Daphne
Daphne
It was the day before the talent show.
Daphne made her way through the estate toward Ziggy’s flat. She was almost disappointed to see no sign of Floyd, or his minions. She’d rather enjoyed their little chat. Her phone pinged with another message from Sidney.
Is the money on the way? Why is it taking so long? Sonny is deteriorating. Every hour counts.
She resisted the urge to throw her phone to the ground and stamp it into smithereens. If it hadn’t been an iPhone 14 Plus, with a dual-camera system, face ID, and 512 gigabytes of storage, she would have done.
Could she possibly be wrong about him? Perhaps Sonny really did exist, and Sidney did genuinely love her. Perhaps he really did need the money and was intending to pay her back.
Maybe she just saw evil where it didn’t exist. Maybe the evil was only inside her, and her reticence and distrust were going to kill an innocent boy. A dying hero.
Or maybe not.
She rang the bell and, within seconds, the door was opened by Ziggy.
“Thanks for doing this so quickly, Ziggy,” she said. “I’m not getting you into trouble at school, am I?”
“No, no,” he replied. “I have two free periods this afternoon. I’ve been working my arse off, actually. I’ve had an offer from Bath uni. One of the best for computer science. They’ve given me a lower offer than usual on account of my extenuating circumstances .” He made air quotes around the words “extenuating circumstances.” “But I still have to get two As and a B.”
“That’s amazing, Ziggy,” said Daphne, giving him a pat on the back. Because she was the kind of person who did physical displays of affection now, it seemed. Who would have thought? “It would be so good for you and Kylie to get away from here. From Floyd and all that baggage.”
“I know. But I’m worried about leaving my mum here on her own. She won’t come with me. She says she’s never lived anywhere other than Hammersmith and she’s not starting now. All her friends are here,” said Ziggy. “By the way, Floyd was arrested yesterday. Nobody seems to know why.”
“Mmm. The possibilities are endless,” said Daphne. “It was always going to happen eventually. He’s not clever enough to avoid retribution. Anyhow, did you look into those photos I sent you?”
“Yup, I did a reverse image search,” said Ziggy, in the reluctant tone of someone with bad news to impart. Or perhaps she was being paranoid?
Ziggy led Daphne over to his computer. She held her breath, grasping at a vanishingly faint hope.
“The pic Sidney used on that dating site—it’s on several other sites, too, under different names,” said Ziggy, flipping between various windows of dating sites, all showing the same picture that had originally attracted Daphne: a grinning “Sidney,” barefoot and laughing on a windswept beach, jeans rolled up to his knees, catching a ball thrown by someone off camera. “I Googled some of those names, and there are several posts online from women who’ve been conned by him. Women who thought he loved them, and gave him money under what turned out to be false pretenses. They never saw the money again. Or him. I’m so sorry, Daphne.” The vanishingly faint hope vanished.
Daphne sighed. “Don’t worry, Ziggy. It’s what I expected,” she said. “And Sonny?”
“He’s a genuine hero, in an actual war zone. But he’s not called Sonny, and he’s not related to Sidney, or whoever Sidney really is,” said Ziggy. “As of yesterday, he was alive and well and posting on Instagram from Lviv. What are you going to do now?”
Before Ziggy could reply, the doorbell rang, echoing around the tiny flat.
“Are you expecting anyone?” said Daphne.
“No,” said Ziggy, walking over to the door and pressing his eye against the spyhole. “Fuck me. It’s the cops.”
The bell rang again, longer and more insistent. Ziggy opened the door. There were two police officers standing on the threshold.
“Is your name Ziggy?” said one.
Ziggy nodded. Daphne had never seen someone look so needlessly guilty. She really hoped he got that the university place, because he was never going to be able to pursue a career as a criminal.
“We need to talk to you about a necklace,” said the first policeman. “We arrested a man called Floyd Daniels yesterday, on suspicion of handling stolen goods. But he claims the diamond necklace in question was given to him. By your grandma, apparently. Seems unlikely, but we thought we should check it out. Due diligence.”
Daphne stepped forward. She remembered the words on her whiteboard. Make Sidney pay . It seemed an opportunity had presented itself to strangle two birds with one necklace, so to speak.
“It wasn’t Ziggy’s grandma, officers,” she said. “It was me. I gave Floyd the necklace. He didn’t steal it at all.”
“Well, there’s a surprise,” said the other officer. “And you are?”
