Free Duplicity by Ian Woodhead

working eye, almost eighty and totally deaf. Nicking a couple of cider bottles would be a doddle and like dumb sheep, they believed every word that had spewed from Joanie’s lying mouth.
    She raced across the road and headed for the park. As far as Joanie was concerned, her friends’ current situation was entirely their own making. Both Emma and Tessa knew what Joanie was like for getting them into trouble. It wasn’t her fault that her friends were as thick as pig shit and gullible to boot.
    Joanie felt something crunch under her boot, she looked down thinking that she’d trod on a snail. She discovered that a thin film of crimson goo now coated the soul of her boot.
    “That is just disgusting.”
    There were bits of bone and feathers all across the grass. Joanie wiped her boot on the edge of a bench then turned away from the mess on the floor.
    “Must have been a cat or fox,” she muttered.
    The bowling green in front of her looked so pristine, now that all those excitable wrinklies had buggered off home. There were probably all getting ready to go out to play bingo.
    “What an exciting life those old bastards have.”
    Joanie decided there and then that she’d rather go out in a blaze of glory than get old and watch her body and mind slowly rot away.
    “Just like my gran.”
    Now that was so unfair! How the bloody hell had Joanie managed to get back onto the subject of her again? The only good thing that had come out of that freaky encounter was her bundle of money. At least her mum hadn’t rung her up, demanding that she return it, now that would have been a tragedy.
    “I wish I could get my mum’s noose off my neck.” She sighed, like that would ever happen. Joanie shoved the whole idea to the back of her mind and hurried past the bowling green, heading for the children’s playground.
    That was their rendezvous point and if those two wasn’t there then trouble in the shape of Joanie’s fist would soon be rocketing towards their noses. The girls would be waiting for her, of that, she was certain.  They may get all pissy and gob off at setting them up but they wouldn’t disobey her direct orders.
    “They had better save me some of that cider.” She muttered.
    Joanie stopped beside a tall green shrub, smiled and peered through the foliage, her plan was simple, she’d wait until both the greedy bitches had their gobs around the cider bottles before running over there and yelling like a crazed harpy. A ceremonial garden and two paths separated the shrubs from the fenced off playground. Neither Emma nor Tessa occupied the bench beside the kiddies’ slide; her temper stayed at just under boiling point at the sight of the cider bottles next to the legs of the bench. Both bottles were full, so they couldn’t have gone too far.
    The opportunity to see them both choke may be in tatters but it still gave her the chance to claim the two bottles for her own. She trudged through a bed of bright yellow flowers onto the path and sauntered towards the metal gate that led into the playground area. There was still no sign of either if them. “Fuck them both.” She muttered. “You’ve lost your cider. Finders keepers.”
    She sat on the bench, leaned forward and grabbed the first bottle, unscrewing the cap; Joanie glanced around the park one more time. “Something is wrong with this picture, Joanie girl.” She nodded, held the bottle above her head and shook it. “They’ve pissed in it. The dirty slags must be waiting to see if I take a drink before jumping out, giggling like loons.”
    The temptation to throw the cider against the slide died when Joanie realised that they just wouldn’t dare; signing their own death warrants just wasn’t in their natures. “You’re thinking too much again.” Joanie unscrewed the cap, took a tentative sniff before pushing the neck into her open mouth and lifting the bottle. 
    The way her gran acted earlier just wouldn’t stop bothering her. The old bag had never before