by Jane Renshaw
‘Aye go on.’
She chucks it in the trolley. ‘Aw, and look at they wee sundresses! Would Bekki no look bonnie in one of they?’
‘We dinnae even know her right size.’
Carly’s holding up the dress. It’s turquoise with bonnie white flowers.
‘That’s adorable,’ goes Mandy.
Carly eyeballs me from under her big false eyelashes. ‘She’s like average size for her age, aye, give or take? Six to eight’s gonnae be too wee. Nine to eleven? If it’s too big it’ll do for next year?’
‘Aye go on,’ I huff.
‘What the fuck’s up wi’ you, doll?’ Mandy willnae let it go. ‘It’s no like there’s gonnae be a TK Maxx in Spain by the way. Or any shops that are any fucking good. Eh?’
I cannae fool Mands.
When Carly’s off looking at bibs and that, I go, ‘Buying crap for a wean that’s no born… for Bekki – it’s like… like the fucking Universe is gonnae go Fuck off, Lorraine.’
‘That’s mental.’
‘Aye, but.’
Mandy puts her arm round me. She’s no the freshest after a day trauchling round town, and I get a big whiff of BO off of her. ‘It’s gonnae be OK. Scans are all normal, aye? And we’re gonnae get Bekki back. We’re gonnae get our wee lassie back, Lorraine.’
‘They bastards… they’re smart, aye? They’re maybe gonnae rumble it.’ I get my arse moving, pushing the trolley through the lines of bairns’ clothes to the tills.
In the queue, Mandy starts back in. ‘Bastards gave it their best shot, disappearing and that, but they havenae a fucking clue. Have a wee bit faith in yourself, hen.’ She puffs. ‘God, would you listen to me giving it Pollyannas?’
When we were wee, any time any good shite happened, like we were in the park with our pals and we all had cones, and we were lying on the grass licking them, and the sun was shining and that, and I’d go, ‘This is barry,’ Mandy would go, ‘It’s just a fucking cone’ and ‘Fucking Pollyanna’ and I’d be all, ‘Shut your face Misery Mandy.’
Felt bad, when I got old enough to work out what all had gone on. No wonder Mandy wasnae a laugh a minute, eh? She kept letting that fucker Billy do that shite to her so he wouldnae go all the way with me, and she got infections and that, and that’s why she couldnae have bairns.
I go, ‘Thanks doll.’
‘They’re smart, aye, but you’re smarter than ninety-nine point nine per cent of the population. Just you mind that, Lorraine.’
Connor got me doing this IQ test he found on the net and I aced it by the way. Came out my IQ’s a hundred and sixty-seven. And Connor’s like that: ‘Christ on a cheesy biscuit! You should be the fucking Prime Minister!’
Mandy goes, ‘You’re one smart cookie.’
‘Aye, okay I’ve got a brain on me, but near enough two fucking years to find Bekki? It’s like we’re no meant to get her.’
‘That’s mental.’
‘I’ve got a bad feeling, Mands. A bad fucking feeling.’
Thought it would be easy to find them. Once we’d got photies of them off of Pammie, all we had to do was go to all the places they could be – Torridon, Perth, St Andrews, fucking Amalfi, fucking Australia – and go round asking folk if they’d seen them because they’d kidnapped a wee lassie. Get Connor searching for Ruth and Alec Morrison on the net and checking out folk’s blogs and sites and that from they places. Checking out nurses and botanists. Every botany department in the English-speaking fucking world.
Nada.
Fucking two years wasted.
‘Two fucking years,’ I goes.
‘That’s nothing,’ goes Mandy. ‘Look at all they fuckers on FAF. How many of them are gonnae find their bairns ever?’
Right enough.
I’d been all out of ideas, sitting on my arse watching this daft TV show with Connor, The Big Bang Theory, about a load of dowfie wee fuckers in a university, and then I’m jumping up out my chair and I’m like that: ‘Oh my God’ and Connor’s: ‘What?’ and I’m: ‘Alec Morrison’s one of they, aye? One of they boffins? How’s he gonnae survive outside a fucking university, out in the real fucking world?’
