Craigh leaned into the patrol car. He couldn’t believe what had happened. They had three digits of the number plate, but the two officers were confused as to what they’d seen.
“We saw a Range Rover, right? Cruised up behind us, I mean, it wasn’t a blonde at the wheel, right? It was a brunette. We saw it stop, young kid gets out, sort of walks a few paces, next minute this other fucking car screams up.”
Craigh rubbed his head. “You see the driver at all?”
The officer pulled at his collar. “Yeah, it looked like a friggin’ car full of women, but one was blonde.”
The second officer peered at the sweating Craigh. “No, there were two blondes. There was one hanging out the window doin’ all the screamin’.”
Craigh breathed in, then told them to see if there was a police car in the vicinity.
“What you want, Gov?”
Craigh turned on him in a fury. “Not this fuckin’ mess for starters. Just see if we can get a full reg on the car.”
“Which one? One with the blondes or the Range Rover?”
The Range Rover was already at the Shepherd’s Bush flyover, Julia panting with fear as Ester put her foot down. “Not too fast, keep in the near lane.”
“What the fuck happened?” Ester bellowed.
Julia was white-faced with fear, hearing sirens now. “Dolly sussed she was being set up, that’s all I know.”
“You’re out of your mind!” Gloria screamed, as Dolly drove all the way round the Shepherd’s Bush roundabout and started to head back the way they had come. “You’re driving us right back to Ladbroke Grove—you should have gone up on the motorway.”
Dolly said nothing. She turned left onto Ladbroke Grove again and then onto a side street.
“What are you doing?”
“If they’re trying to find us, they won’t be looking for us right on his bloody doorstep, will they? I’m going back onto the Harrow Road and then to the station. There’s a train at three and I’m gonna be on it.”
Palmer was sitting dabbing his neck with a handkerchief. DCI Craigh was out in one of the cars searching for Donaldson while Mike sat on the stairs, shaking his head in disbelief. Things were now bordering on farce and they knew they were all in deep trouble.
Jimmy Donaldson had no idea he’d risked everything for a bag of glass as he dodged down the alleyways, hugging the pouch bag to his chest. He reached the end of Ladbroke Grove and took a quick look round to see if he was still in the clear. He jogged down Portobello Road, weaving in and out of the stallholders, catching his breath in antique shops. He was making his way toward a cut-through that led onto Harrow Road, where he knew he’d be able to nick a motor easy. They were sometimes being worked on by blokes he knew so he reckoned if he made it there he’d be away.
Dolly pushed Gloria into the back seat of the Volvo as she knew they’d be looking for a middle-aged blonde. Then she dragged Angela out of the car and shoved her into the driving seat. “Get in and drive.”
Angela had never driven an automatic in her life. Dolly made herself small in the back seat with Gloria. “Just put the gear into ‘Drive,’ Angela, and take it nice and easy. Go up to the end and take a right onto the Harrow Road.”
Dolly sat back, feeling things were going to be all right—until Angela took a left instead of a right, then she almost punched the back of Angela’s head.
Donaldson was panting now, feeling like he was going to throw up, having run himself into the ground as he picked his way in and out of the parked cabs and trucks. He saw the car, the door open with the keys inside, and a surge of adrenalin gave him new strength.
As he made for the car, Angela careered down the alley, terrified that she couldn’t control the Volvo, shouting to Dolly that she had never driven an automatic and hadn’t even passed her test on an ordinary car.
“Stay fucking calm!” Gloria shouted back. “Where the hell are we? It’s a dead end, Dolly.”
Dolly knew exactly where they were and told Angela to keep going straight ahead. Either side of the road were garages, some with their doors open, mechanics working on vehicles, and no one was paying them any attention. By now they were moving more slowly. As they neared the end of the narrow road and Dolly told Angela to put her foot down, Jimmy Donaldson suddenly appeared from behind a truck. He was looking back over his shoulder, and ran out straight into the Volvo.
