by Jane Renshaw
‘She’s in a bit of a panic. It seems the Johnsons may have scammed your address out of her. Lorraine Johnson – we think it was Lorraine Johnson – phoned her up pretending to be me, wanting to check that Saskia had an up-to-date address for Beckie’s adoptive parents, and like an idiot Saskia read it out.’
‘Oh God.’
‘The police and someone from Social Work are going round to the Johnsons’ home now, to warn them not to try and contact you or Beckie and not to come near you, but you should just be aware that they may try to do so. It might be an idea to have a little chat to Beckie and explain the situation. Keep an eye out for them.‘
‘Oh my God. But the Johnsons are dangerous, aren’t they?’
‘No, look, I’m sure you’re not in any danger from them. They may try to contact you though, which is obviously in breach of the court order specifying a closed adoption, so –’
‘But it’s a closed adoption specifically because they were thought to pose a significant risk of harm to Beckie!’ Her head was suddenly swimming.
This was her punishment, then.
This was the Universe punishing her.
Her, and Alec, and Beckie.
There were little grey blotches in her vision. She swallowed; blinked.
‘If she was living with them, yes, but it was more a case of neglect than physical abuse.’
More. ‘Oh God.’
‘I’m sorry Ruth, I’ve scared you – Shannon-Rose is thought to have physically abused Beckie, but Shannon-Rose isn’t getting out any time soon, if ever, and the rest of the family don’t really pose a threat to her –’
‘Jed Johnson’s a murderer! He served sixteen years in prison for murder!’
‘A gangland killing’s a different kettle of fish from hurting his own granddaughter. Even Saskia had to admit that the grandparents seemed genuinely to love Beckie. I’m sure she’s in no danger from them.’
‘But there were fresh bruises on her arms and legs and back when Saskia had her taken away!’
‘Yes, but they could have been caused by rough play with other kids. Which again could suggest neglect, but –’
Breathe. ‘So they know where we live and they could be on their way here right now.’
‘Ruth –’
‘I’ll call you back.’
Ruth was aware of herself, as if from outside her own body, snatching up her car keys and going back outside and saying to Beckie, ‘Okay darling, I’m sorry but you’ll have to resume the photoshoot later. We have to go.’
‘Go where?’
Beckie had a way of looking at you, her expression somehow primed, anticipatory, wary, ready to assume any number of variations according to your response.
‘To the shops.’
Beckie smiled.
Always an acceptable option.
‘I need to wee.’
‘Okay. Be quick.’
Ruth grabbed the soft toys from the tree – she was never sure quite why she did that – and ran to the car parked on the gravel area beyond the outbuildings. She threw the toys in the back seat and started the engine and then ran back to the house and upstairs to the landing. The bathroom door was shut.
‘Come on darling.’ She put her shaking hand on the door.
‘Coming!’
The door clicked open and Beckie was smiling at her.
If anyone tried to take her darling she would kill them.
If she could, she would kill them.
‘Right, let’s go.’
Down the stairs, through the hall. At the door, though, she stopped. The Johnsons might be out there now. Shouldn’t they just lock themselves inside?
No.
The Johnsons could smash a window. Batter down the door.
They had to get away.
She took Beckie by the hand and together they stepped out into the sunlight, too bright in her eyes so she couldn’t see properly, she couldn’t see if there was anyone there, but she didn’t stop to scan around her, she started to run, pulling Beckie.
‘Mum!’ Beckie half-laughed, half-wailed.
‘We need to hurry, darling.’
‘Why?’
‘The shop will be closing soon.’
‘You didn’t lock the door!’
‘Well, never mind.’
‘You didn’t even shut it!’
Past the end of the old byre with its rusty corrugated iron roof; past the mill stone she’d planted up with thyme; into the dappled shade of the sycamore and onto the gravel, their feet sending little stones skittering.
She hauled open the back door of the car and bundled Beckie inside and onto her booster seat; fumbled with the belt; shut the door and jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed her own door, wrenching the wheel round in almost the same movement.
And then they were accelerating away down the road, and Beckie was saying:
‘Mum. What’s wrong? Mum?’
