extra for being twenty minutes late last week, they had to pay extra for the music lessons (‘Music lessons?’ Mack had screeched when he found out. ‘For a baby?’ He had shaken his head and said in mock disgust, ‘You people make me sick.’)
‘I just thought I ought to go over our protocols with you again, about approved persons picking up the little ones,’ Julie said as they sat down, handing Jazzy a photocopied form. ‘You see, the only two names we’ve got down for Rory are yourself and Mrs Hammett.’
‘Mrs Shields,’ Jazzy corrected her. ‘Petra kept her own name.’
‘OK then.’ Julie was not to be distracted. ‘So, I’m sure Rory’s uncle will have told you by now that we weren’t able to let him pick Rory up earlier on. We tried Mrs Hamm – erm, Mrs Shields but her secretary said she was in a meeting. Then we tried you at work and on the mobile, but we couldn’t get hold of you either, so as Rory’s uncle probably explained, without explicit written permission he just wasn’t able to take him.’
And now Jazzy was sitting in Julie’s messy, overheated office, desperately trying to replay the last few minutes’ conversation into something that might make sense, and repeating ‘Rory’s uncle? Which uncle?’ over and over again. Both his brothers still lived in Cornwall. The eldest, Jonathan, worked the farm with their dad; the youngest, Jake, was a GP in Truro. Neither of them made it to London more than twice a year, and certainly not without several weeks of planning, phone calls and last-minute cancellations due to work commitments. As for Petra’s brother, Will, he was working for a mining conglomerate in Western Australia and had last been to England for Jazzy and Petra’s wedding.
Julie blinked a few times. ‘Well, erm…’ She flipped the photocopied sheet over. There was something scribbled in biro on the back. Julie squinted, as if trying to make out the wording. ‘Edward. Edward Hammett.’ She looked at Jazzy. ‘So, your brother I presume. Were…’ She took in Jazzy’s pallor and shaky breathing. ‘Were you not expecting him?’
Jazzy swallowed a few times before he was able to speak. ‘I don’t have a brother called Edward.’
The next few hours passed by as though in a dream. He managed to get a description of ‘Edward Hammett’ from Julie; it was both specific enough to be threatening and vague enough to be terrifyingly bewildering. She spoke of a youngish man, no older than thirty, thick-set in the manner of a bodybuilder running to seed. ‘He was, you know, English,’ Julie had said, meaning white. ‘And from round here somewhere.’ Julie was Scottish, and Jazzy had spent enough time with Simone to understand that to a North Briton all southern accents sounded essentially the same. The man had apparently been wearing a bomber jacket that Julie described as ‘plastic’, by which on closer probing she meant imitation leather. ‘I’ve got to say, we were surprised that you would have a brother like that,’ she confided as she showed him out, apologising for the hundredth time. ‘Now, are you quite sure you don’t want us to involve the police? We take anything like this very seriously.’
‘No,’ Jazzy had said, surprising himself at how convincingly he was managing to hold it together, ‘I think I know who it was. He’s, you know, an old friend. Practically family. He won’t have seen the harm in it, but I’ll speak to him about it, let him know the trouble he’s caused.’
He had no choice, he surmised, than to be at least half-honest with Petra. ‘I’m sure it’s absolutely nothing,’ he insisted, even as he was packing clothes for her and Rory into a suitcase and checking the traffic reports for the M4. ‘It’s just that Mack sounded rattled in this latest message and, you know, you could do with a break. You can work remotely from your mum’s for a few days can’t you, and she’ll love the chance to spend some proper time
‘I just thought I ought to go over our protocols with you again, about approved persons picking up the little ones,’ Julie said as they sat down, handing Jazzy a photocopied form. ‘You see, the only two names we’ve got down for Rory are yourself and Mrs Hammett.’
‘Mrs Shields,’ Jazzy corrected her. ‘Petra kept her own name.’
‘OK then.’ Julie was not to be distracted. ‘So, I’m sure Rory’s uncle will have told you by now that we weren’t able to let him pick Rory up earlier on. We tried Mrs Hamm – erm, Mrs Shields but her secretary said she was in a meeting. Then we tried you at work and on the mobile, but we couldn’t get hold of you either, so as Rory’s uncle probably explained, without explicit written permission he just wasn’t able to take him.’
And now Jazzy was sitting in Julie’s messy, overheated office, desperately trying to replay the last few minutes’ conversation into something that might make sense, and repeating ‘Rory’s uncle? Which uncle?’ over and over again. Both his brothers still lived in Cornwall. The eldest, Jonathan, worked the farm with their dad; the youngest, Jake, was a GP in Truro. Neither of them made it to London more than twice a year, and certainly not without several weeks of planning, phone calls and last-minute cancellations due to work commitments. As for Petra’s brother, Will, he was working for a mining conglomerate in Western Australia and had last been to England for Jazzy and Petra’s wedding.
Julie blinked a few times. ‘Well, erm…’ She flipped the photocopied sheet over. There was something scribbled in biro on the back. Julie squinted, as if trying to make out the wording. ‘Edward. Edward Hammett.’ She looked at Jazzy. ‘So, your brother I presume. Were…’ She took in Jazzy’s pallor and shaky breathing. ‘Were you not expecting him?’
Jazzy swallowed a few times before he was able to speak. ‘I don’t have a brother called Edward.’
The next few hours passed by as though in a dream. He managed to get a description of ‘Edward Hammett’ from Julie; it was both specific enough to be threatening and vague enough to be terrifyingly bewildering. She spoke of a youngish man, no older than thirty, thick-set in the manner of a bodybuilder running to seed. ‘He was, you know, English,’ Julie had said, meaning white. ‘And from round here somewhere.’ Julie was Scottish, and Jazzy had spent enough time with Simone to understand that to a North Briton all southern accents sounded essentially the same. The man had apparently been wearing a bomber jacket that Julie described as ‘plastic’, by which on closer probing she meant imitation leather. ‘I’ve got to say, we were surprised that you would have a brother like that,’ she confided as she showed him out, apologising for the hundredth time. ‘Now, are you quite sure you don’t want us to involve the police? We take anything like this very seriously.’
‘No,’ Jazzy had said, surprising himself at how convincingly he was managing to hold it together, ‘I think I know who it was. He’s, you know, an old friend. Practically family. He won’t have seen the harm in it, but I’ll speak to him about it, let him know the trouble he’s caused.’
He had no choice, he surmised, than to be at least half-honest with Petra. ‘I’m sure it’s absolutely nothing,’ he insisted, even as he was packing clothes for her and Rory into a suitcase and checking the traffic reports for the M4. ‘It’s just that Mack sounded rattled in this latest message and, you know, you could do with a break. You can work remotely from your mum’s for a few days can’t you, and she’ll love the chance to spend some proper time
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