Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

‘I can’t discuss that with you.’

Oh God. Neil, of course, was going to see this as support for his theory that the Johnsons were basically harmless, out to discredit them and nothing more; to make out that they were unsuitable parents for Beckie.

‘No. Of course. All right. Tomorrow at 4:30, then. I suppose you have our address?’

The place is a fucking disgrace so it is, fucking needles and that lying in the close and a big jobbie that looks fucking human.

Ryan’s pulling on the white forensic suit over his shirt and the wee cushion he’s got strapped to his belly, and then he’s putting on the tabard with ‘Environmental Health’ on the back like I’m wearing. When he’s done, I lean on him to put on the blue plastic covers for my trainers, and he’s leaning on me to do the same, then we’re pissing ourselves when we’re getting the showercap whoogies on us over the wigs, and pulling up the masks, like we’re dealing with fucking Ebola here.

Aye well, what we are dealing with isnae any less virulent, eh?

I make sure the false neb’s still in place under the mask. Ryan got it off of the internet and it’s that realistic wee Kai didnae even know me when I was practising with make-up and that, the poor wee bairn was ‘Hello?’ and his wee face was Who are you and where’s my Nana?

I pull on the gloves and buzz the buzzers at the door. I’ve got my story all ready – we’re from the Council, Environmental Health, here to get the place cleaned up – but I dinnae need it, the door buzzes open. Fuckers cannae even bother their arses to ask who’s there?

Candy from a bairn.

Mair likely thinks she’s safe enough in this dump.

Ryan’s whistling his way up the stair, taking it two steps at a time.

I like to see a man happy in his work.

At Mair’s flat door I do a rap-tap-a-tap-tap nice and cheery, and I go, ‘Hi, Saskia, it’s Claire from the ground-floor flat, can I have a wee word?’ Mair isnae gonnae know anyone in the stair. ‘It’s about the wee lassie in Flat 2, she’s in the hospital and I’ve got a card going round…’

There’s sounds from inside the flat. Footsteps.

I’ve got the dishcloth I’ve brought with me over the peephole.

‘Just take a sec for an autograph,’ I goes, so fucking cheery it would make you boak.

There’s scraping and clunking and then the door’s opening and Ryan’s breenging against it and Mair’s ‘Uh! Uh!’ like she’s a fucking chimp, and then we’re in with the door shut behind us and I’m ‘Hello Saskia-hen’ and she’s making a run for it to the bog and Ryan’s got her by the arms and he shoves her back against the wall.

I can tell he’s grinning away behind the mask.

I shove the dishcloth in her gob.

She’s a fucking mess so she is, like she’s no brushed her hair for a fucking month, and the stink off of her!

‘Aye hen,’ I goes. ‘You fucked with our wean and now we’re fucking with you. That’s justice. That’s fucking justice, eh?’

Mair’s shaking her head.

‘You hurt our Bekki. You took her whole fucking family off of her and gave her to fucking randoms. Her whole fucking family, that loved her to pieces and that she loved right back.’

Mair’s pure white and she’s shaking like an alky.

‘Saskia-hen – I can call you Saskia, aye? Saskia-hen, it’s payback time. Me and the family have been having a wee conference about what all you can do to make it up to Bekki. That right, son?’

Ryan smacks Mair back against the wall and goes, ‘Aye. We’ve had what you might call some constructive interfacing around the whole issue and we have come to the conclusion that you, hen, are a piece of shite needs wiped off the arse of the fucking planet.’

Mair’s going, ‘Oh go… gay gay-eh-eh!’

‘What’s that, hen?’ I goes. ‘We’re no gonnae get away with it? Oh, we’re gonnae get away with it, because unlike you we’re professionals. We’re not in fucking forensic suits for a wee joke, eh?’

‘It’s not fucking Hallowe’en!’ chuckles Ryan.

‘Ee-ee gi-ee,’ goes Mair.

‘Eh?’

‘CCTV, hen?’ I chuckle. ‘There’s no cameras in the close – what bastard’s gonnae bother? Two in the street that maybe cover the entrance, but the boys dealt with they ones last night.’

‘Like Maw says, we’re professionals.’

‘It’s a wee shame though, eh, what it’s gonnae do to your kids? Hard on them, growing up without their maw. But maybe you shoulda thought about what kids’ families mean to them before you started fucking with their lives, eh?’

‘But check it, Maw.’ Ryan waves a hand. ‘Check the place. Check this bitch. Her weans come and bide, they’re gonnae get septicaemia off of all this crap, and maybe while she’s high on her drug of choice they’re gonnae give it a wee try? We’re doing they weans a favour.’

‘You’re right, son. We’re practically Child Fucking Protection.’

Ryan chuckles. ‘No word of a lie.’

‘When I think,’ I goes, real quiet, in Mair’s face, ‘when I think of you and that so-called Doctor Fernandez cooking up that pack of lies… The two of yous go for a wee coffee at Starbucks, aye, when yous was supposedly round ours carrying out a rigorous professional assessment of our ability to care for our wean? Sit there making up shite about low IQs and depression while you sipped your skinny lattes? Do I look like a fucking eejit, doll? Do I look like I’m depressed?’

The grey, dirty, dingy little courtyard wasn’t just deserted – it felt abandoned, as if no one could possibly live here. No one, surely, could open that battered, graffiti-covered door and think ‘Home’?

Flora couldn’t remember which flat number Saskia was, so she pressed all the buzzers and waited.

No response.

It must have rung with voices once, this little close, with all those barefoot Haghill children, their lives spilling out of the single-ends down the stair and into the close and the street, all mixed up together in happy, heedless communal poverty. She’d heard them on TV programmes, these children, saying in old age: ‘We didn’t know we were poor, you see – sixpence to spend down the shop and we were millionaires! Deprived? Not a bit of it! None of us felt deprived . We all looked out for each other, you know? If you were out playing and you were hungry, you could chap a door and ask for a piece and like as not get it, though you’d maybe to put up with “Aw, Davie, the state of you!” and getting your face scrubbed and a comb through your hair. We were surrounded by folk that cared about us – how were we deprived , eh? Happy as the day is long.’

Did Saskia hear those children’s ghosts, she wondered, their high voices echoing up the deserted close? Did they haunt her? Reproach her for what she’d done?

She tried the array of buzzers again. This time, a crackly voice said, ‘Aye?’

‘Hello. I’m here to see Saskia Mair in one of the top flats.’

‘Okay dear.’ And the door buzzed open.

Her shoes on the worn stone steps rapped out a rhythm as she climbed, clop clop, clop clop, echoing off the hard surfaces.

Saskia’s door was open, just slightly. Maybe the neighbour had told her that Flora was on her way up. She knocked nevertheless.

‘Saskia?’

No response.

Could she have popped down to the communal garden or into a neighbour’s flat?

‘Hello, Saskia? It’s Flora.’ She pushed open the door.

The place stank of stale air and drains. There was a pile of dirty clothes against the wall, and something dark and wet had been spilt on the carpet.

Not a pile of clothes.

‘Saskia!’

That was blood.