Widows

by Lynda La Plante

  Greg’s mates were normally useless, but Fruity Tooty, seeing Shirley’s split and bloody lip—and not knowing Tony from Adam—gallantly stepped forward to have a go. Greg held him back, shaking his head. It would be a bad move. If he was honest, Greg wasn’t even certain that all three of them could take on Tony Fisher.

  Tony laughed as he picked up his cashmere coat and slipped it over his shoulders. He walked up to the boys and stood nose to nose with Fruity. “I got a good memory for faces,” he said, and tapped him on the cheek before leaving.

  Fruity and Arch had no idea what had just happened. Greg knelt next to Shirley and hugged her for the first time in years. In sheer relief, she sobbed in his skinny little arms. She was shaking and holding her top together, trying to cover herself. Greg squeezed her tighter and tighter, till she could no longer tremble.

  Eventually, Shirley calmed and the tears stopped. Greg helped her up off the floor and started to walk her through to her bedroom just as their mum burst in through the front door. Audrey was sweating like a stuck pig and was as red as a beetroot; she had indeed run pretty much the whole way home. Shirley took one look at her mum and burst into tears again. Audrey stepped forward and enveloped her little girl in her arms. A split lip was nothing compared to what Tony Fisher could have done.

  Audrey looked at Greg. “Get the car sorted for your sister. Now. Go on.”

  Greg, Arch and Fruity quietly left as Audrey took Shirley into the lounge and sat her down on the sofa.

  “How are you involved with the Fishers, darlin’?” Audrey spoke calmly but firmly. “I know ’em of old, see, and I know they’re no good. No good at all.” Shirley shook her head and snuggled deeper into her mum’s shoulder, her eyes closed and her fingers touching her split lip. “I’m your mother, Shirley, please talk to me. I can’t help if you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

  Shirley took a deep breath and swallowed. “He came onto me, Mum, but I don’t fancy him! I pushed him away and he got angry and gave me a back hander because I wouldn’t do what he wanted.”

  Audrey stroked Shirley’s lovely long hair. “You sure it’s nothin’ else? Cos you’ve been flush with money lately.”

  “Honest—that’s all it was about. I told you the truth about the cash. I honestly found it in a suitcase of Terry’s.”

  Shirley had never been very good at telling lies, and Audrey knew that when her daughter repeatedly used the word “honestly” it meant she was lying.

  Shirley got up and went into the bathroom. She splashed cold water over her face, took deep breaths to calm herself and looked at her split lip in the mirror. In her reflection, Shirley saw a strength that she hadn’t ever seen before; not in her eyes anyway. She’d seen it in Terry’s eyes, when he used to lie to her to protect her from the truth of where he was going and what he was doing. And Shirley was now doing exactly the same for her mum.

  Audrey could never know that Shirley was getting the money from Dolly Rawlins, and she could never, ever know about their plans to rob a security wagon at gunpoint. Shirley could hardly even think it; it all still sounded so absurd.

  Shirley knew that she had to tell Dolly about Tony Fisher, though, and quickly. Because if he hadn’t got what he wanted from her, he would be going after the others next.

  Linda had been told to start at the arcade much earlier than usual because she’d been late the previous night. Charlie must have snitched to their boss—there’s no way he could have known otherwise. God, she wished she could tell them both to stuff their poxy job.

  When she arrived, Charlie was hovering round the entrance, staring out along the road at the ambulance and police cars parked up by the alleyway to the Sports Club.

  “You should have been here earlier,” Charlie said excitedly, not taking his eyes off the commotion.

  “I am ’effing early!”

  “No, no, I don’t mean for your shift. I mean you missed it. All the ‘blues and twos,’ you know.” Charlie had heard this expression on the telly and had no idea what it actually meant.

  “Can’t be arsed with other people’s problems, Charlie,” Linda replied as she headed for the cash booth.

  “Can you be arsed with Tony Fisher?” Linda turned and stared at Charlie’s worried face. “He popped in and asked if you was here.”

  “When?” Linda asked, trying to sound as if Tony Fisher visiting her was a perfectly normal thing to happen.

