by Jane Renshaw
‘Corrigan!’ I yell. That boy hasnae quit giving me grief since he took his first fucking breath, wickit wee red face yowling and looking at me like he was: Aye Lorraine, here’s me, another fucking mad Johnson bastard.
I’m needing outta here. I get my arse in the kitchen with the wee pay-as-you-go I bought yesterday. I put in the number for Social Services at Glasgow City Council.
‘Oh, hello,’ I goes when I’m through to the right fucker. ‘This is Lydia Ross from Police Scotland – I’m calling in connection with the Saskia Mair investigation?’
‘Oh. Right…’ And you can hear the bint thinking: Christ, am I in the shit here? What are they wanting to speak to me for?
‘I’m not sure if it was you or your colleague I spoke to yesterday?’
‘That must have been Teresa.’
‘Okay, well, no matter. We’ve just been to interview Saskia Mair again, but it seems she’s no longer at the same address, or at least that was the story – could you just check and see if the address at Bielside Road is her current one, please? We’re outside the property now, so if you could do that now, that would be great.’
‘Yes, of course.’ Relieved it’s no her arse in the shit. ‘Could you just hold on one second while I call up the file?’
Candy from a bairn.
‘When’s Bekki gonnae be here?’ says wee Kai when I get back in the lounge. He cannae wait. God love him, he asked me the other day if Jordaine was gonnae get swapped for Bekki, like he was hoping.
Bairns!
‘In a wee while,’ I goes.
‘I’m gonnae save this for Bekki,’ goes Kai, and he lifts up the slice of pizza he’s piled pepperoni on that he’s picked off of the slice he’s eaten. Kai doesnae like pepperoni. It all falls on the carpet and the dug hoovers it.
‘She willnae want pizza,’ goes Corrigan. ‘Bekki only eats organic shite made by beardy wankers cos she’s saving the fucking planet, the fucking wee snob.’
‘Travis!’ I goes. ‘Are you gonnae just sit there and let him aff wi’ that?’
Travis is on his tablet. He doesnae even look up, he just goes, ‘Shut it ye wee bass.’
Looks like Travis and Mackenzie are maybe getting back together, and I’m no sure how I feel about that. It’ll be barry seeing more of the weans, and they need taking in hand right enough, but that wee minger Mackenzie, I hate her fucking guts. She’s a shite mother. Puts Jordaine in wee crop tops and lets her wear make-up and Jordaine’s only five year old. Films her doing sexy moves, grinding her wee hips in time to Beyoncé. Gives me the boak. Gonnae end up a tart like her maw if we dinnae nip that in the bud.
Carly goes, ‘Do you reckon Ailish heard?’
‘Oh aye, darlin’. She heard all right.’
Timing was spot on. You could set your watch by that Ailish bint. Back home 2:30 every Thursday with her weekly shop from Marks and Sparks. So she’s out there unloading for two, three minutes, and no way is that nosy cow not earwigging when two gobby bitches roll up at the Parrys’ door.
‘Flora was bricking it,’ goes Carly.
‘“But I never hit Bekki!”’ I goes.
Ryan and Travis are pissing themselves.
‘You were ace, Maw,’ goes Carly. ‘Here, if I have this wean preterm, I could maybe sue those bastards, eh, make out like it was the assault caused it –’
‘Jesus Chutney! Dinnae even think about it!’
‘I’m joking you!’
Aye, but is she? God’s sakes, this fucking family.
And now Travis is going, ‘Aw Christ, look at the state of it,’ because Connor’s at the lounge door in his funeral suit, and Mackenzie’s cackling, and Corrigan goes, ‘Put a suit on a bampot, it’s still a bampot’ and Travis is leaning over to high-five the wee shite, and I’m, ‘Corrigan!’
‘Aye Corrigan,’ goes Connor. ‘You’ll maybe wannae reflect on the fact that when I was your age I could spell my own fucking name, aye? So if I’m a bampot, what does that make you?’
Corrigan’s giving him evils.
‘He’s fucking dyslexic?’ goes Mackenzie.
‘Aye, and the rest,’ goes Ryan.
Connor eyeballs me. ‘You ready, Maw?’
