Shirley pulled Harry’s clothes back out of the suitcase and folded each item before putting it into the case, covering the money bit by bit. “What do we do if you get arrested?” she asked quietly from her position on the floor. “Me, Bella and Linda will have no money and no way of getting back home.”
Dolly was suddenly livid. She had been forking out thousands of pounds from the get-go and now all Shirley was thinking of was herself and the other girls. The girls saw her as a Goddamned bank, churning out cash as and when they needed it. What they didn’t realize was that she didn’t have any more money—or, at least, not any she could get her hands on quickly. That suitcase contained everything she had right now. If Dolly did get arrested, they’d all be in huge trouble—but at least they’d be in huge trouble by a swimming pool.
Shirley sniffed pathetically as she continued to pack Harry’s clothes on top of the money. Dolly knew she was frightened and she knew that Shirley, out of all the girls, was the least selfish. She’d never been the one to question where the money was stashed or when they’d get their cuts. Shirley was just scared and needed to know that everything was going to be OK. Dolly spoke kindly.
“I gave Bella and Linda a large sum of money each before they left. That’ll be enough to see them and you through if I do get caught.”
Shirley let out a quiet laugh. “Knowing those two, they’ll have blown the money already.”
“You might be right,” said Dolly. “Look—if I had any money left, darlin’, I’d give it to you, but right now I’m out of hard cash. Why don’t you take a couple of grand out of the money case and stick it in your handbag just in case it all goes wrong? How does that sound?”
Shirley lifted up some of Harry’s clothes and looked at the money in the case. She was conflicted—she knew exactly what Bella and Linda would say if they were here. Then she spoke. “It’s not just your money, Dolly. It belongs to all four of us. Maybe risking losing a hundred thousand isn’t the right thing to do? Maybe we should both just take a couple of thousand in our handbags?”
Dolly held her temper. She could understand Shirley’s concerns, but she wasn’t the brightest thing on two legs. She was prepared to explain this as many times as was necessary while they waited for Audrey to show her face, because Dolly needed Shirley to be bang on her game from this moment forward.
“We’ll need a lot of money, much more than a couple of thousand here and there, because we won’t be coming back to England for quite some time,” Dolly explained. “Not until the heat dies down back here. The more we take out, the safer we’ll be.”
Shirley tightened her lips and continued with the packing. Eventually, she asked Dolly if she’d like a cup of tea or something to eat; she’d had nothing for hours. Dolly didn’t reply, she just crossed to the drinks cabinet, poured herself a brandy and sat down.
“Go and phone your mum again,” said Dolly. “And if she answers, ask her why the hell she hasn’t left her flat yet.”
With Shirley out of the room, Dolly dug her heel into the plush cream carpet and looked round the room. She’d get a good price for the house, not to mention all the furniture and antiques. She twisted her heel, digging it further into the carpet, imagining it was the smashed photo or her and Harry from the bedroom. Then, her leg relaxed and her eyes filled with tears: she could almost feel Wolf snuggled by her feet, his warm body against her ankle. Sadness turned to anger and Dolly made her decision there and then. Everything belonged to her now. If she was playing the part of the grieving widow, she’d tell her lawyers to sell the lot.
She got up, went to Harry’s study and looked in his desk drawer for the deeds to the house, which she then folded up and placed in her handbag. This desk was so tidy, so unused and so . . . sterile. It was beautiful and ornate, but, when it came down to it, it could belong to anyone. There was nothing about this desk that screamed “Harry Rawlins.” No personality, nothing to tell you anything about the man himself. The rest of the house said so much about them as a couple, but, Dolly now realized, this was mainly her doing. She was the one who had filled the house with beautiful things and made it into a home. She was the one whose personality was stamped across every room. Harry Rawlins had left little trace of himself anywhere. He was a mystery. “How can you have been so stupid for so long?” Dolly whispered to herself.
Once again, Dolly was filled with a sense of clarity. She rifled through the small filing cabinet in the corner of Harry’s study and found a copy of his will and his latest bank statements. She put everything into her bag along with the deeds to the house. She was the one and only beneficiary named in Harry’s will and he, on paper, was dead and buried. Once her lawyers had got rid of the house, she’d have all the money transferred to a bank in Rio. She’d make at least a £150,000 on the property alone.