  “Just after you knocked off last night.”

  Linda walked back to Charlie, who was now, once again, more interested in the activity up the road. Linda kept her casual tone, “What did he say?”

  “I told you, he asked if you was here.”

  “And you said . . . ?”

  “What do you think I said? I said ‘no,’ cos you wasn’t.” Linda remained silent, trying to work out what she should do. “I’d have said you wasn’t even if you was. Tony flamin’ Fisher, Linda! What’s going on?”

  “He fancies me, Charlie. Can you blame him?” Linda walked away quickly before Charlie could ask anything else.

  She sat in the cash booth, pretending to count the change into money bags, but she was making a terrible job of it. All she was really doing was making little stacks; she had no clue how much was in each. When Charlie came over and said he was going to pop up the road and take a closer look at what was going on, Linda jumped out of her skin and knocked all the coins onto the floor.

  Ten minutes passed and Charlie hadn’t returned; Linda suspected he’d gone for a pint. But suddenly he was running through the arcade toward her. She’d never seen him run, not with his bad leg, but now he was doing a dead sprint and looked all flushed.

  “Boxer . . . it’s Boxer Davis!” Charlie was panting for breath as he pressed his face against the glass of the cash booth. “Someone done the poor bastard in—he’s like a minute steak, I’ve bleedin’ never seen anythin’ like it—blood up the walls, blood everywhere . . . They found him in the back alley of the Sports Club under some rubbish, stiff as a board, and I heard the ambulance guy tell a copper he reckoned Boxer had been there all night and all day.” Charlie was painting hard to get his breath back, the glass steaming up more and more with every exhale.

  Linda just stared. As the news sank in, her body went cold and she could feel the blood drain from her face. “Boxer? Are you sure?” Linda realized she didn’t need to ask—she knew how good Charlie was with gossip.

  “Course I’m sure,” Charlie said, looking up at Linda. “He was over the road last night with his chips. I thought he must be back in the big time as he was lookin’ real good, dressed in a smart suit and—” Charlie suddenly looked worried.

  “What?” Linda whispered, not really wanting to know. “And what, Charlie?”

  “He was asking about you.”

  “What—what was he asking?”

  “Nothing really, he saw you and asked if you was Joe Pirelli’s missus.”

  Without another word, Linda left the booth and went to the exit doors. She stood with the rest of the gawping spectators and looked up to where the ambulance was parked on the pavement. People around her were speculating. Perhaps the dead bloke had crossed a pimp or a dealer? Shagged the wrong bloke’s wife—or just been in the wrong alley at the wrong time? All bollocks. If only they knew.

  Charlie appeared behind Linda. “Why are Boxer Davis and Tony Fisher both asking after you on the same day?” he asked. “You’re not mixing with that lot, are you?”

  “That lot? Don’t pretend you know who ‘that lot’ are.” Linda snapped. She was being horrible to him but, right now, she had to be horrible to someone and he was closest. “I’m going back to work. You stand here for as long you like getting your kicks from someone else’s misery. Cos as long as Boxer’s lying dead just up there, you ain’t the saddest bastard in the street, are you, Charlie?”

  “He ain’t dead . . .” Charlie mumbled as Linda stormed off. She paused and turned back.

  “What?”

  “He ain
’t dead. He looks like a minute steak, but he ain’t dead.”

  Back in the cash booth, Linda felt sick. Tony Fisher turning up at the arcade out of the blue was one thing, but Boxer showing his face on the same night asking questions about her was too much to cope with. And now he was fighting for his life in a rat-infested alley. Linda was terrified—there was no one to talk to here, no one who’d understand. All she wanted to do was get to Dolly, Bella and Shirley and warn them about . . . what? Linda had no idea what it all meant, but she’d never felt so out of her depth in her entire life.

  She sat for nearly an hour thinking it over. All she kept coming back to was Bella. Bella would know what to do. Eventually she got a grip of herself.

  “Cover for me, Charlie, will ya?” Linda shouted, swinging her jacket round and head and deftly slipping her arms into the sleeves.

