Dead if You Don’t

25

Saturday 12 August

17.00–18.00

Mungo, Kipp Brown wondered, watching the game but very distracted by his son’s absence.

Where on earth are you, Mungo?

No way would he be missing the game, he had talked of little else for the past three months.

Suddenly he cursed himself. Previously, when Mungo had an iPhone, he and Stacey could always check where Mungo was on the Find My Friends app. Now, with the cheap phone he had bought him to replace it, to teach him a lesson for losing his iPhone, there was no app on which Mungo could be tracked. He hit Mungo Mob on his Favourites list. Held it tight to his ear. It was hard to hear the ringing above the roar of the crowd all around him. He heard it ringing once, twice, three times, four times, five times. Then his son’s voicemail.

‘Yeah, this is the right number for Mungo Brown. Leave a message unless your name’s Hugo, in which case go stick your head in a microwave and refry your already fried brains.’

He ended the call and was about to put the phone into his pocket when, through the din, he heard the ping of an incoming text.

Mungo, no doubt, he thought with relief surging through him. Mungo asking him where he was.

He looked at the display.

And froze.