The Three Kings Read online

  Something else had begun to annoy him. Katie never paid any attention to him, but she was always speaking to that waiter, Dennis, and touching his hand. She never touched his hand now, Sammy reflected, not like when they used to be walking together to … ? He couldn’t remember where they’d been going, nor why, but he could remember the long walking, and eating berries and turnips, and hiding in sheds, and sleeping on floors. He’d liked cuddling up to her, and maybe some day she’d let him do it again.

  Now and then he got a queer feeling that he hadn’t always been her brother, and then the dream started; a lovely dream it was, and it could easily come true, for Katie could make anything come true. She would be his mother, and he would sit on her knee – like in a song he had heard somewhere – and she would stroke his hair and say nice things to him, like mothers are supposed to do.

  Hearing Mr Leith’s heavy footsteps, Sammy scuttled away like a startled rabbit. If he was caught wasting time, he’d be in trouble.

  In her room on the top floor, Katie gave a happy sigh. She had been attracted to Dennis McKay as soon as he smiled to her on her first day, almost three months ago. His shining black hair was slicked close to his head with Brilliantine – one of the chambermaids had told her he tried to look like Rudolph Valentino, the film star, not that she’d ever seen him – and he had a long lean face. His eyes were deep brown, twinkling when he laughed, but they could be quite serious at times. To begin with, she had thought he was too smarmy, flashing his white teeth at the diners and almost fawning over them, but she had soon realized that it was part of his job to make them believe they were special, and they seemed to lap it up, the ladies most of all.

  He’d been a bit distant to her for a start, but for weeks now he’d given her his attractive smile when they passed on their ways to and from the dining room. Then he’d started talking to her, standing in the passageway from the kitchen with her for a few moments, and asking her if she’d settled in, how she liked the job, what she thought of the other people who worked in the hotel. There had been nothing more than that until today. They’d been clearing the last of the lunch dishes when he came over and touched her shoulder.

  ‘Katie, how would you like to come out for a walk with me tonight after we finish the dinners?’

  Her knees had nearly buckled under her, for she had heard one of the chambermaids telling the other to stop fancying him, for he never went out with any of the female staff, and here he was, actually asking her. She had pretended to think about it, of course – she hadn’t wanted to show how eager she was – and then she’d said, as casually as she could, ‘I was going to wash my hair … but I suppose I could.’

  ‘Wait for me at the end of the street, that’ll save any of them seeing us. They’d just torment us.’

  Katie could barely contain her excitement as she ferried the dinner dishes backwards and forwards, but at last she was free and ran up for her coat. Peterhead always seemed to be much colder than Cullen, or even Fenty or Struieburn, and the March wind held a touch of sleet as she walked up and down for the ten minutes before Dennis arrived, looking most apologetic.

  ‘I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting,’ he said, ‘but Leith collared me when I was coming out and I couldn’t get away.’

  The felt hat sitting at a rakish angle on his head made him look more handsome than ever, she thought, suave, a man of the world, yet he had asked her out, so he must like her. Her pleasure increased when he took her down to the harbour, for she had always loved the sea, even though the wind had cut through them as soon as they turned the corner into Jamaica Street. While they stood looking out at the array of moored fishing boats, he told her his plans for the hotel he meant to own one day, then he gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘You’ll be fed up listening to what I want to do. Have you any plans for the future, Katie?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about the future,’ she said, shyly. She had been too concerned with forgetting about her past.

  ‘Maybe you’re like all the other girls I’ve been out with, desperate to get married and have babies?’

  ‘I suppose I’d like to get married some day.’

  ‘And so you will, once you meet the right man.’

  She was disappointed, though he wasn’t to know that she’d half hoped he might be the right man. ‘Do you not want to be married yourself?’

  ‘If I find the right girl.’ He took her hand and turned her round. ‘We’d better go back before we’re locked out.’

  They walked in silence for a bit, then he said, ‘How old are you, Katie?’

