There are many things, she admits now, that Daniel does not understand. Things that are grey, with edges that are undefined, confuse him. He would not understand what had happened today in the department store.
In the newly decorated bedroom of her immaculate suburban home, Helen places the earrings and scarf in the locked trunk with the other shoplifted items. There are hundreds of them now. Many hundreds. She calls them her gifts to the dark gods. She knows that it is the dark gods who turn the wheels of a tricycle and send the toddler screaming into traffic, the dark gods who guide children to falling fences, hidden currents and smiling strangers with death in their black hearts. She cannot afford to stop now, after such a soft, uneventful life. Who knows what vengeance the dark gods might take?
She can't remember exactly when it began. It was soon after Chloe and Nick left for university, when she quit her job at the advertising company. When she became, as Daniel describes her, a lady of leisure.
"We can afford it, sweetheart. Do charity work or something. No need for you to stress out in
advertising."
It started in Marks and Spencer's food hall: she stole a chocolate bar at the counter. A week later she took a magazine. It grew to two items a week. The rules gradually became more complex and demanding. The rule now is: two items a week by Friday at three in the afternoon. The items have to be from the same store, on the same floor, and they have to be different. Two scarves, for example, won't do. Today's items, the pretty scarf, the silly earrings, don't qualify because she has paid for them. The problem now is that she is behind. She is two items behind. And it is already Thursday. Tomorrow then. At the Mall.
"Meet me for lunch tomorrow?" Daniel asks, as they have dinner. "That client we met at the Algarve. John Stanton? He's in town with his wife. "
.....................................
Chapter 4
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