And once she was settled in Rio, she’d stop any unnecessary bank transactions. The first to be canceled would be the monthly rent on Iris Rawlins’s flat in St. Johns Wood! There was no way Dolly was going to continue sending money to a woman she loathed. Iris would have to fend for herself and Dolly rather hoped she would have to sell the flat and go into an old people’s home. The very thought of Iris in a home made Dolly smile. But the thought of Harry finding out that Iris was in a home made her stop smiling. Dolly’s actions today were irreversible. Harry, once he and Iris were both homeless and penniless, would kill Dolly if he ever saw her again.
Dolly’s heart ached for the days when she was happy and when she was ignorant of her husband’s betrayals. Harry had let her believe he was dead, he’d let her mourn and he’d let her bury a stranger—a man she now assumed was Jimmy Nunn. After all, if Harry was shacked up in Trudie’s flat, then Jimmy couldn’t still be on the scene. And that baby . . . Was it Harry’s baby? Dolly screwed up her eyes, trying to squeeze the thought right out of her head. But it wouldn’t go.
Through her tightly closed eyelids, the tears found their way out and rolled down her cheeks. If Harry had simply found the life he truly wanted with another woman and left Dolly, she could have forgiven him. It would have been heart-breaking of course, but she’d have understood because she, too, would have done anything to have a family. But Harry didn’t just leave her for another woman; he’d torn her apart in the process with his lies and deceit and cruelty. How could she ever know what was true and what had been a lie?
Shirley stood by the study door and repeated herself for the third time. Dolly was miles away. “There’s no answer at me mum’s, so she must be on her way.”
Dolly swigged back the brandy. It hit her stomach hard, warming her as she looked at the clock. Almost 3:15 a.m.
Shirley and Dolly went back through to the lounge. Dolly poured herself another brandy and sat opposite Shirley, who told her to go easy as it wouldn’t be a good idea to turn up at the airport pissed. Dolly swung one leg over the other, tapped the carpet with the toe of her shoe, got out a cigarette and lit up.
“Chuck one over, Dolly.” Shirley said.
Dolly threw a cigarette like a dart at Shirley and it landed neatly on her lap. “Wasn’t long ago you hated the stench of smoking,” Dolly remarked.
“We’ve all changed these past months, Dolly. Hard not to.”
The telephone rang and Dolly nearly jumped out of her skin. They both listened, frozen to the spot—one ring, two rings, three rings, four. On and on. “It’ll be Greg,” Shirley said. She answered the phone cautiously at first, but then relaxed; she kept saying “yes” and nodding. Then she put the phone down. “He’s parked my car in the cul-de-sac outside number fifteen; the keys are under the seat. He said don’t forget to give me mum the money for doing it.”
Dolly just dragged on her cigarette and swigged her brandy.
“Seems funny Greg worrying about a hundred quid, considering how much I’m worth now.” Shirley smiled. “How much you reckon, Dolly?”
“You’re worth about two hundred and fifty grand, darlin’. I took off what I laid out for you each so far from my own
pocket, but still. A real tidy sum.” Dolly got up and peered out of the curtains again. “Shit!” she exclaimed. “Eddie’s back.” Shirley joined her at the window and they watched Eddie and Bill standing close to each other and talking in whispers. “Two of them complicates things.”
“Why?” Shirley asked, wide-eyed and vacant.
Dolly turned away from Shirley. Quite how Shirley had got through life so far was baffling, but then she’d always had Terry to look after her. Dolly sat down, lit another cigarette from the stub of the one she had on the go and threw it into the ashtray; her foot was now jerking up and down, twitching all the time.
The two sat in silence, the clock ticking away on the mantel. Shirley watched Dolly out of the corner of her eye. Her lips were moving, as if she was talking to herself. “What are we going to do Dolly? How can we lose two of them?”
“Where in God’s name is your mother?” Dolly was sick of having to have the answers to stupid questions.
