She's Out

by La Plante, Lynda

  Angela sobbed that she had to talk to Mike, it was urgent, and there was something in her terrified voice that made Susan not put down the receiver. She didn’t know where Mike was, but she paused. ‘What’s your name? Do you have a number he can contact you on? Hello? Hello? Who is this?’

  ‘It’s Angela, it’s—’ Susan couldn’t make out what else was said because of the sobbing, and then the phone went dead. She called the office and they said he was out. She called her motherin-law. Audrey answered.

  ‘Is Mike there, Mum?’

  ‘No, love, I’m waiting for him to call. Did he tell you? I’m going to Spain, I’m just waiting for my passport.’

  Susan asked Audrey to get Mike to phone her straight away if he happened to call.

  ‘Are you all right, Susan?’ Audrey asked, concerned.

  ‘No, Mum, I’m not. If I ask you something, will you be honest? I mean it, Audrey, I don’t want you to lie to me.’

  ‘I won’t, love.’ Audrey had never heard Susan so agitated.

  ‘I think Mike is seeing someone else. I’m getting hysterical phone calls and then sometimes they just put the receiver down on me.’

  ‘Oh, Mike wouldn’t, love, it’ll be somethin’ to do with his work, he wouldn’t carry on.’

  Susan clutched the receiver tighter. ‘You ever heard him mention a girl called Angela?’

  Audrey sighed because she had. In fact, he’d called an Angela a couple of times from her flat. When she asked about her, he had said she was a kid he was trying to help out. Maybe he’d been doing a bit more than helping her out. ‘I’ll talk to him, don’t you worry about it. I’ll find out. But I think you’ve got it wrong – he wouldn’t, not Mike. I’ve got to go now, love, don’t you worry.’

  Audrey could hear Susan crying and then the phone cut off. She replaced the receiver, feeling a bit guilty, but there were more important things on her mind. She looked at the clock: it was almost five. She crossed her fingers. Dolly Rawlins should have been arrested by now. She went back to her packing, half an ear listening for the phone, selecting her clothes for the trip to Spain. The face of her dead daughter stared back from the picture frame. Shirley Miller looked on with that sweet, vague smile.

  The women were huddled in the kitchen as Gloria told her side of it, then Ester hers. Julia said nothing. Kathleen looked glum and Connie wanted to cry. She said, ‘So, there’s no diamonds?’

  Ester gave a slow, burning stare. ‘That’s fucking bright of you to fathom out, Connie. What the hell do you think we’ve been talking about, Smarties?’

  Mr Arthur Crow, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, looked over Dolly Rawlins’s forms and listened intently to her answers. She seemed nervous but that was only to be expected. She described the manor and her intentions, how many staff she felt would be required to run it, how many children she could easily accommodate. That section was impressive: she was concise and to the point, saying the grounds were ample, there were stables and a swimming pool but truthfully that the house was in a poor state of repair. That was why she had pressed Mrs Tilly for an on-site visit as she wished to make the house suitable for children and therefore any structural work required by the social services she would carry out, but did not want to go to unnecessary expense. She had costed the rebuilding and was able to give estimates and overall costs of running the home. No one there could have queried her good common sense. They now turned to her criminal record and she made it clear what her crime was, how many years she had been sentenced to, and, as she had been sentenced for murder, that she would be on licence for the rest of her life. She said quietly that she had never been involved in any criminal activity before the shooting of her husband and that it had been at a time when she was emotionally unstable because she had at first been told he was dead, then had discovered he was alive and living with another woman who had his child. She spoke candidly about the therapy sessions she had been given at Holloway and that she had required no therapy for the past five and a half years.

  ‘I found great solace in working with the young female offenders, especially in the maternity section of the prison. I developed an interest in working in the group-therapy sessions for the inmates and became a trusty, working with probation officers and therapists, not as a patient.’

  Deirdre gave Dolly small encouraging nods and Mrs Tilly was a constant source of encouragement. The men were offhand and cool, showing much more restraint.

  ‘You have no children of your own, no near relative with young children?’

