Page 33 of Thief

“Yeah, I just swapped them. Customers needed stuff altered—by me—and I just replaced the diamonds for odd bits I’d picked up cheap. No one noticed.”

“How could they not notice?” She would notice if anything of hers wasn’t genuine.

“Because people only really study the gems when they’re buying them, under the lights of the shop. After that, it’s just friends who admire, and who’d comment on clarity and risk offending?” He shrugged. “I’ve only done it for a year, didn’t fancy pushing my luck. Someone would have noticed eventually.”

“Sensible. Pushing your luck never works out.”

“I learnt how to cope with the guilt, though. I just think of the imbeciles I saved who are happily getting on with their lives. I bet they barely give a passing thought to the guy who saved them and then caught a bullet in the leg. Why would they? They’re out, free to go and get into trouble again if that’s what they want to do. But it won’t be me saving them this time. It will be some other mug lining himself up for a bullet if he lets his guard down for a split second.” He frowned and shook his head. “A split second, that’s all it takes to have your life taken away in every sense of the word—except, of course, for the fact that your heart is still beating.”

“Your heart is still beating, exactly, and you’re surviving, which is sometimes the best you can hope for.” Kat narrowed her eyes. “Do you think I like what I do?”

John didn’t offer comment.

“Do you?”

He lifted her feet from his lap and pushed upright, moved without limping to the drinks cabinet. “You want one?” he asked, pulling open the door.

“No.” Kat hugged her knees around the cushion. She felt the need to explain to someone for the first time ever about her lifestyle. It was a strange, unfamiliar urge, and she was glad she could speak to his back instead of his face. “I don’t like what I do. I don’t like it at all, I hate it. Having sex with sad, old creeps just to get their car keys sucks as far as a career goes. Hardly what I had in mind when I left school.”

John turned mid-pour. “Thanks a lot,” he muttered. “Didn’t realise I was such a loser.”

Kat frowned. She hadn’t meant to offend him. “I tried to get by through legal means, really I did. For five years, I tried. But I’d left foster care at seventeen without a backward glance. I had a crappy, damp bed-sit, no money, no food, and absolutely no one to turn to. I was about to get turfed out on the street by my creep of a landlord. I was three months behind on rent. Then, eight months ago, Carlos came along. He was a customer in the restaurant I was working in. He always ate alone and always requested me as his server. One evening, he offered to take me for dinner after my shift.”

John shut the drinks cabinet door. “What, like a date? I didn’t see much of him the other night, but he hardly looks your type.”

“I don’t have a type. I’ve never had a boyfriend, and I don’t want one. I only went out with him because I was hungry. It sucks being forced to eat scraps off people’s plates.”

John sat back on the sofa and reached for her feet again. “So how did you end up using your body to get cars for him? Was it just the money or does he have some other kind of hold on you?”

“It started off the money and, of course, a roof over my head.” She pointed to the ceiling above her. “He offered me this place and riches beyond my wildest dreams. Thousands of pounds in one weekend and all for so little effort. A bit of flirting, a bit of flattery, then lay back and pray for it to be over. These days, I get the guys so drunk they pass out before they even get undressed. That way I can help myself to their keys without ever having to get cosy with them. A much better arrangement as far as I’m concerned.”

“Lucky for me I can hold my drink, eh?” John smirked as he lifted his glass to his lips.

Kat ignored him. “It was like a dream come true to begin with, living here, having money. I didn’t even think much about the moral aspect. I just did it to survive. I was more worried about personal safety than getting caught by the law. Going back to strange men’s houses each weekend, I wanted to be able to look after myself if things started to get dicey. You know if I had an oddball to cope with, but karate had been something I’d kept up all through my teenage years. Some busy bee social worker had got me started on it, thought it would keep me out of trouble, so it didn’t take long to brush up my skills.”

“Except you didn’t count on facing someone bigger than you and who could also fight?”

“I always hoped tactic would outwit brawn and muscle.” She scowled, still cross the struggle outside the bathroom hadn’t gone her way. “But even so, in spite of what you think of me using my body for money, I’ve been doing exactly the same as you, surviving, and I’m not going to apologise for that, not to anyone. Surviving is the best I’ve always hoped for.”

John swirled the liquid in his glass. “So why are you still doing it? You must have enough dough by now.”

“I’m in too deep with Carlos. It’s not the sort of job you can just hand in your notice.”

“You think he’ll hurt you—physically?”

“I don’t think. I know. He’s got another apartment downstairs. The girl there disappeared three months ago, and now, someone else has taken her place.”

“You think he’s killed her?”

“I don’t know and I don’t want to. There’s a redhead who comes and goes from there now, and I’ve never seen the blonde again.” Kat paused. “Sometimes I wish I’d never gone to dinner with him and taken him up on his proposition, but at the same time, if I hadn’t gone along with it, goodness knows where I’d be now. Wages and tips weren’t covering the rent, let alone bills. I’d be on the streets. Hell, I’d been only days from that very predicament. It was a scary prospect to be facing, I can tell you.” She leant forward and crinkled her brow in earnest. “Survival. That’s all this life is about, John, and if you can have a few luxuries along the way,” she gestured around the room, “then why not? It makes life an easier pill to swallow, so don’t beat yourself up about it. I don’t.”

“You really don’t see a problem with it do you?” he said, tipping his head and studying her. “Most people would condemn me for what I’ve done, but to you, it’s different.”

“You have to look out for number one, and apart from anything else you feel you’re owed, you gave something up—your leg—and you’re taking something back in return.”

John looked at the London skyline again.

She interrupted his thoughtfulness. “But I will say sorry for kicking your bad knee the other night.”

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