Risk of Harm

by Jane Renshaw

  Down from the window I can see the roof of the veranda where the two rurus were last night. They’re way cuter than British owls. I was in bed and I heard them doing their ruuuu-ru call, like really close, so close I thought Are they inside the room?! and I tippy-toed out of bed to the window and there they were! Two of the little guys just sitting there side by side on the veranda roof right under my window! I could see their big golden eyes in the dark. They were the cutest! No sign of them now, but maybe they’ll be back tonight.

  Dad would have so loved it here.

  Every time I look at Pinkie and Perkie and Podgie and Mimi I think about Dad but also that man Brian who rescued them from my room in that house because he knew they were special, after Bitch left them to die after she told me she was getting them posted to Spain.

  Such a fucking liar.

  What’s really unbelievable, when I think about it, is I thought Connor and Carly would totally hate me after I killed their ‘Maw’ but they don’t. Right enough, they think I didn’t mean to kill her. They think I was so scared I didn’t know what I was doing and I was just trying to keep her away from me. And I’ve pretended to be all guilty and everything and all sad that the ambulance got there too late.

  Mum and I had gone by then so I didn’t see Bitch actually die. Connor told us to just go, to run – he said he’d tell the police, and Mandy as well, that me and Mum had run off and then Jed had stabbed Bitch. And then Mum could call the police and make out like We’ve just escaped from the Johnsons – Help! as if she didn’t know the stabbing had even happened.

  So that’s what we did.

  And now Jed and Ryan are both in prison.

  Result!

  I get my bag from where I dumped it on the chair and run downstairs.

  Mum’s clearing the table. She’s all ‘My little girl’s first date’ and I’m ‘Mu-uuum.’

  ‘You look beautiful!’

  I so don’t. I’m just in old jeans and a shirt and no make-up, or hardly any, because it’s no big deal.

  Then she starts, ‘Now, don’t feel pressured to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with’ and I’m ‘Mu-uuum!’ and then I’m ‘Relax, I’m not going to have sex or anything’ and she’s ‘Well, that’s a relief!’ and I can tell she’s trying not to laugh.

  But sex is so gross. I’m not having it till I’m like twenty at least. Connor says he was twenty-one when he first had it. I know it’s not cool to think sex is gross but it so is? Mibs, my best friend, she agrees. But I’m pretty sure Andrew doesn’t, so I’ve laid down some ground rules, just to make sure everything’s clear from the start, and now I’m telling Mum:

  ‘He knows there’s going to be no physical contact until the third date. Then holding hands and maybe kissing, but no tongues. And no touching my breasts, my bum or my bits. He’s cool with that.’

  ‘I should hope so!’

  ‘He’s not a jock or anything, he’s pretty much king of the super-nerds, and he’s not good-looking so it’s kind of I’ll take what I can get, you know?’

  ‘Beckie!’

  Now we can hear an engine on the track and we go out onto the veranda to wave at Connor’s car. He’s driving me to Andrew’s house and then he’s driving us both to the NBS Theatre in Westport, where Pippa works, to see the Star Wars film which is going to be mobbed by kids and nerds and Pippa will like probably sit with us, and Connor’s picking us up right after the film, so even if I wanted to have sex how could I?

  It’s really nice and warm but not too hot on the veranda and there’s a lovely breeze, and we sit on the swing seat and swing ourselves and breathe in the lovely piney smell of the trees.

  ‘So what is it you see in this Andrew, then?’

  ‘He’s really funny? And super-smart. Bit like me.’

  Mum laughs. ‘And is he as modest as you are?’

  ‘He’s modest about some stuff and not modest about other stuff.’ I grin. ‘He’s... He’s a bit like, you know, Dad in that way? And maybe in other ways as well.’

  And there’s a bit of a silence, not exactly awkward, more like we’re both thinking stuff and it’s kind of sad and kind of happy.

  ‘Like, I know he’s going to be telling me all about game theory and evolutionarily stable strategies. It’s his new thing. He thinks game theory can be used to solve pretty much all the problems in the world.’

  ‘Not short on ambition, then.’

