Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

  ‘The world is a wonderful place, Beckie,’ he had said. ‘And when you take notice of something wonderful in it – how this leaf protects itself, or what a fossil inside a rock did when it was alive millions of years ago, or why a bird sings – you get a little bit of the wonderful to have for yourself, no matter what not-so-wonderful things might be going on in your life at the time.’

  And then Beckie, of course, had wanted to know all about why birds sang, and they had gone round the Gardens listening out for robins as Neil explained that robins had territories all the time, not just in summer, and so they sang all year round – except when they were moulting in late summer and felt vulnerable – in order to tell other birds to keep off.

  Was there a robin where Beckie was, to sing for her? Did you even get robins in Spain? And Beckie would probably object: ‘It wouldn’t be singing for me anyway. It would be singing to tell other birds to get lost.’

  She set the binoculars down on the windowsill.

  Was she happy, with Caroline? Did she hate Flora now? Or was she wondering Why?

  Why doesn’t Mum come and get me?

  Flora’s hand went to her pocket, her fingers closing round the smooth length of the flick-knife Wendy’s partner Sol had procured for her.

  I will come.

  I will come for you, my darling.

  I will come.

  Chapter 39

  ‘Corrigan!’ I yell.

  Wee fucker’s jumped in the pool on Jordaine’s head and she’s yowling.

  ‘Right yous, picnic’s ready so get your arses outta there, aye? Ryan son, you coming?’

  ‘Naw Maw, I’m gonnae hit the gym.’ He’s never out that gym.

  ‘Carly and Willow are gonnae be done at WaterBabies twelve-twenty, twelve-thirty at the latest, but dinnae get there till one, aye? Place gets locked up so she’s gonnae have to fry her arse out on that pavement. Maybe teach the bint a lesson.’ Princess Fucking Carly cannae drive cos why should she, she’s got three fucking brothers chauffeuring her arse any place she needs to go.

  Ryan chuckles. ‘She’ll be a wee ray of sunshine, eh?’

  ‘Aye, and that reminds me, go and tell Lily-Mae she’s fucking coming on this fucking picnic.’

  Ryan sits up on the lounger and takes off his shades. I cannae get used to the shaved head and blue contacts. Aye, he needs to lie low, but Christ on a cheesy biscuit. He looks like a fucking skinhead.

  ‘Can Connor no go? Or Mandy?’

  ‘Better coming from you, son.’

  He loves Bekki to bits and he’s gutted she’s feart of him and doesnae want a bar of him because of all the shite she’s read on the net about Ryan being wanted for murdering her da. After all he’s done for her, it’s a kick in the fucking teeth. He cannae ever go back to the UK.

  And aye, I’ve telt Bekki over and over that it’s all shite, that it was Flora killed her da and she knows it, but just in case that wean’s got it in her heid she’s going to the polis and that? I’m ‘Polis catch up with us, you’re going into care, Bekki, cos that fucking woman doesnae want you back, right?’

  Ryan gets up and gets on his flip-flops but then here’s Bekki running out the patio doors giving it ‘He killed Dave!’

  Dave’s her hamster. She’s got it in her hand, and I can see from here it’s an ex-hamster right enough. Brains chirted out its wee heid.

  ‘Aw Jesus,’ goes Mandy.

  I yell, ‘Corrigan!’

  ‘It wasn’t Corrigan,’ goes Bekki. ‘It was that fucking old alky bastard!’

  And there’s Jed coming out the patio doors behind her, pissing himself laughing. ‘It was an acccccc-ident so it was.’

  ‘No it wasn’t! I poured his vodka down the sink and he must have gone and got Dave out of his cage and stood on him!’

  ‘Right you.’ I’m in Jed’s face. ‘This is your last fucking warning, right? You leave the wean alone, and that includes all of her belongings, right? You leave her be or you’re outta here, and you think I’m fucking joking? Aye, go to the polis then, you think we havenae got a Plan B? They’re never catching up with us but you go to the polis and that’s your arse back in the Big Bar L before you can say I’m a fucking fuckwit.’

  Jed’s effing and blinding, shuffling back in the house.

  ‘Sorry hen,’ I goes, and I pull Bekki into my chebs. ‘Poor wee Dave, eh? But it would’ve been quick right enough. He winnae have suffered.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she’s gasping.

