Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

She’d repressed it almost immediately, but she had smiled.

  ‘I’m sorry, Flora.’ Caroline touched her hand, her face full of nothing but sympathy. ‘How fucking awful.’

  And Flora found herself blinking back tears. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m a council house girl. Not that it was exactly mean streets of Dunfermline. It was one of those 1930s estates with lots of grass and trees and corner shops. People looking out for each other. Pretty sheltered too, really.’

  ‘No Johnsons.’ Flora managed a smile.

  ‘Definitely no Johnsons.’

  ‘I have to try and make Neil see that the Johnsons are a threat to Beckie. That we should be doing everything in our power to keep them away from her, not thinking about initiating contact.’

  ‘Surely after this… At least you can get things moving now with a non-harassment order.’

  Flora looked at the leafy shadows shivering on the wall behind Caroline as a breeze whipped at the lilac tree at the window, sending its branches dipping and dancing. No doubt Neil would agree that doing things by the book was the way to go. But was it? With people like the Johnsons, what protection, really, did the justice system offer them?

  Chapter 20

  They’ve pulled the curtains closed, aye, but there’s a wee gap where I can get my neb in. And there’s Bekki, sitting between they bastards on the couch in their fucking Grand Designs kitchen, playing a game on her iPad and chucking crisps in her gob.

  The brass neck of Mair, making out like I was too obese and addicted to chicken nuggets to look after Bekki, and here’s that fat bitch feeding her crap. The bitch puts her hand on Bekki’s head and strokes her hair.

  That’s our wean.

  That’s our couch she should be on and that’s my chebs she should be coorying in to.

  There’s some rocks in a circle under a tree with faces painted on them that’re going manky with dirt and green shite. I get one of them, a tarty Miss Piggy face with rosy cheeks and big red lips and yellow hair, and airch it right at the patio doors.

  Bang!

  Bounces off the fucking safety glass.

  I get it again and airch it at the same bit.

  This time there’s a kind of a crunching and then a tinkling as all the wee bits of glass round where it hit shower down.

  Ya dancer!

  Out of pure badness I get another, a wee pirate with an eye patch, and airch it at the other door.

  And then I get my arse outta there.

  Flora stared at the policewoman. ‘Well, even if they do all have alibis… they could have got someone else to do it.’ The Johnsons were all at a wedding, apparently, and had been there since three o’clock that afternoon. ‘And it was definitely Travis Johnson this morning. Beckie and I both recognised him.’

  The policewoman smiled patiently. ‘Travis Johnson’s whereabouts have been established from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm today. He was working in a garage – he works there on a casual basis doing tyre changes and so on. There are a dozen witnesses attesting to his having been at the garage all morning – both staff and customers.’

  They were back in Caroline’s front room yet again, she and Neil and the policewoman; Beckie was asleep – Flora hoped she was, anyway – in Caroline’s spare room, with Caroline watching over her. In the morning, a team would be out to process the ‘scene’ of the ‘incident’ on the patio.

  Caroline’s centre light fitting, a cheap branched thing in yellowy brass, cast a flat, harsh light over the room, turning the magnolia walls a stark white and bouncing off the glass of the one picture, above the fireplace, of wishy-washy poppies.

  ‘What garage?’ asked Flora.

  ‘I can’t tell you its name. But it’s a branch of a well-known dealership.’

  Neil was looking not at the policewoman but at Flora. ‘You were pretty sure it was Travis Johnson.’

  ‘Yes, because it was him. The Johnsons have obviously got a hold of some sort over the people at the garage, if they’re not in cahoots…’

  Neil raised his eyebrows. ‘All of them? And their customers?’

  Whose side are you on? she wanted to yell at him.

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised,’ she said tightly.

  The policewoman stood. ‘The team will be round to process the area around the patio in the morning. Please don’t touch anything there. They’ll phone to let you know they’re on their way. You’re not staying in the house tonight?’

  ‘I am,’ said Neil. ‘Flora and Beckie will sleep here.’

