Bella was slightly taken aback by their public school accents.
She coughed. ‘You own the place next door?’
The boy with the sheep sweater looked up, nodded his head, then turned back to the table. For a moment Bella thought she’d lost her touch. Then the guy in the T-shirt turned and started giving her the once-over.
‘Are you using it?’ she asked, with her most seductive smile. ‘I’m from a film company. Maybe we could use it for a shoot, if it’s empty?’
Dolly stood in the doorway, wondering what Bella was up to.
‘What company?’ asked the sweater guy.
‘Feminist. You wouldn’t have heard of us.’ She jerked her thumb toward Dolly. ‘My assistant.’
The two men looked at each other. The T-shirt guy fiddled with the cassette player, putting on the other side of the Annie Lennox album.
Bella was starting to get frustrated with their laid-back attitude. She turned and looked at Dolly, who just shrugged, flummoxed by the whole procedure.
‘How long would you want it for?’ the sweater guy said eventually.
Bella pretended to show interest in the sheets of paper coming out of the printer. ‘Oh, just a couple of weeks. Depends...’
Dolly moved quickly to Bella’s side and gave her a slight push. They moved a little way off.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Dolly whispered. Behind them the T-shirt guy searched in a drawer, then brought over a set of keys.
‘It’s in a pretty bad state. We’ve only just finished renovating this one. We haven’t had a chance to do it up yet.’ He gave Bella a smirk. ‘I can show you round if you like.’
At that moment Harry drew up outside in the metallic gold Jag he was driving while the old one was being repaired. In the passenger seat was a tall man wearing a navy coat with a velvet collar. Colin Soal was a snappy dresser, but he needed to be in his line of business. He was basically a conman, someone who lived on his wits, and men like Harry Rawlins often used him when they needed a smooth-talking front man. It was Soal’s job to sort out a place; with his chat he could get in anywhere, mix with anyone, and with his photographic memory, he could have a building analyzed in minutes: entrances, exits, locks, windows, alarms, how many men would be required for a job — everything.
Soal’s heyday was in the past, however. Once upon a time he’d been the best in the business, but on closer inspection there was a certain seediness about him now, his shirt-sleeves slightly frayed, a touch of dandruff on his collar. Soal was hurting for cash and Harry smelt it the moment they met up. Even before Harry started telling him about the job, he knew he’d do it. He just hoped he still had what it takes.
The two men entered Harry’s lock-up.
Bella was negotiating with the print-shop boys. They had at first asked for two-fifty a week. Bella had laughed and offered a hundred, and they’d met in the middle: two weeks for one-fifty a week, cash up front.
Dolly got more and more tight-lipped as she listened to the bargaining, eventually stepping forward and telling the boys in a sarcastic tone that she’d like a word with her producer.
‘Just give me the money,’ Bella told her, holding her hand out.
Dolly counted it out while the guys watched, then turned and walked toward the door.
Bella slowly counted out the money into sweater guy’s palm. He smiled, maybe even coming on to her a tiny bit. Perhaps he’d realized she wasn’t just another of the hookers hanging round the area. Maybe she really did work for a film company. The older woman certainly seemed straight.
‘Sure you don’t want me to show you round?’
Bella smiled. ‘Thanks, but we’ll check it out ourselves.’
He handed over the keys with a shrug. Their hands touched, and she looked him in the eye. She ran a finger down his chest.
‘Nice.’
He looked confused for a moment, then reached for her hand. She pulled it away before he could grab her.
‘The sweater — very nice.’
He watched Bella saunter out, then turned to his pal and they both grinned. The woman might be a tease, but a hundred and fifty a week! Cash! And the boss would never know.
Bella was confronted with a furious Dolly, still wanting to know what Bella thought she was doing. Three hundred quid, for what? And why? They were arguing so intently, neither noticed the Jag — and the red E-type now parked behind the gold Jag.
‘He’s plannin’ a raid, right?’ Bella said as the door to the next-door lock-up creaked open. ‘You’re not the only one with ideas, Dolly. Come on.’
The hinges were rusty, and the door was hard to close behind them. Inside, the place was even danker and darker than Harry’s lock-up, with pools of stinking water and duckboards squelching under their feet as the water rose over them.
Dolly looked down at her suede shoes and sighed. Bella picked her way round the wrecked cars, most without engines or wheels, their windscreens shattered. A train passing overhead seemed to shake the place to its foundations, and Dolly was afraid the roof was going to fall in. She stopped, with one soaked shoe caught between the boards.
‘I’m not going any further, Bella. Bella?’
Dolly could hear her moving about. She inched forward in the darkness, squinting. She could make out Bella’s silhouette as she lifted an orange box.
Then Bella’s voice, a hoarse whisper, ‘Dolly! Up here, come up here.’
Bella was now standing on the box, face pressed to the wall. The cement and bricks had been chipped away, and there was a chink of light coming through from Harry’s lock-up next door.
‘Somebody’s next door, listen!’
She helped Dolly up onto the box. Dolly leaned forward and peered through the crack.
Bella heard a scratching, rustling noise. She looked down — two rats nosed their way out of the box, which had obviously been their nesting place.
‘Oh my God, rats,’ she hissed, reaching out for Dolly.
Dolly swiped her hand away, hard, and pressed her face closer to the wall. Bella watched her, afraid to move.
Dolly could see him, almost directly in front of her. She could hardly believe it: Harry, smiling and drinking, just feet away. Her heart was pounding, and she felt like running, but she couldn’t look away.
A young blond man sat on an orange crate, with his back to the wall. An older man in a blue coat was taking plans from his briefcase and laying them out carefully on another crate. He stood back.
Harry nodded to the man in the coat, then pulled up another box and sat down. ‘The layout, gentlemen.’
DI Fuller stretched, yawned and looked at his watch. It had been a long and tedious afternoon, and now it was almost evening.
Reynolds put the last of the files in the ‘Out’ tray. They were all done; all up to date. The phone rang just as Fuller was about to reach for it to call his wife. He’d forgotten to let her know he’d be late, something he’d been guilty of several times recently, and she’d begun a campaign of silence in retaliation. He’d come home to find his dinner left on the table, cold, the place neatly laid for one. She’d have retired to bed early to watch their small color TV, giving him a frosty look and shrugging away from him when he attempted to apologize. She could make it last, too. They’d sit in bed and silently watch some trite late-night American series, and as soon as it was over she’d turn on her side, switch off the bedside lamp and shut her eyes. Fuller would lie there and sigh, feeling the tension build, knowing he wouldn’t sleep despite being dog-tired. What was she getting so bloody ratty about, just because he was late? It wasn’t as if they had kids and he was neglecting his parenting duties.