  ‘Aye,’ goes Corrigan, coming out the pool and getting a good deek at the late lamented Dave. ‘He was maybe going “Fuck’s sake” when Granda’s size ten was coming down on his heid, and then he’s like that: “Where’s my fucking brains?”’

  ‘That’s what you say every day, isn’t it, Corrigan?’ Bekki’s back at him. She’s pulling away from me, standing there with the manky dead hamster in her hand, chin up like the wee fighter she is. ‘You know you were wanting a tattoo? How about that right across your forehead? Where’s my fucking brains?’

  Ryan and Connor and Mandy are pissing themselves.

  ‘Da!’ Corrigan goes to Travis. ‘She cannae say that, eh? That’s a fucking hate crime! I’m fucking dyslexic!’

  ‘Aye son.’ Travis is giving Bekki evils but he cannae think of a comeback, so he cannae.

  ‘If it was a crime to hate you, Corrigan,’ goes Bekki, ‘they’d need to build like a hundred new jails because everyone who’s met you would need locking up.’

  ‘Belter,’ goes Ryan.

  ‘Shut it yous!’ I goes. ‘We’re leaving in five, right, so get your shit together and let’s get to that fucking beach.’

  ‘I’m not coming,’ goes Bekki.

  ‘Aw Lily-Mae-hen, but you’re gonnae like this wee place, right, there’s a barry wee café serves Coke floats like me and Mands had when we was bairns, and there’s a wee harbour and that.’

  ‘I’m not coming.’

  And she’s running back in the house.

  I give her ten and then I go to her room. She’s got Dave’s remains in a cardboard box that had biscuits in it, and she’s got a wee pink scarf tucked round him.

  ‘Aw, that’s nice, eh?’ I goes. ‘Wannae have a wee funeral and bury him in the garden?’

  She’s no saying nothing.

  ‘I’m sorry, doll. Jed’s a f... a mentalist, eh? But he’s no gonnae do nothing like that again, I can promise you that.’

  ‘I want Mum.’

  I puff. ‘Bekki darlin’, Flora’s no your mum, she’s just a fucking random and if she finds out where you are, I’m no gonnae lie to you, hen, she’s gonnae try and kill you an’ all.’ I’m in her face. ‘So shut it about that bitch. We’re your family that loves you to bits, and we’re all you’ve got, so you’d better start fucking appreciating us and what all we’ve done for you, right? We’ve put it on the line for you, Bekki, we’ve had our lives turned upside down by that bitch but we’d do it all again for you in a heartbeat because we fucking love you, right? Now get your flip-flops and get your arse in that fucking people carrier.’

  She stood, just for a moment, in the shadow of the harbour wall, in the tepid few centimetres of water lapping at the sand, and looked out to the horizon where a cruise ship was slowly crossing from right to left. Her first foreign holiday with Alec had been to Italy, and they had stood like this looking out to sea as Alec had burbled on about why there were hardly any tides in the Mediterranean.

  And she had cut him short. ‘It’s just because the Mediterranean Sea is really a glorified lake, isn’t it?’

  And he’d opened his mouth and shut it again, and smiled at her, and said, ‘Pretty much.’

  She’d learned later that his mother had told him not to ‘pontificate at the poor girl’.

  She closed her eyes.

  Beckie’s voice said, ‘Boats have barnacles. Maybe there’s some on that one... Yes, look! Connor, come and see! If you lie here you can see them, you can see their tentacle things. They aren’t act
ually tentacles, they’re legs, but they don’t need legs to walk so evolution has made them into swishers to swish the food into their mouths. See!’

  ‘Aye, mad. Check that one, swishing like a bastard.’

  ‘And they’ve got the longest – you-know-whats of any creature compared with the size of their body, so they can reach other barnacles and – you know.’

  She couldn’t breathe.

  She wasn’t imagining this. That really was Beckie’s voice. And that must be Connor Johnson. The voices were coming from the other side of the harbour wall.

  ‘Ex-rated, eh, Beckie?’

  A silence. Then:

  ‘I hate your dad, Connor.’

  ‘Aye, well, join the club. Hey, Beckie. Hey, it’s okay hen.’

  And now Flora was running up the sand, running round the end of the wall and into the harbour and Beckie, it really was Beckie, lying on her stomach on the stone quay with her face pressed against her bare arm.

  Connor Johnson was patting her back.

