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The house behind her swathed in darkness, the hosts gone to bed so no hope of using their phone. Besides, she couldn’t call home, not after the argument she’d had with her mother about going to the party in the first place.

‘It’s Christmas Eve, Hannah. Time to be spent with family.’ Mum had been cracking eggs for the pavlova into a basin, a smudge of corn flour coating her cheek.

Okay, she was right, it was a tradition, but weren’t they made to be broken? Or at least tweaked? ‘You said I could go.’

‘I don’t remember saying any such thing.’

‘I’m already dressed.’ Denim skirt. Pale pink boob-tube. Roman sandals snaking up her bottle-tanned legs. ‘We have the whole day tomorrow to celebrate.’

‘You might be seventeen, Hannah, but you’re not an adult yet.’ Mum shouting to make herself heard over the whirring of the Mixmaster. ‘Besides, you have no way of getting there and back.’

‘Sophia’s mum is driving us and Dad said he’d pick us up.’ See if she was so smug now.

‘He what?’ Serious business, the Mixmaster dial turned off. ‘Graeme.’ Her voice shrill. Face all hard lines.

Dad, eyes darting like pinballs, wiping grease from his hands on a rag as he joined the conversation.

‘Did you tell Hannah you’d pick her up from a party tonight?’

Him, looking at her, her lips quirked, arms folded, feet sweating in her sandals. ‘Yes, I did say I’d pick her up.’

‘So you gave her permission to go?’ Mum had been riled up, hands on hips, mouth a snarl.

‘Well, yes, I suppose I did. But eleven pm is the curfew. Don’t want to risk catching Santa out.’

Fighting a grin. Turning it into a scowl when her eyes flicked back to Mum. Knowing how much her mother hated an argument. How she protected her fury like a feral cat protected its territory, teeth bared, hackles raised.

Dad’s unconcerned shrug. The silent mouthing of words:Don’t worry, I’ll sort it out.His quiet warning to her to only have a couple of drinks and to make sure she was ready to leave at eleven when he’d be there to collect her.

Only he wasn’t.

A totally different car cruising into the kerb, tyres whispering on the wet asphalt.

A policewoman bundling her into the back seat, kneeling beside her in the rain as she shivered against the vinyl. ‘There’s been an accident.’

Four razor-sharp words, slicing her heart in two.

Chapter 13

A screech of wheels shocked Hannah back to the garden, teeth clenched, hands balled by her sides. She shook the sound from her ears. Wiped an errant tear from her cheek. Had the noise been the tyres of his car as it spun in circles, heading for the telegraph pole? A second ear-piercing shriek of rubber. Shouting and cheering.

A cacophony of male voices coming from the far side of the Green. Not in her head. Definitely here and now.

Rising to her feet, she hurried along the cobblestone path and ducked through the gate leading into the car park, voices growing louder as she approached.

‘Way to go, Morgo.’

‘Whoa! You nearly lost it.’

‘Don’t lose ya shit.’

‘Put ya foot down, Hanson.’

What the hell was going on?

Hannah turned the corner and stopped in her tracks. A chill leached through her body as if every drop of blood had drained into the balls of her feet. Four youths stood in the centre of the bare asphalt space, beer cans in hand, calling out, instructing, jeering. Donutting around them was a beat-up orange Torana pouring smoke from its exhaust. A thin teenager in a black T-shirt kneeled on the roof, clinging to a rail above the windscreen. As the car circled towards her, picking up speed, the would-be stuntman lifted one knee and then the other, balancing in a squat before pushing himself to full height. Stance wide, he raised his arms in the air, fist pumping along with his audience. ‘Yes! Yes. I am the champion!’

His war cry vibrated through her skull but it was the casual mop of hair and the familiar hunch of his shoulders that set her teeth on edge.