Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

  And then the view was obliterated by something large and pink.

  It receded from the lens and resolved itself into the rear view of a fat girl in a black skirt and, despite the rain, a short-sleeved pink blouse. And next to her an even larger woman in a black raincoat and leggings. They were swaying up the path to the door.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  The bell chimed.

  Flora opened the door to two pale, fleshy faces blinking at her.

  ‘You’re Flora, aye? You’re wee Beckie’s new maw?’

  Oh God.

  She wanted to slam the door on them, but Caroline put a hand on her arm and said, ‘And you are…?’

  ‘I’m Lorraine Johnson. You’ll have heard of me, aye? Beckie’s gran? This’s my daughter Carly.’ She had a voice like a foghorn.

  Flora couldn’t help it – she took a step back. The woman was a formidable presence – a solid chunk of flesh, 20 stones at least, with rolls of fat under a determined, jutting chin. And clever little eyes that seemed to see right into Flora’s heart.

  The daughter blinked at Flora with a sad face, the rain glistening on her curly hair and round rosy cheeks and making dark splotches on her blouse. She was very pretty, with a sweetness to her expression that reminded Flora, horribly, just a little, of Beckie.

  ‘We didnae mean to get your husband in trouble, aye?’ Lorraine Johnson shouted. ‘We didnae want him charged or nothing, we just wanted to make sure he didnae come back and hurt Carly again. She could’ve lost the wean. She’s six months pregnant, right? She’s no in any condition to be getting assaulted and that. But we thought they’d just give him a caution.’

  In the sudden silence, footsteps on gravel in Ailish’s garden could be heard just the other side of the hedge.

  Oh God.

  ‘Now hold on just a minute,’ said Caroline. ‘It’s you who’ve been harassing Neil and Flora. Neil only wanted to talk to you. He never meant to hurt anyone.’

  ‘He didn’t assault her,’ said Flora.

  ‘We’ve got it on camera, hen.’

  ‘He just pushed her to get past – he didn’t mean her any harm –’

  ‘We know he was angry, aye,’ Lorraine Johnson bellowed, tears now in her eyes, ‘but he shouldnae have taken it out on a pregnant lassie, eh? We dinnae want no trouble. We’re no here to see Beckie. We know we’re no allowed. You’ve taken her off of us and that’s broke our hearts, but it’ll finish us, so it will, if anything happens to this wee one.’

  And she placed her hand on Carly’s massive stomach.

  ‘Please!’ she wailed. ‘Just leave us alone!’

  Flora opened her mouth.

  ‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Caroline.

  ‘I’m that sorry about the other day, eh?’ the ghastly woman continued, chins wobbling with emotion. ‘Jed’s in bits about Beckie, all he wanted was to get a wee deek at her, a wee glimpse, but when he saw you slapping her he lost it…’

  ‘Slapping her?’ said Caroline.

  ‘We know we’ve no say in how Beckie is disciplined now. Only – please, Flora. Dinnae hit the bairn.’

  ‘But – I’ve never hit Beckie! I don’t know what he thought he saw…’ She turned, desperately, to Caroline, her mouth so dry she could hardly get the words out. ‘You were there, in the street, when they… I didn’t hit Beckie, did I?’

  ‘Flora would never hit Beckie,’ Caroline said at once.

  ‘But you were there – you know I didn’t!’

  But of course Caroline didn’t know any such thing. She only arrived on the scene after Jed Johnson had started shouting.

  Caroline, though, was nodding. ‘I was there,’ she agreed. ‘Flora was hugging Beckie while your husband and sons were threatening her. She wasn’t hitting her.’

  Rage filled Flora.

  ‘How dare you come here accusing me of God knows what on the say-so of that man? A convicted killer! Your husband is a convicted killer, and thank God Beckie doesn’t have to live with him any more, or any of your nightmare of a family! You’re not the victims here!’

  ‘And you know what? You’re in breach of the court order just by being on this property,’ Caroline added.

  ‘So just fuck off!’ Flora flung out a hand to point past them to the gate. ‘Fuck off!’

  The girl took a tottering step back, and Lorraine Johnson put an exaggeratedly protective arm round her. ‘No need for that, eh?’

  ‘I think you’d better leave,’ said Caroline calmly, reaching past Flora to shut the door.

  ‘She’s got a gob on her, right enough,’ goes Carly.

