Chapter 1
Debbie opened her eyes slowly, the anticipated hangover blossoming swiftly and predictably.
How much did I drink last night? Simply thinking the question registered as pain and an elevation of the pounding inside her head, prompting a small gasp. “Sleep it off.” she whispered, and squeezed her eyes tightly shut before burying her face back into the pillow.
Morning trickled away as she slumbered, noon arrived and departed ushering in the afternoon. Once again Debbie stirred. Once again she cautiously opened an eye. The throbbing had not departed with noon, but it had lost some intensity, the mornings keen edge now dulled.
“So,” she tentatively announced, pleased that the sound of her voice had not resurrected the pounding, “Think Debs, what the hell happened last night?”
She shuddered and licked dry lips, “My mouth does actually feel like the bottom of a birdcage, at least I would imagine this is how it would taste!” Stale peach schnapps lingered, mixed with cigarette ash and something else that she couldn't readily identify, yet seemed vaguely familiar.
“I don't know,” she admitted quietly after a few moments of debate, an attempt to identify the elusive flavour, “Maybe something that I ate?”
Sliding a leg out of bed she peeled away the light sheet, dismayed to see her clothes scattered across the floor, a clear trail discarded between door and bed. “I don't remember anything!” Debbie shook her head instantly regretting the action, but decided that stiffer punishment was probably deserved for her absolute loss of nocturnal control. Since her arrival in Fuengirola on Spain's Costa del Sol her usual restraint had deserted, possibly still in the UK,Maybe it missed the flight, “But at least my morals managed to board with me.” she chuckled, beginning to see her excess in a more forgiving light. Yes she was living thevida loca for a while, but why shouldn't she?
“I'm eighteen, not eighty,” she declared as she studied bloodshot eyes and her unruly mop of blonde hair in the bathroom mirror. Hair messed by the pillow, and most alarming, liberally laced with dried pine needles.
“How the hell?” she asked herself and fought for recollection as she teased the needles free, “I came straight home, I'm sure.” Deborah closed her eyes and focussed. “I remember, I got a taxi, I came straight home, I even remember unlocking the door!”
Slowly she squeezed a line of toothpaste and began to brush away the previous night, her mind hunting for an explanation to the needles conundrum. “Think Debs.” she muttered around the brush.
I remember the taxi, I remember unlocking the gate, then the door. I had another drink, Sex on the Beach... that explains the schnapps... then what?
“I was definitely alone. I was in the taxi alone, I was in here alone.”
Recollection returned like wisps of smoke or morning mist, faint and hazy, yet with concentration they began to take shape, their form more coherent, less ephemeral.
“I was alone. I locked the door, got a drink from the fridge, ate cold pizza, then I puked.” Clarity bloomed, her grip on the toilet rim had been fierce. Her body had rebelled against the injustices inflicted, an automatic reaction to such abuse... urgent and unavoidable. “After that I slept!” she clearly recalled shedding her clothes en-route to the bed. “I slept, but what about the pine needles?”
The only flaw in her careful reconstruction, she had completed the jigsaw but stood holding a piece in her hand that was clearly a part of the puzzle - despite not fitting.
“From the seat in the taxi?”
Unlikel
