She's Out

by La Plante, Lynda

  The women realized just how much thought Dolly had given to the overall plan; how they would drop the money from the bridge, where the horses would be tethered. They were still silent, hardly daring to breathe, let alone question her. They noticed that on some pages there were neat lists of items required, further pages had more odd drawings, and Dolly flipped through them, tapping her pencil on the table. ‘Well, I think that’s nearly all of it. I’ll need to know if we can get one of the speedboats, and if not, we have to find one. We also need a big powerful flashlight positioned here on this jetty. It’ll blind the guards but, most important, we’ll be able to see the live cables, especially Julia as she is in the most dangerous positon of all, right here, up ahead of the train.’ Dolly snapped the book closed and looked at the row of stunned faces. ‘So that’s it.’

  Ester let out a long, drawn-out sigh. ‘It’s even more crazy than I thought possible. It’s not crazy, it’s bloody insane, and no way will Julia ride her horse up on to the tracks.’

  Julia got up and stuffed her hands into her pockets. ‘I’ll speak for myself, Ester.’

  Ester sprang to her feet. ‘But you can’t take this seriously, none of us can, we couldn’t do it.’

  Julia sniffed and put her head to one side. ‘You know how much is on the train?’

  Dolly ripped up the drawings and threw them on the fire. ‘Yes.’

  Gloria’s eyes were on Ester. ‘How much?’

  ‘That copper was useful, he found out for me.’

  Ester said sarcastically, ‘You telling me he knows everything?’

  ‘No, not everything, but I got him, I can trust him.’

  ‘You mean like you did Angela?’ Connie said.

  ‘How bloody much is on the fucking train?’ shouted Gloria.

  ‘And I’ve warned you about swearing,’ Dolly said crossly.

  Gloria fell back in disbelief. ‘Oh, fine. I say a few four-letter words and you get pissed off. At the same time you’re standing there planning how to rob a fucking train.’

  ‘Stop swearing,’ Dolly snapped.

  Gloria hugged her knees, about to get up and slap Dolly as she had warned Ester she would. Ester was standing with her hands clenched so tightly, also trying to stop herself from walloping Dolly.

  ‘How much is on the train?’ Connie asked softly.

  ‘Could be up to forty million, usually between thirty and forty million.’

  You could have heard a pin drop. Dolly looked at their gaping mouths and that smile came again as she said softly, ‘Penny for them?’ None of them could speak so Dolly said she fancied a cup of tea and went to put the kettle on.

  Julia was the first into the kitchen after Dolly. She lolled at the door. ‘Well, that gobsmacked the lot of them. You even stunned Ester into silence.’

  Dolly set down the mugs on a tray and gave a sidelong look at Julia. ‘They sent you in, did they? See if the crazy old cow’s stripping naked and dancing in the full moon?’

  ‘Nope, they’re sort of discussing it.’ Julia drew out a chair. She began to roll up a cigarette. ‘They’re also scared, you know – scared to dismiss it as a no-hope situation and scared to face the fact that it might just work.’

  Dolly rested her hands on the edge of the table, her body inclined towards Julia. She almost whispered, ‘It’s crazy but it’s also brilliant and I know it could work, I know it, Julia.’

  Julia licked the paper, her eyes on Dolly. ‘Yeah, I guess you do know it but it’s also very dangerous. We could all get ourselves killed, just like little Shirley Miller.’

  Dolly froze. Julia watched her eyes narrow, her hands form into tight fists. ‘So what I want to ask you, Dolly, is why? I mean, you could maybe manage this place, get some kind of job, we all could for that matter.’

  She ground out, ‘Money.’

  ‘No other reason?’

  ‘What do you want, a moral one? Well, I don’t have it. With money you can do what you like. Without it in this world you’re nothing, you don’t count.’

  Julia patted her pockets for her matches, the cigarette dangling from her lips. ‘Does it scare you?’

  Dolly turned to the teapot. Behind her Julia struck the match, still keeping her eyes on Dolly’s rigid back.

