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‘Harry?’

Tesco looked round. Something was wrong. The place was dark, an empty bottle of vodka lying on its side on the coffee table. He turned the handle of the bedroom door, then thought better and tapped lightly. He waited, then slowly opened the door and looked into the room. A strange muffled sound came from the bed. He closed the door again.

‘Christ, now what?’ he muttered to himself.

Unsure what else to do, Tesco began unwrapping the tissue paper from a stack of shirts, every now and then turning a worried look toward the bedroom. At least that awful sound had stopped now.

Dolly sat in the kitchen with her handkerchief over her mouth so the girls wouldn’t hear her crying. Her face was puffy, her eyes red-rimmed. Linda walked in and Dolly looked away. She didn’t want to be caught crying, not in front of them. Linda sat down, pulling the kitchen chair close so their knees were touching. She was going to pat Dolly’s hand, but instead suddenly put her arms round her and held her tight. At first Dolly stiffened, trying to resist, but then she gave way and held on to Linda too. They stayed like that for only a moment, but it was as if there was now a real bond between them.

Linda broke away first, looking into Dolly’s face. She looked old and worn out, and Linda felt her heart go out to her; sometimes they all forgot that Dolly wasn’t as young as the rest of them.

She touched her cheek. ‘Your eyes are all puffy.’

Dolly managed a wobbly smile and blew her nose, then said something about having to cancel her operation. Her eyes filled with tears again.

‘Nothing worked out, Linda — not the way I thought it would.’

Linda could feel herself wanting to cry with Dolly, but she managed to hold herself back. Instead she hugged her again, and told her not to cry any more.

‘Nobody means to go against you. No one wants to argue. We’re all frightened, Dolly. Bella too. She comes on heavy, but she’s scared. We need you now. We need you more than ever.’

Bella leaned against the kitchen door. She looked hard at Dolly, then at Linda. ‘We’ve decided to put in a call to Harry.’

Linda, holding on to Dolly’s hand, felt her withdraw.

Harry was in the bathroom when the shrill tone of the old black telephone rang out.

Micky Tesco walked out of the kitchen, eating a piece of toast, and picked it up.

Shirley was shaking, and her mouth felt dry. Bella and Linda stood behind her, looking equally nervous. Dolly stood well back at the open door, with her arms folded.

‘He’s coming to the phone,’ Shirley whispered. Suddenly she couldn’t carry it through. She held out the receiver to Dolly, but Dolly shrank away, refusing to come within a foot of the phone. Bella snatched it out of Shirley’s hand.

Tesco looked toward the bathroom, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The bathroom door opened.

‘It’s for you, Harry — said it’s your wife.’

Shaved and showered, immaculate in a new suit and shirt, with his tie hanging round the collar, Harry felt like a new man. His face seemed to have changed; that beaten-down look had gone. Now he looked confident, even arrogant, and couldn’t help a glimmer of a smile as he put out his hand for the phone.

Tesco was taken aback. You never knew where the hell you were with this man. He was like a bloody chameleon.

Harry’s outstretched hand was steady, his voice cold. ‘OK, you can get out.’

Tesco didn’t argue. He felt Harry’s eyes boring into him as he picked up his coat and searched round for his car keys. As he reached the front door he was about to say ‘see you later,’ but Harry had turned his back on him.

Close to the phone was an old gilt-framed mirror. As the door closed behind Tesco, Harry looked at his reflection, smoothed a stray bit of hair behind his ear, then held the phone close to his mouth. He spoke softly, huskily.

‘Hello, Doll, that you?’

Bella felt herself go cold. That voice, calling her ‘Doll.’ Now she knew why Dolly always hated anyone calling her that; it was his name for her, like a pet name.

She swallowed. ‘This isn’t Dolly, this is Bella. She’s here, but... Look, we got a proposition for you. We want to make a deal.’

Behind her, Linda and Shirley, faces tight with worry, almost took a step back, as if they were trying to put more distance between themselves and Harry, while Dolly just stood, clenching and unclenching her hands, her palms slick with sweat.

At the other end of the phone, Harry was smiling and nodding, his voice relaxed and friendly. He said it was a deal. He would do whatever they wanted.

He was about to replace the phone when, as an afterthought, he said, ‘Give Doll my love, won’t you? I’ll wait to hear from her.’

Harry put the phone down and turned back to his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were laughing, his mouth twisted into a strange smile. He began to knot his new silk tie. He was humming a tune and stopped to wonder where he had heard it. Must have been on the radio. ‘We will meet again,’ he sang tunelessly. ‘We will meet again...’ He started to laugh. He was looking forward to it.

Chapter Three

Dolly arrived at the car park on Hampstead Heath early, knowing the girls would not be there for at least another ten or fifteen minutes. It was seven in the morning, and she wanted to look over the area by herself. She parked her car dead center of the car park and sat. In front of her was the pond, and she turned round to look up to the hills and trees and the narrow pathways. Through the trees lining the car park she could see the row of elegant houses opposite. She sighed. Even at this hour of the morning the nearby roads were crammed with parked cars.

She got out of the Fiesta and slammed the door shut. In the middle of the car park were two large oak trees. You could either drive between the trees or to a small area to the left. Dolly walked across and looked down. A ditch ran around the car park, and a small wire fence. She began pacing carefully round the park, checking, double-checking, and all the time a voice inside her head kept saying, It won’t work, it can’t work — not here, it’s too open, it’s too vulnerable.

She heard a car pull up. Shirley was driving with Bella and Linda in the back. Bella got out, very businesslike, with a small notebook. Dolly glanced at her watch; she didn’t bother to mention that the girls were late.

Linda started wandering off toward the pond, and Bella barked at her like a bossy headmistress to ‘stop messing about!’ It was clear Bella had taken over things.

‘Right,’ she said, ‘everybody pay attention.’

They all stood in silence as Bella looked at her little notebook.

‘OK, this is the way it goes down.’ Bella went over the plans. Bella would be the coordinator and the lookout. She would position herself at the bottom of Pond Street by the cinema, close to a telephone booth. Shirley would park her car facing toward the car park, with a good view to the right and left. Linda would park her car midway between Shirley and Bella. When the girls were in position and saw that all was clear, and there was no sign of anyone else in the area...

At this point Dolly made a sweeping gesture, indicating the hundreds of residents’ cars.

‘Look, come on, Dolly, just let me get through it,’ Bella said sharply. ‘I know there’s gonna be a lot of parked cars, but not in the car park, all right? We’re gonna leave it till two, three o’clock in the morning, and it’ll be empty. There won’t be anybody round. And if it turns out there is, then we don’t go through with it!’

Dolly nodded her head. ‘OK, go on, I’m listening.’