by Jane Renshaw
‘Course it would, that’ll be great.’ But Caroline looked shell-shocked. Not surprisingly. Flora had known for days that she was getting out, and she still couldn’t get her head round it. This was really happening! She was going to be back with Beckie! It was all going to be okay!
‘Oh, and we have to let the adoption people know that it’s not going ahead.’
‘I’ll do that. I’ll sort all that, Flora, don’t you worry. Just you concentrate on your appeal. That’s the important thing to focus on at the moment, yeah?’
‘I’m thinking we’ll probably move abroad. I can get a passport now – I’m going to legally change my name from Rachel Clark to Flora Parry by deed poll. I was wondering about New Zealand, where Pippa seems to have settled down with this new man of hers… But you’d still be part of Beckie’s life, I hope? You’d come for holidays?’
‘Ooh, New Zealand, eh? Try and stop me!’
I’m shaking so I am. I’ve got the case open on the bed and I’m shoving Bekki’s clothes in it, and she’s whinging on about they fucking wee trees, how she cannae leave them behind, and I’m going, ‘Aye, we’ll get they packed up and sent on, sweetheart, dinnae you worry.’ Aye right. Oh dear, looks like they got lost in the fucking useless Spanish post.
Now she’s going, ‘But why do we have to leave tonight?’
‘You know how Flora made you move house and get a new name and that, because she said we were bad people and you were in danger from us?’
Bekki gives me evils. ‘She never said that.’
‘Aye, but reading between the lines, eh? Well, she was lying through her teeth about that, so she was, cos how would we hurt a wee sweetheart we love to bits? You know what irony is, Bekki? Well, the irony is, we’ve having to do the same thing because Flora’s getting out of prison because she planted evidence on us and the police are thinking one of the lads killed your dad, and you’re gonnae see all sorts of shite on the net about that, but that’s all it is, right? Shite. Because me and you, we know she did it. She telt me and she telt you she killed your dad.’
Wee Bekki’s shaking her head. ‘No. No way.’
‘Now that mad bitch is getting out and who knows what she’s gonnae do – who knows if she’s gonnae come after you because she’s telt you she killed him and she’s feart you’re gonnae shoot your mouth off. But you dinnae have to worry, right, cos we’re disappearing, and we’re doing it right. We’re off to Spain! Off to Sunny Spain. It’s gonnae be a magic adventure, and you’ve got a magic new name.’
‘I’m not going.’
‘Oh aye hen, you’re going all right. Don’t you wannae know what your new name is?’
She folds her arms. ‘What?’
‘Madison. Bonnie, eh?’
‘That’s a chav name.’ And she huffs out the room and slams the toilet door.
Bairns! Christ sakes, as if I’ve no got enough on my plate without Bekki playing up. We’re outta here, and when we get to Spain that lazy fuckwit Travis is fucking dead so he is for landing us in this fucking mess.
Wendy tossed Flora another towel from the clean laundry basket, and Flora folded it and placed it on the pile. That was another thing she would be glad to see the back of – the awful orangey-beige towels, the colour presumably chosen to hide a multitude.
And laundry duty – the airless, humid little room, the smell of sickly sweet washing powder and sweat.
‘Reckon Shannon-Rose must be in this gaff,’ Wendy said. ‘You’d think she’d be in Carstairs, seeing how she’s a fucking loony-tune. You’d better watch yourself, doll. Dinnae go telling folk nothing about your pal that’s looking after Beckie. Nothing, aye? If her name or that gets back to Shannon-Rose, the Johnsons’ll be on it like flies on shite.’
‘But as far as I know, Shannon-Rose is in Carstairs.’ Flora caught the next towel. ‘What makes you think she’s here?’
‘Yesterday, right, I’m at the Rec Room windae and the visitors are coming out the Family Hub making for Reception, and one of them, I’ve seen her before visiting, right, but I didnae recognise the bitch – but that was before you telt me all the shite that’s gone on with the Johnsons, you know? She’s gone brunette and she’s been to Weight Watchers or that, and she’s had herself a fucking makeover. Thinks she’s all that but she’s still just a fucking Haghill slag. It’s Lorraine fucking Johnson. She’s got her arse in this navy trouser suit out Hobbs or shite and a wee flowery scarf, but she’s putting the beef back on and I reckon that’s how come I –’
And Flora was somehow sitting down on one of the hard chairs, and Wendy was saying, ‘Flora? What’s up, hen? Flora?’
