by Jane Renshaw
But the police would be asking people about anyone they’d seen. There might even be CCTV in the street.
There were four doors off the tiny hall. The second one she tried was a cupboard, with some coats hanging up and others in a pile on top of various boxes. She found a raincoat which was way too small but which, tied round her waist by the sleeves, flapped over her knees and concealed the blood stains.
Now she needed something to hide her face.
A hat?
She couldn’t see one.
She opened another door – a bathroom, smelling of mould and uncleaned toilet, a grey tidemark all round the bath. And another – a chaotic bedroom – clothes all over the bed and floor, a furring of dust on the cheap pine dressing table.
She had her hand on the wardrobe when she realised: fingerprints. DNA.
She grabbed a dirty pink T-shirt from the floor and used it to wipe the door of the wardrobe, then the door handles in the hall. Had she touched anything else? Had she touched Saskia? Would her DNA be on Saskia’s body?
She thought she had maybe touched her face.
Her neck, definitely, when she was feeling for a pulse.
Then, she had touched her with the tenderness of one human confronted by another who’d been hurt, who needed help. Now, it was like being a butcher prepping a slab of meat as she wiped the T-shirt flinchingly across Saskia’s dead forehead, cheeks and neck.
Then she returned to the wardrobe and used the T-shirt to open it.
No hats.
There were a couple of hoodies badly folded on a shelf, one of which, a pale grey one, looked roomy enough to fit her. She grabbed it, wriggled it on over her top and pulled up the hood, feeling the need to hide her face immediately. It smelt of sweat and sickly deodorant. Her throat contracted and she gagged.
She folded her arms, hands tucked away so she wouldn’t accidentally touch anything else, and stepped carefully from the bedroom to the hall – she didn’t look down again – and to the front door of the flat. It was still standing slightly open.
She stopped just inside it and listened, but there were no sounds coming from the stairwell. Quickly, before she lost her nerve, she stepped onto the stone landing and, tugging the sleeve of the hoodie over her hand, pulled the door almost shut.
Her mouth dry, her pulse thumping in her ears, she made herself walk, not run, down the stone steps, onto the landing below, past the two doors there, onto the next flight of steps, the raincoat flapping against her legs.
On the next landing down she could hear voices behind one of the doors, the scruffy black one. What if the door suddenly opened and they saw her?
Grabbing the bannister, she flung herself round the curve of the stairwell and down two steps at once – and jolted to a halt.
Idiot!
She’d touched the bannister with her bare hand.
She pulled the thin wool of the hoodie’s sleeve over her hand and ran it back up the bannister to where she’d grabbed it. She was going to be sick. Sour bile was rising at the back of her throat again –
If she was sick, could they get DNA from it?
Swallowing and gasping, she somehow made it down the last flight of stairs to the dingy passage that led to the main door.
Her footsteps clopped along it, echoing up the stair as she heard a voice on the landing above; a harsh laugh.
She ran.
Pulling the sleeve back over her hand, she wrenched open the heavy door and ran out into the air, up the narrow close to the street, to the litter and the traffic and the run-down shop fronts and the people walking by – an old woman’s sharp little eyes on her –
She stopped running – slowed to a normal pace, her legs almost buckling under her, as if they’d forgotten how to do it, how to move normally.
She looked down at her feet as they moved, one past the other, at the grubby pavement with its pock marks of chewing gum, its fag ends and its broken paving. It had been raining, and where the slabs had sunk and cracked, dirty brown puddles had formed in random geometric shapes. Even the puddles here had hard edges. The pavement had a sheen on it, and her right foot came down on a disintegrating scratch card stuck to its surface.
All around her was the sound of people, potential witnesses – so many cars swishing past, so many bodies passing by, looking at her, probably, this strange woman in the hoodie walking with her head down.
But it had been raining, so maybe that was okay.
