Not Funny Not Clever by Jo Verity

Author:Jo Verity [Jo Verity]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781906784478
Publisher: Honno Press
Published: 2012-11-05T16:00:00+00:00

18

THURSDAY: 12.27AM

There was a gentle tat-tat on the front door and Elizabeth hurried to open it.

Jordan was standing on the doorstep. He was out of breath and perspiration had darkened the chest of his T-shirt.

‘I make it twelve twenty-seven.’ She glanced over his shoulder into the shadows.

‘Where are the girls?’

He stared at his feet.

‘What? You came back without them?’

‘You didn’t say we all had to come.’ He slid his phone from his jeans pocket and began to read her message aloud. ‘£25 if you get back—’

‘I’m fully aware of what I said.’

‘It says “you”.’ He held her gaze.

‘You know I meant all three of you.’

He shrugged as though she were unhinged.

‘It’s not funny, Jordan, and it’s not clever.’

She rang Dafydd to tell him that Jordan had turned up without his daughters. Then, handing her phone to Jordan she said, ‘Here. You explain.’

Jordan, evidently realising that there was no mileage in playing the innocent, described where he’d last seen the girls. ‘By the dunes? You go through a car park? There’s a grassy bit?’ The inflection made it sound as though he, not Dafydd, were the interrogator.

‘We’re heading over there now,’ Dafydd said when she took the phone back. He was panting with exertion. ‘I can hear music.’

Diane said something which she didn’t catch.

‘There’s a crowd of kids over there. It’s them, I think.’

‘Let me know what…’

But he was gone.

Jordan had sneaked off to his room and again she found herself killing time and wondering. Should she have anticipated Jordan’s misreading of her text? Maybe he’d tried to persuade the girls to come back and then, when he’d failed, switched his story in the hope of getting his money.

It rankled more than a little that Diane was with Dafydd on his mission. Di had no stake in the outcome. They were hunting for his daughters and her charge. She should be the one running through the sultry night alongside Dafydd Jones.

It was half an hour before Diane rang to let her know that they’d located Angel and Mimi.

‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

‘Not sure.’ Diane volunteered no details. ‘We shouldn’t be too long.’

As the minutes dragged by, she grew increasingly anxious. Dafydd was clearly livid with Angel and Mimi. And no doubt they would be mortified that their father had come to ‘rescue’ them. It was going to be awkward, especially as she had no idea what role Jordan had played in the drama or whether she would, by her text, be held responsible for his abandoning them.

She tiptoed upstairs, pausing on the landing outside Jordan’s room. Did he honestly think she was going to pay him for failing? Did he imagine that the issue would be decided in some quasi court of law, and that he might win on a pronoun technicality? He was ruthless where money was involved and there was little chance of his letting the matter drop, but she didn’t like the idea that her incompetent attempt at bribery might be revealed. That would be embarrassing.

Standing in the darkness her anger moderated.

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