ‘What’s going on? Why have you brought these people here?’
Impatient to get to the bottom of the matter and back to the fair, Solly spoke up. ‘It’s about the—’
Gertrude Dunster interjected. ‘Would you please allow me to deal with this business first, Mr Grundy. We will address your problem as soon as this is resolved.’
Gem too had heard what Mrs Dunster’s husband was saying to the woman perched on his desk and knew that something else, apart from the business over the fairground money, was badly amiss here. She slapped a hand on Solly’s arm, and when he looked down at her quizzically, she shot him a look that told him to accede to Mrs Dunster’s request. Knowing his wife would have good reason to ask him to do this, he nodded his agreement.
Gertrude Dunster flashed him a look of gratitude before she turned and made her way across the spacious room. Lena, meanwhile, slid her backside off the desk and stood up, looking decidedly uncomfortable at the unexpected arrival of her boss’s wife.
Arriving in front of the desk, Gertrude snapped, ‘I will answer your question when you’ve answered mine, Ernest. So… why are you paying money to your secretary and warning her not to tell anyone how she came by it?’ When he didn’t immediately reply, her deep baritone voice boomed, ‘WELL, Ernest?’
Beads of sweat were visible on his forehead, starting to trickle down the sides of his face. He whipped a large handkerchief from his pocket and gave his face a wipe before venturing, ‘Lena… Miss Richards…well, she asked me to loan her some money. I was telling her not to breathe a word in case others started asking too. You know what people are like. Do one person a favour and they all come calling. That’s right, Miss Richards, isn’t it?’
Lena vigorously nodded her head. ‘Yes, absolutely, Mrs Dunster. Just a loan. Look, I’d best be off as my boyfriend is waiting for me.’ She snatched the envelope out of Ernest’s hand, but then, to her shock, Gertrude whipped it from hers.
‘So how much is this loan, then? Not just a few pounds judging by the weight of this envelope.’ She slit open the sealed flap with a fingernail and ran a thumb over the top of the notes. ‘Without counting it, I’d estimate there’s a good few hundred in here, maybe even a thousand. I didn’t realise we were so rich that we could afford to lend such a huge sum, and anyway, shouldn’t you have discussed it with me first, given that it’s our savings?’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘What does your secretary earn? Three… four pounds a week at the most? Take her a lifetime to pay this off, so you and me will be long dead before she does. Why are you lending her such a large amount?’
Face beetroot red and sweating profusely now, Ernest blurted, ‘Now look here, Gertrude—’
‘I asked you a question, Ernest,’ she barked. ‘It’s polite to answer.’
His red face paled alarmingly to an ashen grey and he stared blindly at his wife. It was apparent that he was fighting to find a plausible reason to justify what she had caught him doing.
Meanwhile, Lena too was looking decidedly worried. If she hadn’t wasted time satisfying a malicious need within herself to goad Ernest for his stupidity, she’d have had the money safely in her handbag and been on her way to meet her fiancé by now. Well, she was certainly paying for that. Blackmail was a criminal offence, and if Ernest Dunster decided to tell his wife the truth, Lena could kiss goodbye to her wonderful future and instead look forward to a term in jail. Her honest, down-to-earth family would never forgive her for trapping her boss even though it was to fund a better life for herself, and should her fiancé find out she’d been having sex with another man, he would never forgive her either. Her thoughts whirled frantically. If she didn’t think of a way out of this mess, she could lose everything. Then an idea struck. What if she got in first and told Mrs Dunster a version of the truth that would wipe out any accusations of wrongdoing on her part? She would lose the money, but at least her family and fiancé wouldn’t disown her.
Without further ado she blurted, ‘I’ll tell you the truth, Mrs Dunster. Mr Dunster was forcing me to have sex with him; has been since I first became his secretary. He threatened that he’d have me sacked if I didn’t, and make sure I never got a decent job again.’
Ernest erupted. ‘She’s lying, Gertrude. Nothing she is saying—’
Gertrude rounded on him. ‘Shut up, Ernest. Let Miss Richards finish.’
Lena flashed a brief look at Ernest and he didn’t miss the malicious glint in her eye as she went on. ‘Well, today I’d finally had enough.’ Wanting to be seen as the victim, she forced tears to her eyes and a false wobble into her voice. ‘I couldn’t stand the thought of him pawing me any more and having to do what he told me. I was frightened he’d ruin me and I told him that I was going to tell the police. He saw I meant what I said and this money is to shut me up.’
Despite his wife’s warning to let Lena finish her side of the story, Ernest couldn’t contain himself and leapt up to wag a fat finger at the girl. ‘You… you…’ He looked at his wife. ‘For God’s sake, Gertrude, she’s lying. None of this is true. I never laid a hand on her.’