  He had been adamant about this. Flora had felt awful for resenting him earlier in the day for not being here for them. When the patio doors had suddenly exploded, he had leapt into action, bundling her and Beckie into the loo with his mobile and telling her to lock the door and call the police, while he, despite her protests, had gone to investigate.

  He’d been pretty good in this particular crisis.

  Then, after the police had arrived and they’d decamped to Caroline’s, he had said he’d arrange for CCTV in the morning, take a few days off work to get it all set up.

  At least, that had been the plan. But maybe the doubt sown by the Johnsons’ ‘alibis’ was going to change that.

  When they’d shown the policewoman out, Caroline appeared in the little hallway.

  ‘She’s fine. Sleeping like a baby on benzos.’

  But neither of them could take her word for it. They tiptoed into the darkened room and bent over the bed. Under the covers, in the big king-sized bed, she was so little, hardly there at all.

  Flora gently smoothed the covers over her.

  Back in the sitting room – Caroline had tactfully disappeared into the kitchen – Neil said, ‘Right. I’d better get back.’

  ‘I think you should stay.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘What, because you don’t believe the Johnsons had anything to do with it? You believe their so-called alibis?’

  ‘The police seem to think they check out, Flora.’

  ‘So it’s all just coincidence? Some random yobs, one of them the spitting image of Travis Johnson, decide to harass us in the street after my car mysteriously runs out of petrol, and another random yob decides to lob rocks through our doors?’

  ‘Well, you know, it could all be coincidence. I was thinking – remember the tulips getting vandalised a while back, and you suspected Mia? Maybe you were right. And maybe she thought it would be a laugh to throw stones at the glass doors. Or, I don’t know, how about Mr Rapist-Hyphen-Serial Killer? Wouldn’t put it past him to lurk in people’s gardens, getting up to mischief. We mustn’t automatically assume that anything bad that happens is down to the Johnsons.’

  ‘So I suppose this means no CCTV? And you’ll be going back to work tomorrow as if nothing has happened?’

  ‘No. I’m not going back to work, and of course I’m going ahead with the CCTV… Beckie’s pretty freaked out, isn’t she?’

  ‘Given that her psychotic biological family have just tried to force their way into our home, that’s hardly surprising.’

  He sighed. ‘Nobody actually tried to get in… Look, I don’t think it’s a good thing to fill her head with –’

  ‘With what? Hysterical nonsense?’

  ‘I’m going back to the house. I’ll have my camera at the ready for any more dramas, don’t worry. And we’ll get the CCTV.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Flora managed to say as he left the room.

  Was it awful of her to be hoping something did happen tonight, that the Johnsons did come back while Neil was alone in the house?

  She took her mobile from her bag, which she’d left perched on the arm of Caroline’s sofa. At least she’d finally located her mobile, while she was preparing supper, in a kitchen drawer of all places.

  She would call Saskia and ask her if the Johnsons had ever used a garage before to provide them with alibis.

  Caroline’s head appeared round the door. ‘I’m having a nightcap – a brandy. Want one?�
��

  Three brandies and several unanswered calls to Saskia later, she was feeling woozy and weepy and all she wanted to do was go to bed and cuddle her little girl and forget about everything else.

  Caroline made her a hot water bottle and gave her a hug as they said goodnight.

  She had thought she’d drop straight off, but she had restless legs and arms and had to get up in the end so as not to wake Beckie with all her tossing and turning. In the harsh light of the sitting room she paced, back and forward in front of the fireplace and round the coffee table with its half-finished picture of a flock of parakeets; to the darkened window and back to the door. What was Neil doing, five doors down? Was he sitting up waiting for something he knew wasn’t going to happen? Or had he just gone to bed?

  She was going to find out.

  The front door was locked and she didn’t know where Caroline kept the key.

  Back door?

  Fumbling on the wall for the kitchen light switch, she banged a shelf and something fell off it to the floor with a clatter.

  Ten seconds later Caroline was in the hall in ninja mode, eyes wide, hair on end, feet spread ready for action. Flora giggled, and then found she couldn’t stop.

