Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Ruth wasn’t “weird”,’ says Pammie, and she’s eyeballing him like she’s thinking Who is this gutless fuck?

  ‘Okay Pammie. Let’s just see what hubby here has to say about your pal Ruth and then when he’s done we’ll hear from you, aye?’

  Hubby’s right in there. ‘She used to overreact to things.’ He turns to Pammie. ‘Like when Emma tied a scarf round Bekki’s wrists when they were playing prisoners? It wasn’t even tight. Ruth screamed blue murder at Emma. Remember?’

  Pammie nods but she’s no saying nothing.

  ‘And that time they were jumping on our bed, and Bekki fell off and bruised her shoulder, and when you took her home Ruth went ballistic, called you an irresponsible parent? Even though you’d told them to stop? And Bekki wasn’t even hurt really. It was just a very small bruise.’

  ‘It’s called being a good mother,’ Pammie raps out. ‘She was right, I should have hauled them out of there and not just told them to stop. That bed’s really high. Bekki wasn’t badly hurt, no, but she could have been.’

  I’m pissing myself. ‘Okay, let’s no have a domestic here, let’s keep it civil in front of the bairn, aye? What else was “weird” about the bint Ruth?’

  Hubby’s practically got his hand in the air. ‘She never wanted her photo taken. She didn’t even have a passport – we had this idea of the two families going on holiday to Bulgaria, but we couldn’t because Ruth didn’t have a passport and for some reason was resistant to getting one. Alec used to joke it was because she didn’t want to get a photo from one of those booths – at least I assumed he was joking, but maybe that really was the reason.’

  I eyeball Pammie. ‘Right hen. Now you’re gonnae tell us all about your weird best pal Ruth. You’re gonnae tell us what she likes and what she doesnae. You’re gonnae tell us about her friends and family and where she said she always wanted to go and bide. We need to know all this shite, cos that mad bitch has got our wee lassie. Bekki’s our wee lassie, see? And if we dinnae get her back, we’re gonnae be coming for your wee lassie. Wee Emma here. That’s a fucking promise.’

  ‘Mum!’ goes wee Emma. ‘They can’t get Bekki! Don’t tell them anything!’

  ‘It’s all right Emma. We don’t know anything to tell, do we? We don’t know where Bekki and her mum and dad are.’

  ‘I know, but maybe their family…’

  ‘Ruth’s parents are dead,’ goes Pammie. ‘She doesn’t have any siblings or cousins. She used to be a nurse but she gave that up when they adopted Bekki. She worked in Glasgow Royal Infirmary. She’s still in touch – or was in touch – with a couple of the other nurses, Donna and Claire… I don’t know their surnames. They used to meet up for lunch in town and go shopping.’

  ‘Mum! Stop it!’ goes the bairn, and she’s greeting, the poor wee sweetheart.

  I bounce her on my knee and go, ‘Now now hen.’ She tries to wriggle off but I’ve got my arms round her.

  Pammie goes, ‘Shoosh darling, shoosh, it’s all right. It’s going to be all right.’ She reaches for her bairn and grabs wee Emma’s hand.

  Jed’s lunging, but I goes ‘Beat it you!’ and he backs off.

  ‘These bints still work at the Infirmary, aye?’

  ‘Claire does.’

  ‘Right. And who else?’

  She’s stroking wee Emma’s hand and smiling at the bairn. ‘Ruth didn’t have many friends… There’s Laura who’s got a son in Bekki’s class. They live in one of the cottages at Hinksfield… But… I think I was her only close friend. Or I thought I was.’

  ‘Aye, so what else “weird” is there about her?’

  She takes a big breath. ‘Well. When I – we were in a café one day and I said I’m so lucky to have a friend like you or something like that, You’re such a lovely friend, and Ruth just stared at me, and then she said No I’m not! You don’t know anything about me! and got up and ran off to the loos. I guess that was weird. When she came back to the table she said she was feeling bad about shouting at me that time Bekki fell off the bed, but I don’t know if that was really it, or if…’

  ‘There was something off about the bitch.’

  ‘No! All I’m saying is that she was secretive about her past. So I can’t tell you anything much about it. I really can’t. I really didn’t know much about her.’

  ‘You must be able to think of something,’ goes hubby.

