Bible John's Secret Daughter

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Book: Read Bible John's Secret Daughter for Free Online
Authors: David Leslie
Tags: True Crime
failed to convince a sheriff, who fined her, but the following day soup was once again being dispensed as though nothing untoward had transpired.
    Customers who had visited the Dennistoun brothel once would occasionally, when they again felt the need for the services of the women, simply knock without making a previous appointment and hope one of the girls was available. But such unexpected calls were discouraged. The preferred arrangement was that punters would first visit the business on Main Street to ascertain which, if any, prostitutes were on offer. A telephone call would then be made to the brothel to forewarn them that a customer had requested the services of either a particular female or any woman. If supply met demand, the male would be directed on his way. If not, he might be asked to return to the business in half an hour, by which time a prostitute would almost certainly have been contacted and asked to make her way to Dennistoun. Time, after all, was money.
    This appalling set-up meant sex-hungry men were regularly loitering furtively around Main Street and the surrounding roads in search of the scoundrel who controlled the operation. On occasion, a prostitute might be hanging about, looking for the pimp to collect money or to be given instructions as to where a client had asked to meet her. Additionally, a man, having been unsuccessful in trying to pick up a sexual partner at the Barrowland or in the streets and bars around the dance hall, probably feeling angry and frustrated, might well have headed to Main Street to learn what was on offer at Dennistoun. It was a situation fraught with danger and yet, despite the raids on other houses of ill repute, the Dennistoun knocking shop would, throughout the Bible John terror era, be allowed to remain open and running. This gathering of whores and their seedy clients meant that whenever Hannah stayed over with her aunt, en route she would have to mingle with them – hardly a satisfactory or safe situation for a young girl blossoming into a woman. It would eventually cause the authorities severe embarrassment.

FIVE
    BETRAYED
    Having survived the attempt on her life, Hannah had convinced herself there was no reason to alter her routine. If she was inspired to change at all, it was to become wary of men who invited her to step out with them.
    She had continued her excursions to the Barrowland, still on occasions heading to Landressy Street but always making sure she had company she knew, if not for the entire length of the walk then at least until she was in sight of the familiar tenement where her aunt and cousins lived. Her prudence did not stop her dancing with strangers, but hard as some tried to persuade her to join them on a late-night stroll around Glasgow Green, using every ounce of guile they possessed, none succeeded.
    She remained true to what her friends might have thought an old-fashioned, even outmoded, resolution to remain chaste until her wedding night. When she lost her virginity, she determined it would be to a man she had pledged to stay with for life, and he with her. Weeks after the attack by the stranger, Hannah became involved with a man she decided would be the one for her. We will refer to him as Joseph.
    Her first employment after leaving school had been working for the world-renowned knitwear company Lyle and Scott in Glasgow. It was not a job into which she settled and within months she had moved to the then giant Hoover factory at Cambuslang. There were three principal advantages to the move: the plant was nearer the home she shared with her father; it was close to her adored grandparents, Richard and Hannah Martin; and it paid better. Despite what would happen in the not-too-distant future, Hannah remained there for 22 years until she became a victim of a series of lay-offs that would ultimately signal the end of production in Glasgow, the company deciding to manufacture instead in China.
    Before becoming involved with Joseph, Hannah had

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