‘Yes, you did!’ Lena cried. ‘How else would I know about that horrible hairy black mole next to your belly button?’
Gertrude rounded on her husband. ‘I told you to shut up, Ernest, and let the young woman finish. Carry on, Miss Richards,’ she commanded her.
Lena lowered her head and spoke meekly. ‘Well, Mrs Dunster, when Mr Dunster first offered me money to keep my mouth shut, I told him what he could do with it, but then I don’t earn much, and me and my fiancé are saving to get married. With what we earn between us we’d be lucky to afford the rent on a flat in a slum area, so please don’t think badly of me, but getting my hands on a sum like that could change my life. It was too much of a temptation. I convinced myself that
I had earned it in a way. Besides, Mr Dunster told me that if I did go to the police they weren’t going to take the word of a humble secretary again the leader of the council. And he’s good friends with the chief constable.’ She squeezed more fake tears out of her eyes. ‘I don’t expect you to believe me either, but it’s the truth I’m telling you, honest it is. I’m so sorry you had to find out like this that Mr Dunster is not the lovely husband you think he is.’
She steeled herself, waiting for the outburst of verbal abuse from Gertrude Dunster in defence of her husband, and was shocked to the core when it never came. When she lifted her head, her shock escalated when she saw a look on the older woman’s face that could only be described as triumphant.
Gertrude fixed steely eyes on her husband. ‘I don’t care whether Miss Richards’ story is true or not. Whether she was willingly sleeping with you or you forced her makes no difference to me. Either way you were having sex with her.’ She eyed him disgustedly. ‘You portray yourself as an upright, solid citizen, above reproach, when you’re nothing but a fornicating crook. It’s common knowledge that you take bribes from local businessmen to push their plans through or see they’re awarded lucrative contracts for council work. Do you know how humiliating it’s been for me, catching the milkman and our daily woman whispering on our back doorstep about the rumours they’ve heard, or overhearing the wives of businessmen gossiping in the ladies’ powder room about your underhand dealings?’
‘How can you accuse me of such despicable things?’ raged Ernest. ‘This is all preposterous—’
‘Save your lies for the jury. How else do you fund your private life? Visits to prostitutes don’t come cheap.’ She smiled. ‘Yes, I know all about those. You should have been more careful where you hid your contact book. You were getting ready for a civic do one night and were having a fit as you couldn’t find your best cufflinks. I had a quick rummage in the drawers of your tallboy just in case they were in there and I found a little black book hidden at the back of your underwear drawer. Rightly or wrongly, I couldn’t resist having a look through it. What did I find but a list of ladies’ names and telephone numbers. Other women might have been outraged at their husbands using prostitutes, but not me. I was just glad I didn’t have to put up with you slobbering all over me any more. You thought you were being so clever using the excuse of my snoring to move out of our marital bed, but it saved me trying to find a reason to get you out.’
She flashed him another look of disgust before she went on. ‘And while we’re at it, I also know about your plan to move abroad when you retire, which I assume doesn’t include you taking me along with you. How do I know about that? Well, you can thank the estate agent who mistakenly sent a brochure to our house instead of your office just to give you a taste of the sort of overseas properties they sell, along with an accompanying letter saying that they’d be glad to help you purchase a suitable property in due course. I was shocked at first, I must admit, thinking you were planning for us to move abroad after you retired, but when I casually asked whether you would ever think about moving to a warmer climate, you said that as far as you were concerned England was your home and you’d no intention of ever leaving it. That’s when I realised just what you were up to.’
The sound of Solly stifling a sneeze reminded Gertrude that she hadn’t arrived alone. She eyed her husband suspiciously. ‘Tell me something, Ernest, why did you feel the need to fleece these good people out of their hard-earned money? What you took from them is a trifling sum compared to what you must have stashed away from the bribes you’ve accepted over the years. And don’t deny it. Mr Smith has already come clean over the fact that you paid him to pose as a council official to collect the fee.’
Ernest stared wild-eyed at her for several long moments before he slumped dejectedly in his chair, resting his elbows on his desk and cradling his head in his hands. All his hard work towards his new future had been for nothing. There was no point denying what he’d done to those fairground people Gertrude had brought with her, given that the man he’d hired to do the deed was present. ‘I had no choice. Lena… Miss Richards was demanding I pay her the blackmail money tonight or she’d go to the police with her trumped-up story, and I hadn’t enough in cash—’
Gertrude cut in. ‘So, you came up with an idea to save your own skin but gave no thought to whether these people could afford to lose that money.’ She laughed sardonically. ‘What a pity for you that Mr Smith went back to the fair tonight and was recognised.’
