by Jane Renshaw
‘But what if they attacked us in the street again, not at the house?’
‘They can probably put the detector on a person as well as on a house. And why would they attack you? That’s not going to get them anywhere.’
‘I don’t know if they’re that rational.’
‘If they’re setting up alibis for themselves, they sound pretty rational to me.’
Flora puffed out a sigh.
‘Much as I hate to say it, I think Alec’s right. You can’t keep running away from them. You have to sort this. I know, easy for me to say…’
Flora waited for Pippa’s offer to come back and help, but of course that didn’t materialise. Under the friendly charm, Pippa was one of the most selfish people she knew. Flora finished the call with a vague promise to keep Pippa updated.
‘And thanks a lot,’ she muttered as she strode back to the house to break open the Hobnobs for the CCTV men.
It was no good tackling Neil directly about leaving. She would have to be more subtle than that – make him think he’d come round to the idea on his own. So over the next two days she didn’t even mention the possibility, pretending she was satisfied now they had the CCTV and continuing to bombard Saskia with voice and text messages which went unanswered.
Just before bed on Wednesday night, sitting with Neil on the sofa in the Family Room watching a Danish series on BBC Four, she mentioned, casually, that she’d called Pippa.
‘Oh? How’s she doing?’
‘She seemed fine. She was talking about this new tagging system where the perpetrator wears an electronic tag that sets off an alarm if they come near the person who’s being targeted, or their house…’
Neil’s expression became irritatingly patient and courteous. ‘Uh-huh?’
But he was saved from having to humour her further by the door flying open.
Beckie erupted into the room in a blur of purple pyjamas and flying hair. ‘There’s a man!’
Neil bolted from the sofa. ‘Where?’
‘In the garden!’
‘Flora, get into the loo! Got your phone? Call 999.’
Hugging Beckie to her, Flora locked them both in the downstairs loo, which had the twin benefits of a lock on the door and a tiny high window. Flora had decorated it in a bright quirky yellow and hung the Larson cartoon of the two crocodiles relaxing after dining on canoeist in a prominent position above the towel rail. How could she ever have found that funny?
Beckie looked up at her as she tapped the nine on her phone. ‘It was him again. It was that man. I heard someone shouting and I looked out and that man was there!’
20
‘And then there’s Mr Bean running at me like a spastic that’s shat itself.’ Travis takes another swally of lager and puts his other hand up the inside of Mackenzie’s thigh. She’s on his lap, wriggling against him like he’s her fucking hero. ‘And then he’s tripping on a stane, flat on his fucking face, and I cannae get up the wall for pissing myself. And he’s all “Stop right there, my man” and I make like I’m gonnae jump back down and he’s bricking it.’
Connor’s in the kitchen making us coffees, but he’s earwigging, and I can see him through the door having a wee chuckle to hisself.
‘Magic,’ goes Jed.
I point at Travis. ‘You’d better no have frighted Bekki.’
‘Bekki wasnae there.’
‘And no touching they bastards. We want them bricking it, aye, but no so they’re gonnae up and go.’
‘I didnae touch no one!’
Connor comes in with the coffees, lattes for him and Carly and Mandy, flat blacks for Ryan and Jed, a wee cappuccino for me. Mackenzie’s on the ginger.
Connor’s put a wee bit Flake on the side. I dip it in the foam and lick it. That coffee machine’s barry so it is. ‘Right Connor, me and you’s off to St Andrews the morn.’
Connor sits on the floor with the dug, his back against Mandy’s chair, and Mandy pats him on the heid like he’s a dug an’ all. ‘Thanks Wee Man.’ She’s eating a packet of prawn cocktail with her latte, the mad cow.
‘Cannae do the morn,’ goes Connor. ‘I’ve got my shift.’
‘Pull a sickie, son.’
Connor’s got a foam moustache on him. He doesnae lick it off like Travis would, he gets a bit tissue out his pocket and dabs it. ‘Cannae. I’m already on a verbal.’
‘What for?’ goes Carly.
‘Absenteeism.’
‘Oh, absenteeism,’ goes Travis.
‘You can get cream for that,’ goes Ryan.