‘Aye son.’ I get up off my arse. ‘Aye son, let’s us get outta here.’
I park on the street opposite 24 Turner Drive. It’s a nice area, a posh wee street with bungalows and gardens for folk that’s got nothing better to do than go at their lawns with nail scissors, and bonnie blossom trees, and it’s a right bonnie evening with the sun hitting the blossom, still as anything, and at the end of the street you get a wee keek at the sea with the sunlight dancing off of it.
I need a jobbie. Fucking pizza lying heavy.
We start with Number 22 next door, but the place is dead and no bastard answers. Number 26 but, a wee wifie comes to the door carrying a yappy wee dug, a manky Scottie with brown scliters down its gob.
‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ I goes in a polite wee voice. ‘My name’s Susan Marchbanks and this is Kenneth Brown – we’re from a company called We-Locate that searches for heirs of people who’ve died intestate and left a sizeable estate…’
‘As featured on Heir Hunters,’ goes Connor.
Aye, and that’s got her attention right enough. ‘Although it’s mainly our Solihull branch features in the programme.’
She’s nodding along, pound signs dancing across her fucking eyeballs.
‘It’s Ruth Innes we’re looking for,’ I goes.
It’s pure comical so it is – the trip to the Canaries and the new smart TV gone for a Burton.
‘The last address we have for her is 24 Turner Drive,’ goes Connor.
I says, ‘There’s a monetary reward for information that allows us to trace an heir. Any information you can provide about Ruth Innes or her family could qualify.’
‘Oh? What kind of… monetary reward would you be talking about?’
Connor opens the folder he’s got with him and makes like he’s checking. ‘Given the value of the estate, we’d be looking at a sum in the region of one thousand three hundred pounds.’
She’s back interested. ‘Well, I don’t know if what I can tell you would be of any help…’
‘You’d be surprised. Mrs…?’ I smile.
‘Campbell. Jean Campbell.’
‘Would you like to talk to us now, or…’
‘Yes, that’s fine. Please come in.’
She shuts the dug up somewhere ben the house and comes back in the front room with a tray with mugs and biscuits. Connor’s got the form he printed out last night, and he sits there on the Parker Knoll and starts reading out questions – name, date of birth, all that shite, then it’s, ‘Do you have a current address for Ruth Innes?’
Wifie: ‘No, I’m afraid not. After her mother died and the bungalow was sold, I didn’t see Ruth again.’
Me: ‘Did you know the family well when they lived next door?’
Wifie: ‘Not to say well, but she was a good neighbour, Liz Innes, especially after my husband died. We’d have morning coffee together now and then, and go for the odd walk.’
There’s something she’s no saying. There’s something here right enough.
Connor: ‘And did you see much of her daughter Flora?’
The wee diddy. ‘You mean Ruth, Kenneth.’ I roll my eyes at the wifie. ‘I think you’re getting mixed up with Flora Adams from a previous case.’
‘Oh aye. Aye. Sorry, Maw.’
Fucking hell.
‘Susan,’ he goes, a right beamer on him.
I shake my head and give a wee giggle. ‘They call me “Ma” in the office because I’m always asking if they had enough for breakfast and telling them to wipe their feet – and this one’s getting a clip round the ear in a minute! Ha ha ha!’
Wifie smiles, but like she’s thinking Eh…?
‘So,’ I goes. ‘Did you see much of Ruth?’
Wifie: ‘No, Ruth wasn’t home much. She was at boarding school, you see
, and then university.’
‘So they weren’t close, then, Mrs Innes and her daughter?’
Wifie sucks in her cheeks. ‘I wouldn’t say they were close, no. It was odd, actually – I always thought it was odd that she hardly ever mentioned Ruth. I’m always blethering on about my two boys and the grandchildren, you can’t shut me up, but Liz – if you asked her how Ruth was doing, she’d just smile and say, “Oh fine,” and change the subject.’
I knew it! I fucking knew it!
