Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

  ‘Ms Mair,’ goes Fwah. ‘Mrs Johnson claims that she never received notification of the meetings and hearings held to discuss Bekki’s future.’

  ‘That’s not the case. Mr and Mrs Johnson were sent invitations to all the meetings they were entitled to attend. I can produce copies of the letters…?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary. As for the character references…?’

  ‘I never received any character references. I can assure you that if I had done so I would have followed them up and, if appropriate, included them in my report.’

  ‘Now, as to the injuries that are detailed in the doctor’s report on Bekki when she was first removed from the Johnson family home. Mrs Johnson maintains that they were old injuries inflicted by her daughter, Shannon-Rose. Is this, in your view, a plausible explanation for the injuries to the child that were documented?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. If you look at the doctor’s report, you’ll see he talks about “fresh bruising”, and says that he’d estimate most of the injuries were inflicted less than 24 hours previously.’

  ‘And Bekki was last with Shannon-Rose…?’

  ‘Two weeks beforehand.’

  ‘I see. That seems clear-cut… Now, another allegation of Mrs Johnson’s is that in fact you only visited the Johnsons’ address on one occasion, not four, and that neither you nor Dr Fernandez visited the property on the 22nd of August.’

  ‘The dates in my report are correct. I visited the Johnsons four times, and was accompanied by Dr Fernandez on the 22nd of August visit. The suggestion that we would collude in falsifying evidence… My professional reputation, I think I can say, is unblemished. As is that of Dr Fernandez.’

  ‘Am I correct in saying that you have an impeccable fifteen-year record of employment in the Social Work Department of South Ayrshire Council, followed by an impeccable four years in your current position with Glasgow City Council?’

  Blah fucking blah.

  ‘I’m sorry to say,’ says the sheriff, ‘that I found Mrs Johnson to be a somewhat unreliable witness, in marked contrast to Ms Mair, Dr Reid and Dr Fernandez. In particular, I would like to commend the professionalism shown by Ms Mair in what has evidently been a challenging and upsetting case. Although I have no doubt that the Johnson family’s affection for Bekki is genuine, I am persuaded that there is a significant risk of harm should Bekki be placed in their care, and in such cases the safety of the child must always be the paramount concern. I am persuaded that it is in Bekki Johnson’s best interests that the Permanence Order, with Authority to Adopt, be granted, with the recommendation that neither Shannon-Rose Johnson nor her parents or siblings have any further contact with Bekki and, should she go on to be adopted, that it should be a closed adoption with no contact between the child and her biological family. Under the terms of the closed adoption, when she reaches the age of eighteen Bekki will be given information that will enable her to resume contact, but this will be entirely Bekki’s decision.’

  Out in the lobby, Mr Lyall goes, ‘We’ll appeal of course, but… You mustn’t hold out too much hope, I’m afraid.’

  ‘We’ve lost her,’ says Mandy. ‘We’ve lost our wean.’

  ‘I’m very sorry. Mrs Johnson, you spoke most eloquently on the stand, but…’ He lifts his skinny shoulders.

  ‘Aye, no so eloquent though, eh, when that bastard started in on me? If I’d been all “I can assure you”, if I’d been a snobby bitch like Mair the sheriff might have pinned back her lugs and taken a wee bit notice of what I was saying, eh? I was daft so I was, thinking playing it straight was gonnae get us anywhere with these bastards.’

  Mr Lyall’s thinking Thank Christ these fucking schemies are outta my hair.

  I hold out Shrek. ‘Here’s her wee toy. We were keeping it for her, you know? Can she have her Shrek? She takes it with her to her bed.’

  ‘She needs it,’ goes Connor in a wee choked-up voice. ‘Bekki needs her Shrek.’

  Oh aye, now he’s giving it Disneys, now it’s too late.

  Mr Lyall angles the top half of his body away from Shrek. ‘I’m sorry, but that won’t be possible. You can rest assured that she’ll be well looked after. I’m sure – I’m sure she’ll have plenty of – of other, um, cuddly animals... to, um, take to bed with her...’

