Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

Beckie sighed. ‘Yes! But you know how seagulls swoop down and snatch your food and then they disappear? Edith’s like a human seagull. She’s suddenly there , and then after I’ve given her the food, she’s gone. I’ve asked her if she wants to play with us but she doesn’t.’

Flora bit her lip. She had passed on to Mrs Jenner her concern about Edith not getting enough to eat, and Mrs Jenner had said she’d look into it, but according to Beckie, Edith still seemed desperate for the extra lunch Flora was now packing, which included ever more calorific – and presumably tempting to Beckie – items such as Snickers and homemade flapjacks. Was Beckie handing it all over?

She’d have to speak to Mrs Jenner again.

‘If she does come to the party,’ added Neil, ‘you’re going to treat her like a princess the whole time she’s here. That’ll be a good start to making it up to her.’

Beckie sighed. ‘I know, but Edith hates me now.’

‘I’m sure she doesn’t,’ said Flora weakly, although this was all too likely.

She waited for Neil to back her up, but he was intent on the screen of his laptop, breaking his own ‘no screens at the table’ rule.

As she got up and walked to the sink behind his chair, she saw that he had a table of data up on the screen – catching up on the work he’d let slide since the Johnsons had reappeared. Getting back to normal life. Carrying on as if nothing had happened.

They’d had another argument in bed this morning. Neil had decided that the Johnsons’ whole strategy must be to persuade the authorities to review the adoption; to cast doubt on Neil and Flora’s suitability as adoptive parents by provoking them to violence.

‘Or to make us appear violent,’ he’d added. ‘I hardly even touched Carly Johnson.’

‘They’ve got you on camera pushing her!’

‘I didn’t push her. I just tried to get past, and she deliberately fell to the ground. She’s a pretty good actress, as you found out for yourself yesterday.’ He’d sat up in bed and glared at her. They had intended taking the footage of Lorraine and Carly Johnston coming to the door to the police as evidence of their breaching the court order, but on playing it had discovered that the camera angle, from behind Carly, made it look as if Flora flinging out her arm to tell them to ‘Fuck off’ was an attempt to hit the girl, who had staggered back on cue. Flora had argued that Caroline would back up her version of the encounter, but as Neil had impatiently pointed out, a friend was hardly an independent witness – and what if the Johnsons had realised their nosy neighbour next door had been listening and told the police to go and ask Ailish? What might Ailish not say, just to land them in it?

Flora had sighed. ‘We could just give the police the bit that shows them coming to the door. Truncate the footage at the point where I open the door…’

‘Don’t be stupid, Flora. The Johnsons would counterclaim that you tried to assault Carly again, and the police would ask to see the whole interaction and maybe interview Ailish.’

‘But if we wiped the footage after the point where they come to the door…’

‘We can’t wipe it, it’s all kept securely for six months on Eden Security’s system. If the Johnsons do make another complaint off their own bat, and the police ask to see the footage, we’re in trouble. We’ve seriously underestimated them. We’ve been stereotyping them as violent thugs without a brain cell between them who’ve been making a series of incompetent attempts to snatch Beckie, or possibly just harassing us out of malice – but they’ve obviously got another agenda. They’re trying to make out we’re the bad guys. And so far they’re doing a pretty good job. What we have to do is remember that it’s all bluster – that they’re not going to actually do anything. They’re not going to hurt us or snatch Beckie. We have to just turn the other cheek. Not let them provoke us again.’

‘So you’re saying they’re not really dangerous at all. That they’re harmless, like – like kids using naughtiness to provoke a reaction. And that we should stop stressing about it and just ignore them?’

‘Exactly. Everything they’ve done has obviously been designed to provoke us into doing something stupid, so a lawyer can argue that we’re the ones who are unfit to have custody of Beckie.’

‘But we know that they are dangerous. They’re hardened criminals. We can’t afford to let down our guard, especially not where Beckie’s concerned. Maybe that’s what they want us to do. Maybe they want us on the back foot, maybe they’re counting on us relaxing and thinking “As long as we don’t react, everything will be fine”, and that’s when they’ll strike.’

‘If they were going to “strike”, they’d have done so by now. If snatching Beckie has been their aim, let’s face it, there’s nothing much we could have done to stop them, “hardened criminals” as they are.’

She’d felt the bed rock as he’d pushed himself out of it.

‘I’m going to Glasgow to see Saskia,’ she’d said.

‘What good’s that going to do?’

‘I thought you agreed that we should speak to her? Find out which of the neighbours to approach…’

‘That was before it became clear what the Johnsons are up to. And anyway, we can’t believe a word that woman says.’

Breakfast had been strained to say the least. But Flora knew she was right about this: they had to get as much on the Johnsons as they could from Saskia, and pick her brains on how to tackle them. Maybe Saskia would know something about the garage that had supplied Travis Johnson’s so-called alibi; and she might let Flora have the names and numbers of the neighbours who had been prepared to talk and had described the Johnsons as a ‘family from hell’, so Flora could call them and maybe arrange to meet at a café or something – because no way were either of them going anywhere near Meadowlands Crescent again.

The landline started ringing on the side table by the TV.

She picked it up. ‘Hello, Flora Parry here?’

‘Oh, hello, Mrs Parry. This is Karen Baxter. I’m a Children’s Reporter with the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration. I’m calling to ask if it would be possible to arrange a time when I could pop round and see you and your husband and Beckie, just to check that everything’s okay?’

Still smiling at Beckie, she pulled open the glass doors and took the call outside. ‘What do you mean, to check that “everything’s okay”? Scottish Children’s… what?’

‘Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration. We deal with child welfare and protection in Scotland. We’ve had a referral from a member of the public with a few concerns about Beckie. I need to just pop round and see you. Would after school on Monday be convenient – say, 4:30?’

Flora shut her eyes. Breathed in the fresh, early morning scents of the garden. ‘ Concerns? What kind of concerns ?’

‘We can talk about that when I see you.’

‘But that’s not necessary!’ She crossed the patio to the expanse of grass, wanting to take this call as far from Beckie as possible. ‘Beckie’s fine, there’s no –’

‘We have a duty to investigate every referral made, Mrs Parry – if, as you say, everything’s fine, no further action will be taken. But we do have to carry out an investigation, as I say, once a referral has been made.’

‘This is the Johnsons. Beckie’s biological family.’ The grass was still dewy, moisture soaking into her pumps. ‘It’s meant to be a closed adoption, but they’ve found out where we live and they’ve been harassing us. It’s the Johnsons, isn’t it, who’ve made the referral?’