‘Let me get you another.’ He looked at her, his dark brows meeting in a frown. ‘Seriously. Go and sit down and I’ll bring you one over.’
Jenna bit her lip, thinking how wonderful it would be to sit down while he brought her a fresh drink. Then she remembered what she was doing here, and realized that today of all days she didn’t want to bring attention to herself. The last thing she needed was to strike up conversation with a handsome stranger who might remember her.
‘It’s OK. It’s fine. I’m in a hurry. Honestly. I have to go.’
She smiled and walked away as quickly as she could, throwing her empty cup into the nearest bin.
Eventually Jenna made it onto the sand. The tide was in, which meant at the moment there was little room for people to set up camp. As the sea inched out again, the visitors began to spread out their rugs, putting up their windbreaks and laying out all the things they needed for the day. The sun grew ever more sparkling, welcoming the crowds with its rays.
Jenna spread out her towel at the bottom of the bank beneath the beach huts. She’d chosen her pitch carefully. She wanted to be on the edge of the crowds, so she could watch, but she didn’t want to stand out. Everyone was so busy having a good time that they weren’t going to notice her.
C
raig noticed Jenna straight away.
She was the girl he’d bumped into at the coffee shop. She was sitting at the bottom of the bank outside his beach hut. She looked as if she’d stepped out of a 1950
S
film set, with her curves and her high ponytail and her retro dress. She really was very pretty, and he wondered why she was here on her own. Maybe she was waiting for her mates, or her boyfriend? Maybe that was why she hadn’t let him buy her a drink, because there was another bloke in the picture.
Craig told himself to stop staring but he wasn’t sure what else to do. There was certainly no point in trying to surf while the beach was this busy. Even though there were supposed to be separate areas for surfers and swimmers, Craig could see it was chaos in the water. He wasn’t a good enough surfer to avoid hitting someone if they got in his way. He’d wait until later this evening, when the crowds had gone. The waves would still be good. In the meantime, he put up his striped deckchair in front of the hut and sat watching all the people on the beach. He wondered who they were and where they had come from as little dramas unfolded. A teenage boy fussed over his gran, making sure she was comfortable. Two small toddlers fought over a spade until their mother intervened. A young couple stretched out on a rug together, sharing the headphones on an iPod.
His eyes kept straying back to the girl with the ponytail. She was still on her own. Maybe he should go and talk to her, or offer her another drink? If his friends were here, he knew they would be encouraging him, but without them he felt shy. Maybe she wanted to be on her own and didn’t want company? Craig decided in the end he would leave her alone. He picked up his book instead and started to read.
Jenna spread her things out around her, then rubbed some suncream on her arms and the back of her neck. She didn’t want to burn in the heat of the sun. From behind her sunglasses, she examined all the groups of people around her. She made sure she knew exactly who was in each group, and how the dynamics worked. Small families with toddlers would be the best target. The parents of small children were always distracted.
Jenna had never stolen anything in her life before, but she knew plenty of people who had. Members of her family were always coming home with knocked-off gear or things that had ‘fallen off the back of a lorry’. Her mum was always sticking stuff in her pockets when she was out shopping. It was a way of life for them, but Jenna hadn’t had to stoop that low before.
She felt sick that it had come to this, but she was desperate. Her mum’s words came back to her time and again. ‘You’re no better than the rest of us.’ Well, maybe not, but at least she’d had a go at getting out there and trying to make a better life for herself. Anyway, she reminded herself, this was a one-off. She told herself she was only getting back what had been stolen from her a couple of weeks ago. She knew deep down that was no excuse, of course, but she didn’t know what else to do. It was either this or be thrown out of her room by The Prof on Monday.
Jenna looked around the beach again. She knew all the rules of pickpocketing. When you came from the kind of family she did, you picked up these things along the way. She knew how to identify an easy victim, a ‘mark’, and the best conditions to steal from them. You had to wait until they were off their guard and weren’t paying attention. The beach was perfect for that, because people were concentrating so hard on having a good time that they forgot to look after their valuables. Of course, it was better to have an accomplice, a partner in crime, but that was out of the question. Jenna could hardly have asked one of her mates to come and help her.
