She's Out (45 page)

‘Just so long as we do,’ Ester said.

‘We will.’ Dolly passed the bowl of potatoes.

‘Well, this makes a change from pasta,’ Gloria said, shovelling more on her plate. They were all eating big platefuls because of the exercise they’d taken and each one of them
seemed to have changed considerably. Their skins were fresher, hardly any trace of make-up on any of them; even Gloria’s usual thick eye shadow and mascara were no longer evident and Connie
hadn’t a false nail in sight. Ester retained a glimmer of her old sophistication, more so that evening because she had been to London. Only Julia seemed to have changed physically. She was
not as thin as she had been but, unlike the others, she was more used to country life and appeared to fit into the surroundings better.

Mike could have done with some food inside him. He hadn’t eaten all day and he got drunker than both Craigh and Palmer put together. By the time they had driven him home,
he was feeling well pissed and stumbled out of the car as they parked outside his house. He leaned against the bonnet, banging it with the flat of his hand. ‘Thanks, see you.’

‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ Craigh said, opening the window.

Mike stepped back. ‘Yeah, but I’ll be having a lie-in for a change. Goodnight.’

They watched him reel up his path, heard the milk bottle crashing down the step but Mike ignored it as he tried to aim his key into the hole. He lurched into the house, banging the front door.
He got as far as the stairs before he slumped down and sat there, his head in his hands, feeling sick as a dog. It all came down then and he moaned, resting his head against the banister.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

Susan stared at him from the top of the stairs. She had just bathed and washed her hair. ‘Your dinner is in the oven, probably dried to a bone, but if I knew what time you would be coming
in then—’

‘Shut up, Sue leave it out – just for one night.’

Mike stumbled into the kitchen and she returned to the bedroom. She knew he was drunk, not only by the way he was reeling around but she could also smell it. Well, he could just stay down there,
she wasn’t going to speak to him. She locked the bedroom door, picked up the hair dryer, turned it on full blast, and opened last week’s issue
of Hello!
magazine. She
hadn’t intended having an early night but she would now.

In the kitchen, Mike burnt his fingers on the plate, almost dropping it, and then sat at the table, staring at the atrophied stew. He got a bottle of HP sauce and shook it, his chair scraping as
he got up and sat down again. He picked up his fork and then couldn’t face eating. Instead he sat in a stupor, wondering what the hell he was going to do with his life. He had screwed it up
badly and he wondered how he would pay for the mortgage, the kids’ schooling. He flopped forward, knocking the plate of stew on to the floor.

‘My bloody mother, she got me into this, the stupid cow.’ He laid on his arm on the formica table and looked with drooping eyes at the stew and HP sauce over the floor. ‘Sod
it.’

Ester looked at the dregs in the bottle. ‘Well, this is the last of the wine.’

Dolly held her glass by the stem and sipped. She put it down, got up and opened a drawer in the desk. She took out one of the girls’ big blank-paged drawing books and slowly undid the cap
of a thick black felt-tipped pen. ‘Right, this is what I intend to do. I don’t know if we can do it, not yet, but this is what I’ve been working on.’

They sat in front of her, squashed on to the sofa as if they were at some kind of lecture.

‘I don’t want any interruptions, not until I’ve finished, then you can ask whatever you need to know.’

They nodded, waiting, staring at the blank sheet of paper. Dolly spoke quietly, without any kind of emotion whatsoever. She took her time, clearly drawing each section as she spoke, starting
from the manor which she marked with a big cross, the stables, and detailing how they would pick up their rides and move silently down the lane.

She drew the railway tracks, the bridge and the lake. She then marked in red the danger cables, the areas of vulnerability, and no one said a word as, slowly, her plan began to shape up. It was
ridiculous, it was insane. She was not even thinking about hitting the security wagon itself. She was aiming to remove the money from the train. And not, as they had supposed, at the level crossing
or just before it or after, but
on
the bridge. She wasn’t waiting for a reaction but her eyes narrowed as she looked over the rough drawings, her face set in concentration.

‘Er, you gonna do it . . . Did I hear right? We’re not going for the cash on the security wagon but when it’s on the train?’ Gloria’s mouth was dry as she spoke,
not really believing what she’d heard.

‘Yes, that’s right, we go for the train.’

Gloria swallowed. ‘And we go for it, not at the station or at the level crossing, but, er . . .’

‘On the bridge,’ Dolly said softly.

‘Bloody hell,’ Gloria muttered, and looked at the others, but they remained silent, staring in turn at the drawings and Dolly, who still seemed intent on them.

Ester was just about to find her voice when Dolly stabbed at the thin lines depicting the rail tracks. ‘These are live wires, very high voltage. There’s a narrow parapet right alone
the entire edge of the bridge, two good positions to cover us, and a big notice here.’ She smiled. ‘One that says “high voltage, danger”, but it’s big enough for one
of us to hide behind. There’s another boarding here and one on the opposite side of the lake. The railings are lower so we position two of us there.’ She made neat crosses and then
turned the sketch round. ‘We’ve got to stop the train halfway across the bridge. We mark out the position with fluorescent paint. I’ve paced it and I reckon we can stop it almost
dead centre of the bridge.’ She continued in a quiet, almost monotone voice, taking them through each stage of the raid. What she never said was exactly which of them was to do what, and no
one was inclined to interrupt. She drew the signal box, the electric cables, the telephone wires and as her drawings began to take up one page after another, she became more animated.

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!’

J
ulia 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 crisps 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.