Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

‘No you’re not!’ Beckie wailed.

Flora pulled her along the pavement in the direction of Number 17 and safety, but suddenly there were two more men in front of them, a grinning thug and a handsome man in a suit, and oh God, she recognised them too, they were Travis and Ryan Johnson, and then Flora was screaming, stupidly screaming:

‘Help! Please help us!’

She pulled Beckie towards the road but there was a huge four-by-four parked tight up against the kerb, close up to the car in front. She turned round but Jed had moved up behind them. Beyond him, she could see Ailish and Thomas coming along the pavement.

‘Ailish!’ she screamed. ‘Help! Ailish!’

Beckie was clutching Flora’s arm so hard it hurt. Flora pressed her to her chest. ‘Get away from us! Get away ! You’d better go before the police get here!’

‘Oh I’m so scared!’ Travis Johnson tittered.

‘She fucking stole you off of us !’ Jed suddenly roared in Beckie’s face. ‘You want to stay with her? You want that?’

Beyond him, she could see Ailish’s rapidly retreating back. She had Thomas by the hand and was trotting away in her high-heeled boots. Thomas was staring back at Flora, mouth open.

‘Help us!’ Flora yelled, hugging Beckie.

Across the road there was an elderly couple on the pavement that ran alongside the high hedge of the Botanic Gardens. They had stopped and were staring across.

‘Please help us!’ she yelled at them. ‘They’re trying to take my little girl!’

And then suddenly someone else was yelling, a woman was yelling, ‘Flora! It’s okay, the police are coming!’ and Caroline came running out at a gate and barging past Jed Johnson to stand between the two thugs and Flora and Beckie, phone held aloft like a weapon. ‘I’m filming this! Back off!’

‘They’re trying to take Beckie!’ Flora gasped, and now Beckie was properly crying, wailing, shaking against her. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ Flora kept repeating, stupidly. She could see wee on the pavement by Beckie’s feet.

‘It’s okay Beckie, they’re not going to touch you,’ said Caroline.

And it was a miracle, because the thugs did back off.

‘Come on, Da. Leave it.’

The one in the suit, the one she was sure was Ryan Johnson, pointed a fob at the four-by-four and it flashed its lights. He opened the back door and half-threw Jed into the back seat. Then he turned to Caroline, and then Flora, aiming his hand at them like a gun.

‘See yous later.’

He jumped up into the driver’s seat and the four-by-four was reversing, and then roaring away almost before he’d closed his door.

Caroline still had her phone pointed at it.

‘Oh thank you thank you,’ Flora babbled.

‘Number plate,’ said Caroline briskly: ‘RJ MAG16.’

‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘You saved our lives !’ Beckie sobbed.

Caroline smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, sweetheart. They were just cowards, weren’t they? Amazing how many people are, when they realise they’re being recorded. Right. I didn’t actually have time to call the police. I’ll do that now. I can show them this footage… You get inside. Lock the doors. Or actually, no, you’d better come to mine. Yeah?’

‘Thank you.’ It was all Flora could find to say.

‘No problem.’

‘Mum,’ whispered Beckie.

‘It’s all right, darling. It’s all right now.’

‘I’ve wet myself.’

Flora hugged her tight. ‘Oh Beckie, don’t worry about that, silly.’

Caroline ushered them back along the pavement and in at the gate to Number 13.

‘I can’t go into her house all wee,’ whispered Beckie.

The Victorian hallway of Number 13 had an ugly 1970s partition across it, in which were set two frosted-glass doors. Through the left-hand one she could see the distorted shape of the stairs which must lead to the upper flat. Caroline unlocked the door on the right, saying:

‘I don’t know about you, but I could murder a cuppa.’

‘Mum!’ said Beckie, desperately, pulling back against Flora’s arm, standing carefully on the mat.

‘Beckie’s had a little accident,’ said Flora. ‘Would it be okay if we cleaned up…?’ She hunkered down and started to unbuckle Beckie’s shoes.

‘Of course, don’t worry about it, sweetheart!’

Shoes and socks off and stuffed into a carrier from Flora’s bag, Beckie clutched onto Flora again. The two of them moved crab-like through the doorway. Beckie’s bare feet, very white against the parquet floor, were small in relation to the rest of her, as if the growth spurt of last year hadn’t reached them yet, still little and chubby and babyish.

‘Bathroom’s just in there.’ Caroline gestured. ‘Come through to the kitchen when you’re ready, okay-doke? There’re clean flannels and towels and that in the cupboard in there.’

They joined Caroline in the kitchen five minutes later, Beckie with her arms held stiffly at her sides against her skirt, mortified that underneath she wasn’t wearing any pants. The kitchen was at the back of the house, like theirs was, but there the resemblance ended. Catherine’s kitchen was a 1980s country ‘oak’ monstrosity. It was neat as a pin, though, with the minimalist look that younger people seemed to favour. No fridge magnets, no colourful oilcloth on the table, no bits and bobs. No ‘clutter’, as Caroline would probably refer to the stuff in their kitchen.

‘Here’s some socks and slippers – they’ll be a wee bit big…’ Caroline indicated a pair of socks with dogs all over them and some fluffy slippers which she’d set on one of the kitchen chairs. ‘Tea? And what about you, sweetheart? The only juice I’ve got is apple. That do you?’

Beckie nodded as she pulled on the socks. ‘Thank you.’

Caroline went to the fridge, brought out a carton of juice – the stuff made from concentrate, but who the hell cared – and turned back to Flora. ‘Tea, coffee?’

‘Whatever you’re having.’

‘Tea with sugar’s meant to be good for shock, eh, according to Coronation Street anyway?’

Flora smiled.

Caroline made the drinks and shook some plain digestives onto a plate. ‘Sorry, haven’t got anything more exciting. I’m a crap hostess at the best of times, but I’m just back from a week away with work and the cupboard is bare. Ish. Let’s go through to the lounge, yeah, and relax? Till the police get here anyway. I think they’ll probably class this as non-urgent – they asked me whether the situation was “ongoing” and like an idiot I said no. So it could be a while.’

‘Oh, but we won’t hang around – I mean we won’t take up your time. I’m sure you’re busy.’

‘Nothing that can’t wait.’

Translation: I am busy, but I’m being nice. Yeah?

The lounge was a depressing room decorated in beige and brown and silver. Flora and Beckie sat on the sofa and Caroline took one of the armchairs.

‘Thank you so much for what you did,’ said Flora.

Caroline was offering Beckie a biscuit. ‘Honestly, Flora, stop it, it was nothing. It wasn’t any more than anyone else would have done.’

‘No – that’s not true. Ailish was there. I shouted to her and she couldn’t run fast enough in the opposite direction.’

Caroline made a face. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’

They both smiled.

‘They were the Johnsons, weren’t they?’ said Beckie suddenly.

Flora hugged her. ‘Don’t worry darling, they’re not going to come anywhere near us again. The police will sort it all out.’

‘But it was them?’

‘Yes.’

‘That man – he’s really my – grandad?’