  How had her legs got so long?

  And her hair was cropped short like a boy’s. And her ears – what had happened to her ears? They weren’t pixie any more. They didn’t stick out from her head at all.

  It was Beckie?

  Then the boy looked up and said, ‘Aw Jesus’ and the girl looked up and –

  ‘Mum?’

  And Flora was running along the quay towards them, and something was coming out of her mouth, she was saying ‘Beckie!’ over and over again, and Beckie’s face was alight and she was scrambling to her feet, but then the smile was gone and she was backing away.

  She was actually backing away.

  And the joy in her face had been replaced by –

  Oh God.

  Flora stopped dead. ‘Beckie, darling! Listen – I don’t know what they’ve been telling you, I don’t know what lies they’ve told you about me but –’

  ‘You killed Dad.’ Her voice was carefully controlled.

  ‘Oh Beckie, no! Of course not! That was Ryan Johnson. The police know that now. When they catch him, he’s going to prison for what he did.’

  ‘You told me you killed him. So don’t lie.’

  ‘I never told you that! You know I didn’t. How could you think I would kill Dad?’ She took a step towards her.

  Beckie took another step back. ‘You wrote me a letter and you said you never wanted me to contact you again and you killed Dad –’

  ‘No, darling. Lorraine must have written that letter.’

  Beckie was still backing up, tears coursing down her cheeks. ‘Don’t lie!’

  The boy suddenly spoke. ‘She’s no lying, Becks.’ He was a tall young man, in a blue T-shirt and dark jeans, with a gentle face. ‘That was Maw. That was Maw wrote that letter, right enough, making out she was your maw. She telt you, Beckie, that your maw didnae want nothing to do with you, and she telt your maw the same thing about you, but it wasnae true. I’m sorry, hen. I’m that sorry, eh?’ His face had gone bright red.

  Beckie was crying.

  And Beckie never cried.

  She was crying and staring at Flora.

  ‘So do you – do you – do you still want me really?’

  ‘Oh darling!’ And in three strides Beckie was in her arms and Flora was saying, ‘My darling, my darling, I don’t want anything else in the whole wide world.’

  But now someone was shouting, footsteps pounded on the stone quay and the boy was saying ‘Aw Christ’ and ‘Let them be, Maw’ and then she felt herself pulled back by the shoulders and oh God, how stupid she’d been, how stupid not to call the police, not to call Victor and his brother straight away, and then Caroline’s face was filling her vision, Caroline’s voice was saying ‘Hiya Flora’ and then she was being flung backwards, stumbling, and hard fingers closed round her arms and the stale stench of cigarettes and BO engulfed her as she twisted to come face to face with Jed Johnson.

  He grinned at her.

  ‘Mum!’

  Caroline had Beckie trapped in her arms. A new Caroline, a flabby Caroline with dirty blonde steaks in her hair.

  Lorraine Johnson.

  ‘She’s no your Mum, hen!’

  Flora kicked back against Jed’s legs and he grunted, and she managed to get her hand into her pocket, to close her fingers around her mobile phone, to pull it out –

  It was snatched from her hand by soft white fingers.

  A hugely fat woman was standing between her and Beckie and Caroline, smiling at her. ‘Oops.’ Without looking, the woman flicked her bloated fingers to toss the phone neatly into the water.

  And the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

  It was the ‘Lorraine Johnson’ who’d come to the door at Gardens Terrace.

  The family resemblance was striking.

  ‘Please,’ said Flora. ‘Please, just let Beckie go.’

  ‘Please!’ mimicked Jed in her ear.

  ‘Mands, get the weans in that wee café, aye, while we have ourselves a wee chat with this bitch? Connor son, get on the blower to that fuckwit Travis, tell him to get that fucking people carrier back here pronto cos we’ve got ourselves a wee situation, aye? Fucking mad bitch has only been and attacked Beckie.’

  ‘She didn’t!’ Beckie wailed. ‘You’re just pretending! You’re just pretending Mum is a bad person to make me stay with you but she isn’t!’

  With all the strength of her new prison gym-toned body, Flora stamped down on Jed’s foot and drove her elbow back into his body.

  ‘Fuckin’ –’

  And she thrust her hand back into the pocket of her jeans to pull out the flick-knife. She depressed the button and the wicked five-inch blade shot out of the casing and she lunged at Jed’s tattooed naked torso.