  “No! You can’t go! You only just started your shift!” he shouted after her as she barged past him.

  Linda stopped. She had no intention of explaining anything to Charlie in detail, but she had to convince him to cover for her. Dolly had said right from the outset that they needed to go about their business as normal so as not to raise any alarm bells. Alarm bells were ringing in Linda’s head now and she needed Charlie on her side. “Don’t be a plum, Charlie. We cover for each other all the time.”

  “No, we don’t,” said Charlie. “I cover for you all the time. I don’t need covering for cos I’m always here when I’m meant to be.” He sounded like a wounded schoolboy who’d been turned down by the girl he fancied.

  “Look . . . I’ve really got to go,” said Linda. “I can’t explain why. But I’ll make it up to you, honest I will.” She tried a smile.

  Charlie wasn’t fooled. “If you go, I’ll report you and you’ll be sacked.”

  “Why are you being like this?!” Linda yelled.

  “Cos, apart from the minute steak up the road, I’m the saddest bastard in the street, apparently! And sad bastards do sad bastard things like drop their mates in it when they get treated like shit.”

  “You know what, Charlie—sod you and sod the job!” Linda screamed. “Cos I ain’t staying.”

  As she charged off down the street, Charlie looked after her and was just in time to see the ambulance doors slam shut. It crawled through the crowds, who ambled out of the way regardless of the lights and siren.

  By the time Bella came off stage at the strip club, Linda was pacing the dressing room, as white as a sheet. She started talking the instant Bella walked in. “Boxer’s been beaten to within an inch of his life. He was asking about me in the arcade, so was Tony Fisher and . . .”

  Bella, as Linda knew she would, took control. “Calm down, Linda. I can’t follow anything you’re saying. Calm down and start again.”

  Linda took a deep breath and did just that. Once Bella was up to speed, Linda added, “This has to be cos of what Dolly told Boxer about Harry being alive. Don’t you think?”

  “Sounds like it’s all getting out of hand. And it sounds like the Fishers are scared.”

  “They’re scared? Bleedin’ ’ell Bella, I’m shitting meself. Dolly’s gonna have to sort this out. I mean if it was Tony who done over Boxer, just think what he could do to us!”

  “Do we know it was Tony?” Bella asked, trying to be rational for both of them. Linda had jumped to that conclusion because he and Boxer were both in the arcade on the same night. But they had also both been asking about Linda, and that was something to worry about. Bella took time to think while she wiped the sweat from her face and got dressed. “I’ll call the convent and leave a message for Dolly to meet me here as soon as she can. You got someone who can stay with you tonight?” The wry smile that crept across Linda’s face told Bella that her friend would be just fine. “Call him and get him to pick you up from here. Do we know that Shirley’s OK?”

  The smile on Linda’s face vanished as quickly as it had appeared. She hadn’t even considered that Tony might have approached Shirley.

  “Call your friend,” said Bella. “I’ll call Shirley and Dolly. Don’t worry. Expend some energy. Everything will be fine.”

  Dolly was sitting in her ruined armchair sipping brandy and looking through the notes she’d made from her visit to the bank earlier. Three envelopes of cash sat on the coffee table in front of her and Wolf was tucked into her hip as usual. There’d been no reference to Bill Grant in Harry’s ledgers, not even a William, or a BG. It crossed Dolly’s mind that the man who visited her at the lock-up could have lied about his name. She’d have to ask Boxer. If he knew anything, she’d get it out of him.

  The phone rang and Dolly jumped. No one ever called this late at night. It was Sister Amelia from the convent.

  “I have a message for you from Miss O’Reilly,” she said. “It’s in relation to your mutual friend, Mr. Fisher. Miss O’Reilly says your presence is urgently required at her workplace.” The nun didn’t seem surprised to have been used as an intermediary.

  Dolly remained calm and controlled as she thanked Amelia and put the phone down. She downed her brandy and peered out of her curtains. The usual parking spot the police used was empty. She looked up and down the street but could see no parked cars that didn’t belong there. In case the police had changed tactics, she decided that she would still go through the rigmarole of zigzagging to make absolutely certain that she was not being followed.

