‘Well, surely we just go north.’
‘But where is north? I haven’t driven around here for years. I need you to tell me where I should be going.’
He glanced up at the signpost. ‘Do we want the M3?’
‘I don’t know. I’m asking you!’
‘Let me see.’ Tanzie reached through from the back and took the map from Nicky’s hands. ‘What way up do I hold it?’
They drove round the roundabout twice, while she wrestled with the map, and then they were on the ring road. Tanzie vaguely remembered this road: they had once come this way when Mum and Dad were trying to sell the air-conditioners. ‘Can you turn the light on at the back, Mum?’ she said. ‘I can’t read anything.’
Mum swivelled in her seat. ‘The button should be above your head.’
Tanzie reached up and clicked it with her thumb. She could have taken her gloves off, she thought. Mice couldn’t walk upside down. Not like spiders. ‘It’s not working.’
‘Nicky, you’ll have to map-read.’ She looked over, exasperated. ‘Nicky.’
‘Yeah. I will. I just need to get these golden stars. They’re five thousand points.’ Tanzie folded the map as best she could and pushed it back through the front seats. Nicky’s head was bent low over his game, lost in concentration. To be fair, golden stars were really hard to get.
‘Will you put that thing down!’
He sighed, snapped it shut. They were going past a pub she didn’t recognize, and now a new hotel. Mum said they were looking for the M3 but Tanzie hadn’t seen any signs for the M3 for ages. Beside her Norman started a low whine: she figured they had around thirty-eight seconds before Mum said it was shredding her nerves.
She made it to twenty-seven.
‘Tanzie, please stop the dog. It’s making it impossible to concentrate. Nicky. I really need you to read the map.’
‘He’s drooling everywhere. I think he needs to get out.’ She shifted to the side.
Nicky squinted at the signs in front of them. ‘If you stay on this road I think we’ll end up in Southampton.’
‘But that’s the wrong way.’
‘That’s what I said.’
The smell of oil was really strong. Tanzie wondered whether something was leaking. She put her glove over her nose.
‘I think we should just head back to where we were and start again.’
With a grunt Mum swung the car off at the next exit and went round the roundabout. Turning corners made the tendons in her neck stand out like little steel cables. They all tried to ignore the grinding noise as she turned the wheel to the right, and headed back down the other side of the dual carriageway.
‘Tanzie. Please do something with the dog. Please.’ She looked up and pointed towards the turn-off for the town. ‘What am I doing, Nicky? Coming off here?’
‘Oh, God. He’s farted. Mum, I’m suffocating.’
‘Nicky, please can you read the map.’
Tanzie remembered now that Mum hated driving. She wasn’t good at processing information quickly enough. She always said she didn’t have the right synapses. Plus, to be fair, the smell now seeping through the car was so bad it made it hard to think straight.
She began to gag. ‘I’m dying!’
Norman turned his big old head to look at her, his eyes sad, like she was being really mean.
‘But there are two turnings. Do I take this one or the next?’
‘Definitely the next. Oh, no, sorry – it’s this one.’
‘What?’ Mum wrenched the car off the dual carriageway, narrowly avoiding the grass verge, and onto the exit slip. The car juddered as they hit the kerb and Tanzie had to let go of her nose to grab Norman’s collar.
‘For Christ’s sake, can you just –’
‘I meant the next one. This one takes us miles out of the way.’
‘We’ve been on the road almost half an hour and we’re further away than when we started. Jesus, Nicky, I –’
It was then that Tanzie saw the flashing blue light.
She stared up at the rear-view mirror, then turned to look out of the back windscreen, disbelieving. She willed it to go past, to be racing to the scene of some accident. But instead it drew nearer and nearer, until those cold blue lights filled the car.
Nicky swivelled painfully in his seat. ‘Um, Jess, I think they want you to pull over.’
‘Shit. Shit shit shit. Tanzie, you didn’t hear that.’ Mum took a deep breath, adjusted her hands on the wheel as she started to slow. ‘It will be fine. It will all be fine.’
Nicky slumped a little lower in his seat. ‘Um, Jess?’
‘Not now, Nicky.’
The blue light was pulling over too. Her palms had begun to sweat. It will all be fine.
‘I guess this isn’t the time to tell you I brought my stash with me.’
10.
Jess
So there she was, standing on the grass verge of a dual carriageway at eleven forty at night with two policemen who were both acting not like she was a major criminal, which was sort of what she’d expected, but worse – like she was just really, really stupid. Everything they said had a patronising edge to it: So are you often in the habit of taking your family out for a late-night drive, madam? With only one headlight working? Were you not actually aware, madam, that your tax disc is two years out of date? They hadn’t actually looked up the whole no-insurance thing yet. So there was that to look forward to.
Nicky was sweating on the verge, waiting for them to locate his stash. Tanzie was a pale, silent ghost a few feet away, hugging Norman’s neck for reassurance.
Jess had only herself to blame. It could hardly get any worse.
And then Mr Nicholls turned up.
Jess almost laughed then: the whole thing was so ridiculously awful. She felt the remaining colour drain from her face as his window wound down and she saw who it was. And she realized exactly what was going to happen next, which was that he was going to tell the policemen: ‘You know what? As well as driving a car that is uninsured and without a valid tax disc and probably contains a quarter-ounce of skunk somewhere in that mouse-infested upholstery, this woman is a THIEF.’
And a million thoughts flashed through her head – like who was going to mind the children when she went to prison, and if it was Marty, would he remember things like the fact that Tanzie’s feet grew occasionally and buy her new shoes instead of waiting until her toenails curled in on her toes? And who would look after Norman? And why the hell hadn’t she done what she should have done in the first place and just given Ed Nicholls back his stupid roll of money?