Watch Over Me: A psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist

by Jane Renshaw

  ‘Not short on ambition, then.’

  We both laugh.

  ‘For example, war? Apparently there are these three different strategies, hawk and dove and crow. Doves are like really nice and kind, like peace activists and people, but the problem is that if everyone in the world is a dove the system’s inherently unstable because the minute a hawk appears – hawks are like super-nasty and just want to exterminate everyone else? – if they’re in a world full of doves they basically just go mental and pretty soon the world’s fucked.’

  ‘Beckie.’

  ‘Sorry. I mean, like if the Nazis had won the war. Because the hawks know they can do whatever they want and the doves won’t stop them. It’d be like Hitler or Putin or Trump somehow gets into Teletubby Land. Or like every country’s Switzerland except for North Korea? Then the opposite scenario, a world full of just hawks, obviously that’s f… that isn’t going to work either because they’ll all just kill each other. The only way for it to be stable is to have retaliators in the mix – crows. They’re like doves except they’re smart and they fight back if a hawk starts anything, like maybe James Bond? So everyone can coexist.’

  Mum’s smiling. ‘Well, that makes sense, although I’m sure Dad would be up for a debate about it with Andrew.’

  Connor’s getting out of his car. ‘Hiya!’

  ‘Hi Connor!’ Mum gets up. ‘Thanks so much for acting as Beckie’s chauffeur yet again.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks Connor,’ I say on cue.

  Mum hugs me. ‘Have fun, darling.’

  I hug her back. ‘Thanks Mum. I will.’

  ‘Looking good, Beckster,’ says Connor.

  I can see myself in the glass of the kitchen window and I’m thinking, yeah, I’m not bad. I’m not the prettiest girl in the class or anything but I’m okay. I’m tall and slim but I’ve got curves. Quite a few boys have asked me out before, so I can’t be like a total minger, but I said ‘Thanks but no thanks’ because I only wanted to go out with Andrew Main but he was with Sherilyn, that skanky cow who called Mibs a retard just because she thought a caftan was a kind of cafetière. Sherilyn made Andrew’s life hell, ordering him about and once when he got her the wrong yoghurt in the canteen she glooped it over his head and all her skanky friends were laughing and Sherilyn was yelling at him, ‘You fucking know I hate strawberry!’ and he just smiled his goofy smile and used his scarf to try and wipe it off his hair.

  That girl is such a fucking bully.

  Last week after hockey there was just me and her in the changing room because she always takes forever in the shower washing all her skanky flab, and I waited behind pretending to have lost my scrunchy, and I told Mibs and them just to go ahead to our next class and explain to Mrs Hutchison why I was late, and then when Sherilyn came out of the shower I slammed her up against the changing room door and told her if she didn’t (a) chuck Andrew and (b) stop picking on Mibs I was going to break her nose so fucking badly no fucking surgeon on the planet would be able to put it back together and how many boys would want to go out with her then?

  She pissed herself and had to go back in the shower.

  Connor’s going on about the wedding as usual – they’re getting married at our house because neither Connor nor Erin is religious – and it’s super-dull, so I ask him about Mrs Miller, the old lady who’s the latest client of Connor’s Computer Services.

  ‘Aw Beckie, you should’ve seen the spread she’d laid out for me, right? We’re no just talking scones and cake, there was like tuna and prawn rolls and wee pork pies and egg mayo sandwiches and that, and peanut butter ice cream and an oat and strawberry smoothie. It was pure amazing so it was.’

  ‘And you scoffed the lot?’

  ‘Only polite, eh? Mrs Miller thinks I need fed up or Erin’s gonnae leave me for some big hunky guy she’s gonnae meet at the pool.’

  That’s where Erin works. She’s like a really amazing swimmer and she was nearly picked for the New Zealand Olympic team for breaststroke when she was fourteen.

  ‘That explains all the protein.’

  ‘Aye, she’s maybe been Googling it with her newfound skills, eh? How to get muscles on a skinny wee fucker, she’s maybe inputted.’

