‘Aye, but.’
‘Carly’s right enough,’ I goes. ‘For once in her fucking life. You’re wasted on they fuckers, son. Get me the Flora shite.’
Connor gets up and goes to the sideboard and gets out the red folder. He printed it all off of the internet – the newspaper articles about Flora’s maw’s death. How many folk are there in Scotland, in the fucking world, so shite-for-brains they’ve got themselves run over by a fucking milk float? There’s only one Connor could find in the UK – Elizabeth Innes in St Andrews, back in 1989, address 24 Turner Drive.
So the bitch was Ruth Innes before she married Alec Morrison.
Whatever it is that bitch is hiding, we’re finding it.
Then Connor goes, ‘Motor,’ and Ryan’s up next him at the windae.
‘Well, wouldn’t you know,’ goes Ryan. ‘Mr Bean hisself.’
‘Right yous.’ I hear a car door slam, not real loud, like it’s across the street maybe. ‘Yous laddies dinnae move. Carly-hen, get out there. Connor, film it on your phone, aye? He’s gonnae assault you, darlin’, right? Connor, get that windae open for sound, and get filming.’
Mandy joins Ryan and Connor and me at the windae, still shoving prawn cocktail in her gob. Mr Bean’s crossing the street and Carly’s got her fat arse down the path to the gate, blocking his way, and he’s all ‘Let me past please’ and he tries to breenge past and Carly shouts out like he’s just shoved a knife in her chebs and falls back against the gate like a right hammy cow and then she’s lying on the ground holding her belly giving it ‘The babby! The babby!’
‘Thanks, Flora, that was lush,’ said Caroline, bringing the empty soup bowls and the plates over to the sink. ‘You’re such a feeder.’
‘The least I can do is feed you. Other than that I’m all take take take.’
‘Hey, don’t be daft. Happy to help. Give it a few months and it’ll be me having some kind of crisis. Tony lining me up as his next victim, or oh God Flora, you won’t want to know me when I’m in a dysfunctional relationship – I’m well overdue falling for a bastard – over here crying on your shoulder every five minutes. Being fed homemade soup and bread, hopefully.’
Flora smiled. Thank God for Caroline. ‘I think that could be arranged.’
She squirted washing-up liquid into the sink.
Caroline twitched a tea towel from the rail of the Aga. ‘It might not even come to court, you know.’
‘But what was he thinking going over there in the first place? What did he think it would achieve?’
‘He was angry.’
She’d never seen him so angry. At himself, she thought, as much as anything – at the way that yob had taunted him in their own garden. At the effect it had had on Beckie. After the police had arrived and he’d given his statement, he’d disappeared off in his car – to cool down, she’d thought, to take himself off away from Beckie so as not to upset her any more than she was already. Never mind Flora. Never mind leaving her to deal with the fallout, to explain to the police why he’d taken off like that.
She’d been furious with him even before she’d found out what had happened at 34 Meadowlands Crescent.
But actually getting charged with assault?
She clattered the cutlery into the sink.
Assault of a pregnant woman?
‘It’s almost like they planned it, eh?’ Caroline mused. ‘It’s almost like they’ve been taunting you, trying to get you to react…’
‘That’s what Neil thinks too. But are they really that clever?’ She swirled the little brush around a soup bowl and, without bothering to rinse, banged it down on the draining board.
Caroline picked it up, shaking off the suds. ‘Maybe not. They probably just made use of the opportunity when Neil appeared at their door…’
‘But – the bloody cheek of it! They’ve applied for a restraining order against us?’ She slammed the other bowl down. ‘And the CCTV didn’t even pick Travis Johnson up – the cameras at the back don’t cover that bit of the garden, next the wall at the bottom. All you see on the footage is Neil running across the grass like a maniac… It’s almost as if they knew where the cameras were – as if they’ve been watching the house, watching where the cameras were directed…’
‘I suppose that’s possible,’ Caroline said doubtfully.
‘We need ammunition against them. We really need it!’
‘Saskia still not answering?’
Flora shook her head.
‘Maybe there’s a problem with her phone. It sounds like, the state she’s in, she could have lost it, or stopped paying for it, or it’s muffled under a pile of dirty laundry or whatever. Do you have any other way of contacting her?’
‘Nope, other than just turning up at her flat.’ She stared at Caroline. ‘And why haven’t I just done that? What’s stopping me driving over there now…’
‘Well, you have to collect Beckie from school in…’ Caroline consulted her watch ‘about an hour. But you could get over there tomorrow, couldn’t you? I could pick Beckie up.’
‘Would you?’
‘No problemo – I’m working from home. And it’s always good to spend time with the Beckster.’
‘Thanks, Caroline. Thank you so much.’
‘And look, I wouldn’t worry about these charges against Neil – any sheriff worth his or her salt is going to see through them. And I doubt the restraining order will be granted either. That little minx probably has a record as long as your arm. She’s probably accusing people of assaulting her all the time.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Now – let’s have a look at this CCTV. I want to see myself on camera.’
The bank of screens had been set up in Neil’s study, ranged above his desk like he was Mr Spock in the Star Ship Enterprise. The screens showed the front and back gardens from various angles, and also views of the house, every door and window covered.
‘Wow,’ said Caroline.
‘It’s all very state of the art, apparently.’ She sat down in Neil’s swivelly chair and keyed in the password. ‘See, we can switch any of the cameras off and on…’ She clicked on the one looking out onto the street, and the screen went blank. She clicked on it again and the picture was back. ‘And change the direction they point in…’ She swivelled it to look off down the road. ‘Either using this computer or our phones.’
‘Excellent! And cute little bonsai trees.’ Caroline was looking at Mimi’s tank on the windowsill.
‘Mm, that’s…’ But Flora didn’t have the strength to explain Mimi the Mycorrhiza. ‘Botany stuff. Okay, so footage of the front door about an hour ago…’ She navigated through the menu, and on the screen there appeared a shot of Caroline, hood up against the rain, opening the gate and coming towards the front door, and running her tongue over her teeth before ringing the bell.
‘Oh God – look at me checking for remnants of Jaffa cake!’
She looked as attractive as ever – and as if Jaffa cakes never passed her glossy lips.
‘And you can see Ailish’s house!’ Caroline pointed at the screen on the far left showing the current feed for the front door. ‘As if The Chipmunk Show wasn’t more than enough exposure!’
The camera in the hedge covering the front door also gave a partial view into Ailish and Iain’s front garden. Right on cue – she did her main shop after lunch every Thursday – Ailish’s car had just pulled in at her gate. They watched her get out and open the boot, then turn and stare at the camera as if she’d suddenly seen it – but surely that was impossible? It was tiny, and hidden in the hedge.