‘Who cares about your fucking job?’ goes Carly. ‘By the time they get round to a written warning, you’ll be Bye bye wankers any road. Fucking numptie.’
‘Aye, but.’
‘Carly’s right enough,’ I goes. ‘For once in her fucking life. You’re wasted on they fuckers, son. Get me the Flora shite.’
Connor gets up and goes to the sideboard and gets out the red folder. He printed it all off of the internet – the newspaper articles about Flora’s maw’s death. How many folk are there in Scotland, in the fucking world, so shite-for-brains they’ve got themselves run over by a fucking milk float? There’s only one Connor could find in the UK – Elizabeth Innes in St Andrews, back in 1989, address 24 Turner Drive.
So the bitch was Ruth Innes before she married Alec Morrison.
Whatever it is that bitch is hiding, we’re finding it.
Then Connor goes, ‘Motor,’ and Ryan’s up next him at the windae.
‘Well, wouldn’t you know,’ goes Ryan. ‘Mr Bean hisself.’
‘Right yous.’ I hear a car door slam, not real loud, like it’s across the street maybe. ‘Yous laddies dinnae move. Carly-hen, get out there. Connor, film it on your phone, aye? He’s gonnae assault you, darlin’, right? Connor, get that windae open for sound, and get filming.’
Mandy joins Ryan and Connor and me at the windae, still shoving prawn cocktail in her gob. Mr Bean’s crossing the street and Carly’s got her fat arse down the path to the gate, blocking his way, and he’s all ‘Let me past please’ and he tries to breenge past and Carly shouts out like he’s just shoved a knife in her chebs and falls back against the gate like a right hammy cow and then she’s lying on the ground holding her belly giving it ‘The babby! The babby!’
‘Thanks, Flora, that was lush,’ said Caroline, bringing the empty soup bowls and the plates over to the sink. ‘You’re such a feeder.’
‘The least I can do is feed you. Other than that I’m all take take take.’
‘Hey, don’t be daft. Happy to help. Give it a few months and it’ll be me having some kind of crisis. Tony lining me up as his next victim, or oh God Flora, you won’t want to know me when I’m in a dysfunctional relationship – I’m well overdue falling for a bastard – over here crying on your shoulder every five minutes. Being fed homemade soup and bread, hopefully.’
Flora smiled. Thank God for Caroline. ‘I think that could be arranged.’
She squirted washing-up liquid into the sink.
Caroline twitched a tea towel from the rail of the Aga. ‘It might not even come to court, you know.’
‘But what was he thinking going over there in the first place? What did he think it would achieve?’
‘He was angry.’
She’d never seen him so angry. At himself, she thought, as much as anything – at the way that yob had taunted him in their own garden. At the effect it had had on Beckie. After the police had arrived and he’d given his statement, he’d disappeared off in his car – to cool down, she’d thought, to take himself off away from Beckie so as not to upset her any more than she was already. Never mind Flora. Never mind leaving her to deal with the fallout, to explain to the police why he’d taken off like that.
She’d been furious with him even before she’d found out what had happened at 34 Meadowlands Crescent.
But actually getting charged with assault?
She clattered the cutlery into the sink.
Assault of a
pregnant woman?
‘It’s almost like they planned it, eh?’ Caroline mused. ‘It’s almost like they’ve been taunting you, trying to get you to react…’
‘That’s what Neil thinks too. But are they really that clever?’ She swirled the little brush around a soup bowl and, without bothering to rinse, banged it down on the draining board.
Caroline picked it up, shaking off the suds. ‘Maybe not. They probably just made use of the opportunity when Neil appeared at their door…’
‘But – the bloody cheek of it! They’ve applied for a restraining order against us?’ She slammed the other bowl down. ‘And the CCTV didn’t even pick Travis Johnson up – the cameras at the back don’t cover that bit of the garden, next the wall at the bottom. All you see on the footage is Neil running across the grass like a maniac… It’s almost as if they knew where the cameras were – as if they’ve been watching the house, watching where the cameras were directed…’
‘I suppose that’s possible,’ Caroline said doubtfully.
‘We need ammunition against them. We really need it!’
‘Saskia still not answering?’
