She looked in the long mirror which hung in her bedroom.
Perfect.
Bright red lipstick. Flowing dress. Killer heels.
She was ready for the night’s work.
**********
The night was closing in and the cold December air pricked at their faces as they left their house.
The group hurried towards their car knowing that in a short while she would be standing on the street corner waiting for them.
It was almost pick-up time.
**********
He was drunk.
No two ways about it.
Drunk as a skunk.
Again.
**********
She headed out into the night and wished she had picked up a coat.
She tugged at the bolero that hung around her shoulders. It was the wrong thing to be wearing at this time of the year.
Still, she knew that she would be getting into a car in the not too distant future and that thought kept the cold at bay.
**********
“Oh, he won’t like you getting into the vehicle drunk,” he said aloud to himself. “Well, he can go and jump off a cliff for all I care.”
He looked down at the bottles which littered the floor. He had stolen his masters store card of Widdle, low cost shopping centre for the incontinent, and gone on an alcoholic spending spree.
He staggered towards the vehicle, opened the door and after a few attempts, managed to get the key into the ignition.
“Thank god I don’t have to pull this thing anymore,” he said to the empty street which lay ahead of him.
**********
“How much longer until we reach her, I’m terribly cramped in the back here?”
“Will you give it a rest, you grumpy old sod?” came a dopey reply from the front.
“Aitchoo,” responded another.
**********
“He likes the others better than me, the fat old bastard. Says he doesn’t but I know differently,” he slurred.
The vehicle was gathering speed and was swaying from one side of the road to the other.
“Let’s go to the ballet again so we can see good old dancer and prancer…nobody remembers them anyway.”
**********
She looked at her watch. They were late. And the cold air had started to pierce through to her bones.
Having reached the agreed street corner, she leant up against the lamppost and decided that she was going to take a swig from a secret flask which she carried attached discreetly to her thigh. Warm apple cider. Delicious.
Looking around, she saw in the distance a vehicle turn the corner rather too quickly.
Deciding she had time to take a sip from the flask, she leaned forward and hitched up her skirt.
**********
“I don’t want her to see me when she gets into the car,” the petite little chap said shyly as their vehicle turned into the street where they would pick her up.
**********
The swaying vehicle was violently out of control as it hurtled down one street and then another, his steering more frantic than ever.
“I’m Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
I have a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
I’d say stop looking at me I just want to be a normal reindeer like the others…”
He laughed out loud at his own inventiveness, not seeing the young lady, skirt in the air, leg showing, standing on the street corner.
**********
The driver of six petite dwarf cabbages approached the pick-up point.
He could see Snow White standing on the street corner ready for the night’s action. And he could also see a motorised sleigh heading straight for her.
If only he didn’t feel so tired he might be able to do something about it.
Hearing what sounded like a reindeer singing a rather crude song, Snow White looked up and saw the out of control sleigh heading right for her as she stood on the street corner. She looked in the opposite direction and saw the car carrying the dwarf cabbages drift in her direction too.
“Ah, bollocks,” said Snow White, in her thick Geordie accent. “They’ve only let Sleepy drive again.”
**********
The Food Related Crime team arrived at the scene shortly after the call was received and they began their examination of the head on collision.
Oranges and Lemons had come dressed as pantomime dames in preparation for their audition the next day, while Wortel was sporting a pain his arm which was a result of suggesting to Dorothy that she should take make-up tips from the two fruit officers.
Snow White was being carried into the back of a waiting ambulance; Rudolph was being cut from the wreckage of the sleigh not because he was badly injured but because his antler had become trapped in the airbag which had inflated on impact.
Wortel turned to the six dwarf cabbages who had somehow escaped with only minor bruising, although the odour they omitted was rather more disturbing.
“How come there are only six of you?” he asked them.
Doc stepped forward. “We’d arranged to meet the other one at the theatre in advance of this evening’s pantomime rehearsal. I’ve just got off the phone to him.”
“How did he take the news?” enquired Wortel.