  ‘Sorry,’ she gasped, as Caroline flicked on the light.

  ‘God’s sakes, Flora.’

  The polka dots of the pyjama top Caroline was wearing were doing funny things to Flora’s eyes. She looked away. ‘I need to go back to the house. Just for ten minutes. Can you let me out?’

  ‘You must have had more brandy than I thought. Are you drunk?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘What do you want to go home for? Can’t it wait till morning?’

  ‘I want to see if he really is sitting up.’

  Caroline folded her arms with a stern expression. ‘Oh, right. So if he is, you’re going to give him a heart attack. If he isn’t, the two of you will have another row and where will that get you? Both of you zonked out tomorrow and no use whatsoever to Beckie.’

  Flora could only nod.

  ‘Sit down. I’m making you a hot chocolate. Okay?’

  Sitting down suddenly seemed like a very good idea.

  It wasn’t a nice table. It was one of those cheap varnished orangey pine ones, and there was a sticky patch of something under the palm of her hand. Caroline wasn’t what you’d call houseproud – there was dust all over the shelf in the bathroom and mouldy grout in the shower, although the loo was clean enough. Better things to do with her time.

  The smell of the hot chocolate made her feel sick, but she smiled at Caroline as she handed Flora the steaming mug and sat with her hands around it.

  ‘Ailish was right,’ she said. ‘I am MegaParentFail.’

  Caroline spluttered into her hot chocolate. ‘Like a character in a cartoon. This is a job for MegaParentFail!’

  ‘No, but really – I lost it with Beckie, this morning. I just lost it. As if things aren’t bad enough for her already.’

  ‘Give yourself a break, Flora. You’re a good person in a really difficult situation.’

  ‘But I’m not! That’s the whole problem – I’m not a good person, I’m – I did something really, really terrible when I was… when I was younger. What if the Johnsons find out – we’ll lose Beckie, or Neil will leave me and take Beckie.’

  Caroline put her slim, elegant hand over Flora’s podgy one. ‘That’s not going to happen. And come on, whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as all that. We’ve all done mad things when we were younger.’ She made a face. ‘Don’t tell Ailish, whatever you do, but I’ve got a conviction for drunk and disorderly. Apparently I was actually dancing on the roof of this poor bastard’s car. In stilettos. Knickers on display. Can’t remember a fucking thing about it, but there is photographic evidence in a dusty police file somewhere.’

  ‘Caroline, it’s… it’s a lot worse than that.’

  ‘Everything seems a hundred times worse than it is at 2:15 in the morning. Look, why don’t you go and see your GP tomorrow and they can maybe give you something – just for now, just to help you sleep and stuff. I’m guessing you’ve not been sleeping much.’

  ‘Not much.’

  ‘You’re going to get through this, Flora. You’re all going to get through this.’

  Chapter 21

  Flora was virtually certain that the yob sitting across the waiting room staring at her was a Johnson, or a Johnson’s minion. She knew she’d seen him before. He had a long neck and a little head and a big Adam’s apple like a turkey, and sharp little eyes fixed on her.

  There were three other patients in the room, but they were all elderly women. They’d be no help if he went for her. And Sheena, the receptionist in the little office behind the glass window, probably had a non-intervention clause in her contract which meant she would sit there watching if one patient decided to attack another in front of her.

  He was definitely looking at Flora.

  Thank God Beckie wasn’t here.

  Neil had driven Beckie to school while Flora walked to the Health Centre. She’d felt the need for exercise, the need to get rid of all the pent-up energy inside her. She had expected Neil to object, to worry that it might be unsafe for her to walk even three streets to the Health Centre in broad daylight.

  But he hadn’t.

  He’d just said, ‘Can you pick Beckie up this afternoon?’

  And the energy was still inside her, still making her legs twitch, her heels jig up and down on the carpet as if she was some hyperactive child come for her Ritalin.

  The waiting room was smaller than she remembered.

  A lot smaller. She felt as if she could reach out and touch the wall opposite, reach out and punch that yob right in the Adam’s apple – he’d better watch it, she was ninja trained – oh God, Ailish’s face when Jed-Bag had gone flying out of the window!

