Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

Wendy was shaking her head. ‘Now you listen to me, doll, and you listen good. One hundred per cent, they’re wanting their lassie back. Aye maybe they could’ve snatched her, but Lorraine’s a smart fucking bitch, you know? What all she’s planning I havenae a scooby, but she’ll be planning some shite to get that lassie back, and getting your man out the way and you in the jail for it, that’s likely step one. You’d better be sure that lassie is somewhere Lorraine cannae get to her. I’m no joking, Flora, that bitch is smart.’

Flora put a hand to her mouth as her stomach clenched and bile shot up the back of her throat. She pushed back the chair.

‘I need to make a phone call.’

‘Aye, you call your pal, wherever she’s at, tell her to skedaddle cos they fuckers’ll be after her, no question.’ Wendy sucked her teeth. ‘And Flora…?’

Flora stopped, impatiently, at the door.

‘I can maybe no help you with the Johnsons, but there’s this ex-polisman Brian MacLeod, right, a PI, if you’re wanting polis evidence challenged, if you really didnae top your old man? Briefs use him for appeals and that. That wee girl Sienna Carmichael that was done for torching her ex’s gaff and him in it? She didnae do it, right, but she got convicted and her brief got Brian on the case and he found a witness heard this fucker mouthing off that he’d lit the gaff. And Brian gets hold of CCTV shows the fucker filling up a can with petrol ten minutes before it happened? And his woman makes a statement that he came home that night with burns on his face and that. Sienna got off on appeal. I’ve got his number if you’re wanting it.’

‘Thanks, Wendy. That would be great.’

The phones in D Wing were in the next corridor along. Flora had to wait in the queue for an interminable ten minutes before she could snatch up the receiver, enter her pin number and dial Caroline’s mobile.

‘Hi, Flora.’

‘Oh God, Caroline, I’ve just been speaking to another prisoner who knows the Johnsons, and she’s saying they probably are going to try to take Beckie – you have to move, I’m sorry, but you really have to move away, somewhere they won’t find you… You can’t stay in Glasgow.’

‘Whoa, Flora, okay. If they were going to snatch Beckie, wouldn’t they have done it by now?’

Flora breathed. ‘Yes, maybe, but… Caroline, I’ve been thinking… Unless there’s some sort of miracle with the appeal – and let’s face it, that’s not going to happen. The evidence against me is just too strong.’ She breathed again. ‘I’m going to be in here for at least ten years. Beckie – She’s cut herself off from me anyway. Even if I did get out… She’s happy with you.’

She was pressing the receiver so hard against her ear it was aching. She concentrated on that as some detached part of her brain sent the words into her mouth: ‘I’d like you to adopt her.’

‘Oh, but Flora –’

‘I want you to adopt her and move away. As far away as possible.’

Carly comes up the road pushing the buggy. Bekki’s dawdling behind, fucking adorable in her wee red puffer jacket. That snobby fucking school maybe can make the weans wear the school fucking skirt and jumper and tie, but I goes to Bekki in TK Maxx, I goes, ‘You get whatever jacket you want, Bekki, they can’t touch you for it.’

I get back from the windae and point the remote at the TV, and I channel surf until I get Tracy Beaker , and then I fold up the Mirror and push it down behind one of the cushions on the settee, but with Flora’s face just keeking out, like I’ve tried to hide it, so I have, but in too much a fucking hurry.

‘Well then, Bekki,’ I goes when they’re in the door, ‘how was school today?’

She shrugs her wee shoulders.

She’s been that depressed, poor wee soul, since the conviction. Sentencing was three days ago and the bitch got twelve year, but we’re making out to Bekki that it’s all fine, Flora’s gonnae appeal and she’ll be let go and then maybe she’ll come and get Bekki.

‘You wanting a juice and a bit of Battenberg? Or a wee piece of fruit? The fire’s on in the lounge, it’s all cosy in there and your programme’s on. In you go and relax, eh? What’re you wanting?’

‘Can I have Fanta?’

‘Course you can. Fanta and what all else?’

‘Crisps?’

‘Prawn cocktail or pickled onion?’

‘Pickled onion, please.’

When Bekki’s in the lounge, I goes to Carly: ‘Right you, get that Fanta and crisps.’ And I keek through the crack in the door. Bekki’s got her wee slippers off and her feet up on the settee. And now she’s pulling the cushion away and she’s got the Mirror out and I can hear the poor wee bairn going, ‘Oh!’

And she’s reading all about it.

And my heart’s breaking for her so it is.

Now she’s got it open to where the story continues on page five, and here’s Carly with the Fanta and crisps. I grab them off of her. I leave it a bit and then I’m breezing in the lounge, all cheery.

‘Here you go, Bekster.’ And then I’m: ‘Oh, Bekki –’ And I’m putting the glass of Fanta and the crisps down on the coffee table and grabbing the paper off of her.

Bekki’s jumping up from the settee. Her wee face is white as a ghost. ‘It says – it says Mum… There was this girl called Tricia Fisher that Mum was friends with when she was twelve, and Mum… Mum killed her. That’s not true, is it? She didn’t really kill Dad and she didn’t really kill that girl either.’

I puff. ‘I’m sorry, Bekki. I never meant you to see that.’ I fold up the paper. The headline’s barry:

Flora Parry was Child Killer

It’s all coming out now, eh, they couldnae report on her previous conviction until the sentencing and that, but now it’s all over the fucking press.

‘It’s not true.’

I get my arse on that settee and pull her down next me. I smooth her hair where it’s coming out the French braid. ‘Sweetheart… You’re going to have to be a really brave girl, okay? Because there’s some things I have to tell you.’

Bekki’s no leaning in. She’s sitting there twisting the wee bracelet she got from Connor for her Christmas, made of lemurs all pulling each other’s stripy wee tails.

‘Flora… Last time I saw her, she told me… I’m sorry, sweetheart… Just remember that I’m always going to look after you, I love you to bits and nothing bad’s going to happen to you, okay?’

She’s biting her lip.

‘I wish I didn’t have to tell you this, but… You have to know.’

She’s nodding. The wee soldier.

‘Flora told me she killed Neil.’

Bekki’s shaking her head. ‘No. That’s not true. Why would she say that?’

‘She didn’t mean to do it. She says they were arguing, and she just snapped.’

Bekki’s going, ‘No.’

I grab her hand. ‘Bekki, you’re going to have to be really brave… I wasn’t sure whether to tell you this or not, but I think it’s important to know the truth, isn’t it?’

She swallows and whispers: ‘Yes?’

‘They were arguing about you. Flora wanted to give you back to the Johnsons, and Neil didn’t.’

Bekki doesnae say nothing. She doesnae look at me.

I go to coory her but she pulls away.

‘I’m so sorry, Bekki. I didn’t believe it either when Flora told me, but the more I think about it… Well, the police are sure she killed him, and the jury were as well, and there had to be a motive, eh?’

‘But she didn’t kill him.’

‘Aw sweetheart. She’s been convicted, after all those smart people sifted through the evidence for months and months, you know? The justice system in this country, Bekki, the way it works, anyone who’s really innocent isn’t going to get convicted, or hardly ever.’