  ‘Aye,’ I goes. ‘The brass neck of her. Giving it “You’re not the victims here.” It’s our wee lassie’s been taken off of us for no reason and we’re no the fucking victims?’

  Jed shuffles his arse in the Lazee-Boy and he doesnae open his eyes but random sounds come out his gob. He’s fleein’ so he is. There’s a damp bit of piss on his joggers. Good job that Lazee-Boy’s wipe clean.

  Travis goes, ‘Aye Da, my thoughts exactly’ and the kids are all ‘Aye, Father Jack,’ the cheeky wee buggers.

  The dug grabs a bit pizza off of Jordaine’s plate, and she grabs it back and shoves it in her gob, and Mackenzie’s like that: ‘You wee minger!’ and I’m biting my tongue but Carly doesnae hold back, she’s ‘Dinnae you call your wean a minger, that’s gonnae undermine her confidence’ and Mackenzie’s: ‘Go and take your face for a shite Carly, and maybe come back when you’ve popped that wean and ken what the fuck you’re on about.’

  I goes, ‘Shut it yous. When Bekki’s back I dinnae want none of this shite this and fuck that, aye? That wee lassie’s gonnae show all yous up so she is.’

  Mackenzie makes a face, and Corrigan goes, ‘Aye, cos Bekki’s a fucking wee angel.’

  ‘Corrigan!’ I yell. That boy hasnae quit giving me grief since he took his first fucking breath, wickit wee red face yowling and looking at me like he was: Aye Lorraine, here’s me, another fucking mad Johnson bastard.

  I’m needing outta here. I get my arse in the kitchen with the wee pay-as-you-go I bought yesterday. I put in the number for Social Services at Glasgow City Council.

  ‘Oh, hello,’ I goes when I’m through to the right fucker. ‘This is Lydia Ross from Police Scotland – I’m calling in connection with the Saskia Mair investigation?’

  ‘Oh. Right...’ And you can hear the bint thinking: Christ, am I in the shit here? What are they wanting to speak to me for?

  ‘I’m not sure if it was you or your colleague I spoke to yesterday?’

  ‘That must have been Teresa.’

  ‘Okay, well, no matter. We’ve just been to interview Saskia Mair again but it seems she’s no longer at the same address, or at least that was the story – could you just check and see if the address at Bielside Road is her current one, please? We’re outside the property now, so if you could do that now, that would be great.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Relieved it’s no her arse in the shit. ‘Could you just hold on one second while I call up the file?’

  Candy from a bairn.

  ‘When’s Bekki gonnae be here?’ says wee Kai when I get back in the lounge. He cannae wait. God love him, he asked me the other day if Jordaine was gonnae get swapped for Bekki, like he was hoping.

  Bairns!

  ‘In a wee while,’ I goes.

  ‘I’m gonnae save this for Bekki,’ goes Kai, and he lifts up the slice of pizza he’s piled pepperoni on that he’s picked off of the slice he’s eaten. Kai doesnae like pepperoni. It all falls on the carpet and the dug hoovers it.

  ‘She willnae want pizza,’ goes Corrigan. ‘Bekki only eats organic shite made by beardy wankers cos she’s saving the fucking planet, the fucking wee snob.’

  ‘Travis!’ I goes. ‘Are you gonnae just sit there and let him aff wi’ that?’

  Travis is on his tablet. He doesnae even look up, he just goes, ‘Shut it ye wee bass.’

  Looks like Travis and Mackenzie are maybe gett
ing back together, and I’m no sure how I feel about that. It’ll be barry seeing more of the weans, and they need taking in hand right enough, but that wee minger Mackenzie, I hate her fucking guts. She’s a shite mother. Puts Jordaine in wee crop tops and lets her wear make-up and Jordaine’s only five year old. Films her doing sexy moves, grinding her wee hips in time to Beyoncé. Gives me the boak. Gonnae end up a tart like her maw if we dinnae nip that in the bud.

  Carly goes, ‘Do you reckon Ailish heard?’

  ‘Oh aye, darlin’. She heard all right.’

  Timing was spot on. You could set your watch by that Ailish bint. Back home two-thirty every Thursday with her weekly shop from Marks and Sparks. So she’s out there unloading for two, three minutes, and no way is that nosy cow not earwigging when two gobby bitches roll up at the Parrys’ door.

  ‘Flora was bricking it,’ goes Carly.

