‘Okay.’ Beckie wriggled out from her arms and stood. ‘I have to brush my teeth.’
When she’d left the room, Neil said, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Why on earth would you tell her she can have a kitten?’
‘I didn’t. But would it be such a terrible idea?’
‘Do you really think I have the energy at the moment to cope with a demanding small animal? Because it would be me dealing with it, wouldn’t it?’ She sat down at the table opposite him and rubbed her forehead. ‘Beckie can have her tablet in the car, just this once, so I can get some sleep.’ It was the only thing guaranteed to keep her quiet.
‘We shouldn’t be inconsistent about these things, Flora.’
‘I’ve got a really bad headache and I need to sleep in the car, okay?’
Neil raised his eyebrows – Whatever – and left the room.
Connor’s sitting in his PC World uniform with his laptop, reading all about Mair’s tragic and untimely demise, and he’s like that: ‘What if there’s another CCTV camera that yous didnae clock?’
Ryan rolls his eyes at me and he’s all, ‘Dinnae you have a cow, Wee Man. We was in wigs and that, eh, and I had a right fat belly on me, and the neb on Maw – you wouldnae have picked us out a line-up yoursel’.’
Connor’s no happy. ‘The motor, but?’
‘Stolen fucking motor with false plates?’
‘Aye…’ goes Connor.
‘Aye,’ goes Ryan. ‘So shut it with your fucking whinging. We covered all the bases. Gold stars all round. We’re no in performance-below-acceptable-standard territory here, eh?’ And he’s chuckling away to hisself.
Connor’s on another verbal at his work for performance below acceptable standard. They get in the shite if they just sell the punter what they’re wanting without any of they crap extra care plans and add-ons and that, and the manager’s telt the wee diddy he’d better start pushing the crap or else.
Jed wakes up and goes, ‘That bint’s motor’s gonnae be picked up in the vicinity though, eh? She’s no gonnae have false plates. Get on the polis, son, and get clyping on the bitch. You saw this bird looking suspicious and you got the plate.’
I roll my eyes at Ryan and he rolls his eyes at me. Are we the only ones in this fucking family with any fucking sense?
‘Naw Da, no yet,’ goes Ryan. ‘The plan, aye?’
‘The plan? The plan? Away and shove your fucking plan,’ goes Jed, and falls back asleep, the prick.
23
Flora was woken from a heavy doze by Beckie’s whine at the bedroom door. ‘I want to say goodbye to Mum.’
‘Mum’s asleep – we have to let her rest,’ came Neil’s voice.
‘It’s okay, I’m not asleep,’ she called, and Beckie shot into the dark bedroom and wormed into the bed and pressed her cool little body against Flora’s side.
‘I don’t want to go to school,’ she said. ‘I want to stay here with you. Can I?’
Flora’s heart turned over. ‘I’m sorry, darling, but you have to go to school. You have to give out the party invitations, don’t you?’
God. This bloody party.
‘I should stay and look after you.’ Beckie’s fingers stroked Flora’s arm.
‘Well, darling, really I think I just need to sleep.’
‘The doctor said it was nothing serious?’ Beckie had asked her this about three times since Flora had been back to Dr Swain about her tiredness and headaches and general – well, he’d said it was depression and upped her dose of the SSRI, but it would be a couple of weeks until she felt any effect. Meanwhile, it was a struggle to get out of bed, let alone cope with the nightmare their lives had become.
‘It’s definitely nothing serious, Beckie. I promise you. The best thing you can do to make me feel better is go to school so I know you’re with your friends and teachers having a nice time.’
‘I won’t have a nice time though.’
‘Beckie,’ said Neil gently, and Flora lay passively as he eased back the covers and lifted Beckie out of the bed. They’d all regressed in the last few days, Beckie behaving like a much younger child, and Neil and Flora treating her as such.
Things had got a lot worse after the Children’s Reporter’s visit. Although, as Neil said, the visit itself couldn’t have gone better – Karen Baxter had been a nice woman, lovely with Beckie, and had reassured them as she left after her private ‘chat’ with Beckie that she had no concerns and no further action would be taken – Beckie was far from stupid and had realised what it all meant. That Karen had been there to check that Beckie was being well treated by her parents; that Karen had the power to take Beckie away from them, like she’d been taken away from the Johnsons.
Ever since, she’d become incredibly clingy, only happy away from Neil and Flora when she was with Caroline – who’d been wonderful, taking Beckie after school sometimes to give Flora a rest.
A much-needed rest.
She didn’t even have the energy to keep tabs on the investigation into Saskia’s death. Neil was doing that off and on, although, of course, he wasn’t convinced that the Johnsons were responsible.
Saskia was all over the media now – she’d even been on the national news. Murder of disgraced social worker. Because, of course, the details of her disgrace had been leaked. And the police were now saying it was murder and were appealing for witnesses.
Someone was going to mention a strange woman in a grey hoodie, walking along with her head down. Maybe they’d be found, the hoodie and the raincoat, at the side of the road where Flora had flung them from the car window.
And her DNA would be on them, along with Saskia’s.
What more damning evidence could there possibly be?
She could hear Neil and Beckie now downstairs in the hall, Beckie whining about something or other, Neil’s voice patient, gentle. Neil was such a great father. He’d taken two weeks off work and did all the morning stuff, including making the extra lunch for Edith – she’d have to call Mrs Jenner again about Edith – and he drove Beckie to school every day; and because Beckie was nervous about being at school (‘What if the Johnsons come and get me?’), he then waited in the car outside until lunchtime – parked where Beckie could look out of her classroom window and see him – and then he drove her home for lunch, then back to school, where he waited until the school day was over.
He was prepared to humour Beckie’s fears, but not Flora’s.
Neil and Caroline thought she was completely overreacting to Saskia’s murder, that any number of people could have had a motive, given what Saskia had done – or that it could have been a motiveless stabbing by someone hanging about the close out of their skull on drugs. All of which was true, of course, looking at it objectively.
But Flora knew the Johnsons had done it.
She just knew.
The Johnsons were capable of anything.
So what was she doing lying here? What kind of a mother was she, not even able to get out of bed and protect her own child, when they were facing God knew what threat from a bunch of murdering psychopaths?
Clever murdering psychopaths.
Neil had engaged the services of a solicitor specialising in criminal law. Charles Aitcheson had advised them to record everything, to make sure their phones were charged at all times so they could film any further breaches of the court order by the Johnsons, any further threatening behaviour or trespass… Unfortunately there was insufficient evidence, in his opinion, to secure a harassment conviction as things stood, and Neil himself had ‘compromised’ their case with the ‘assault’ on pregnant Carly which, he had warned, was likely to end in a conviction when it came to court in three months’ time, given that the incident had been caught on camera.