A Deadly Deception Read online

  22

  Janet and Sandra were both in their own bedrooms about to get ready for bed when they heard Mary scream out their names.

  ‘Janet, Sandra!’ The acute distress in the voice was unmistakable and most unusual for Mary.

  They ran from their rooms to the bathroom. They knew Mary always went to the bathroom last thing at night. ‘For a wee wash down.’

  Mary was sitting on the toilet wearing only a short vest and the elephantine bulk of Chrissie Cumberland was bending over her.

  Janet cried out, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sandra raced over and tried to push Chrissie aside.

  ‘I was only trying to pull poor Mary’s knickers up. I could see she was struggling.’

  Janet snatched up a bath towel and pushed it in front of Mary. Janet put her hand on the back of Mary’s head and pressed Mary’s face against her chest to hide her friend’s look of distress and humiliation. The wispy hair, the bald patch, the frail trembling body enraged Janet on Mary’s behalf. She glared furiously at Chrissie.

  ‘Don’t you dare come near Mary again. Don’t you dare ever intrude on her privacy again.’

  ‘The door was unlocked, dear,’ Chrissie said patiently. ‘I was only trying to help.’

  ‘Well, you’re not a help,’ Sandra shouted. ‘You’re an absolute menace.’

  ‘Yes,’ Janet agreed. ‘I’m going to report you to Betty first thing tomorrow. Now get out of here. Get away into your own room.’

  ‘But I haven’t done anything, dear.’

  ‘Don’t dear me. Just go.’

  With a sigh, Chrissie lumbered away from the bathroom.

  ‘It’s all right, Mary,’ Janet said. ‘She’s gone. We won’t let her near you again.’

  Sandra’s eyes bulged dramatically. ‘What a creep! None of us are safe with her on the loose. We’d better lock our bedroom doors tonight.’

  ‘All right. All right, Sandra. Mary, do you want to manage on your own now? Or will we see you into bed?’

  ‘Aye, aw right, hen. If ye just pal me through tae ma room, I’ll be fine.’

  Still holding on to Mary and her bath towel, Janet and Sandra led her back to her bedroom.

  ‘Lock your door, Mary,’ Sandra said once they reached Mary’s room. ‘I’m going to lock mine. That woman’s a right weirdo.’

  Janet sighed. ‘Sandra, it’s safer if Mary doesn’t lock her door. We’ve already agreed about that. It’s in case there’s an emergency. How about if you slept on the other single bed in my room, Mary? Just for tonight. It would make me feel better. I wouldn’t need to worry about you then.’

  ‘Aye, OK hen. If it’ll help you.’ Mary visibly relaxed. Her face crumpled with gratitude as she gazed up at Janet. ‘Ye’re a good pal tae me, so ye are. Both of ye,’ she added hastily. ‘You as well, Sandra hen.’

  The next day, Janet and Sandra went across to the office to talk to Betty. It was as difficult as Janet had originally predicted. Chrissie had not done anything to break the rules. That is to say, she had not been dirty or nasty or refused to do her share of the work. On the contrary, Janet, Sandra and Mary had almost to fight to get doing their share. Nor was she nasty towards anyone. Everyone else, however, was sorely tempted to be nasty to her. The point Janet and Sandra made to Betty was Chrissie’s constant intrusion into their privacy, especially into wee Mary’s privacy.

  ‘She’s always touching us,’ Sandra said. ‘I was standing washing my dishes at the kitchen sink, for instance, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I suddenly felt a hand slip up inside my jacket. It was her standing right up against my back. It was horrible. I was furious.’

  Betty listened with her usual sympathetic attention.

  Janet said, ‘Yes, it’s this inappropriate touching all the time. Also, although she is so big and hefty, she can move lightly and quietly and always takes us by surprise. Honestly, Betty, she is seriously upsetting wee Mary. And you know Mary. She always tries to make out she’s so tough and couldn’t care less. But she does care. She certainly cares about this. She’s no match, physically or otherwise, for Chrissie. She’s getting so upset and humiliated.’

  Eventually Betty said, ‘Chrissie has had a word with me earlier this morning.’

