Lynda La Plante
Widows 2
The Story So Far
Following a failed attempt to rob a security van, and a horrific explosion, three charred bodies are identified as Joe Pirelli, Terry Miller and Harry Rawlins.
Dolly Rawlins, Harry’s widow, is left bereft. She had doted on her husband for twenty years. He was a revered and highly respected criminal, and his death leaves her unable to face life without him.
Then Dolly discovers her husband’s carefully laid out plans for another security van robbery. She and the other widows, Shirley and Linda, have little in common, apart from their grief, but she convinces them to join her as they begin preparations to carry out the robbery that Harry had planned.
Initially, the other widows think Dolly is out of her mind. But the lure of money encourages them to believe they are ready to go through with the plan. Dolly realizes they need a fourth person to make it work — a getaway driver.
Amongst Harry’s plans, Dolly finds an address for Jimmy Nunn and decides to pay him a visit. At his run-down flat she meets Trudie Nunn, who has a young baby. Dolly had always longed to be able to have a child with Harry, but she tragically suffered a series of miscarriages. Trudie is young and nervous, and Dolly is shocked to learn that her husband, Harry, is still alive. Devastatingly, she also discovers that Harry is the father of Trudie’s child.
This terrible betrayal fuels Dolly’s determination to proceed with her plans. This is now revenge. Bella O’Reilly comes on board as the getaway driver and the four women succeed in carrying out the dangerous robbery.
After the heist Dolly hides the bulk of the money in a nursery school locker room, dividing it up into substantial amounts to enable each girl to escape to Rio. Dolly has outwitted Harry Rawlins, who cannot believe that his faithful and loving wife has proved herself to be an equally, if not more, masterful criminal than himself.
Widows’ Revenge begins with the women living the high life in Rio, all waiting for the right time to collect their money.
But they are fearful that the ‘dead’ man Harry Rawlins is going to come after them.
Chapter One
Bella had recommended Mr. Jarrow to Dolly as one of the best men in London, and so Dolly had made an appointment. She was slightly taken aback to find five other women in the reception area also waiting to see him — it was more of a conveyor belt than she had imagined. But she enjoyed taking furtive glances over the top of her glossy magazine and trying to work out what each woman was having done. In some instances it was obvious: a nose needed shortening by a couple of centimeters; eye bags could be removed. But she did wonder what the two women sitting in the corner were in for. Why bother with a nose job if your face was completely hidden behind a black niqab? At least their husbands would see their faces when they took them off, she mused.
Husband. Every time Dolly thought of the word she felt a strange tightening in the pit of her stomach. It had been a long time since she had referred to her ‘husband’...
‘Mrs. Rawlins?’
Dolly was jolted from her thoughts. The receptionist, who spoke with a slight French accent, had a face that had obviously never needed any kind of cosmetic surgery.
‘Mr. Jarrow will see you now.’
The consulting room itself was as immaculate as the waiting room, from the pale green carpet and the imposing desk to the perfectly placed antique carver chair for the patients. Mr. Jarrow himself was very good looking, but he seemed a little too neat; perhaps he’d had a job done on his own face? He was very quiet, his voice soothing.
‘I’d like a facelift,’ Dolly said simply.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘A complete facelift, Mrs. Rawlins?’
Dolly nodded.
He got up from his desk and came over to her. He held her head as he inspected her eyes and her neck, and his hands when he touched her face felt cool.
‘With this form of surgery,’ he explained in his soothing voice, ‘the stitches will be placed behind the ears; your hairline will remain just as it is now. We will stitch here—’ he indicated where the stitches for the eye socket would be — ‘and here.’ She felt his feather-light touch below her right eye.
He took a seat back behind his desk and began to sift through her file, looking at the photographs she had had taken earlier that day — front, side-view right, side-view left — looking at Dolly, then back to the photographs.
Finally, he closed the file. ‘You were widowed six months ago?’
Dolly nodded. She had already supplied this information.
‘And you have no relatives, no family?’
Dolly shook her head. Again she had told him this already.
Mr. Jarrow tapped the desk with a very fine, thin, gold pencil. ‘You do understand...’ He paused. ‘You do understand that no surgery can permanently prevent aging?’
Dolly nodded. This too had been gone over before. ‘But you can make me look younger, isn’t that right, Mr. Jarrow?’
He looked up and gave her a sweet, direct smile. ‘You were married for twenty-five years?’
Dolly said, ‘Yes.’
‘The loss must have been... very great.’
‘Yes,’ said Dolly. ‘It was.’
He gave a slight cough and opened her file again. ‘Did you love your husband, Mrs. Rawlins?’ He flicked through the pages.
He’d taken her completely off guard.
‘Why do you ask me that?’ she said. And then, very quietly, rather shakily, she added, ‘I loved him.’ She barely recognized her own voice.
Mr. Jarrow looked up and slightly tilted his head. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I loved him.’
He nodded. His pale blue eyes seemed to stare right through her. ‘Then his death must have been a very great loss to you.’
Dolly could feel her breath leaving her body. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, yes, it was. It was a very great loss to me.’
Harry Rawlins stepped out from the terminal into the sunlight of Rio. The glare of the sun bounced off his mirror-tinted glasses and he could feel the sweat trickling down the back of his neck and into his crumpled linen suit. He shifted his small holdall from one hand to the other and looked up and down the lines of parked cars.
Jimmy Glazier had a strange lump in the pit of his stomach. There he was, Harry Rawlins, back from the dead. Jimmy’s pudgy, sweat-glistening face beamed, he waved, and he saw Rawlins stare toward him. Jimmy scuttled between the parked cars and reached Harry. He felt so childish, with all the emotion swelling inside him, and all he got out was, ‘Good to see you, Harry. Welcome to Rio.’
Jimmy had always admired Harry Rawlins. He’d been one of the big ones, one of the good men, and even though he’d only worked for Rawlins once, he’d gone to him twice for help, and Rawlins had never turned him down. When Jimmy received the cable, he felt it was his chance to repay him. As they moved toward Jimmy’s car — a beat-up old Buick, which he’d bought when he first came to Rio — Rawlins was strangely silent. First he moved round to the wrong side of the car and Jimmy had to say jovially, ‘Ah, no, Harry, it’s this way round,’ before nervously opening the passenger door for him. Then he clumsily took Rawlins’ holdall — fumbling as if Rawlins was some sort of royal guest — and asked if there was any more luggage.
Rawlins shook his head. ‘No, just the one bag, Jimmy.’
Jimmy placed it carefully in the boot, before jumping into the driving seat. Inside the car was boiling, and Rawlins immediately lowered the window, with Jimmy doing likewise, before leaning his arm along the back of the seat and looking at Harry.