  The next thing she knew she was slamming into the stone surface of the quay, all the breath thumped out of her lungs, and the knife was bouncing away from her towards Caroline’s foot. And a hard body smacked down on top of her, Jed’s hands in her hair, pulling her head up as she gasped for the air she couldn’t suck into her lungs.

  Caroline looked down at her. ‘Like Mands said: Oops. See that, Beckie-hen? That’s a flick-knife and they’re fucking illegal, but when you’re a fucking serial killer that’s no gonnae give you many sleepless nights, eh? What were you gonnae do with that, Flora? Stick it in Beckie?’

  Flora gasped, desperately appealing to Beckie with her eyes: Don’t believe her, don’t believe her!

  ‘What’s a... a flick-knife?’ Beckie sounded so scared.

  ‘It’s a fucking murder weapon, hen. See the blade on that?’ Caroline nudged it with the toe of her flip-flop. ‘Flora, Flora, what next, eh?’

  And suddenly the weight on her back was gone. She rolled over to see the boy, Connor, wrestling with Jed. And a darting movement from Beckie, and then Beckie was standing with the flick-knife pointed, wobbling, at Caroline.

  The wee diddy! He’s rolling on Jed and Jed’s like that: ‘Fucking wee wanker!’ and Bekki’s pulling away and squatting and Jesus Chutney, she’s only got the fucking chib, and the bitch is getting up and I’m like that:

  ‘Bekki-hen, come here to me hen, I’ll no let her hurt you’ and wee Bekki’s looking at the bitch and then she’s looking at me and she’s got the chib in her hand and she’s all, ‘You’re a fucking liar’ and I’m ‘Naw hen’ and she’s ‘Mum would never hurt me’ and ‘You wrote that letter and you said really horrible things’ and I’m ‘Naw hen’ and she’s ‘You said Mum told me she killed Dad but how could you know that because I never told you what the letter said and you couldn’t have read it because I tore it up and put the bits in the bin’ and right enough, she’s one smart cookie so she is, and I’m ‘Aye, maybe there was a wee bit deception there but it was for your own good, aye? It’s all for your own good, Bekki, it’s all for you, my wee darlin’, it’s all of it been for you.’

  And then the bitch is ‘Come here, Bekki!’ and Jed’s roaring at Connor and I’m snatching at the wean and the
chib, it’s like it’s in slow motion, eh, the chib’s coming at me and it’s in my fucking neck.

  ‘I hate you!’ Bekki’s greeting, and I cannae speak, eh, and I’m on the deck and Connor’s like that: ‘Maw!’ and the wee diddy’s taken the chib out my neck and the blood’s pouring out me and I get my fingers in the hole and I’m ‘It’s okay hen, it’s okay.’ There’s grey circles in my eyes but I manage to say it:

  ‘A wee accident, eh?’

  Fuck it, but.

  Five years later

  Chapter 40

  I touch each of the bonsais for luck – Pinkie, Perkie and little Podgie, who’s the least valuable because he’s got a funny bushy shape but he’s the cutest. Then I put my finger on the glass over a bit of Mimi. ‘See you guys later.’

  They’re on the windowsill with the best view. Both the windows on this side of my room look over the trees and two of our fields – I can see Marvin’s big arse, he’s chomping away on the grass as usual – and after the fields there’s the dunes, and then there’s the lovely blue of the Tasman Sea and I’m already thinking about tomorrow morning when Mum and Connor and Erin and I are going hacking to the beach on Brodie and Sam and Turpin and either Bindie or Marvin, depending on whether Bindie’s leg is still giving her a problem, but Erin really loves Bindie so I’m hoping it’ll be possible for her to ride her and Marvin’s such an old slowcoach, he’s not ideal for a hack.

  Our house is a big old farmhouse up on a little hill, what they call a ‘colonial homestead’, and it’s really desirable because there are hardly any old houses here, most of the houses are newish bungalows like the one Connor and Erin and Carly and Willow live in in Westport, which is still really nice but not as nice? Our house was built in 1896 and has massive gorgeous big rooms. My room is like something from a magazine, with sloping bits of wall and a fireplace where you can have real fires in the winter, if it’s like really cold, and wooden walls that I painted myself in this colour called Mizzle. It’s a kind of a pale greeny-blue?