Chapter Twenty-nine

Looking at Henry Ferguson as he was serving, Betty Gunn knew that she had never loved Angus. She had been drawn to him originally – had been mesmerized by him – because he was so different from any man she had ever met, like a brooding Rochester to her Jane Eyre, with the promise of great depths of passion in his mysterious dark eyes. The reality had not matched her expectations. The passion had been there for only a short time, slowly deteriorating to a desire for self-fulfilment, and she had long been aware that she was just a substitute in his twisted mind for the girl Katie, and sometimes even for his first wife. It was inevitable, really, that she would fall in love with Henry … and, miraculously, he had admitted to loving her.

He was everything that Angus was not, a gentleman in the true sense of the word. In direct contrast to her husband’s overpowering darkness, Henry was freshcomplexioned, fair-haired and only a little taller than herself. His soft blue eyes could hold her spellbound, and she sometimes felt like rushing up to him and kissing him in front of anyone who happened to be in the shop. He had nothing to lose if their love was uncovered, yet it was he who was careful. He had only agreed reluctantly when she suggested that they steal an hour once a week to be alone together.

So now, every Monday – the day they were never busy – they locked the shop at five and pulled down the blinds to save anyone seeing in. ‘To safeguard your reputation,’ Henry had said. He made her feel special, like a delicate flower that needed nurturing to bloom properly.

When his customer went out, Henry regarded her earnestly. ‘We can’t go on the way we’ve been doing, Betty. I thought my life was over when I lost Edna, but you’ve given me …’ He paused briefly, and then said, sounding a little defiant about it, ‘We must stop all the secrecy, I don’t want to degrade our love by having a sordid little affair. I want to marry you, and you had better tell your husband about us soon.’

She ought to have expected this, but it came as a complete surprise, although she could see that it was the right thing, the decent thing, to do. ‘I’ll have to choose the right time.’

‘That doesn’t sound as if you want to tell him.’

‘You don’t know Angus, Henry. He’s so unbalanced …’

‘If you’re afraid he’ll get violent, why don’t we tell him together? I can’t bear the thought of you sleeping with him again, so I’ll come home with you tonight, and you …’

Her mouth went dry. ‘Tonight?’

‘We may as well. You can pack what you need while I tell him, and then I’ll take you away with me.’

Henry had to shift his attention to a man who walked in at that moment, which gave Betty time to think. Why shouldn’t she grab at happiness when it was offered? Angus would likely make them leave the shop, but after the scandal broke there would be no customers, anyway. They’d be better going somewhere else to start their life together.

Henry being free again, she murmured, ‘All right, tonight, though it seems awful to be doing something like this when we’re both in our forties.’

He grinned. ‘The prime of our lives, my dear.’

It wasn’t only their age that worried her, however. For the rest of the afternoon, all she could think of was how Angus would react.

George had not come back, and Katie had lost interest in everything. She couldn’t believe that he would condemn her for what had happened before they were courting, and a faint hope persisted that he would change his mind once he’d had time to think things through properly. She didn’t know if he had signed on someone else’s boat or if he was still with his mother – she couldn’t bear to think that he was living in Buckie with Lizann – so when someone knocked at the door, she ran to answer it, believing it was George and ready to welcome him home. Her heart sank when she saw who it was. ‘Oh, it’s you, Dennis.’

He laughed as he walked past her. ‘You sound disappointed. Who were you expecting? Another lover? You must have learned a lot more about pleasing a man by this time. You know, when I’m in Queen Street in bed with my wife, I sometimes compare you with her and laugh at how innocent you were.’

Alarmed at the trend his thoughts were taking, and hoping it would stop him pestering her, Katie said, ‘George found out our savings were all gone, and I’d to tell him why. You may as well leave, for there’s nothing you can do to me now. He knows everything.’

‘Everything? Are you sure? Does he know what you and Sammy got up to? You said he raped you, but my guess is you and him had been at it for years.’

‘He did rape me!’ Katie shouted, forgetting all caution in her anger at Dennis. ‘It was all your fault … and I didn’t know if it was his baby or …’

His eyes glittered at her abrupt, horrified stop. ‘Now it all comes out,’ he gloated. ‘He put you up the spout? That’s why you wouldn’t let me touch you? Well, well!’

‘It could have been yours,’ she muttered.