  Sandra rolled her eyes. ‘Oh, I know what she’d say. She was just trying to help and do her Christian duty.’

  ‘The usual procedure is to have any complaints or problems discussed at one of our regular meetings in the head office, with the help workers from all the other refuges in the area,’ Betty said. ‘Don’t worry, just be patient. We always do our very best to get everything sorted out, no matter what the problem is. We always try to help one another and do it in a proper democratic way.’

  They had to be satisfied with that but they came away from Betty’s office with renewed anger simmering underneath their polite ‘thank-yous’. Anger not at Betty but at Chrissie Cumberland.

  ‘Could you beat it? Her getting to Betty before us? Sly bitch. I can just hear her smarmy voice.’ Sandra’s eyes widened dramatically and her voice loudened. ‘I hate that woman!’

  Janet sighed. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea and try to calm down. I’m sure Betty and the other workers will do their best.’

  ‘Where’s wee Mary?’ Sandra suddenly cried out.

  ‘Now, do try to keep calm, Sandra. Mary was going to have a long lie in bed. We’ll take her through a cup of tea.’

  ‘I’m going to run through and check on her. She’s been in the house alone with that weirdo while we’ve been in Betty’s office.’

  Janet sighed again. Sandra was so excitable at times.

  Still, she could not help feeling a sudden twinge of anxiety herself.

  *****

  Ingram felt as if he was drowning. Fear kept welling up over his head.

  The papers reporting on the fire were now saying that the man who lived in one of the downstairs flats had been badly burned on the face and body. His age was given as fifty-two. Victor O’Donnell, fifty-two years of age. The red-haired man was much younger than that. Apparently O’Donnell was a suspected drug dealer and it was thought that the arsonist could be a rival of his. Traces of heroin and crack cocaine had been found in the ruins and a rumour was going around that O’Donnell had lost a fortune and had sworn to track down whoever had torched the place.

  There was also a report about the bravery of twenty-one-year-old Tommy McKechnie who had saved O’Donnell’s life.

  Ingram kept having to wipe his brow and face. He wasn’t just sweating with fear. He was seething with fury and frustration. But fear was the strongest emotion. He tried to think back to the scene, to remember every move he’d made. His mind strained to picture everything exactly. Had there been anybody there who could have seen him? There definitely had not been anyone in the immediate vicinity of the close.

  But had there been any lit windows in the street? Could someone have been looking out of a window? He hadn’t thought about that at the time. He daren’t think of what might happen to him if this Victor O’Donnell found out he was responsible for his injuries and the destruction of his home and the fortune in drugs that might have been inside. It was a nightmare. Ingram kept trembling at the thought. But surely no one had seen him. Oh, how fervently he prayed that no one had seen him.

  Then another terrifying thought occurred to him. He had bought a can of petrol from a garage not a mile from the place. Would anyone remember him from there and connect him with the fire?

  He did not go to work all day. Nor did he venture anywhere else. He remained shut up in his flat. Hardly daring to move. He’d wait. He’d wait for days, weeks if necessary, until he was certain that it was safe to go out. After a few days, his food ran out and his milk and his cigarettes. Self-consciously, neck elongated, head pushing forward, eyes down, he left the flat and went to Auld’s Bakery for his usual sandwiches. He also collected several newspapers and packets of cigarettes. Back at the house, he devoured every word of every newspaper before he even mad
e a cup of coffee or lit a cigarette. There was not one word about the fire, or about Victor O’Donnell. Gradually, relief began to soothe his tensed-up nerves.

  ‘Thank God! Thank God!’ he repeated out loud.

  Of course no one had seen him. He had made sure of that, hadn’t he? As far as the petrol was concerned, the man whom he’d paid for his purchase never even gave him a glance. He remembered now.

  Thank God! Thank God!

  He made a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette and opened one of the packets of sandwiches.

  He felt almost happy. Eventually curiosity got the better of him. How was Angela taking all that had happened to her boyfriend Tommy, he wondered? Tommy, the local hero. Bitterness returned to twist his mouth. He picked up the phone.

  ‘Angela?’

