Neil's mom phones

At about 11 o’clock Neil’s mom rings up, to ask if he is in work. She sounded concerned that he wasn’t in yet The boss was half expecting him not to show anyway, because someone else from the same place who comes in on the same train had phoned with flooding on the track. His mom said that he had gone early to catch an earlier train, or get the bus if they had replaced the train service with a bus. She did seem concerned so I played along and just said that we hadn’t heard from him. She also slipped in that he hadn’t got any credit on his mobile, and that his mobile was charging up anyway (which seemed suspicious). She mentioned that he couldn’t remember if he’d “done everything right” the previous day. He had remembered that he’s got to work, showed his photos of the stag night to some people, then he got a lift back to the train station from Junior. Then according to his mom , when he got home he fell asleep on the sofa and slept all afternoon. She mentioned he seemed a bit quiet and she was worried he might do something. On top of this, one of his fish had died that morning as well. I told her I would get him to ring if he got in touch.
I was wondering if she was laying it all on thick to make us sorry when he did turn up. Or if he was still at home with her, and he’d got her to phone in so he’d got some excuse for not phoning us himself.

I mentioned the call to my boss, who hadn’t had a phone call and was unhappy that they’d had to send him home yesterday for turning up drunk.