Flora shook her head.
‘Maybe there’s a problem with her phone. It sounds like, the state she’s in, she could have lost it, or stopped paying for it, or it’s muffled under a pile of dirty laundry or whatever. Do you have any other way of contacting her?’
‘Nope, other than just turning up at her flat.’ She stared at Caroline. ‘And why haven’t I just done that? What’s stopping me driving over there now…’
‘Well, you have to collect Beckie from school in…’ Caroline consulted her watch ‘about an hour. But you could get over there tomorrow, couldn’t you? I could pick Beckie up.’
‘Would you?’
‘No problemo – I’m working from home. And it’s always good to spend time with the Beckster.’
‘Thanks, Caroline. Thank you so much.’
‘And look, I wouldn’t worry about these charges against Neil – any sheriff worth his or her salt is going to see through them. And I doubt the restraining order will be granted either. That little minx probably has a record as long as your arm. She’s probably accusing people of assaulting her all the time.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Now – let’s have a look at this CCTV. I want to see myself on camera.’
The bank of screens had been set up in Neil’s study, ranged above his desk like he was Mr Spock in the Star Ship Enterprise. The screens showed the front and back gardens from various angles, and also views of the house, every door and window covered.
‘Wow,’ said Caroline.
‘It’s all very state of the art, apparently.’ She sat down in Neil’s swivelly chair and keyed in the password. ‘See, we can switch any of the cameras off and on…’ She clicked on the one looking out onto the street, and the screen went blank. She clicked on it again and the picture was back. ‘And change the direction they point in…’ She swivelled it to look off down the road. ‘Either using this computer or our phones.’
‘Excellent! And cute little bonsai trees.’ Caroline was looking at Mimi’s tank on the windowsill.
‘Mm, that’s…’ But Flora didn’t have the strength to explain Mimi the Mycorrhiza. ‘Botany stuff. Okay, so footage of the front door about an hour ago…’ She navigated through the menu, and on the screen there appeared a shot of Caroline, hood up against the rain, opening the gate and coming towards the front door, and running her tongue over her teeth before ringing the bell.
‘Oh God – look at me checking for remnants of Jaffa cake!’
She looked as attractive as ever – and as if Jaffa cakes never passed her glossy lips.
‘And you can see Ailish’s house!’ Caroline pointed at the screen on the far left showing the current feed for the front door. ‘As if The Chipmunk Show wasn’t more than enough exposure!’
The camera in the hedge covering the front door also gave a partial view into Ailish and Iain’s front garden. Right on cue – she did her main shop after lunch every Thursday – Ailish’s car had just pulled in at her gate. They watched her get out and open the boot, then turn and stare at the camera as if she’d suddenly seen it – but surely that was impossible? It was tiny, and hidden in the hedge.
And then the view was obliterated by something large and pink.
It receded from the lens and resolved itself into the rear view of a fat girl in a black skirt and, despite the rain, a short-sleeved pink blouse. And next to her an even larger woman in a black raincoat and leggings. They were swaying up the path to the door.
‘Who’s that?’
The bell chimed.
Flora opened the door to two unsmiling, fleshy faces blinking at her.
‘You’re Flora, aye? You’re wee Beckie’s new maw?’
Oh God.
She wanted to slam the door on them, but Caroline put a hand on her arm and said, ‘And you are…?’
‘I’m Lorraine Johnson. You’ll have heard of me, aye? Beckie’s gran? This’s my daughter Carly.’ She had a voice like a foghorn.
Flora couldn’t help it – she took a step back. The woman was a formidable presence – a solid chunk of flesh, twenty stones at least, with rolls of fat under a determined, jutting chin. And clever little eyes that seemed to see right into Flora’s heart.
The daughter blinked at Flora with a sad face, the rain glistening on her curly hair and round rosy cheeks and making dark splotches on her blouse. She was very pretty, with a sweetness to her expression that reminded Flora, horribly, just a little, of Beckie.
‘We didnae mean to get your husband in trouble, aye?’ Lorraine Johnson shouted. ‘We didnae want him charged or nothing, we just wanted to make sure he didnae come back and hurt Carly again. She could’ve lost the wean. She’s seven months pregnant, right? She’s no in any condition to be getting assaulted and that. But we thought they’d just give him a caution.’