Connor’s nodding. ‘Aye! Like pandas and that. They can only eat bamboo, aye? They cannae survive in any other habitat. They’re too specialised.’
‘Aye, he’s like one of they fuckwit pandas. He cannae do a normal job. He cannae transfer his skills. Maybe he’s no working in a botany department, but he has to be in a fucking university. He’s maybe just moved departments, eh?’
So me and Connor get searching the net: all they university department web pages, any department to do with biology, looking for his face, because it’s ninety-nine per cent he’ll have changed his fucking name.
Nada.
Then we try web pages for conferences, press stuff, boffins’ blogs and that.
And bingo.
There’s his geeky wee face in the background of a photy showing some professor retiring. At the Microbiology Department at Edinburgh University.
Two fucking years, but.
Mandy’s pulling her heid back into her chins like she’s up for a rammie, like she’s gonnae belt any fucker gets in her road.
‘They’re that arrogant, they think moving a wee bit west to east and changing from bot-logy to bile-ogy’s gonnae stop us finding them? They’re that fucking complacent, Lorraine?’
Aye.
Fucking Alec moves from Glasgow to Edinburgh University, from botany to microbiology, and the fucker thinks that’s him disappeared? He’s all: They wee windae-lickers willnae even know what the fuck a university is. Fucking arrogant wee fuck.
Thought he’d been smart not putting a photy on his profile page on the departmental website. All that meant was Ryan and Travis had to park up on campus and wait till they saw him coming out the front door of the Microbiology Department. Follow the fucker home.
‘Aye,’ I goes. ‘Fucking complacent.’
16
Having spent an hour lovingly constructing ‘Jed-Bag’ from a pair of old jeans of Neil’s, one of his old shirts, a pair of Flora’s tights, Caroline’s make-up and some rags, Beckie and Caroline had hung him by the neck from a branch of the sycamore.
Now Beckie was doubled up, hysterical, as Caroline aimed another kick at his crotch area, which she followed up with a jab to the eye, sending Jed-Bag spinning on the rope.
They’d made his head by stuffing old pillowcases into Flora’s tights and used make-up to do long-lashed, wide-open eyes and a manically smiling mouth like Mr Blobby’s. They’d tied up the ends of Neil’s jeans with string, so Jed-Bag’s sausage-like legs ended like Christmas crackers. And at his crotch Caroline had hung one of those orange mesh bags you bought onions in, inside which she’d arranged a carrot and two onions which were now receiving heavy punishment as the targets of Caroline and Beckie’s ninja skills.
Was this appropriate, really?
But Beckie was having such fun. Flora didn’t have the heart to object.
‘Who needs a blender,’ grinned Neil, sitting back in his favourite lounger with a cold glass of ginger beer.
Flora stood behind him, arms folded, watching their daughter over his head. That was all she seemed to do now – watch Beckie. Whenever Beckie was out of her sight she felt twitchy, unable to settle to anything. Instead of walking to and from school, she now drove Beckie there and back. And she’d started arriving at the school half an hour early to pick her up. Which was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if the teachers were going to let the Johnsons take her, was it?
She no longer let Beckie play in the garden on her own.
This morning Beckie had begged to be allowed to ask Thomas over – ‘And if he’s here, you don’t need to be hovering round me all the time, do you, Mum?’ – and Flora had gone next door to issue the invitation.
Ailish hadn’t even let her over the threshold.
‘Sorry Flora, he’s Skyping his gran.’
‘Well, maybe when he’s finishe
d? You could bring him over?’
Ailish had smiled mechanically and started closing the door. ‘Sorry Flora, I’ve got to…’
She couldn’t even be bothered making up a believable excuse.
Ever since the incident with the Johnsons in the street, Ailish had been treating Flora and Beckie like lepers. Flora had tried to explain what had happened, but, unsurprisingly, the information that Beckie’s delinquent birth family had found out where they lived hadn’t seemed to help.
Ailish was just looking out for her son. Of course she was.