  ‘Look, Dolly, all I know is you got a lot of contacts for semi-crooked deals, maybe you could do some kiting, bit of this and that, unless you’re trying to emulate your old man. Harry, wasn’t it?’

  Dolly took out the milk from the fridge, crossed back to the tray of mugs. She carefully placed the bottle down on the tray.

  ‘You know, somebody once told me he always worked with ledgers or books, I dunno, but he used to write everything down, like you’ve been doing, and I was just wondering what’s going on in your head, Dolly. You trying to be him, go one better than him? Only I don’t fancy risking my life for some screwed-up reason.’ Dolly lifted the tray and stood poised. ‘I killed him, Julia, I looked straight into his face, into his eyes, and I saw the expression on his face the second before I pulled the trigger. It was a combination of shock, disbelief and, best of all, fear. After doing that, nothing scares me. I’m not like my husband, I’m better, I always was. I was just very clever at always making sure he never knew it. Now, will you open the door and I’ll take the tea in. I’m sure they’ve all got a lot to ask me.’ Julia laughed softly, opening the kitchen door to the hall, standing back for Dolly to pass her.

  She stayed in the kitchen, smoking until the thin reed of a cigarette was down to nothing but a tiny scrap of sodden paper. She then chucked it into the sink and walked out. She needed a line; she was feeling so high and she wanted to get even higher. In the dark old stable, with Helen’s heavy snorting breath, Julia laid out her lines and snorted each one, and then she licked the tiny mirror and started to laugh.

  ‘Oh, man, if my mother could see me now!’

  Chapter 18

  Julia urged Helen of Troy forward. She scouted the area at length but there was no one in sight. They had arranged to have a ride before the stables opened for business, on the condition that Julia led them. It was not the first time that Sandy had allowed the women to ride solo with Julia, and none of them wanted her to see how accomplished they were becoming. They had their ride at six in the morning and after every lesson they returned the horses to the stable yard.

  Julia and Helen of Troy continued checking the area. Their breath hung in the cold air, and not until Julia was truly satisfied that it was all clear did she lift her hand with the stopwatch as a signal to the waiting Ester, who then relayed it to the others.

  The women pushed their horses forward until they formed a line over the brow of a hill, waiting for Julia to join them. Not until she was alongside, stopwatch at the ready, did she give the ‘go’ signal, and they all set off at a gallop. It was not a race against each other but against the stopwatch. Each rider had her own specific job to rehearse and accomplish. They jumped the hedges, split up, paced their positions, reformed and started again. Eight times they timed the ride until exhaustion took over, especially with Dolly. She was gasping and heaving for breath as Julia monitored each one, shouting instructions and orders until it was too dangerous to continue in case they were seen.

  The horses were stabled and the women drove back to the manor. Julia was waiting with the stopwatch. They were still out of breath, faces flushed, shirts dripping with sweat. Julia ticked off Connie for not being in her position on time and angrily told Gloria and Ester she had seen both of them almost come off and if they fell and injured themselves it would finish the whole caper. She didn’t leave Dolly out, admonishing her for holding back too long and delaying by reining in her horse.

  ‘Sorry, I knew I was behind.’ She had to bend over as she had a stitch in her side.

  Not until they had discussed in detail the entire morning’s exercise did they sit down for breakfast, laid out and made ready for them by Angela. Later, Dolly took a boat out with the little girls, rowing across the lake, eating cri
sps and drinking lemonade on the small jetty. The girls had a wonderful time and when they went off to play hide and seek with Angela, Dolly stashed the can of petrol behind the small boathouse. She shaded her eyes to look towards the bridge and saw Julia and Ester sitting on the wall at the end. She then called the girls to get back into the boat as it was time to leave.

  Gloria was out of sight at the far end of the bridge. She had an artist’s drawing book and was sitting up on the walk seemingly intent on sketching, when the train passed in front of her. However, she wasn’t looking at the blank page but counting slowly, pressing the earpiece into her ear, heard by Julia and Ester at the opposite end of the bridge. Connie was the only one left at the house. She was on ‘listening’ duty, recording everything from inside the signal box.