She drove them not to the shops but to the carpark at the start of the walk round the loch shore, busy at this time on a sunny autumn afternoon with families and hikers. To make the call, she got out and stood looking at the white horses on the water while Beckie sat locked inside the car.
‘I’m sorry to have scared you, Ruth,’ Deirdre said at once. ‘The situation’s not quite what we thought it was. It’s okay, they don’t have your address after all.’
Oh thank God. ‘So it wasn’t Lorraine Johnson who called Saskia?’
‘Actually, it seems it wasn’t Saskia who called me. It’s all a huge cock-up I’m afraid, and it’s all my fault. I’m so sorry. I – I was so sure I was speaking to Saskia. She said she’d just been scammed into giving out your address to someone pretending to be me. She said she’d tried calling you to warn you, but the number wasn’t being recognised and she wondered if you’d changed your mobile number… So I gave her your current one, like an idiot, and Alec’s, and your landline number and email address… I should have followed procedure, which in those circumstances – where someone phones up purporting to be a colleague wanting sensitive information – the procedure is to phone them back, just to make sure it really is them. But the thing is, I know Saskia quite well, and I was sure it was her.’
‘But it wasn’t.’
Far out on the water a yacht was tacking, white sails flapping then filling as it changed course. Two birds flew above Inchmurrin, and then three more, and soon there was a cloud of black specks in the sky. Rooks. She could hear them now, faintly, cawing in concerted bursts across the water.
‘No,’ said Deirdre. ‘Saskia never called me.’
‘So –’
In the car, Beckie wasn’t looking at Ruth. She had Fat Bear under one arm and Hildebrand under the other and was speaking to them. Ruth could see her lips moving.
‘It was Lorraine Johnson pretending to be Saskia.’
‘But this means they don’t have our address, just our phone numbers and email?’
‘Yes. I guess she rightly figured that I’d smell a rat if “Saskia” asked for your names or your address. Pretending she’d got an out-of-date phone number, on the other hand, reeling it off for me to confirm it was right – that didn’t ring any alarm bells. And it was an emergency, or so I thought, there was a time pressure… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
‘Deirdre, it’s okay. We’re really careful about not putting our phone numbers or email addresses online. There’s no way they can find us from those. Our email addresses don’t have our names in them either. We can just change our phone numbers and dump that email address, whichever one it is you have.’
‘No one’s called you trying to get your name or address out of you?’
‘No.’
‘Can you phone Alec straight away and alert him? I couldn’t get through to him on the number I have.’
‘Yes. Right. I’ll do that now, but I’m sure he wouldn’t give out that kind of information over the phone.’
She couldn’t get through to Alec either – he was probably g
iving a lecture or in a practical – so she left a message saying to call her back urgently, the Johnsons might have their phone numbers and an email address, and if someone contacted him trying to find out his name and address, for God’s sake don’t tell them.
She went over to the car and opened Beckie’s door. ‘I’m sorry darling, that was a bit weird, wasn’t it?’
‘There is something wrong, isn’t there?’
‘That was Deirdre.’
They had been more or less honest with Beckie about her adoption and her birth mother, telling her that Shannon-Rose had something wrong in her brain and had done bad things and was now in prison – although they hadn’t told her yet what Shannon-Rose had done, and she hadn’t asked.
Beckie looked up at her with that guarded expression she hated. No seven-year-old should ever look at anyone like that, least of all her own mother.
Ruth gently stroked back the strands of hair falling over her face.
‘It’s nothing to worry about. Deirdre has made a mistake and your birth family, the Johnsons, have found out our phone numbers. But it’s okay because we can easily change the numbers right away, and they won’t be able to phone us.’
‘I don’t want them to phone us.’
‘No, darling, they won’t. You don’t need to worry about that.’
‘I don’t want to see them.’
They had told her that the Johnsons were bad people and that was why Beckie wasn’t ever going to see them again. They didn’t know where Beckie was and never would. She could just forget that they existed.
Did she remember them?
Did Beckie remember what they had done to her?
