Jane Renshaw - Watch Over Me

But now someone was shouting, footsteps pounded on the stone quay and the boy was saying ‘Aw Christ’ and ‘Let them be, Maw’ and then she felt herself pulled back by the shoulders and oh God, how stupid she’d been, how stupid not to call the police, not to call Victor and his brother straight away, and then Caroline’s face was filling her vision, Caroline’s voice was saying ‘Hiya Flora’ and then she was being flung backwards, stumbling, and hard fingers closed round her arms and the stale stench of cigarettes and BO engulfed her as she twisted to come face to face with Jed Johnson.

He grinned at her.

‘ Mum! ’

Caroline had Beckie trapped in her arms. A new Caroline, a flabby Caroline with dirty blonde streaks in her hair.

Lorraine Johnson.

‘She’s no your Mum , hen!’

Flora kicked back against Jed’s legs and he grunted, and she managed to get her hand into her pocket, to close her fingers around her mobile phone, to pull it out –

It was snatched from her hand by soft white fingers.

A hugely fat woman was standing between her and Beckie and Caroline, smiling at her. ‘Oops.’ Without looking, the woman flicked her bloated fingers to toss the phone neatly into the water.

And the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.

It was the ‘Lorraine Johnson’ who’d come to the door at Gardens Terrace.

The family resemblance was striking.

‘Please,’ said Flora. ‘Please, just let Beckie go.’

‘ Please! ’ mimicked Jed in her ear.

‘Mands, get the weans in that wee café, aye, while we have ourselves a wee chat with this bitch? Connor son, get on the blower to that fuckwit Travis, tell him to get that fucking people carrier back here pronto cos we’ve got ourselves a wee situation, aye? Fucking mad bitch has only been and attacked Beckie.’

‘She didn’t!’ Beckie wailed. ‘You’re just pretending! You’re just pretending Mum is a bad person to make me stay with you but she isn’t!’

With all the strength of her new prison gym-toned body, Flora stamped down on Jed’s foot and drove her elbow back into his body.

‘Fuckin’ –’

And she thrust her hand back into the pocket of her jeans to pull out the flick-knife. She depressed the button and the wicked five-inch blade shot out of the casing and she lunged at Jed’s tattooed naked torso.

The next thing she knew she was slamming into the stone surface of the quay, all the breath thumped out of her lungs, and the knife was bouncing away from her towards Caroline’s foot. And a hard body smacked down on top of her, Jed’s hands in her hair, pulling her head up as she gasped for the air she couldn’t suck into her lungs.

Caroline looked down at her. ‘Like Mands said: Oops. See that, Beckie-hen? That’s a flick-knife and they’re fucking illegal, but when you’re a fucking serial killer that’s no gonnae give you many sleepless nights, eh? What were you gonnae do with that, Flora? Stick it in Beckie?’

Flora gasped, desperately appealing to Beckie with her eyes: Don’t believe her, don’t believe her!

‘What’s a… a flick-knife?’ Beckie sounded so scared.

‘It’s a fucking murder weapon, hen. See the blade on that?’ Caroline nudged it with the toe of her flip-flop. ‘Flora, Flora, what next, eh?’

And suddenly the weight on her back was gone. She rolled over to see the boy, Connor, wrestling with Jed. And a darting movement from Beckie, and then Beckie was standing with the flick-knife pointed, wobbling, at Caroline.

The wee diddy! He’s rolling on Jed and Jed’s like that: ‘Fucking wee wanker!’ and Bekki’s pulling away and squatting and Jesus Chutney, she’s only got the fucking chib, and that bitch Flora is getting up and I’m like that:

‘Bekki-hen, come here to me hen, I’ll no let her hurt you’ and wee Bekki’s looking at the bitch and then she’s looking at me and she’s got the chib in her hand and she’s all, ‘You’re a fucking liar’ and I’m ‘Naw hen’ and she’s ‘ Mum would never hurt me. You wrote that letter and you said really horrible things’ and I’m ‘Naw hen’ and she’s ‘You said Mum told me she killed Dad but how could you know that because I never told you what was in the letter and you couldn’t have read it because I tore it up and put the bits in the bin ’ and right enough, she’s one smart cookie so she is, and I’m ‘Aye, maybe there was a wee bit deception there but it was for your own good, aye? It’s all for your own good, Bekki, it’s all for you, my wee darlin’, it’s all of it been for you.’

And then the bitch is ‘Come here, Bekki!’ and Jed’s roaring at Connor and I’m snatching at the wean and the chib, it’s like it’s in slow motion, eh, the chib’s coming at me and it’s in my fucking neck.

‘I hate you!’ Bekki’s greeting, and I cannae speak, eh, and I’m on the deck and Connor’s like that: ‘Maw!’ and the wee diddy’s taken the chib out my neck and the blood’s pouring out me and I get my fingers in the hole and I’m ‘It’s okay hen, it’s okay.’ There’s grey circles in my eyes but I manage to say it:

‘A wee accident, eh?’

Fuck it, but.

I touch each of the bonsais for luck – Pinkie, Perkie and little Podgie, who’s the least valuable because he’s got a funny bushy shape but he’s the cutest. Then I put my finger on the glass over a bit of Mimi. ‘See you guys later.’

They’re on the windowsill with the best view. Both the windows on this side of my room look over the trees and two of our fields – I can see Marvin’s big arse, he’s chomping away on the grass as usual – and after the fields there’s the dunes, and then there’s the lovely blue of the Tasman Sea and I’m already thinking about tomorrow morning when Mum and Connor and Erin and I are going hacking to the beach on Brodie and Sam and Turpin and either Bindie or Marvin, depending on whether Bindie’s leg is still giving her a problem, but Erin really loves Bindie so I’m hoping it’ll be possible for her to ride her and Marvin’s such an old slowcoach, he’s not ideal for a hack.

Our house is a big old farmhouse up on a little hill, what they call a ‘colonial homestead’, and it’s really desirable because there are hardly any old houses here, most of the houses are newish bungalows like the one Connor and Erin and Carly and Willow live in in Westport, which is still really nice but not as nice? Our house was built in 1896 and has massive gorgeous big rooms. My room is like something from a magazine, with sloping bits of wall and a fireplace where you can have real fires in the winter, if it’s like really cold, and wooden walls that I painted myself in this colour called Mizzle. It’s a kind of a pale greeny-blue?

Down from the window I can see the roof of the veranda where the two rurus were last night. They’re way cuter than British owls. I was in bed and I heard them doing their ruuuu-ru call, like really close, so close I thought Are they inside the room?! and I tippy-toed out of bed to the window and there they were! Two of the little guys just sitting there side by side on the veranda roof right under my window! I could see their big golden eyes in the dark. They were the cutest! No sign of them now, but maybe they’ll be back tonight.

Dad would have so loved it here.

Every time I look at Pinkie and Perkie and Podgie and Mimi I think about Dad but also that man Brian who rescued them from my room in that house because he knew they were special, after Bitch left them to die after she told me she was getting them posted to Spain.

Such a fucking liar.