She risked a glance up to get her bearings. There was the newsagent on the corner with dusty windows behind metal grilles, a stark contrast to the aggressively smiling, doll-like celebrity couple on the sandwich board outside.
She waited for a break in the traffic, hood pulled well over her face, and when it came she ran across the road, ran up the sidestreet where she’d left her car.
The tears came, for some reason, as soon as she caught a glimpse of red behind the broad rear of a silver four-by-four. Her little red Ka. For some reason, it was at this moment that she was no longer able to hold back the image of Saskia’s little boy in his mother’s arms, the arms that had held him as no one else ever would again.
I just wanted to see you.
Fumbling the key from her pocket she pointed and pressed the rubbery button and the car winked its lights at her and she hauled open the door and dived inside.
Chapter 24
The internet was full of Saskia, although her name hadn’t yet been released.
While Beckie and Neil ate breakfast and argued about whether cats were too intelligent to be trained (Beckie) or not intelligent enough (Neil), Flora sat on one of the sofas with her laptop, trawling through the news feeds, trying to concentrate through the pulses of pain just above her eyebrows.
With the sound muted, she watched an STV reporter standing on the street outside the entrance to the close, while in the background a little crowd of people had gathered and a policewoman stood in front of the ‘Police – Road Closed’ sign, hands behind her back, face impassive. Behind her, blue and white police tape was stretched right across the road, and between the Road Closed sign and the tape there were white vans and police cars parked and people milling about, some in black police uniforms, some in white forensic suits, some in plain clothes.
She closed the page and did another search for ‘Glasgow woman dead’. A BBC article was the first hit. It said that a woman had been found dead in a flat in the Haghill area of Glasgow and police were treating her death as suspicious. And that she was understood to be a former social worker who had recently been suspended from her post with Glasgow City Council pending an inquiry into her conduct.
She closed her eyes.
‘Mum?’ said Beckie. ‘Can we?’
She looked up. ‘Hmm?’
‘When Mia’s cat has kittens, can we have one? Dad says we can if you agree.’
‘I didn’t say that, Beckie,’ Neil said quickly, aiming an appeasing smile at Flora. He thought she was still angry with him – about the ‘assault’ on Carly Johnson and/or his new laissez faire strategy. He thought that was why she’d burst into tears when he’d started apologising again about it as they were preparing breakfast. He thought that was why she was so touchy and trembly and snappy.
She wished she could tell him about Saskia. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell him why she hadn’t called the police.
Instead, she’d told him she hadn’t gone to see Saskia after all. That she’d decided he was right, and they couldn’t trust her. That she would ask Deirdre about the Johnsons instead.
‘So can we?’ Beckie persisted.
‘No we can’t.’ She sighed. ‘Beckie. Do you really think getting a kitten is a good idea?’
Beckie’s face became expressionless. ‘Because the Johnsons might kill it?’
‘Oh, no darling, I just meant – kittens are a lot of work...’ She shut the laptop and came over to the table and draped her arms round Beckie’s neck. ‘The Johnsons aren’t going to do anything bad to us. And e
ven if they try to, the police will arrest them.’
‘They already tried to and the police haven’t done anything.’
‘Well, they’ve cautioned them. So if they do anything else, they’ll be in big trouble. And now we’ve got the CCTV, we’ll have them on camera if they come anywhere near the house.’
What if she’d been caught on CCTV at Saskia’s? What if even now the police were on their way here to arrest her?
But if she was on CCTV, surely whoever had killed Saskia would be too?
The Johnsons.
She wasn’t going to kid herself that anyone else could be responsible.
They’d killed Saskia. They must have found out that Saskia had been suspended from her post for hurting children. And they’d managed to track her down and kill her.
And if they were capable of that, what might they do to Flora and Neil and Beckie?
‘They can’t do anything to us, darling,’ she finished lamely. ‘And now we’re going to forget all about them and have a really fun day. After we’ve been to Cairn Hill, how about we have lunch at the Bistro?’