Memories weren’t laid down at that age, of course. But subconsciously – yes. Beckie knew what had happened to her. Ruth had no doubt about that.
‘They might hurt us.’
‘Oh darling, no!’ She scrabbled with the belt, lifted Beckie out and pulled her into a hug. Oh my darling girl, don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened. ‘Daddy and I will never let them hurt you. Never.’
‘They might – h-hurt – you.’
Ruth hugged her close. ‘No. They’re not going to hurt any of us.’
How typical of their sweet, loving girl, that her main concern should be for them and not herself. How could that family possibly have produced a child like Beckie? It was as if they had nothing to do with Beckie at all, as if by some accident she’d found herself living amongst them, a changeling in a fairy tale, until Saskia Mair had come along and rescued her.
She made her voice light and bright. ‘Let’s go for a walk, shall we?’
‘Can I take Fat Bear and Hildebrand?’
‘Of course you can.’
‘Can we play Wanderers?’
‘Yes, let’s!’
‘Fiona’s being chased by a Viking.’
As Beckie ran ahead on the path and Ruth juggled Fat Bear, Hildebrand and her phone, she reflected that she should have known Saskia wouldn’t make that kind of mistake. She should have known it would have been Deirdre’s cock-up.
At long last she got through to Alec.
‘Did you get my message?’
‘Um? No. What’s up?’
‘Nothing to panic about, but Deirdre’s cocked up and given the Johnsons our phone numbers and an email address – the gmail one. So we’re going to have to change them. You haven’t had any dodgy calls or emails, have you, trying to get your name and address out of you?’
Long, terrible silence.
She stopped walking. She dropped the animals. ‘Alec?’
Alec reached for her – then hesitated, his fingertips just touching the denim of her jeans. She smiled at him and took his hand. What was the point in wasting anger and energy on recriminations? The important thing was what happened next.
They were sitting at Saskia Mair’s kitchen table. Beckie was in the sitting room, watching TV with Saskia’s partner and kids, two sweet little boys with big brown eyes. Beckie had shown polite enthusiasm when offered a pot of yoghurt and the opportunity to catch up on the latest doings of Shaun the Sheep, but she hadn’t seemed too sure about Saskia’s partner, a tall, lean Scandinavian type who had obviously been about to head out on a bike ride and was rather sinister in neck-to-knee black Lycra and those weird little cyclist’s shoes.
But he was obviously as lovely as Saskia. When he’d whisked the kids away to the other room, Flora had protested weakly, ‘Oh, but you’re obviously just heading out...’ and he had assured her, ‘No no, just back actually,’ hustling the two boys away as one of them had started: ‘But Dad, you’re not –’
Thank goodness for people like him and Saskia.
Deirdre had been useless.
Kevin Patterson, the director of the Linkwood Adoption Agency, had been useless.
The police had been useless.
The only person in the world Ruth trusted right now was Saskia Mair.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alec whispered.
She shook her head. ‘It’s okay.’
Although, of course, it wasn’t. It wasn’t okay that he’d blurted out his name and address to Lorraine Johnson when she’d called him pretending to be someone from Argyll and Bute Council chasing unpaid council tax. It wasn’t okay that he’d practically foisted the information on her.
He’d related the conversation to her word for word, as she stood with her eyes open on the picture-perfect view across Loch Lomond, seeing none of it.
It had been a woman’s voice.
‘Mr McAllister? This is Ann Thomson from Argyll and Bute Council. I’m calling about your council tax account. We’ve sent out three reminders, but your account is still in arrears to the sum of –’
‘No no,’ Alec had protested. ‘I’m not McAllister.’
‘This is the mobile number in the database for Mr David McAllister.’
‘My name’s Alec Morrison.’
‘This is the contact number associated with the account. If you’re having difficulty paying we can arrange for you to pay in –’
‘But it’s not my account! I don’t owe any council tax, we pay by direct debit. My name is Alec Morrison. My address is Backhill Croft, Arden…’
Candy from a baby.
‘Okay,’ said Saskia. ‘I know they’ve given you a load of crap about balancing your need to know with the rights of the biological family. But I’m guessing you’ve Googled them. You’ll have found out a bunch of stuff about Jed and Ryan and Travis?’
