Ester crossed to the back door. She unlocked it, pushing it open to get the stench of old wine and rotten food out of the kitchen.
“Must have been some party,” Julia mused.
“It was,” Ester said, as she looked at the big black rubbish bags bursting at the seams.
“Surprised the rats haven’t been in here.”
“They have,” Ester said as she spotted the droppings.
She hadn’t realized just how bad the place was. When she and Julia had visited a few weeks earlier, there had been no electricity and they had arrived at dusk. Ester sighed: it had been some party all right. There used to be one every night but she had not been able to see the last one through to the end. She had been arrested along with her girls. She reckoned most of the damage had been done by the few who were left behind or who had come back when they knew she had been sentenced to grab whatever they could. A lot of the rooms looked as if they had been stripped of anything of value.
She had not bothered to come to see the damage before; she knew the bank held the deeds as collateral for her debts. She had dismissed the place from her mind until she got the news that Dolly Rawlins was going to be released. Then she had begun thinking—and thinking fast: just how could she use the old Grange Manor House to her benefit? But only if she could get it ready in time.
Julia strolled to the back door and looked out into the stable yard. The old doors were hanging off their hinges and even more rubbish and rubble had piled up.
Ester began banging open one bedroom door after another. Every room stank of mildew, and most of the beds hadn’t been touched since the occupants had rolled out of them. In a few rooms clothes and dirty underwear lay discarded on the floor.
Julia started to walk up the old wide staircase, when Ester appeared at the top. “Go and get the cases.”
“You’re not serious, are you, Ester? This is madness.”
“No, it isn’t. I’ve already laid out cash for a bloody Roller and a chauffeur. There are caterers, florists . . . so we’ll just have to get stuck in while we wait for the others to give us a hand.”
Julia sat on the stairs and began to roll a cigarette. “So, you gonna tell me who you’ve invited to this celebration?”
Ester looked down at her. Sometimes she wanted to slap her—she could be so laid-back.
“You don’t know them all. There’s Connie Stevens, Kathleen O’Reilly, and I’ve asked that little black girl, Angela, to act as a maid.”
Julia laughed. “She’s gonna be wearing a pinny and a little hat, is she?”
Ester pursed her lips. “Don’t start with the sarcasm. We need them, and they all knew Dolly.”
Julia looked up at her. “They all inside with her like us?”
“Not Angela, but the others. And I don’t want you to start yelling—but Gloria Radford’s coming.”
Julia stood up. “You joking?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Well, count me out. I can’t stand that demented cow. I spent two years in a cell with her and I’m not going to spend any more time with her if I can help it. What the hell did you rope her into it for?”
“Because we might need her, and she knows Dolly.”
Julia turned and began to march down the stairs in a fury. “She reads aloud from the newspapers, she drove me crazy, I nearly killed her. I’m out of here.”
“Fine, you go. I don’t give a shit, but it’s a long walk to the station.”
Julia looked up. “Gloria Radford on board and this is a fiasco before we even start. She’s cheap, she’s coarse, she’s got the mental age of a ten-year-old.”
“What makes you so special, Doctor? We needed as many of us as I could get, Julia, especially ones that were as desperate as us. Now, are you staying or are you going?”
Julia lit her roll-up and shrugged. “I’m leaving.”
Ester moved down the stairs. “Fine, you fuck off, then, and don’t think you’ll get a cut of anything I get. You walk out now, and I’ll never see you again. I mean it, we’re through.”
Julia hesitated, looked back at Ester standing at the top of the stairs. Her face, her dark eyes, now blazing with anger, made her heart jump. Despite everything she’d said, she knew she’d be staying. She couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing or touching Ester again.
She dropped her roll-up and ground it into the floor with her boot. “I’ll get the cases but just don’t ask me to be nice to that midget.”
Ester smiled, and headed back to the bedroom. “The only person you’ve got to be nice to is Dolly Rawlins.”
Julia got to the front door. “What if she doesn’t come, Ester? Ester?”
