Pop Goes the Weasel | страница 52

She hung back now and contemplated giving up altogether, but suddenly the gang came to a stop. They paused, darting looks here and there, then dragged a wheelie bin out from a nearby alleyway. Then Davey, the leader, clambered onto it. It brought him level with a small window at shoulder height. He pulled a crowbar out of his backpack and immediately started working on the window, whilst the others kept watch.

Helen flattened herself against the wall. She was furious – why had she put herself in this position? Now the window was open and Davey was levering himself inside. Robert was next. Skipping up onto the bin, he swung himself through the window with the practised grace of a gymnast. The others stayed outside, looking around anxiously for any passers-by.

A noise made them look up, but it was just a woman walking away – clearly she hadn’t seen them. Helen picked up her pace. Now that it had all gone so wrong, she just wanted to be away from here. With each step, she berated herself. An innocent person was being robbed right now and it was her duty to call it in and stop this thing now.

But of course she wouldn’t and she hated herself for it. She hurried away, swallowed up by the darkness of the night.

It had been a mistake to come here.

The house was an empty shell. A bare, functional space that like most rented properties never received much love. Jason Robins, sitting alone at the IKEA dinner table, felt much the same way. His ex, Samantha, had taken their daughter, Emily, to Disneyland for two weeks – with new man Sean in tow. And though he tried to block it out – by focusing on work, watching football, looking up old mates – in reality he thought about it all the time. The three of them having fun – eating candyfloss, screaming on the rollercoasters, snuggling up at bedtime after a busy day’s fun – fun from which he was utterly excluded. He had never called the shots in his marriage and now that it was over he was still on the back foot. He had put all his energies into bringing up Emily and providing Samantha with everything she needed, so much so that he had neglected his mates and family. When Samantha admitted her affair and ended the marriage, he had no one to fall back on, no one genuine at least. People looked sympathetic and asked a few questions, but their hearts weren’t in it. He could tell no one blamed Samantha for her choice. Jason wasn’t much to look at and was hardly scintillating conversation, but even so he had worked bloody hard to make Samantha happy. And what was his reward? A lonely flat and a custody battle.