  ‘No, I have not.’ Dolly looked directly at a ruddy-faced man, who had made copious notes throughout.

  ‘You have specifically requested young children.’ It was the stern-faced Arthur Crow’s turn; his thin wispy hair hung in a strand across his bald head.

  ‘If that were possible, but I would hope for any child, or children, and having so much space and accommodation, if there were children that came from the same family and were to be separated, then I would accept any age, male or female.’

  Dolly was asked further questions about whether she would be prepared to work with a foster carer and resident home advisory officers, and she agreed to be available and prepared to do anything the board suggested that would enable her to open the manor as a home.

  ‘Mrs Rawlins, how are you at this present moment financing the running of the Grange?’

  Dolly explained that she had a considerable private income that had enabled her to purchase the manor.

  ‘Do you know the previous owner?’ It was slipped in fast.

  ‘No, I do not. I believe her name was Ester Freeman and the place had a very bad reputation. Perhaps that is why I think, and my lawyers feel, I paid a fair price for such a substantial property. At some time in the future I hope I can be self-sufficient as there is a large orchard and a considerable amount of good fertile soil for growing vegetables.’

  Eventually, after over an hour and a half of questions and answers with Dolly maintaining her composure, she was asked if she would allow a visit within the next few days to assess the property. She agreed and stated that they were free to come at any time – in fact, the sooner the better. Mr Crow ended the meeting by saying that everything she had said would be assessed and obviously her past checked into in some detail. They thanked her for her honesty and wished her every success.

  She walked out confidently, and was further gratified by Mrs Tilly’s light touch on her arm as she left. ‘Thank you so much for coming in to see us at such short notice, and we apologize for keeping you waiting.’

  Dolly returned to the manor by taxi. At the level crossing they were held up for almost ten minutes. The cab driver shook his head and turned to the back seat. ‘Sorry about this, it’s the mail train. Holds us up for sometimes ten, twelve minutes. One night it was fifteen.’ The gates opened, and they drove on down the narrow country lane back to the manor.

  Dolly breezed in, all smiles, trailed by a downcast Angela. ‘Well, it went very well. I feel positive and they’re gonna assess everything then come and look over the house.’ She shut the back door and tossed her handbag on to the table. ‘I don’t know about anyone else but I’m starving. Who’s on the dinner tonight?’

  Ester stared at her in disbelief. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say? I’m glad everything went well for you!’

  The police cars moved silently up the driveway, two officers from Thames Valley in front, followed by DCI Craigh, accompanied by DC Mike Withey and one uniformed driver. Craigh was first out. He walked up the manor steps, sidestepping the sacks of cement, and waited as the local police moved around to the back yard to enter from there. Then he radioed in that he was about to enter.

  He gave one soft knock and murmured it was the police and that they had a warrant to search the premises. He then stepped back as the locals banged on the door. They didn’t need much force as it was only on the latch, and they burst into the hallway, Craigh holding up the warrant.

  ‘We have a warrant to search
the premises. This is the police.’

  Kathleen ran up the stairs, on to the first landing and legged it out on to a low roof at the back and stayed there. The other women ran this way and that, only Dolly remaining unflustered as she picked up the kettle to put it on the stove. Angela cringed back, crying, terrified that they had come to arrest her for the hit-and-run.

  Seeing Angela in such a state was the only time Dolly worried. ‘Angela, keep your mouth shut, you don’t say one word. Just give them your name, nothing more, understand me?’

  Gloria was clasping the back of the chair. She grabbed at Ester. ‘What the fuck do we do?’

  Ester shrugged her away. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing here.’

  Gloria was almost passing out. ‘Yes, there is. We put the bloody things in the cellar. Eddie’s guns are in the cellar.’

  Ester froze, but could say nothing as they were surrounded by police and herded into the drawing room.

  Craigh looked at Dolly as she calmly opened a tea caddy. ‘I am Detective Chief Inspector Craigh.’

  Dolly smiled. ‘Dorothy Rawlins.’ She held out her hand for him to shake.

  ‘Do you mind if I talk to you first? Do you want to see the warrant?’