The car hit him side on, tossing him up into the air. He rolled across the bonnet and slithered to the ground with a sickening thump. Angela slammed on the brakes, throwing Gloria and Dolly forward in their seats. “What the bloody hell was that?” Angela wailed.
“You’ve gone an’ hit a bloke, for Chrissakes!” bellowed Gloria. She then screamed as Donaldson, pushing himself to his knees, pressed his face to the window, while clawing at the door.
“Back up,” shouted Dolly. Angela shoved the car into reverse with a shaking hand and, as the car lurched backward, Donaldson’s body disappeared.
“He’s under the fucking car,” shrieked Gloria. She leaned over and rammed the car into “Drive.” Angela started sobbing hysterically as the car lurched forward. They all felt the hideous bump and heard the crunching sound beneath the wheels.
Hearing the women screaming, two mechanics from a nearby garage looked over. Donaldson lay unmoving in the gutter, his chest crushed.
Dolly leaped out of the car and almost fainted when she recognized Jimmy Donaldson. As she felt his pulse, she saw the black velvet pouch still clutched in his hand. Without missing a beat she snatched it, stuffed it into her pocket, and got back in the car. Neither Gloria nor Angela saw her do it. Both were in a state of shock.
“Get out of here and fast. Move it, Angela!” Dolly shouted.
The Volvo’s tires screeched as it hurtled round the corner and disappeared.
By the time DCI Craigh arrived at the scene, Donaldson’s body was being lifted onto a stretcher. He quickly ascertained that the bag of diamonds was nowhere to be seen. All he had were useless witnesses who couldn’t tell him the make of the car or give a description of the driver. What he did know was that Jimmy Donaldson was dead and no one had seen Dolly Rawlins anywhere near his home. If she had been in the car that killed Jimmy, they had no evidence. They had, as he put it to DI Palmer, fuck all.
Dolly made it to the train just in time. She had to run along the platform and opened one of the doors as the train was moving off. She scrambled on, ignoring the shouts of the guards, and hauled Angela after her. They slumped into two vacant seats, heaving for breath. Dolly felt the pouch in her pocket pressing into her stomach. She leaned back, closing her eyes.
“We made it.”
Angela was still panting, scared to death. “That—that man I ran over.”
Dolly opened her eyes. “Not your fault—you couldn’t stop. Anyway, we’ve got other things to worry about; this is where we both get arrested for not having tickets.”
She smiled, trying to lighten the mood, but Angela couldn’t stop thinking about the collision. She kept seeing that big gray object as it hit the windshield, kept feeling that hideous bump as she ran over him, not once but twice. She started to cry.
“Pull yourself together, Angela, we don’t want anyone to . . . remember us. So I’ll sit up front, away from you, all right, love?”
Dolly made her way up the train, slipped into the toilet and held the bag of diamonds tightly to her chest. Whatever else had happened, she’d got them and she’d still make the meeting.
Gloria took a scenic route back to the rental garage, after stopping at a car wash to check for any signs of damage or blood on the bumpers—but the car didn’t even have a dent. The windshield wasn’t cracked either. The Volvo was a solid piece of machinery, she thought, but her feelings of relief were soon punctured by the realization that they hadn’t got the diamonds. By the time she collected her Mini and drove back to the manor, she was feeling thoroughly depressed. She knew she should have stuck with what she knew, and not allowed herself
to be swayed by Ester Freeman and her big ideas—especially not with her luck.
At the town hall, Dolly told Angela to see which room the meeting was in while she went into the ladies’ and carefully stashed the bag of diamonds on top of one of the old toilet cisterns. If some bastard had set her up, they were bound to come sniffing around at the manor.
She turned as Angela slipped in and whispered, “They said they’re running a bit behind and for you to go into the waiting room outside the boardroom.”
Dolly examined her face in the mirror. Not too bad, she thought. It was only when she tried to put on some lipstick that she realized she was shaking.
Angela was biting her nails as she sat next to Dolly in the waiting room. Ten minutes ticked by, during which two women came in and walked out again, Dolly making a point each time of politely saying, “Good afternoon.”
