by Jane Renshaw
‘Sure thing. It’s mainly a matter of confidence –’
‘And my dad?’
‘Hey, let’s throw in the dog while we’re at it, let’s ninja up the whole family!’
Beckie laughed. ‘We don’t have a dog, but we have a hamster.’
‘Ninja-hamster? Works for me.’
‘You’re so cool. You’re like Xena Warrior Princess or something. Although actually no, she’s not that cool. Not as cool as you.’
‘Why, thank you. You’re pretty cool yourself. You’re being a very brave girl, I reckon.’
Beckie flushed. ‘No I’m not. I was useless. I just – basically I just cried. And peed my pants.’
‘Well of course you did. It was horrendous for you both. Really horrendous.’ And she set down her mug and reached over and touched Flora’s arm. ‘How are you doing?’
There was so much kindness in her voice.
All Flora could do was nod.
She’d known it was going to be bad, telling Neil, but she hadn’t expected this.
He was shaking.
He was looking at her with repressed fury in his face.
They were standing facing each other in the cramped, bleach-infused en suite of the hotel room. Beckie was finally asleep. She’d been hyper for the last few hours, insisting on exploring every inch of the hotel ‘to make sure it’s safe’ and insisting on both of them coming with her. Trekking after her down one endless corridor after another, each the same, each with a synthetic blue carpet, magnolia walls and row after row of identical veneer doors, Flora had muttered to Neil that it was as if they had somehow become trapped in Minecraft.
And then they’d turned a corner and Beckie had almost walked into the big belly of a man coming the other way, and she’d screamed, clutching Neil, and burst into tears. The poor man had stood there blinking and saying, ‘Sorry. Sorry, is she okay?’
She wasn’t okay. Of course she wasn’t.
Back in the room, she’d sobbed into Flora’s chest, this little girl who never cried, and gulped out, of all things: ‘I’m sorry I was so horrible to Edith.’
‘Oh darling, never mind about that.’
‘Do you think I’m horrible?’
And Flora had squeezed her tight as she felt it again, that sick weight in the pit of her stomach that she’d carried around all her teenage years, the weight of knowing that her mother didn’t love her any more. That she’d forfeited her love.
At the time she hadn’t blamed her mother, only herself. But since Beckie, she could no longer understand it.
How could a mother’s love not be entirely unconditional?
‘There is nothing you could do, my little Beckie,’ she had said, ‘that would ever make me think you were horrible. There is nothing you could do that would ever make me or Dad love you even a millionth trillionth bit less.’
‘My turn for a hug,’ Neil had said then, in a choked voice, and then they’d bathed her together, like she was a toddler again, and brushed her hair, and snuggled with her in the big bed with packets of crisps, Beckie’s tablet and the usually forbidden EastEnders on the big TV.
And now she was finally asleep.
‘How could you let it happen?’ Neil said now.
‘What do you mean, how could I?’
‘She’s eight years old! How could you let her go off on her own –’
‘I didn’t let her go off on her own – she ran away from me!’
‘Well she’s never done that when I’ve been with her.’
Flora took a breath. ‘Okay. I’m sorry I didn’t stop her running away from me. She flounced off in a huff because –’
‘And how did they find us?’
‘That’s my fault too, is it?’
‘I don’t know. Is it?’
He was lashing out because he was scared. She took another breath. ‘Maybe it is. I don’t know, Alec, because I’ve no idea how they found us.’
‘Neil! It’s Neil! Although what the hell does it matter now?’
‘Shh. You’ll wake her.’
He sat down, suddenly, on the loo.
She leant back against the cool tiles. ‘They’ve found us. It doesn’t matter how. What matters is what we’re going to do about it. The police are obviously not going to take effective action. We have to try to discuss this calmly and sensibly and decide what we’re going to do.’
There was a long, heavy silence, and then he lowered his head. ‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
Tentatively, she touched his shoulder. ‘Maybe I should have called you. But there was nothing you could have done.’
