She's Out (16 page)

Angela scuttled out, and Dolly, taking a deep breath, walked back into the kitchen. The room fell silent.

Angela uncorked the wine as Dolly sat waiting, her hands clenched over her handbag. As soon as the wine was poured, Ester lifted her glass. ‘Well, here’s to the Grange Foster
Home.’ Echoing her, they sipped the wine. Dolly took only a small mouthful before she replaced the glass.

‘Isn’t it about time you all cut the pretence and came clean?’

‘About what, Dolly? Ester asked innocendy.

‘Why you’re all here,’ Dolly replied calmly.

Again they looked at Ester to take the lead. She smiled sweetly. ‘You know why. We were all at a bit of a loose end and thought it would be nice, you know, to have a little welcome-out
party, that’s all. As it turned out, you got this place.’

‘Off your hands,’ said Dolly.

‘Well, if you want to put it that way.’

Dolly opened her bag slowly. ‘Well, maybe I will be able to open up but that isn’t what you all bargained for.’

‘I don’t know what you mean, Dolly,’ Gloria said.

‘Don’t you?’ Dolly threw the newspaper cuttings on to the table. ‘Not too clever leaving them lying around, was it? That’s why you’re all here. That’s
what you’re all after, isn’t it?’

‘The diamonds?’ Connie asked, and received a kick under the table from Ester.

‘Yes. The bloody diamonds.’ Dolly rarely, if ever, swore.

Mike drew up outside Jimmy Donaldson’s run-down antique shop. The lights were on and a patrol car was parked outside. He patted his pocket, felt the pouch bag, and then
walked into the shop.

Arc-lights were turned on and three uniformed officers were strip-searching the place. It was a tough job as furniture, junk and bric-à-brac were crowded into every inch of the shop
space. An officer looked up at Mike as he entered. ‘There’s another floor even more stuffed than down here, plus a backyard crammed full, and an outside lav.’

‘You not found them, then?’ Mike asked innocently.

‘No. According to Donaldson, they were hidden behind a wall. Well, we’ve nearly had the place come down on us, we’ve chipped away at so many bricks, but we’ve come to the
conclusion he’s playing silly buggers.’

Mike eased his way round a Victorian washstand. ‘Well, carry on. I was just passing so I’ll give you a hand for an hour or so.’

The officer nodded. ‘You want a cup of tea? We’re about to brew up out back.’

‘Yeah, milk, one sugar.’

Left alone, Mike looked round the shop. He could see the wall where they had been removing bricks and he inched towards it. He had to be fast as the men were within yards of him. He pulled back
two bricks and stuffed in the pouch, then rammed the bricks back into place. When the officer returned with two mugs of tea, Mike was standing by the opposite wall. He was inspecting the brickwork.
‘Go over every inch of all the walls again. Donaldson is still insisting it’s behind the brickwork.’

Mike stayed for another half-hour, helping move furniture around but keeping well away from where he had stashed the pouch, concentrating on the opposite wall. As he left, he suggested they stay
at it.

He got home after eleven. His wife was already in bed and when he got in beside her, she didn’t move.

‘You awake?’

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry I’m so late. It’s this bloke we brought out of the nick, taking up a lot of extra time.’

‘Phone call for you.’

‘Oh yeah, who?’

‘I don’t know. She put the phone down.’

Susan turned to face him. He sighed. ‘If whoever it was put the phone down, how do you know it was a she?’

‘I can tell. And that’s what I’m asking you to do, Mike. Tell me if there’s somebody else, just tell me.’

‘There isn’t, Sue, honestly, there’s no one. I’m not seeing anyone else, I swear to you, and this is starting to get on my nerves.’

She turned over again, and lay awake for about ten minutes, crying silently, until she couldn’t stand it any longer and turned back to him, but he was fast asleep. She’d been through
his pockets again and this time she’d found a crumpled half page torn from an old diary. There was a phone number and a name. Angela. She’d called the number, asked to speak to Angela,
but a woman had said she no longer lived there, had no idea where she was, and slapped down the receiver. Susan realized she should have said that the girl on the phone had said her name was
Angela, confronted him, but then he could have asked the real Angela if she’d called and spoken to his wife. She punched the pillow. Nothing in the world was worse than lying next to someone,
hearing them sleep, when you couldn’t. She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. She wondered who Angela was, if it
was
her, if there was
any
body, or if it was her own
paranoia, because she sensed, deep down – probably like every woman who suspects their lover or husband is seeing someone else constantly makes excuses, because she is afraid of the
truth.

