His imagination ran wild now, and screams rang in his ears as he pictured the thongs cutting into the helpless naked body. He was revelling so much in the enjoyment of this that he was infuriated when an unwelcome voice in his head kept insisting that his wife would not allow it. What right had she to interfere? If she tried to obstruct him, she would find herself at the receiving end of the crop too. It was about time Marguerite was punished for refusing him night after night for so many years. She deserved more than just a whipping. But … was it Marguerite he would be whipping? If not, who was it?
His evil thoughts now too confused to make sense even to himself, Angus drifted into the arms of Morpheus.
Chapter Twenty
1927
The mornings were always fairly hectic in the baker’s shop, especially Saturdays, when the housewives stocked up for the weekend on bread, rolls, cakes, meat pies and fruit tarts, but Katie liked being busy, the time passed more quickly. She was totting up some purchases on one of the paper bags when another customer said, sharply, ‘Hey, wait your turn! I’m next!’
Not wanting to lose count, Katie did not raise her head, but she couldn’t help smiling. There was always somebody trying to push her way to the front, but whoever it was never got away with it. ‘Two and tenpence ha’penny, Bella,’ she said, after checking the total twice.
While the woman fumbled in her purse, Katie looked to see who had been reprimanded, and guessed that it had been the young man now gazing out of the window. She wondered who he was, for very few men ever came in, and she gave a start of recognition when he turned his head and their eyes met. When his turn came, she said, ‘Was it you got told off, George?’
He smiled sheepishly. ‘I’m sorry for trying to barge in, Katie. Ma’s up to her elbows spring cleaning, and she needs a half-loaf.’ Watching her break a double loaf down the middle and wrapping it in tissue paper, he said, ‘The last time I saw you was the day we left
school.’
‘I’ve been away, but I came back after my Granda died.’
‘Aye, I was real sorry about William John. I was at sea at the time, so I didn’t hear about it till I came home.’
‘I hope you two’s not going to stand there blethering the whole day,’ came an annoyed voice from behind him.
‘I’m just going.’ He held out a half-crown and waited for his change, saying as he went out, ‘No doubt I’ll be seeing you again, Katie.’
‘George was in the same class as me at school, Mrs Reid,’ she explained, as she served the impatient housewife.
‘Aye, well, some o’ us have bairns coming in for their dinner. I’ll take that other half-loaf, Katie, and a couple o’ fly cemeteries.’
Opening another bag, Katie popped in two of the currant-filled pastry slices. ‘The bairns dinna like them,’ Mrs Reid confided, ‘but me and my man does.’
When she went home at half past twelve and sat down at the table with her grandmother, Katie said, ‘You’ll never guess who came into the shop this forenoon? George Buchan, and I haven’t seen him for years.’
‘Ina Green’s laddie?’ Mary Ann, like all the other older women, still used the maiden name, however long the woman in question had been married.
Katie had been well schooled in this. ‘That’s right, and he goes to sea now.’
‘George was aye a nice laddie. He used to carry my basket for me, though it must have been heavy for him sometimes, and him just a wee toot o’ a thing.’
Having only half an hour off, Katie was soon running back up the hill, and it was well on in the afternoon before she had time to think about George Buchan again. He was a few months older than she was though they had been in the same class, and when the older boys said nasty things about her having no mother – with so many fishermen lost at sea, being fatherless was quite common – it had been George who had bloodied their noses and given her one of his sweets to stop her crying. He had been a nice boy, and he seemed to have grown into quite a nice young man – not that she had any interest in men, young or otherwise …
Mary Ann gave Katie an arch look when they were having supper that night. ‘So am I to be hearing more about him?’
‘Who, George? I hardly know him now.’
‘That doesna mean – would you like to ken him better?’
‘I hadn’t thought about it. He only came in for a half-loaf, and he’ll likely never be back.’
‘Mmmphmm.’ Mary Ann looked sceptical, then said, ‘And was there any other news at the shop?’
