Читать книгу Out of the Ashes - Vicky Newham - Страница 13

Dan, 3.45 p.m.

Mrs Jones, the blue-rinse lady who’d hurt her wrist, was shivering and fidgety, so Dan settled her on a fold-out chair in the stock room at the back of the mobile phone shop and went to fetch her a cuppa. As he returned with it, she made a point of checking her watch and sighing loudly.

‘You got a hot date to get to?’ he asked, grinning mischievously.

Mrs Jones gave a giggle. ‘My old mum will be wondering where I’ve got to. She’ll have seen all this on the news and will be fretting. She doesn’t do mobile phones and neither do I.’

‘Thanks for waiting,’ Dan said. ‘Have a swig of this.’ He passed her the cup of sweet tea and squatted down next to her. ‘It’ll soon get you warmed up, eh.’

She was trembling, but her expression relaxed a few notches and she sipped the tea.

‘Can you take me through what you saw when you arrived?’

She nudged smeared glasses up the bridge of her nose with a shaky finger. ‘I was walking that way.’ She pointed in the direction of Whitechapel. ‘My mum lives on White Church Lane. Out of the blue, music started up behind me. Gave me a real fright, it did.’ She clamped her hand to her chest. ‘When I turned round, I saw people dancing in the street.’

Dan guessed Mrs Jones was around his mum’s age: late sixties. Too much energy to do nothing, she always told him. ‘Who was in charge?’

‘No-one as far as I could see. Everyone was encouraging everyone to join in. D’you know what I mean?’

Dan had seen flash mobs in Sydney and knew how quickly they snowballed. ‘Yes, I do. And the music?’

She pursed her lips while she tried to remember. ‘The tracks were quite short. Prepared, ready, like those cassette tape things we used to make. The songs changed every couple of minutes.’ She looked as though she was enjoying having someone listen to her. ‘Those masks though. They were a bit sinister.’