  ‘Jesus Chutney!’ I chuckle. ‘You’ve got a real diamond there hen, eh? But aye, you must be able to think of something. Starting with where you think they’d go.’

  ‘Italy,’ goes hubby. ‘Alec spent a summer in Italy when he was a student, and Ruth always fantasised about a villa on the Amalfi coast. Didn’t she? Pam?’

  Pammie nods.

  ‘She doesn’t have a fucking passport,’ goes Ryan.

  ‘Maybe she’s got one now.’

  Aye, fuck it.

  ‘And what all else? What about when she was living in St Andrews? What all’s she told you about that?’

  ‘I’m lightin’ it,’ goes Jed.

  We’re in a KFC on the way back to our bit. I’m on the low-cal ginger and a chicken wrap – fucking diet. The boys have both got Big Daddy Box Meals and Jed’s got a Zinger and fries.

  I’m in his face. ‘You light it and what’s there for them to fucking sell? A burned out fucking ruin?’

  ‘Aye Da,’ says Travis. He’s got a plaster on his hand and he keeps rubbing his finger on it. Getting bit by a wee lassie? He’s no a happy bunny.

  ‘You’re back planning, aye?’ goes Jed.

  ‘Aye, so shut it.’

  Ryan gets up for another Coke. He’s in his Armani and among all the wee neds he sticks out like a Rolex on a scabby dug. Folk look at him as he walks by. All the wee hairies going Gies a slice o’ that.

  When he gets back, I says, ‘Right yous, listen up.’

  ‘Is it a belter, aye?’ goes Jed.

  ‘Shut it. This is what we do, right? We don’t do nothing.’

  ‘Here we go.’ And Jed puts on the daft voice that he thinks is him talking posh: ‘Why – am – I – not – surprised?’

  ‘We wait till that wee house goes for sale. We make like we’re maybe gonnae buy it. We get the Home Report sent us, to an email address Connor will set up that’s no traceable. We get them thinking we’re that interested in buying. But we’ve a shit-load of questions and the estate agent cannae answer them so we’re like that: Gonnae gie us the seller’s details so we can ask them about the septic tank.’

  I lean back and pick a bit chicken out the wrap.

  ‘But Maw,’ goes Ryan. ‘Even their best pals havenae a fucking clue where they’re at. Are the bastards gonnae give the estate agent their details so they can get them scammed out them? That’s no happening. They’ll have done it all through their fucking brief.’

  ‘Aye, it’s a long shot, son. But in the meantime we check out they places, eh? Perth. Torridon. Fucking Amalfi, wherever the fuck that is. Fucking Australia if we have to.’ I bite the chicken. ‘First up, Torridon. Teuchterland Central – they’d think they’re safe enough there, eh? But we dinnae go in all confrontational. Me and Mandy’ll hire a shite wee car, one of they new Fiats maybe, and go and book in a B&B. We’re there because our pal Pippa Morrison telt us all about it and we thought it sounded right bonnie, and where are the Morrisons living at now so we can go and say hello to Pippa’s folks?’

  Travis is eating with his gob open, and when he goes ‘Belter!’ a bit chip falls out onto his Rangers top and then it drops on the table right next Ryan’s Coke.

  ‘Jesus,’ goes Ryan. ‘Get that out my space. Fucking chimp.’

  ‘What?’ goes Travis.

  Ryan gets a serviette and, all delicate like, picks up the bit chip, and Travis makes to get up out his chair but Ryan grabs him by the tit and shoves the chip up his neb, and Travis is ‘Ah fuck, ah fuck!’ and tipping back in his chair. The chair cannae take it, Travis is a big lad, eh, a
nd a leg breaks under him and he’s couped out it on the floor.

  Jed’s pissing himself.

  ‘Quit it!’ I yell. ‘God’s sakes!’

  Travis gets another chair and Ryan goes, ‘We’re gonnae need our ain place for Bekki till we get Spain sorted. Flat’s fine aye, but we’re shitting money up the wall there renting. And Bekki might like a garden, eh? She’s been living out in that wee cottage with a garden and nature and that, how’s she gonnae like being stuck in a flat in fucking Nedland? Naw. I’ll buy us a wee house with a garden, a wee new-build someplace nice. Bearsden maybe. Plenty trees and that. I’ll put it through the holding company so there’s no any paper trail.’

