Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

Ailish was just looking out for her son. Of course she was.

And now on top of everything, when Caroline had suggested swapping mobile numbers, Flora had been unable to locate her phone. Where was the damn thing?

‘Sit down, Flora,’ said Neil. ‘Relax for five minutes.’

She made herself sit on one of the other loungers and lean back, but she couldn’t relax. She seemed to have lost the knack. She found she was gripping the chair’s wooden arms as if she was on some sort of terrifying fairground ride.

She caught Neil’s eye, and returned his smile half-heartedly.

He got up and came round behind her; put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Nothing bad’s going to happen to her.’ He started to knead the muscles at the base of her neck. ‘You’re blowing this up into something it’s not. If they were going to do anything, they’d have done it by now.’

It was over two weeks since the incident in the street.

‘They haven’t had the chance. Wherever she goes, I go.’

‘They haven’t even tried, though, have they?’ His fingers pushed into her flesh, into the tension across her shoulders, and finally she allowed her muscles to relax, the tension to drop through her shoulders and down her arms.

She released her grip on the chair.

‘Mm. I guess not.’

‘I think their apology was genuine.’

The police had said that the Johnsons had asked them to pass on an apology for what had happened – it was all down to the alcoholic father, apparently, and they were really sorry if she and Beckie had been frightened. It wouldn’t happen again.

She closed her eyes.

Neil seemed determined to take it at face value. But he hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seen the looks those thugs had given her. The way Ryan Johnson had made his hand into a gun and mimed shooting her and Caroline…

It hadn’t all been about the alcoholic father.

She snapped her eyes open and sat up, away from Neil’s hands.

Beckie was jabbing her fingers into Jed-Bag’s face, bouncing in front of him, and Caroline was bouncing next to her, whooping encouragement.

Flora pushed herself out of the lounger and turned to face Neil, who was regarding her with a wariness that might have been funny in other circumstances.

‘Of course it wasn’t genuine! God! You’re so gullible !’

‘No,’ he said, obviously choosing his words, as he’d started to do, as if she were some sort of mental case he had to be careful not to upset. ‘I don’t think I am. I’m looking at the facts here, Flora, and so should you.’

‘I am looking at the facts!’ She belatedly lowered her voice, although, given the amount of noise Beckie and Caroline were making themselves, they were unlikely to notice if she started screaming like a maniac. But she kept her tone as reasonable as his. ‘The facts are that the Johnsons know where we are, and that they’re psychopaths. What does your evidence-based approach to your daughter’s safety have to say about that?’

‘They’re not “psychopaths” – other than possibly the old man, and he’s hardly a threat any more. They’re a disadvantaged family, yes –’

‘They’re drug dealers and murderers.’

How was she going to get through to him? She’d always loved this live-and-let-live attitude of his: no matter how cynical-scientist he might be when talking in the abstract, in practice, in his actual dealings with actual real-life people, he would always give a person the benefit of the doubt. Which was fine, provided that that person wasn’t a danger to their child.

He threw up his hands. ‘Even Saskia had to admit that they loved Beckie.’

‘So? They’re still dangerous, Neil, and the fact that you won’t admit that is putting Beckie’s safety at risk. Okay, maybe I’m going over the top, maybe I’m being ultra-paranoid, but that’s partly because I feel I’m on my own here. Because you’re not taking it seriously.’

‘Of course I’m taking it seriously. It’s just… You have to admit, Flora. Jed Johnson – when he said we’ve stolen Beckie from them… Well. There’s some justification to that. Beckie was removed from their home in a horrendous miscarriage of justice.’

Flora put a hand to her mouth as she felt the bile rise in her throat.

‘Think about it from their point of view. Isn’t it incumbent on us to at least let them have some contact with her? Supervised contact?’

Oh God.

She swallowed. She groped for the nearest lounger and sat on it. ‘No,’ she got out. ‘It isn’t incumbent on us to do anything that could put Beckie in danger.’ A shiver ran right through her chest and up into her shoulders. ‘How can you even say that? God, Alec!’

‘But –’

She had to hold it together. She had to make him understand. ‘Beckie’s safety has to come first. Surely we agree about that?’

‘Of course we agree about that. I’d do anything to keep her safe – you know I would. The question is, how do we achieve that?’

‘Not by letting the Johnsons back into her life!’

‘You think I actually want to? But this isn’t about what we want. It’s about how to minimize the harm done to Beckie. Do we do that by making enemies of the Johnsons? Or by acknowledging what’s happened and being reasonable about it?’

‘Oh, you think they’re reasonable ? You think they’re reasonable human beings now, do you? Murderers? A “family from hell”? That’s what their neighbours call them. That’s why Saskia did what she did, to get Beckie away from them.’

‘They obviously have problems…’

‘No, Neil. They are the problem. You’re so naïve! Poor family from hell, it’s society’s fault they make the lives of everyone around them a misery, they can’t help it…’

‘There are usually two sides to any neighbour dispute. We don’t know what’s been going on there, maybe the neighbours are equally to blame, maybe there’s some sort of vendetta against them –’

‘Okay.’ She took a long breath. ‘Okay. So you want to go and tell Beckie she has to see the Johnsons? The people she’s so terrified of that she’s learning martial arts to protect herself?’

They both looked over at Beckie, who didn’t at that moment look exactly terrified. She had collapsed against the tree in hysterics.

Neil said, ‘That’s because you’ve told her that the Johnsons are bad people.’

For a long moment, Flora could only stare at him. When she spoke, she couldn’t keep the fury from her voice. She felt like she was choking on it, that it was all she could do to force the words through it. ‘No, that’s because they assaulted us in the street and scared her so much she wet herself .’

‘They didn’t assault you.’

Flora stood. She walked past him and through the open doors to the family room.

He followed her.

‘Flora.’

She walked past the two big blue sofas facing each other across the coffee table. In the kitchen, she ran water into a glass, then turned to face him, leaning back against the cool porcelain of the butler’s sink, gripping the glass in her hand.

He didn’t say anything. He came and stood in front of her, and then he smiled, just a little, and gently, gently, pushed his fingertips into the hair above her ear, smoothing back a sweaty tendril that had become stuck to her skin.

She felt her face collapse.

He took the glass from her, set it on the draining board, and pulled her into his arms.

‘I’m sorry.’

She pulled back. She groped behind her for the glass and took a sip of water, all she could force through the tightness in her throat.

‘It was horrible, what happened, and I’ll never forgive them for it,’ he said. ‘For putting you and Beckie through such a terrifying experience. But… I really think you’re wrong about them. I think I always knew there was a disconnect between what we were being told about the Johnsons and the way Beckie is. Intrinsically… She’s so… she’s just so naturally sweet , Ruth. That’s not just down to environment, that’s not just down to us.’