Small Town Christmas (Some Very English Murders Book 6) by Issy Brooke

as she twisted sideways. She ended up in the cold
mud deep in the ditch that ran between the pavement and the field.
    The car had gone, screaming
off into the night.
    Penny stayed where she was
for a moment, breathing hard. She could hardly take it in. Had it really driven
at her so deliberately?
    She couldn’t stay at the
bottom of a ditch. She scrambled up, but cautiously, peeping out to check if
the car had definitely driven away. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if it was
still there, waiting for her to emerge.
    It had gone.
    She pulled herself back onto
the verge, and looked down. There was enough light to see that the car’s wheels
had churned up the frosty mud and grass.
    It had been deliberate. It
looked that way to her.
    Penny felt sick. She stood
and stared, and when she heard another car approach, even though it was from
the opposite direction that the attacking car had gone in, she still nervously
stepped back, ready to dive to safety.
    The car slowed, and Penny’s
throat tightened.
    Ginni stuck her head out of
the window. “Are you all right?”
    “Oh my goodness! Ginni! No,
I’m not. I am so glad to see you.”
    “Really? Something must have
happened. Get in.”
    As soon as Penny was safely
ensconced in the passenger seat, she almost wanted to cry. She took a deep
breath and clipped into the seat belt.
    “What were you doing?” Ginni
asked. She kept the engine idling. “I saw you staring at the ground, then you
jumped a mile in the air when you heard me coming. Have you dropped something?
I can swing round to use the headlights to shine on the pavement.”
    “No, thank you, it’s fine.
No, it’s not fine.” Penny pulled her hat from her head and ruffled at her hair
with her hand. “I am sure that someone just tried to run me over.”
    “Never!” Ginni cried. “Who?
Where did they go?”
    “I don’t know. But I was on
the pavement, walking along, and a car came roaring towards me. I had to jump
into the ditch. I was just looking at the marks the tyres left in the grass. It
wasn’t my imagination.”
    “There are some crazy drunk
drivers out at this time of the year,” Ginni said. “Did you see any details of
the car at all?”
    “I think it was red, but
that’s all.”
    “Where do you want to go?”
Ginni put the car into gear. “I can take you up to the police station, if you
like.”
    “I can’t put you to any
trouble.”
    “It’s fine. I was just on my
way to the petrol station, else I wouldn’t have come this way at all.”
    Penny thought about it. “No,
please don’t bother. I can’t give them any real information.”
    “I’ll run you home, then.
River Street?”
    “Please.”
    “I need to call for fuel
first,” Ginni said apologetically. “I’m on red.”
    Ginni drove the short
distance to the petrol station, and while she was filling up, Penny thought
about the car.
    In her head, she was calling
it an “attack.” Was it? It was most likely to have been a random drunk, as Ginni
said.
    But what if it wasn’t? She
couldn’t help recalling the conversation she’d had with Cath about the murder
of Clive Holdsworth. Was it a one-off, or was there a killer on a spree in the
area? She shivered.
    What about the suspects that
were already lined up for the killing of Clive? If she assumed that the car had
been deliberately targeting her, then did this make any of those suspects more
– or less – likely to be guilty?
    She knew Jared had a red
car, because she’d accepted a lift from him in the past. Haydn’s car had been
outside the house that he was restoring. She called up a picture in her mind.
Yes, it had been red.
    What about Linda? She didn’t
know what colour her car was. Though why would Linda ask her to help with the
flyers, and then attack her?
    That would be an
elaborate bluff indeed , Penny
thought. And therefore plausible.
    But if this attack was
linked to the attack on Clive, then perhaps that meant there were other people
involved.
    Or a suspect they