  ‘Of course. I’d also like to know what this is about.’

  Craigh passed her the warrant and watched her study it. He looked into the hallway to Mike. ‘I’ll take Mrs Rawlins’s statement first, then the others. Get their names, addresses, you know the deal.’

  He looked back at Dolly. ‘My men will begin searching the entire house and outbuildings.’

  She nodded, seemingly still intent on reading the warrant. He waited patiently.

  The women wandered around the drawing room; Gloria was now crying and Angela hadn’t stopped, but it was Julia who asked in a furious whisper what the hell they were getting so upset about.

  ‘There’s an arsenal of weapons down in the sauna, Gloria’s husband’s guns, three bags full of them.’

  Ester sat down, her face drawn in fury. Julia looked at Gloria, stunned. ‘Are you serious?’ But she knew she was because she had never seen Gloria so scared. Before she could say a word, Mike Withey walked in.

  ‘I’ll need all your names, dates of birth, present and past addresses.’

  Behind Mike, the women could see the officers searching, moving up the stairs, some heading down to the cellar. They remained silent, all of them waiting with trepidation for the police to find the weapons.

  Chapter 8

  Craigh sat with his notebook open as Dolly drank a cup of tea, never offering him one. She had agreed that she knew James ‘Jimmy’ Donaldson immediately, and seemed shocked when told he was dead.

  ‘Dead? But he can’t be. I only spoke to him yesterday. I met up with him a few days ago.’ She sat sighing, asking how it had happened.

  ‘Would you mind telling why you met Mr Donaldson?’

  ‘Er, no, no, I don’t mind. You see, he was keeping something for me. I’ve been in prison, you see, and, oh, this is a shock …’

  Craigh tapped his pen on the table. ‘What was he holding for you, Mrs Rawlins?’

  ‘Well, they were nothing to look at, really. You wouldn’t even think they were valuable, but they are, they’re worth a lot of money.’

  He leaned close. ‘What exactly, Mrs Rawlins?’

  ‘They used to be in my front garden at Totteridge, gnomes, two Victorian garden gnomes. Not the bright plastic things but old carved stone ones. Jimmy Donaldson was holding them for me until I got out. I called him about them, asked him if he still had them and told him I was going to collect them today, as a matter of fact.’

  Craigh wrote down every word, gritting his teeth. ‘Did you collect them from Mr Donaldson?’

  ‘I couldn’t get away because I had a very important meeting at the town hall.’

  ‘What time?’

  Dolly slowly repeated that she was at the town hall from three fifteen until after five – in fact up to shortly before they had arrived: she had been there for an assessment interview.

  ‘Can anyone verify that, Mrs Rawlins?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Craigh dug the pen in deeply as he wrote one name after the other. He had a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had been well and truly stitched up.

  The officers searched every room, lifted the floorboards, opened cupboards and cases. They went into the attic, they were out in the stables. Kathleen remained stuck on the roof, half hidden by the gables, and didn’t move a muscle. They searched the grounds, the swimming pool and the cellars for eight hours, with fifteen men.

  Kathleen inched back to the room from which she had escaped and fell asleep under the bed. The police were now concentrating on the sauna and steam room and the lockers. The women waited, expecting any moment the scream to go up but it never came. They smelt bacon being cooked and, to their amazement, Dolly walked in with a tray of bacon butties. Gloria was about to blurt out to Dolly that they were in trouble but Dolly shoved a sandwich into her hand. ‘Eat it and say nothing.’

  Gloria rammed the sandwich into her mouth and sat down.

  Craigh was looking over the sauna when Mike joined him. ‘They’re searching the grounds now but so far nothing.’

  Craigh felt knackered and, even worse, foolish. ‘We’ve fuckin’ been had, you know that, don’t you? She’s got about eight or nine names as alibis. She was at the ruddy social services.’

  Mike didn’t know whether this was good news or bad but he was as tired out as Craigh.