Since she had started working, Katie had fallen into the habit of keeping her grandmother up to date with the gossip that went on between the customers – which girl was seeing which boy, which young wife was in the family way, which girl was in the family way though she wasn’t a wife, which wife had been seen with somebody else’s man, which man had been seen with somebody else’s wife – so the clicking of their knitting needles was now accompanied by speculations about who was taking up with who.
When they ran out of gossip, Mary Ann returned to a more interesting topic as far as she was concerned. ‘Would you go out wi’ George Buchan if he asked you?’
‘He’ll not ask me, Grandma.’
‘You could do a lot worse.’
‘I don’t want anything to do with men.’
Her grandmother hesitated. ‘Was there a lad in Peterhead that let you down?’
Katie burst out laughing. ‘You’re as bad as the rest of the women, wanting to know everything about everybody.’
‘Well,’ Mary Ann said, defensively, ‘them that don’t ask, don’t get told.’
‘And them that do ask, sometimes still don’t get told.’
The old woman’s mouth rose at the corners. ‘So you’re not telling me?’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ Even when she’d been spilling her heart out to her grandmother, Katie recalled, she had said nothing about Dennis. Mary Ann would be shocked if she knew that her grand-daughter had slept with a man she wasn’t married to. The old woman had been understanding about what Sammy had done to her – she had been powerless to stop that – but Dennis was a different matter.
When George Buchan went home, he said, ‘You didn’t tell me Katie Mair was working in the baker’s.’
Mrs Buchan, née Ina Green, pulled a face. ‘I clean forgot. She’s been there about three or four month now.’
‘She’s grown into a right bonnie lass.’
His slight flush made his mother’s brows fly down, and she said, sharply, ‘I hope you’re not getting any ideas there, George, for there’s a mystery about her.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, Mary Ann aye made out she was young William John’s bairn, and she said he was lost at sea a week afore his wife died in childbirth, so her and her man had to take Katie.’
‘I knew she was an orphan …’
‘Aye, well, that’s the story Mary Ann put out, but me and a lot o’ other folk have our doubts about it.’
George’s nose screwed up. ‘Why would she say that if it wasn’t true? Katie is their grand-daughter, isn’t she?’
‘Maybe she is, and maybe she’s nae. A lot o’ stories went about at the time.’
‘Such as?’
‘Such as Katie’s mother was some lassie young William John had bairned and the Mairs took in the infant and gi’ed the mother money to go away and say nothing.’
‘Katie would still be their grandchild, though.’
‘Aye, if that was the way o’ it, but another story was she wasna young William John’s at all, she was his father’s.’
George struck his fist on the table. ‘Ach, that’s havers! Mary Ann would never have taken in her man’s by-blow, even if he had one, and I don’t believe that. Why do folk always think the worst? It’s likely true that Katie’s mother died when she was born.’
‘Maybe it is, but I’m near sure young William John wasna lost at sea. He’d had a row wi’ Mary Ann and he was biding wi’ a lassie in Portknockie and �
��’
‘They weren’t married?’
‘Well, Mary Ann never said onything about a wedding. Ony road, as I was saying, naebody here heard o’ a Portknockie boat going doon about the time Mary Ann said, or a man going overboard, so he couldna have been drowned at sea. Some folk say he went to America wi’ the lassie that had his bairn … but I canna understand ony mother leaving her poor infant.’
‘Well, I don’t care. Katie’s a nice lass, whatever’s the truth about her.’
Ina played her trump card now. ‘She was in trouble wi’ the bobbies a while back.’
‘Ach, another story!’
‘It’s true, for she was seen being lifted. Janet Findlay was waiting for a parcel she was expecting, and she seen Katie coming aff the train wi’ a man that looked like he wasna right in the heid, and Johnny Martin the bobby stopped them in the road and took them to the police station.’
‘What for?’
‘Janet wasna near enough to hear.’