She decided to try the ice-cream queue first. There were three vans parked along the beach, and the searing heat meant that the lines outside them were already long. She waited nearby until she saw a harassed-looking father join the queue with two small children in tow. She slipped in behind him, guessing it was going to be at least ten minutes before they got to the window. By then, everyone would be more hot and bothered than ever.
She examined her target. She could see his wallet in the back pocket of his shorts. He was doing his best to control his two children, who were bawling in fury that their ice cream wasn’t coming sooner. When he bent down to tell off one of them, she whisked the wallet out of his pocket and into her own.
Before the children had stopped arguing, she left the queue. Anyone would think she was just bored with waiting. She didn’t wait to see the man’s reaction when he discovered his loss. At first he would assume he had dropped his wallet on the walk over, or that he’d forgotten to put it in his pocket. It would probably be at least twenty minutes before he figured out he’d been pickpocketed, and by then he wouldn’t be sure where it had happened. Jenna would be long gone.
Her heart was hammering and her mouth was dry as she made her way back to her towel. She felt slightly sick, too, although she wasn’t sure whether that was a combination of the heat and the fact that she still hadn’t eaten. She opened the wallet, pulled out three twenty-pound notes and a crumpled fiver and put them in her bag. All she had to do now was get rid of the evidence. She walked a couple of hundred yards back up the beach to where six big black bins were regularly emptied throughout the day. She lifted the lid, recoiling slightly from the stench of chip wrappers and dirty nappies baking in the sunshine, and dropped the wallet in. She wasn’t going to touch the credit cards. That wasn’t her level of crime at all, although she knew people who would have found them useful.
So far, so good, she thought. She didn’t want to think about whether she’d ruined the family’s day out. Feeling guilty was not going to help with the task in hand. She went back to her blanket for a few minutes and waited until her heart had stopped hammering. Then she decided to head up the beach in the other direction. She’d spotted a young couple walking down to the water, hand in hand. The girl had very carefully placed her handbag under a towel before they left, as if that was going to fool anyone. Some people, thought Jenna, were very stupid.
Craig woke with a start, realising he’d fallen asleep in the heat of the midday sun. There was sweat trickling down his forehead, and he was dying of thirst. He should probably go back into the hut, into the shade. He sat up and glanced around, mostly to see if anyone had spotted him dribbling while he was asleep. He looked down to the bottom of the bank to see if the girl with the ponytail was still there, but her towel was empty. Her stuff was still there, though, so she had to be around.
He scanned the crowds, looking for her, and thought he could spot her ponytail and white dress further up the beach. He reached down for the pair of binoculars he kept by him. There were always interesting things to look at – a passing ship, a hang-glider, a bird of prey – and it also meant he could keep an eye on the surfing conditions when the tide was out. At last, he caught sight of the girl through the lenses. Was he being a bit of a stalker? Surely it wasn’t normal, to spy on someone like this, but the girl had fascinated him. He watched her as she walked further up the beach.
A few moments later, Craig couldn’t believe his eyes as she approached someone’s empty rug, reached under a towel, found a bag and took out a purse, all in one fluid movement that took less than five seconds. Then she walked calmly away, back up the beach towards him.
He didn’t know why he was so shocked. After all, he was used to this sort of behaviour. He arrested people like this girl every day of the week in the town centre. Admittedly, they usually worked in gangs rather than on their own. There would be one on lookout, and one causing a distraction. Maybe he was shocked because he viewed Everdene as an escape. He’d built it up in his mind as some sort of romantic hideaway where nothing bad ever happened, but of course it did. A crowded beach was the perfect place for a petty thief.
He followed her progress back up the beach. He watched her take money out of the purse, stuff the notes in her pocket, then ditch the purse in the bins as she walked past. His heart sank as he realized that this meant she was definitely guilty, although if he was going to confront her he needed proof.
