explosion she’d run from the day before might warrant coverage.
‘Pick a channel.’ The landlady pushed the remote control over and nodded at the small TV. ‘I like to see my news in print, but you probably prefer the television.’ She started flicking through the first of the papers.
Jo scrolled through the stations in search of some news, eventually settling for a mindless chat show. She buttered her toast, trying to guess Mrs Phillips’ age. Physically, she looked quite old, maybe seventy, but her mannerisms belonged to a younger woman. She was lithe and full of energy.
‘So, what brought you to Radley?’ She aligned the pages of the first newspaper and moved on to the second.
Jo jiggled her head, implying that she had too much toast in her mouth to talk. A bus. A night bus on its way to the depot. She couldn’t tell the truth, and she’d already told Mrs Phillips about the job at Trev’s Teashop. Nobody would move to Radley in order to work in a place like that.
‘A friend,’ she said finally. ‘I, er, wanted to get out of London for a bit–change of scene, you know.’ She took another bite to buy herself some time. ‘Um…my mate offered to put me up for a while, so I found myself a job–the job at the teashop–and then…’
‘Then you fell out with your friend,’ finished the woman, nodding. ‘And this friend–was it…a male friend, by any chance?’ She raised an eyebrow.
Jo looked at her. With a surge of relief, she realised that Mrs Phillips had assumed the most plausible story of all: that Jo had just split up with the boyfriend who she’d been planning to live with. She nodded.
‘I see. Ooh, kettle’s boiled. Tea or coffee?’
Jo opted for coffee, relieved. Mrs Phillips was a perceptive woman, she thought. And nosy, too. Jo knew she’d have to stay on the ball to avoid getting caught out by her own lies.
‘Have you always been a waitress? I’ll leave you to add milk and sugar.’
Jo stuffed a large piece of toast in her mouth and made a winding gesture with her hand. Why hadn’t she thought about this? She should have invented a background. Sooner or later, people would start asking–of course they would. And she had to stick to a story. She’d already told Trevor her parents weren’t English–what other nonsense would she come up with?
‘No,’ she said, still chewing. For some reason, she could only think of one possible career path that involved part-time waitressing, and she wasn’t sure it would stick.
Eventually, it was time to swallow.
‘I’m an actress.’
‘Goodness! Really? Would I have seen you in anything? What sort of acting?’
Jo shrugged modestly. ‘It’s just minor parts, mainly–nothing big.’ She was trying to remember the name of a low-budget film or series that would seem plausible for a small-time actress. Nothing sprang to mind.
‘Go on,’ the woman goaded excitedly. ‘Try me. I might’ve seen you in something.’
Jo shook her head. This really was testing her acting skills. ‘No, really–it’s been mainly screenplays and short films, like…’ She thought frantically, trying to make up a name that sounded like a title but wasn’t likely to be one already. ‘The Goose,’ she said finally.
Mrs Phillips was still looking at her expectantly.
‘And…’ God, this was hard, ‘Jim’s…Secret…House.’ Jo poured some milk into her coffee and stirred it ferociously. She could feel her cheeks burning.
‘Hmm, I’m not sure I know them,’ Mrs Phillips said tactfully.
Jo sipped her coffee and reached for the remote control, hoping that the TV would stave off any more questions.
‘Never anything worth watching in the mornings,’ the old lady commented woefully. Jo wondered whether she was like this when she was on her own, or whether this endless chatter was simply her way of making up for her ten-year break from hospitality.
As if to prove Mrs Phillips’ point, one of the presenters got up from his multicoloured couch and started enthusiastically demonstrating some sort of home steam-cleaning machine. Jo flicked to another channel, where a red cartoon character with a hook on its head was pushing a wheelbarrow across the screen.
She had nearly given up on finding anything informative when her grip suddenly tightened on the remote control. She stared at the TV in horror.
‘…don’t know any more about the motive behind the explosion, but police tell us they’re pursuing multiple lines of enquiry.’
The reporter pressed on his earpiece as the studio presenter asked him another question. Jo’s eyes were fixed on the screen. She couldn’t even blink. A strip of red and white police tape fluttered in the breeze behind the reporter’s head but other than that, the scene hadn’t changed since yesterday morning. She could even see the spot on the pavement where the paramedic had left her to wait. One word was echoing round and round in her head: motive. Someone had wanted the explosion to happen. It had been some sort of bomb.
‘Very little is known about the guests or staff present on the night of the explosion, so the death toll isn’t clear. But we understand that at least fourteen people are missing, feared dead, and there are twenty-one seriously injured in hospital.’
The camera panned back to the studio.
‘Thank you, Jamie, reporting from the scene of the Buffalo Club blast in Mayfair, London. And now, the renowned Turner Prize has created fresh controversy, this time not over a pickled cow but a pickled egg…’
Jo stopped listening and looked down at her coffee. Mrs Phillips scooped up the newspapers and prattled on about the state of modern art today but Jo could barely hear it. A bomb had gone off. A bomb. But bombs were what happened to other people, usually in the Middle East, not in her world–whatever world that was.
Mrs Phillips started making noises about opening up the shop. Jo just nodded into the steam of her coffee. She knew she should probably be leaving for the teashop, but the reporter’s words were still swirling around in her mind. Fourteen people missing, feared dead. It was only now that the implications were starting to trickle through. People had died. They could have been her friends. Fourteen, out of…How many did a nightclub hold? Three hundred? That was one dead in every twenty people. It was possible–probable, in fact, depending on how many she’d been out with–that not all her mates had escaped alive.
An unpleasant feeling swept through her. It wasn’t just the realisation that her friends–whoever they were–might have died in the blast. It was the realisation that she had died in the blast; that she was one of those ‘missing, feared dead’. And if she didn’t give herself up soon, then she would officially be dead. As far as her loved ones were concerned–assuming she had loved ones–she had died.
‘…I don’t suppose you know yet, do you?’
Jo looked up. Mrs Phillips was peering at her.
‘I’m sure everything’s a bit up in the air at the moment,’ she said. For a moment, Jo thought the woman might have guessed her connection to the Buffalo
