Play@YSDC

"Thank you," says Jocelyn. "It's not an emergency, but we would like to get back to Balfour before he gets wind of what's happened. Sounds like a fine bunch of young men. I suspect they're planning on using Chantelle Harmon as their substitute sacrifice, so we definitely need eyes on her mother and her delinquent mates...eyes they haven't seen yet. We'll wait here until you come and relieve us. How did things go with Sarah Balfour?"

”Badly!” replied Kris dryly, glancing at Lucy. ”But she’s going to the hospital to get checked out so should be tied up for a couple of hours at least.”

Moving the phone away from his mouth, he said, “Let’s go, Lucy. And take it easy this time, unless you want me to drive?”

"Make sure you're the one who drives, Kris," says Jocelyn. He may have wrecked his share of cars, but at least he's sober.

”Good idea,” said Kris cursing himself for not thinking straight. He held out his spare hand for the keys. ”It’s for the best, Lucy.”

"If there's nothing else, I'll let you go now," says Jocelyn. "Not a good idea to talk on the phone while driving."

”Ok, we’ll be with you as soon as we can,” replied Kris, ending the call.

Sucking in her cheeks and scowling at him, Lucy puts her hands on her hips and says, 'Who's doing who...um, whom a favour?'

You driving straight to London, not doing anything else beforehand? How're you going to get Lucy to let Kris drive?

Kris looks at Lucy, really looks at her. The drawn face, the darting eyes. She's shaken up. The alcohol is probably the only thing keeping her from cracking altogether. But underneath it Lucy's a professional. A hard arse. She knows she shouldn't drive when she's been drinking. Hell, she knows she shouldn't be chasing Sarah Balfour through the streets when she's suspended. There's no point messing about with appeals to her better nature, Kris just needs to cut through all this bullshit pretence she's using to hide how fucked up she is and tell her how it is.

Holding out his hand again, Kris says bluntly, 'You're pissed Lucy. I'm driving.' She pinches her lips together for a moment then her face collapses. She hands over the key and resignedly gets into the passenger side of the car.

‘That’s one less thing to worry about,’ Kris thought to himself as he started the car and eased out into traffic. He kept the speed low until he was satisfied that the handling hadn’t been affected by the accident, then he brought the car up to the speed limit and headed for Lewisham to meet up with Jocelyn and Simon.

With the rush hour traffic it takes Kris and Lucy nearly two hours to reach Lewisham. And when they do get there it takes even longer to find the location Jocelyn has given them, driving around and around until they eventually identify the unnamed service road that leads down the back of a row of flats.

Moving here.