Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

Fleetingly, it occurred to Flora to wonder how Pippa knew all this. Some of the men she’d hooked up with in the past had seemed a bit dodgy, to put it mildly. And she suspected that Pippa herself might have had a few brushes with the law.

‘But what if they attacked us in the street again, not at the house?’

‘They can probably put the detector on a person as well as on a house. And why would they attack you? That’s not going to get them anywhere.’

‘I don’t know if they’re that rational.’

‘If they’re setting up alibis for themselves, they sound pretty rational to me.’

Flora puffed out a sigh.

‘Much as I hate to say it, I think Alec’s right. You can’t keep running away from them. You have to sort this. I know, easy for me to say…’

Flora waited for Pippa’s offer to come back and help, but of course that didn’t materialise. Under the friendly charm, Pippa was one of the most selfish people she knew. Flora finished the call with a vague promise to keep Pippa updated.

‘And thanks a lot,’ she muttered as she strode back to the house to break open the Hobnobs for the CCTV men.

It was no good tackling Neil directly about leaving. She would have to be more subtle than that – make him think he’d come round to the idea on his own. So over the next two days she didn’t even mention the possibility, pretending she was satisfied now they had the CCTV and continuing to bombard Saskia with voice and text messages which went unanswered.

Just before bed on Wednesday night, sitting with Neil on the sofa in the Family Room watching a Danish series on BBC Four, she mentioned, casually, that she’d called Pippa.

‘Oh? How’s she doing?’

‘She seemed fine. She was talking about this new tagging system where the perpetrator wears an electronic tag that sets off an alarm if they come near the person who’s being targeted, or their house…’

Neil’s expression became irritatingly patient and courteous. ‘Uh-huh?’

But he was saved from having to humour her further by the door flying open.

Beckie erupted into the room in a blur of purple pyjamas and flying hair. ‘There’s a man!’

Neil bolted from the sofa. ‘Where?’

‘In the garden!’

‘Flora, get into the loo! Got your phone? Call 999.’

Hugging Beckie to her, Flora locked them both in the downstairs loo, which had the twin benefits of a lock on the door and a tiny high window. Flora had decorated it in a bright quirky yellow and hung the Larson cartoon of the two crocodiles relaxing after dining on canoeist in a prominent position above the towel rail. How could she ever have found that funny?

Beckie looked up at her as she tapped the nine on her phone. ‘It was him again. It was that man. I heard someone shouting and I looked out and that man was there!’

‘And then there’s Mr Bean running at me like a spastic that’s shat itself.’ Travis takes another swally of lager and puts his other hand up the inside of Mackenzie’s thigh. She’s on his lap, wriggling against him like he’s her fucking hero. ‘And then he’s tripping on a stane, flat on his fucking face, and I cannae get up the wall for pissing myself. And he’s all “Stop right there, my man” and I make like I’m gonnae jump back down and he’s bricking it.’

Connor’s in the kitchen making us coffees, but he’s earwigging, and I can see him through the door having a wee chuckle to hisself.

‘Magic,’ goes Jed.

I point at Travis. ‘You’d better no have frighted Bekki.’

‘Bekki wasnae there.’

‘And no touching they bastards. We want them bricking it, aye, but no so they’re gonnae up and go.’

‘I didnae touch no one!’

Connor comes in with the coffees, lattes for him and Carly and Mandy, flat blacks for Ryan and Jed, a wee cappuccino for me. Mackenzie’s on the ginger.

Connor’s put a wee bit Flake on the side. I dip it in the foam and lick it. That coffee machine’s barry so it is. ‘Right Connor, me and you’s off to St Andrews the morn.’

Connor sits on the floor with the dug, his back against Mandy’s chair, and Mandy pats him on the heid like he’s a dug an’ all. ‘Thanks Wee Man.’ She’s eating a packet of prawn cocktail with her latte, the mad cow.

‘Cannae do the morn,’ goes Connor. ‘I’ve got my shift.’

‘Pull a sickie, son.’

Connor’s got a foam moustache on him. He doesnae lick it off like Travis would, he gets a bit tissue out his pocket and dabs it. ‘Cannae. I’m already on a verbal.’

‘What for?’ goes Carly.

‘Absenteeism.’

‘Oh, absenteeism ,’ goes Travis.

‘You can get cream for that,’ goes Ryan.

‘Who cares about your fucking job?’ goes Carly. ‘By the time they get round to a written warning, you’ll be Bye bye wankers any road. Fucking numptie.’

‘Aye, but.’

‘Carly’s right enough,’ I goes. ‘For once in her fucking life. You’re wasted on they fuckers, son. Get me the Flora shite.’

Connor gets up and goes to the sideboard and gets out the red folder. He printed it all off of the internet – the newspaper articles about Flora’s maw’s death. How many folk are there in Scotland, in the fucking world, so shite-for-brains they’ve got themselves run over by a fucking milk float? There’s only one Connor could find in the UK – Elizabeth Innes in St Andrews, back in 1989, address 24 Turner Drive.

So the bitch was Ruth Innes before she married Alec Morrison.

Whatever it is that bitch is hiding, we’re finding it.

Then Connor goes, ‘Motor,’ and Ryan’s up next him at the windae.

‘Well, wouldn’t you know,’ goes Ryan. ‘Mr Bean hisself.’

‘Right yous.’ I hear a car door slam, not real loud, like it’s across the street maybe. ‘Yous laddies dinnae move. Carly-hen, get out there. Connor, film it on your phone, aye? He’s gonnae assault you, darlin’, right? Connor, get that windae open for sound, and get filming.’

Mandy joins Ryan and Connor and me at the windae, still shoving prawn cocktail in her gob. Mr Bean’s crossing the street and Carly’s got her fat arse down the path to the gate, blocking his way, and he’s all ‘Let me past please’ and he tries to breenge past and Carly shouts out like he’s just shoved a knife in her chebs and falls back against the gate like a right hammy cow and then she’s lying on the ground holding her belly giving it ‘The babby! The babby!’

‘Thanks, Flora, that was lush,’ said Caroline, bringing the empty soup bowls and the plates over to the sink. ‘You’re such a feeder.’

‘The least I can do is feed you. Other than that I’m all take take take .’

‘Hey, don’t be daft. Happy to help. Give it a few months and it’ll be me having some kind of crisis. Tony lining me up as his next victim, or oh God Flora, you won’t want to know me when I’m in a dysfunctional relationship – I’m well overdue falling for a bastard – over here crying on your shoulder every five minutes. Being fed homemade soup and bread, hopefully.’

Flora smiled. Thank God for Caroline. ‘I think that could be arranged.’

She squirted washing-up liquid into the sink.

Caroline twitched a tea towel from the rail of the Aga. ‘It might not even come to court, you know.’

‘But what was he thinking going over there in the first place? What did he think it would achieve?’

‘He was angry.’

She’d never seen him so angry. At himself, she thought, as much as anything – at the way that yob had taunted him in their own garden. At the effect it had had on Beckie. After the police had arrived and he’d given his statement, he’d disappeared off in his car – to cool down, she’d thought, to take himself off away from Beckie so as not to upset her any more than she was already. Never mind Flora. Never mind leaving her to deal with the fallout, to explain to the police why he’d taken off like that.