Murder at Rhiwbina Twmpath

All the World's a Stage ...

Thursday passed with distressing normalcy. Jordan spilled coffee on her shirt and had to change into a new one, making her rush about so as not to be late for a morning meeting.

She attended the meeting where everyone voiced opinions and no one decided anything. She conducted a training session for co-workers (who thought she should be doing everything for them because they had no idea what her actual job was) on how to access information they wanted from the database.

She spent the afternoon running down a "lost" twenty-five thousand pound donation, determining where someone had incorrectly entered it. At the end of the day, she went to another meeting with different people where everyone expressed opinions about what the meeting should really be about and no one decided anything. Normal.

What she did not do was hear from the police. Get an apology. Have her passport returned. Read about the arrest of the actual killer of Geoffrey Vrtis. Distressing.

"Get a lawyer," her mother said that night, her Skype image freezing for a split-second and then reanimating. In Denver, her mother was having a late lunch in front of her computer, while in London, Jordan was having dinner in front of her laptop.

"I'm trying to avoid spending money to get Scotland Yard to do what they should be doing on their own," Jordan said.

"Okay," her mother said, "How about going up the chain of command? Talk to the supervisor. They have your passport! You're in London, after all. What if you want to hop over to Paris for the week-end?"

Jordan laughed at the idea. "Mom, I don't 'hop over' anywhere on my week-ends. I do my laundry, clean my bathroom and catch up on my bills."

"One day you'll meet some lovely Englishman and you'll be doing plenty of hopping." Jordan heard her mother's landline ring. "Hang on one sec ..." Her mother answered the call while Jordan thought Oh, Mom, if you only knew which lovely Englishman I spent most of last night with.

She cut her thoughts short of imagining what kinds of hopping she would do that involved Benedict, given the opportunity. This was her mother, after all. Thousands of miles away. Jordan felt a sudden acute stab of homesickness that almost overwhelmed her. She wanted a hug that was more than an afghan.

"Honey?" Her mother's voice brought her back. "You were far away just then."

Jordan slapped a smile on her face. "Just wondering if I should wash the bedspread this week or next." Her mom didn't believe her, of course, but didn't press her, either.

"That was the printer on the phone. Seems to be some crisis in the new mailing that involves conflicting orders from people who had no business talking to the printer at all. I have to go wrestle with this," her mother said, sighing. "I hate cutting our calls short."

Jordan's mother was also in non-profit, head of development for a small women's college. Jordan had spent summers interning there and, as the youngest in the office, become expert in the new database programs just being developed. It had made her a hot commodity in the non-profit employment arena after college.

It was nice being able to talk to her mom about her job. She met very few people who understood her work and only those doing it were at all interested. No wonder she couldn't find anyone to go hopping around Europe with. She must be dead boring.

"It's okay," Jordan told her. "You go sort out the printer and I'll go inspect my bedspread."

"Sort out? You are picking up the lingo. And a little of the accent, I hear." Her mom turned serious. "If you decide to approach a supervisor, you might do that first thing in the morning. You don't want to spend the week-end worrying about all this, when you should be focused on ... making the sink chrome sparkle."