He took in a long breath. ‘No, it’s okay.’ He put his hand over hers. ‘It must have been… terrifying.’
He stood, and for a long, still moment, they held each other. Then Neil said, ‘So what exactly did the police say? Did they take a statement from Caroline too?’
She pulled away from him and ran a hand through her hair. ‘Yes. We both gave statements, separately, and they took the footage off her phone. I told them I’d recognised the Johnsons from photos in the press – I didn’t land Saskia in it by saying she’d shown us photos. Caroline says she told them she heard Jed Johnson shouting about how we’d stolen Beckie from them –’
‘Did he actually say he was going to take Beckie?’
‘No, not in so many words, unfortunately. And my statement… when it was written down, what they did say didn’t sound that bad. Not as… threatening as it actually was.’
‘But Caroline’s footage…’
‘There’s no audio on it.’
‘Couldn’t you have made something up? Said they said “Beckie’s ours and we’re taking her back” or something?’
‘Well, in hindsight, maybe, but Caroline and I would have had to collude…’
‘So they’re not going to do anything, basically?’
‘They’re going to question the Johnsons about breaching the court order prohibiting contact with us or Beckie, and depending on what they say, they could be charged.’
‘And then what? A few hours’ community service? It was practically an assault! If Caroline hadn’t been there… Isn’t it classed as an assault, or threatening behaviour or…’
‘Apparently not. The footage shows they made no move to touch us.’
‘Attempted kidnap?’
‘There’s no proof of that.’
‘Harassment? Is that a thing? Stalking?’
‘Apparently a single altercation in the street doesn’t constitute harassment or stalking. It needs to happen at least twice.’ She took a deep breath. ‘We have to go. We have to disappear again.’
‘How many times?’ And suddenly Neil was shouting at her: ‘How many fucking times, Flora?’
What did he mean? What did he mean by that?
With a guilty look at the door, he lowered his voice: ‘How many times are we going to have to run from them?’
She breathed. ‘We’ll make sure, next time, that they can’t find us.’
‘And how are we going to do that, if we don’t even know how they found us this time?’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not fair on Beckie. She’s only just stopped asking when she’s going to see Emma. And crying about Hobo. She’s made new friends. She’s settling in –’
‘And how not fair on Beckie is it going to be if the Johnsons snatch her?’
‘But is that their intention?’
‘Of course it is!’
They lapsed into silence. Neil sat down again on the loo.
‘This doesn’t make any sense,’ he said slowly, as if offering some profound insight.
‘Well, that’s life,’ she said impatiently. ‘As you keep telling me. Life isn’t supposed to make sense. It doesn’t have any meaning. We’re all just trying to survive as best we can.’
‘No,’ he said, with a faint smile. ‘I don’t mean life generally. I mean the Johnsons. If they’re such desperados, if they’re so determined to get Beckie back, why didn’t they take her? There was just you
there, at first, before Caroline arrived on the scene – and even then, two women against three Glasgow toughs? If they’d wanted to take her, they could have done.’
‘The police would have acted, though, if they had. They’d have got Beckie back.’
‘Only if they knew where to find her. Think about it. If the situations were reversed – if the Johnsons had Beckie and you had an opportunity to snatch her – you’d do it, wouldn’t you, you’d take her and disappear? We’ve shown it can be done.’
‘Maybe they don’t want to disappear. And even if they did… I can’t imagine they’d be too good at blending into the woodwork. Assuming new identities – it takes a bit of doing.’
‘They’ll have all kinds of dodgy contacts. Disappearing would be far easier for them than it was for us. No. I’m thinking… Maybe they don’t actually want her back. Maybe they just want to cause trouble. Maybe they just want to…’ He shrugged. ‘Punish us.’
‘Punish us? For what?’
‘For giving her what they couldn’t?’
‘But that’s… mad.’
‘I don’t think they’re the most mentally stable people in the world.’
Suddenly she was just so tired. It was vitally important that they thought this through, that they made the right decisions, decisions that would determine the rest of Beckie’s life, but she felt as if they were both floundering, adrift, the two of them and Beckie in this hotel room, while all around them the sharks circled in a vast, indifferent ocean.
