Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jenna followed her captor up to the beach hut. She could see where he’d been sitting, in a red and white striped deckchair. There were a couple of empty bottles of beer, and a pair of binoculars.

‘I’ve been watching you all afternoon,’ he said.

Jenna said nothing. She knew from experience that was the best policy. Don’t confess or deny anything.

He led her into the hut. Inside it was surprisingly cool. He poured her a glass of water without asking, and she drank thirstily.

‘So do you do this a lot?’ he asked.

Whatever she said was going to sound like a line. If she told him this was the first time she had ever nicked anything, he would say, ‘Of course it is’, in that nasty voice coppers kept specially for such occasions.

‘Easier than getting a job,’ she told him defiantly.

‘How much did you get?’

‘I don’t know…’

He held out his hand to take her bag. She had no choice but to give it to him.

‘So,’ she asked him. ‘Where are your handcuffs? Are you going to march me back up the beach past everyone?’

He pulled out the money. When he saw how much there was, he raised his eyebrows.

‘Quite a bit,’ he said, and started to count it. Jenna felt sick with humiliation. Seeing all that money that belonged to other people made her feel even worse than she already did. She just wanted to lie down and curl up into a ball, then go to sleep forever.

He was nodding as he counted.

‘Two hundred and seventy-five quid,’ he remarked. ‘Beats working for a living, I suppose.’

His cool grey eyes stared at her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Actually, I’d much rather be working.’ The stress of the last couple of days boiled up inside her. ‘Do you think I want to do this? Do you think I felt good about myself, sitting there on the beach, looking for the people who I thought wouldn’t miss the money?’

Suddenly her knees went weak and she saw black dots at the corners of her eyes. She swayed for a moment and shut her eyes. She was going to throw up. She looked around in a panic, her hand on her stomach.

‘Here.’ He grabbed the washing-up bowl from the sink and thrust it at her just in time. She took it from him and vomited, her cheeks burning. She wiped her mouth, sweat breaking out on her forehead. It didn’t get any worse than this. Meeting a hot guy, then him catching you stealing, then puking up in front of him.

What a class act, Jenna thought. She couldn’t look at the bloke. She wanted to crawl away into a corner and die.

‘Sorry…’ she managed at last.

‘You’ve had too much sun,’ he told her, and took away the bowl. ‘Go into the bathroom and clean yourself up. There’s mouthwash.’

She did as she was told. In the tiny bathroom she gripped the edge of the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and her cheeks were burning. Her head felt as if it was held in a vice. She felt too terrible to worry about what was going to happen to her. She washed her face with cold water, rinsed out her mouth and found the mouthwash. Then she ventured out again, not sure what was going to happen next.

While she was in the bathroom, Craig looked at the money and tried to decide what to do. He should turn her in, but what good would that do? She’d go up before the magistrate. Even if they were lenient, she would have a record that would make sure no one gave her a job.

When she came back out she looked terrible. She was shivering, even though it was hot. He thought it was probably a mixture of sunstroke and shock. He went over to put the kettle on. What a cliche, thinking a nice cup of tea could solve anything, but it seemed the best thing to do.

She sat down on the settee without being asked, then leaned back and shut her eyes. Her hair was damp where she had washed her face.

‘I’m Craig, by the way,’ he told her. ‘Do you want to tell me your name?’

‘Jenna…’ she replied, faintly. He thought she was telling the truth.

‘OK, Jenna,’ he replied, opening the cup-board to find the tea bags. ‘What do you think we should do about this situation?’

She shrugged. ‘You’re the policeman.’

He lobbed a couple of tea bags into two mugs.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘It’s a pretty rubbish thing to do, don’t you think? Nicking people’s money when they’ve come for a day out on the beach?’

She stared into the middle of the room, sullen.

‘Where do you suggest I go, then? Up to the hospital, where people are having a shit time anyway? So my nicking their money won’t make any difference to how they feel?’

He had to hide a smile at her logic. He poured water onto the tea bags, got the milk out of the fridge and added a splash to each mug. He walked over and handed her one. She took it from him without a word of thanks, just held it between her knees, her shoulders hunched again. Her hair had come loose from its ponytail, falling onto her shoulders, and he thought again how pretty she was.

‘How about not doing it at all?’ he asked.

She slammed her mug down on the coffee table in front of her.