‘Okay.’ Beckie wriggled out from her arms and stood. ‘I have to brush my teeth.’
When she’d left the room, Neil said, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Why on earth would you tell her she can have a kitten?’
‘I didn’t. But would it be such a terrible idea?’
‘Do you really think I have the energy at the moment to cope with a demanding small animal? Because it would be me dealing with it, wouldn’t it?’ She sat down at the table opposite him and rubbed her forehead. ‘Beckie can have her tablet in the car, just this once, so I can get some sleep.’ It was the only thing guaranteed to keep her quiet.
‘We shouldn’t be inconsistent about these things, Flora.’
‘I’ve got a really bad headache and I need to sleep in the car, okay?’
Neil raised his eyebrows – Whatever – and left the room.
Connor’s sitting in his PC World uniform with his laptop, reading all about Mair’s tragic and untimely demise, and he’s like that: ‘What if there’s another CCTV camera that yous didnae clock?’
Ryan rolls his eyes at me and he’s all ‘Dinnae you have a cow, Wee Man. We was in wigs and that, eh, and I had a right fat belly on me, and the neb on Maw – you wouldnae have picked us out a line-up yoursel’.’
Connor’s no happy. ‘The motor, but?’
‘Stolen fucking motor with false plates?’
‘Aye...’ goes Connor.
‘Aye,’ goes Ryan. ‘So shut it with your fucking whinging. We covered all the bases. Gold stars all round. We’re no in performance-below-acceptable-standard territory here, eh?’ And he’s chuckling away to hisself.
Connor’s on another verbal at his work for performance below acceptable standard. They get in the shite if they just sell the punter what they’re wanting without any of they crap extra care plans and add-ons and that, and the manager’s telt the wee diddy he’d better start pushing the crap or else.
Jed wakes up and goes, ‘That bint’s motor’s gonnae be picked up in the vicinity though, eh? She’s no gonnae have false plates. Get on the polis, son, and get clyping on the bitch. You saw this bird looking suspicious and you got the plate.’
I roll my eyes at Ryan and he rolls his eyes at me. Are we the only ones in this family with any fucking sense?
‘Naw Da, no yet,’ goes Ryan. ‘The plan, aye?’
‘The plan? The plan? Away and shove your fucking plan,’ goes Jed, and falls back asleep, the prick.
Chapter 25
Flora was woken from a heavy doze by Beckie’s whine at the bedroom door. ‘I want to say goodbye to Mum.’
‘Mum’s asleep – we have to let her rest,’ came Neil’s voice.
‘It’s okay, I’m not asleep,’ she called, and Beckie shot into the dark bedroom and wormed into the bed and pressed her cool little body against Flora’s side.
‘I don’t want to go to school,’ she said. ‘I want to stay here with you. Can I?’
Flora’s heart turned over. ‘I’m sorry, darling, but you have to go to school. You have to give out the party invitations, don’t you?’
God. This bloody party.
‘I should stay and look after you.’ Beckie’s fingers stroked Flora’s arm.
‘Well darling, really I think I just need to sleep.’
‘The doctor said it was nothing serious?’ Beckie had asked her this about three times since Flora had been back to Dr Swain about her tiredness and headaches and general – well, he’d said it was depression and upped her dose of the SSRI, but it would be a couple of weeks until she felt any effect. Meanwhile, it was a struggle to get out of bed, let alone cope with the nightmare their lives had become.
‘It’s definitely nothing serious, Beckie. I promise you. The best thing you can do to make me feel better is go to school so I know you’re with your friends and teachers having a nice time.’
‘I won’t have a nice time though.’
‘Beckie,’ said Neil gently, and Flora lay passively as he eased back the covers and lifted Beckie out of the bed. They’d all regressed in the last few days, Beckie behaving like a much younger child, and Neil and Flora treating her as such.