Ruth nodded. ‘We Googled Shannon-Rose as soon as Deirdre told us her name, while we were still going through the process of adopting Beckie. And we found out all about the Johnsons and their convictions.’
Saskia made a face. She had a plain face anyway, with rather prominent eyes, and that big nose stud like a huge blackhead. Her hair was streaked with pink. ‘The official stuff, the stuff in the press – that’s not the half of it.’ She took a gulp of hot coffee. ‘I’m sorry. I should have laid it all out for you from the get-go, but to be honest… When I met you, I just wanted so much for you to take Beckie, I knew you’d be perfect for her and – I was worried that if I told you everything I knew about the Johnsons you might back out.’
‘That wouldn’t have happened,’ said Alec.
‘I realise that. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.’
Ruth shook her head. ‘None of this is your fault, Saskia. You mustn’t think that. We really appreciate what you’ve done for Beckie. And all the other kids like her. You’re their lifeline – literally – and I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like, what a toll it must take, fighting their corner the way you do, all those poor little...’ She took a long breath. ‘You’re amazing. You’re completely amazing – and we can never thank you enough. But you need to tell us now. You need to tell us all about the Johnsons. We have to know what we’re dealing with.’
‘Thank you for saying that.’ Saskia reached out to touch Ruth’s arm. ‘I’ll help you in any way I can.’
‘I know y
ou will.’
Ruth jumped as the door clicked open behind her. Turning in her chair, she saw one of Saskia’s boys standing holding on to the door handle.
‘Hello sweetie,’ said Saskia, and the boy came round the table and into her arms. ‘What’s wrong, little one?’
Ruth smiled. This was the older of the two boys. How nice, she thought suddenly, to be called ‘little one’ by your mother when you were the big one to everyone else; the older sibling who was expected to be more stoical, more sensible, more grown up.
‘Nothing,’ he muttered into Saskia’s fluffy mohair jumper. ‘I just wanted to see you.’
Saskia pushed away the blue file that had been sitting on the old pine table next to her coffee cup, as if to put distance between its contents and her own child. As she took him out of the room with her, Ruth reached over and opened the file.
On top was a photograph. A mug shot of an elderly man with protruding ears, a gaunt, grey face, tattoos on his neck, and cold eyes; literally cold, an almost colourless icy blue.
‘That’s Jed Johnson,’ said Saskia from over her shoulder. ‘Fifty-nine but looks at least a decade older. He did sixteen years for murder a while back, a gangland killing, and he’s served shorter sentences for GBH, false imprisonment, armed robbery and drug-related crimes. That’s only what they’ve managed to do him for, of course.’ She came back round the table and sat down, pulling her coffee cup towards her and cradling it. ‘He was charged with a second murder but got off on a technicality after the procurator fiscal missed a statutory deadline. No mystery where Shannon-Rose gets her tendency for violence. This didn’t come out at the Court of Session hearing for the Permanence Order – I guess they felt there was enough ammunition against the Johnsons without applying for the release of confidential medical records – but in the course of his many incarcerations, Jed was assessed by two different prison service psychiatrists on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist. On a scale of zero to forty, one of them scored him as thirty-seven and the other thirty-nine. That means he’s right at the top of the spectrum for psychopathy.’
She took a slug of coffee. ‘Jed gets off on other people’s suffering. I could tell you a dozen horror stories, but the best documented is an incident that happened in prison. It seems Jed’s sidekick, who was also his cell mate, made the mistake of standing up to Jed when he started victimising a young prisoner. When the warder opened the cell door in the morning he found Jed sleeping like a baby, the floor awash with blood, and the cell mate close to death. There were two hundred and thirty-six separate cuts found on the man’s body. Fifty-two of which were on his penis, which was almost severed. The weapon had been the edge of a laminated sheet of tumble drier instructions taken from the prison laundry, where Jed worked at the time. The man claimed to have inflicted the injuries himself, so no action could be taken against Jed.... I’m sorry, but I think you have to know this.’