Chapter 37

The actual rescue operation was almost an anticlimax, for nothing went wrong. Phyllis and her mother went to the town centre for an evening meal, and after they had eaten the main course, Phyllis excused herself to go to the ladies’ room, picking up her light coat as she went, but instead of the Ladies she walked out through the emergency exit that was the back door, stepped gingerly down the straight flights of stairs to Lower Kempock Street, and a man was standing beside his car. He saw her coming and opened his car’s rear door in invitation. She stepped straight in without a word; he closed the door and walked round to the driver’s side, where he got in behind the wheel and started the car, still saying nothing. They drove for little more than five minutes to arrive at his house.

Once there, he got out and opened her door for her, saying, “Madam? This is my home; please enter.”

She looked up at the large house, and was impressed. He led the way and opened the front door for her. Once inside, she was about to remove her coat when he placed a hand on her arm.

“Please keep your coat on, for you’re not staying here, and we do not want to exchange names. Allow me to show you the back door. Someone will have another car nearby, to take you on from here to your place of safety.”

They moved through the house to the back door, which had an exterior security light beside it. They stood together for a moment under this light, her eyes getting used to the near-dark outside, then he gestured to where the path led to the back gate of the garden. She noted that near the back gate to the lane was a street with a lit lamp-post not far along it. An adult female figure stood in its light waiting. Phyllis assumed this was where she had to go, so walked as quickly as her tender stomach would allow, to the gate, opened it, and walked slowly down a narrow footpath to the street. At her appearance, the figure raised an arm in recognition and probably a signal, for almost immediately a new model car came along and stopped beside the woman. The figure opened a door to the car and stood waiting. Phyllis took the hint, and walked to the car, where she again stepped in, wordlessly.

The other woman got in beside the driver, and the car moved off into the night, lit solely by the orderly procession of street lamps casting a limited light on the street. There was only the occasional car coming towards them, but no-one could see inside the passing car, so this was not important. The car sped around various roads and turns in the town, confusing Phyllis, until it drew up outside a house somewhere; she had no idea what street she was in.

The others got out, and Phyllis saw she was with two women who obviously knew each other well. They escorted her down a path to a door which opened into a glassed-in vestibule, then through another door into the house. She was surprised by the new-build smell of the large house. Everything here seemed to be new. Once inside, the women turned to face her.

“Welcome, Phyllis. You are safe here, for as long as necessary. My name is Sandy, and this is Georgie. You will meet the others in a little while, but first let me take you to your bedroom. It will be your personal private space while you are with us. Regard this as a refuge for battered women, or the next best thing to that.”

Sandy led her to a staircase and up to a higher floor. They went along a short corridor to a door with the name Phyllis pinned on it, so she knew this was now home for the moment. Sandy opened the bedroom door and ushered Phyllis inside. Scanning the interior, Phyllis found she had a double bed, a bedside table with a lamp on it, a small chest of drawers against a wall, and beside it was a neat little dressing table with mirror. Sitting on the chest of drawers was the bag she had packed and given to her mother. It seemed to be untouched and still closed. That was an encouraging sign that her mysterious rescuers were on her side.

I had remained out of sight all this time, as the girls had decided that an all-female team would be the best experience for an abused woman to receive. There would be no interrogation tonight, just give her a chance to relax after the escape. Once Phyllis had got a good sleep and was ready for breakfast, she could find me in among the women having breakfast together. I would be introduced just as Bob, the same as all the girls were calling themselves only by their first name in front of Phyllis. This had been selected in advance to make the whole household appear friendly and accepting. Sandy also wanted to give us a day to be certain that our plans were worth pursuing as intended. Once she was happy that everything was as expected, we could put the anonymous message plan into operation.

During the following morning, Sandy and Georgie got Phyllis to unfold her problems with her husband. She was 23, and had been married for two years, with no children planned for a while until finances improved. The bad behaviour had started slowly, with verbal abuse only at first, then gradually there would be a slap or a small punch in the back, then it got worse, to the point where Phyllis did not want to remember the assaults she had suffered, but she showed Sandy her abdomen, with a number of bruises showing. Sandy was convinced that our planned action was required. The man was either acting out an internal desire to hurt, or was mentally unbalanced, but both were equally unacceptable.

