The waiting room was smaller than she remembered.
A lot smaller. She felt as if she could reach out and touch the wall opposite, reach out and punch that yob right in the Adam’s apple – he’d better watch it, she was ninja trained – oh God, Ailish’s face when Jed-Bag had gone flying out of the window!
And then suddenly the yob was up and out of his chair and coming for her, out of nowhere, and she caught a huge gulp of air and jumped up and yelled something, and she was kicking out at his crotch and he was yelling too, and he was staggering back, away, and ‘Bastard!’ she was shouting, and now, thank God, there was Dr Swain and she was telling him what had happened and the Johnson was whining and denying it, ‘I never touched her,’ and she was screaming, ‘Keep away from me, you fucking bastard! Keep away from my daughter!’
Her head felt enormous and fragile, like her brain had swollen up and her skull was a thin bony balloon and all the nerves inside it were being squashed up against it and soon the whole thing was going to burst open. It hurt to open her eyes. She was lying down on something that felt funny – a piece of paper of all things, a giant piece of paper. She was on one of those narrow beds in a consulting room.
She could hear Neil’s voice and another man’s, talking too quietly for her to hear.
‘Neil?’
‘It’s okay, Flora. You’re okay.’ Her hand was squeezed tight. ‘You’ve had a sort of panic attack, the doctor thinks… Do you remember?’
In the queue of traffic up Inverleith Row, she sat on the passenger seat, clutching her bag in her lap and looking out at all the people strolling by on the pavement, all the people with nice safe normal lives.
‘I’m not going mad,’ she finally said.
Neil, always a nervous driver, gave her a distracted look. ‘Of course you’re not. No one’s suggesting that.’
Dr Swain had told her he thought her ‘panic attack’ had been a result of a combination of stress and sleep deprivation. He’d written her a prescription for an SSRI – just a short course of it, for a month. Then she was to go back and see him again.
‘Neil, that man –’
Neil grimaced. ‘Yeah, he’s not pressing charges or anything. I explained our situation –’
‘Oh, I imagine he already knows all about our situation. They’re messing with me, Neil. Trying to make out I’m mad and an unfit mother so they can get Beckie back. He did try to attack me. Surely the other people in the waiting room could confirm that?’
‘Apparently he stood up, tripped, and you – you went for him, basically. He didn’t attack you.’ His eyes were back on the road, on the brake lights of the white van in front.
‘Okay, maybe he didn’t actually touch me, but he wanted me to think he was about to. So I’d react. So I’d look like a nutter.’
‘He’s not a Johnson.’ His voice was wearily patient. ‘In fact, we know him – Darren, dunno his surname, but he’s the lad who works with Bill Allen.’
Bill Allen was the builder who’d done their kitchen extension last year.
‘His apprentice?’ Neil prompted. ‘Shy young lad? But nice – he made Beckie that wooden hamster from an offcut. The one she has on her windowsill.’
‘Oh God.’
‘He said he was wondering whether he should say hello or not. He got up to go to the toilet and tripped on the leg of the play table and sort of lurched forward – in your direction – and that’s when you…’
‘Kicked him in the balls. Oh God.’
‘I think he saw the funny side. Said he wouldn’t be suing you – didn’t fancy producing the evidence in court.’
‘But – okay, so maybe it was this Darren boy, but how do we know he’s not in league with the Johnsons? Maybe that’s how they found us – maybe he’s a cousin or something –’
‘Flora, they finished the extension a year ago. If that’s how they found us, how come they’ve only now shown up? Of course Darren isn’t involved.’
‘You don’t even believe it was them yesterday, do you? The Johnsons are all sweetness and light and it’ll be lovely when they’re part of Beckie’s life – Let’s throw them a party, in fact, let’s have them all round for a barbeque and get this open adoption rolling!’
Neil didn’t say anything. He indicated left, pulled over onto a double yellow line and stopped the car.
‘Okay. So what do you want to do?’
‘Right. For a start, can we expedite the CCTV installation? Pay them extra to hurry things along? We need to get firm evidence of the Johnsons harassing and intimidating us, and as soon as possible. Enough evidence to get them put away, ideally.’
He nodded. ‘Evidence would be good.’
‘And we need to be writing everything down, like the police said.’
‘Yep, and also… Flora, if we’re ever going to end up appearing as witnesses against the Johnsons in court… We need to be… um… well, credible. We need to hold it together.’
‘No more kicking random people in the balls.’
‘That would help.’ He was drumming his fingertips on the steering wheel. ‘And we’ll also need other, independent witnesses against them. I’ve been Googling their criminal trials and found out their address. Thirty-four Meadowlands Crescent. I was thinking we might go round there and talk to them, but –’
‘Whoa! What would be the point in that?’
‘But, I was saying… But, okay, if we’re going down this road, what I’m thinking is we could go round there and speak to the neighbours. See what dirt we can dig up, if any.’
She ignored that if any. ‘Yes! I thought of doing that too! And I was going to ask Saskia if they’ve got a history of using this garage for alibis… And we need to know which of the neighbours to approach – which ones we can trust.’
‘Saskia would know that too,’ Neil nodded. ‘We could go and see her again – talk to her.’
One thing about Neil – he was a scientist through and through. It was all about the evidence. And no matter what theories he might hold, he was always open to changing his mind if the evidence led elsewhere. He knew Saskia was rabidly anti-Johnson, obviously, but he was prepared to listen to her. He was prepared to be open-minded.
‘I’ve been trying to get through to her.’ Flora found her phone in her bag and tried again. ‘Still not picking up.’ She frowned out of the window, at the sun dappling a bank of bright yellow and red tulips in the front garden opposite. ‘But Neil. I don’t think there’s anything we can do to beat them. They’re criminals. They’re psychopaths. I think we’re going to have to disappear again.’
‘No,’ he said at once. ‘We can’t keep running away from this. We can’t spend our lives wondering when they’re going to find us again. Beckie can’t spend her life that way. Especially if… Let’s face it, Flora, we don’t know that they’re a danger to us. Maybe we’d be running from something that doesn’t even exist.’
‘Oh, so you’re just humouring me here? You’re thinking that all this evidence gathering is going to come up with a big fat zero and then I’m going to have to concede that the Johnsons are no threat? I’m going to have to let them see Beckie? That’s not happening, Alec. Not while I have breath in my body.’
‘Hey, I’m not the enemy here, Ruth. If it looks like the Johnsons are a threat, don’t worry, I’m prepared to do whatever it takes. And I mean whatever it takes to stop them getting to Beckie.’