  The club where Bella worked was dark and seedy and it smelt of beer, cigarettes and fat sweaty men. No one noticed Dolly walk in because all eyes were on the stage. She stood at the back of the room, watching a girl in her early twenties performing and listening to the men tell each other what they’d like to do to her. Their crude innuendos made Dolly’s stomach churn, but their drunken heckles were worse. As the girl struggled to remove her bra and stay upright in her four inch heels, they shouted at her as though she was a piece of meat. When her song ended, she left the stage to laughter and a hail of flying bottles.

  The soles of Dolly’s shoes stuck to the beer-soaked carpet as she tried to push toward the stage; the men, thinking she was a punter wanting a better view, wouldn’t let her past. She folded her arms around her handbag and made herself as small as possible; she’d have to wait for a break in the show. The idea of touching or being touched by these men repulsed her; some of them had their hands down the front of their trousers.

  When the next record began, there was a loud cheer from the men before they settled down almost to silence. Dolly strained to look over the shoulders of the crowd immediately in front of her, and eventually found a spot from where she could see the stage. Bella was already moving down the catwalk, her oiled body glistening and swaying with the grace of a panther. She was dressed in a black leather mini-skirt, a black leather bra and black leather knee-high boots, and wielded a long black leather whip, which she cracked above her head. There was a look of wildness and overpowering sensuality about her as she swayed to the music, staring arrogantly at the men. She met their eyes, every one of them, and they were totally under her spell.

  Dolly was as spellbound as the rest of the audience, but for a completely different reason. She is so strong, Dolly thought to herself. She recognized something similar in herself: a hidden, almost masculine strength that allowed her a measure of control over people like Boxer Davis. But what Bella had went beyond that. Dolly looked around the room and could see that the men weren’t speaking, or looking about, or laughing and joking—there were no disparaging comments, no jeers, no insults; they were mesmerized. In that moment, Dolly knew that Bella was exactly the right person to be their fourth man. As the men imagined Bella naked, Dolly imagined her dressed in an overall and ski-mask, wielding a shotgun instead of a whip. She smiled to herself. Those security guards will shit themselves, she thought.

  As Bella’s routine went on, Dolly was shocked to see the bra and mini-skirt come off, revealing nothing but a tiny leather G-string. The boots stayed on and Bella stood with her legs wide open, gyrating her crotc
h at the front row. A great wave of howling broke out, and the men banged on the wooden stage, wolf whistling and whooping. The cheers grew louder as Bella slowly moved her head from side to side, licking her lips and curling her mouth in a snarl. Dolly clutched her handbag, transfixed. Bella seemed almost bored, detached, yet totally in control, while every man in the sordid room drooled over her sleek, toned body as if nothing and no one could touch her. In a month or two, Dolly promised silently, you’ll never have to do this again.

  When Bella’s act was over, most of the men raced to the bar and Dolly took the opportunity to head toward the stage. As Bella picked up her discarded clothes, the drag queen walked on stage and was immediately greeted with boos and shrill whistles.

  “Bella!” shouted Dolly over the racket.

  Bella was still naked from the waist up. She stood in front of Dolly with her hands on her hips. “We got big trouble,” she said. “Tony Fisher is on the warpath. Last night he turned up at the arcade asking after Linda. She wasn’t there, thank God, and she’s at home now with some fella watching over her. I’ve tried to call Shirley to make sure she’s OK, but there’s no reply. Then there’s the thing with Boxer. Do you think it’s connected to the Fishers?”

  Dolly had no idea where to start, so she went with the last thing she had heard. “What thing with Boxer?”

  Bella paused while she did up her bra. “I thought you would have heard? Boxer was found in an alley last night, outside the Sports Club. He’s been beaten to a pulp, apparently—properly smashed up. Dolly . . . Linda said it was awful.”

  Just then, a drunk lurched into Dolly from behind. She turned and gave him a shove which made him fall through the door to the gents. She turned back to Bella. “Boxer was supposed to leave town!” she said. “I gave him money and told him where to stay. I can’t take care of everything and I’m not responsible for what happened to him.”