  I take a hud of Mandy and she takes a hud of me.

  As we leave the court building and the wind hits us, I’ve still got wee Shrek cooried in to my chebs. Stupid fucking thing. Stupid cheap fucking toy that needs a wash, and Mr Lyall’s right – Bekki, wherever she is, will have a nice dolly or teddy to take to her bed, not a cheap knock-off from the market that’s probably got illegal fucking chemicals in it.

  But in my head I’m going, It’s okay, wee Shrek. It’s gonnae be okay.

  Chapter 6

  Ruth examined herself in the hall mirror. She’d dressed in the sort of clothes Deirdre favoured: beige jeans, boots, a long indigo shirt and two dangly necklaces with colourful glass beads and wooden elephants strung on them. Minimal make-up. The long shirt did something to disguise her fat hips and waist.

  She would have to remember to mention to Deirdre that she was successfully losing weight. She’d lost a stone and a half so far on the Atkins diet, but needed to lose as much again to be down to a healthy size. Maybe she shouldn’t mention Atkins to Deirdre, though – it was a bit faddy, wasn’t it? And Deirdre was probably vegan and would be horrified by the thought of the vast quantities of meat involved. All the additional slaughter and environmental damage required to keep Ruth in steaks.

  This was something Ruth worried about herself, although admittedly usually as she was passing the junk food aisles in the supermarket en route to the raw animal section. And really, could eating so little carbohydrate actually be good for you? She was feeling a bit light-headed now, in fact.

  Maybe she should eat just a little something sugary.

  After she’d had another quick check round.

  She stood at the front door and looked at the hall as if she were Deirdre: at the Victorian pew with their shoes lined up under it, the waxed floorboards, the new jute mats, the fresh off-white walls (she’d persuaded Alec to give the whole cottage a new lick of paint last week) on which she’d carefully arranged some framed photographs of animals and a watercolour of a tranquil river scene.

  It was a little gloomy, necessitating the lamp on the table being on despite the bright sunshine outside. She should open the sitting room door to let in more light.

  First impressions were important.

  The sitting room itself was perfect. Every surface gleamed – the old bureau which had belonged to Alec’s parents, the coffee table, the TV, the little side table – with a careful selection of books stacked on it, on things like the Scottish Colourists and Ancient Egypt – the windowsills, the bookcases. They’d gone through their selection of books last night, removing all the grimmer crime novels and Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham. Just in case Deirdre hadn’t read it and got the wrong idea.

  There were windows to the front and side, so although they were small the room was nice and bright. She had lit the wood-burning stove and it was crackling merrily.

  Perfect.

  Leaving the door open, she crossed the hall to the study. She had made Alec have a major tidy-up in here and then had deep-cleaned it herself.

  He had pulled the curtain across the window to shade his PC screen. She pulled it back. There were shelves floor-to-ceiling on one wall, crammed with books and folders. On top of a battered metal filing cabinet was a shallow glass tank filled with soil in which three bonsai trees grew which Alec called Pinkie, Perkie and Podgie.

  Three bonsai trees and Mimi the Mycorrhiza.

  The glass sides showed the roots of the trees branching through the soil and the white threads of the disgusting fungus thing that was Mimi, a sinister net that looked as if it was smothering the tree roots, the soil, the tank itself, forming a fine, ghostly, filigree pattern on the glass, like something from a s
ci-fi nightmare.

  Alec would have to explain Mimi to Deirdre. Tell her it was a mutually beneficial thing for the trees and the fungus. To grow successfully, in nature most plants tapped in to the network of fungal mycorrhizas in the soil which provided them with water and nutrients in exchange for sugars.

  But Ruth found it creepy. She didn’t like to think of the soil under her feet being infected by thousands, millions, trillions of those ghostly white threads. A single individual fungus could cover more than two square miles, apparently.

  Maybe better tell Alec not to say anything.

  Poor Alec. She’d made his life a misery these past few days, obsessing and nit-picking and nagging and generally being an OCD nightmare.