And Flora was on her feet, she was dropping the towel on the floor, she was saying, ‘I have to – I have to make a phone call – I have to call Charles right now.’
‘Aye, okay, but –’
‘She’s got Beckie! Lorraine Johnson’s got Beckie!’
Two hours later Flora was on the edge of her chair, both legs jiggling, as Charles swept into the room and dropped onto the chair opposite. His hair was standing up on one side where the wind had dishevelled it and he hadn’t bothered to smooth it. His face was white.
‘They’ve gone,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry, Flora. The police went to the house in Bearsden, but they’ve gone.’
37
Two Months Later
It was a pleasant view at any time of day, but now, after sunset, when dusk shrouded the plastic rubbish bins and the litter along the high-tide mark and the blockwork walls, it was beautiful. The sky seemed to go on forever, streaked with orange and purple and a deep indigo it seemed to take from the sea, although of course it was the other way round. The waves lapping at the beach shimmered silver, and the two stacks of rock out to sea loomed up like sentinels, as if guarding the little cove with its jetty and solitary rowing boat bobbing on the swell.
But if she turned her head to look left from her window instead of right, the scene was just like any other along this coast: streetlights illuminating two more ugly high-rise hotels, some dusty cafés and tavernas and shops, and then a line of run-down orange and yellow apartments with railed balconies, metal-shuttered windows and satellite dishes. The beach, such as it was, on the other side of the road was a tumbled mass of rocks and a little strip of flat grey sand disappearing into a darkened sea. Between the apartments and the junction with the main coast road were half a dozen white, red-roofed ‘executive’ villas that looked like MacDonald’s restaurants, and a few dispirited palm trees.
Fuerte Blanco, the place was called, although there was no sign now of the fort that had presumably given it its name. The original fisherfolk’s houses had gone too, with the one exception of a little boarded-up stone building behind one of the cafés. Flora had never seen anyone use the boat that was tied to the jetty.
She got up from her chair and stretched.
Time to call it a day.
They wouldn’t come now.
She lay down on the bed and shut her eyes.
Maybe tomorrow.
Maybe tomorrow would be the day Caroline – she couldn’t stop thinking of her as Caroline – brought Beckie here.
It had taken Brian just three days to find the place, after Flora had described to him the scene Caroline had as her desktop wallpaper – the photograph of the beach and the little harbour and the two tall stacks of rock.
Fuerte Blanco, five miles along the coast from Malaga.
It had been a long shot, but the only one they had. Brian had come straight out here armed with photographs of them all – Jed and Lorraine Johnson and their offspring – and a bar owner had recognised Travis Johnson as the bastardo who’d punched him in the nose a couple of years ago. He wasn’t likely to forget the face of that matón.
Brian had distributed the photographs around the bars and hotels and cafés, impressing on the staff the importance of keeping them hidden from the view of customers, with the promise of a substantial reward for information. Then he’d staked the place out
and hired three local PIs to help with the enquiry. On the day Flora had been released from prison she’d joined him here.
He’d been the most animated she’d ever seen him as they’d sat across from each other at a table outside Café Victor, piecing together the puzzle of Lorraine Johnson’s masquerade. ‘Incredible,’ he kept saying. ‘Bloody incredible.’
He’d discovered that the previous occupant of Caroline’s flat on Gardens Terrace had been beaten up and told to leave – thus enabling new tenant ‘Caroline’ to move in. ‘She played it cool,’ Brian had said in admiration. ‘Waited a whole three months before making your acquaintance at that party; let you get used to seeing her around. Smart. Very smart.’