‘What a shame.’ George couldn’t help being sarcastic. Like his mother, Janet Findlay was notorious for poking her nose into other people’s business.
Ina carried on unabashed, her long, thin face showing her pleasure at passing on the scandal. ‘I did hear they let her out and kept the man, but we never found out what they’d been up to.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me. All this because I said she was a bonnie lass? That doesn’t mean I’ve got my eye on her.’
‘Just as well.’
Sunday morning, although fair, was bitterly cold, making the loathsome blue-white scar on Angus Gunn’s cheek show vividly in his shaving mirror, and he was pleased that he would soon have Katie where he could pay her back for stabbing him. He waited until he and his wife were on their way to Peterhead, then said, ‘I suppose you must have wondered how I came by the mark on my face?’
‘I did wonder,’ Betty murmured, ‘though it’s not nearly as noticeable as you think.’
‘Of course it is noticeable, and it was Katie’s doing.’
Many things became clear to Betty as she listened to his version of what had happened, and when he finished speaking, she said, quietly, ‘I can’t understand why you want her back at Fenty. You’re surely not thinking of trying to punish her for what she did to you?’
Realizing that he had said more than he should, Angus gave a light laugh. ‘What put that into your head? She was a good maid, that is all I was thinking of.’
‘I don’t want a maid, especially not a girl you admitted you once fancied. Maybe you still fancy her? Is that it?’
His smile vanished. ‘I have no need for any other woman now I have you.’
His secretive expression alarmed her. ‘I think you should forget about her, Angus.’
‘Forget?’ he cried, caution thrown aside. ‘After what she did to me, and to my wife and son?’
‘But it was so long ago. Aren’t you happy with me?’
‘It has nothing to do with happiness, it is a matter of principle. I cannot let her get away with it.’
Betty knew now that her qualms as to his intentions had been justified, and tried again to dissuade him. ‘After what she did, she’ll be too scared to come back to Fenty.’
‘Oh, she will come back. I can be very tenacious when I have to be.’
Having often wondered why he used words a small shopkeeper wouldn’t normally use, and wanting to take his thoughts off Katie, Betty said, ‘What did your father work at?’
‘My father?’ Angus looked somewhat put out. ‘What has my father to do with this?’
‘Nothing really, I just wondered.’
‘My father was a man of some means, with an estate in the Highlands and a large house near Inverness.’
‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
‘I had one brother, who inherited almost everything when our father died.’
‘Had a brother? Is he dead now?’
‘He was killed in the last stages of the war.’
‘Did you not fall heir to the estate when he died?’
‘He left a wife and son, who now live in luxury while I slave in a run-down little shop.’
‘Is your mother still alive?’
‘She died a few years after Father. What you see before you, Betty, is a man who was deprived of his birthright.’
‘Second sons don’t usually get …’
‘I was not the second son, I was the elder, but I blotted my copybook. My father kept me extremely short of money when I was a young man, you see, and I had rather a predilection for the opposite sex, so I stole from some house guests in order to buy expensive gifts to impress the ladies.’
‘And you were found out?’
‘Not for some time. My father’s friends were reluctant to accuse his elder son of robbing them, but it eventually came out. Father settled up so that I should not be imprisoned, or perhaps to save his name being dragged through the court. He cut me out of his will and banished me with just enough to start a small business. I lost everything because of one youthful prank, and as if that were not enough, I married a girl who thought it was vulgar to make love. Imagine what that did to a man of my virility. To let me have the son I longed for, she suffered my attentions until she was with child, then I was deprived of that, too, and I was forced to go elsewhere for pleasure. To crown it all, when our son was born, he was not a son of whom I could be proud, and she gave me no chance to make another.’
Betty touched his hand sympathetically. ‘You’ve had a hard life, Angus, it’s no wonder you’re …’ She broke off, having almost said ‘twisted’, and changed it to ‘bitter’.