  ‘I’ll be seventeen in June. How old are you?’

  ‘I was twenty-one in January. Have you been out with a lot of lads?’

  Her pride stopped her from telling the truth. ‘Some. Have you been out with a lot of girls?’

  ‘Some.’

  They both chuckled at that, and he added, ‘I’ve been going steady for about six months, but I gave her the elbow last week. She was getting too serious for my liking, and I don’t fancy being tied to a nagging wife and a bunch of squawking brats. Not for years yet, anyway.’

  Katie couldn’t help admiring him for his honesty. He was warning her not to expect marriage, but with any luck, she might be able to make him change his mind.

  When they reached the hotel, Dennis said, ‘I’ll let you go in first.’

  ‘All right. Goodnight, Dennis.’

  ‘Goodnight, Katie.’ He leaned against the wall and took a slim silver cigarette case out of his pocket.

  Having thought he would kiss her, she felt despondent as she went upstairs, but she brightened when it struck her that he might be going canny in case she got serious about him, like the girl he had told her about. What had she looked like? Did he miss her? It might be a while before he forgot her, but Katie was willing to wait.

  Next morning, a pain shot through her when she saw Dennis bending over a fat, over-dressed, middle-aged woman who was smiling coyly up at him and fluttering her eyelashes like a young thing. When he straightened up and saw Katie watching him, his false smile became genuine, and her heart sang as she laid down the toast-rack she had been carrying. She was glad that not many women stayed in the hotel, most of the guests being fishbuyers or something to do with fish, and a few commercial travellers. Some of them did take their wives with them, or maybe the wives didn’t trust them being away from home on their own, but thank goodness there were never any young, single females.

  John Leith was waiting for Katie in the kitchen when she went back, and she hoped he wasn’t going to complain about Sammy. His smile reassured her. ‘Will you manage the lunches and the dinners on your own today, Katie? Dennis got word that his mother’s ill, so he’s going to Fyvie to see her and he’ll not be back till late.’

  ‘I’ll manage, Mr Leith.’ She would be rushed off her feet, but she would do anything for Dennis.

  As soon as she saw him next morning, she asked, ‘How’s your mother?’

  ‘My mother? Oh … she’s not too bad, better than I thought from what my sister said in her letter.’

  ‘That’s good. I … I missed you.’

  ‘I missed you. Will you come out with me again tonight?’

  Her head was in the clouds all day, and she spent her time off duty in the afternoon in day-dreaming about a courtship that would develop into lasting love and wedding bells.

  They strolled past the prison that evening, and as they passed the long, high walls, Katie gave a shudder. ‘This place gives me the creeps.’

  Putting his arm round her, Dennis said, ‘Don’t be scared. I’ll save you if any wicked murderers jump out.’

  All her joy at being with him vanished. This was where Sammy would be sent if he was caught and found guilty, and maybe they would put her there, too, if not for attempted murder, for helping him to escape justice. ‘Don’t make fun of me, Dennis,’ she pleaded.

  ‘I wasn’t making fun of you.’ He squeezed her waist. ‘I’d never make fun of you.’

  The
y walked on a little faster until they were well clear of the jail and the warders’ houses, then Dennis halted at the side of the windswept road and pulled her against him. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you yesterday, Katie.’

  Her spirits took an ecstatic leap. ‘Couldn’t you?’

  ‘I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Look, it’s maybe a bit early for you to believe this, but I like you an awful lot, and … oh, Katie, I’d hate to think you went out with anybody else. Will you promise to go steady with me?’

  ‘Oh, yes …’

  His lips stopped her, and the kissing went on for quite a while until he drew away with a long satisfied sigh. ‘I’ve wanted to do that for weeks, Katie. That’s why I got rid of my last girl.’

  This was very flattering, but she wished that he had said he loved her, though maybe he thought his kisses would tell her. She’d been thrilled with Lachie Mooney’s, but they had been nothing compared with Dennis’s.