The first letter, to the Bowling Club, would be posted in Glasgow by Sandy near a busy post office, then the second, to his employer, would be sent by me from Edinburgh a day later; it should simple to find a posting box near the Mitchell Library.

A week later the errant husband would be sent a letter from Aberdeen, accusing him of spouse abuse and informing him that from now on he would be watched. This was worded to make him feel pleased that Phyllis was gone from his ken, so that a watcher would see nothing; but at the same time leave him unsettled, wondering how someone in Aberdeen could be orchestrating a watch in Gourock. This may make him imagine a team of private investigators being employed. A follow-up letter, also posted in Aberdeen would refer to his wife being reported as having disappeared, and saying the ‘watching team’ were concerned that he had murdered her and disposed of the body.

That would be the cue for an anonymous letter to the police in Gourock, noting that an abused wife had disappeared, and there was concern locally for her safety. That would start police enquiries about when she was last seen, and serious police thoughts about a possible murder when she was confirmed as missing.

I used our time/space machine to visit Edinburgh and then Aberdeen to post the anonymous letters to the relevant organisations. During this period, Phyllis spent much of her time alone, recuperating, listening to the radio, reading or playing solitaire with one of our packs of playing cards. She also worked in our kitchen to make lunches her stomach could manage, getting to know the appliances and testing them by making more day-time meals, and then preparing dinner for all of us when we got home from our jobs or, in Sandy’s case, university. She was surprised at how fast time went when you were busy, and she started working on new menus for future dinners with us. She began to feel at home here.

The girls told me they were surprised how easily she fitted in with us, but it was probably the contrast to the continual fear at her former home. We consciously made no attempt to find out what was happening with the husband, but the rumours were spreading in town. Janet and Carol were hearing snippets from customers about a man who was a possible murderer, but the police couldn’t find the body. The tale was that for the moment, the woman was treated as a missing person; that was all.

Someone had said at the hair salon that the man under suspicion had resigned from the Bowling Club, apparently at the ‘suggestion’ of the Club Committee. The tale at the restaurant where Janet worked was that the man had lost his job with the council. There had been no official mention of any criminality, just redundancy through a budgetary shortfall, but everyone was sure that the person selected for redundancy would have been the one who was being looked at by the police as a possible suspect in a major crime. No organisation wanted to be linked to a criminal, even a possible criminal, for other staff would probably not want to work with him.

It was time for next stage: the letter telling him that if he failed to either stop abusing his wife, or confessed to doing it, the problems in his life might get a lot worse. The pub where he drank regularly may decide they didn’t want his patronage any more, and his church may get information that would not be helpful to him. This letter would come from Edinburgh, where easy access to top legal minds might suggest that his persecutor or persecutors had legal connections. Then there could be a slight suggestion that his bank may not look favourably on him as a continuing customer.

It all added to the pressure. Not knowing where his wife was, simply made things worse for him, especially because the rumours of him murdering her were still a subject of talk in the town.

Apart from the letter campaign, we could do nothing except keep Phyllis out of sight. Sandy got a phone call from Phyllis’s mother, asking to see her, but Sandy was adamant: no connection whatsoever was an important part of the protection scheme. Charlotte had to admit that this was for the best, particularly when Sandy told her that it was possible for private phone calls to be recorded for the police as possible evidence of a crime, once the police got legal authorisation. The victim’s mother might be included in the phone calls to be recorded. That notion made Charlotte step back from any thoughts of contact, though the chances of such evidence being usable in court was almost nil.

Phyllis by now had twigged that the four women were all in some sort of relationship with me, due to the familiar way they reacted with me, and finally she asked Sandy outright.

“Sandy, who is Bob in connection with all of you? You all seem to treat him with uncommon familiarity. Is he married to any of you ladies?”

“He is legally married to me, Phyllis. The other girls are, you might say, illegally married to him. We conducted private marriage ceremonies for each of them, but none of these are valid in UK law, as monogamy is the only legally accepted form of marriage in this country. Georgie, Janet, and Carol all wanted to join our family at different times, so I conducted the ceremony whereby they took the oath of marriage so that they are solidly verbally committed to Bob and he to them. Going on from that, they all regard Bob as their husband, and he regards all of us as his wives, with all the commitment of a marriage in each case. In addition, all four of us are now pregnant, at different stages of pregnancy, and happy to be starting our family.”

“Good God! I have never heard of such a thing!” exclaimed Phyllis. “You must be desperately trying to keep it secret.”