  I snort. ‘I bet Mrs Miller would be on my side in the Is-Willow-Too-Fat debate.’

  ‘Aye, likely.’

  Willow’s six now and she’s staying with us tomorrow night so Carly and Connor and Erin can all go out. Mum bans poor Willow from eating any sweets or crisps or ice cream or basically anything nice while she’s with us because she says she’s on the cusp of obesity but I love her chubby little cheeks and her chubby little arms and legs. She’s so adorable.

  I’m telling her Dad’s Wanderer stories and she loves them.

  ‘She wouldn’t be so cute if she was thin. It’s like cats – they’re super-cute when they’re really fat, but Mum says you should think about their health, and I know she’s got a point, but when Willow gets back to yours she’ll just stuff her face to make up for it anyway.’

  ‘Aye, Carly needs to stop buying that wean crap. She needs to step up as a responsible parent, eh?’

  I shrug. ‘I guess. And talking of which – have you spoken to Ryan about Ailish yet?’

  ‘No yet.’

  ‘You don’t think he’d do it.’

  ‘Ryan would do anything for you, Beckie, you know that, he feels that bad about your da, eh? That’s no the issue here. Do you no think it’s maybe best to just move on, eh, and forget it?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Ailish needs to be punished. If she hadn’t stopped Jasmine coming forward and telling the police she’d seen Ryan, they would have focused the investigation on him from the start and Mum would never have gone to jail.

  But even more important than that is what’s happening to Jack. Jasmine’s little toddler Jack. While Jasmine’s at work, Ailish is meant to look after him on Mondays and Wednesdays and she’s all ‘Just call me Super Gran’ and posting photos on Facebook of stupid cakes she’s baked for him and stuff. She hardly ever features Jack himself, though, and when she does it’s always from the back. Mia’s all over that Facebook page now – ‘Quality niece and auntie time!’ – because Mia’s really really pretty, like a model. Ailish is always taking her photo without her knowing, so Mia can’t mess it up by making one of her gargoyle faces. Mia says Ailish basically ignores Jack unless she needs the back of his head for a photo. Otherwise he’s in his playpen the whole time apart from when he’s being fed or changed, and if Thomas or Mia is there they have to do that.

  Ailish basically despises Jack because he’s got this eye problem and he’s cross-eyed. Ailish keeps going on to Jasmine about how they should take him to Bulgaria or wherever to get it sorted because no UK surgeon will do the operation until he’s older.

  Until she can put him on Facebook and get ‘Oh he’s so gorgeous’ comments, she doesn’t want to know.

  The evil, evil cow.

  Mia and Thomas have tried telling Jasmine what she’s doing, but Jasmine doesn’t believe them because Ailish has brainwashed her. Mia was crying about Jack last time we Skyped, and I was too. Mum says we’d need evidence before social services would intervene and maybe Mia could set up a camera or something, but footage of a toddler in a playpen probably wouldn’t cut it.

  It’s so not fair.

  It’s Thomas all over again.

  This time, though, she’s not getting away with it. Some people just shouldn’t be around kids, and okay so Ailish isn’t as bad as Jed and Bitch, but she’s still pretty fucking bad.

  ‘It’s not like I’m wanting Ryan to put out a hit on her or anything. Although…’

  Connor whips his head round.

  ‘I’m joking! God, Connor! But I’ve been thinking maybe framing her for burglary isn’t the way to go.’

  All he says is ‘Oh aye?’ but he’s obviously thinking Thank fuck for that.

  ‘It would be her first offence, so she pro
bably wouldn’t even get a custodial sentence. But I’ve been thinking – what if she was filmed being super-neglectful and there were witnesses and she was convicted of child neglect?’

  ‘We cannae hurt a bairn.’