Ester reappeared, leaning on the banister rail. “Oh, she’ll come, Julia, I know it. She’ll be here. She’s got nobody else.”
Julia gave a small nod and walked out to the car. She began to collect all the cases and bin liners, then paused a moment as she looked over the grounds. There was a sweet peacefulness to the place. She was suddenly reminded of her childhood, of the garden at her old family home. She had been given her own pony and suddenly she remembered cantering across the fields. She had been happy then . . . it seemed a lifetime ago.
The bedroom Ester chose for Dolly was spacious, with a double bed and white dressing table. Even though the carpet was stained, the curtains didn’t look too bad, and with a good polish and hoover, a few bowls of flowers, it would be good enough. After all, she had spent the last eight years in a cell. This would be like a palace in comparison.
Julia appeared at the door. “You know, we could call the local job center if they’ve got one here, get a bunch of kids to start helping us. What do you think?”
Ester was dragging off the dirty bedlinen. “Go and call them. We’ll have to pay them, though. How are you off for cash?”
“I’ve got a few quid.”
Ester suddenly gave a beaming smile. “We’ll be rich soon, Julia. We’ll never have to scrabble around for another cent.”
“You hope.”
“Why are you always so negative? I know she’s got those diamonds, I know it . . .”
“Maybe she has, maybe she hasn’t. And maybe, just maybe, she won’t want us to have a cut of them.”
Ester gathered the dirty sheets in her arms. “There’ll be no maybes. I’ve worked over more people than you’ve had hot dinners, and I’ll work her over. I promise you, we’ll get to those diamonds, two million quid’s worth, Julia. Just thinking about it gives me an orgasm.”
Julia laughed. “I’ll go call a job center. This our bedroom, is it?”
“No, this one’s for Dolly.”
Ester patted the bed, then sat down and smiled, thinking of how rich she was going to be.
Mike Withey looked over the newspaper cuttings. They were yellow with age, some torn from constantly being unfolded, and one had a picture of Shirley Miller, Mike’s sister. It was a photograph from some job she had done as a model, posed and airbrushed. The same photograph was in a big silver frame on the sideboard, this time in color. Blonde hair, wide blue eyes that always appeared to follow you around the room, as if she was trying to tell you something. She had been twenty-one years old when she had been shot, and even now Mike was still unable to believe that his little blue-eyed sweetheart sister had been involved in a robbery. He had been stationed in Germany when he received the hysterical call from his mother, Audrey. It had been hard to make out what she was saying, as she alternated between sobs and rantings, but there was one name he would never forget, one sentence. “It was Dolly Rawlins, it was her, it was all her fault.”
The following year Mike married Susan, the daughter of a sergeant major. His mother was not invited to the wedding. Their first son was born before he left Germany and his second child was on the way when he was given a posting to Ireland. By this stage he was a sergeant, but he didn’t tell Audrey about his promotion. Susan was worried about him being stationed in Ireland and since she was heavily pregnant with a toddler to lo
ok after and all her friends were in Germany, she persuaded Mike to quit the Army. He was reluctant at first, having signed up at seventeen: it was the only life he knew. It had been his salvation, it had educated him and, most importantly, given him a direction and discipline lacking in his own home.
Mike’s second son was born on the day he found out that he had been accepted by the Metropolitan Police, and with an excellent recommendation from his CO, it was felt that Mike Withey was a recruit worth keeping an eye on. He proved them right: he was intelligent, hard-working, intuitive and well liked. Mike became a “high-flyer,” never missing an opportunity to further his career prospects. No sooner was a new course pinned up on the board than he would be the first to apply. It was the many courses, the weekends away at special training colleges that made Susan, now coping with two toddlers, suggest that Mike should contact his mother again, not just for company but because she hoped Audrey could give her a hand or even babysit. Mike’s refusal resulted in a big argument. Susie felt his boys had a right to know their grandmother as her own parents were still in Germany.
Mike took a few more weeks to mull it over. He supposed he could have been honest with Susan about his younger brother Gregg, who had been in trouble with the law, but he didn’t want her knowing that his sister was Shirley Ann Miller, killed in an abortive robbery. It had been easy for him to conceal it because they all had different fathers, different surnames, though he was unsure if his mother had actually ever been married.
