Ruby pushed through the gate.
“You said you'd be here until closing.”
Callum took his hand off the lid.
“I told you I wasn't meeting you.”
“You told me where you were working.”
Tess moved closer to the gate. Mara was still watching from beside the car in the bay.
Ruby came to the counter beside me. Her eyes went straight to the open tin.
“So you brought it.”
“It's going back,” Callum said.
“And my share?”
“There's no sale.”
“Because you want to give it to her and make everything lovely again?”
He glanced at me, then back at Ruby.
“I told you last night. We can't sell it.”
“You keep deciding what I get.”
I moved the tote higher on my shoulder.
“Your hundred and eighty is there,” I said. “You'll have that.”
“I don't need you to tell me what's mine.”
She reached for the watch.
Callum put his hand across hers.
“Don't.”
Her fingers caught the edge of the cloth. The watch shifted but stayed inside the tin.
Ruby pulled her fingers clear. Callum lifted his hand between them to stop her reaching again.
I took the lid from the counter and pressed it down over the watch and cloth. Then I lifted the closed tin and tucked it under my left arm.
“No,” Callum said.
I turned towards the gate. Three steps, perhaps four. Tess was right there on the other side.
He caught my right wrist before I'd taken the first step.
I stopped because his grip pulled me back towards the counter.
“Let go.”
“Just wait.”
His fingers tightened. I could feel each one.
“Callum. Let go of my wrist.”
I said it loudly enough for the people passing on the promenade to hear. A man with a folded beach chair stopped at the gate. Tess was already moving towards us.
“Let her go,” she said.
Ruby looked at his hand, then at the tin under my arm.
For a moment, I thought she would try to take it from me. Her own notes were inside. The money she'd wanted to sell the watch for would be gone if I reached Mara.
Instead, she caught his fingers and pulled at his hand.
“Get off her.”
He loosened his grip, startled, and I pulled my wrist free.
Ruby went past me to the gate and pushed it open. Tess came through at once. She put herself beside me, between me and the counter, without touching him.
Mara called my name from the car.
I went past Ruby. The tin was hard under my arm, and I held it there with my free hand so the catching lid wouldn't come loose. Tess walked beside me.
Behind us, Callum said, “Lena, please.”
I kept walking.
Mara opened the rear car door. I got in and slid across the seat. Tess got in after me.
Mara bent to look at my wrist.
“Did he hurt you?”
“It hurts a bit.”
“Do you need help with it?”
I moved my fingers. They moved normally. I didn't know what I needed beyond the door between us.
“I want to go back.”
“All right.”
She closed the door. Callum had come round the end of the counter into the forecourt. He stopped at the gate while Mara got into the driver's seat.
Ruby stayed beside the gate, her arms hanging by her sides.
Through the window, I saw Callum look at her. She looked away.
Mara started the car.
I put the tin on my lap and pressed both hands against the lid. Tess reached over, palm up, offering to take it.
I shook my head.
“I've got it.”
“Okay.”
She put her hand back in her own lap. I could hear her breathing, a little faster than usual.
We were off the promenade before I let myself look at my wrist again. There were red marks where his fingers had been. I touched one with my thumb and stopped.
“You told him,” Tess said. “He heard you.”
I nodded without looking up.
I had known him as someone who took my hand to warm it. I had just had to tell him to release it in front of strangers.
At Harbour House, Mara came round to open the door for me. I stepped out with the tin held against my chest.
We went straight into her office. She cleared a space on the desk.
“Put it here.”
I did. The boat on the lid faced her.
For the first time since Friday morning, the watch was somewhere I hadn't taken it to make either of them happy.
Mara kept the tin with her and rang to say we had the watch. I could hear her voice as Tess took me towards the stairs.
In my room, I left the empty tote on the bed and sat beside it, holding my hands apart.