  Shannon-Rose is Ryan’s twin, eh, and her wee lassie means the fucking world to him.

  ‘But can you stretch to it, son, with Spain an’ all?’

  ‘Aye Maw, nae worries. Can sell it on after, eh?’

  ‘That’s barry then, son. Barry.’

  Ryan’s eyeballing me.

  ‘Barry,’ I goes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You’re thinking we’re no gonnae need heehaw for Bekki, and we’re no gonnae need to fuck off to Spain. You’re thinking we’re no gonnae get Bekki back?’

  Ryan’s got my brains right enough. ‘I’m no gonnae lie, son, I’m getting a bad feeling about this bint Ruth. A bad fucking feeling.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Why’s she never telt Pammie nothing about her childhood?’

  Jed, Ryan and Travis gowp at me. The Three Fucking Stooges. ‘They’re best pals, aye? See each other every fucking day for five fucking years?’

  Not a dickie bird.

  ‘She’s a fucking woman.’

  Nada.

  ‘Every fucking woman on the planet tells her best pal about when she was wee. Every fucking woman. This Ruth bint’s a clever bitch, I’m thinking. Maybe she’s had it at the back of her heid that maybe we’ll find them, that maybe they’ll have to disappear, and she’s got an ace up her sleeve – she’s got somewhere to run to, somewhere she lived when she was wee, and she’s no giving away nothing about it to any fucker, not even her best pal Pammie. I’ll bet a million fucking pounds she’s no even from Australia.’

  ‘No bastard can stay off the radar these days,’ goes Ryan. ‘Dinnae you worry, Maw. We’ll find them. Torridon and they places, aye we’ll check them out, but if the bastards arenae there we get looking into Ruth Morrison and where she was at before she was married. There’ll be records, digital footprints. We’ll get Connor on it. Get the wee fucker earning his keep, aye?’

  I bite another bit wrap and take a swally ginger and say ‘Aye son,’ but I’ve still got that bad feeling.

  There’s something no right about that bint Ruth.

  There’s just something no right.

  And she’s got Bekki.

  Eighteen months later

  Chapter 11

  ‘Could it have been slugs?’ said Beckie, squatting on the path to poke at one of the holes that marked where the tulips had been.

  Flora kept her voice light. ‘Would have to be very hungry slugs.’

  Did Beckie do it? Did she sneak out here last night, when they thought she was upstairs asleep, and rip out all the tulips? To punish Flora for losing it at her yesterday? But then she’d have to somehow dispose of them. Maybe under the hedge?

  Flora couldn’t accuse her; not without evidence. She mustn’t overreact. At least, she mustn’t overreact any more than she already had done. She mustn’t start blaming Beckie for everything.

  This was probably just random bored kids intent on some easy vandalism. They always locked the gates at night, but the small one at the end of the path from the front door to the pavement was only three feet high. Easy enough to climb over.

  And Mia had been staying next door with Ailish and Iain last night. Flora wouldn’t put it past that girl to sneak out in the small hours for some ‘fun’ making all the tulips mysteriously disappear.

  She looked up, over the hedge that divided the front gardens, to the first floor windows of Ailish and Iain’s house. Maybe Mia’s bedroom was at the front. If so, the tulips would have been in full view if she’d been looking around deciding on her next ‘project’, as Ailish called her niece’s schemes.

  ‘Is it time now?’ said Beckie. She’d been looking forward to this damn barbeque for weeks. A barbeque in early May, for God’s sake – Flora had been hoping for rain, but of course it was a lovely sunny day, perfect for an outdoor party. The thought that Mia was just next door was driving Beckie nuts – every minute they remained apart was a minute wasted, apparently.

  When Flora had suggested to Neil that there might be a link between Beckie’s behaviour at school and her friendship with Mia, he’d laughed.

  He’d actually laughed.

  ‘Poor Mia’s getting blamed for this as well now, is she?’

  This. This. As if it was nothing.

  She looked at Beckie.

  What was going on in that little head?