  We both laugh.

  ‘For example, war? Apparently there are these three different strategies, hawk and dove and crow. Doves are like really nice and kind, like peace activists and people, but the problem is that if everyone in the world is a dove the system’s inherently unstable because the minute a hawk appears – hawks are like super-nasty and just want to exterminate everyone else? – if they’re in a world full of doves they basically just go mental and pretty soon the world’s fucked.’

  ‘Beckie.’

  ‘Sorry. I mean, like if the Nazis had won the war. Because the hawks know they can do whatever they want and the doves won’t stop them. It’d be like Hitler or Putin or Trump somehow gets into Teletubby Land. Or like every country’s Switzerland except for North Korea? Then the opposite scenario, a world full of just hawks, obviously that’s f... that isn’t going to work either because they’ll all just kill each other. The only way for it to be stable is to have retaliators in the mix – crows. They’re like doves except they’re smart and they fight back if a hawk starts anything, like maybe James Bond? So everyone can coexist.’

  Mum’s smiling. ‘Well, that makes sense, although I’m sure Dad would be up for a debate about it with Andrew.’

  Connor’s getting out of his car. ‘Hiya!’

  ‘Hi Connor!’ Mum gets up. ‘Thanks so much for acting as Beckie’s chauffeur yet again.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks Connor,’ I say on cue.

  Mum hugs me. ‘Have fun, darling.’

  I hug her back. ‘Thanks Mum. I will.’

  ‘Looking good, Beckster,’ says Connor.

  I can see myself in the glass of the kitchen window and I’m thinking yeah, I’m not bad. I’m not the prettiest girl in the class or anything but I’m okay. I’m tall and slim but I’ve got curves. Quite a few boys have asked me out before, so I can’t be like a total minger, but I said ‘Thanks but no thanks’ because I only wanted to go out with Andrew Main but he was with Sherilyn, that skanky cow who called Mibs a retard just because she thought a caftan was a kind of cafetière. Sherilyn made Andrew’s life hell, ordering him about and once when he got her the wrong yoghurt in the canteen she glooped it over his head and all her skanky friends were laughing and Sherilyn was yelling at him, ‘You fucking know I hate strawberry!’ and he just smiled his goofy smile and used his scarf to try and wipe it off his hair.

  That girl is such a fucking bully.

  Last week after hockey there was just me and her in the changing room because she always takes forever in the shower washing all her skanky flab, and I waited behind pretending to have lost my scrunchy, and I told Mibs and them just to go ahead to our next class and explain to Mrs Hutchison why I was late, and then when Sherilyn came out of the shower I slammed her up against the changing room door and told her if she didn’t (a) chuck Andrew and (b) stop picking on Mibs I was going to break her nose so fucking badly no fucking surgeon on the planet would be able to put it back together and how many boys would want to go out with her then?

  She pissed herself and had to go back in the shower.

  Connor’s going on about the wedding as usual – they’re getting married at our house because neither Connor nor Erin is religious – and it’s super-dull so I ask him about Mrs Miller, the old lady who’s the latest client of Connor’s Computer Services.

  ‘Aw Beckie, you should’ve seen the spread she’d laid out for me, right? We’re no just talking scones and cake, there was like tuna and prawn rolls and wee pork pies and egg mayo sandwiches and that, and peanut butter ic
e cream and an oat and strawberry smoothie. It was pure amazing so it was.’

  ‘And you scoffed the lot?’

  ‘Only polite, eh? Mrs Miller thinks I need fed up or Erin’s gonnae leave me for some big hunky guy she’s gonnae meet at the pool.’

  That’s where Erin works. She’s like a really amazing swimmer and she was nearly picked for the New Zealand Olympic team for breaststroke when she was fourteen.

  ‘That explains all the protein.’

  ‘Aye, she’s maybe been Googling it with her newfound skills, eh? How to get muscles on a skinny wee fucker, she’s maybe inputted.’

  I snort. ‘I bet Mrs Miller would be on my side in the Is-Willow-Too-Fat debate.’

  ‘Aye, likely.’