‘She was a cold woman in a way. Perfectly nice, but… not much warmth to her. On the few occasions Ruth was home, I never saw them go out together to the shops or anything. They seemed to live very much separate lives, which I thought was sad. Ruth was a lovely girl. She used to take Molly – my old Westie, Dee-Dee’s great-grandmother – for walks, and she’d come in and feed her and cuddle her and groom her. Lovely. I wondered – even before the accident, I mean – I wondered if maybe Liz was depressed.’
I goes, ‘This is the accident with the milk float you’re talking about?’
Wifie: ‘Awful. It really was. I saw it happen, you know. I was potting up plants at the front door… Primroses, I think. No – no, it was pansies. Liz was crossing the street – the milk float had been parked at the kerb, but then it started reversing. Liz – she seemed rooted to the spot. I shouted at her and dropped a pot onto the slabs, and it smashed, and then the milk float hit her and she went under the wheels. She could have got out of the way, but she didn’t even seem to try. I almost got the impression – as I said at the time – I almost got the impression that she couldn’t be bothered moving. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the way she just stood there sort of slumped… As if she was in a daze…’
Connor: ‘That must have been hard for Ruth.’
Wifie: ‘Oh, terrible. But I had to speak out, you see, at the fatal accident inquiry, for the sake of the poor driver. Yes, he should have looked in his mirrors before he started reversing, but it wasn’t as if she couldn’t have got out of the way.’
I goes, ‘So what you’re saying is that it was… to all intents and purposes… suicide by milk float?’
Connor snorts.
Wifie gives him evils. ‘You could almost say that. The driver was convicted of dangerous driving nevertheless – got a few months in prison, poor man. He was devastated.’
‘He must have been,’ I goes.
‘Hell of a thing to happen.’ Connor makes like he’s consulting his notes. ‘And Liz and Ruth came to live next door when?’
‘Oh – it would have been about 1983, I suppose.’
‘They moved here from Australia, aye?’
‘Well.’ Wifie purses her lips. ‘That was their story. Liz had an Australian accent, yes, just a slight one. But Ruth didn’t. And when I would ask Ruth about Australia, she used to contradict what Liz had told me. About where they lived in Sydney, for one thing – Liz told me they lived in a suburb a lot like on Neighbours, and when they left to come to the UK, there was even a street party in the cul-de-sac to wish them bon voyage, but when I asked Ruth later if she enjoyed watching Neighbours because it reminded her of her old home – this was when Neighbours had just started and everyone was watching it – she said, “Oh, but we lived in a flat in the city, it was nothing like Neighbours.” I told her that Liz had said they did live in a similar suburb, and you could see her thinking fast, and then she came out with, “I was too young to remember – we moved to the city when I was five.” But Liz had told me they had that street party in the cul-de-sac when they left for the UK. That’s when I knew they weren’t telling the whole truth about it. And there were things Ruth didn’t know about Australia – like where Darwin was. Any child growing up in Australia would know that, surely?’
‘Aye,’ I goes, ‘that’s a bit strange. So you think maybe Liz was Australian but Ruth was brought up somewhere else?’
‘That was my suspicion. Although why they’d lie about it, I don’t know.’
Aye, that was the question all right. That was the fucking question.
‘Well, this is all very useful information, Mrs Campbell. Thank you.’ I goes to stand up.
‘And the monetary…?’
‘We’ll be in touch if the information you’ve provided facilitates the location of Ruth Innes,’ goes Connor.
‘And before we go,’ I says, ‘would it be possible to use your lavatory?’
21
‘I don’t think Edith will want to come, though,’ said Beckie through a mouthful of muesli.
Flora took a swallow of tea. ‘Well, maybe if you ask her really nicely, she will.’
‘I’m already giving her like half my lunch and she still hardly speaks to me.’
‘Beckie, you do realise that your own lunch is exactly the same size as ever? I hope you have been giving the extra food to Edith, and not eating it yourself.’
Beckie sighed. ‘Yes! But you know how seagulls swoop down and snatch your food and then they disappear? Edith’s like a human seagull. She’s suddenly there, and then after I’ve given her the food, she’s gone. I’ve asked her if she wants to play with us but she doesn’t.’
Flora bit her lip. She had passed on to Mrs Jenner her concern about Edith not getting enough to eat, and Mrs Jenner had said she’d look into it, but according to Beckie, Edith still seemed desperate for the extra lunch Flora was now packing, which included ever more calorific – and presumably tempting to Beckie – items such as Snickers and homemade flapjacks. Was Beckie handing it all over?