  Beckie didn’t seem in the least bit worried about the ‘mediation discussion’ Mrs Jenner had arranged for Monday after school, when Beckie and Edith and their respective parents were going to ‘sit down and talk through the issues and agree on resolutions.’ This apparently was going to involve an ‘acknowledgement of wrongdoing and harm’ by Beckie and ‘restorative gestures’. In other words, she would have to say she was sorry.

  But was she sorry?

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘What?’

  Beckie bit her lip.

  Flora made herself smile. ‘Sorry darling, I was miles away. What is it?’

  ‘Is it time yet?’

  ‘Almost. Go and put on a fleece or a jumper. It’s not that warm out of the sun.’

  Beckie ran off back inside and Flora followed her, looking up at the elegant sandstone façade of their own house. Or rather, the house they were living in. Despite all her efforts to make it theirs – the kitchen extension, the frantic redecorating, the fact that they’d taken every single stick of furniture with them, even the things that really could do with replacing – it still didn’t feel like home.

  It felt like somewhere they had washed up, the three of them: a strange shore.

  Gardens Terrace was, of course, a wonderful place to live. It was one of the nicest streets in one of the nicest cities in the world: a single row of big Victorian and Edwardian houses looking across a quiet road to the Botanic Gardens and backing onto their own huge gardens, and beyond them the huge gardens of the street behind. The houses all had relatively generous front gardens too, most with mature hedges and trees.

  They were very lucky to live here.

  At certain times of day when there wasn’t much traffic, it was almost like being in the country. You heard bird song, and the wind in the trees, and squirrels chattering. Sometimes, to Beckie’s delight, ducks from the pond in the Botanic Gardens flew over the house.

  They had only been able to afford Number 17 thanks to their inheritances, thanks to both sets of parents being dead. They had paid an obscene price for a semidetached house. But it had been worth it, she kept telling herself, for the location and the garden and the beautifully proportioned Victorian rooms with shutters on the windows and deep skirting boards and cornices, and a working fireplace to sit round on a winter evening watching Strictly or an old film or, when Beckie was in bed, a Scandi noir box set.

  They were very lucky to live here.

  Did Beckie think so?

  Was she happy?

  Or did she still secretly miss Arden, and their old lives, as much as ever?

  The problem was that Beckie was always so eager to please, so concerned about ‘bothering’ them, that trying to get her to reveal her true feelings was always a challenge. ‘Yeah, it’s great here,’ she’d say, whatever she felt about it.

  The leaves were coming out on the little silver birch tree by the gate, and there was a smell of new shoots and cut grass and
freshly turned soil; the promise of summer.

  She took a deep breath of it.

  Surely Beckie was happy?

  She seemed happy, didn’t she?

  This problem at school – it was probably just a blip, as Neil said. Beckie had always been such a good child that any bad behaviour was always going to be magnified, to seem a much bigger deal than it would have been in any other child.

  No one was perfect, as Neil kept saying.

  But it was just so hard to believe that she’d done it.

  Beckie?

  Their Beckie? Their sweet little girl, their popular, easy, laid-back little girl who made friends effortlessly wherever she went, who had so many invitations to birthday parties it was getting to be a logistical nightmare? Their Beckie, held up by other parents as an example to their own kids?

  When Flora had arrived in the playground yesterday afternoon, the headmistress, Mrs Jenner, had come over and asked if she could have ‘a quick word’. Flora had gone with her quite happily to the little office overlooking the playing field at the back of the school. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that Beckie could be in any sort of trouble.

  Mrs Jenner had sat down at her desk and waved Flora to one of the comfortable chairs in front of it. Flora had still been relaxed, reflecting that there was something not right about a headmistress who looked younger, rather than older, than her actual age. Mrs Jenner, who was in her early sixties according to one of the other mums, wore a bright cerise blouse under her fitted jacket, which was low enough to show cleavage. Her hair was a tumble of honey curls on her shoulders.

  She looked Flora straight in the eye, as she’d presumably been instructed to do on some training course or other, and said, ‘I’m afraid it seems Beckie has been bullying another girl.’

  Flora had repeated, stupidly, ‘Bullying another girl?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. I witnessed her hitting Edith myself. Beckie has denied it, but I saw her with my own eyes.’ She gestured at the window, from which there was a view of the playing field with its miniature goal posts.