She's Out (12 page)

‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re referring to,’ Dolly interrupted.

‘Grange Manor House was run as a brothel. The police raided it and arrested, oh, fourteen women, I think. It was run by Ester Freeman. I think she went to prison.’ Suddenly Mrs Tilly
flushed. ‘Did you buy it from Miss Freeman?’

‘No I did not,’ Dolly lied, her hands clenched tightly. Thank you for all your help.’ She managed to keep a smile on her face but she was so angry she could have screamed. This
was all she needed. Trying to open a foster home as an ex-prisoner was one hurdle to get over, but now she knew that the place had been run as a brothel any association with Ester would obviously
go against her.

Dolly stormed out of the town hall. Ester was not waiting as she had promised. She forced herself to remain calm. She’d get out of this, and fast. She’d do a bit of shopping, get the
next train to London, collect the diamonds and do just as she had planned to do: buy a small terraced house near Holloway and screw that bitch Ester Freeman.

Ester faced the bank manager, a small, dapper little man with a faint blond moustache. He shuffled Ester’s thick file of documents. The cheque from Mrs Rawlins, he
assured Ester, was or would be cleared as he had already contacted Mrs Rawlins’s bank, but this still left Ester three hundred thousand pounds in debt. She would be declared bankrupt unless
she had means to cover the outstanding balance.

‘But I’ve just paid in a cheque for two hundred thousand.’

The manager nodded, over-patient. ‘Yes, I know, Miss Freeman, but the bank are holding the house as collateral for the outstanding monies. I cannot release the property deeds.’

‘Fine. Then I have to take that cheque out. The money is for the sale of the manor and you know that it won’t get that price on the market. You sell it and the bank’ll lose
out. This way, at least I’ve paid off some of it and I give you my word you’ll get the rest within a few weeks.’

He sighed. What she was saying made sense. ‘So, Miss Freeman, is this cheque from Mrs Rawlins for the sale of the property?’

‘Yes. That’s why I got to have the deeds returned to me. If you refuse, there will be no sale. You then have to put it on the market and—’

He interrupted, drawing back his chair, ‘I will, however, have to wait for the cheque to be cleared, Miss Freeman.’

She swore under her breath and asked if he could at least give her copies so she could pass them on to the buyer, then as soon as the cheque was cleared, the originals could be sent to the new
owner, Mrs Rawlins.

That still leaves your balance over three hundred thousand pounds in the red, Miss Freeman, and unless this situation is rectified then we have no alternative but to begin proceedings against
you.’

She leaned on his desk. ‘Give me just one more month – you’ll get the money. I am waiting to be paid a considerable amount, more than enough to cover my overdraft.’

Ester would have liked to scream at him ‘Try three million quid’s worth of diamonds, you fuckin’ little prat’, but instead she smiled sweetly as he sighed and flipped
through her bank statements.

‘Well, we’ll give it three weeks, Miss Freeman, but then—’

‘You’ll get me the deeds? Yes?’

He nodded. ‘Yes. I’m prepared to trust you, Miss Freeman.’

‘You won’t regret it,’ she said softly, having no intention whatsoever of paying in another penny, not from the diamonds, not from anything. She was going to skip the country
and fast, just as soon as she laid her hands on Dolly Rawlins’s diamonds.

Mike met up with DCI Craigh in the station corridor. ‘She only called from the Aylesbury social services and you won’t believe where she’s asked Donaldson to
meet her.’

‘Oh, they find the diamonds?’ Mike asked innocently, knowing it was an impossibility.

Craigh shook his head. ‘I’m gonna need extra men, sort this out at the bloody theme park, and we’ll get Donaldson wired up. He’ll just have to stall her or get her to
implicate herself. I’m beginning to wish we’d never started it in the first place.’

Craigh had no idea just how much Mike wished he had never mentioned Dolly Rawlins’s name, let alone the diamonds.

Gloria eased her way round the visitor tables, crowded with the wives and mothers, girlfriends, kids. It never ceased to amaze her how many women were always there every
visiting day. Never as many men as women – they were all banged up like her old man.

Eddie Radford was staring at his folded hands, a glum expression on his Elvis Presley features. Eight years younger than Gloria, he’d never even bought an Elvis record but she had.
She’d been a great fan and the first time she’d set eyes on Eddie she’d seen the similarity, with his thick black hair. If he’d had sideburns he’d have looked even
more like Elvis.

‘You’re bleedin’ late,’ he muttered angrily.