Angela suddenly started to cry again.
“I think he was dead, Dolly. I’m sure I killed him.”
Dolly squeezed her hand tightly. “Yes, I think you did, love,” she said, just as the boardroom doors opened and Mrs. Tilly walked out.
“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Mrs. Rawlins. Please do come in.”
As the door closed behind them, Angela sniffed and pressed her hand to her mouth. She’d killed that poor man, she’d killed him and she couldn’t face it. She pressed her hands to her mouth, then got up and hurried out.
Mike’s wife picked up the phone. She could hear someone sobbing on the other end of the line. “Look, whoever this is, don’t keep calling here, do you hear me? Leave us alone.”
“No, please,” Angela begged, “I’ve got to talk to Mike—it’s urgent.” There was something in her terrified voice that stopped Susan from putting down the receiver. “Do you have a number he can contact you on? What’s your name?”
“It’s Angela, it’s—” Susan couldn’t make out any more because of the sobbing, and then the phone went dead. She called the office but they said Mike was out. Then she called her mother-in-law.
“Is Mike there, Mum?”
“No, love, I’m waiting for him to call. Did he tell you? I’m going to Spain.”
Susan asked Audrey to get Mike to phone her straight away if he called.
“Are you all right, Susan?” Audrey asked, hearing the tension in her voice.
“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. The fact was, he’d called an Angela a couple of times from her flat. When she’d asked about her, he’d said she was just a kid he was trying to help out. Maybe he’d been doing a bit more than helping her out. “Look, I’ll talk to him, don’t you worry about it. But I think you’ve got it wrong—I’ve got to go now, love, but don’t you worry.”
Audrey could hear Susan crying and then the phone went dead. She replaced the receiver, feeling guilty, but the truth was, she had 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 packing her clothes, half an ear listening for the phone, while the face of her dead daughter Shirley looked on with that sweet, vague smile from the picture frame.
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. “So, there’s no diamonds?” she said.
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, a box of Smarties?”
Mr. Arthur Crow, the chairman of the board, 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, 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.
They now turned to her criminal record and she quickly made it clear that, as she had been convicted of murder, she would be on parole 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, having been told he was dead, then discovering he was alive and living with another woman who had borne his child. She spoke candidly about the therapy sessions she had been given at Holloway but said 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 the group-therapy sessions for the inmates and became a trusty, working with probation officers and therapists, but not as a patient.”
Deirdre gave Dolly small encouraging nods and Mrs. Tilly was a constant source of encouragement. The men, however, were offhand and cool, showing much more restraint.
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 agree, I paid a fair price for such a substantial property.”
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 said 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 sorry again 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, saying how well the meeting had gone, trailed by a downcast Angela. She shut the back door and tossed her handbag onto 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 DS Mike Withey with one uniformed driver. Craigh was first out. He walked up the manor steps, sidestepping the sacks of cement, and waited as more 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 t
o search the premises. He then stepped back as the two Thames Valley officers 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 onto the first landing and legged it out onto a low roof at the back. The other women ran in all directions, only Dolly remaining unflustered as she picked up the kettle to put it on the stove. Angela curled into a ball, making herself as small as she could, terrified that they had come to arrest her for the hit-and-run.
Dolly put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Angela, keep your mouth shut. Just give them your name, nothing more. Understand me?”
Gloria pulled at Ester’s arm. “What the fuck do we do?”
Ester shrugged her away. “Nothing. There’s nothing here.”
Gloria was white-faced. “Yes, there is,” she hissed. “We put the bloody guns in the cellar.”
Ester froze, but could do 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 toward Mike. “I’ll take Mrs. Rawlins’s statement first, then the others’. Get their names, addresses, you know the drill.”
He looked back at Dolly. “My men will begin searching the entire house and outbuildings.”
She nodded, seemingly still carefully reading the warrant. He waited patiently.
The women wandered around the drawing room; Gloria was now crying along with Angela. Julia nudged Ester. “What the hell are they getting so upset about?”
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