Audrey was working on the fruit and veg stall when Mike turned up as a customer, asking for a pound of Granny Smiths. She was just as he remembered her, all wrapped up, fur-lined boots, headscarf, woolen mittens with their fingers cut off.
“Well, hello, stranger. You want three or four? If it’s four it’ll be over the pound.” She took each apple, dropping it into the open brown-paper bag, trying not to cry, not to show Mike how desperately pleased she was to see him. She wanted to shout out to the other stallholders, “This is my son. I told yer he’d come back, didn’t I?” but she had always been a tough one, and never showed her feelings. It had taken years of practice—but get kicked hard enough and in the end it comes naturally. She didn’t even touch his hand, just twisted the paper bag at the corners. “There you go, love. Fancy a cuppa, do you?”
He had not expected to feel so much, to hurt inside so much as he followed her into the same council flat in which he had been brought up. No recriminations, no questions, talking nineteen to the dozen about people she thought he might remember: who had died on the market stalls, who had got married, who had been banged up. She never stopped talking as she chucked off her coat, kicked off the boots and busied herself making tea.
She still chattered on, shouting to him from the kitchen, as he saw all his postcards, the photo of his wedding, his boys, laid out on top of the mantelshelf, pinned into the sides of the fake gilt mirror. There had been a few changes: new furniture, curtains, wallpaper and some awful pictures from one of the stalls.
“Gregg’s doin’ a stint on one of the oil rigs,” Audrey shouted. “He’s trying to go on the straight an’ narrow, there’s a postcard from him on the mantel.”
Mike picked up the card of two kittens in a basket and turned it over. His brother’s childish scrawl said he was having a great time and earning a fortune, saving up for a motorbike. The postmark was dated more than eight months ago. He replaced the card and stared at himself in the mirror. It was then that he saw her. The thick silver frame, placed in the center of the sideboard, a small posy of flowers in a tiny vase in front of it. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. It was one of the pictures taken when she was trying to be a model, very glamorous. Shirley’s smile went straight to his heart.
“It’s her birthday tomorrow,” said Audrey, “and you’ve not seen her grave.”
“I’m on duty tomorrow, Mum.”
She held on to his hand. “We can go now.”
Audrey hung on to his arm. It was dusk, the graveyard empty. Shirley was buried alongside her husband Terry Miller. The white stone was plain and simple, but the ornate flowers in a green vase were still fresh. “Tomorrow she’ll have a bouquet. They do it up for me on the flower stall, never charge me neither.” Her voice was soft as she stared at the headstone. “She came to me straight after it had happened.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
She remained focused on her daughter’s name. “That bitch—that bitch Dolly Rawlins came to see me and I’ve never forgiven myself for letting her take me in her arms.”
“We should go, Mum.”
She turned on him, hands clenched at her sides. “She was behind that robbery, she organized the whole thing. They never got the diamonds . . .”
Mike stepped forward, not wanting to hear any more, but there was no stopping her. “No, you listen. That bitch held me in her arms and I let her, let her use me just like she used my Shirley. She had them, she had the bloody things.”
“What?”
“The diamonds! She had them—got me to—she got me to give ’em to a fence, said she would see I was looked after, see I’d never want for anythin’.”
Mike’s heart began to thud. He was unable to comprehend what he was hearing, as Audrey’s voice became twisted with bitterness. “I did it, I bloody did it. She got me so I couldn’t say nothin’, couldn’t do anything, and then . . . she fuckin’ shot her husband.”
Mike took her to a pub, gave her a brandy, and watched as she chain-smoked one cigarette after another. “No mention of the diamonds at her trial—they never had any evidence that put her in the frame. She got done for manslaughter.”
Mike was sweating. “You ever tell anybody what you did?”
“What you think?” she snapped back at him. “She got me involved, didn’t she? I could have been done for fencin’ them, helpin’ her. No, I never told anybody.”
