At least Flora hadn’t been.
It had come out that the CCTV cameras on the street outside the close had not been operational at the time of Saskia’s murder, and that no one had seen anyone acting suspiciously at the relevant time. The police were appealing for information about a woman who had buzzed one of the neighbours to get into the building to see Saskia, and were appealing for this woman to come forward.
But no one had yet come forward to say they’d seen her.
She drifted into a confused, repetitive dream in which she was endlessly climbing the stairs to Saskia’s flat, knowing what she would find there but somehow unable to stop and turn and go back down the stairs. Endlessly buzzing to get into the stair.
No, she was awake, and someone was ringing the doorbell. Ringing and ringing.
Caroline.
Caroline had promised to come round.
She managed to roll to the edge of the bed and stand up, her head swimming. She managed to get out of the room, and down the stairs, and to the front door.
‘Oh God, Flora,’ said Caroline.
Flora couldn’t look at her. Head bent like a naughty child, she studied the pattern of tiles in the vestibule, studied her own bare feet, and the toenails that had grown too long.
‘Come on, love.’ And Caroline’s arm was round her, and Flora was suddenly crying, suddenly howling in her friend’s arms, and Caroline was closing the door behind her and saying, ‘Let’s get you sorted, eh?’
‘I’m not sortable!’ Flora wailed.
Caroline was brisk. ‘We’ll see about that.’
The Botanic Gardens had always been a favourite place of Flora’s. It had been the house’s main attraction, having the Botanics right opposite. She used to love to just stroll along the paths, touching the leaves of the plants, reading the Latin names on the labels, sitting on the grass with a book while Beckie lost herself in one imaginary world after another, bringing Flora leaves or blades of grass to hold that featured crucially in the dramas going on inside her head.
Today there was no Beckie, of course; nothing to capture her attention. Everything seemed flat, dull, one tree very much like the next, the late spring borders with their blocks of colour so painting-by-numbers ordinary that she couldn’t understand why Caroline was bothering to stop and admire them.
‘Coffee?’ said Caroline brightly.
‘What is wrong with me?’ Flora blurted. ‘What am I even doing here? The Johnsons are out there, they’re planning God knows what – They’ve got it in for us just as much as they had it in for Saskia –’
‘Flora.’ Caroline took her arm. ‘Come on. Even if the Johnsons did kill Saskia, which is pretty unlikely – I mean, how would they even know where she was? – they had good reason to hate her after what she did. I’m not saying it would justify murdering her… But the point is, they can’t have anything against you and Neil personally, not like they did against Saskia. It’s not your fault, what happened with Beckie.’
Flora breathed. She knew Caroline was wrong. She knew the Johnsons hated her. But she couldn’t explain it. ‘Okay, maybe not, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to get Beckie back. Beckie needs me, and I’m a useless wreck.’
‘Coffee,’ Caroline said firmly, pushing Flora in the direction of the tearoom.
They chose a table outside in the sun, and while Caroline went in to buy the coffees and cakes, Flora sat and looked across the expanse of lawn to the Edinburgh skyline. Even that looked wrong, like a hackneyed illustration in a tourist brochure, not a real city, not somewhere real people lived real lives.
Oh get a grip.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, the sun hitting her retinas made it difficult to see, washing out the colours of the lawn, and the shivering bright leaves, and the tall shape of the man standing under a tree looking at her.
He levelled his hand at her, holding it with his other hand as he mocked firing off shots, his hands kicking up with the recoil.
And something in her snapped.
Leaving her bag on the table, she ran towards him as he slipped away round the tree. Behind her she heard someone shouting her name, but she didn’t stop, she kept going under the huge shadowed canopy, jumping over the slippery black roots in the grass, running to the path beyond –
Which way?
There were two elderly ladies on the path in one direction, a family with a buggy in the other –
No Ryan Johnson.
‘Flora!’ Caroline came skidding up. ‘What are you doing?’
‘It was Ryan Johnson.’
Caroline was holding her by both arms. ‘Flora –’
‘He was pretending he had a gun, pretending to shoot me… But I was too slow, and I – and now he’s gone and –’
‘And what do you reckon you’re going to accomplish by chasing after him?’
She felt all the energy, the adrenaline, draining out of her.
‘Let’s go back and get those coffees down us, yeah?’
‘He must have been following me. They must be watching the house.’
‘Okay, so maybe Neil can fix up a camera pointing at the street. And Flora, instead of running after him, maybe you should have got out your phone and filmed him?’
Flora stared at her. ‘What would happen to Beckie if we died? If Neil and I died…’
‘God, Flora! That’s not going to happen!’
‘The Johnsons would get her back, wouldn’t they?’
Caroline shook her head, taking Flora’s arm like she was ninety years old and guiding her back to the tables. ‘Of course not. The courts would hardly hand Beckie back to the family responsible for the murder of her adoptive parents.’
Flora stopped walking. ‘But what if they made it look like an accident or… or suicide…?’
‘Even then…’ But was there a hint of uncertainty in her frown?
‘Beckie was taken from them in a miscarriage of justice. While we’re still alive, yes, the courts aren’t going to disrupt Beckie’s life by giving her back to them, but if we were dead and there was no one else to take her…’
‘Someone in your family would take her. Look, if it would set your mind at rest, why don’t you appoint a guardian to look after Beckie if anything happens to you?’
Flora looked up into the canopy of the tree. Two birds were squabbling, flying at each other, beaks stabbing.
‘Our only close living relative is Pippa, Neil’s sister. She’s not exactly…’ She grimaced. ‘She’s into having adventures, backpacking, rock climbing…’
‘But she would put all that on hold for Beckie. I bet she’d do anything for Beckie.’
‘Pippa’s hardly had anything to do with her. A few flying visits, the odd five minutes on Skype…’
‘But blood’s thicker than…’ She stopped. ‘Sorry. I mean, she’s family, isn’t she? She’d step up?’
24
‘Here it’s, Maw,’ goes Connor, and chucks an envelope at my chebs. I’m lying back in my chair with a family-size Galaxy waiting for Bargain Hunt to come on.
‘’Bout fucking time,’ I goes, and I rip it open.
It’s the copy of the death certificate we ordered from the National Records of Scotland for Flora’s maw: Elizabeth Innes, died in St Andrews in 1989. I unfold it and me and Connor eyeball it.