Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

‘Ruth –’

‘I’ll call you back.’

Ruth was aware of herself, as if from outside her own body, snatching up her car keys and going back outside and saying to Beckie, ‘Okay darling, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to resume the photo shoot later. We have to go.’

‘Go where?’

Beckie had a way of looking at you, her expression somehow primed, anticipatory, wary, ready to assume any number of variations according to your response.

‘To the shops.’

Beckie smiled.

Always an acceptable option.

‘I need to wee.’

‘Okay. Be quick.’

Ruth grabbed the soft toys from the tree – she was never sure quite why she did that – and ran to the car parked on the gravel area beyond the outbuildings. She threw the toys in the back seat and started the engine and then ran back to the house and upstairs to the landing. The bathroom door was shut.

‘Come on, darling.’ She put her shaking hand on the door.

‘Coming!’

The door clicked open and Beckie was smiling at her.

If anyone tried to take her darling she would kill them.

If she could, she would kill them.

‘Right, let’s go.’

Down the stairs, through the hall. At the door, though, she stopped. The Johnsons might be out there now. Shouldn’t they just lock themselves inside?

No.

The Johnsons could smash a window. Batter down the door.

They had to get away.

She took Beckie by the hand and together they stepped out into the sunlight, too bright in her eyes so she couldn’t see properly, she couldn’t see if there was anyone there, but she didn’t stop to scan around her, she started to run, pulling Beckie.

‘Mum!’ Beckie half-laughed, half-wailed.

‘We need to hurry, darling.’

‘Why?’

‘The shop will be closing soon.’

‘You didn’t lock the door!’

‘Well, never mind.’

‘You didn’t even shut it!’

Past the end of the old byre with its rusty corrugated iron roof, past the mill stone she’d planted up with thyme, into the dappled shade of the sycamore and onto the gravel, their feet sending little stones skittering.

She hauled open the back door of the car and bundled Beckie inside and onto her booster seat, fumbled with the belt, shut the door and jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed her own door, wrenching the wheel round in almost the same movement.

And then they were accelerating away down the road, and Beckie was saying:

‘Mum. What’s wrong? Mum?’

She drove them not to the shops but to the car park at the start of the walk round the loch shore, busy at this time on a sunny autumn afternoon with families and hikers. To make the call, she got out and stood looking at the white horses on the water while Beckie sat locked inside the car.

‘I’m sorry to have scared you, Ruth,’ Deirdre said at once. ‘The situation’s not quite what we thought it was. It’s okay, they don’t have your address after all.’

Oh thank God. ‘So it wasn’t Lorraine Johnson who called Saskia?’

‘Actually, it seems it wasn’t Saskia who called me . It’s all a huge cock-up, I’m afraid, and it’s all my fault. I’m so sorry. I – I was so sure I was speaking to Saskia. She said she’d just been scammed into giving out your address to someone pretending to be me. She said she’d tried calling you to warn you, but the number wasn’t being recognised and she wondered if you’d changed your mobile number… So I gave her your current one, like an idiot, and Alec’s, and your landline number and email address… I should have followed procedure, which in those circumstances – where someone phones up purporting to be a colleague wanting sensitive information – the procedure is to phone them back , just to make sure it really is them. But the thing is, I know Saskia quite well, and I was sure it was her.’

‘But it wasn’t.’

Far out on the water a yacht was tacking, white sails flapping then filling as it changed course. Two birds flew above Inchmurrin, and then three more, and soon there was a cloud of black specks in the sky. Rooks. She could hear them now, faintly, cawing in concerted bursts across the water.

‘No,’ said Deirdre. ‘Saskia never called me.’

‘So –’

In the car, Beckie wasn’t looking at Ruth. She had Fat Bear under one arm and Hildebrand under the other and was speaking to them. Ruth could see her lips moving.

‘It was Lorraine Johnson pretending to be Saskia.’

‘But this means they don’t have our address, just our phone numbers and email?’

‘Yes. I guess she rightly figured that I’d smell a rat if “Saskia” asked for your names or your address. Pretending she’d got an out-of-date phone number, on the other hand, reeling it off for me to confirm it was right – that didn’t ring any alarm bells. And it was an emergency, or so I thought, there was a time pressure… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

‘Deirdre, it’s okay. We’re really careful about not putting our phone numbers or email addresses online. There’s no way they can find us from those. Our email addresses don’t have our names in them either. We can just change our phone numbers and dump that email address, whichever one it is you have.’

‘No one’s called you trying to get your name or address out of you?’

‘No.’

‘Can you phone Alec straight away and alert him? I couldn’t get through to him on the number I have.’

‘Yes. Right. I’ll do that now, but I’m sure he wouldn’t give out that kind of information over the phone.’

She couldn’t get through to Alec either – he was probably giving a lecture or in a practical – so she left a message saying to call her back urgently, the Johnsons might have their phone numbers and an email address, and if someone contacted him trying to find out his name and address, for God’s sake don’t tell them.

She went over to the car and opened Beckie’s door. ‘I’m sorry, darling, that was a bit weird, wasn’t it?’

‘There is something wrong, isn’t there?’

‘That was Deirdre.’

They had been more or less honest with Beckie about her adoption and her birth mother, telling her that Shannon-Rose had something wrong in her brain and had done bad things and was now in prison – although they hadn’t told her yet what Shannon-Rose had done, and she hadn’t asked.

Beckie looked up at her with that guarded expression she hated. No seven-year-old should ever look at anyone like that, least of all her own mother.

Ruth gently stroked back the strands of hair falling over her face.

‘It’s nothing to worry about. Deirdre has made a mistake and your birth family, the Johnsons, have found out our phone numbers. But it’s okay because we can easily change the numbers right away, and they won’t be able to phone us.’

‘I don’t want them to phone us.’

‘No, darling, they won’t. You don’t need to worry about that.’

‘I don’t want to see them.’

They had told her that the Johnsons were bad people and that was why Beckie wasn’t ever going to see them again. They didn’t know where Beckie was and never would. She could just forget that they existed.

Did she remember them?

Did Beckie remember what they had done to her?

Memories weren’t laid down at that age, of course. But subconsciously – yes. Beckie knew what had happened to her. Ruth had no doubt about that.

‘They might hurt us.’

‘Oh darling, no!’ She scrabbled with the belt, lifted Beckie out and pulled her into a hug. Oh my darling girl, don’t be frightened, don’t be frightened . ‘Daddy and I will never let them hurt you. Never .’