No one was going to come to their rescue.
It was down to them.
‘Whatever their intentions, running away again isn’t the answer,’ said Neil.
Flora opened her mouth to argue, and then closed it.
The idea of yet another identity standing between her and Rachel – was it a dangerously appealing idea she was too eager to embrace? Was she thinking more of herself than of Beckie?
It had been so hard for Beckie to leave her old life behind, to sever all ties with it. And she’d been so scared when they’d told her the reason why.
But not as scared as she was now.
‘So what is the answer, then?’
Neil sighed. ‘We need to know what exactly it is we’re up against. Didn’t Deirdre say the Johnsons didn’t actually pose a danger, to Beckie or to us, in her opinion? What happened today supports that. They didn’t actually physically hurt you, did they? That supports what Deirdre’s said all along. But we didn’t listen to Deirdre. We listened to Saskia.’
‘You weren’t there. It felt like a pretty dangerous situation to me.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean –’
‘And Deirdre never even met the Johnsons. Saskia knows much more about them than she does.’ She shook her head. ‘But you’re right. We have to know what the Johnsons are likely to do before we make any decisions.’
‘Yes. Yes.’ He sounded bone-tired too.
‘We need to talk to Saskia.’
13
I’m raging so I am.
I’ve got the Three Stooges in the front room, Travis and Ryan on the settee and Jed on the La-Z-Boy, but I cannae sit, I’m moving to the windae and across to the door and back to the windae. I cannae look at them.
I’m fucking raging.
‘What did you say to her?’
‘I didnae say shit!’ goes Jed.
‘Aye?’ goes Ryan. ‘How was she greeting her face off then, Da? How was she pishing herself?’
‘Aye she was feart, any wee lassie would have been feart. But I didnae say nothing to her.’
Jed’s back chain-smoking and the air’s minging with it.
‘You’re no smoking round Bekki,’ I goes. ‘Put that fucking fag out.’
‘Bekki’s no here.’
I’m in his face. ‘Put. That fucking. Fag. Out.’ And I’m snatching it from his gob and stubbing it out on the fucking La-Z-Boy, and he’s jumping up and in my face:
‘Get off my case Lorraine!’
‘Oh, I’m no on your case! When I’m on your case, you’ll know about it!’ I push him back down on the La-Z-Boy.
What did I ever see in the fucking prick?
But I’m stuck with the bass. He’d no last five minutes out there on his own, so he wouldnae, the fucking loser.
He’s the reason Shannon-Rose is the way she is – fucking mentalist DNA.
I sit down in my chair and go to Travis, ‘Get me a rum and Coke, son.’
While he’s up at the sideboard, I eyeball Jed. ‘You’re no going near Bekki again. You’re outta this.’
‘Am I fuck.’
‘Aye, you are fuck. You want Bekki so feart that when we get her she’s gonnae go running off to the fucking polis first chance she gets? We cannae keep her locked up the rest of her life!’
‘Aye Da,’ goes Ryan. ‘Keep your neb out, aye?’
Jed goes in a huff, sitting like a big bairn in the La-Z-Boy with his arms folded, eyeballing the carpet.
Travis hands me my rum and Coke and goes to look out the windae. ‘Polis.’
Through the nets I can see them pulling up in the street. ‘Right,’ I goes. ‘Yous were at the Botanic Gardens and then you –’ I point at Jed ‘– saw Bekki. Aye she’s a lot older but you’d know her anywhere. It wasnae an intentional breach of the court order. Aye?’
Jed gives me evils.
‘You never touched they bitches. You never touched Bekki.’
‘We didnae,’ goes Travis.
‘But you’ve got to keep on about it, aye? We dinnae want no trouble, we’re just that upset. Seeing Bekki was hard for yous. But we’re no gonnae do nothing. We’re no gonnae snatch her. She’s best off where she is, aye? We’re no gonnae make contact again.’