“Daphne Smith,” lied Daphne.
“But that rather begs the question, Ms. Smith: where did you get it from? You see, when Floyd tried to pawn it, it triggered an Interpol alert. It was one of a number of items stolen in an infamous heist in 2008. The Jones Gang. You might have heard of them? The culprits are all inside, or dead, but the jewelry was never found.”
Ziggy was staring at her, eyes bulging.
“I was given it as a gift,” she said. “For Christmas. From my boyfriend. Although sixty-five is probably too old to be described as a boyfriend, don’t you think? He said he’d had it for fifteen years, just waiting for the right woman to give it to. But it turned out he wasn’t the man I thought he was.” She added a theatrical sob.
The policemen tried and failed to hide their mounting excitement.
“What’s his name, Ms. Smith?” said the first officer, his pencil hovering expectantly over his notebook.
“Do call me Daphne,” she said, with her most winning smile, which wasn’t quite as effective as it had been in the old days. “I’m afraid I don’t know his name. I thought it was Sidney Wilson, but I’ve just discovered that he operates under a number of different aliases. He was trying to con me out of rather a lot of money, you see. Ziggy here will show you all the proof. You might want to ask Sidney about that, too, while you’re at it.”
“Do you have an address for him?” they asked.
“No, he never invited me to his home. Of course, now I know why. But I know where you’ll be able to find him in an hour from now,” Daphne said.
She took out her phone and typed, Sorry for the delay. Having problems with the bank transfer. I’m such a Luddite. Can you help? Meet you at our regular café at three p.m.
The reply came as swiftly as she’d expected.
No problem.
···
For the second time in her life, Daphne watched as someone who professed to love her was arrested. This time, it hurt a lot less. The first time had felt like watching the gangrenous limb being amputated without the aid of anesthetic. And it had been all the more painful because she’d known that it was entirely her fault.
Daphne sat at the bus stop, across the road from the café, as Sidney emerged in actual handcuffs , flanked by her two favorite police officers. They even did the thing she’d seen on TV cop dramas, putting a hand on the top of Sidney’s head and ducking him down into the back seat. She waited for the rush of triumph and satisfaction, but she just felt empty. She wondered how long it would take Sidney to convince them he’d never seen her diamond necklace before, and had nothing to do with the Jones Gang. Eventually, she imagined, they’d come back to her and start asking more questions. She’d only bought herself a little more time.
By the time she arrived at the community center, the final dress rehearsal was in full swing, and the excitement was palpable. Lydia spotted her and rushed over.
“Daphne, I need to talk to you,” she said, looking worried. But then, Lydia usually looked at least a little worried. “Someone just came looking for you, or for someone who looks like you. He said he knew you from the old days and wanted to catch up. He showed me that video of you—you know, the meme? Edward effing Scissorhands?”
Daphne nodded, her face stonily impassive as fear twisted in her guts.
“Did you tell him where to find me?” she said, her voice a strangled croak.
“Well, no. Because he didn’t know your name, you see. He said you were called…What was it? I wrote it down on my phone so I wouldn’t forget. Here it is! Delilah Jones,” Lydia said, triumphantly, waving her phone at Daphne. “So I said I had no idea whatsoever where you were. Was that the right thing to do?” Lydia looked at her, nervously.
“Yes. Thank you, Lydia,” she said. “I’d better go now.” Which Lydia must have thought odd, given that she’d only just arrived.
She hoped that Lydia didn’t Google Delilah Jones. It felt so strange to hear that name again, after so long. So familiar, and yet also the name of a stranger. A very different woman from Daphne.
The countdown clock was rapidly ticking toward zero. Daphne couldn’t go home. Not now, or ever. Someone would point them in the right direction. It wasn’t safe any longer. She felt a huge pang of sadness for all her lovely things, which she’d probably never see again.
Where could she go?
Daphne, the master strategist, who always had the next moves planned, along with numerous contingency options, was at a loss.
She stood in the entrance hall of the community center, utterly frozen. There were four doors off the hall. The one she’d just walked through, the door to the nursery, the door to the outside, and one remaining.
Daphne opened the final door and found herself in a storage room, filled with spare chairs and tables, some cleaning materials, and a stack of macramé plant-holder kits. There was a tiny window, letting in a little light from the darkening winter sky outside. Daphne dusted off a chair in the corner, sat down in the safety of the gloom, and waited for inspiration to strike.