No Place Like Home

her equanimity was too good to last, with Bertie lying there in his cone looking sorry for himself, a constant reminder of the ‘psychopath’.
‘Oh, well, no need to worry, Phoebs.’ He kept his tone light. ‘I just went out to look at the veg patch with Mrs Taylor.’ He gently prised Phoebe away and looked over her head at Max. ‘Why don’t you and Max find paper and pens to make some notices with? You’re the artist of the family, after all.’
‘Come on, Picasso,’ said Max, immediately divining Bram’s intention. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got in your room.’
When they’d gone, Bram turned back to Scott. ‘The vegetable plants have all been weedkilled.’
‘Weedkilled?’
Sylvia nodded. ‘That’s my diagnosis. There’s no other explanation for why every single plant would suddenly die. Someone’s applied weedkiller to them.’
David burst out laughing. ‘Before everyone jumps to conclusions and starts blaming the feral kids for that too, I think we may need to look closer to home on this one.’ He slapped Bram’s back. ‘Eh, Bram?’
‘I didn’t weedkill my own vegetables!’
‘Not deliberately, no – but the organic liquid feed you’ve got in the shed comes in big red bottles, does it not? Been using that on the veg, yes?’
‘Well, yes, but–’
‘And the weedkiller I gave you a few weeks ago was also in a big red bottle?’
‘The weedkiller’s still there in the shed unopened.’
‘No it’s not, Bram. I know because I was in there after lunch and I thought maybe I’d have a go at the jungle you’ve got growing round the verandah, but no. Nada. The weedkiller has gone. I thought you’d maybe swallowed your eco-friendly organic principles and had a sneaky blitz. Little did I think you’d used it on your own bloody vegetables!’
The room erupted in laughter.
‘No,’ said Bram helplessly. ‘I didn’t.’ But David just slapped him on the back again.
He had not used that weedkiller. He had noted the similarity between the containers and double-checked every time he used the liquid feed that he hadn’t made a mistake, telling himself he needed to get David to take the weedkiller away. He knew he hadn’t made a mistake. Someone had deliberately poured weedkiller all over the vegetable patch.

5
Phoebe was sitting at the kitchen table wielding the red felt-tip, head bent in concentration over her work. All around her were felt-tips, most with their tops off. It was another beautiful day, early morning sunshine slanting in through the side window and across the worktops.
Kirsty came into the room and looked over Phoebe’s shoulder, and Bram braced himself for her reaction, but she smiled. ‘Poor Bertie’s leg has actually been shot off?’
Phoebe nodded. ‘If I just showed the flesh wound it would look like it was no big deal.’
‘And that’s a lot of blood.’
‘It has to attract people’s attention, Mum.’
Phoebe’s notice was quite something. At the top was a depiction of ‘the psychopath’, a heavy-browed figure, mouth wide open in glee as he pointed what looked like a machine-gun at the animal in the centre of the picture, a yellow dog with downturned mouth crying copious blue tears – and no wonder, given that one of his back legs was lying on the ground behind him and blood was pouring out of the stump to create a bright red lake.
Phoebe had drawn a huge black cross over this picture and under it written:
!!!NO!!!
It is WRONG to hurt animals. If you do, you will be COUGHT ON CAMERA and get in trouble with the POLICE. All dogs using this wood are PROTECTED BY PETCAM.
Underneath was a happy yellow dog with a massive camera around his neck, tongue lolling, mouth smiling, and the psychopath, this time, was prostrate in a second blood lake while a policeman stood pointing a gun down at him. A policeman with bright blue eyes.
Last night, Phoebe had refused to sleep in her own room. As dusk had fallen, the spectre of the psychopath had become all too real, and Phoebe kept insisting she had seen movement at first one window and then another, and became hysterical when Bram went out with a torch to investigate, which he’d thought would reassure her but had had the opposite effect.
They had taken her into their bed and she had snuggled in the warm space between them as Bram had shown her the motion-activated cameras with on-board storage that they had ordered and which were to be placed in the woods. Kirsty had had the brainwave of a petcam to be attached to Bertie’s collar, and Phoebe had solemnly participated in the selection of a suitable model from the website.
If there was anything guaranteed to bring Kirsty back from wherever she retreated to, it was one of the kids needing her.
They had printed off their own notices this morning and sealed them inside plastic wallets from one of Kirsty’s ring binders, ready to go up, side by side with Phoebe’s one, in strategic positions around the wood:
PRIVATE PROPERTY
You are very welcome to use these woods, but please respect them and observe the Scottish Outdoor Access Code. NO SHOOTING OR FIRES, PLEASE. No littering.
Anyone shooting at wild or domestic animals or vandalising property will be prosecuted. CCTV is operating in these woods.
Bram joined Kirsty and Phoebe at the table. ‘That’s excellent, Phoebs, if a little bloodthirsty. Our notice is going to look very dull in comparison.’
A racket like a herd of wildebeest on the stairs heralded the arrival of Max, as usual an hour later for breakfast than the rest of them. He was dressed in a very short-sleeved T-shirt that exposed his upper arms, and Bram noticed that the weights were starting to have an effect. His biceps were definitely larger and more defined. David would be delighted.
Max grabbed a handful of nuts and raisins from the bowl on the table. ‘I thought I might go out and – Oh, crikey.’ He did a double-take at Phoebe’s work. ‘That’s going to give them nightmares, all right.’
‘Good,’ said Phoebe, busily expanding the red lake around the psychopath.