He felt a sour taste in his mouth. He didn’t want to deal with this, but now that he had seen it happen, he couldn’t ignore it, even if he was off duty. Of course, he could just turn a blind eye, but that wasn’t in Craig’s nature. He’d never been one to stand by and let people do wrong. Even after what had happened to him lately, he was still a policeman, first and foremost.
Or maybe he’d just imagined what had happened. It was certainly hot enough to make you see things, and the heat of the sun made everything hazy. He’d had a beer as well, from the fridge, which might have impaired his judgement. Maybe he should just carry on reading. It was too beautiful a day for trouble. Then he sighed and picked up his binoculars. He would sit and watch her to see what she did next. If she just sat on her towel and did nothing else, he decided, he would give her the benefit of the doubt and leave her alone.
Jenna drank half a bottle of water and lay back down in the sun. She couldn’t believe how easy it had been. She mustn’t get carried away, though. Word might start spreading on the beach. She would just do one more today, then go to the other beach around the point tomorrow. One thing she had learned from her family as she grew up was never go back to the scene of the crime.
The other thing she knew was that even if someone did call the police, they wouldn’t come out. They weren’t going to bother to respond to a crime where the victims had been stupid enough to leave their stuff unattended. On a busy Saturday in the summer, when they were already understaffed, there were far more important things they could be dealing with.
She just had to hold her nerve. There was over a mile of beach to choose from. She was anonymous. Everyone looked right through her. If Jenna needed proof that she was a nobody, this was it. She sat up again. The heat was intense, as if the sun was burning a hole in the sky. It was hard to look at the sea without squinting. The light reflecting off the water was almost white.
One more, Jenna decided. She’d spotted a family. Earlier she’d seen the dad take his wallet out and give the three kids money for ice creams. They looked well off. They had all the kit. UV tents and thick, plush beach towels and a sleek spaniel on a lead, as well as a cool box brimming with all manner of treats. Jenna’s stomach rumbled and she realized that she still hadn’t eaten anything. She watched as the mother opened the cool box and rummaged inside, handing out drinks.
She wondered if they knew how lucky they were. She’d never been on holiday. ‘What do you want to go on holiday for?’ her mum had asked. ‘We live by the sea. People pay to come here. Why would we want to pay to go somewhere else?’
Jenna knew she shouldn’t sit there feeling sorry for herself to justify her actions. This wasn’t about self-pity, or feeling bitter. This was about survival. Besides, thought Jenna, this family could definitely afford to lose a few quid. She watched while the mother zipped up the children’s wetsuits and gathered up the towels to take down to the water, then applied suncream to the backs of their necks. The dad shoved his wallet in the cool box, obviously thinking that no one would look in there for something to steal. She shook her head in disbelief.
The tide was at its lowest, so the family had a long way to walk to get to the sea. She watched until they were three-quarters of the way there, then made her way over to their encampment. She plonked herself casually down on the rug, then lifted the cool-box lid. She rummaged about inside, looking for all the world like a young girl finding the best thing to eat.
She pulled out an egg roll, oozing with mayonnaise, and a giant chocolate-chip cookie. She looked down to the shoreline where the family had reached the water. It would take them at least ten minutes to walk back, even if they remembered that they had forgotten something vital. She devoured the roll, then rifled through the wallet as she munched on the biscuit. There was over a hundred quid in there. Three credit cards. A photo of the family, the kids in posh uniforms outside a massive house. For some reason this made her feel better. They weren’t going to miss the money.
She might as well take the whole lot. There was no point in leaving them any. They were obviously loaded. The man would be furious for about an hour, then he’d go to the cashpoint and get some more money. It was no big deal. It was his own fault for leaving his wallet unattended. She folded up the notes and stuffed them in her pocket, then put the lid back on the cool box. She felt slightly sick from eating so fast in the heat of the sun. Then she stood up and walked away.
C
raig’s heart was thumping, which was crazy. This wasn’t some stake-out on a dodgy estate where things could go badly if he made the wrong move. So why was he worried? He should just march over, collar the girl and make people aware that this kind of crime could happen, even somewhere as carefree as Everdene. That might make them take more care of their valuables.