  ‘Of course not! But what I’m thinking is, one really hot day in summer when she’s doing her Super Gran stuff, one of Ryan’s goons can somehow give her Rohypnol and get her and Jack and the buggy and her car into town. Somewhere there’s no CCTV. Park up the car, get a load of alcohol down Ailish, and leave her slumped on a bench or somewhere with the empty buggy and an empty bottle of Bailey’s. Meanwhile, one of the goons, acting the concerned citizen, has to smash the car window to get Jack out of the boiling hot car before he dies of dehydration and heat shock. They wouldn’t actually leave him in the car, but with no CCTV, who’s to know? They take him to the nearest hospital and the police get involved. Someone else meanwhile secretly films Ailish as she’s coming round, as she’s realising “Fuck where’s Jack?” and going mental, staggering around with the empty buggy looking for him. The footage goes up on YouTube, all her Facebook friends get sent the link, and she’s trolled by a load of self-righteous bitches just like her. Then hopefully she’s arrested for child neglect, and her life’s basically over. And she never gets near Jack again.’

  ‘Aw Christ Beckie.’

  ‘Would Ryan be able to organise all that from prison?’

  ‘Aye, but –’

  ‘Ryan owes us big time.’

  I can’t wait to see Mum’s face when I’m like ‘Oh Mum look at this that Mia sent me!’ and I show her the YouTube footage of Ailish and she reads all the troll stuff. She’s going to be ‘Oh that’s dreadful’ but secretly she’ll be going Yes!

  Andrew’s right. One thing I’ve learned from all the shit that’s happened to me is that being a dove just gets you fucked over. Like Mum and Dad were by Bitch. And like Mum was by that Tricia girl. If she had stood up to Tricia she would never have got into all that trouble in the first place.

  I do kind of wonder about that, though. I mean, the bow and arrow. How is it possible to accidentally fire an arrow at someone? Even if you tripped up, wouldn’t you just let go of the bow as well as the arrow and they would both just get dropped to the ground? And how could that Gail tell it was an accident?

  But I so would not blame Mum if it wasn’t.

  Tricia had it coming. People like Tricia and Ailish and Bitch, they’re hawks and they’ll basically try to shaft you every time. You have to be a crow. You have to shaft them back.

  ‘He’ll be able to organise that, you reckon?’

  Connor shrugs. ‘Aye.’

  ‘And you’ll ask him? It’s really not a big deal, is it, compared with the stuff he’s already done? Compared with, oh, I don’t know… murdering my dad?’

  Connor looks at me sideways. ‘Beckie –’

  ‘Yeah yeah, heard it all before. Will you ask him or will you not, Connor?’

  ‘Aye, okay then.’

  And now we’re turning into Andrew’s road on the edge of Westport. It’s called Abattoir Road which doesn’t exactly sound like it’s a brilliant address, but it’s out in nice countryside with lots of grass and trees between the houses and there’s a view of the mountains, and his house is nowhere near the actual abattoir. And Connor suddenly slows down and says, ‘Check the fantail!’ and he points up into a tree and there’s a fantail jumping about in there flicking his tail and it really does look like a fan, it doesn’t look real, and I’m ‘Awww amazing!’

  And now we’re at Andrew’s house and he’s waiting at the end of his drive in a black T-shirt with the Crab Nebula on it and brown trousers that so don’t go, and when he sees the car slowing down he waves in a really dorky way, like he’s making a circle in the air with his hand, and he’s grinning like Wallace out of Wallace and Gromit, and Connor’s saying ‘The wee fuckwit’ and oh my God I love my life.

  GET A FREE THRILLER!

  Sign up to the Inkubator newsletter (Jane’s publisher) to receive an exclusive FREE book, The Guests, featuring the Johnston family a few months before Bekki was born. As you might expect, mayhem ensues. You’ll also get news of our other great mystery and suspense books and hear about special offers.

  Sign up here

  From Jane

  Firstly, I must thank you for enduring the Johnsons throughout this novel. That is quite a feat. My long-suffering friends and family have also had to put up with a lot – thank you, all of you, for humouring me when I bore you with all the (often) gory details of my latest plot idea, and for refraining from committing a real-life murder.