The bottle was empty. The women sat listening to Dolly as she twisted the wine glass round by the stem. ‘There were the four of us, all widows, Linda Pirellie, Bella,
Shirley Miller and me. They’re all dead.’

Angela stared. She knew the name Shirley Miller, knew it very well because it was the name Mike was always saying. It was his sister’s.

‘Anyway, when it was over, I knew it would be just a matter of time before they picked me up so I sorted out the stones. I left them with a friend of mine, someone I knew I could
trust.’

‘You left them with someone for eight years?’ Ester asked uneasily.

‘Yes, but, like I said, I knew he wouldn’t try anything because I got so much on him. Well, my husband did.’

‘Harry,’ Gloria said eagerly.

‘You’ve read about him, have you?’ Dolly looked at the old newspaper cuttings, the xerox copies. One had his face on the front page: ‘Harry Rawlins Murdered’,
screamed the headline. ‘I know what I did was wrong,’ Dolly said softly. No one spoke, but they all watched and listened intently. ‘I killed him. I paid the price. And probably
I’m the only person who still mourns him, I always will. In some ways I tried to be him, before I knew what he’d done to me, before I knew he had a cheap little tart of a girlfriend,
before I knew she’d got his kid. I tried to be him, as if keeping him alive inside me, but the laugh was on me because he was alive.’

The women began to inch towards them the old reportage of the robbery and the murder; hearing her speaking so softly about what she had done was unnerving.

‘I’m serious about putting something back into society. He took it out for years and years, and I want to make up for it. I truly want to open a foster home. It’s serious with
me and I know I can do it. I can give a home for the unwanted, the kids with babies, the drug addicts . . . I want to have a purpose for the rest of my life.’

Ester nodded. ‘Yeah, well, we all agree it’s a great idea, and you may regret buying this place now but when you done it up, Dolly, think how many kids you can give a place
to.’

Dolly sighed. ‘Yeah, it’s just the finances, isn’t it? And that’s what I’m going to use the diamonds for. Now, if any of you have any thoughts about getting a cut,
then you’ve not got a hope in hell. I’m not planning on sharing this with any one of you. They are mine, all mine, and I’ll need every penny.’

‘But we know that. All we’re offering is to help you run this place,’ Ester said warmly, and the other women muttered in agreement.

Julia leaned forward. ‘Will you need any help in getting them from this guy? Any help fencing them? Surely we can help you there.’

‘For what? A cut?’ Dolly asked.

‘Hell, no, just to show you how we all feel,’ Ester said, beaming. She could almost feel the money in her hands, she was so close.

Dolly leaned back. ‘Well, you can stay or go, up to you, but you’ll have to earn your wages. I’m going to maybe need some help, I’ve been away a long time, and I’m
not sure who to fence them to.’

Kathleen received a dig beneath the table. ‘Eh, Dolly, leave that to me, I know the best. You get them and we’ll soon have them sorted out, and cash in your hand. How much you reckon
they’re worth?’

Dolly paused before she answered. ‘Maybe three and a half million . . . I doubt if I’ll see more than one, maybe one and a quarter back.’

There was a lot of murmuring and quiet sneaky looks as they each suddenly felt rich, their good mood lifting them into suggesting ways of fencing. Then Dolly stood up. ‘I’m
collecting them tomorrow so we’ll soon see what the value is. Now I’m off to bed, maybe just have a walk around. Goodnight.’

They all chorused goodnight, as Dolly fetched her coat, refusing everyone’s offer to join her.

As soon as the door closed behind her, Ester put out her hand. ‘Put it there. What did I tell you?’

A few slapped Ester’s hand, but Julia rocked in her chair. ‘She doesn’t seem eager to give us a cut, Ester. Maybe you’re starting to celebrate a bit too early.’

Ester gazed at her. ‘She brings them here and we don’t get a cut, we don’t wait for her to fence them, we simply take them! Agreed?’

They all nodded. They seemed to have forgotten Angela who had not said a word throughout. Ester suddenly realized she was there and reached out to prod her. ‘You just got lucky,
darlin’, but open your mouth to her about this and you’ll be sorry, very sorry.’