Shirley moved to the window again. Bill was sitting on the bonnet of the BMW and Eddie was standing next to him. “What’s to stop them from coming into the house?” Shirley asked. “What’s to stop them looking in the case and finding the money?”
Questions! Always questions! Dolly wanted to scream at Shirley. “Harry! Harry’s stopping them from coming into the house!” Bill and Eddie must be under orders to watch and nothing more, otherwise they’d have come in by now. Course those orders could change in the blink of an eye but, right now, there was a stand-off.
Shirley was winding herself up. “Once they saw that money, they’d want the rest! They’d want it all. I can’t imagine what they’d do to get it.”
“Don’t, then!” Dolly shouted. “Don’t stand there imagining what might happen.” Dolly took a breath. She had to calm Shirley down. “The money’s safe, love. They’ll never find it.”
“But only you know where it is—and if anything happens to you, what then?”
Dolly closed her eyes and looked away from Shirley.
Shirley was getting herself into a state, “Why are they just watching? Why don’t they do something?”
“Calm down.”
“Calm down! How are you so calm? So cold? Stone cold. What aren’t you telling me?” Dolly couldn’t believe that Shirley was choosing this moment to grow a pair of balls and turn into Linda. “Who’s that man with your Harry’s cousin? Another relative?”
“My God,” Dolly exclaimed. “Your brain’s working overtime all of a sudden, ain’t it?”
“Well, you don’t seem scared by the fact that they could burst in here at any moment and kill us both! And that’s because you know they’re not going to, isn’t it? You know. How? You’ve got an arrangement, haven’t you?” It hardly seemed possible, but Dolly’s face was becoming even more stern, her lips narrowing and her jaw twitching. Shirley was on a roll, fueled by fear. “You and Eddie got plans? Did I stop him from getting the money last time, did I? I’m feeling very outnumbered here, Dolly, and I want to know where the rest of the money is, right now!”
Dolly had her arms tightly folded so as not to slap Shirley’s stupid head right off her shoulders. But then Shirley opened her frantic mouth one more time. “If you’ve got Eddie lined up to step into your Harry’s shoes, I want my money first!”
Face twisting with uncontrollable anger, Dolly launched herself forward and slapped Shirley hard across the face. Shirley took it without flinching, and returned the slap so hard Dolly had to step back to stop herself from falling over.
“What I just said about you and Eddie having an arrangement was out of order,” Shirley said. “But I want to know where the money is, Dolly. I want to know for me, for Linda and for Bella.”
Dolly was at breaking point. She’d lost the will to argue or to defend her actions. If it all went wrong, she wanted to be the only one the police could possibly lean on for the money—but right now, she couldn’t give a damn.
“The money’s at the convent,” Dolly said. “There’s a row of new lockers in the kiddies’ playroom. The top four lockers, well out of reach, are covered with nursery rhyme posters. That’s where the money is. Four lockers, four bags, four equal shares. All ready for when it’s safe to come home.” She sat on the sofa and opened her handbag. “I’ve got a key for each of you. When the time comes to collect, just mention my name.” Dolly stood and looked Shirley square in the eyes as she handed her the keys one by one. “Here’s Linda’s key. And Bella’s. And yours.” There was such disappointment in Dolly’s eyes, Shirley didn’t know what to say.
The silence was broken by the doorbell.
“That’ll be Mum,” Shirley whispered.
All they could do now was stick to the plan. They needed each other. Everything else would wait.
Eddie watched the woman, dressed in a tatty coat, boots and headscarf, standing on Dolly’s doorstep. When the door was opened and she was let in, Bill and Eddie looked at each other.
“Maybe it’s the cleaner?” Eddie speculated.
“That’ll be it,” Bill said sarcastically. “My cleaner starts at four in the morning as well. It could be one of the other women who done the robbery. I’m going to go tell Harry.” He got into the BMW and drove off.
Eddie climbed back into the Granada and resumed his watch.
When Shirley and Audrey entered the lounge, Dolly had recovered her composure and was sitting, smiling, with her fourth brandy in her hand.
“You know Mrs. Rawlins, Mum?”
“Lovely home you’ve got,” Audrey said, putting on a posh voice and trying to pretend she’d been inside a house like this before.