‘Well, the back end of the van went, then I hadda get a train, missed the tube, waited fifteen minutes.’

‘Oh shuddup. Every time you come I got to listen to a bleedin’ travelogue of how you got here. You get me some fags?’

‘Yes.’

‘Books? Any cash?’

‘Yeah, in me left sleeve, can you feel it?’

Eddie leaned over and kissed her as he slipped his hand up her sleeve and palmed the money. ‘How much?’

‘Sixty quid, and that’s cleaned me out. I got to pick up me giro.’

‘Where’ve you been? I called the house three times.’ Eddie opened the cigarettes and lit one, looking around the room at the men and their visitors. The racket was
mind-blowing.

‘The council have given me marching orders for nonpayment of rent.’

‘Oh, great! What you let them do that for?’

‘Could be because I’ve not got any cash and that Mrs Rheece downstairs is a bloody zombie. She let them in, found that bloke kipping down and so they said I was
sublettin’.’

‘What bloke?’

‘You know, him with the squint, friend of your brother’s. I asked him to leave an’ all but he still stayed on. Pain in the arse, he is.’

‘So where’ve you been stayin’?’

‘I’m in Aylesbury, with some friends. You don’t know them, Eddie. I wish you wouldn’t grill me every time I come, it sets on my nerves.’

‘Who you staying with in Aylesbury then?’

She sighed. ‘Ester Freeman, you don’t know her. She did time with me. Julia Lawson, she was also in Holloway, Kathleen O’Reilly, a stupid cow called Connie
and—’

‘Ester Freeman? They all tarts then, are they?’

‘No, they’re not. Dolly Rawlins, she’s there.’

‘Oh yeah, Dolly Rawlins, yeah, I remember Harry. So what you all there for?’

‘For God’s sake, I needed a place to doss down, all right? So we’re all sort of helping Dolly out until—’

‘Until what?’

Gloria flushed. ‘I always get a headache in here. They should keep the kids to another section.’

Eddie reached out and gripped her wrist. ‘I said,
what are you doing there
?’

She wrenched her wrist free and rubbed it. ‘Word is, she’s got some diamonds stashed and we’re, well, we’re waiting for her to get them.’

‘And then what?’

She smiled. ‘Well, we want a cut and if she doesn’t like it, we’re gonna take it. But you keep your mouth shut about it.’

‘Who would I tell?’ he said bitterly.

She touched his hand. ‘You’ll have some nice things, I’ll get you anything you want, Eddie.’

He eased his hand away. ‘Who’s looking after my guns?’

Gloria looked round nervously, then leaned close to whisper, ‘They’re still out in the coal hut, I ain’t touched them.’

Eddie closed his eyes. ‘Brilliant! You’re not even at the fuckin’ house, that idiot bloke is hanging around and I got thirty grand’s worth of gear stashed out back. You
fuckin’ out of your mind, Gloria?’

‘I don’t want anythin’ to do with them. I get picked up again and that’s me for ten years, Eddie. I told you I don’t want to know about them, it’s too
dangerous.’

Eddie stared at her, shaking his head slowly. ‘I don’t believe you, Gloria, I don’t.’

She sat back. ‘Ah, Eddie, it’s too dangerous, you know it is.’

‘You listen to me, slag, you move them out of that place. I’ll get you a decent contact, you’ll flog them when I say so, understand me? You move them, you do that, Gloria. Get
the gear, stash it where you’re staying with all the tarts, then I’ll get my friends to contact you. Gimme the number there.’

‘I can’t, the phone’s not connected, Eddie, on my mother’s life.’

Her mother had been dead since she was twelve but Eddie seemed to believe her, even though he also knew her old lady was six feet under. He swore and then the bell rang for the first section of
visitors to move out. He gripped her hand tightly. ‘Get them. Then next time you come I’ll arrange for you to meet someone. You do it, Gloria, they’re all I got left in the world,
them and you, so I’m depending on you, understand me? I depend on you, Gloria.’

She nodded and he drew her towards him and they kissed. She always felt like crying when he did that but this afternoon she was all on edge and she’d gone and told him about Dolly Rawlins.
For a second she’d hoped he’d forgotten but he suddenly smiled. ‘And if that cow don’t want to part with her diamonds, you got the gear to make her, haven’t you? Use
them, sweetheart. You get me some dough and we’ll go abroad, nice holiday when I get out.’

He was already being monitored by the officers, pointing for him to return to the corridor outside and be returned to his cell.

