The Thief Read Free Page A

didn’t,’ Lant said. ‘Of course not. I’m so sorry, Polly. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. What can I do? Can I pay your cleaning bill?’
    She said nothing. She was afraid that if she spoke she would start to cry. The stewardess sponged her trousers but the stain wouldn’t come out. Polly thought of how she would have to meet her friends with a big brown stain from the top of her thigh to her knee. She would have no time to change. Could they give her a different seat? The chief steward said he was sorry but there were no empty seats.
    She went back to sit next to Lant. Her leg smarted where the hot coffee had touched the skin. She put the airline’s blanket over her knees to cover the stain. Tears were running out of her eyes. She closed them and turned her face into the back of the seat. He was sleeping, breathing heavily, and his breathing sounded to her like laughter.
    You are not a child, she told herself. Stop crying, don’t let him see. I hate him, a voice inside her said, I hate him. I would like to kill him. She thought of other people she had hated like this, her Auntie Pauline, a girl at school, a boyfriend who had left her. She had had revenge on them. Revenge wasn’t possible with Trevor Lant. Her tears dry now, she sat there for hours, quieter, telling herself, you will never see him again after we land. Never again.
    She dozed. The captain’s voice, saying they were beginning their descent for New York, woke her. Lant was still asleep.

CHAPTER THREE
    W ITH TEN MINUTES TO spare before her friends were due, Polly changed her trousers for a black pair in the hotel bathroom. Next morning she tried three dry-cleaners but they all said the stain would never come out, though one said they would try. She had come to New York to go to her cousin Lizzie’s wedding and she meant to have a happy day. Before leaving for the church she spoke on the phone to Alex. She had thought to tell him about Trevor Lant and what he had said. But somehow, when she was talking to him, she couldn’t. If she started that she would have to tell him what she had said to Lant when he asked her to have dinner with him. He would be shocked. He hated rudeness.
    ‘Did you have a good flight?’
    ‘Oh, yes. Quite good.’
    ‘No one awful sitting next to you?’
    Now would be the time to tell him. Instead, she lied. He was so kind and trusting he always believed her.
    ‘No. The seat was empty all the way to New York.’
    ‘I hope you’ll be as lucky coming back. I miss you, darling.’
    ‘I miss you too.’
    Why had she lied to Alex? An ex-boyfriend had told her she lied when there was no need. She could have told Alex a man had sat next to her and nothing more than that. But she had lied. And it was the first time for weeks.
    She went to the wedding. Her Auntie Pauline was there as the bride’s mother and she greeted Polly at the church door. Polly hadn’t seen her very much for years. Auntie Pauline had changed a lot and looked quite old but she was still the same woman who had smacked Polly after saying she had something to show her. As Polly walked in and took her seat she thought again about taking the book and cutting it up. She looked at the little scar on her hand where a piece of glass had cut it. When the service started she forgot Auntie Pauline and the smacking and the book for a while and asked herself how she would feel if she was the bride and Alex the bridegroom. One day, she thought, maybe one fine day we’ll get married.
    Next day she was taken to the theatre. Then there was shopping and lunch with the friends she had met when she first got there. She didn’t see Auntie Pauline again and someone told her she had gone back on Thursday morning. It was Thursday night when Polly took a taxi to the airport. She ought to buy a present to take home for Alex but he never seemed to want anything and in the end, after looking in shop windows, she left it.
    Lant’s case came into view before he did. She thought,