Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

She took a slug of coffee. ‘Jed gets off on other people’s suffering. I could tell you a dozen horror stories, but the best documented is an incident that happened in prison. It seems Jed’s sidekick, who was also his cellmate, made the mistake of standing up to Jed when he started victimising a young prisoner. When the warder opened the cell door in the morning he found Jed sleeping like a baby, the floor awash with blood, and the cellmate close to death. There were two hundred and thirty-six separate cuts found on the man’s body. Fifty-two of which were on his penis, which was almost severed. The weapon had been the edge of a laminated sheet of tumble drier instructions taken from the prison laundry, where Jed worked at the time. The man claimed to have inflicted the injuries himself, so no action could be taken against Jed… I’m sorry, but I think you have to know this.’

Ruth, a hand to her mouth, nodded.

Saskia passed across another photograph. ‘And this is the eldest son, Ryan Johnson.’

This was another hard face, but much younger and startlingly handsome, with long dark lashes and dark eyes, dark hair slicked back 1950s-style. It could have been an actor’s press shot.

‘Ryan was still relatively small fry five years ago, but these days he’s a bit of a kingpin on the Glasgow scene – drug-dealing and prostitution, mainly. He’s extremely violent. He’s served sentences for drug-dealing and GBH. He’s been implicated in at least three murders, but there wasn’t sufficient evidence for a prosecution; what witnesses there were wouldn’t talk or, in one case, couldn’t. Not after falling to their death from a tower block.’

Ruth couldn’t speak.

Another photograph came across the table at them. ‘This is a press photograph of Ryan, Lorraine and in the background that’s Travis, the second son – this was them going into court at the start of one of Jed’s trials.’

She stared at the photograph. Lorraine Johnson was a burly woman in a black suit with badly dyed blonde hair falling over a doughy face half turned from the camera. Travis was body-builder hefty, with a ned’s fringe plastered to his forehead. ‘I think Beckie needs to see these too. In case –’

Alec squeezed her hand.

She pulled the photo closer. So this was Beckie’s grandmother. ‘What’s Lorraine Johnson like?’

Saskia grimaced. ‘Foul-mouthed, aggressive, volatile, self-righteous and self-deluding. But there’s another side to her – she’s a victim too in a way, had a horrendous childhood – abused physically and sexually – and I think she’s probably in an abusive relationship with Jed. She holds that family together, such as it is. I think she really did love Beckie. But…’ She sighed. ‘I always come back to those fresh injuries… I’m not saying it was Lorraine, I very much doubt it would have been, but Lorraine must have been aware of them. She must have known someone in the family was still hurting her. Probably Jed.’

Ruth pushed the photograph away.

‘And when Beckie was removed, she was neglected. Her nappy hadn’t been changed all day, I suspect, and she needed a wash – who knows what was going on in that household? It’s possibly the case that Lorraine was incapacitated at the time and had been relying on other members of the family to take care of Beckie, but even so…’

Rage rushed through Ruth, adrenaline surging, so she had to close her eyes and breathe and try not to imagine Beckie, as they’d first seen her as a toddler, in that little smock dress and white tights, with Lorraine or Jed or Ryan Johnson… On the day Saskia had visited the house, dirty and scared and with the signs of their abuse on her little body –

When Beckie had first come to them, that first night, she had been so quiet, so stiff in Ruth’s arms as she had carried her up to bed. She had obediently grasped the white rabbit Alec had offered her, but mechanically, without even looking at it. She had let Ruth stroke her hair back from her forehead as if it were an ordeal to be endured.

It had been months before that had changed. She would always remember the first time Beckie had initiated contact. It had been a cold January afternoon and she and Beckie had been cosy in the sitting room with the wood-burning stove roaring, and Ruth had suggested a story. Beckie had nodded. So the two of them had gone to the bookcase to select a book from Beckie’s section, Beckie sitting on the carpet, Ruth kneeling next to her, reading out the titles of the choices from the spines. ‘Well, let’s see… There’s Meg on the Moon ; I Want My Hat Back ; The Tiger Who Came to Tea …’ And as the familiar litany had continued, very, very gradually, her eyes still on the books, Beckie had leant in to Ruth’s side.

Ruth said, ‘We need to make sure that none of them ever come anywhere near her again.’

Alec nodded. ‘But how are we going to do that?’ He turned to Saskia. ‘I mean – what do you think they’ll do? Are they going to try to take her, or…’

Saskia grimaced. ‘Honestly? I think they will.’

Alec suddenly stood, dropping Ruth’s hand, and walked to the sink. He ran the tap and splashed water on his face. ‘Sorry.’

Saskia got up and handed him a towel. ‘This is where the justice system falls down. These people are violent convicted criminals, Beckie suffered in this family, and they are – I’m not going to beat around the bush here – they are a danger to her and to you, yet there’s nothing the police or the courts can do about it.’

‘So what can we do about it?’ Alec was gripping the towel in both hands. ‘What do we do about it?’

Before Saskia could answer, Ruth said, ‘We go. We just go. We disappear.’

She’d done it before.

She could do it again.

There’s plenty room on the grass by the roadside, eh, but when I says, ‘Just stop here, son,’ Ryan keeps on going and pulls the Audi into the proper parking bit by the old wrecked farm buildings. It’s a fucking off-road vehicle that’s never been off fucking tarmac.

The place is a right mess, weeds and that all over. This is where Bekki’s been for five years? Ms Adoption Woman comes out and sees the place needs knocking down and goes Aye that’s fine then ?

‘Right,’ says Jed, and he and the boys get out. Ryan leaves the engine running and the headlights on.

I get out the car.

Christ. If it wasnae for the headlights it’d be pitch black.

Safe for a wean? Out in Teuchterland in the middle of fucking nowhere?

When I get to the cottage, the door’s lying open and the lights are all on, and Jed’s raging.

‘You stupid fucking cow!’ he’s in my face. ‘I telt ye we needed to get her! I telt ye!’

Fuck it.

We’re in the front room. I can hear the boys through the house, ripping the place up, smashing stuff. It’s just an empty room we’re in.

The fuckers have gone.

Jed goes and kicks the wall.

I goes, ‘Fuck it.’

‘Aye, fuck you !’ Jed’s back in my face. ‘“Naw Jed, this needs planning but, we cannae just roll up and get her but.” Planning, is it? Planning? ’

Aye, planning.

A wee flat rented away the other side of the city. Couldnae just take her to our bit. Jed was ‘Fuck that, let the polis come and try and take Bekki off of us again, just let those fuckers come and try it,’ but Ryan and Travis and Carly and Connor were like that: ‘Naw Da.’

Plan was, me and Carly’d disappear and stay in the wee flat with Bekki till the villa on the Costa Brava’s finished. It’s gonnae have white walls and big glass windaes and doors, and a brand new kitchen and bathrooms and en suites – Bekki’ll get the best room, mind, with a sea view and her own wee en suite – and brand new furniture, black and white and grey, all matching, and outside a massive infinity pool. Bekki and the other weans never out the sea. Life of fucking Reilly.