In the sudden silence, footsteps on gravel in Ailish’s garden could be heard just the other side of the hedge.
Oh God.
‘Now hold on just a minute,’ said Caroline. ‘It’s you who’ve been harassing Neil and Flora. Neil only wanted to talk to you. He never meant to hurt anyone.’
‘He didn’t assault her,’ said Flora.
‘We’ve got it on camera, hen.’
‘He just pushed her to get past – he didn’t mean her any harm –’
‘We know he was angry, aye,’ Lorraine Johnson bellowed, tears now in her eyes, ‘but he shouldnae have taken it out on a pregnant lassie, eh? We dinnae want no trouble. We’re no here to see Beckie. We know we’re no allowed. You’ve taken her off of us and that’s broke our hearts, but it’ll finish us, so it will, if anything happens to this wee one.’
And she placed her hand on Carly’s massive stomach.
‘Please!’ she wailed. ‘Just leave us alone!’
Flora opened her mouth.
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ said Caroline.
‘I’m that sorry about the other day, eh?’ the ghastly woman continued, chins wobbling with emotion. ‘Jed’s in bits about Beckie, all he wanted was to get a wee deek at her, a wee glimpse, but when he saw you slapping her, he lost it…’
‘Slapping her?’ said Caroline.
‘We know we’ve no say in how Beckie is disciplined now. Only – please, Flora. Dinnae hit the bairn.’
‘But – I’ve never hit Beckie! I don’t know what he thought he saw…’ She turned, desperately, to Caroline, her mouth so dry she could hardly get the words out. ‘You were there, in the street, when they… I didn’t hit Beckie, did I?’
‘Flora would never hit Beckie,’ Caroline said at once.
‘But you were there – you know I didn’t!’
But of course Caroline didn’t know any such thing. She’d only arrived on the scene after Jed Johnson had started shouting.
Caroline, though, was nodding. ‘I was there,’ she agreed. ‘Flora was hugging Beck
ie while your husband and sons were threatening her. She wasn’t hitting her.’
Rage filled Flora.
‘How dare you come here accusing me of God knows what on the say-so of that man? A convicted killer! Your husband is a convicted killer, and thank God Beckie doesn’t have to live with him any more, or any of your nightmare of a family! You’re not the victims here!’
‘And you know what? You’re in breach of the court order just by being on this property,’ Caroline added.
‘So just fuck off!’ Flora flung out a hand to point past them to the gate. ‘Fuck off!’
The girl took a tottering step back, and Lorraine Johnson put an exaggeratedly protective arm round her. ‘No need for that, eh?’
‘I think you’d better leave,’ said Caroline calmly, reaching past Flora to shut the door.
‘She’s got a gob on her, right enough,’ goes Carly.
‘Aye,’ I goes. ‘The brass neck of her. Giving it “You’re not the victims here.” It’s our wee lassie’s been taken off of us for no reason and we’re no the fucking victims?’
Jed shuffles his arse in the La-Z-Boy, and he doesnae open his eyes, but random sounds come out his gob. He’s fleein’ so he is. There’s a damp bit of piss on his joggers. Good job that La-Z-Boy’s wipe clean.
Travis goes, ‘Aye Da, my thoughts exactly’ and the kids are all ‘Aye, Father Jack,’ the cheeky wee buggers.
The dug grabs a bit pizza off of Jordaine’s plate, and she grabs it back and shoves it in her gob, and Mackenzie’s like that: ‘You wee minger!’ and I’m biting my tongue but Carly doesnae hold back, she’s ‘Dinnae you call your wean a minger, that’s gonnae undermine her confidence’ and Mackenzie’s: ‘Go and take your face for a shite Carly, and maybe come back when you’ve popped that wean and ken what the fuck you’re on about.’
I goes, ‘Shut it yous. When Bekki’s back I dinnae want none of this shite this and fuck that, aye? That wee lassie’s gonnae show all yous up so she is.’
Mackenzie makes a face, and Corrigan goes, ‘Aye, cos Bekki’s a fucking wee angel.’