  ‘John! I thought I’d never hear from you again. I thought you must have forgotten about me.’ Oh, that lovely lilt in her voice. What a torment it was to him.

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘I hope you’ve been well enough. There’s so much flu going around.’

  ‘No, I’ve just been busy during the day and then tired at night. I’ve been watching television and reading the newspapers. By the way, I hope you’re all right. You don’t live near where that awful fire was, do you?’

  ‘What fire?’

  ‘In Springburn.’

  Her voice slowed down with wariness.

  ‘I don’t live in Springburn. What made you think I did?’

  ‘You must have mentioned something that made me think that. Or was it someone you know who lives in Springburn? Maybe that’s why I thought …’

  ‘No. I don’t know anyone in Springburn. I couldn’t have said anything like that.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. So you’re fine then?’

  ‘Yes, I’m perfectly all right, John.’

  ‘Good, good.’

  By God, she was a good actress.

  ‘I was hoping you’d changed your mind about meeting me, Angela. I feel so lonely at times. Do you never feel lonely?’

  Her voice saddened. He was sure he recognised genuine sadness.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ she sighed. ‘Indeed I do, John.’

  ‘Well, then. Angela, for God’s sake, tell me the truth. Why do you keep …?’

  ‘I’m sorry, John. I must ask you not to phone me again. I’m going to have my name withdrawn from the agency. Goodbye.’

  He stared at the now silent phone.

  ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Not that way.’

  23

  Mabel wept. It had been so painful saying goodbye to John. Her dear friend. Her first and only love. She wandered about the house hardly knowing what she was doing, not caring, not seeing anything except a wet shimmer. Eventually, exhausted, she collapsed back into the chair, took off her spectacles and, with a trembling hand, tried to dry the glass with a paper hanky. She replaced her spectacles on the bridge of her nose and stared around the room. What an ugly claustrophobic place it was with its dark, overpowering furniture, its heavy brown plush curtains and fringed table cover and the monotonous tick-tock of the clock. The ghosts of her mother and father were with her here in the room, were always there, had never left. They were pressing down on her, suffocating her, depressing her just as they had always done. Panic fountained up, threatening to swirl her into reckless action, like running from the room, far away from the building, far away from Balornock and Springburn. It was only a desperate, crazy vision, however. It only darkened her cloud of depression.

  She could hardly walk, far less run. Anyway, where could she go? Mixed in with all her other emotions was the pain of having abandoned John, of having caused him pain. He suffered loneliness and depression too. He had told her that more than once. How must he be feeling now? He loved her. At least he loved Angela, the beautiful young woman that he thought she was. She wished now that before she said her final goodbye, she had blurted out the truth.

  ‘I’m so sorry, John,’ she should have said. ‘I’ve been lying to you. Everything has been a lie. I’m not young. I’m not beautiful. I’m not even called Angela. I’m an ugly, crippled old woman called Mabel.’

  But even if she’d had the courage to say all of these things, it would probably only have made everything worse. As well as the loneliness, he would have suffered shock. He would have been horrified, not only at what she’d told him but at the cruelty of her continuing deception. Angry too, no doubt.

  She felt so ashamed. He was only a young man, a mere thirty-nine years of age, young enough to be her son. She couldn’t bear to sit another moment in the silent house with so many dreadful thoughts and memories tormenting her. She caught hold of her stick and heaved herself to her feet.

  She still had some money left. She’d take the bus into town and have one last treat to cheer her up. She’d window shop. She’d visit Marks & Spencer’s food department and buy something nice for her supper. Then she’d go across Sauchiehall Street to the Willow Tea Rooms, her favourite place to have afternoon tea.

  A gale was whistling down the Balgray Hill when she emerged from The Heights. For a few minutes at least, her mind had been diverted from her own problems by the gossip she overheard going down in the lift.

  Poor Cheryl Patterson was in an awful state. She was telling the girl from the refuge – the one with the glossy hair and the fringe that hung down over her brows, Sandra her name was – that Tommy, Cheryl’s boyfriend, had been badly burned in a fire in Kay Street in Springburn. She was on her way to visit Tommy in the hospital.