  The only people to read Watch Over Me in its early stages were Lesley McLaren (www.mediterraneanpyrenees.com) and Lucy Lawrie (author of Tiny Acts of Love and The Last Day I Saw Her), my wonderful writer friends, who as always provided everything I needed, from the impetus to write it in the first place, to how to solve problems with the plot and characters, to the nitty-gritty of sorting out the text (yes, Beckie’s original dialogue was too annoying?), not to mention endless encouragement and patience throughout the whole process. Thank you both for taking so much time from your own writing to help me – and for all the laughs!

  Author Cathryn Grant was kind enough to offer very valuable advice, particularly about how much Glaswegian dialect the novel could take without becoming too incomprehensible to readers outside Scotland. Thank you, Cathryn!

  I am hugely indebted to the team at Inkubator Books. Pauline Nolet picked up an embarrassingly high number of mistakes in her careful read of the manuscript. Brian Lynch and Garret Ryan took a chance on a ‘random’ (as Lorraine would say) and made the scary process of preparing for publication not scary at all – in fact, it has been great fun! I am extremely lucky to have found a publisher that offers such excellent and intelligent help with all things editorial– from the big picture to the smallest detail – combined with an in-depth knowledge of marketing. Thank you so much for all your guidance and support, and for your enthusiasm for Watch Over Me. In Johnson-speak: belter!

  Finally, reviews are so important to us authors. I would be very grateful if you could spend a moment to write an honest review (no matter how short). They really do help get the word out.

  Leave a Review

  Best wishes,

  Jane

  www.janerenshaw.co.uk

  Glossary of Scottish Slang

  aff off

  airch to throw

  alky alcoholic

  aye yes

  babby baby

  bairn child

  bampot idiot

  bangsty mad

  barry wonderful

  bass bastard

  baws balls

  beamer blushing face

  belter something very good

  ben through

  bevvy alcoholic drink; to drink alcohol

  bint woman

  boak vomit

  boggin’ disgusting

  bonnie pretty

  bowfin’ disgusting and/or stinking

  breenge to shove or barge

  bumfled up bundled up (in clothes)

  by the way actually (used for emphasis)

  cannae can’t

  cauld cold

  chap to knock

  chebs breasts

  chib knife

  coorie cuddle

  coup to tip or overturn

  da dad

  daftie idiot

  deek to look or peek

  diddy silly idiot

  dinnae don’t

  dowfie stupid

  dug dog

  eejit idiot

  evils a hostile look

  fanny female genitalia (vulgar)

  feart scared

  fleein’ drunk

  flit to move house

  gies give us/me

  ginger sweet fizzy drink

  girn to cry, whine or both

  glaikit stupid

  gob mouth

  gobby loud-mouthed

  gobshite
rubbish

  gonnae going to

  greet to cry

  gub mouth

  hairy young woman of loose morals

  havenae haven’t

  heehaw nothing

  heid head

  hen affectionate term for a girl or woman

  hisself himself

  hud to hold

  hyter to stumble

  isnae isn’t

  jagged jabbed

  jakied inebriated

  jobbie poo

  keek to peep

  laddie boy

  laird landowner

  lassie girl

  lug ear

  manky dirty or unsavoury

  maw mother

  minger dirty or disgusting person

  minging dirty or disgusting

  (the) morn tomorrow

  -nae (e.g. isnae) -n’t (e.g. isn’t)

  naw no

  neb nose

  ned lout

  no not

  numptie idiot

  photy photo

  piece sandwich

  pish piss

  podging overeating

  polis police

  pooch pocket

  radge wildly angry

  raging angry

  rammie a fight

  rare good

  Rotty Rottweiler

  runch to crunch

  sakeless harmless

  scheme a housing estate (often council housing)

  schemie an inhabitant of a council housing estate

  scliters dirty wetness

  scooby clue

  shite shit

  shoogly unsteady or rocking (e.g. a table on an uneven surface)

  shoosh be quiet

  skelp to smack

  slavers long strings of saliva hanging from the mouth

  sleekit underhand

  stane stone

  swadging relaxing

  swally swallow

  swalt swollen