  None of the women discussed the robbery in actual terms, it had become ‘The Job’, and as the days went by, the rehearsals and timekeeping preoccupied them all and relieved any tension; they had plenty of time to coordinate everything that needed to be done.

  There was still one area Dolly had not tackled openly: the stopping of the train itself. It would be done by Julia, on the tracks, with a flashlight, and as she would be wearing Norma’s police cape and hat she would look official. She would hold her position for some time as the train moved over the tracks, giving the driver fair warning that something was amiss. Because the train would be moving slowly, there was no chance of it running into her. The real danger was whether she could hold Helen of Troy steady, standing between the rails side on, with a massive and dangerous high voltage cable beneath her belly.

  Julia had rehearsed the sidestepping move many times. On two occasions Helen had bucked and almost thrown her off. She had not rehearsed on the tracks themselves but on mock-ups she had made from logs, and Helen was getting better all the time. What worried Julia was that when she stopped the train and it paused on the bridge, what would make it stay there? If the driver felt any danger, he might start up the engine and move the train forward. ‘It’s all very well, Dolly, marking out where it’s got to stop, but how do we make sure it stays there while we get the bags out?’

  ‘Semtex.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Dolly was listening to the tapes she had collected from Mike’s house. She was now sure he hadn’t grassed on her. But could he get the explosives? She still didn’t know.

  ‘Semtex,’ Julia repeated.

  ‘Yeah, we’ll blow it on the bridge.’

  ‘Oh, brilliant. And if it’s not a rude question, where the hell are you going to get Semtex from?’

  Dolly continued checking the tapes. ‘I’ll tell you when I’ve got it.’

  Julia shook her head, almost wanting to laugh. ‘Oh, fine. Which one of us is going to be mad enough to use it?’

  Dolly packed the tapes away, annoyed. ‘I’ll let you know that an’ all, but one thing I will tell you is that I’m not prepared to do anything, not one thing, until I’m sure it’ll work.’

  Julia stuck her hands into her pockets. There seemed to be nothing left to say. In any case, Dolly was in one of her moods and it wasn’t worth attempting to have a conversation with her. If anything, she had grown more distant than ever; her mind seemed elsewhere.

  Dolly felt at times as if she was a juggler trying to keep all the plates spinning on the ends of sticks, trying to keep the women calm, trying to eliminate the risk factors. Nothing must be left to chance, and if she needed a few more weeks, months, even, she’d take them. She spent hours with her little black notebook, jotting down things she must remember, crossing out others she had accomplished. Sometimes she sat in the dilapidated conservatory, wrapped in a coat, staring into space as she pictured each section of the heist. Could it work? Would it work? Was she insane? As yet the women weren’t restless and she put that down to fear. Even Ester, of late, had simply got on with the job in hand and was no longer pushing for supremacy. Dolly surmised that would probably come. Ester was sharper than the others, more dangerous, and Dolly suspected she was just biding her time. She monitored each one, watching closely as to how their nerves were holding out. So far so good, but it was still like a game. When it became a reality, they would begin to show their real state of mind.

  A piece was missing from the jigsaw. Dolly knew it, and kept on returning to the bridge, the train and the damned explosives they still had not acquired. This was the most dangerous and most daring section of the entire ‘game’, and without that, it could not commence.

  The missing piece came from an unexpected person. A call came from Mike: he wanted a meeting but not at the manor. Dolly was unnerved by this. Would this be the moment he grassed? Was he wired up? If so, she would have to be too, but she made no mention of the meeting to the women. She travelled by train to London and met Mike in a small café by King’s Cross station.

  Mike was not obviously nervous but a little tense, as he put down two cups of tepid tea. It took him a while before he came to the point, looking around then back to Dolly.

  ‘What do you want, Mike?’

  ‘I’m out. I’ve given in my formal resignation today. It goes without saying they’ve accepted it and that’s thanks to you.’

