Could she call her mum? She pulls her head up slightly to see a black handbag lying on the front seat. Damn. She could call the pol-eez, but she doesn’t know the number. She watches American cop shows with her mum sometimes, with panicked women shrieking about “nine-one-one”, but she tried that number the day that Jimmy down the road fell off his bicycle and it had gone straight to a blaring dial tone.
There’s a thump from outside and the late-night-horror-image of eyelashes stuck together with blood strikes her. She darts up, grabs the handbag by the strap, and pulls it towards her. The zip’s open. A waterfall of after-dinner mints, keys, receipts, Panadol, sunglasses and headphones cascades onto the upholstery. Jane gabbles a rude word. Her breath comes gaspingly out of her mouth, her nose sealed with the snot that runs down her lips. Her hand snakes out to grope amongst the detritus for a rectangular iPhone.
Hollow, clicking footsteps echo around the car. Her mother had left the window slightly ajar so she could breathe, and the sound seeps into the vehicle. Jane freezes. Her entire body is fully exposed to anyone who’d care to look through the window, her narrow shoulders and shock of black hair. She presses her eyes back into the leather upholstery and squeezes them shut, trying to look invisible. Taylor Swift continues singing unwittingly. Why had she turned the radio on? Could he hear it? Would he find her?