Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

‘Gentlemen! What can we do for yous?’

Travis sits back down on the settee. ‘What if they flit again, Maw?’

I lean forward. ‘They’re no flittin’. They’re no going nowhere.’ I lean back. ‘Now shut it.’

Flora and Neil were shown into a room dominated by a large table. The surface was some kind of cheap veneer, scuffed and scratched and lifting in places. There was a tray in the centre with mugs, a cream jug and a bowl of coffee-stained sugar. A plate of biscuits.

The tall man asked: ‘Tea or coffee?’

Neil shook his head. Flora asked if she could have a glass of water.

The man went to a cooler in the corner of the room.

The others sat down at the table, and the woman who’d introduced herself as Yvonne Richards smiled and said, ‘I’m so sorry this has happened.’

‘I don’t know how they can have found us,’ said Flora as she sat down and the tall man placed the water in front of her. ‘Thank you.’

‘Is Saskia not going to be here?’ said Neil. ‘Even if she doesn’t work for you any more, would it not be possible for her to be here?’ They’d been told that Saskia Mair no longer worked for Glasgow City Council. ‘She knows more about the Johnsons than anyone. We need to talk to her. We need to know how much of a danger they actually pose to us.’

Yvonne exchanged a quick look with the other woman, Frances someone, then sat down at the table, placed her forearms on it and leant towards them. She was about Flora’s age, with a round face, big eyes and a Cupid’s bow mouth, like a child’s drawing of a woman. ‘Saskia Mair doesn’t work here any more because she’s been suspended. It’s – I’m afraid it’s a very sensitive matter and not yet in the public domain.’

‘She’s under police investigation,’ said the man.

Yvonne flicked him a look. ‘We feel that it’s necessary, given the circumstances, to tell you what’s happened, but I do have to stress that this is confidential. Any media attention could jeopardise a future prosecution.’

‘Prosecution? For what?’

‘I’m afraid this is going to come as a shock.’ Yvonne looked past them to the door, as if wishing she could make a break for it. ‘Saskia Mair has been accused of harming a child to whose case she was assigned.’

Neil grabbed Flora’s hand under the table. ‘ Harming a child? Saskia?’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Flora. ‘I’m sure Saskia would never do that.’

It was as if some evil god was playing with her, with her life, with the people in it. Taking everything and twisting it out of shape.

Yvonne sighed. ‘There is video evidence.’

The man said, ‘Saskia Mair was assigned to the case of a family with a small child, a boy of three, on the at risk register. She reported that she felt he was at imminent risk of harm. After a visit to the family, she applied for an emergency child protection order, saying she’d found unexplained cuts and bruises on the child’s body.’

‘That’s what happened with Beckie,’ Flora said numbly.

‘Yes, I know.’

‘The family are saying it was Saskia? Who hurt the boy?’

Yvonne nodded. ‘They’re not just saying it. They have video evidence. They’d set up hidden cameras in all the downstairs rooms because – well, it’s not relevant, but the child’s father suspected his partner’s brother of stealing cash from them. Anyway. The camera in the back bedroom, where Saskia was examining the child, caught her hitting him with a rolled-up umbrella and cutting his skin with nail scissors.’

Flora gripped Neil’s hand tight. ‘Oh God.’

‘Saskia has admitted it,’ said the man. ‘She said she did it to enable the child to be removed from the family. She said she needed evidence of harm, and there wasn’t enough.’

‘So she supplied it,’ Neil said hollowly.

‘She supplied it.’ Yvonne closed her eyes briefly. ‘Which is a terrible thing to have done. But Saskia – she was under a tremendous amount of pressure. The well-being of these children was in her hands. Their lives, in some cases. The strain of it evidently just got too much and she… I’m not excusing her. But what she did… She only did it because she thought, mistakenly of course, that it was the right thing to do for the children.’

‘She did it to Beckie,’ Flora said. ‘She hurt Beckie.’

‘She’s denying ever having done it before or since,’ said the man. ‘But there is a possibility – we feel it’s unlikely to have been an isolated incident. The police investigation will include Beckie’s case, I’m afraid. There are photographs of the cuts and bruises that were found on her. They’ll be compared with the injuries found on the boy…’

‘She’s going to be taken away from us,’ said Flora. ‘She’s going to have to go back and live with the Johnsons.’

I skedaddle through the door from the lounge to the kitchen. When the polis come round the house for Jed or one of the boys, it’s best if I’m no there, so they’re no looking at me thinking, Lorraine willnae let them touch us so she willnae .

I leave the door open and stand with my eye to the crack at the hinges.

Ryan’s all: ‘Take a seat, gentlemen, take a seat,’ waving at the settee.

One of them looks about twelve year old.

Ryan goes, ‘Can I get yous a tea or a coffee?’

‘You’re all right,’ says the adult one. He’s got his notebook out. ‘Now, Mr Johnson… We’ve had a complaint regarding a breach of a court order. We have witness statements to the effect that three white males, matching the descriptions of yourself, your father and Travis here, confronted the adoptive mother of your niece Bekki, and the child herself, yesterday afternoon in Edinburgh.’

‘Aye,’ goes Ryan. He sits down in my chair and leans forward towards the polismen. ‘Hands up, that was us right enough. I’m no gonnae lie to you. But it was a pure accident so it was. My brother, he’s starting a market garden business and we’d gone for a deek at the Botanic Gardens for a wee bit inspiration. Took the old guy along because he doesnae get out much these days.’ He nods at Jed. ‘But he was “tired and emotional”, if you get me, and we have to leave him in the motor while we’re in the Gardens. Then when we get back, he’s only gone and clocked Bekki, and he’s out the motor giving it: “Wee Bekki-hen!” and aye, maybe he’s out of order. But he’s no all there. He’s a vulnerable adult so he is. And God, you can maybe understand the shock of it, aye? Here’s this old jakie wakes out an alcoholic stupor and there’s his wee granddaughter that was taken off of him six year ago standing right there on the pavement? He’s looking for the pink elephants and giant fucking bunnies, but naw, it’s Bekki and she’s fucking real. No one with her, mind. Eight-year-old lassie on her own in the street? That’s no right.’

Ryan sits back in the chair.

The adult polisman goes, ‘So, Mr Johnson. You’re admitting the breach of the court order?’

‘Aye. But it was unintentional, like. We’re no out to make trouble for Bekki or her new family. We dinnae want no hassle. Even Maw and Da have accepted it now, so they have, that she’s better off with they folk. We’re no going to go hassling them again. Aye? Could you tell them sorry like, it was just the shock, eh, after all these years? Da maybe was out of order, but as I say, he’s a vulnerable adult.’

The two polismen eyeball Jed.

‘Right. Yes. I see.’

‘Aye,’ goes Ryan. ‘Forty year on the bevvy will do that to you. Take a good look, gents. There’s a walking public health warning right there, eh?’

‘And is Mr Johnson able to understand why we’re here and what we’re saying?’