mother said.
"I love swans," Jazz said. "So graceful and beautiful."
"They may look gentle, but they're hard as nails." Her mother shuffled closer to her on their picnic
blanket. The re-mains of their lunch lay beside them on paper plates, already attracting unwanted attention
from wasps and flies. "If there were swans here, we'd have a full hierarchy. Swans would be the rulers of
the pond, ducks below them, moorhens below them. Then there'd be the scroungers, the little birds, like that
wren over there." She pointed to a tiny bird hopping from branch to branch in a bush that grew out over the
water.
"So what are we?" Jazz asked. Even then she was a per-ceptive girl, and she knew that this
conversation was edging toward something.
"We're the little birds," her mother said. She smiled, but it was sad.
"I think you're a swan," Jazz said, flooded by a sudden feeling of complete love.
Her mother shrugged. "Maybe you," she said. "One day, maybe you."
The wren dropped to the grass and hopped across to the edge of the pond. It started worrying at a
lump of bread that the other birds seemed to have missed, but the movement brought it to the attention of
the mallards. A duck splashed from the water and came at the wren, wings raised and head down, bill
snapping. The wren turned and hopped away slowly, almost as though it was trying to maintain its dignity.
The duck took the bread.
"Wise thing," her mother said. "If you're on the run, you never run unless you know they're right
behind you."
"Why?"
"You never call attention to yourself." Her mother lay back on the blanket, looking around the park as
though waiting for someone.
****
Never run unless you know they're right behind you.
Jazz was afraid that if she did start running, she'd brain herself on a lamppost. She was doing her
best not to cry — that would draw attention—but the pressure and heat be-hind her face was immense.
For a minute or two, she had considered calling the po-lice from Mr. Barker's house and waiting until
they arrived. But she had known that if she paused any longer, she would never move again. So she had
left the way she arrived, walk-ing the length of Barker's garden, hurrying along the alley-way, emerging out
onto the street, and putting more distance between her and her mother with every step she took.
She hated blinking, because whenever her eyes closed she saw the blood and that twisted, splayed
body that had once been her mother.
That woman slit her throat. Cut her and left her to bleed to death! And they had been waiting for
Jazz to come home.
To do the same to her?
She walked past a coffee shop and glanced in the win-dow. A man and woman sat turned to face
the street. The woman was sipping from a cup, but the man stared straight out at Jazz. He wore a smart
dark suit and sunglasses, and his lips twitched into what might have been a smile.
Jazz hurried on, turning into the next side road she came to, rushing through a lane between gardens
and emerging onto another street. She passed an old woman walking her dog. The dog watched her go by.
It took Jazz ten minutes to realize she had no idea where she was going. Where could she hide? And
how could she just leave her mother?
She emerged onto a busy shopping street. It was noisy and bustling and smelled of exhaust fumes
and fast food. A cab pulled up just along the street and a tall, elegant woman stepped out. She brushed an
errant strand of hair from her eyes, paid the cabbie, and walked away with her mobile phone glued to her
ear.
And Jazz's mother was dead.
She was dead, murdered, and now Jazz was more alone than she had ever been before.
They'll be on the streets, she thought, and the idea bore her mother's voice. Once they know
you're not coming home, they'll be on the streets looking for you.
She stepped into the doorway of a music shop and scanned the sidewalk and the road. No big black
Beamers, but that meant nothing. Maybe they'd be on foot. Maybe, like her mother had been telling her for
the last couple of years, they had so many fingers in so many pies that none of them knew the true extent
of their reach.
She wiped her eyes and looked both ways. A dozen peo-ple turned their heads away just as she
looked at them. A dozen more looked up. In a crowd such as this, there was al-ways someone watching
her.
"Oh shit, oh fuck. What the hell am I going to do?" she whispered.
A
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