  ‘This all stinks, you know that, don’t you?’ Craigh paced up and down, then jerked his head for Mike to come close. ‘The Super’s gonna have a seizure about the whole cock-up – Donaldson was in our custody.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mike muttered.

  ‘You’re sorry. Jesus Christ, sorry? Have you any idea what a mess we’re in? Donaldson dead, no sign of the diamonds …’ Craigh hesitated and then licked his lips. ‘Look, until we’ve sorted this, keep schtum about those stones. I never put it in the record sheets so maybe we can—’

  ‘Fine by me,’ Mike said quickly.

  Craigh stared at him. ‘Nothing’s fine, Mike son. We have big problems and we’ve got to sort them.’

  Mike nodded, his brain ticking away. He thanked God nothing had been found as it let him off the hook, but all he could do was look as glum as Craigh obviously felt.

  Dolly watched the London mob, as she referred to Craigh and Withey, leaving, then let the curtain fall back into place. She yawned and said she was going to bed.

  ‘Sleep? You can sleep, can you?’ Ester said.

  ‘Not easily, but I need to do a lot of thinking.’

  Gloria was pulling at a piece of sodden tissue. ‘Did you move them, Dolly? Did you?’

  She turned her face, hard. ‘What the hell do you think, you stupid idiot? Of course I bloody moved them – and thank God I did or we’d all have been arrested. I’ve been waiting for you to talk about them. I saw you and Ester carrying them into the house.’

  ‘I got nothing to do with them,’ interrupted Ester.

  ‘But you bloody knew they was in the house.’

  Ester turned away. It was always the same: instead of being grateful to Dolly, she said nothing, whereas Gloria would have kissed her feet. But none of them was prepared for Dolly’s next admission, dropping the line in quietly, with that smile of hers on her face. ‘I also got the diamonds but I’m not talking about them yet. Like I said, I need to sleep, get my head straight.’

  ‘You got them?’ Ester said in wonder.

  ‘Yes, Ester, I got them but they’re not here. What is here smells, because someone had to tip them off. Somebody here’s grassing on me – one of you. One of you hates me enough to get me put back inside and I’m going to find out which one of you it is.’

  She walked out, slamming the door, and they stood there in mute silence, not believing what they had heard her say, hardly daring to believe they still had a c
hance of a cut of the diamonds. Then Gloria said, ‘Grassin’? What she friggin’ talkin’ about? None of us’d do it, I mean, we want them diamonds as much as she does. She’s nuts if she thinks it’s one of us! None of us’d do it.’

  Angela started to cry again and Julia looked at her angrily. ‘Oh shut up howling, Angela. You’re a pain in the arse.’

  Angela ran out of the room, bumping into Kathleen, who was creeping down the stairs as the last of the Thames Valley police drove away. She walked into the drawing room and they all turned on her.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’

  Dolly hunched the pillow up beneath her shoulders. She couldn’t sleep. She stared at a stain on the wall, wondering. Who would hate her enough to want to put her back inside? Because that’s what it came down to. If she’d been picked up with the diamonds, virtually holding Donaldson’s hand, the cops would have got her. Even if they couldn’t pin the old robbery on her, they’d have her for fencing the stolen diamonds. Either way, with her out on licence, she’d have been back in a cell and with no hope of bail. Was it just that dirty little conman, Jimmy? If it was, then he’d got his just deserts but something inside her said there had to be more to it than that. Harry had taught her, ‘Always remember, sweetheart, it takes two to tango. One leads, the other follows.’ So who was in with that rat Jimmy Donaldson? If it was one of the women she would find out and God help them.

  Dolly left the house and drove straight to the town hall. She hurried into the ladies’ and found the pouch bag exactly where she had left it. She kissed it with relief. She then got down, straightened her skirt and slipped out, bumping into a surprised Mrs Tilly in the corridor. ‘Mrs Rawlins?’

  ‘I was just passing. I know there’s no possibility of you having any answers for me yet but I just wanted to ask you how I did. Was I all right?’

  ‘Yes, you were. I thought you handled yourself very well but it’ll be some time before we have any definite news. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.’

  ‘Thank you. I really appreciate all your help.’