She's Out Page 9

  ‘No, I haven’t, but I’m buying a big house and I could accommodate up to ten or twelve kids easily.’

  Deirdre was so relaxed and friendly that Dolly began to ease up, as Deirdre patiently passed her one form after another to look over.

  ‘Are you married?’

  ‘I’m a widow.’

  Deirdre nodded, not really listening, just passing leaflets across the desk.

  ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘No, but I have worked with a lot of babies recently, and I have some letters from …’

  Ester handed the cheque to the cashier. Impatient, her eyes on the clock, she’d had to stand in a queue for ten minutes. The cashier’s pace was slow, steady, which Ester found infuriating. He looked first at the cheque, then at Ester’s paying-in slip.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong, is there?’ Ester asked sharply, leaning closer into the counter. ‘I’m in rather a hurry and I have someone waiting.’

  The cashier peered at Ester. ‘It’s Miss Freeman, isn’t it? Could you wait one moment?’

  ‘Why? All I want are the documents I’ve listed. Can’t you just get them for me? I’m in a hurry.’

  ‘The manager will need to speak to you, Miss Freeman,’ the cashier said pleasantly.

  ‘But there’s nothing wrong with the cheque, is there?’

  ‘No, not that I can see, but he will need to talk to you. Your account has been frozen.’

  ‘I know that,’ Ester retorted. It was hard for her not to know just what her financial situation was. She was in debt up to her eyeballs, tax inspectors breathing down her neck, and the only asset she had was the manor – and that was frozen like her accounts. Ester had no way of getting any cash without Dolly, and it hurt to hand over the cheque.

  She tried a different approach. ‘I just want the deeds to Grange Manor House.’ She gave a soft smile. ‘I have a cash buyer and surely it’s worth considering that part of the overdraft could be paid off. If the bank tried to sell the house, they’d not get as good a price. And I’m sure I’ll be able to cover any further outstanding debts within a few weeks.’

  It sounded good. She just hoped the little prick would see it made sense and she knew he had when he looked up and gave her a tight nod: he was going to release the deeds of the house. He excused himself and left Ester waiting. She checked her watch again, willing him to move his arse because she didn’t want to miss Dolly.

  Deirdre looked at Dolly’s neat handwriting on the forms, and showed not a flicker when she read that she had only just been released from prison.

  The house is well situated, with gardens and a swimming pool. It will need a lot of work and I don’t know how I apply for grants and allowances – or if I am acceptable as a foster carer.’

  Deirdre nodded. ‘Well, you’ll have to go before a board of committee members – I can’t say whether or not you’ll be acceptable, Mrs Rawlins. All this takes considerable time and your property will have to be reviewed and assessed by the committee.’

  ‘But you don’t think it’s out of the question?’

  ‘I can’t say. If you like, I can ask Mrs Tilly, who is my superior, to come and talk to you.’

  Dolly leaned closer. ‘I would be grateful if you would. I don’t want to go ahead with the house if I don’t stand a chance with my application – if my background goes against me, you understand?’

  Deirdre smiled warmly. ‘Mrs Rawlins, there are so many children in need. Obviously your background will be taken into consideration but, that said, there are so many ways we can approach the board. If you can give me ten minutes I’ll go up and have a word with Mrs Tilly, see if she can tell you the best way to approach it. But I would think positively if you have a substantial property and the means to open a home.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ Dolly said, becoming more confident by the second. She had finances, she would be able to make the manor house look like a palace. As soon as the door closed behind Deirdre, Dolly inched round the desk and drew the telephone closer. She looked to the door a moment before she dialled.

  Jimmy Donaldson was sitting with a mug of tea. It was almost twelve and there had not been any further contact from Rawlins. DI Palmer was sitting reading the morning paper. He also had a tea and chocolate biscuits. In the hall another officer sat on duty and had even opened the door earlier for Mrs Donaldson to cook breakfast. She was confused as to what was going on, especially as she had had little time alone with her husband. Even when they slept, an officer sat outside their bedroom. Jimmy was nervous and twitchy, and had said that whatever was going down meant that he’d be home for good sooner than they had anticipated. She was asked to speak to no one, to remain at home and continue her housework as if they weren’t there, so she was preparing lunch in the kitchen.

  The phone rang and she turned from the sink. The door was closed, the officer in the hallway giving her a pleasant smile. Palmer on the other hand gave a brisk nod for Donaldson to pick up the phone as he slipped on his headphones to listen to the call.