  And then suddenly the yob was up and out of his chair and coming for her, out of nowhere, and she caught a huge gulp of air and jumped up and yelled something, and she was kicking out at his crotch and he was yelling too, and he was staggering back, away, and ‘You fucking bastard!’ she was shouting, and now thank God, there was Dr Swain and she was telling him what happened and the Johnson was whining and denying it, ‘I never touched her,’ and she was screaming, ‘Keep away from me you fucking bastard! Keep away from my daughter!’

  Her head felt enormous and fragile, like her brain had swollen up and her skull was a thin bony balloon and all the nerves inside it were being squashed up against it and soon the whole thing was going to burst open. It hurt to open her eyes. She was lying down on something that felt funny – a piece of paper of all things, a giant piece of paper. She was on one of those narrow beds in a consulting room.

  She could hear Neil’s voice and another man’s, talking too quietly for her to hear.

  ‘Neil?’

  ‘It’s okay Flora. You’re okay.’ Her hand was squeezed tight. ‘You’ve had a sort of panic attack, the doctor thinks... Do you remember?’

  In the queue of traffic up Inverleith Row, she sat on the passenger seat clutching her bag in her lap and looking out at all the people strolling by on the pavement, all the people with nice safe normal lives.

  ‘I’m not going mad,’ she finally said.

  Neil, always a nervous driver, gave her a distracted look. ‘Of course you’re not. No one’s suggesting that.’

  Dr Swain had told her he thought her ‘panic attack’ had been a result of a combination of stress and sleep deprivation. He’d written her a prescription for an SSRI – just a short course of it, for a month. Then she was to go back and see him again.

  ‘Neil, that man –’

  Neil grimaced. ‘Yeah, he’s not pressing charges or anything. I explained our situation –’

  ‘Oh, I imagine he already knows all about our situation. They’re messing with me, Neil. Trying to make out I’m mad and an unfit mother so they can get Beckie back. He did try to attack me. Surely the other people in the waiting r
oom could confirm that?’

  ‘Apparently he stood up, tripped, and you – you went for him, basically. He didn’t attack you.’ His eyes were back on the road, on the brake lights of the white van in front.

  ‘Okay, maybe he didn’t actually touch me, but he wanted me to think he was about to. So I’d react. So I’d look like a nutter.’

  ‘He’s not a Johnson.’ His voice was wearily patient. ‘In fact, we know him – Darren, dunno his surname, but he’s the lad that works with Bill Allen.’

  Bill Allen was the builder who’d done their kitchen extension last year.

  ‘His apprentice?’ Neil prompted. ‘Shy young lad? But nice – he made Beckie that wooden hamster from an offcut. The one she has on her windowsill.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘He said he was wondering whether he should say “Hello” or not. He got up to go to the toilet and tripped on the leg of the play table and sort of lurched forward – in your direction – and that’s when you…’

  ‘Kicked him in the balls. Oh God.’

  ‘I think he saw the funny side. Said he wouldn’t be suing you – didn’t fancy producing the evidence in court.’

  ‘But – okay, so maybe it was this Darren boy, but how do we know he’s not in league with the Johnsons? Maybe that’s how they found us – maybe he’s a cousin or something –’

  ‘Flora, they finished the extension a year ago. If that’s how they found us, how come they’ve only now shown up? Of course Darren isn’t involved.’

  ‘You don’t even believe it was them yesterday, do you? The Johnsons are all sweetness and light and it’ll be lovely when they’re part of Beckie’s life – Let’s throw them a party, in fact, let’s have them all round for a barbeque and get this open adoption rolling!’

  Neil didn’t say anything. He indicated left, pulled over onto a double yellow line and stopped the car.

  ‘Okay. So what do you want to do?’

  ‘Right. For a start, can we expedite the CCTV installation? Pay them extra to hurry things along? We need to get firm evidence of the Johnsons harassing and intimidating us, and as soon as possible. Enough evidence to get them put away, ideally.’