She’d have to speak to Mrs Jenner again.
‘If she does come to the party,’ added Neil, ‘you’re going to treat her like a princess the whole time she’s here. That’ll be a good start to making it up to her.’
Beckie sighed. ‘I know, but Edith hates me now.’
‘I’m sure she doesn’t,’ said Flora weakly, although this was all too likely.
She waited for Neil to back her up, but he was intent on the screen of his laptop, breaking his own ‘no screens at the table’ rule.
As she got up and walked to the sink behind his chair, she saw that he had a table of data up on the screen – catching up on the work he’d let slide since the Johnsons had reappeared. Getting back to normal life. Carrying on as if nothing had happened.
They’d had another argument in bed this morning. Neil had decided that the Johnsons’ whole strategy must be to persuade the authorities to review the adoption; to cast doubt on Neil and Flora’s suitability as adoptive parents by provoking them to violence.
‘Or to make us appear violent,’ he’d added. ‘I hardly even touched Carly Johnson.’
‘They’ve got you on camera pushing her!’
‘I didn’t push her. I just tried to get past, and she deliberately fell to the ground. She’s a pretty good actress, as you found out for yourself yesterday.’ He’d sat up in bed and glared at her. They had intended taking the footage of Lorraine and Carly Johnston coming to the door to the police as evidence of their breaching the court order, but on playing it had discovered that the camera angle, from behind Carly, made it look as if Flora flinging out her arm to tell them to ‘Fuck off’ was an attempt to hit the girl, who had staggered back on cue. Flora had argued that Caroline would back up her version of the encounter, but as Neil had impatiently pointed out, a friend was hardly an independent witness – and what if the Johnsons had realised their nosy neighbour next door had been listening and told the police to go and ask Ailish? What might Ailish not say, just to land them in it?
Flora had sighed. ‘We could just give the police the bit that shows them coming to the door. Truncate the footage at the point where I open the door…’
‘Don’t be stupid, Flora. The Johnsons would counterclaim that you tried to assault Carly again, and the police would ask to see the whole interaction and maybe interview Ailish.’
‘But if we wiped the footage after the point where they come to the door…’
‘We can’t wipe it, it�
�s all kept securely for six months on Eden Security’s system. If the Johnsons do make another complaint off their own bat, and the police ask to see the footage, we’re in trouble. We’ve seriously underestimated them. We’ve been stereotyping them as violent thugs without a brain cell between them who’ve been making a series of incompetent attempts to snatch Beckie, or possibly just harassing us out of malice – but they’ve obviously got another agenda. They’re trying to make out we’re the bad guys. And so far they’re doing a pretty good job. What we have to do is remember that it’s all bluster – that they’re not going to actually do anything. They’re not going to hurt us or snatch Beckie. We have to just turn the other cheek. Not let them provoke us again.’
‘So you’re saying they’re not really dangerous at all. That they’re harmless, like – like kids using naughtiness to provoke a reaction. And that we should stop stressing about it and just ignore them?’
‘Exactly. Everything they’ve done has obviously been designed to provoke us into doing something stupid, so a lawyer can argue that we’re the ones who are unfit to have custody of Beckie.’
‘But we know that they are dangerous. They’re hardened criminals. We can’t afford to let down our guard, especially not where Beckie’s concerned. Maybe that’s what they want us to do. Maybe they want us on the back foot, maybe they’re counting on us relaxing and thinking “As long as we don’t react, everything will be fine”, and that’s when they’ll strike.’
‘If they were going to “strike”, they’d have done so by now. If snatching Beckie has been their aim, let’s face it, there’s nothing much we could have done to stop them, “hardened criminals” as they are.’
She’d felt the bed rock as he’d pushed himself out of it.
‘I’m going to Glasgow to see Saskia,’ she’d said.
‘What good’s that going to do?’
‘I thought you agreed that we should speak to her? Find out which of the neighbours to approach…’
‘That was before it became clear what the Johnsons are up to. And anyway, we can’t believe a word that woman says.’