Something was stopping him, though. He’d felt drawn to the girl the moment he had bumped into her in the cafe. He wanted to know why she was doing this. Instinct told him this wasn’t her usual behaviour. She didn’t have the air of a hardened pickpocket, and the way she had taken food out of the cool box told him she was hungry. Although being hungry didn’t excuse what she was doing, far from it.
Craig knew that if his mates were here they wouldn’t give her a chance, and that they’d call him soft. Well, maybe he was soft, softer than he admitted even to himself. In fact, he had to face up to it now. He’d lost his killer instinct. He’d been dragged over the coals, and even though he’d been cleared of blame, the experience had soured him. Where once he had felt it was his duty to see justice done, now he was asking himself questions. And a good cop shouldn’t hesitate.
He sighed, put down his binoculars and got out of his deckchair. He could see her without them now, weaving her way among the holidaymakers back to her towel. He paused for a moment, and watched as she sat down, then put her head in her hands. He could see by her body language that she felt guilty. Her shoulders were hunched and she moved slowly as she started gathering her things up ready to leave. Smart move, thought Craig, because it was about time she moved on. That last family looked as if they would cause a fuss, and it would be better for her if she wasn’t around when they raised the alarm.
He watched as she stuffed the last of her things in her bag and stood up. He walked down the last few feet of the bank and made his way towards her as she moved off. He fell into step beside her and put a hand on her arm.
‘Hey,’ he said, not loudly, as he didn’t want to cause alarm. She stopped.
‘What?’ She looked straight at him. There was a moment of confusion, then she recognized him. ‘You were in the cafe.’
‘I saw what you did,’ he told her.
‘What?’ she repeated, frowning this time, and he saw that her eyes were amber speckled with gold. ‘Spilled my tea, you mean?’
For a moment, in the heat of the sun, he doubted himself again. He felt awkward. This was far more difficult than an arrest, when he was in uniform. He wasn’t quite sure what to say.
‘No. I saw you nick that wallet out of the cool box. And take that purse out of that woman’s handbag earlier.’ He pointed back down the beach.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
She moved away and carried on walking. He walked beside her.
‘I’ve got photos.’
She hesitated for a moment. ‘Of what?’
‘Good enough evidence for a court of law.’
She turned on him. ‘Go and hassle someone else, will you? You’re being weird.’
‘I should have you arrested.’
‘I should have
you
arrested. You’ve been following me since this morning, taking pictures. That’s stalking.’
He was impressed by the way she stood her ground. On the surface, she seemed defiant. A passer-by would believe her innocence, but Craig had been trained to read body language. Her fists were clenched, and she refused to make eye contact. He was going to have to be more forceful to get her to admit her guilt. Yet somehow his heart wasn’t in it.
Maybe he should just let her go and be done with it. Thinking she had been caught would probably put her off doing it again, and this was supposed to be his week off. He just wanted to chill and get things straight in his head. This was like being back at work, if not worse. All he really wanted to do was sit back down and have a beer and maybe fall asleep again.
Craig nearly gave up and let her go, but something inside him wanted to know more about her. He wanted to know why she was on the beach nicking money. He never had time, when he arrested people, to go into the whys and wherefores, and he was interested.
‘I don’t want to make a big scene,’ he told her. ‘But I can’t just let you walk off with all that money.’
She spread her hands, laughing. ‘There is no money. I haven’t even got enough for an ice cream.’
He held her gaze.
‘Open your bag. Let me have a look.’
‘Leave me alone. Or I’m going to call for help.’
He looked around and then took his wallet out of his shorts. ‘You better take a look at this.’
He flipped it open and showed her his police identification.
She stared at it for a good five seconds before she finally dropped her eyes to the ground. She sighed and turned away.
‘I didn’t have any choice,’ she said, her voice tight with tears.
‘We all have a choice,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got a choice right now. I can take you into the nearest station. Or we can talk about it.’
‘What are you, my counsellor, all of a sudden?’ she asked, crossly.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Normal girls of your age don’t come to the beach on their own and spend the day nicking money.’
‘You think I don’t know that?’ She raised her voice, and he realized that people were looking.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’m a cop. By rights it’s my duty to turn you in. But I’m on holiday. I don’t want a load of hassle.’ He looked at her. She was staring down at the sand. The fight seemed to have gone out of her. ‘And I bet you don’t either.’
She looked up and put her hands on her hips. ‘So what are you going to do? Give me some big lecture? It’s not as if I don’t know it’s wrong.’
‘So why did you do it?’
She stared at him. Her eyes were huge in her face. He reached out a hand and touched her arm.
‘Come on. Come inside and have a drink. We can talk about it.’
Jenna stood there. She didn’t know what to do. All she knew was that the heat was suddenly unbearable and she felt sick. She wasn’t scared. She didn’t feel like running away. In fact, she almost felt a sense of relief. Her future was now going to be out of her hands. Someone else was going to be in control.
She looked up at the bloke again. He was going to decide her fate. She didn’t have to make the decisions any more. She couldn’t read the expression in his silver-grey eyes. She’d expected harshness and accusation but they seemed almost understanding.
‘Come on,’ said the man, nodding his head up towards the faded blue beach hut behind him. ‘We don’t want to have this discussion in public.’
For a moment Jenna was tempted to run. She was wearing flip-flops, which were impossible to run in, but she could kick them off. How far would she get? Not far, she knew. And he looked fit.
She followed him obediently up the slope towards the beach hut. He had broad shoulders tapering down to a slender waist. He was wearing red surfing shorts decorated with flowers although there was nothing girly about him. He was lightly tanned, and his skin glistened where he’d put on suncream. Despite her heart thumping, she managed a smile to herself. Nice work, Jenna – you’ve been caught red-handed by the hottest cop you’ve ever seen.
J
enna 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 for ever.
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 cliché, 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 cupboard 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 realized 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.’