And now on top of everything, when Caroline had suggested swapping mobile numbers, Flora had been unable to locate her phone. Where was the damn thing?
‘Sit down, Flora,’ said Neil. ‘Relax for five minutes.’
She made herself sit on one of the other loungers and lean back, but she couldn’t relax. She seemed to have lost the knack. She found she was gripping the chair’s wooden arms as if she was on some sort of terrifying fairground ride.
She caught Neil’s eye, and returned his smile half-heartedly.
He got up and came round behind her; put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Nothing bad’s going to happen to her.’ He started to knead the muscles at the base of her neck. ‘You’re blowing this up into something it’s not. If they were going to do anything, they’d have done it by now.’
It was over two weeks since the incident in the street.
‘They haven’t had the chance. Wherever she goes, I go.’
‘They haven’t even tried, though, have they?’ His fingers pushed into her flesh, into the tension across her shoulders, and finally she allowed her muscles to relax, the tension to drop through her shoulders and down her arms.
She released her grip on the chair.
‘Mm. I guess not.’
‘I think their apology was genuine.’
The police had said that the Johnsons had asked them to pass on an apology for what had happened – it was all down to the alcoholic father, apparently, and they were really sorry if she and Beckie had been frightened. It wouldn’t happen again.
She closed her eyes.
Neil seemed determined to take it at face value. But he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seen the looks those thugs had given her. The way Ryan Johnson had made his hand into a gun and mimed shooting her and Caroline…
It hadn’t all been about the alcoholic father.
She snapped her eyes open and sat up, away from Neil’s hands.
Beckie was jabbing her fingers into Jed-Bag’s face, bouncing in front of him, and Caroline was bouncing next to her, whooping encouragement.
Flora pushed herself out of the lounger and turned to face Neil, who was regarding her with a wariness that might have been funny in other circumstances.
‘Of course it wasn’t genuine! God! You’re so gullible!’
‘No,’ he said, obviously choosing his words, as he’d started to do, as if she were some sort of mental case he had to be careful not to upset. ‘I don’t think I am. I’m looking at the facts here, Flora, and so should you.’
‘I am looking at the facts!’ She belatedly lowered her voice, although, given the amount of noise Beckie and Caroline were making themselves, they were unlikely to notice if she started screaming like a maniac. But she kept her tone as reasonable as his. ‘The facts are that the Johnsons know where we are, and that they’re psychopaths. What does your evidence-based approach to your daughter’s safety have to say about that?’
‘They’re not “psychopaths” – other than possibly the old man, and he’s hardly a threat any more. They’re a disadvantaged family, yes –’
‘They’re drug dealers and murderers.’
How was she going to get through to him? She’d always loved this live-and-let-live attitude of his: no matter how cynical-scientist he might be when talking in the abstract, in practice, in his actual dealings with actual real-life people, he would always give a person the benefit of the doubt. Which was fine, provided that that person wasn’t a danger to their child.
He threw up his hands. ‘Even Saskia had to admit that they loved Beckie.’
‘So? They’re still dangerous, Neil, and the fact that you won’t admit that is putting Beckie’s safety at risk. Okay, maybe I’m going over the top, maybe I’m being ultra-paranoid, but that’s partly because I feel I’m on my own here. Because you’re not taking it seriously.’
‘Of course I’m taking it seriously. It’s just… You have to admit, Flora. Jed Johnson – when he said we’ve stolen Beckie from them… Well. There’s some justification to that. Beckie was removed from their home in a horrendous miscarriage of justice.’
Flora put a hand to her mouth as she felt the bile rise in her throat.
‘Think about it from their point of view. Isn’t it incumbent on us to at least let them have some contact with her? Supervised contact?’
Oh God.
She swallowed. She groped for the nearest lounger and sat on it. ‘No,’ she got out. ‘It isn’t incumbent on us to do anything that could put Beckie in danger.’ A shiver ran right through her chest and up into her shoulders. ‘How can you even say that? God, Alec!’