  Apparently it was a case of arson. Most of the people in the upstairs flats had been out at work. Only one elderly woman had been at home and she was in hospital suffering from smoke inhalation, as well as burns. The person in the other bottom flat had suffered worse burns than Tommy. Tommy had saved the man’s life. Somebody had tipped off the newspapers that the man was a drug dealer.

  ‘And you’ll never guess,’ Cheryl said as they left the lift and went across the hallway. ‘Drugs were found in the sleeves of video tapes and behind sockets in the walls. Electrical sockets! Fancy! And as well as behind the sockets …’

  Mabel lost the rest of the conversation because Cheryl and Sandra reached the door and disappeared outside.

  Once outside herself, Mabel had to grip as tightly as she could to her stick and concentrate on keeping her balance. She suddenly feared that a time would come when she would not be able to venture out at all. Then what would she do? How would she survive? She wished she lived in a refuge or ‘safe house’, as it was also called. What a lovely name. Safe house. How wonderful to feel safe and looked after by someone strong and capable like Betty, the safe house worker. She’d often seen Betty in the lift. Most people completely ignored Mabel, especially the young people who lived in The Heights. But not Betty. Betty always smiled at her and said good morning. On a few occasions she had even chatted to Mabel. Betty was a lovely big woman. There was such a reassuring firmness about her, yet a caring warmth too. It must be like heaven living in the safe house.

  Mabel had a terrible struggle getting on to the bus. Bus platforms were so high. The driver or one of the other passengers always had to help her on and guide her into a seat. She was getting worse, more helpless, by the day. There was no doubt about it. The realisation made her feel frightened. Getting off the bus at the Buchanan Bus Station was another ordeal. She needed a lot of help with that too. She could have wept with helplessness and frustration. Again it took a good deal of effort and concentration to negotiate her way to Sauchiehall Street. Today what added to her distress was the sight of a couple of gaudy-coloured and noisy fairground machines. On one, children were strapped into a line of seats and then the machine shot high in the air, up and down, up and down, with music blaring and children screaming. The other was a circle of model cars and trains in which the children sat, gripping steering wheels and pretending to drive as the roundabout trundled round and round, again to the loud blare of music.

  It increased Mabel’s sadness. Wha
t a difference to the beautiful, distinguished Sauchiehall Street that had once been world famous as a high-class shopping centre. Daly’s, Pettigrew & Stephens, Copeland & Lye – Mabel remembered them all. Now it was mostly all cheap places aimed at teenagers. She was thankful that at least the Willow Tea Rooms was still there. It no longer extended over five levels as it used to but it was still a beautiful place with its original Charles Rennie Mackintosh designs. From its outset, the Room de Luxe was the main attraction with its silver furniture, leaded mirror friezes and wooden lattice-type screens fixed to the walls.

  The only drawback as far as Mabel was concerned was the flight of stairs she had to climb. There was now a jewellery shop on the ground floor and it glittered and sparkled her way towards the stairs. As usual, because the place was so popular, especially with tourists, she had to wait in a queue. However, it was worth it in the end. The waitresses in their black dresses and little white aprons were all so pleasant and helpful and the tea and cakes were absolutely delicious. Mabel gratefully savoured each sip and crumb.

  She knew, in every aching bone of her body, that this would be the last time she would be either physically or financially able to enjoy such a luxurious treat.

  The ‘afternoon tea’ was served on a three-tiered silver cake stand holding sandwiches, scones, a little dish of butter, another of cream and another of jam. There was also a plate of mouthwatering cakes. The tea came in a silver pot with a tea strainer, a little receptacle for the strainer and a milk jug and sugar bowl. Not forgetting a dainty napkin.

  Mabel made everything last as long as possible. As well as the meal, she enjoyed watching the other diners, especially the tourists, who busied themselves taking photographs of the place. Charles Rennie Mackintosh had been, and still was, famous all over the world.

  Eventually, with reluctance and regret, Mabel struggled to her feet, paid her bill and, slowly, carefully, hanging on to the banister, returned downstairs, through the silver, gold and diamond sparkle, and out on to noisy Sauchiehall Street.