Free Alexandra, Gone by Anna McPartlin

December will kill you quicker.”
    “Ah well, it’s January now, so roll on spring!” He took a slug from the bottle of vodka the strange girl had bought for him. “Vincent must be a right bastard,” he said after a minute or two.
    “Depends on who you ask,” she said, getting up and dancing around again.
    “How much would you say that car cost?” he asked.
    “Around forty grand.” She could have answered with precise figures if she had wished, as she had bought him the car.
    “Jesus. He’ll be sorry he messed with you.”
    She smiled. “That’s the hope.”
    They both heard the police sirens. Buns drained his bottle before the cops could take his booze off him. Elle continued to dance to the music she could hear in her head. The police approached them cautiously, but Elle smiled and waved them over as though they were at a party and she was asking them to join in. Once they had established that Elle had stolen her ex-boyfriend’s car and burned it out, they put her and Buns, who happily claimed himself as a willing accessory, in the back of the police car. Buns was delighted that he would have at least a night inside, or even two if he was lucky, because he’d seen the weather forecast in the window of Dixon’s electrical shop and it was set to fall below zero. Elle was focused on the sights, sounds, and smells around her. Everything seemed so vivid; she was giddy, high on revenge and adventure. The city moved quickly past the window and the siren pealed, not because there was an emergency but just to get through the drunkards on the streets. The car smelled of disinfectant, and she breathed in deeply. Buns smelled of something else entirely, a little sweat, a little oil, a little damp, and a little puke, and still she inhaled and smiled as though it was the sweetest of perfume.
    “I’ve never been in a jail cell,” she said, excited by the notion. “I’ve always wondered about it.”
    The female officer looked over her shoulder. “Well, you won’t have to wonder anymore.”
    “True.” Elle smiled.
    Jane woke with a start. Kurt was standing above her with his hand on her shoulder, shaking her. “Mum, Mum, Mum!”
    She bolted upright. “Kurt?” She looked at the clock beside her bed: four ten a.m. “What the hell?”
    “It’s Elle. She’s been arrested.”
    Jane stared blankly at her son; the words coming from his mouth seemed to lose meaning. “Excuse me?”
    “Sit up,” he ordered, and she noticed he was slurring, but at that moment her drunken teenage son was the least of her worries.
    “Did you say ‘arrested?’” she asked, silently praying she’d misheard him.
    He nodded.
    She swung her legs around and sat at the edge of the bed and held her head in her hands. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” she said before she sighed a sigh that seemed to come from her very core. “Where is she?”
    “Clontarf.”
    “Clontarf,” she repeated, and got out of bed. “And why not? Clontarf is as good as anyplace to get arrested.”
    Jane talked to herself and bumped into things while trying to locate something to wear. She said “ouch” twice and “for fhu” a number of times before Kurt took his leave so that she could get dressed.
    Jane entered the sitting room in search of her handbag. Kurt and his girlfriend, Irene, were lying on the sofa together listening to music.
    “Hi, Jane,” Irene said with a big grin that suggested she had imbibed one too many alcopops.
    “Hi, Irene,” she said to the grinning teen. “Does your mother know where you are?”
    “She’s in Venice,” Irene said, slurring a little.
    “Nice.”
    “Not really,” Irene said. “She found out that Dad was sleeping with some woman he met on the Internet, and she’s gone over there to spend as much of his money as possible before kicking him out of the house.”
    “Oh my God, that’s awful,” Jane said, truly shocked and momentarily forgetting her sister was in a jail cell. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m