‘But you weren’t sure. What did you do? Get rid of it?’

Realizing that she had placed an inescapable noose around her own neck, she nodded miserably.

‘Better and better! Naughty, naughty Katie! I’m sure you don’t want hubby to know that, though he’ll be glad Sammy’s dead and can’t rape you again.’

Her heart cramping, she whispered, ‘How did you know Sammy was dead?’

‘A letter from Ladysbridge that Ella Brodie gave me to send on to you. I read it and burned it. Why should I pay a stamp for … ?’

‘So that’s why I never got it!’ Katie cried. ‘I thought the superintendent just made up an excuse for not notifying me. It was awful going to see him and finding out he’d died more than a year before. Oh, God! I hate you, Dennis McKay!’ Her voice rose to a scream. ‘I hate you! I hate you! Get out of my house!’

‘Not so fast. Aren’t you forgetting one little thing? If you don’t cough up some cash, I’ll tell Georgie boy you had to get rid of Sammy’s baby.’

Beyond reason now, Katie yelled, ‘I can’t get any more and I wouldn’t give it to you supposing I could! I’m going to do what I should have done the first time you showed your face here. I’m going to write to your wife!’

‘She wouldn’t believe you.’

Katie could detect a shade of doubt in his voice. ‘I’ll make sure she will. I’ll tell her everything.’

This deflated him completely. ‘You wouldn’t?’

‘I will! A man like you shouldn’t be allowed to walk the streets.’

‘Don’t tell her, please, Katie?’ He was begging now. ‘You don’t know what … she’ll likely toss me out and I’ll have nothing – no home, no job, no …’

‘No wife, like I have no husband, for George walked out on me.’ Katie strode over to the door and held it open. ‘Go on! Get out of my sight!’

He made one last, feeble plea as he slunk past her. ‘Oh, Katie, please? Don’t write to my wife.’

She banged the door behind him then went over to take her writing pad and envelopes out of the dresser drawer.

Angus was about to carve the joint he had roasted when he heard the car door slam, and when he heard a second slam a moment later, he wondered if his ears had started to play tricks on him, as well as his brain. Then he laughed at his fears. Betty must have opened the door again to take out something she had forgotten. He lifted his head when his wife came in, his smile changing to a puzzled frown when he saw the man behind her. Their wary expressions warned him that he was in for a surprise – a very nasty surprise by the look of it.

‘This is Henry Ferguson, Angus,’ Betty said, a little too brightly, and when neither man made any acknowledgement of the introduction, she went on, less confidently, ‘We thought … it would be best … to tell you together.’

His fingers closing more tightly around the knife, Angus snapped, ‘Tell me what?’

Henry came forward now. ‘I know this will come as a shock, Mr Gunn, and there is no easy way to say it. You see, Betty and I … well, we love each other, and we …’

‘Love?’ Angus shrieked, taking a menacing step towards him. ‘You have the audacity to come into my house and tell me that you love my wife?’

‘We couldn’t help ourselves,’ Betty cried.

His rough push sent her crashing against the table, and Henry, smaller though he was, grabbed him angrily by the shoulders. ‘There was no need for that, Mr Gunn. We’ve been open about it, when we could easily have run off together without telling you …’

‘Take your hands off me!’ Trying feverishly to think what to do, Angus glowered at the interloper. If only his head would stop spinning, his ears stop buzzing, the red lights stop flashing behind his eyes …

What happened then was not clear to him. He did not know why the carving knife suddenly felt much heavier, as if some weighty object was attached to it, doing its best to drag him down. But he did not mean to let it. All he had to do was release his grip. Opening his hand, he felt the burden, whatever it was, sliding down his leg to the floor. Then his ears were assaulted by eerie screams and he put his hands over them to shut out the noise.

It was no use, he could still hear it. Dropping his arms, he saw that it was coming from his wife and he wondered why she was kicking up such a din. She was kneeling on the floor beside a strange man, who was lying flat on his back with something sticking out of his chest. Her fiendish screams tailing off, she turned her head. ‘You’ve killed him,’ she moaned. ‘You’ve killed Henry.’

Angus bent over calmly and pulled the handle, wincing when he saw blood dripping from the blade down on to his clothes. Revolted, he raised his arm to fling it from him, but before he could, Betty began to scream again.