‘I love you, Eddie,’ she said softly.

‘I hope so, Gloria. Tarra, see you next week.’

He seemed quite cheerful as he walked after the prison officer, even offering him a cigarette. He’d got eighteen years and there he was talking about when they would go on a bloody holiday
together. She’d have a zimmer frame by the time he got out.

Dolly paid off the taxi and carried her purchases inside the front entrance of the manor. Ester’s Range Rover was nowhere to be seen. She went straight to her bedroom and
sorted out what she would wear for the afternoon, then started to pack her few things. She was leaving and would leave without a goodbye. She would get the cheque stopped. She swore at herself: she
should have done that as soon as she came home. Dolly headed down the stairs as Ester breezed in, wafting a big brown envelope.

‘Hi! They said you’d left when I went to the town hall so I did a grocery shop. Here you go, Dolly, the lease all signed, and now the place is really all yours.’

‘Oh, is it? Well, you can take it and stuff it. I don’t want this place, I don’t want anything to do with you and I’m gonna stop that cheque.’

‘What?’

Dolly glared at Ester. ‘I said, I’m stopping that cheque. You really did me in, didn’t you? Never thought to mention this place was a brothel.’

Ester tossed the envelope down. ‘You knew what I was.’

‘I didn’t know you ran a whorehouse from here, though, did I?’

‘All you had to do was ask.’

‘They all know about this place, they told me at the social services.’

‘So what?’

This place has got such a bad reputation that, along with my record, you think they’ll give us the go-ahead?’

Ester looked to the ceiling. ‘Why should they even know I’m here, for one? This is bloody stupid, Dolly. For chrissakes, look at the place.’

‘That’s just what I have been doing and I’m out.’

Dolly was about to walk back up the stairs when Ester yelled, ‘You tell me where you’ll find a better place for kids. There’s a swimming pool, stables, you can bloody have
twenty kids here. They’ll be more likely to give you the go-ahead on a place like this that’s crying out for kids than any terraced place in fucking Islington or Holloway or wherever
you planned to buy it – and they cost, Dolly. You’ve been away a long time, any house in that area’s gonna cost you at least a hundred and fifty grand. Here you got beds,
furniture, linen, all thrown in, but if you don’t want it, then that’s up to you . . .’

Julia walked out and leaned on the kitchen door. ‘She’s right, you know, Dolly. This is a fabulous place for kids.’

Dolly hesitated. Julia’s soft voice seemed to calm her. ‘The orchard and the gardens, the pool doesn’t need much doing to it, then you can even get a horse for the stables . .
. You list all those to the services and . . .’

Ester winked at Julia. ‘She’s right, Dolly. I mean, you’d get grants, wouldn’t you? Each kid’d bring in about two hundred a week. I’m right, aren’t I,
Julia?’

‘Yep, and then you’d get grants to rebuild and convert . . .’

Dolly sat down on the stairs, more confused than ever. Ester glanced at her watch. All she needed was a few more hours for the cheque to go into the system then Dolly couldn’t stop it as
it would have gone through.

‘Look, why don’t we make an inventory, list all the gear? There’s all the crockery, glasses, tableware – that’d cost if you started from scratch.’

Dolly frowned. ‘I got to go to London, let me think about it.’

‘You want a lift, do you? To the station?’

Dolly nodded, got up and went to her room.

‘By tomorrow the cheque will have gone through,’ Ester said quietly to Julia. ‘Where do you think she’s going?’

‘I don’t know, do I?’

Ester pulled her into the kitchen. ‘What if she’s going for the diamonds?’

Julia chewed at a fingernail. ‘If she’s got millions of quid’s worth of diamonds, how come she’s getting so hot under the collar about laying out cash for this
place?’

‘Because she’s a tight-fisted old bag, that’s why!’

‘Yeah, you may be right, but if she’s tight-fisted now, how do you think she’ll feel if we were to take the diamonds off her?’

‘I don’t give a shit how she feels. If she gets them, then so do we. You make some excuse, say you got to go to London as well, see where she goes and who she talks to.’

‘Oh, for chrissakes, Ester, that’s ridiculous. You mean follow her around?’

‘What the hell do you think I mean?’

By the time Dolly came back downstairs, Julia was already sitting in the Range Rover.

‘Julia’s got to go and see her mother so she’ll catch the train with you.’

‘What’s the matter with her mother?’ Dolly asked as she followed Ester out.