  ‘“But I never hit Bekki!”’ I goes.

  Ryan and Travis are pissing themselves.

  ‘You were ace, Maw,’ goes Carly. ‘Here, if I have this wean pre-term I could maybe sue those bastards, eh, make out like it was the assault caused it –’

  ‘Jesus Chutney! Dinnae even think about it!’

  ‘I’m joking you!’

  Aye, but is she? God’s sakes, this fucking family.

  And now Travis is going ‘Aw Christ, look at the state of it,’ because Connor’s at the lounge door in his funeral suit, and Mackenzie’s cackling, and Corrigan goes ‘Put a suit on a bampot, it’s still a bampot’ and Travis is leaning over to high-five the wee shite, and I’m ‘Corrigan!’

  ‘Aye Corrigan,’ goes Connor. ‘You’ll maybe wannae reflect on the fact that when I was your age I could spell my own fucking name, aye? So if I’m a bampot, what does that make you?’

  Corrigan’s giving him evils.

  ‘He’s fucking dyslexic?’ goes Mackenzie.

  ‘Aye, and the rest,’ goes Ryan.

  Connor eyeballs me. ‘You ready, Maw?’

  ‘Aye son.’ I get up off my arse. ‘Aye son, let’s us get outta here.’

  I park on the street opposite 24 Turner Drive. It’s a nice area, a posh wee street with bungalows and gardens for folk that’s got nothing better to do than go at their lawns with nail scissors, and bonnie blossom trees, and it’s a right bonnie evening with the sun hitting the blossom, still as anything, and at the end of the street you get a wee keek at the sea with the sunlight dancing off of it.

  I need a jobbie. Fucking pizza lying heavy.

  We start with Number 22 next door, but the place is dead and no bastard answers. Number 26 but, a wee wifie comes to the door carrying a yappy wee dug, a manky Scottie with brown scliters down its gob.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ I goes in a polite wee voice. ‘My name’s Susan Marchbanks and this is Kenneth Brown – we’re from a company called We-Locate that searches for heirs of people who’ve died intestate and left a sizeable estate...’

  ‘As featured on Heir Hunters,’ goes Connor.

  Aye, and that’s got her attention right enough. ‘Although it’s mainly our Solihull branch features in the programme.’

  She’s nodding along, pound signs dancing across her fucking eyeballs.

  ‘It’s Ruth Innes we’re looking for,’ I goes.

  It’s pure comical so it is – the trip to the Canaries and the new smart TV gone for a Burton.

  ‘The last address we have for her is 24 Turner Drive,’ goes Connor.

  I says, ‘There’s a monetary reward for information that allows us to trace an heir. Any information you can provide about Ruth Innes or her family could qualify.’

  ‘Oh? What kind of... monetary reward would you be talking about?’

  Connor opens the folder he’s got with him and makes like he’s checking. ‘Given the value of the estate, we’d be looking at a sum in the region of one thousand three hundred pounds.’

  She’s back interested. ‘Well, I don’t know if what I can tell you would be of any help...’

  ‘You’d be surprised. Mrs...?’ I smile.

  ‘Campbell. Jean Campbell.’

  ‘Would you like to talk to us now, or...’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine. Please, come in.’

  She shuts the dug up somewhere ben the house and comes back in the front room with a tray with mugs and biscuits. Connor’s got the form he printed out last night, and he sits there on the Parker Knoll and starts reading out questions – name, date of birth, all that shite, then it’s ‘Do you have a current address for Ruth Innes?’

  Wifie: ‘No, I’m afraid not. After her mother died and the bungalow was sold, I didn’t see Ruth again.’

  Me: ‘Did you know the family well when they lived next door?’

  Wifie: ‘Not to say well, but she was a good neighbour, Liz Innes, especially after my husband died. We’d have morning coffee together now and then, and go for the odd walk.’

  There’s something she’s no saying. There’s something here right enough.

  Connor: ‘And did you see much of her daughter Flora?’

  The wee diddy. ‘You mean Ruth, Kenneth.’ I roll my eyes at the wifie. ‘I think you’re getting mixed up with Flora Adams from a previous case.’

  ‘Oh aye. Aye. Sorry, Maw.’

  Fucking hell.

  ‘Susan,’ he goes, a right beamer on him.

  I shake my head and give a wee giggle. ‘They call me “Ma” in the office because I’m always asking if they had enough for breakfast and telling them to wipe their feet – and this one’s getting a clip round the ear in a minute! Ha ha ha!’