  Willow’s six now and she’s staying with us tomorrow night so Carly and Connor and Erin can all go out. Mum bans poor Willow from eating any sweets or crisps or ice cream or basically anything nice while she’s with us because she says she’s on the cusp of obesity but I love her chubby little cheeks and her chubby little arms and legs. She’s so adorable.

  I’m telling her Dad’s Wanderer stories and she loves them.

  ‘She wouldn’t be so cute if she was thin. It’s like cats – they’re super-cute when they’re really fat, but Mum says you should think about their health, and I know she’s got a point, but when Willow gets back to yours she’ll just stuff her face to make up for it anyway.’

  ‘Aye, Carly needs to stop buying that wean crap. She needs to step up as a responsible parent, eh?’

  I shrug. ‘I guess. And talking of which – have you spoken to Ryan about Ailish yet?’

  ‘No yet.’

  ‘You don’t think he’d do it.’

  ‘Ryan would do anything for you, Beckie, you know that, he feels that bad about your da, eh? That’s no the issue here. Do you no think it’s maybe best to just move on, eh, and forget it?’

  ‘Nope.’ Ailish needs to be punished. If she hadn’t stopped Jasmine coming forward and telling the police she’d seen Ryan they would have focused the investigation on him from the start and Mum would never have gone to jail. ‘It’s not like I’m wanting Ryan to put out a hit on her or anything. Although...’

  Connor whips his head round.

  ‘I’m joking! God, Connor! But I’ve been thinking maybe a burglary isn’t the way to go. That would affect Jasmine and Thomas too, and that wouldn’t be fair.’

  All he says is ‘Oh aye?’ but he’s obviously thinking Thank fuck for that.

  But wait till he hears this!

  I say, ‘I’ve been thinking about what would really make Ailish’s life hell, and I reckon humiliation on social media and getting trolled by a load of self-righteous bitches just like her would probably do it. She’s all “Just call me Super Gran” with Jasmine’s toddler Jack, but what if she was filmed being super-neglectful and there were witnesses and she was convicted of child neglect? And it got all round social media? That would pretty much ruin her life.’

  ‘We cannae hurt a bairn.’

  ‘Of course not! But what I’m thinking is, one really hot day in summer when she’s doing her Super Gran stuff, one of Ryan’s goons can somehow give her Rohipnol and get her and Jack and the buggy and her car into town. Somewhere there’s no CCTV. Park up the car, get a load of alcohol down Ailish and leave her slumped on a bench or somewhere with the empty buggy and an empty bottle of Bailey’s. Meanwhile, one of the goons, acting the concerned citizen, has to smash the car window to get Jack out of the boiling hot car before he dies of dehydration and heat shock. They wouldn’t actually leave him in the car, but with no CCTV, who’s to know? They take him to the nearest hospital and the police get involved. Someone else meanwhile secretly films Ailish as she’s coming round, as she’s realising “Fuck where’s Jack?” and going mental, staggering around with the empty buggy looking for him. The footage goes up on YouTube, all her Facebook friends get sent the link, she’s arrested for child neglect, and her life’s basically over.’

  ‘Aw Christ Beckie.’

  ‘Would Ryan be able to organise all that from prison?’

  ‘Aye, but –’

  ‘Ryan owes us big time.’

  I can’t wait to see Mum’s face when I’m like ‘Oh Mum look at this that Mia sent me!’ and I show her the YouTube footage of Ailish and she reads all the troll stuff. She’s going to be ‘Oh that’s dreadful’ but secretly she’ll be going Yes!

  Andrew’s right. One thing I’ve learned from all the shit that’s happened to me is that being a dove just gets you fucked over. Like Mum and Dad were by Bitch. And like Mum was by that Tricia girl. If she had stood up to Tricia she would never have got into all that trouble in the first place.

  I do kind of wonder about that, though. I mean, the bow and arrow. How is it possible to accidentally fire an arrow at someone? Even if you tripped up, wouldn’t you just let go the bow as well as the arrow and they would both just get dropped to the ground? And how could that Gail tell it was an accident?