  When they were returning to the hotel after hurrying past the prison again, Dennis said, ‘I don’t think we should go out every night. We see each other every day, anyway, and you’d soon get tired of me.’

  ‘I’ll never get tired of you, Dennis,’ Katie protested.

  ‘You might, so what about making it three nights a week?’

  It wasn’t enough for her, but she nodded. ‘Which three?’

  ‘Um … Monday, Wednesday, Friday?’

  ‘All right, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.’

  On the top floor where the resident female staff had rooms – Mr Leith took no chances of any shenanigans by housing the males in the basement – Katie went over the past hour and a half in her mind, but, even with Dennis’s kisses fresh on her lips, she couldn’t forget her fears for Sammy outside those awful high walls. The Temperance was not as safe as Struieburn. Very few strangers had ever gone to the farm, but so many different people came and went here, and Sammy was moving around in the foyer and the front stairs from seven every night; it would only take one off-duty policeman to see that he fitted the description of a wanted criminal and he’d be a goner.

  She undressed and lay down, but her mind was too active for sleep. She should really take Sammy somewhere he would not be seen so easily, but that would mean leaving Dennis. Sammy or Dennis? Oh, it was impossible. She was very fond of Sammy, but she loved Dennis. Would that be enough to salve her conscience if she stayed at the hotel to be near him and Sammy was caught?

  She agonized for some time before it crossed her mind that the police would be looking for a girl and a backward young man together, and none of the guests or those who came in for a meal would connect the night porter with the waitress. Being so much in the public eye was probably the best thing for him. The police wouldn’t think of looking at him twice.

  The relief was almost a physical pain, a welcome pain, and she relaxed to recall again the thrill of her lad’s kisses.

  It was some weeks before Sammy overheard something that made him prick up his ears. He had often heard the chambermaids giggling together and usually paid no attention to what they were saying, but this time was different.

  ‘Dennis isn’t half laying it on thick with Katie.’

  ‘He’s going out with an older woman as well as her. I’ve seen him going into her house in Queen Street.’

  ‘Oh, well, it’s Katie’s funeral.’

  His blood curdling, Sammy went down to his room. He could hardly believe that his Katie was going out with the waiter, but it must be true, and if she was going to need a funeral, Dennis must be trying to kill her when he was laying into her. Well, not if Sammy could help it!

  His sleep was troubled that day, visions of Dennis taking an iron bar over Katie’s head making him wake in a sweat so often that he rose long before he needed to. When he was washed and dressed, he looked at the little clock Katie had bought him off her first week’s wages. he was not very good at reading the time, but he could recognize the o’clocks and it was just coming up to five. He didn’t have to be on duty till seven, so he had plenty of time to think.

  Should he tell Katie that Dennis was going to kill her? But the two maids were always giggling and making jokes he couldn’t understand, so for all he knew it could be a joke about Dennis. If it wasn’t true, Katie would be angry with him, and he didn’t like when she was angry. She would likely be angry if he said anything to Dennis, and all, so he’d be better to keep quiet. He didn’t even know if it was true about them going out together, but he could easily find that out. All he had to do was watch the service door. That was the one the staff had to use.

  After the dinners were over, he went to stand where he could watch the rear entrance without being seen, and sure enough, Dennis went out just a minute after Katie. Sammy thought of following them to make sure no harm came to her, then he remembered that he wasn’t allowed to leave the hotel while he was on duty. He would wait till they came back.

  He had been allocated the responsibility of locking the rear door at ten o’clock, so when both hands of the clock in the foyer were nearly on ten, he knew they would have to be in soon. Slipping outside, he took up his stance behind a big bush by the gate, ready to pounce if he saw Dennis doing anything bad to Katie.

  Although they had stopped in several doorways during their walk, Katie was looking forward to their last few minutes together. They had been keeping company for over a month, and it was when he took her back to the hotel that Dennis was at his most passionate, running his hands over her in such a way that her whole body tingled, kissing her with a fervour that made her long for something more. She had meant to keep herself pure for the man she married, but she loved him so much she didn’t think she would be able to refuse if he wanted to go further than that. Why should she refuse, in any case? She was sure he’d be her husband one day.