‘I had come to terms with my lot when Katie came on the scene, tempting me with her charms, flaunting herself in front of me until I could control myself no longer, but she preferred my idiot son. You know the rest.’
He said no more until he drew the car to a halt in Marischal Street. ‘I shall go in by myself first, to see how the land lies, and if I need you …’
‘No, Angus,’ Betty interrupted, quietly. ‘You asked me to come with you and I’m not going to stay in the car.’ She had to keep her eye on him in case he did something crazy.
He darted ahead of her through the pend and knocked on the last door, his whole body quivering. When there was no reply to his second knock, he peered through the window. ‘Everything is still the same, except that the fire is not lit. She must be at work.’
He stood for a few moments, unsure of what to do, then gave a shiver. ‘There always seems to be a wind whistling through this damned alleyway.’
‘Yes, it’s too cold to stand about,’ Betty agreed. ‘I think we should give up and go home.’
‘If I could remember the name of the hotel …’ Breaking off with a self-satisfied smirk, he moved swiftly along to the door nearer the street, composing his features as a thin-faced woman in a black coat and hat answered his knock. ‘Ah, excuse me, madam, but I am looking for … my … um, niece, Katie Mair. I expected her to be at home on a Sunday, but I had forgotten that she works in a hotel. If you would be so kind as to tell me which one, I will keep you no longer.’
His oily manner cut no ice with Ella Brodie, a staunch member of the Close Brethren, and she snapped, with a touch of malice in her gimlet eyes, ‘She gave up the house a good while since, and I’ve nae idea where she’s went, or where she’s working.’
‘But … but …’ Angus was completely disconcerted. ‘Surely she left a forwarding address for her mail?’
‘She never got nae letters as far as I ken. None o’ us here had ony trock wi’ her, for it was a right disgrace the way she carried on. As if one man wasna enough for her, she took in another ane …’
He would have liked to hear more about the second man she had mentioned – the first had been Sammy – but Betty stepped forward. While Angus had been speaking, she had looked at the nameplate on the door and had also seen that the woman wore no wedding ring, so she was able to be more personal. ‘I can see you were goin
g out, Miss Brodie,’ she said gently, ‘and I’m sorry we’ve troubled you.’ She pulled at her husband’s sleeve. ‘Come on, Angus.’
His body stiffened briefly as if he were preparing himself for battle, then relaxing, he lifted his hat. ‘Thank you for giving up your time, madam.’
He was glad of Betty’s hand under his elbow as they walked out of the pend, and his hand fumbled with the car key before he could open the doors.
Betty sighed with relief as she sat into the passenger seat. ‘So that’s it, then?’
He ignored her and started the engine. Red lights were flashing behind his eyes, and he was quite frightened by the increasing discomfort in his chest. ‘I will have to stop somewhere for a short time,’ he managed to get out, when they were clear of the town. ‘I do not feel at all well.’
‘What’s wrong, Angus?’ she asked, though she guessed that he was only suffering from pique that his plan had failed.
‘Do not fuss,’ he gasped, as he drew in to the side of the road. ‘It will pass. Just leave me.’
His hands clenched round the driving wheel, he slumped over, unable to think for the pain in his chest and the awful sensation that his head was about to explode, while his wife waited unconcernedly until he got over it, praying that this would make him forget about Katie.
Chapter Twenty-one
1928
For months, Katie’s life had been quite placid, too placid sometimes, with not even an argument with her grandmother to break the monotony. George Buchan had not come into the shop again, and she had overheard his mother saying that he had gone with the herring fleet in March, which had not bothered her one way or the other. During the summer, she had taken advantage of the long sunlit evenings by going for long walks; filling her lungs with the tang of the sea or the freshness of the country air was luxury after long hours of breathing in the oppressive heat from the baker’s ovens. But she had been forced to give up that pleasure once winter made its grip felt. With the onset of the damp, cold weather, Mary Ann’s rheumatism had worsened, and Katie didn’t like to leave her all day and all evening, too.
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