  ‘Jimmy? It’s Dolly.’

  He looked nervously at Palmer who gestured for him to continue the call.

  ‘Hello, Dolly. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. I’d like to collect.’

  Palmer nodded and Donaldson hesitated. ‘Okay. When do you want to come over?’

  ‘I won’t come to your place, you bring them to me. You know Thorpe Park?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a big amusement park. About four o’clock this afternoon. I’ll see you there.’

  She hung up before Donaldson could reply. He sat looking at the receiver in his hand. Palmer swore, told him to hang up and then put a trace on the call.

  ‘Have they found them yet?’ Donaldson asked.

  Palmer said nothing as he waited for the trace to give the location of where Dolly had called from. DCI Craigh came in as Palmer was jotting something down. He passed it to Craigh. ‘She made contact from Aylesbury town hall, social services.’ Craigh took the memo. ‘She’s asked for a meet. You want to hear the call?’

  Craigh nodded, his face uptight. ‘She’s moving fast, isn’t she? What the hell is she doing at the town hall?’ When he heard where Dolly wanted to meet Donaldson, he swore and gestured for Palmer to come out for a private chat. ‘We’ve still not traced the stones, they’re ripping his entire shop apart.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ll just have to stall her, or Jimmy will.’

  Palmer looked back to the closed door. ‘You think he’s spinnin’ yarns? If we’ve not found the ruddy diamonds maybe they’re not there and he’s playin’ silly buggers.’

  Craigh sighed. This wasn’t working out the way he’d hoped. Now they’d have to drag Donaldson out to Thorpe Park, which would mean even more officers assigned to the case and his super had only given the go-ahead because, as Craigh had said, it would be fast. As soon as she contacted them, they thought they’d have her. Well, she’d contacted faster than they’d anticipated and now they were screwed if they didn’t find the stones by four o’clock.

  ‘Look, see if you can get his wife shipped out – to a relative. I don’t like her being around. And meanwhile I’ll go and see what I can work up for the four o’clock meet. Why Thorpe Park?’

  Palmer shrugged. ‘I dunno. She said it, then hung up.’

  Tommy Malin worked until late the previous night and went straight back to it in the morning. He reset the stones one by one and he was a true professional: they looked good. He used a lot of settings from a previous little job he’d done, only then they had contained some beautiful emeralds and diamonds. Usually he melted down settings, anything that could cause aggravation. He had never, that he could remember, been asked to make up a whole bag of glass but far be it from him not to earn an easy two grand cash. He had some business to attend to at lunchtime. Audrey called to ask if they were ready and he said they’d be finished later on in the afternoon.

  ‘They’re not ready yet,’ Audr
ey said to her son, as he paced up and down the living room. ‘Has she called? Do you know if she’s talked to Jimmy yet?’

  ‘No, I’m going over there now. I’ll come back later and pick them up. And for chrissakes don’t tell anyone about this.’

  ‘Who’d I tell?’

  Mike stared at her, his anger at what she had got him involved with still close to the surface. ‘Just get the stones, Mum, and as soon as you’ve got them, call me on my bleeper.’

  Mike slammed out of the flat and hurried to his patrol car as his bleeper went. By the time he’d called in, he was instructed to meet DCI Craigh at the station and not, as he had previously been told, at Donaldson’s house.

  Mrs Tilly looked over Dolly’s forms. She then stacked them in a neat pile. Well, I think you stand a good chance but you’ll have to be interviewed by the board and have your details assessed. Until such time, I wouldn’t do too much structural work on the house because we will have to view the property to make sure it meets our requirements. It will take time for us to give you a positive answer and you’ll obviously require grants, which is another area you’ll need to be instructed in as there are so many different sections and application forms.’

  Dolly was feeling good, her dream already shaping into reality and so fast it took her breath away. Mrs Tilly frowned as she re-read the top form.

  ‘Grange Manor House? It had a bad reputation, you know.’

  Dolly looked confused. ‘I’m sorry? I don’t understand. It was a health farm, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It used to belong to an Ester Freeman. Oh, I’m going back maybe three or four years. It’s been closed –I thought it had been demolished, to tell you the truth, not just because the motorway was built across the main access, but because it was such a scandal—’

  ‘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 wis
h 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.’