Free Rose McQuinn 7 - Deadly Legacy by Alanna Knight

seduced Joe and he had got her pregnant, but the conditions of marriage had undoubtedly been that he would take on her children but would get rid of that existing encumbrance, namely Meg Macmerry.
    Again I asked him coldly, 'And where is Meg now?'
    'She is being well cared for, a better life than she would have here, I can assure you,' he added almost sadly, and a quick look around that squalid room and his future expectations did not surprise me. 'We did it all proper. I had an advert put in the local paper.'
    How horrible, how heartless. A child advertised like a saleable commodity, or a domestic pet urgently in need of a new home. Aware of my shocked expression he went on hastily, 'There's a lot of wealthy folk in big estates round here. As a matter of fact there's one just a few miles away and they have a good reputation - a convalescent home for gentlewomen and there's an orphanage attached.'
    I thought of Lochandor as he smiled proudly. 'A real lady saw our advert and came along, said she would be glad to take such a nice pretty wee lass. Meg seemed to take to her, went over and held her hand. The lady laughed, gave her a hug and asked if she was a good little girl ...'
    I was seeing it all and my eyes filled with tears as he continued, 'The lady said we were not to worry. They would find her a good home and parents who would love her and do right by her.'
    He stopped there, looked away, and I asked the obvious question. 'Was this offer free of charge?'
    Embarrassed now, he said, 'Well no, I had to pay her for her trouble. Five pounds it was ...' And then looking at me quite brazenly, 'I hope, of course, to recover this from her rightful father.'
    And that made me so furious I could have hit him. It required little imagination to realise how dreadful the effects of all this bargaining, this transaction, would have on a three-year-old child uprooted from the only true home she had ever known from which the aunt she had regarded as her mother had suddenly disappeared.
    Biting my lip to contain my growing fury, and ignoring his hint about the money, I said coldly, 'If you will give me the address.'
    'Here it is.' He took out a stump of pencil, scribbled on a piece torn off the newspaper. I glanced at it and saw with considerable relief that it was Lochandor.
    Watching me, his relieved expression was replaced by a crafty look. 'I suppose there would be a chance of getting the money back - for bed and board and keep, like, these past years - from her father, the policeman.'
    'You suppose wrong,' I said, 'and he's not a policeman, he's a detective inspector.'
    He grinned. 'Why, that's even better!'
    'It is not, I can assure you. And he will be exceedingly displeased that he was not consulted about this very important matter of his daughter's future.'
    Joe shrugged. 'But I told you, Annie wrote a letter to him. I told her what to say. Blame the post if it never reached him.'
    If it was ever written. I began to have doubts about him entrusting a letter that required the utmost delicacy to the slatternly Annie with so much else to take care of - a new husband and her own brood.
    As I left, he did not rise to see me out, merely stretched out his hand for the bottle again.
    Annie was digging up vegetables in the garden, the boys rushing about, scrambling and fighting and swearing at each other. She was doing her best to ignore their activities and I had for her a fleeting shaft of sympathy. Whatever she had done or had not done, hers was not an easy life, nor were her future prospects hopeful with a lazy husband whose fondness for drink had cost him the 'better life' for which he had abandoned Glasgow's dockland.
    She looked up briefly as I reached the gate. 'Got it all settled, then?'
    'Yes,' I said, and holding out the note, I pretended to study it. 'Your husband's writing isn't very clear. What is this word?'
    She never moved. 'Don't ask me. I canna' read. Never learnt, never had time.' And looking anxiously towards the cottage