‘Those people aren’t going to miss that money,’ she told him. ‘They’re just here to have a good time. They haven’t got a care in the world, any of them. I was watching. They’ve got everything they could possibly want.’

Craig looked at her. ‘Does that make it right, then?’

‘No, of course it doesn’t,’ she shot back. ‘I know it’s wrong. I don’t need you to judge me. You with your job, and your beach hut, and your surfboard, hanging out by the sea. You don’t know what it’s like, to have no hope, no money. Nothing. I’ve got nothing!’ she shouted at him. ‘I’ve got the clothes I’m standing up in, but that’s it. I lost my job and my boss never gave me my wages. I owe my landlord four hundred quid, and if I don’t get it, he’s going to kick me out. Tell me what I was supposed to do, Mr Policeman?’

She spat the last few words out with real venom. Craig was silent for a moment.

‘Actually,’ he told her, ‘I do know what it’s like to have absolutely nothing.’

She gave a snort of disbelief. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘I was brought up on an estate on the outskirts of the city. My brother was a drug dealer, but my mum thought the sun shone out of him because he brought her things. Things he’d nicked. She never took any notice of me. So I decided I’d start nicking things too.’

The girl looked up in surprise at this confession. Craig gave a wry smile. He didn’t think he’d ever admitted this to anyone before. It wasn’t something he was proud of.

‘Lucky for me, there was a teacher at my school who could see I had potential. He gave me a really hard time. He went on and on at me until I realised he was right: that I would have more of a chance if I passed my exams. When I got my exam results, eight GCSEs, my mum didn’t take any notice. She was too busy watching the big-screen telly that my brother had got her.’

Craig still remembered his anger now - the feeling of hopelessness, wondering what on earth was the point - and he’d thrown the letter with his results in the bin. His teacher had come to find him, told him how proud he was, showed him everything that piece of paper would allow him to do.

‘Three weeks later, my brother got shot in a drive-by shooting and I decided to join the police. My mum never spoke to me again, because my brother had taught her to blame the cops for everything.’ Craig paused for breath. The memory was still painful. ‘So don’t give me your sob story. I could have followed in my brother’s footsteps. I had every opportunity, I can tell you. But I didn’t.’

Jenna didn’t say anything. She stared at the floor. Eventually she looked up.

‘I’m sorry about your brother,’ she said. ‘But it’s not that easy, you know. Just because you found a way out doesn’t mean that we all can.’

Craig frowned. ‘So that’s it, is it? You feel justified?’

Jenna jumped to her feet. ‘No. I never felt justified. I felt desperate.’ Her amber eyes were flashing as she crossed the room to stand in front of him. ‘How am I supposed to pay my rent? It’s no good telling me to go to the council. He wants cash. Now.’ She was trembling with fury. ‘Of course, there’s one way I could pay him. I know that. But I kind of thought nicking a few quid from people who wouldn’t notice was a better way to go than sleeping with some sleazebag…’

‘Hey, hey, hey.’ Alarmed by her reaction, he went to put his arm round her shoulder. She shook it off.

‘Just get off me.’ She pulled away from him and threw her bag across the room so that its contents spilled on the floor. ‘I’ll leave it up to you to do what you think is best with the money.’

The next moment, she was gone. The door of the beach hut swung shut behind her. Craig stood in the middle of the room with no idea what to do. Going after her would do no good. He didn’t have a solution to her problem. If he did, he would be running the country by now. There were thousands like her, stuck in a trap. He saw them every day, saw the results of their desperation and what they did as a result. He’d made the classic mistake, of thinking that just because he had pulled himself up by his bootstraps, anyone could change their life for the better.

He went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. He took off the top with the opener someone had screwed to the wall and took a sip. It tasted bitter. He put the bottle down. Getting drunk was no solution when you felt bad. He saw the results of substance abuse every day. People who took drink and drugs to forget, not to have fun.

He walked over to the settee and sat down. So much for a quiet, relaxing week. Instead, what had happened today had brought everything into sharp focus, highlighting all of the things he felt unhappy about. He had, he knew, joined the police for all the right reasons, but now he wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing anymore. When he looked at people like Jenna and sympathized with their plight, how could he carry on? Maybe it was time for him to make a difference in some other way. Turning a blind eye today was one thing, but he couldn’t do that when he went back to work.

The incident had only confirmed for him what he already felt in his gut, that the day was coming closer and closer when he would have to walk away.