Anne Bennett 3-Book Collection: A Sister’s Promise, A Daughter’s Secret, A Mother’s Spirit. Anne Bennett
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There was just the one right thing to do, and he made for home, where he had a set of ladders in the shed.
Betty had poked the fire into life, shaking some nuggets of coal onto it, and had put the kettle on when she heard a noise outside. She turned off the light, lifted the blackout curtains aside and peered through the glass, but she could see little, though she had the idea that she could make out a vague grey shape moving around.
She knew she wouldn’t rest until she found out if there was someone in her yard who shouldn’t be there, so taking her coat from the hook behind the door, and armed with her large shielded torch, she opened the kitchen door stealthily and stepped outside. When she suddenly turned the torch on, it lit up her husband in the doorway of the shed, carrying the ladders. She heard him give a groan of dismay as he spotted her watching him.
‘Will, what are you doing home? And what on earth do you want with the ladders? Are you going to clean the windows in the dark, or what?’
‘Ssh,’ Will hissed urgently. The last thing he wanted was to have his Betty involved in this sordid business, but he realised he owed her an explanation. If she then decided the risk was too great, that would be that.
‘We need to talk,’ he said.
‘Yes, we do,’ Betty answered grimly as she turned and made for the house. ‘And, I would say, about time too.’
Once inside, Betty saw just how shaken her husband was. She made tea, and put a cup before each of them.
‘Well?’ she asked finally.
Will ran his fingers through his sandy hair distractedly. ‘I hardly know where to start.’
‘Well, you could start by telling me what you want ladders for at this hour of the morning, and it dark as pitch out there?’
Will shook his head. ‘No. Oh, by Christ, it goes much further back than that. God, Betty, you don’t know the half of it.’
‘Nor likely to either if you don’t tell me.’
‘I’m afraid.’
‘Of me?’
‘Yes,’ Will said. ‘I am afraid that you will despise me when you hear some of the things I have done.’
Betty looked at him amazed. ‘Will, I love you. You are my husband and the father of our child. I would never despise you.’ She reached for his hand across the table and held it tight. ‘Tell me what it is that is distressing you so much,’ she said. ‘I have the feeling that you have kept it to yourself long enough.’
Will started at the very beginning, with meeting Ray in the pub that night, though Betty already knew some of that. She knew nothing of the rest, though, and listened in horrified amazement as Will spoke about his slide to the edge of the corrupt and perverted life that his employer and those around him enjoyed.
His ravaged eyes, racked with guilt, looked into hers and he said, ‘Normal rules don’t apply to these people, nor does the law. And if someone gets in the way, they get rid of them.’
‘Get rid of them?’ Betty repeated. ‘You mean … ?’
Will drew one finger across his neck and Betty, hardly able to believe it, said, ‘Kill them? They kill people?’ She removed her hand from Will’s and looked him full in the face as she said earnestly, ‘Tell me that you have had no hand in that?’
‘Of course not,’ Will said emphatically. ‘What in Christ’s name do you take me for?’
‘A fool, Will Baker, that’s what I take you for,’ Betty spat out. ‘A weak-willed and gullible fool who allowed himself to be sucked into such evilness and debauchery in the first place.’
Will accepted the censure, knowing he deserved that and worse. If he was honest, he had shocked himself. It was one thing going along each day and doing things alien to him, or just plain wrong, especially when he was mixing with people to whom those things were commonplace. It was quite another to sit before his wife and confess those things. It was the very first time he had put into words the things he had had to do, and if he was so disturbed, he could just imagine what it was doing to Betty, whose life up until then had been serene and unsullied. He was bitterly ashamed that he had brought disgrace into it and he told her this.
Betty looked at the man she loved with all her heart and soul – or at least she loved the man she thought he had been, the one she had considered honest and trustworthy – and felt a shudder run all through her.
Will saw it and his heart sank, but he knew he had to go on and tell all, and so he said, ‘I haven’t finished yet and this will explain why I needed the ladders.’ He went on to tell her what he had overheard and his meeting Ray after it.
Betty was astounded. ‘Why are you sitting here with such information?’ she demanded. ‘Go to the police.’
Will shook his head. ‘I can’t do that, Betty.’
‘Why not?’
‘Haven’t you listened to a word I have said?’ Will said. ‘If I did that your life wouldn’t be worth tuppence, and it isn’t as if I would be here to give you any sort of protection.’
‘Why not?’
‘Look, Betty, if I just trot into any police station and say I know of a girl that is about to be murdered and I have the address and all the details, what d’you think would happen then? Do you think that they thank me for the information, rescue the girl and that would be the end of it? Don’t you think it far more likely that they will haul me in and find out how I knew all this? Then everything would come out. By not speaking sooner about some of the other nefarious things I have been involved in, I am as guilty as the perpetrators, or that is probably how the police would see it. Face it, Betty, if the police ever got wind of any of this I would be looking at a hefty prison sentence. Far more important than that, though, what concerns me is what the boss would do to you as soon as the police began ferreting out their information. These people don’t mess around, you know.’
‘No, I don’t know,’ Betty snapped, but she realised with sudden clarity that Will spoke the truth. If he admitted to any of this then he would be locked up, and that thought sent cold shivers down her spine. Why the hell had he got involved in something like this?
She was suddenly blisteringly angry with him. ‘How would I be expected to know people like that or how they would behave?’ she burst out. ‘A short while ago, I would have said I knew you inside out. Now it is as if I am married to a stranger.’
‘Look,’ Will said, ‘Ray told me where the girl still is and I want to have a go at getting her out. That’s what the ladder is for.’
‘And won’t anyone watching think it strange to see a ladder up to a window?’
‘No one will see,’ Will said. ‘That’s part of the beauty of it. The side of the house is down a sort of alleyway and the bedroom window overlooks the yard of a factory. That’s how I can pinpoint the bedroom. I stepped into that alleyway for a bit of shelter and to light my fag out the wind, like, and I heard the first struggles and shouts. The factory is deserted now, though, because it was caught in a raid in the autumn and is not rebuilt yet. But there is a fairly high wall still standing and I will be able to hide the ladder behind there once I get the girl out of the building.’
‘Thought it all out then?’
‘Well, I only thought of it when I was given the day off,’ Will said. ‘I mean, I wanted to do something when I heard it first, but I didn’t then know how I could achieve it. I’ve been hatching the plan all the way home. What d’you think?’
Betty nodded slowly. ‘It could just work,’ she said. ‘And then what?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘According to you, they are out to kill this girl.’
‘They are. D’you think I would make up something like this?’