  On the wall above the desk were the grotty old prints of fungi that Ruth had banished in here, and the framed Gary Larson cartoon of two man-eating crocodiles relaxing on a river bank. She imagined Deirdre’s wistful angel expression going even more wistful, disappointed wistful, if-only-Alec-hadn’t-been-a-bit-of-a-sick-bastard wistful.

  She removed the cartoon and shoved it in the top desk drawer.

  But the empty hook was a dead give-away that something potentially compromising had hung there.

  On the hall table was a collection of photos of their families. The biggest one in the A4-sized frame, of Alec and his sister Pippa and their parents, had a little metal loop on the back. Pippa at ten had already been taller than Alec at twelve. She was gangling in a short dress, long pale legs crossed self-consciously one behind the other.

  Ruth took the photo to the study and hung it up.

  Hmm.

  Was it a good idea to remind Deirdre that both sets of parents were dead? That they had no extended family network apart from Pippa, who was currently backpacking in Nepal with two random men she’d met on a beach in Cambodia?

  Both their fathers had died when they were children. Ruth’s mum had been killed in an accident when Ruth was at university – the driver of a milk float, of all things, had reversed without looking and run her over. A witness had testified that Mum had just stood there, as if in a daze, that she hadn’t seemed to see it coming, but how was that possible? What they’d meant was that she hadn’t tried to get out of the way. Quite apart from the guilt – because she had no illusions that this wasn’t down to her – she hated telling people about it because of the comic element. Not everyone was able to suppress their natural reaction to laugh. Red faces and awkwardness all round. Sometimes even hysterical choked giggles, and the person having to make an excuse to leave the room. She always felt so bad for Mum, that this should be the reaction to her death.

  Of course, for a candidate adopter, a parent dead in an accident was far preferable to a parent dead from a heart attack or stroke or cancer. No red lights flashing ‘genetic risk of early death’.

  Alec and Pippa’s mum had died of lung cancer last year, but she’d been a heavy smoker, and Alec had never so much as taken a puff behind the bike sheds.

  God.

  She had to stop this.

  It was going to be fine.

  The study was fine. It said Alec is a clever academic.

  She walked on down the little passage to the kitchen.

  Hopefully it wasn’t too much of a cliché that she’d baked scones. They did smell amazing, six appetising cheesy hummocks cooling on the rack.

  Or rather, five.

  Alec, sitting at the table with his laptop, gave her a sheepish grin.

  He hadn’t even used a plate. There were crumbs on the keyboard and on the table and, yes, on the flagstones under his chair.

  She opened the cupboard and grabbed the dustpan and brush.

  ‘Up. Up.’

  He closed the laptop and tucked it under his arm and stood, backing away as she pulled out the chair to get under it.

  ‘I don’t believe this.’ She swiped at the flagstones, reaching under the table for the outliers, feeling her face going red with the effort.

  ‘Sorry.’

  As she straightened, he put down the laptop and reached to take the dustpan from her, but she pulled away. He was liable to tip the contents over the floor again while emptying it into the bin.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Don’t you think you’re going a bit overboard with the Stepford stuff? We don’t want the place to say We’re too uptight to be parents.’

  She replaced the dustpan in the cupboard and scanned the kitchen. Maybe it was a bit unnaturally pristine. She had decluttered, banishing even the toaster, temporarily, to a drawer. She had sanded and oiled the wooden worktops and arranged a careful collection of objects on them – a matching set of tea, coffee and sugar cannisters in a tasteful sage green enamel, a miniature trug with apples from the garden, a wire-fronted shabby-chic egg cupboard with posh blue, white and speckled-brown eggs inside. She had used baking soda on the Belfast sink after making the scones, so its white porcelain was hospital-bright. The ironed tea towel hanging over the rail of the Rayburn was red and white gingham. There was a basket by the door to the utility room with pine cones in it, for no good reason.

  She imagined Deirdre standing here, looking around her, blinking her wistful-angel eyes. Shaking her head. And then turning to Ruth and sighing:

  Oh, but you see, I’m afraid we know.

  She took a long breath, in and out.

  She had to pull herself together. Get a grip and concentrate.

