Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

‘Well, thank you.’ He sits himself down behind his desk, a big brown bastard the size of a fucking tanker with piles of paper all over it, and raises an eyebrow. There’s hairs sprouting off of his eyebrows in every fucking direction and I’m having a hard time no staring. ‘Don’t get me started, Ms Stuart, on standards in modern journalism.’

‘Please, it’s Jessica.’

Bit more chit-chat and then we’re down to business. ‘So,’ I goes. ‘I think I outlined in my email that we’ve been commissioned by BBC Scotland to produce a three-part series on kids who kill – although it won’t be called that, obviously. This is the BBC we’re talking about. They’re giving us the Wednesday nine o’clock slot on BBC 2. Provisionally.’

He’s nodding along. Maybe he’s Googled Making Waves, but that’s fine – it’s a genuine TV production company operating outta Glasgow. Long as he hasnae contacted them, we’re good.

‘We’re planning on the first episode focusing on the Tricia Fisher case. What I’m hoping you can supply us with is any details, any extra colour that didn’t make it into print.’

‘Aye,’ goes Connor. ‘And –’

I hold up a hand with a wee smile. ‘Okay, Kieran, hold your horses, I’m sure Mr Roberts –’

‘Jeff,’ he goes.

‘I’m sure Jeff is aware that it’ll all be picked over by the lawyers before filming starts. Nothing with even a whiff of litigious will get past the grey men in suits, believe me!’

Jeff raises an eyebrow.

I’m no too keen on that eyebrow right enough. It’s like he’s maybe onto us. Maybe the old bugger’s contacted Making Waves after all and they were all ‘No, there must be some mistake.’ Maybe he’s just seeing what crap we’re gonnae come out with.

‘But I like to just ask people to speak freely, and worry about all that later. Obviously, as I said in my email, you’ll be recompensed for your time, and if we film you for the production there’ll be further remuneration, but…’ I make a face. ‘As I said, this is the BBC, so don’t go booking any holidays in Barbados, Jeff!’

‘Or even Largs!’ goes Connor.

Jeff chuckles. ‘But I think we can run to a cup of tea and a biscuit.’ He turns to the door. ‘Chris!’ he yells. And when the young guy appears he gives him our order, and then we get down to it.

‘You have to remember this was nearly forty years ago,’ he goes, leaning back in his chair. ‘No mobile phones, no internet. The first I knew of it was a call from one of my several contacts in the police force, tipping me off to get my behind over to Lomax Road in Kelbinning where a tragedy was unfolding – kids messing about with a bow and arrow and an accidental fatality was what we were led to believe.’

Now I’m relaxing. He’s an old-school bastard likes the sound of his own voice. Too much of a fucking ego to maybe wonder why emdy making a documentary for the BBC would want to hear it. He’s no questioning nothing.

I goes, ‘This was on the actual day it happened?’

‘Yes. The sixteenth of June. When I got there, though, there wasn’t a whole lot to see. They didn’t close off the road as they would now. There were just a couple of panda cars and an unmarked car I recognised, parked on the driveway of Number 7. The road’s still very much as it was then – you’ll get some good shots of it. It’s a road rather than a street, just a few big houses on it before it leaves the village and winds off up into the hills. House is a big Edwardian detached job with what an estate agent would call “extensive policies”. Very nice part of a very nice village. The Fishers still live there, as I assume you know?’

I nod. ‘They’ve agreed to talk to us later.’

‘I parked on the street and walked up. Young bobby I knew gave me the lowdown. It seemed that these two twelve-year-olds, Tricia Fisher and Rachel Clark, both from well-off middle-class families, had got themselves a reputation at the village primary school as bullies. It seemed they’d asked a girl in their class, Gail Boyle, if she wanted to come and play in Tricia’s garden.

‘Things soon turned ugly. Tricia and Rachel tied Gail to a tree and Tricia fetched her brother’s bow and arrows. In those days, of course, kids did play with lethal weapons more or less willy-nilly.’

‘Those were the days, eh?’ goes Connor.

Jeff blanks the wee fuckwit. ‘So there was nothing odd about a fourteen-year-old boy possessing such a thing. When Tricia returns with the bow, she’s put on a pair of gloves. She fires off an arrow into the branches above Gail – nowhere near her, but Gail’s terrified, poor kid. She’s struggling to get free of the ropes they’ve used to tie her up. She can’t scream for help because they’ve gagged her.’ He shakes his head. ‘Tricia takes off the gloves and gives them to Rachel, and hands her the bow, and tells her to “Shoot the little cow”. Those were the exact words, apparently.’

I’ve got a dry mouth so I have. He’s on a roll. He’s loving it.

‘Tricia is goading Rachel. She’s saying, “Do it!” and, “It’ll be two against one, they’ll have to believe us and then he’ll go to jail!” It seems Tricia and her brother had had a massive falling out the day before over something trivial – he’d spilt Ribena on Tricia’s favourite dress, I think, and she was convinced he’d done it on purpose, and things escalated from there, culminating, unbelievably, in the girl deciding to frame him for murder. She’s screaming at Rachel to Do it , she’s saying Rachel is a wimp and a waste of space and that if Rachel doesn’t do this Tricia will never speak to her again. Rachel lifts the bow and –’

‘You’d think someone would hear them, eh?’ goes Connor.

‘Tricia’s parents and brother were inside the house,’ goes Jeff.

‘How was she gonnae frame her brother if he wasnae there?’

‘It seems he spent all his time in his room listening to records. The parents were in a different part of the house. They didn’t know where the kids were or what they were doing.’

I’m grinding my teeth. ‘Sorry, Jeff. Rachel’s got the bow…’

‘And she fires an arrow at Tricia’s face, point-blank range. It goes through her eye and into her brain, killing her instantly.’

The house is like something off of Pride and Prejudice . But at least they’ve got new windaes in and it’s all modern inside, big grey leather sofas and abstract shite on the walls like a wean’s been chugging paint and boaked it on a bit paper.

Mrs Fisher’s a shrivelled wee wifie keeps rubbing her arms like she’s cold. Mister’s a big old bastard doesnae say much. I’m in sympathy mode, giving it, ‘Such an awful thing,’ and ‘I know Rachel Clark was just a child, but it must have been hard that she wasn’t really… well, this is only my personal opinion, and of course we couldn’t say this in the programme, but it seems to me she wasn’t really properly punished.’

Mrs Fisher’s blinking away. She’s sitting next Mister on the sofa opposite with her knees together and her right hand on her left arm, stroking it like it’s a wee dug.

‘That was what we felt.’

‘That girl should have been locked up for life,’ goes Mister. ‘God knows where she is now and what else she’s done. They moved away, of course. It’s our understanding they went to Australia – that’s where the mother was from.’

I raise an eyebrow. ‘Oh no, Rachel’s still in the UK. She’s changed her name of course. New identity. I don’t think even her husband knows about her past as Rachel Clark. She has a husband and a little girl. Her husband’s a university lecturer and they live in a big house in a very desirable part of Edinburgh. Tea and crumpets on the lawn kind of style.’