  Wifie smiles, but like she’s thinking Eh...?

  ‘So,’ I goes. ‘Did you see much of Ruth?’

  Wifie: ‘No, Ruth wasn’t home much. She was at boarding school, you see, and then university.’

  ‘So they weren’t close, then, Mrs Innes and her daughter?’

  Wifie sucks in her cheeks. ‘I wouldn’t say they were close, no. It was odd, actually – I always thought it was odd that she hardly ever mentioned Ruth. I’m always blethering on about my two boys and the grandchildren, you can’t shut me up, but Liz – if you asked her how Ruth was doing she’d just smile and say “Oh fine” and change the subject.’

  I knew it! I fucking knew it!

  ‘She was a cold woman in a way. Perfectly nice, but... not much warmth to her. On the few occasions Ruth was home, I never saw them go out together to the shops or anything. They seemed to live very much separate lives, which I thought was sad. Ruth was a lovely girl. She used to take Molly – my old Westie, Dee-Dee’s great-grandmother – for walks, and she’d come in and feed her and cuddle her and groom her. Lovely. I wondered – even before the accident, I mean – I wondered if maybe Liz was depressed.’

  I goes, ‘This is the accident with the milk float you’re talking about?’

  Wifie: ‘Awful. It really was. I saw it happen, you know. I was potting up plants at the front door... Primroses, I think. No – no, it was pansies. Liz was crossing the street – the milk float had been parked at the kerb but then it started reversing. Liz – she seemed rooted to the spot. I shouted at her and dropped a pot onto the slabs, and it smashed, and then the milk float hit her and she went under the wheels. She could have got out of the way but she didn’t even seem to try. I almost got the impression – as I said at the time – I almost got the impression that she couldn’t be bothered moving. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the way she just stood there sort of slumped... As if she was in a daze...’

  Connor: ‘That must have been hard for Ruth.’

  Wifie: ‘Oh, terrible. But I had to speak out, you see, at the fatal accident inquiry, for the sake of the poor driver. Yes, he should have looked in his mirrors before he started reversing, but it wasn’t as if she couldn’t have got out of the way.’

  I goes, ‘So what you’re saying is that it was... to all intents and purposes... suicide by milk float?’

  Connor snorts.

  Wifie gives him evils
. ‘You could almost say that. The driver was convicted of dangerous driving nevertheless – got a few months in prison, poor man. He was devastated.’

  ‘He must have been,’ I goes.

  ‘Hell of a thing to happen.’ Connor makes like he’s consulting his notes. ‘And Liz and Ruth came to live next door when?’

  ‘Oh – it would have been about 1983, I suppose.’

  ‘They moved here from Australia, aye?’

  ‘Well.’ Wifie purses her lips. ‘That was their story. Liz had an Australian accent, yes, just a slight one. But Ruth didn’t. And when I would ask Ruth about Australia, she used to contradict what Liz had told me. About where they lived in Sydney, for one thing – Liz told me they lived in a suburb a lot like on Neighbours, and when they left to come to the UK there was even a street party in the cul de sac to wish them Bon voyage, but when I asked Ruth later if she enjoyed watching Neighbours because it reminded her of her old home – this was when Neighbours had just started and everyone was watching it – she said, “Oh but we lived in a flat in the city, it was nothing like Neighbours.” I told her that Liz had said they did live in a similar suburb, and you could see her thinking fast, and then she came out with, “I was too young to remember – we moved to the city when I was five.” But Liz had told me they had that street party in the cul de sac when they left for the UK. That’s when I knew they weren’t telling the whole truth about it. And there were things Ruth didn’t know about Australia – like where Darwin was. Any child growing up in Australia would know that, surely?’

  ‘Aye,’ I goes, ‘that’s a bit strange. So you think maybe Liz was Australian but Ruth was brought up somewhere else?’

  ‘That was my suspicion. Although why they’d lie about it I don’t know.’

  Aye, that was the question all right. That was the fucking question.

  ‘Well, this is all very useful information, Mrs Campbell. Thank you.’ I goes to stand up.

  ‘And the monetary...?’

  ‘We’ll be in touch if the information you’ve provided facilitates the location of Ruth Innes,’ goes Connor.

  ‘And before we go,’ I says, ‘would it be possible to use your lavatory?’