Things had got a lot worse after the Children’s Reporter’s visit. Although, as Neil said, the visit itself couldn’t have gone better – Karen Baxter had been a nice woman, lovely with Beckie, and had reassured them as she left after her private ‘chat’ with Beckie that she had no concerns and no further action would be taken – Beckie was far from stupid and had realised what it all meant. That Karen had been there to check that Beckie was being well treated by her parents; that Karen had the power to take Beckie away from them, like she’d been taken away from the Johnsons.
Ever since, she’d become incredibly clingy, only happy away from Neil and Flora when she was with Caroline – who’d been wonderful, taking Beckie after school sometimes to give Flora a rest.
A much needed rest.
She didn’t even have the energy to keep tabs on the investigation into Saskia’s death. Neil was doing that off and on, although, of course, he wasn’t convinced that the Johnsons were responsible.
Saskia was all over the media now – she’d even been on the national news. Murder of disgraced social worker. Because, of course, the details of her disgrace had been leaked. And the police were now saying it was murder and were appealing for witnesses.
Someone was going to mention a strange woman in a grey hoodie, walking along with her head down. Maybe they’d be found, the hoodie and the raincoat, at the side of the road where Flora had flung them from the car window.
And her DNA would be on them, along with Saskia’s.
What more damning evidence could there possibly be?
She could hear Neil and Beckie now downstairs in the hall, Beckie whining about something or other, Neil’s voice patient, gentle. Neil was such a great father. He’d taken two weeks off work and did all the morning stuff, including making the extra lunch for Edith – she’d have to call Mrs Jenner again about Edith – and he drove Beckie to school every day; and because Beckie was nervous about being at school (‘What if the Johnsons come and get me?’), he then waited in the car outside until lunchtime – parked where Beckie could look out of her classroom window and see him – and then he drove her home for lunch, then back to school, where he waited until the school day was over.
He was prepared to humour Beckie’s fears, but not Flora’s.
Neil and Caroline thought she was completely overreacting to Saskia’s murder, that any number of people could have had a motive, given what Saskia had done – or that it could have been a motiveless stabbing by someone hanging about the close out of their skull on drugs. All of which was true, of course, looking at it objectively.
But Flora knew the Johnsons had done it.
She just knew.
The Johnsons were capable of anything.
So what wa
s she doing lying here? What kind of a mother was she, not even able to get out of bed and protect her own child, when they were facing God knew what threat from a bunch of murdering psychopaths?
Clever murdering psychopaths.
Neil had engaged the services of a solicitor specialising in criminal law. Charles Aitcheson had advised them to record everything, to make sure their phones were charged at all times so they could film any further breaches of the court order by the Johnsons, any further threatening behaviour or trespass... Unfortunately there was insufficient evidence, in his opinion, to secure a harassment conviction as things stood, and Neil himself had ‘compromised’ their case with the ‘assault’ on pregnant Carly which, he had warned, was likely to end in a conviction when it came to court in three months’ time, given that the incident had been caught on camera.
At least Flora hadn’t been.
It had come out that the CCTV cameras on the street outside the close had not been operational at the time of Saskia’s murder, and that no one had seen anyone acting suspiciously at the relevant time. The police were appealing for information about a woman who had buzzed one of the neighbours to get into the building to see Saskia, and were appealing for this woman to come forward.
But no one had yet come forward to say they’d seen her.
She drifted into a confused, repetitive dream in which she was endlessly climbing the stairs to Saskia’s flat, knowing what she would find there but somehow unable to stop and turn and go back down the stairs. Endlessly buzzing to get into the stair.
No, she was awake, and someone was ringing the doorbell. Ringing and ringing.
Caroline.
Caroline had promised to come round.
She managed to roll to the edge of the bed and stand up, her head swimming. She managed to get to the bedroom door, and down the stairs, and to the front door.
‘Oh God Flora,’ said Caroline.
Flora couldn’t look at her. Head bent like a naughty child, she studied the pattern of tiles in the vestibule, studied her own bare feet, and the toenails that had grown too long.