Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

Yes. She would bring them in here to the family room rather than the more formal sitting room at the front of the house. She would sit them down and they would look around them and see the handmade kitchen, the cosy sitting area with all Beckie’s things, the smiley photographs of them all, Flora and Neil and Beckie, in happier times.

She would tell them all about the Johnsons and the harassment and –

And they would look again at Saskia Mair’s murder because of the connection, and they would ask Flora where she’d been –

But not today.

They weren’t going to ask her that today. She could think about it later. And anyway, who remembered where they’d been weeks, months ago? She could just say she didn’t remember.

But today.

They would be here any minute.

She would tell them where Alec was and then she’d say she had to go to Beckie. She had to go back to Caroline’s and tell Beckie…

Oh God.

She had to tell Beckie .

It wasn’t the police who came first, it was the paramedics – two tall men in bulky green and black coveralls who told her to stay where she was as they headed upstairs. But she followed them. She had to follow them into that bedroom.

Alec was still on the bed.

Of course he was.

His face was turned towards her, grossly inflated, purple and red, and as one of the paramedics bent over him the ludicrous thought went through her head that maybe he wasn’t dead, maybe they could actually help him.

‘He’s dead,’ she said, and the paramedic must have heard the question in her voice, because he turned to her and said:

‘Yes, he is. I’m sorry.’

The other man put an arm across her shoulders. ‘I think you –’

But the doorbell was jangling again. She fled from the room, stumbling as she negotiated the stairs, arriving in the vestibule breathing heavily.

‘Mrs Parry?’

She nodded and stepped back to let them in: two middle-aged policewomen. She had expected men. Surely, if a violent crime had just been committed, sending two women was taking political correctness too far? Alec would say…

Alec would have said .

What? What would he have said?

‘The paramedics are upstairs. He’s – he’s dead. My husband. He’s dead. I have to – my daughter… She’s with my friend… Just down the street. Can I go to her? Please?’

‘Of course you can,’ the blonde one said at once, touching her arm. ‘Why don’t we do that while my colleague stays here and does what’s necessary?’ And she raised an eyebrow at the brunette, who nodded.

‘Flora, isn’t it?’ the policewoman said as they left the house. ‘I’m Sue.’

Flora nodded.

Round and round her head were going the questions: How can I protect Beckie from this? How can I make it okay for her? How can I make it right? But they were questions with only one answer:

I can’t .

‘I’m so sorry.’ Sue had a hand under her elbow. ‘Do you think you can manage…?’

‘Yes. Yes. Thank you.’

But her legs had gone all wobbly, she found, as Sue guided her along the pavement like an old woman. This was good, though. Sue could see she was genuinely in shock, surely? But she had to hold it together. She had to hold it together for Beckie.

Beckie didn’t cry.

She just sat there on Caroline’s sofa, in the circle of Flora’s arms, passively resistant, her little face stiff, her eyes vacant. As if she had retreated somewhere Flora couldn’t follow. As if all the years of being their daughter had been wiped out, at a stroke, and she wasn’t Beckie Parry any more, she was Bekki Johnson, that traumatised little toddler who knew not to trust the world or anyone in it.

‘Oh darling, darling.’ Flora hugged her close, breathing her in, fruity shampoo and warm skin and a faint mineral sand-and-sea tang from their day at the beach.

Such a little bird she was, thin little ribcage fragile under her hands.

If only Flora could shelter her from it, if only she could wrap herself around Beckie’s little body so that nothing could touch her, so that all the pain, all the grief, all the hurt that had come for her could fall instead on Flora’s own shoulders.

She swallowed. Her mouth was so dry. Her throat. Weirdly, she’d never felt further from tears herself. She felt as if she’d been hollowed out, all her insides, leaving just a stupid trembly dry shell of skin and bone that wasn’t her proper body, that wouldn’t obey her instructions.

Beckie pulled away and got up from the sofa and said, not looking at Flora, ‘Where has that policewoman gone?’

‘She’s gone to get us some things from the house that we might need.’

‘Like what?’ Beckie went to the window and stood looking out.

‘Pyjamas and things. Toothbrushes. A change of clothes.’

Sue had got her to make out a list, with instructions on where to find things. Before she’d left, Lara, a family liaison officer, had arrived and would, Sue had reassured her, keep her updated on what was happening.

‘Are we staying here tonight?’ said Beckie.

‘Yes. Caroline has very kindly said we can stay as long as we like.’ Caroline was in the kitchen with Lara making sandwiches. Lara had not, Flora realised, left Caroline and Flora alone for a second. Presumably so they couldn’t collude before their statements were taken, which would be happening in the next hour or so, Lara had told them. Someone would come here to do it, so Flora didn’t have to leave Beckie to go to the police station.

‘Was it the Johnsons?’ said Beckie.

Oh God.

‘What, darling?’ she stalled.

‘Did the Johnsons kill Dad?’

Flora drew in a breath. ‘Nobody knows yet what happened.’

And then, in a tiny voice: ‘Is he definitely dead?’ And Beckie turned, at last, and looked into her mother’s eyes.

Flora nodded.

Beckie ducked her head, covering her face with both hands.

But still she didn’t cry.

Flora flew across the room and gathered her up. Beckie clung to her, arms tight around her neck, legs wrapped around her hips, like she used to as a small child, as if she were trying to press herself inside Flora, into the empty space inside her.

Flora subsided back onto the sofa, cradling Beckie on her knee, rocking her.

Beckie said, in the same tiny voice: ‘If you hadn’t adopted me, Dad wouldn’t be dead.’

Flora squeezed her close. ‘We can’t know that. We can’t know what would have happened if we’d not had you. Dad loved you so, so much, Beckie. So terribly, terribly much. You made him happier than anything else in his whole life. I know for a fact that nothing… nothing that’s happened could have made him not want you as his daughter.’

Silence. Then, whispered: ‘You could have had another little girl.’

‘But she wouldn’t have been you , darling. She wouldn’t have been you.’

Jed’s getting right on Ryan’s tits. Ryan’s got on his old jeans and T-shirt and him and Connor are in the garden at the newbuild planting up the bonnie flowers and that from the garden centre, doing a wee bit chillaxing, but Jed’s following Ryan round like a fucking Labrador giving it ‘Wee spastic must have been bricking it, aye?’ and ‘Did he shite hissel’?’

Fucking psychopath willnae let it go, but Ryan’s no giving him nothing.

‘Gies that trowel Da, aye? And if you’re wanting to make yourself useful you can get Connor that begonia while you’re at it.’

‘Aye, fuck off.’

I’ve had it. ‘Right you.’ I get in Jed’s face. ‘Get your arse back to our bit. There’s a million fucking things to do and you’re pissing about getting in the boys’ road?’