  Dolly sipped the tepid milky tea with distaste. ‘So what do you want?’

  ‘Obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘Not really. Why don’t you tell me?’

  Mike again glanced around and Dolly leaned closer. At no time did he mention the train, the robbery or anything illegal, simply that he would be interested in helping her out on the business she had inferred she was going into, that he had a contact that might help him get the order she had mentioned.

  Dolly nodded, tapping the edge of the saucer with her spoon. ‘You ever driven a speedboat?’

  Mike tugged at his tie. He waited as she took out her notebook and jotted down three things. That’s what I need.’

  Mike breezed into the house where Susan was vacuuming the hall.

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘What you doing home?’

  He switched off the hoover. ‘Come in. I got something to tell you.’

  Susan followed him into the living room, where he sat on the sofa. ‘I just got fired.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I just got fired. Well, not quite, I handed in my resignation. So that’s it, I’m out of a job.’

  ‘What do you mean, that’s it?’

  ‘I’m out of the Met. They found out about my sister and—’

  Susan sank into a chair. ‘Your sister? What are you talking about? What sister?’

  Mike sighed. ‘You’ve seen her face often enough, the blonde girl in the photo frame at Mum’s.’

  Susan had seen the photo, it was hard not to, and a long time ago she had asked who it was. She’d never been interested enough or, for that matter, spent enough time at Audrey’s, for the photo to make any impression.

  ‘She was my sister.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Mike! What’s this all about?’

  ‘I’m trying to bloody tell you, if you’d just shut up.’

  Susan leaped up. ‘You tell me one second you’re out of the Met, next you’re talking about some sister I’ve hardly ever heard of. How the hell do you expect me to react? What’s she got to do with your job?’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘I know — I know she is. Mike.’

  Susan flopped back in the chair and closed her eyes. She was just about to say something when he continued.

  ‘Shirley was younger than me. I’d already signed up when she was still a teenager. I had a brother in borstal so I wasn’t going to lay it on the line about the antics of my family when I joined the Met. A lot of blokes have some member of their family that’s a bit dodgy and Gregg’s just an idiot. I never had much to do with him, even less than Shirley because he was younger than her.’

  Susan leaned forward. ‘Will you get to the point, Mike? I’m trying to follow all this, honestly I am, but I don’t understand why you’ve brought her up in connection with
your job. She’s dead, isn’t she?’

  Mike put his head in his hands. ‘She was married to a right villain, bloke called Terry Miller. He’d done time for armed robbery, then he was on some job, a big raid on a security van and he … he got burned to death.’

  ‘What? I don’t believe I’m hearing this. If this is some kind of a joke … You said she was killed in a car accident.’

  Mike snapped, ‘Just fucking listen! I don’t know all the ins and outs but after Terry died, Shirley got in with some people and …’ The more he tried to explain, the more insane it all sounded. He was almost in tears. ‘Shirley was shot in an armed raid nine years ago.’

  Susan was stunned into silence. Mike’s face was white as a sheet as he stumbled through the rest of the story: how he hadn’t even returned for her funeral, how he had cut her out of his life and tried for years to cut out his mother too.

  Susan’s mouth went dry. She couldn’t go to him to put her arms around him because she was so confused and close to tears. ‘Is this … this little tart you’ve been seeing all part of it, then? Is that why you’re suddenly telling me all this?’

  ‘No, it isn’t. She’s got nothing to do with it. If you must know it’s Audrey, it’s all down to that stupid bitch my mother. She screwed me up but I’m going to get out of it.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re leaving me and the kids? Is that what this is all about?’

  Mike moved to her side and gripped her arm. ‘Sue, listen to me. I have no intention of leaving you or the kids. I’ve told you that it’s all over between me and Angela, it should never have even started. That was me being fucking stupid and I’m sorry I put you through it. But, Sue, you got to trust me now, really trust me, because I need you. I need you to back me up, not go against me. I want you to do just what I tell you to. It’s very important I have just a few weeks on my own to sort my head out, okay?’