A Sea Change Read Free Page A

drink relaxed you. By the second, your defences were down and emotions started to kick in. It would take another two or three beers to blot out the feelings altogether, but Craig didn’t want to get drunk. He was going to have to put up with how he felt.
    They’d gone out for five years, Craig and Michelle. It had been a very easy relationship with no drama. They enjoyed each other’s company and liked the same things. Then six months ago she’d been offered the chance to run a hairdressing salon at a big glitzy hotel in Dubai.
    The salon she had run in Birmingham city centre was struggling. She’d had to let valued staff go. She’d cut back on the cleaning and the number of towels they used. She hated cutting corners but she had no choice. People just weren’t spending the money any more. They were going three months, even longer, without having their colour done, or doing it themselves at home. She was worried that the shop was going to go under. Then the opportunity of a lifetime had come along. Craig had had no second thoughts.
    ‘You have to take it,’ he told her. ‘You hate your job at the moment. It’s depressing. Dubai will be an awesome chance for you.’
    Michelle and Craig were sensible enough to realise that their relationship wouldn’t survive the separation. Neither of them wanted the pressure or the guilt of trying to maintain it in the long term.
    ‘I don’t want you to get out there and feel you can’t have fun,’ Craig told her.
    ‘And I don’t want you to mope around because I’m not there,’ said Michelle.
    So they agreed to part, but as friends. He drove her to the airport. She hugged him tight at the departure gate, and cried a bit, but he could tell she was excited about her new life. They’d agreed he would go out there at Christmas if neither of them had found someone else. Neither of them had so far, but Craig didn’t think he would go. Long-distance relationships never worked. He’d seen the pictures she’d posted on Facebook and it felt as if he was looking at a stranger. They went on Skype from time to time too, but he found it upsetting. It just reminded him of what he was missing.
    He’d been too caught up with the investigation to find anyone else. His mates eggedhim on when they went to the pub in Everdene for a drink. They thought he should find someone new, but he didn’t want to force it. He wasn’t one for one-night stands, not like some of his friends who went out with a different girl every time they came down to Devon. Maybe this weekend he should start to have a look round, he thought.
    Not tonight, though. He wanted to wind down and get a decent night’s sleep so that he could make the most of the weekend. Craig watched the waves roll in towards the shore. There would be plenty of time for pulling. He had the whole week, after all.
    At half past nine, there was a bang on Jenna’s door. It was so loud that she jumped off the bed, her heart thumping. She realised she had fallen asleep. She did that a lot these days. Being asleep was so much better than being awake. Her mouth went dry with fear. The knock came again, even louder. She thought about pretending that she wasn’t in.
    ‘Oi!’ There was a shout from the other side of the door. She knew that voice only too well. ‘I know you’re in there. Open up.’
    The landlord probably did know she was inthere. He had spies everywhere. She didn’t trust any of the other tenants in the house.
    ‘OK!’ she called out, and hated how weedy her voice sounded.
    She opened the door. The Prof was standing there. They called him The Prof because of his thick, black-rimmed glasses. Not because he was clever, unless you counted ripping desperate people off as clever. He was wearing a grubby white shirt, jeans and scuffed black slip-on shoes. Anyone would think he was on the breadline too.
    ‘You got something for me?’ He wandered in as if he owned the place. Which – technically – he did, but it was her room.