‘But –’
She had to hold it together. She had to make him understand. ‘Beckie’s safety has to come first. Surely we agree about that?’
‘Of course we agree about that. I’d do anything to keep her safe – you know I would. The question is, how do we achieve that?’
‘Not by letting the Johnsons back into her life!’
‘You think I actually want to? But this isn’t about what we want. It’s about how to minimize the harm done to Beckie. Do we do that by making enemies of the Johnsons? Or by acknowledging what’s happened and being reasonable about it?’
‘Oh, you think they’re reasonable? You think they’re reasonable human beings now, do you? Murderers? A “family from hell”? That’s what their neighbours call them. That’s why Saskia did what she did, to get Beckie away from them.’
‘They obviously have problems…’
‘No, Neil. They are the problem. You’re so naïve! Poor family from hell, it’s society’s fault they make the lives of everyone around them a misery, they can’t help it…’
‘There are usually two sides to any neighbour dispute. We don’t know what’s been going on there, maybe the neighbours are equally to blame, maybe there’s some sort of vendetta against them –’
‘Okay.’ She took a long breath. ‘Okay. So you want to go and tell Beckie she has to see the Johnsons? The people she’s so terrified of that she’s learning martial arts to protect herself?’
They both looked over at Beckie, who didn’t at that moment look exactly terrified. She had collapsed against the tree in hysterics.
Neil said, ‘That’s because you’ve told her that the Johnsons are bad people.’
For a long moment, Flora could only stare at him. When she spoke, she couldn’t keep the fury from her voice. She felt like she was choking on it, that it was all she could do to force the words through it. ‘No, that’s because they assaulted us in the street and scared her so much she wet herself.’
‘They didn’t assault you.’
Flora stood. She walked past him and through the open doors to the family room.
He followed her.
‘Flora.’
She walked past the two big blue sofas facing each other across the coffee table. In the kitchen, she ran water into a glass, then turned to face him, leaning back against the cool porcelain of the butler’s sink, gripping the glass in her hand.
He didn’t say anything. He came and stood in front of her, and then he smiled, just a little, and gently, gently, pushed his fingertips into the hair above her ear, smoothing back a sweaty tendril that had become stuck to her skin.
She felt her face collapse.
He took the glass from her, set it on the draining board, and pulled her into his arms.
‘I’m sorry.’
She pu
lled back. She groped behind her for the glass and took a sip of water, all she could force through the tightness in her throat.
‘It was horrible, what happened, and I’ll never forgive them for it,’ he said. ‘For putting you and Beckie through such a terrifying experience. But… I really think you’re wrong about them. I think I always knew there was a disconnect between what we were being told about the Johnsons and the way Beckie is. Intrinsically… She’s so… she’s just so naturally sweet, Ruth. That’s not just down to environment, that’s not just down to us.’
‘That’s down to her genes?’
‘In large part, yes, I think so.’
‘Nature versus nurture?’
‘Obviously nurture plays a part, obviously she’s having a much easier time of it than her biological family…’
‘You’re saying the lovely but disadvantaged Johnsons have produced a child whose nice middle-class environment is revealing the true genetic Johnson saintliness?’
He smiled. ‘Yeah, I guess that’s –’
‘Have you forgotten that she’s been bullying a disabled child?’
Okay, the disabled bit was maybe an exaggeration.
He gaped at her.
‘Your little paragon is a bully!’
He was looking at her as if at a stranger. ‘So just because she’s had some issues at school, you’re suddenly saying Beckie isn’t a nice kid? You’re looking at her now and thinking that’s her Johnson genes coming out, that’s the real Beckie –’
‘No, of course not!’
‘Is it any wonder Beckie’s playing up at school, after being uprooted from her home and all her friends and not able to even contact them?’
‘That’s no excuse for cruelty.’
‘Ruth. Every kid gets into arguments, scraps – Christ. I can’t believe you’re looking on this as evidence of Beckie’s… what? Genetic original sin? Is that why you’ve been watching her like a hawk – not because of the Johnsons being a supposed threat but because you think she’s some sort of danger herself?’