  The kitchen. Was it okay?

  No, actually. Alec was right. It wasn’t a kitchen any child would be comfortable in.

  ‘Oh God. It is Stepford!’

  ‘It’s fine. Here…’ He opened the fridge and took out the butter. Then a side plate from the neat stack in the cupboard, and a knife from the drawer. He smeared the knife across the butter and set it on the plate, and the plate on the worktop next to the sink, as if someone had just had a scone and left the plate there.

  ‘There would be crumbs on the plate,’ she said.

  He picked a few off the bottom of one of the scones – she’d have to remember which one, so she didn’t give it to Deirdre – and scattered them on the plate.

  ‘And maybe you could get some papers from the study and leave them lying somewhere in the sitting room? And maybe here on the table…’

  ‘Ruth. Relax, for God’s sake. I don’t know what you’re so worried about. It’s going to be a breeze. What more perfect mother is there than a paediatric nurse?’

  For a long moment she couldn’t say anything. She just couldn’t.

  And now he was looking at her oddly, questioningly, a little anxiously.

  She puffed out a big exasperated sigh. ‘It’s not me I’m worried about.’

  Of all the lies she had ever told him, this might just be the biggest.

  But, as his mum would have said, that put his gas at a peep.

  And he really had been a bit of a liability from the word go, from the very first session of the Preparation Course, in that airless little room with the fluorescent lighting and the awful faded posters – a close-up of a child’s hand held in an adult’s; a blurred child playing in a garden; a sad-faced boy sitting on a step with lost-waif eyes lifted to the camera…

  Alec had found that one particularly amusing. He’d said to Ruth, without bothering to lower his voice: ‘Reckon the same outfit does the SSPCA and homeless stuff – add a bald dog and a Big Issue seller and you’ve got the set.’

  There had been four other couples on the course. They’d all sat in a circle on moulded red plastic chairs while Ben the tutor, a whispery, I’m-so-caring type, made them introduce themselves.

  While the others spoke, often tearfully, about why they were there, to gentle nods of encouragement and ‘Mmm, mmm’s from Ben, Ruth had found her gaze returning to the poster of the little waif. Which was ridiculous. He was a child model. He had a family, a family who were perfectly nice, probably, when they weren’t exploiting his Oliver Twist qualities to make a quid or two. But she knew, if she and Alec ‘got through’ and ever had
to make ‘the choice’ (she was already picking up the jargon), that she was going to be forever haunted by the faces of the children they didn’t take. How did you turn the page on a desperate child? How did you decide that you didn’t want to love him, consigning him to God knows what?

  Because she already knew that she wanted a little girl.

  She hadn’t told anyone, not even Alec, and she never would.

  But her child was going to be a little girl. She was out there somewhere, a little lost soul, waiting for Ruth to find her. Waiting for Ruth to love her.

  Ben had started murmuring at them about how the children could be expected to have developmental delays and challenging behaviour because of what they’d been through.

  ‘How do you think you’d address that?’

  No no no don’t ask Alec, she’d prayed.

  But of course he’d asked Alec.

  People always warmed to Alec. There was a gauche friendliness about him that lulled them into a false sense of security. And his skinny little childlike geeky frame, thin arms poking from his T-shirt, made people feel protective.

  ‘Alec?’

  Alec had sat back in his chair and pushed his feet out and frowned, considering, and then he’d come out with it: ‘Well, I don’t know that there would be much I could do to address that. Developmental delay and behavioural problems are likely to be down to things like foetal alcohol syndrome, foetal complications of heroin addiction, genetically inherited conditions… the list goes on. Just for instance – up to a fifth of adopted children have some sort of foetal alcohol disorder, which can produce a small head and brain, learning disabilities, epilepsy… autism, ADHD, horrendous behavioural issues… And as for genetic conditions, it’s been estimated that about half of single parents with serious psychiatric illnesses lose custody of their children. That means that a high proportion of children up for adoption will be at risk of having inherited a mental health condition from one or both parents. Bipolar disorder has a heritability of seventy-five per cent. Schizophrenia, eighty-one per cent.’