Love And Liability. Katie Oliver

shirt tucked into a butterfly-print skirt. “I like your bangles. Nice,” she approved. “Come from one of them posh shops?”

      “No,” Holly said, admiring her armful of colourful wooden bangles as she held out a bag, “Camden market, two for five quid.” She turned to the blonde. “Hi, I’m Holly.”

      She exhaled, releasing a plume of smoke. “Sharon. Ta.”

      “We’re mates, Sha and me.” Zoe took the bag from Holly and rummaged inside. She withdrew a Coke and a Crunchie and offered the rest to her friend. “Thanks.”

      “You’re welcome. Listen,” Holly ventured as she sat down between the two girls, “how’d you like to be in a magazine?”

      As she licked chocolate from her fingers — half of the Crunchie was already gone — Zoe snorted. “Who’d want to see the likes of us in a magazine?” she scoffed. “We’re not models or pop stars.”

      “You don’t work for one of them lads’ mags, do you?” Sharon wondered.

      “No!” Holly shuddered. “I work for a teen magazine.”

      Sharon eyed her curiously. “Doing what, exactly?”

      “Well, I write about things that interest teenage girls — interviews with boy bands, stories about back-stabbing friends who steal your guy — stuff like that.”

      “Meet many celebs, then?” Sharon asked avidly.

      “Well, I interviewed Dominic Heath last summer…but not usually, no. Anyway,” Holly forged on, “I pitched a story idea at the staff meeting.” She turned to Zoe. “I want to write about what it’s like to be a homeless teen in London. I thought I might interview you. Maybe shadow you for a day or two.”

      “No!” Zoe’s answer was sudden and fierce. “No fucking way.” Abruptly she stood up, Crunchie wrapper falling to the ground, and grabbed her rucksack. “Come on, Sha, let’s go.”

      “Wait!” Sharon said, confused. “Zo — why don’t you want to do it? At least think about it—”

      “I said no. Let Holly’s teen rag find someone else to write about.” Zoe shoved the rest of the chocolate and crisp packets in her rucksack, swung it over her shoulder, and stalked away, leaving Holly and Sharon behind.

      She didn’t slow her pace until she reached Piccadilly Circus. If she saw the curious looks cast her way, she gave no sign. Fury propelled her forward, and she scarcely registered the people she brushed past, so lost in black thoughts she was.

      “Zoe! Hold up!”

      She turned to see Sharon, breathless and flushed, running after her. “Sha? What are you doing here? I thought you were still back there, talking to the boho queen.”

      “Why are you so hard on her?” Sharon asked. “She’s only trying to help.”

      “I don’t need her help.” She began walking again.

      “Shit, Zoe, why are you always so tetchy?”

      She rounded on Sharon. “Why? Because if it wasn’t for my mum, I wouldn’t be in this fix. That’s why.”

      “What happened, then? Tell me.”

      They fell into step together, and after a moment Zoe began, haltingly, to talk. “My parents split up a few months ago. At first, I thought Mum’s new boyfriend was cool, you know? He had that Scandi thing going on — tall, eyes like blue ice, blond hair — and a car like something out of a Bond film.”

      “Came on to you, did he?” Sharon observed knowingly. “When your mum wasn’t there?”

      “Worse. He tried to rape me.” Zoe spoke flatly. “It started off okay — we messed around a bit when Mum wasn’t there. She wouldn’t let me go to Glasto with my girlfriends. I was pissed off.”

      “So what happened?”

      “What d’you mean, what happened? He wanted sex.”

      Sharon shrugged. “So?”

      Zoe glanced at her and away again. “I was a virgin, okay? I was scared. Didn’t wanna tell him that, though, did I? So I told him no and asked him to stop, but he wouldn’t. He’d been drinking…a lot. I got away, locked myself in my bathroom until he left. He said Mum would never believe me, and that he’d tell her I came on to him, that I wanted it.” She shook her head. “And the thing was, he was right. Mum would’ve believed him over me.”

      “And so you ran away.”

      “Yeah. I ran away. End of story,” Zoe finished.

      “Are they looking for you? Your parents, I mean.”

      “No. My dad’s so busy, I doubt he’ll even notice I’m gone,” she said, her words bitter. “He’s not home much. But Erik…he’s already looking for me.”

      She’d thrown some clothes into a rucksack, along with fifty quid — birthday and Christmas money. Halfway out of the door, she’d realized she didn’t have her mobile.

      “So, why’s Erik after you?” Sharon persisted. “If you ran away, why would he even care where you went?”

      “I have his mobile,” Zoe retorted, “that’s why. He must’ve left it behind, and I grabbed it by mistake. And it’s got…things, on it. He’s involved in some pretty dogdy stuff, Sha. I think…” she hesitated “…I think he might be a sex trafficker.”

      “Bloody hell,” the other girl breathed, and came to a stop. “You’ve landed right in the shit, haven’t you?”

      Zoe’s hand tightened on the rucksack strap. “Yeah. Right in it.”

       Chapter 12

      Traffic out of London on Friday afternoon was epic. Holly resisted the impulse to turn around and go back home as she inched the Skoda along the Euston Road. Good thing she’d brought along some cheese and onion crisps and a Diet Pepsi. At least that red ‘check engine’ light wasn’t showing up today.

      Holly sighed. Just get me to Oxfordshire, she silently urged the car. At this rate, she might not make it onto the A40 until tomorrow.

      But once onto the exit at Oxford/Cheltenham, she quickly made up for lost time. She reached Chipping Norton just after five and turned up a dirt road edged haphazardly with foxgloves and nettles. As she braked in front of the seventeenth-century house, made of Cotswold stone and half obscured by ivy, she climbed out of the car and breathed in the scent of honeysuckle.

      Holly retrieved her duffel bag from the back seat, noticing as she did the sleek Audi sedan and Range Rover parked nearby. Must belong to John and Enid Whatsit…

      “Holly!”

      Suddenly Mum was there, enveloping her in a Guerlain-scented hug, clucking over the empty crisp and Peparami wrappers strewn on the seat, asking her when she’d left London.

      “Two hours ago,” Holly told her as she pulled her duffel out. “Traffic was murder, but—” her gaze swept over the fields, running riot with ox-eyed daisies and bluebells “—it’s good to get away, even if it’s only for the weekend. Where’s Dad?”

      “He’s in the study with the dogs, reading The Guardian.” Her mother rolled her eyes. “Some things never change. Oh, and your sister’s coming back home tomorrow, for a few weeks.”

      “Good. We text sometimes, but I haven’t seen her since she left for uni.”

      Hannah, much to their mother’s dismay, had sailed off to a fine arts university in Norwich, following a tumultuous relationship with her ex-boyfriend, Jago.

      “Well, come along inside. John and Enid are here, and I’ve had your old room tidied—”