And of course it had been Lorraine who had drugged Flora; who had stolen her old phone so that when, on the way to school, she had run out of petrol – presumably siphoned off by one of the Johnson boys – she hadn’t been able to call for help, presenting Travis with the perfect harassment opportunity; who had unlocked and then relocked the window through which Ryan had entered the house; who had memorised the password for the CCTV system, and borrowed Flora’s new phone to allow Ryan to log in using it, and switch the cameras off and on. Afterwards, Ryan must have left the phone somewhere – in Caroline’s flat, maybe – and Caroline had returned it to the kitchen table while Flora had been in the study checking the CCTV footage.
‘Inside job,’ Brian had nodded, draining his espresso and gazing out to sea, a little smile on his lips.
For six weeks Flora had spent all day every day in Fuerte Blanco, while the PIs expanded the search in either direction along the coast and inland, and Brian returned to the UK to follow up other potential leads.
Every day she walked along the beach in a floppy hat and sunglasses, scrutinising everyone she saw. She sat in the shade of the awning at Victor’s pretending to read books and magazines, an empty coffee cup at her elbow. But mostly she sat up here, at the window of her hotel room, scanning the beach and the road below with a pair of binoculars.
The hotel staff had been great, bringing meals and drinks to her room. They had even enlisted their friends and families in the search for Beckie. Her picture was all over the press and social media, both in the UK and in Spain, although Flora had tried to make sure the name Fuerte Blanco wasn’t mentioned – she didn’t want the Johnsons warned off coming here. She had been touched to see a batch of homemade laminated notices tied to lampposts and in windows of local houses, with Beckie’s photograph and a plea to ‘Encuentre Beckie’. It had turned out to be lovely Sofia, the maid who cleaned her room, who was responsible, and Flora had felt awful asking her to take them down, explaining that if the Johnsons did turn up here, she didn’t want them to see the notices and be scared off.
‘But maybe they never come,’ Sofia had said.
Flora wasn’t even going to contemplate that possibility.
They would come, and when they did, she’d be ready.
The local police were primed to expect her call. She was paying Victor, café owner and former member of the Guardia Civil, and his two brothers a retainer of £300 a week each to be on hand in case of trouble, their phones always turned on, ready to receive her SOS.
Money wasn’t an issue. She’d sold the Gardens Terrace house for three-quarters of its valuation, which had still netted her an obscene amount of money, and she had Alec’s life insurance payout now too. Plus there would be the compensation, eventually, from the police for their incompetence and from the press for their slanderous coverage of the case leading up to her conviction.
She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, drawn back, as always, to the view. Standing at the window, she trained the binoculars on the line of little cafés and bars strung out along the beach; on the people on the pavement; on two shadowy figures on the beach… Her breath caught in her throat, but a car turning in the hotel car park briefly illuminated two dark heads and slim figures in bikini tops and cut-off jeans. It was Sofia’s teenage daughters, heads bent together over a match as they lit illicit cigarettes.
If Alec were here, he’d be down there presenting to them the evidence of how many people who smoked as teenagers ended up in an early grave.
She hadn’t been able to think about Alec at all in prison – and when she had had to talk about him, to Charles, to Brian, to the court, she had always referred to him as Neil. But now, for some reason, he was ever-present in her head. She kept thinking how he’d react to this or that, and what he would say; she kept imagining his smile, his touch on her back, her face, her hand; she kept hearing him telling her that the Johnsons, despite everything, loved Beckie and wouldn’t harm her.
How desperately he would want to be here.
How he would hate having had to abandon them.
Only, he hadn’t. He was with her, as he would always be with her, as she was sure he was with Beckie, not just in her thoughts and her memories but in the very fabric of her being. In how she looked at the world.
With his scientist’s knowledge, he had been able to show them layers and layers of life that most people never even imagined existed, let alone experienced. She smiled as she remembered the day, soon after that awful scene on the street with the Johnsons, when they’d taken Beckie to the Botanic Gardens and Alec had picked a leaf off a beech hedge and explained that two cells shaped like lips formed the pores that let gases and water in and out of the leaf. When the cells were swollen with water, they were like the lips of women who had had too much Botox and couldn’t close their mouths: the pore was forced open. And when there was a drought, enzymes and hormones acted to expel potassium ions and water from the pore cells so that they shrank and closed the pore to stop water escaping.