  Hand in hand, they went through the gate where a clump of rhododendron bushes screened them from the windows at the rear of the hotel, and as usual, he drew her into his arms. Their lips had hardly met when a great shout arose and Sammy hurled himself at the young man, his clenched fist cracking against a bony eyebrow.

  As Dennis cried, ‘God Almighty!’ Katie yelled, ‘Stop it, Sammy! Stop it!’

  His arms falling, Sammy watched Dennis scampering inside with his hand clapped over his injured eye, then he turned to Katie. ‘He was going to kill you.’

  ‘He was just kissing me! Why did you have to hit him?’

  ‘Has Sammy been a bad boy?’

  She couldn’t scold him, not when his eyes were fixed on her so sorrowfully, and after all, he had believed he was defending her. ‘No, Sammy,’ she sighed, taking his arm and pulling him inside, ‘you weren’t bad.’

  He wasn’t even a boy, she thought, as she went up the back stairs. He was nineteen now, a young man. Surely he didn’t have a man’s jealousy of Dennis? If that was it, she would have to make sure he didn’t see them together again. That was, if Dennis ever asked her out after this, which seemed highly unlikely.

  Holding a wet towel against his eye, Dennis wondered if he should give up on Katie. The rich widow he’d been seeing on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays – and Sundays, sometimes – wasn’t all that bad, but her body was flabbier than Katie’s. He didn’t love Beth Morton, but telling her he did was the only way he knew of getting his hands on her lovely money. He had known she must be well off when she stayed so long at the hotel, but it hadn’t been until she told him she meant to settle down in Peterhead and asked if he knew of a house she could buy, money no object, that his interest was aroused – just his interest.

  Once established in her new home, she had invited him to visit her, which was when he realized that she was attracted to him. She hadn’t said it in so many words, of course, but he could tell. A man can always tell when a woman fancies him. He had known Katie fancied him as soon as she looked at him that first morning in the dining room, but he had been involved in trying to get off with Beth at that time. Once he saw that he had her in the palm of his ha
nd, he had felt free to get entangled with Katie.

  It was really quite exciting, having two strings to his bow, especially after that second long afternoon and evening he had spent with Beth – both days Katie thought he had gone to Fyvie to see his ‘ailing’ mother. Beth was a good-looking woman – almost an older version of Katie – with thick brown hair she wore piled high, a creamy, unlined skin and dancing blue eyes, but his sights were set on her cash, whereas it was Katie’s body he was after. He knew she wasn’t the kind to give up her virginity easily and he’d been working up to it gradually, but he might be best to mark time for a while to let her idiot brother simmer down. He didn’t want the damned fool jumping on him and knocking him for six again.

  Chapter Eight

  The other hotel workers were pleased that Dennis McKay had been taken down a peg, whoever had given him the black eye. When Chris, the chef, first saw it, he had laughed, ‘It beats me why somebody didn’t dot you one long ago. I’ve heard you’ve pinched more girlfriends than I’ve cooked hot dinners.’

  In spite of his mortification, Dennis tried to be cocky. ‘You’re jealous because you can’t pull the birds like me.’

  ‘Maybe it was a bird that clouted you?’ The idea had just struck Chris. ‘Were you a naughty boy?’

  Dennis gave a lewd snigger. ‘The birds don’t think I’m naughty. They like it.’

  ‘I saw you out with Katie Mair one night. Was it her?’

  This coming dangerously near the truth, Dennis screwed up his mouth in feigned derision. ‘I went out with her once or twice, but I like them with a bit more spunk, you know what I mean? The kind that pretend they’ll be annoyed if you try anything, but they’re really just waiting for it.’

  Chris snorted. ‘Huh! You’d better watch out, m’lad. I went with a girl like that a couple of years back.’