“Sit down,” Dolly waved her hand at an armchair. She got out her purse. “Here’s one hundred pounds for your Greg and two hundred for you, for your trouble.”
“Bleedin’ ’ell!” Audrey exclaimed, taking the money. Shirley rolled her eyes at how quickly her mum’s classy facade had slipped.
“What I’d like you to do, Audrey, is drive my Mercedes into London and then go south, through Croydon and onto the A23 toward Gatwick,” Dolly explained as though it was the most natural thing in the world to ask a stranger to do at four o’clock in the morning.
Audrey stared at Dolly, jaw dangling so low she was in danger of dribbling down her coat. “I’m not sure I quite understand—”
“Mum,” Shirley interrupted, dragging on a newly lit cigarette. “Just do as Dolly asks. Please.”
“Since when have you smoked?” Audrey shouted.
“Mum!”
“The other thing is, Audrey,” Dolly continued, getting back on track, “that a man in a Ford Granada will probably follow you. If you could do your best to try and lose him around the Croydon area, that’d be best. Now,” she got to her feet. “Would you excuse me for a moment?”
As Dolly left the room, Audrey leapt to her feet. “What the bleedin’ ’ell’s going on, Shirl? Are you going away with her? How come?”
“Please, Mum. She’s got some heavies after her and I’m helping her out, that’s all.”
“That’s all! That’s all? That’s enough, my girl. She dragging you into trouble, is she? Cos we can leave now . . .”
“No, mum.” Shirley bowed her head, recalling the row she and Dolly had just had. “She’s my friend and I want to go with her.”
Audrey took the cigarette from Shirley and took a huge drag, then puffed the smoke out in a circle as she turned to admire the ornate room. “A Merc!” Audrey laughed. “Bet you didn’t tell her I ain’t passed my test yet.”
When Dolly came back downstairs, she was carrying a designer dress, patent leather shoes and a headscarf of her own. “There’s a cloakroom just by the front door. Go and get changed.”
Bewildered by the request, Audrey did as she was asked for Shirley’s sake. Dolled up—and from behind—Audrey looked surprisingly like Dolly. From the front, she still looked like a market trader, but with Dolly’s headscarf, make-up and sunglasses, the disguise would be good enough to fool Edd
ie.
Audrey’s own coat looked awful and ruined the entire effect, so Dolly went to the hallway closet and returned with the long black mink coat Harry had given her for their eighteenth wedding anniversary. Eddie had been at that party and had commented on how amazing it was. This would definitely fool him.
Dolly held the coat up and Audrey carefully slipped her arms into the sleeves. “Oh, this is lovely,” Audrey said, completely distracted. “Lovely. Ain’t it, Shirl?” Audrey stroked her own arms—the coat felt like silk. She felt like the bee’s knees.
Shirley and Dolly stood back and examined Audrey from top to toe. Although things were still strained between them, they both knew this part of the plan had to go smoothly. If Eddie doubted for a second that Audrey was Dolly, he wouldn’t follow her and they wouldn’t be able to escape.
Dolly’s an odd sort of woman, Audrey thought, very exact, yet edgy. Mind you, Shirley seemed very jumpy too. She couldn’t figure out why her daughter was going away with the much older Dolly Rawlins. Couldn’t figure out how or why they’d be friends or even know each other, really. She knew they had dead husbands in common, but the women themselves had never been pally. Above all, Audrey wondered who was after Dolly and why Shirley was willing to put herself in the firing line. As for Audrey’s part in all of this, she’d have danced naked on the doorstep of the local nick for £200, so driving a Merc about dressed in a mink coat was nothing but a pleasure.
Dolly and Shirley nodded at each other. Audrey was as ready as she’d ever be. Dolly handed Audrey the car keys to the Merc. “You can keep the mink,” she said, then, “Shirley, love,” she went on, “would you grab my dark glasses from the dressing table drawer, please?” When Shirley left the room, Dolly turned back to Audrey. “I need you to do one other little thing for me, please.” She handed Audrey an envelope. Seeing the stupid woman’s eyes light up, she leaned slowly toward her. “I need you to buy a stamp and post this for me. Today.”
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