“Did you get paid?”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “No. Payday is when the bitch comes out. Bitch thinks she’s gonna walk out to a fortune.”
Mike gripped Audrey’s hand. “Listen to me! Look at me! You know what I am. You know what it means for you to tell me all this?”
Audrey lit another cigarette. “What you gonna do, Mike, arrest your own mother?”
He ran his fingers through his hair; he could feel the sweat trickling down from his armpits. “You got to promise me you will never, never tell a soul about those diamonds. You got to swear on my kids’ lives. You don’t touch them—don’t even think about them.”
“She’ll be out one day. Then what?”
Mike licked his lips.
“She as good as killed Shirley,” Audrey continued. “I had to identify her, watch them pull the sheet down from her face.”
“Stop it! Look, I promise I’ll take care of you. You won’t need any more dough—but I’m asking you, Mum, don’t screw it up for me, please.”
She stared at him, then leaned forward and touched his blond hair—the same texture, same color as Shirley’s. “I’ll make a deal with you, love. If you make that bitch pay for what she done to my baby, you get her locked up—”
“Mum, she is away, she’s in the nick right now.”
Audrey prodded his hand with her finger. “But when she comes out she’ll be rich and free. I don’t care about the money, all I want is . . .”
Audrey never said the word “revenge” but it hung in the air between them. So Mike made a promise. It felt empty to him but he had no option. He promised that, when Dolly Rawlins came out of Holloway, he would get her back for her part in the diamond robbery.
Five years later, the promise came back to haunt him, because his mother had never forgotten it. She called him and asked him to come round. As if unconcerned, Audrey was tut-tutting over some character’s downfall on the TV, then offhandedly suggested he look in the left-hand drawer of the side table. Every single newspaper article about the diamond robbery was there, along with calendars with dates marked one
year, two years, three years in thick red-tipped pen. He flicked through the news-clippings and his eye was drawn to a photograph, taken at some West End nightclub. He had never seen Dolly Rawlins, wouldn’t know her if he was to come face to face with her in the street, but he instantly knew which one she was: she had to be the blonde, hard-faced woman sitting at the center of the large round table. She had a champagne glass in her hand, a half-smile on her face, but there was something about her eyes: unsmiling, hard, cold eyes . . . The handsome man seated next to her had an almost angry expression, as if annoyed by the intrusion of the photographer. Mike recognized his brother-in-law, dead before Shirley. Terry Miller had always looked like he never had a care in the world: his wide smile was relaxed, one arm resting along the cushioned booth seat as if protecting his pretty, innocent, child-like wife. Shirley Miller.
The TV was turned off and Audrey turned to Mike. She was crying, clutching a sodden tissue in her hand. She pointed to the photo of Dorothy Rawlins. “You never seen her, have you, love?”
Beneath her picture was a smaller one with the heading: “Gangland Boss Murdered by his Wife.” Harry Rawlins had been a handsome, elegant, if cruel-faced man, and his picture made him look like a movie star. Dolly’s hard gaze made them seem an unlikely couple but they had been married twenty years none the less. Harry Rawlins was one of the most notorious gangsters in London, a man who had never been caught, never spent a day behind bars, and yet had been questioned by the police so many times he was a familiar face to most of the Met officers. He had lived a charmed life until his wife shot him. The newspaper article stated that Dorothy Rawlins had shot and killed her husband when she had discovered that he had a mistress and a child. There was no mention that he had planned a robbery in which Shirley Miller’s husband had been burned to death. They had nicknamed Dolly the “Black Widow” because throughout her trial she had always been dressed in black.
Audrey prodded Dolly’s face in the paper. “Nine years. Nine years. Well, she’ll be out any day now,” she said, wiping her eyes.
Audrey had never told Mike that she had been pregnant when Dolly had come to see her and had lost the baby. She blamed that on Dolly Rawlins as well. Dolly had not sat down but stood in the small hallway, her head slightly bowed, her voice a low whisper. “I’m sorry about Shirley. I am deeply sorry for Shirley.”
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