Duplicity Read Online Free PDF Page B

past, when she was just a young girl; Joanie loved visiting the old bird. She used to be that frantic woman who constantly took the piss out of Joanie’s mum and gave her money and presents. She still had the flick knife that gran had given her on Joanie’s tenth birthday. That was the dog’s bollocks, that best present she’d received that year.
    Everything changed when Joanie’s mum put her in sheltered housing. Gran went all weird, she started to act all funny and smell a bit like a wet stray dog.
    Joanie wished that there was some way of getting out of doing this weekly chore but unless gran popped her clogs, she was stuck with it. Mum might be a bitch but she sure wasn’t stupid. One sniff of defiance from Joanie and she may as well kissed goodbye to the house WIFI password. To make matter even worse, Joanie’s contract phone was in her mother’s name.
    The queen bitch had Joanie by the scrotum sack, not that she had one.
    She stopped by the Church Street intersection and watched the traffic slowly flow past. Due to a recent spate of accidents on this part of the road, the council had installed traffic calming measures in the shape of speed bumps.
    Joanie remembered her father ranting on about them a couple of weeks’ back, about how frustrating it was to get through the centre of town now. She reckoned that if it pissed her dad off who was like the calmest person on the planet, this bit of road must send normal people into a blood fuelled rage.
    She kept her eyes peeled for the one certain driver, that special somebody who would help Joanie climb out of this pit of misery and clear this black cloud that was threatening to ruin her entire fucking day.
    Her perfect match was sitting behind a national express coach in a beat up old Ford Escort. Even from where she stood, |Joanie could see his arms waving about in sharp violent actions; his gesticulating mouth suggested that this man was very, very upset.
    She guessed that his age was close to fifty, a perfect age for what she intended to do. Now all she needed was that fucking coach to shift its arse.
    The lights had started to change; the coach driver saw an opportunity and jumped the light, leaving the driver behind even more distressed.
    Joanie rushed out into the middle of the road before the driver had time to slow down. She kept her head down whilst keeping one discreet eye on the approaching car. He slammed his brakes on, screeching to a halt. The man was out of the car before the wheels had stopped.
    “What the bloody hell are you playing at, you stupid cow? You nearly went under my car.”
    “Bingo.” She whispered.
    Joanie lifted her head and looked over to the pavement, apart from an old woman exiting a sandwich shop and a young mother pushing a pram, the area was deserted. Still, even a limited audience was better than nothing.
    She ran up to the angry man and grabbed his arms, “No, I won’t get into your car!” she screamed. Joanie dropped to her knees and pretended to sob. The man’s face was a picture; he honestly must have thought that he was dealing with an escaped lunatic.
    Her audience had grown, A distraught girl’s voice always brought out the local rubber neckers. Another woman had emerged from the sandwich shop, judging from the white apron she must work there. Two men in business suits had got out of a car on the other side of the road and looked on in concern, or maybe it was amusement, Joanie couldn’t be sure.
    She scuttled back on her hands and knees. “I’m going to get the law onto you!” shouted Joanie. “I’m not a child; I know what those words mean.”
    The traffic behind the man’s car seemed endless; she must be pissing a lot of people off with her dazzling performance. Joanie was about to reel off another outburst when the man took fright, retreated to his car and sped off.
    Joanie stayed where she was, laughing softly to herself as the traffic swerved around her. She watched the woman in the apron rush over,