  But I so would not blame Mum if it wasn’t.

  Tricia had it coming. People like Tricia and Ailish and Bitch, they’re hawks and they’ll basically try to shaft you every time. You have to be a crow. You have to shaft them back.

  ‘He’ll be able to organise that, you reckon?’

  Connor shrugs. ‘Aye.’

  ‘And you’ll ask him? It’s really not a big deal, is it, compared with the stuff he’s already done? Compared with, oh, I don’t know... murdering my dad?’

  Connor looks at me sideways. ‘Beckie –’

  ‘Yeah yeah, heard it all before. Will you ask him or will you not, Connor?’

  ‘Aye, okay then.’

  And now we’re turning into Andrew’s road on the edge of Westport. It’s called Abattoir Road which doesn’t exactly sound like it’s a brilliant address, but it’s out in nice countryside with lots of grass and trees between the houses and there’s a view of the mountains, and his house is nowhere near the actual abattoir. And Connor suddenly slows down and says, ‘Check the fantail!’ and he points up into a tree and there’s a fantail jumping about in there flicking his tail and it really does look like a fan, it doesn’t look real, and I’m ‘Awww amazing!’

  And now we’re at Andrew’s house and he’s waiting at the end of his drive in a black T-shirt with the Crab Nebula on it and brown trousers that so don’t go, and when he sees the car slowing down he waves in a really dorky way, like he’s making a circle in the air with his hand, and he’s grinning like Wallace out of Wallace and Gromit, and Connor’s saying ‘The wee fuckwit’ and oh my God I love my life.

  Author’s Note

  I hope you have enjoyed reading this story. If you are a glutton for punishment and would like to know what happened when the Johnsons took a holiday on the idyllic Hebridean island of Tiree, you can download a free short story here:

  I am now working on a crime series set in Aberdeenshire, the first book in which is now available – see link below.

  If you would like to get in touch, please contact me via my website (www.janerenshaw.co.uk). I would love to hear from you.

  The Sweetest Poison

  When she was eight years old, Helen Clack was bullied so mercilessly that she was driven to a desperate act. Now she is being targeted once more, but this time her tormentor’s identity is shrouded in doubt.

  When her life starts to disintegrate, she flees home to the wilds of north-east Scotland, and to the one man she knows can help her – Hector Forbes, the dubiously charismatic Laird of Pitfourie, with whom she has been hopelessly in love ever since those hellish days in the school playground, when he was her protector, her rescuer, her eleven-year-old hero.

  But is Hector really someone she can trust?

  And can anyone protect her from the terrible secret she’s keeping?

  ‘An intriguing read from beginning to end’ - Archaeolibrarian

  Acknowledgements

  Firstly, I must thank you for enduring the Johnson
s throughout this novel! That is quite a feat.

  And thank you to friends and family for your support of my writing generally. What you’ll make of this one I’m not quite sure!

  The only people to read Risk of Harm before publication were Lesley McLaren and Lucy Lawrie, my wonderful writer friends, who as always provided everything I needed, from the impetus to write it in the first place, to how to solve problems with the plot and characters, to the nitty-gritty of sorting out the text (yes, Beckie’s original dialogue was too annoying?), to advice on which cover image to go for, to endless encouragement and patience throughout the whole process. And all the laughs!

  Lesley is yet to submit her crime novels for publication (although they have already been shortlisted for various prizes, including the Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger). She is currently concentrating on her nature writing, which is equally engaging and gripping! Check it out here:

  www.mediterraneanpyrenees.com

  Lucy has had two novels published by Black & White (Tiny Acts of Love and The Last Day I Saw Her), with a third in the pipeline. Not at all surprising to us that the critics love them (e.g. The Sun: ‘Funny, poignant and honest, this is a cracker of a debut novel’ – yes it is!!). Her characters are people you would like to spend time with in real life (well, most of them!), her writing is amazing – witty and expressive, light but many-layered – and she leaves you with some very profound but at the same time comforting messages and an ‘Ah!’ feeling of rightness and satisfaction. Most of all, they are just great stories!