The doorbell rings.
Ryan gets up, a wee smile on his face. The local polis are all shit-scared of Ryan. He goes out to the hall and I hear the door opening and Ryan going:
‘Gentlemen! What can we do for yous?’
Travis sits back down on the settee. ‘What if they flit again, Maw?’
I lean forward. ‘They’re no flittin’. They’re no going nowhere.’ I lean back. ‘Now shut it.’
Flora and Neil were shown into a room dominated by a large table. The surface was some kind of cheap veneer, scuffed and scratched and lifting in places. There was a tray in the centre with mugs, a cream jug and a bowl of coffee-stained sugar. A plate of biscuits.
The tall man asked: ‘Tea or coffee?’
Neil shook his head. Flora asked if she could have a glass of water.
The man went to a cooler in the corner of the room.
The others sat down at the table, and the woman who’d introduced herself as Yvonne Richards smiled and said, ‘I’m so sorry this has happened.’
‘I don’t know how they can have found us,’ said Flora as she sat down and the tall man placed the water in front of her. ‘Thank you.’
‘Is Saskia not going to be here?’ said Neil. ‘Even if she doesn’t work for you any more, would it not be possible for her to be here?’ They’d been told that Saskia Mair no longer worked for Glasgow City Council. ‘She knows more about the Johnsons than anyone. We need to talk to her. We need to know how much of a danger they actually pose to us.’
Yvonne exchanged a quick look with the other woman, Frances someone, then sat down at the table, placed her forearms on it and leant towards them. She was about Flora’s age, with a round face, big eyes and a Cupid’s bow mouth, like a child’s drawing of a woman. ‘Saskia Mair doesn’t work here any more because she’s been suspended. It’s – I’m afraid it’s a very sensitive matter and not yet in the public domain.’
‘She’s under police investigation,’ said the man.
Yvonne flicked him a look. ‘We feel that it’s necessary, given the circumstances, to tell you what’s happened, but I do have to stress that this is confidential. Any media attention could jeopardise a future prosecution.’
‘Prosecution? For what?’
/>
‘I’m afraid this is going to come as a shock.’ Yvonne looked past them to the door, as if wishing she could make a break for it. ‘Saskia Mair has been accused of harming a child to whose case she was assigned.’
Neil grabbed Flora’s hand under the table. ‘Harming a child? Saskia?’
‘I don’t believe it,’ said Flora. ‘I’m sure Saskia would never do that.’
It was as if some evil god was playing with her, with her life, with the people in it. Taking everything and twisting it out of shape.
Yvonne sighed. ‘There is video evidence.’
The man said, ‘Saskia Mair was assigned to the case of a family with a small child, a boy of three, on the at risk register. She reported that she felt he was at imminent risk of harm. After a visit to the family, she applied for an emergency child protection order, saying she’d found unexplained cuts and bruises on the child’s body.’
‘That’s what happened with Beckie,’ Flora said numbly.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘The family are saying it was Saskia? Who hurt the boy?’
Yvonne nodded. ‘They’re not just saying it. They have video evidence. They’d set up hidden cameras in all the downstairs rooms because – well, it’s not relevant, but the child’s father suspected his partner’s brother of stealing cash from them. Anyway. The camera in the back bedroom, where Saskia was examining the child, caught her hitting him with a rolled-up umbrella and cutting his skin with nail scissors.’
Flora gripped Neil’s hand tight. ‘Oh God.’
‘Saskia has admitted it,’ said the man. ‘She said she did it to enable the child to be removed from the family. She said she needed evidence of harm, and there wasn’t enough.’
‘So she supplied it,’ Neil said hollowly.
‘She supplied it.’ Yvonne closed her eyes briefly. ‘Which is a terrible thing to have done. But Saskia – she was under a tremendous amount of pressure. The well-being of these children was in her hands. Their lives, in some cases. The strain of it evidently just got too much and she… I’m not excusing her. But what she did… She only did it because she thought, mistakenly of course, that it was the right thing to do for the children.’