‘The world is a wonderful place, Beckie,’ he had said. ‘And when you take notice of something wonderful in it – how this leaf protects itself, or what a fossil inside a rock did when it was alive millions of years ago, or why a bird sings – you get a little bit of the wonderful to have for yourself, no matter what not-so-wonderful things might be going on in your life at the time.’
And then Beckie, of course, had wanted to know all about why birds sang, and they had gone round the Gardens listening out for robins as Neil explained that robins had territories all the time, not just in summer, so they sang all year round – except when they were moulting in late summer and felt vulnerable – in order to tell other birds to keep off.
Was there a robin where Beckie was, to sing for her? Did you even get robins in Spain? And Beckie would probably object: ‘It wouldn’t be singing for me anyway. It would be singing to tell other birds to get lost.’
She set the binoculars down on the windowsill.
Was she happy, with Caroline? Did she hate Flora now? Or was she wondering Why?
Why doesn’t Mum come and get me?
Flora’s hand went to her pocket, her fingers closing round the smooth length of the flick-knife Wendy’s partner Sol had procured for her.
I will come.
I will come for you, my darling.
I will come.
38
‘Corrigan!’ I yell.
Wee fucker’s jumped in the pool on Jordaine’s head and she’s yowling.
‘Right yous, picnic’s ready so get your arses outta there, aye? Ryan son, you coming?’
‘Naw Maw, I’m gonnae hit the gym.’ He’s never out that fucking gym.
‘Carly and Willow are gonnae be done at WaterBabies 12:20, 12:30 at the latest, but dinnae get there till one, aye? Place gets locked up so she’s gonnae have to fry her arse out on that pavement. Maybe teach the bint a fucking lesson.’ Princess Fucking Carly cannae drive cos why should she, she’s got three fucking brothers chauffeuring her arse any place she needs to go.
Ryan chuckles. ‘She’ll be a wee ray of sunshine, eh?’
‘Aye, and that reminds me, go and tell Madison she’s fucking coming on this fucking picnic.’
Ryan sits up on the lounger and takes off his shades. I c
annae get used to the shaved head and blue contacts. Aye, he needs to lie low, but Christ on a cheesy biscuit. He looks like a fucking skinhead.
‘Can Connor no go? Or Mandy?’
‘Better coming from you, son.’
He loves Bekki to bits and he’s gutted she’s feart of him and doesnae want a bar of him because of all the shite she’s read on the net about Ryan being wanted for murdering her da. After all he’s done for her, it’s a kick in the fucking teeth. He cannae ever go back to the UK.
And aye, I’ve telt Bekki over and over that it’s all shite, that it was Flora killed her da and she knows it, but just in case that wean’s got it in her heid she’s going to the polis and that? I’m ‘Polis catch up with us, you’re going into fucking care, Bekki, cos that fucking woman doesnae want you back, right?’
Ryan gets up and gets on his flip-flops but then here’s Bekki running out the patio doors giving it ‘He killed Dave!’
Dave’s her hamster. She’s got the wee fucker in her hand, and I can see from here it’s an ex hamster right enough. Brains chirted out its wee heid.
‘Aw Jesus,’ goes Mandy.
I yell, ‘Corrigan!’
‘It wasn’t Corrigan,’ goes Bekki. ‘It was that fucking old alky bastard!’
And there’s Jed coming out the patio doors behind her, pissing himself laughing. ‘It was an acccccc-ident so it was.’
‘No it wasn’t! I poured his vodka down the sink and he must have gone and got Dave out of his cage and stood on him!’
‘Right you.’ I’m in Jed’s face. ‘This is your last fucking warning, right? You leave the wean alone, and that includes all of her belongings, right? You leave her be or you’re outta here, and you think I’m fucking joking? Aye, go to the polis then, you think we havenae got a contingency plan? They’re never catching up with us but you go to the polis and that’s your arse back in the Big Bar L before you can say I’m a fucking fuckwit.’