Angela hunched her shoulders. ‘I won’t say anything to anyone.’ But her mind was buzzing. This was a way to get Mike on the phone. At least he’d talk to her if she told
him about the diamonds.

Ester twitched back her bedroom curtain, the room in darkness. ‘She’s still out there, Julia, looking up at the house, as if she’s checking us out.’

‘Try just checking out what you lumbered her with,’ Julia drawled, lying in the bed.

Ester jumped on the bed, crawling towards Julia who opened her arms to her.

‘Can I ask you something?’ Julia said as Ester nuzzled her neck. ‘Would you kill her for them?’

Ester lay back against the pillows. ‘No. Let me ask
you
something. If she caught us taking them, do you think Dolly would kill?’

Julia thought for a moment and then said, very softly, ‘I’m sure of it.’

Dolly paced round the garden. She was cold, the night chilling her, but she didn’t want to go inside. It was talking about him, it brought it all back. She walked slowly
towards the swimming pool: the dank, dark water made her remember even more clearly. The way he smiled at her, waiting there by the big ornate lake. He never expected her to kill him, not for a
second, and she would never forget the look of total surprise on his face when she brought out the gun and fired: a half mocking smile, then that moment of fear. And then he was dead, his body
falling backwards into the water.

She rubbed her arms, turning back to the house. She was going to make this work, with or without that bunch of slags. She knew that she would need help, though, and she toyed with giving them a
few hundred each, but the bulk was going to be put into bricks and mortar, into making Grange Manor House her dream come true, on a bigger scale than she had ever hoped for. And it had been her
dreams that had kept her going for all those long, empty years in prison.

D
olly was up at six. She went through the
Yellow Pages
and earmarked the local building companies. She couldn’t wait to get started.
At nine, she had Angela sitting at the reception desk, calling all the companies and asking for them to come and give estimates. She had been making out copious lists of all the contents of the
manor, giving the women orders to list what they felt needed to be done in different parts of the house. They all went about the delegated duties with a zest and energy that sparkled like the
diamonds they had all expected to get a slice of.

By ten o’clock, the drive was filled with an odd assortment of trucks as builders arrived. They eyed each other and had hushed private conversations with the new owner, Mrs Dorothy
Rawlins. They walked around the grounds, studied the pool, the stables, all of them trying hard to win the race. Mrs Rawlins wanted an immediate verbal estimate. She wanted the work to start
immediately, that afternoon if possible.

Dolly felt more alive than she had for years. She drove into the village in Gloria’s Mini and bought provisions, wellington boots, sweaters and jeans. If the women were genuine,
she’d soon find out. She then went into the town hall to speak to Mrs Tilly again, more confident than the last time, and she asked if there was any possibility of being interviewed by the
board before she gave the go-ahead for structural work to begin on the house. Mrs Tilly promised she would do what she could but she doubted the board could see her straight away. It would be more
like five to six weeks so that they had time to assess her details.

Mrs Tilly liked Dolly, her forthrightness, her eagerness and, above all, her genuineness. When she went to see the chairman of the board, she asked if there was any possibility of moving Mrs
Rawlins’s application forward. He looked over his diary and mused that the earliest would be in three weeks’ time.

Dolly handed out the wellington boots and jeans and asked for the groceries to be unloaded. She had ordered a giant deep freeze, plus a new fridge. The women looked on as trucks delivered
wheelbarrows, spades, brooms and cleaning equipment. It was still only twelve o’clock when the builders began to ask to speak to Dolly about their estimates, and she sat in the dining room
listening to each man. She eventually chose John Maynard, Builder and Carpenter. He was a one-man business that hired in workmen. His yard was only a mile from the manor and his estimates were
lower than any of the others. The reason she hired ‘Big John’ was not only because his estimates were low, but she reckoned that as he was a one-man show, she could make a cash deal and
cut down on the VAT payments.

Like a royal princess, she began the tour with Big John, working from the top of the house down to the cellars. He pointed out what structural work was required; mainly the roof needed to be
replaced and the chimneys were dangerous. Every window sash had to be renewed; ceilings and all decor must be refurbished, and all the plumbing in every bathroom, the boilers. In other words, the
manor needed to be stripped back to the bare boards and rebuilt. He said it would cost at least between sixty and seventy thousand pounds, and that excluded fitments and fittings; with those it
would come to at least a hundred and fifty thousand.