What a Girl Wants Read Free Page B

sight harder than getting out of it. Somehow, I had managed to get my back up against the UPVC frame and my bum half on and half off the ledge when I realized the belt loop of my jeans was stuck somewhere on the lock. And it was while wriggling around in this impossibly ridiculous position, one leg in and one leg out, doing the hokey cokey twelve feet above the floor, that my door flew open and two uniformed policemen and one towel-clad former flatmate burst into the room.
    ‘Don’t move!’ shouted policeman number one.
    ‘Come back inside the house!’ yelled policeman number two.
    ‘Without wanting to be rude …’ My voice was awfully high. ‘Can you pick one? I can probably do the don’t move one but I’m not sure I can get back inside the house.’
    ‘Stay where you are, Ms Kittler,’ said policeman number one, who seemed far more interested in what Vanessa was barely covering with her towel than whatever crime they imagined I had committed, ‘we’ve got this.’
    ‘Thank you,’ she said, a whimper escaping her throat as she cowered behind policeman number two. ‘I was so scared. She must have broken in while was in the shower.’
    ‘What?’ I squeaked as policeman number one began to move slowly towards me. ‘I didn’t break in. I used my keys – I live here!’
    ‘We’ll sort all this out down at the station.’ Policeman number two approached with his hands held out towards me. And in one of those hands was a pair of handcuffs. ‘Now just get down off the ledge.’
    ‘I’m not going down to the station,’ I said, one hand up in a surrender-friendly position, the other still clinging to the window frame for dear life. ‘I didn’t break in.’
    I stared at the scene in front of me with utter disbelief. Vanessa, safe behind the boys in blue, gave me a wicked grin while wrapping her towel a little tighter.
    ‘I want her arrested,’ she said. ‘Please take her away.’
    ‘I am so going to kill you!’ I let go of the window frame fully to try to unhook my jeans from the arm of the lock. ‘This is ridiculous.’
    ‘You heard that!’ Vanessa shrieked. ‘She threatened to kill me!’
    Everything that happened after that was a blur. I wasn’t sure if it was self-preservation or a rage-induced blackout, but without warning, I felt my mind leave my body and float up into a cobwebby corner of my bedroom, watching as the scene unfolded. The policeman that wasn’t copping a feel of my treacherous flatmate rushed over to me as soon as I let go of the window frame and reached behind my back. As he came towards me, my belt loop decided it didn’t need to be caught on the window lock after all and that’s when I realized the only thing that was keeping me balanced in the first place was said belt loop hooked around said window lock.
    The fall from the window didn’t seem too bad. I did manage to land on top of my great big pile of pants, and at best I was a little bit dazed while at worst I was completely concussed. But looking on the bright side, it was probably better not to be entirely conscious when you were being read your rights and then carted off to the police station in handcuffs, wasn’t it?

CHAPTER TWO
    ‘I’ve told you,’ I said, pressing my palm against the throbbing pain in my shoulder, ‘a thousand times. It’s
my
flat,
my
home. Yes, Vanessa owns the flat but I pay rent. My keys are in the bowl by the door. I didn’t break in.’
    ‘Then remind me why you were climbing out the window with a suitcase full of Miss Kittler’s belongings instead of using the front door?’
    Once the officers had established none of my bones had been broken, it was off to the police station for questioning, despite my loud and varied protestations. So far, so
The Bill
. I had suffered assorted indignities, including being fingerprinted at the same time as a very large skinhead I was sure that I recognized, and then I was left in a small interview room with a female detective who looked about