Dear God! Save me from teenage girls.
Jenna heaved out a sigh and slipped into the driver’s seat of the brand new, cute little Fiat Panda Pop in a bright tango red.
After a speedy check in both directions for oncoming traffic, she whipped the seat back to accommodate her long legs, adjusted the mirrors, strapped herself in and put the idling engine into first gear. She let it kangaroo-hop along for a moment before flooring the accelerator just to get a little poke out of it. With a full house, the small 1.2 litre engine would struggle with the weight and loading. But with a surprising whoosh, it kicked in and careered them along the road, within seconds reaching the 50 mph speed limit.
The fresh smell of new car was almost overpowered by the alcohol.
Impossible to tune out their voices, Jenna allowed them to free-range around her.
‘Sophie, you should ring your mum. Let her know. She’ll be out here quick as a flash.’ Surprised at the enthusiasm of the girl in the back who so far Jenna hadn’t heard from, she opened her mouth to reply, but the little one jumped in first.
‘You have got to be frickin’ kidding, Chanel, if Sophie’s mum comes out, she’ll be ripping tits and balls off every frickin’ copper in sight.’
More amused than offended, Jenna slowed the car down.
Sophie turned in her seat to engage the others. ‘Mum wouldn’t do that. She’d be very respectful, Olivia, as should you be.’
Olivia snorted and collapsed back against the seat just as Jenna flung the car into a driveway on the left, circled it around and made her way back the way they’d come, knowing there was a good length of driveway further along the road at Farley where the old Rock House Inn nestled between two sweeping bends. No longer a public house, it nevertheless had good enough access for Jenna to pull in behind where Mason waited for them, leaving enough room for a response vehicle to come alongside.
‘What the hell is that red bubble in the sky?’ Chanel hitched herself forward to lean in the gap between the two front seats. ‘Shit. That looks like something’s on fire.’ With a quick stab, she poked one long, acrylic nail into Jenna’s shoulder. ‘Shouldn’t you call the fire brigade? There’s a fucking fire over there. We could be in danger. Do you think we should move?’ The drama queen stabbed her in the shoulder again. Jenna whipped around to face her and, with her patience starting to wear threadbare, she cast the girl a strained but reassuring smile.
‘We don’t need to move. We’re in no danger. The fire isn’t anywhere near us. I don’t need to call the fire brigade. They’re already there. We would be too if you and your…’ She flicked her gaze down at the purple can of Shake Baby Shake vodka cocktail Chanel grasped to her chest and sighed. Four per cent. They would have had to have drunk a hell of a lot to get wasted. ‘…Alcohol consumption hadn’t detained us.’
Not to be distracted, Chanel continued to gaze up out of the front windscreen. ‘Where’s it coming from?’
They’d know soon enough in the morning, there was no point trying to hide it now. ‘Kimble Hall.’
‘What?’ Sophie whipped around in her seat, huge blue eyes almost bursting out of her head. ‘Poppy Lawrence lives there.’
Dammit. Jenna’s heart sank, perhaps she should have kept it to herself. ‘Poppy Lawrence?’
‘Yeah, she’s a friend.’ Chanel and Olivia both vied for the middle position on the back seat so they could squeeze themselves into the gap. The sweet smell of chemical colouring, sugar syrup and alcohol wafted into the front. ‘She was supposed to be with us tonight, but she had some kind of family do she had to go to.’
‘Okay. So, she wasn’t allowed out?’
The girls exchanged uneasy glances as Sophie shook her head, lowered her voice. ‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘What her dad says, goes.’ She chewed on her bottom lip and Jenna gave her the time while the girl contemplated whether to say more. And there was more, there always would be with family dynamics. ‘She’s a bit scared of him.’
‘Fuckin’ A she is. He’s terrifying. Some big-shot estate agent. My dad can’t stand him. Says he a fuckin’…’ Olivia nudged Chanel in the ribs. ‘Well, he is. Poppy’s brother, Joshua, is always in trouble at school cos his dad keeps telling him he’s better than everyone else and he can have anything he wants. Poppy’s not like that. She’s nice, but her brother’s turning out to be a right little git.’
Jenna made a mental note to check out the good Mr Lawrence when she got to the scene.
Bright headlights cut through the dark as the approaching car rounded the bend and flashed on its blues to strobe around, bouncing off the warm white walls of the old converted pub.
The squad car slowed down and pulled alongside them to effectively block them in.
Aware of time slipping by, Jenna needed to stop the constant jabbering, if only for her own sanity. If she could have slammed her hands against her ears and yelled for them to shut up, she quite happily would have. But she was a police officer. She needed to show professionalism.
She raised her voice, pitched it with authority. ‘Right.’ Jenna glanced around at them. ‘Sophie, you’ll need to take a breathalyser.’
Back to terrified, Sophie jerked a nod at Jenna.
‘I don’t think you have anything to worry about,’ Jenna reassured her with a soft smile. She’d bet her badge the young woman hadn’t been drinking, she was too proud of her newly acquired driving licence to be so stupid, and by the sound of her mother, she’d be jerked right back on those rails if she threatened to go off them. ‘You other two, Olivia, Chanel…’ Jenna turned in her seat and the blue lights illuminated their faces in quick flashes. ‘You’ll need to let the officer know you’re old enough to drink.’ At the quick intake of breath from Olivia, Jenna closed her eyes. Give her strength, someone else needed to deal with all this crap. ‘Do yourselves a favour? Lose the fake IDs, tell the truth and take the punishment, because quite honestly the officer is just going to want to pack you off home to your mums.’
She unstrapped her seatbelt and let herself out of the door, hoping she knew the officers who had arrived.
As PC Donna McGuire stepped from the vehicle to greet her, Jenna couldn’t help but grin. She couldn’t have found herself a better officer to deal with these three, if she’d put in a personal request. Donna’s experience, judgement and empathy were next to none.
‘Hey, Donna.’
‘Sarge.’
Mason stepped up alongside her as Jenna glanced at the young police officer with Donna. New to the force, Jenna recognised her but couldn’t for the life of her pull the woman’s name from her overtaxed brain.
As usual, Donna never hesitated to keep things smooth. ‘This is Natalie Kempson. She’s shadowing me until she gets her feet under her.’
‘Natalie. Hi.’ Aware of time slipping by, Jenna shot the newbie a fast smile and a perfunctory nod, anxious to get off. ‘Donna,’ she took the PC by the elbow, more than comfortable with their familiarity, and stepped her away from the little Fiat Panda Pop. ‘Look, we had a little issue with deer leaping out in front of us. Nothing happened, nobody got hurt, we all just pulled to a standstill. When they wound down the window, I smelled alcohol so couldn’t let it go.’