He waited for some witty retort from Resnick, but it didn’t come. ‘You hear me, George? Rawlins is alive, and I’m gonna get him.’
Resnick nodded. ‘Well, I hope I live long enough to see it, sonny.’
He watched Fuller turn and walk stiffly off toward the doors. God, how he loathed him. He saw Fuller stop to charm the matron, saw her get all fluttery, before ushering Fuller out. He hadn’t wasted any time; by God, he’d risen fast. Detective Inspector — and he must be, what, thirty-three? Thirty-four? Smooth bastard.
Matron was steaming down the ward toward the bed.
‘Mr. Resnick, as you well know, visiting hours are between 2:30 and four. Please, in the future, do not entertain during rounds. It isn’t fair to me, the doctors, or the other patients. We’ve already had a complaint.’
Resnick frowned. ‘And I’ve got a complaint, too. There’s damned flies everywhere in this bloody ward!’
She opened Resnick’s bedside cabinet and brought out a bowl of moldy grapes. She turned and smiled sweetly at Resnick. ‘Are you intending to eat any of this rotten fruit?’
Resnick was about to give her a smart reply, when he buckled up in agony, gritting his teeth, his breath hissing.
Matron moved quickly to his side, then looked round the ward and beckoned for a nurse to join her. Leaning over Resnick, she said, ‘It’s all right, Mr. Resnick, just lie back. Everything’s going to be all right.’
He looked up into her face. Even gripped with pain, he managed to grin. ‘Is it, you reckon...? All gonna be all right?’
That was the moment when she realized, despite his bravado, just how scared Resnick was. Something had happened. He’d somehow lost a fight, way back, and he was afraid to get into the ring again for this final bout. She took his hand, feeling an unexpected surge of emotion. To her surprise, after all her years on the ward, this loud, blustering, rude and lonely man had got to her.
She didn’t really know why, but Shirley had expected Dolly or Bella to be sitting in the lounge, waiting for her, when she got back. But Bella was in the kitchen cooking, and when Shirley asked her where Dolly was, all she said was, ‘Upstairs.’
In the spare room, Dolly had a suitcase open on Linda’s bed and was filling it with clothes.
Shirley touched the case. ‘Are these all her things?’
‘I thought it was best to clear them away,’ Dolly answered. She held up a bright blue silk dress. ‘You don’t want this, do you? Knowing Linda, it’s probably yours anyway.’ She stopped, bit her lip and threw the dress into the case, then grabbed a whole bunch of clothes from the wardrobe, coat hangers and all, threw them in on top.
Shirley went to the door.
‘Where are you going?’
Shirley felt close to tears. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it.’
Dolly spoke to her firmly. ‘We’re gonna have to, love. Linda’s dead and we’re all gonna have to talk about it.’
Shirley twisted her hands together. ‘I know. I know.’ Then the tears started.
Bella suddenly barged into the room.
‘Put the kettle on, will you?’ Dolly asked her quickly. ‘We’ll be down in a minute.’
‘That’s all I ever seem to be doing,’ Bella complained. ‘Putting the kettle on, taking the bleedin’ thing off!’
Dolly gave Bella a hard look and jerked her head. She was starting to get a little bit too pushy, that one.
Shirley was sitting on the bed, still twisting her hands. Dolly didn’t quite know how to begin. She went back to packing, aware of Shirley watching her.
‘So you got yourself a job, did you?’ She tried to keep her voice light.
Shirley told Dolly all about her day and about everything that had happened at the studio — that there’d been times when she’d been able to forget, and then it would all come rushing back to her.
Dolly sat next to her on the bed and took hold of her hand.
‘Oh, what are we going to do, Dolly?’ Shirley asked in her little girl’s voice.
Bella reappeared at the door, then picked up a brush from the dressing table and began brushing her hair. ‘Well, first we’ve got to change the money.’
Shirley stood up. ‘I hate the money! I hate it, I hate it. I don’t want anything to do with it!’
Bella threw the brush down. ‘Is that right? Well, we’ve still got to change it.’ She turned to Dolly. ‘You got it worked out, then, Dolly? What we’re gonna do about the money?’
Dolly moved away from the bed and took another of Linda’s dresses from the wardrobe. She began folding it. She couldn’t look at Bella.
‘I can’t find the book,’ she almost whispered.
Bella just looked at her. ‘What?’
‘I said I can’t find the book.’
‘What book?’ Shirley asked.
‘The book with the list of names. The little black book. I put all the names down, the fences. I copied them down from Harry’s ledgers.’
‘What d’you mean you can’t find it?’ said Bella.
‘Well, I’ve lost it, that’s what!’ Dolly sat down on the bed, going over everything in her mind. She’d burned the ledgers, and when she’d come back from Rio she’d burned all the other paperwork in the bonfire at the house, just before she’d sold it. Maybe she’d burned the book then.
‘I might have... burned it.’
Bella shook her head in amazement. ‘You burned it? Is that what you’re tryin’ to tell us? You burned the book? I don’t believe it, Dolly. You knew we’d need it.’
Dolly rubbed her head. ‘I’m trying to remember when I last had it.’
Shirley looked as if she didn’t understand. ‘But you always had it, Dolly!’
‘But I haven’t got it now!’ Dolly snapped. She began walking up and down the bedroom, and then started miming putting a coat on, taking it off. She stopped abruptly and snapped her fingers. ‘It’s in the pocket of my raincoat!’
‘OK, Dolly,’ Bella began in a coaxing voice, as if talking to a five-year-old. ‘Where do you think the raincoat is? Can you remember?’
Dolly’s face brightened. ‘It’s behind the door.’
‘What door?’
‘At... the lock-up,’ Dolly said slowly. ‘It’s hanging behind the door at the lock-up.’
Murphy was strolling through Alfie’s Antique Market in Paddington, scanning the stalls. He was looking for stall 54A, Sonny Chizzel’s extra little bit of business — the stall he used to get rid of the smaller items, the little knick-knacks he acquired. Murphy had always loved the place, and he took his time wandering among the stalls, picking things up and checking them over. He liked to buy the odd little thing for his mother. She liked antiques, especially pictures. Eventually he arrived at stall 54A, only to find it bolted up. The woman on the next stall dealt in Art Deco masks. They were quite nice, and he wondered if maybe his mother would like one.
He pointed to a mask. ‘How much is that one?’
‘Well, it’s a Goldscheider,’ the woman replied in a posh voice, smiling sweetly. ‘It’s about two hundred and eighty, the little one, and four hundred and fifty the big one.’
Murphy had to hold on to the edge of the stall. ‘Right... er, I’m looking for Sonny, Sonny Chizzel. He has the place next door.’
The woman rolled her eyes, realizing he wasn’t a customer. ‘Oh, ’e’s in the coffee bar, love.’
Oh yeah, the coffee bar, Murphy thought to himself.
Sonny Chizzel was already on his second cup of coffee. He hated to be kept waiting, and he also hated to be carrying this amount of money.
He spotted Murphy coming his way, wandering casually through the market, picking up bits and pieces. Anyone who saw him for the first time would think he was harmless — just a typical punter. But Sonny knew better. He was a strange one, all right. He still lived with his mother — the only person he had ever seemed to care about. It was a well-known fact that Murphy wrote to her every single day when he was in prison, but his mother never wrote letters back; she used to send him tape recordings instead, and Murphy would sit in his cell and play them over and over. He said it was as if his mother was in the prison with him.