She took a deep breath and clasped her hands across her front. ‘I’ve been no more than a housekeeper to you for years, and for all that time I’ve prayed that you’d find someone else you wanted to marry and divorce me so I could be free of you. When that didn’t happen, I prayed that I might discover evidence to divorce you, but apart from the rumours I heard about your crooked dealings at the council, and the book with the prostitutes’ names in, I couldn’t find anything concrete that would stand up in court. But when these people came looking for you at our house earlier and told me why they wanted to see you, all my instincts told me that something suspicious was going on, so I decided to accompany them. How glad I am that I did. Walking into this situation… well, it’s all I could ever have hoped for. Finally I have got what I’ve prayed for so long. You can be assured, Ernest, that I intend to get every last penny out of you that I can, and I don’t give a damn if that leaves you with nothing.’
She turned to face Lena. ‘As I told Ernest, I don’t care whether you willingly slept with my husband or were coerced. What I want to know is if, in exchange for the money in the envelope, you’d be willing to stand up in court and swear that he was paying you to keep quiet about the fact that he was forcing you to have sex with him.’
On hearing this, Ernest was jerked out of his self-pitying stupor and cried out in anguish. ‘If she does that, it will ruin me, Gertrude. I’ll be sacked from my job. I won’t get my pension or my golden handshake and I could go to prison. And what about you? You’ll never hold your head up in this town again. Look, I’ll give you your divorce… anything you want…’
‘What I want is to see you pay for your crimes, and the years of misery you’ve caused me. I’ve lived with people gossiping and sniggering about you for years, so what’s to come will be water off a duck’s back to me. I shall be free to live my life without you in it, and that’s all I care about. So, what’s your answer, Miss Richards?’
Lena’s mouth went dry as she looked blankly at Gertrude. This was the last thing she had expected. Her thoughts whirled. Lying to Mrs Dunster to excuse away the situation she had caught her in was one thing, but to stand up in court and lie under oath was another. But then if there was a thousand pounds at stake… Her parents would be horrified to learn that her boss had been abusing her, but they would stand by her nevertheless, and if she lost her fiancé through this then he wasn’t the right one for her. She was already planning in her mind how she was going to spend the money when she answered. ‘Yes, I will, Mrs Dunster.’
A loud groan of despair came from Ernest’s direction.
‘Then as soon as you’ve given a statement to the police, I will make sure you receive the cash.’ Gertrude placed the bulky envelope safely in her own handbag.
From over by the doorway John Smith spoke up angrily. ‘I’ve lost my friends and my girlfriend because they think I’m a thief, thanks to Mr Dunster, so anything I can do to help, you can count on me, Mrs Dunster.’
She looked gratefully over at him. ‘Thank you. I will be taking you up on that offer. In return, if you bring your girlfriend and other friends to see me, I will explain to them that whatever jobs you did for my husband you did in all innocence.’ She turned to Solly. ‘Mr Grundy, I will personally make sure that your money is refunded to you. I will visit the bank tomorrow and have the cash brought to the fair. I can only apologise to you all for my husband’s despicable behaviour.’
She cast a derisory glance at Ernest, who was still slumped
despairingly behind his desk. ‘Find somewhere else to live. I don’t ever want to see you darken my doorway again. First thing tomorrow I will be speaking to my solicitor and also to the police, so you can expect a visit from them.’ She smirked triumphantly. ‘Once this starts to get around in a day or so, then it will be you who won’t be able to hold your head up.’
With that, she spun on her heel and marched out, the rest following after her, leaving Ernest Dunster rueing the day he decided to fleece the fair folk to save his own skin.
Outside in the street, Gertrude climbed into her little Morris Minor. Solly offered John Smith a lift home, but he declined, wanting to visit his girlfriend to tell her of Mrs Dunster’s offer to help him clear his name. Gem told him that she felt sure that would put his relationship back on track, and to bring his girlfriend and friends back to the fair and seek her out and she would give him some free passes for the rides.
Gem, Solly and Tom walked silently over to the fairground lorry, all reeling from this turn of events. They had set out tonight to clear up the simple mystery of why they had paid the council twice for the fair’s stay and to get the overpayment refunded; who could have foreseen that it would result in the downfall of the crooked leader of the council and freedom for his long-suffering wife.
* * *
Back at the fair, Jenny had managed to do a staff swap and was now helping Ren on her candy floss and confectionery stall, which was sited just inside the entrance. Ren was no fool and was intrigued to know why her friend was so keen to be her assistant tonight. So far ,all her probing questions had reaped no believable results, but the tiny woman wasn’t going to give up easily. Whilst serving customers, she said to Jenny, ‘Come on, tell me why you really swapped jobs with Katie Bishop tonight. Keeping your patience with kids who keep changing their minds about what sweets to spend their pennies on can’t compare to dealing with dishy blokes on the rides. And you seem to be very interested in the front entrance. Are you looking for someone to arrive? You might as well tell me, because I’m not going to give up until you do.’
All is Fair Page 15