“Not exactly, Phyllis. We are just not making it publicly known. All of us use the surname McIntyre, and act as if married, but everyone assumed it is to another McIntyre, and not Bob. Bob looks so young and innocent that imagining him married to Georgie and Janet, who are both years older, doesn’t feature in the minds of local people. I am also slightly older than Bob, but Carol is more or less ages with Bob, and for her, Bob is the first man she has kissed voluntarily, and the first man she has ever made love to.”

“By God! There must be a story behind that!” Phyllis stated, as if expecting to be told. Sandy was willing to pass on some minimal information.

“Carol was raped by a friend’s father when she was a 14-year-old schoolgirl, and did not get over it. She was traumatized by it. She did not want to tell her friend that the father was like that, as she might not be believed, so she removed herself entirely from her friend. In her own family home, her parents did not believe that she was raped, being accused, ‘You must have put him up to it’, so she left home, abandoned her school education and got menial jobs when she could; and always afraid of men, then she got a break by a kind female employer who took her on and gave her training, so she is now good at her job, working among other women.”

“How horrible!” said Phyllis; “Poor girl!”

“Exactly, but now she is happy to be in our family, to make love with Bob as her chosen man and have his baby; what is wrong with that?”

“Nothing directly that I can see,” said Phyllis, “but if she is having a baby out of wedlock...”

“Who says?” Sandy retorted. “As far as her work is concerned, she got married somewhere far from Gourock and has returned to work there, now known as Mrs McIntyre; and this is her new address. So, she is now a married woman having a baby. As far as the world is concerned that is normal expectation; end of story.”

“Neat,” Phyllis marvelled. “Everybody is happy, and that is that. What about the other ladies?”

“They each have their own tales, but you don’t need to know them now, Phyllis; you have your own problems to cope with.”

Her face fell as she remembered what she still faced outside the safety of this refuge.

“What can we do about my husband?” she asked.

“It has already started. We have used anonymous letters to tell important people what he is like, or at least made that suggestion, implying that the fact will become public soon. His employers found an excuse of redundancy to sack him, and the Bowling Club invited him to resign rather have his membership rescinded. His local pub probably no longer wants to know him and the police have suspicions about him and your disappearance. With no word about you, he is gradually becoming suspected of murder. There is speculation about what he might have done with the body.

That is as far as we can legally go. We can’t prove the suspicions, but he must be getting worried about what will happen to him next. We are getting back at him in revenge for battering you, but we can do no more, unless you can suggest something else.”

Phyllis was quick to mention, “He has money somewhere, but I don’t know where. He must have come by it illegally, but he never said where he got it, and has never offered me any of it; just said he had this nest egg, which I take to be money salted away.”

Sandy was intrigued. “Money in the bank, or somewhere else?” she queried.

“I don’t know. What other location could you use to put money?”

“A safety deposit box. These are housed in banks in cities, where there are enough customers to make them viable. You rent a box for an annual fee, and keep your valuables inside the box. You have a key and the bank has a second key for security. Both keys are needed for access, to turn the lock simultaneously. My Daddy has such a box,” Sandy explained.

“Oh. I didn’t know that,” said Phyllis. “So he presumably has a key to the box?”

“One would assume so. You can’t access the box without that key, as every box has a one-off, unique to that box.”

“I see. How does that help us?”

“If for any reason he pops his clogs – drops dead for instance, you automatically inherit the key along with all other family goods and property. Is he likely to have a heart attack?”

“Who knows? He does drink too much alcohol; goes on a bender at times, then laughs as he hits me. Thank God his punches are less damaging when he is drunk.”

Sandy winced at the thought, and marvelled that her Bob had no vicious inclinations; too many men did, it appeared. It was time to help Phyllis again.

“Phyllis, you have my sympathy, woman to woman. No woman should have to put up with that terrible behaviour. It is a pity we can’t retaliate in the same way, but please take note that women are superior to men in so many ways. This is one of them, so reflect that you are a much better person than him. He deserves whatever bad things are happening to him, or will happen to him. We intend to have his bank regard him as a bad risk, and do whatever they do as a result. That should not affect his safety deposit box, as that is a direct rental in an unknown bank’s premises and that safety deposit people don’t care who you are. We don’t even know where his safety deposit facility is. Probably it is in Glasgow, but there will be more than one possibility there.”