Bella didn’t move a muscle until the lights went out and she heard the door clang shut behind Harry, then she let out a deep breath. She looked at Dolly, standing hugging herself, her knuckles white.
‘We’ve got him this time, Dolly. My God, we know enough to pull it ourselves.’
Dolly didn’t answer, just walked back to the door, sloshing through the water without noticing it now.
Bella hurried to catch her up. ‘Come on, it was a joke! Just a joke, Dolly.’
Still Dolly kept walking. When they reached the door she fumbled for the keys.
‘But we can get him this time, Dolly. We can really set him up this time.’
Dolly shivered, her teeth chattering. She felt frozen to the bone. All she wanted to do was get out, get away from this place, away from Bella. The vision of Harry’s smiling face wouldn’t go away. What had really scared her, made her sick to her stomach, was that even after all this time, she wanted to cry out to him, call his name. Those twenty years couldn’t be blanked out; twenty years she had loved him and no one else. Even now she clung to a pitiful dream that Harry was really only waiting for her to contact him, and then they would be together again, just as it had always been. But it was a dream; the house had gone, the home they had built up, all gone. She had all the money, but it didn’t mean anything to her, not without him, and it was this she couldn’t face — that everything was gone, ruined, destroyed, except her love. Even now Dolly couldn’t stop herself loving him, a man who was not worth—
‘Dolly! Dolly, you all right?’
She came to as if out of a drugged sleep. For a moment she didn’t know who she was, then it swept over her, like a dark cloud blocking out the sky. There was no way out for her, she just had to keep going — but to what end?
Trudie had been presented with an invoice from the hotel that scared her as she’d had no concept of the cost of her room, or of how much the constant supply of room service would be.
There had still been no contact from Harry, and she began to worry that the money would run out. Harry had only sent her a one-way flight and she had no way of discovering whether or not he was coming to join her, or where he was as he hadn’t left her any contact details.
She rang her sister Vera and, in typical Trudie fashion, had not thought about the time difference. Vera was woken in the middle of the night in her home in Devon by Trudie asking if anyone had called for her. Vera hadn’t heard from Trudie for months.
‘Why would anyone call here for you?’ Vera said sleepily.
‘Are you sure there’s been nobody asking where I am?’ Trudie had to make sure she didn’t make any reference to Harry Rawlins, as she knew he was wanted by the police.
‘Do you know what time it is? Where on earth are you?’
‘I can’t tell you.’ Trudie could feel the panic rising as she said that she would call again and asked if it would be possible for her to stay in Devon. She also asked that if someone should call for her, just to say that she was still at the hotel.
Micky was driving fast, and Murphy hated fast drivers. His mother had almost been killed by an idiot like Micky. He glanced at the speedo: eighty-five. Eighty-five miles an hour down the bleeding Euston Road. He looked at Micky.
‘You in a hurry to get someplace? Take it a bit slower, son.’
In answer, Micky put his foot down and they hit ninety through the underpass, shooting the lights at Marylebone Road.
Murphy grabbed Micky’s arm. ‘If you don’t slow down, I’m going to put the bleedin’ handbrake on.’
Micky grinned, taking his foot off the gas a little. ‘Can’t take it, Murphy?’
‘I’ll take anything you want to dish out, any time, any place, son,’ Murphy assured him. ‘But getting picked up for speeding just before a blag is fuckin’ idiotic.’
Micky slowed to forty and drove on in silence for a while. Then he started to tell Murphy about the whore he’d given Harry for a present, something to loosen up the tension.
Murphy looked out of the window; he hated tarts.
Micky prattled on, gave Murphy a sideways look and chuckled. ‘Next morning, she was sitting there waiting for me in her rabbit fur coat, in a right old state.’
Murphy pricked up his ears, interested now.
‘I paid her off, and then she says I should get my friend some vitamins or something — turns out Harry couldn’t get it up. It wasn’t for want of trying, neither; said she’d tried every trick in the book, but nothing doing.’
Micky was laughing as they pulled up outside Murphy’s council house. He was about to open the door when Murphy put a hand on his arm.
‘You need to get a few things straight, son,’ he said in a quiet voice. ‘First off: loyalty. I don’t like hearing filthy gossip, you understand? You’re lucky enough to be working with one of the best, so you treat him with the respect he’s due. If that filthy slag is puttin’ round stories about the guv’nor, then you better give me her name.’ Murphy pushed his tinted glasses up his nose. ‘She’ll never be able to open her legs again, and the same goes for your mouth if you’re not careful. So learn to keep it shut.’
Then Murphy was out of the car, the door slamming behind him.
Micky slammed the steering wheel. ‘Prick.’
Murphy had made him feel like a ten-year-old kid. He thought about going round to see Shirley, then thought better of it. He’d given her a right old seeing-to; she might not even be up and walking yet. He roared off down the road, grinning.
Murphy opened his front door and closed it quietly behind him. He took off his shoes and crept into his mother’s room. Her bedside lamp was still on but she was fast asleep, her mouth open and her teeth in a glass by the bed. He tucked the bedclothes in, checked the electric blanket was off and took away the teapot and cup to wash. He left the light on, in case she woke up in the night.
In the kitchen, he made sure everything was spotless and in the right place, his breakfast dishes laid out ready for the morning. He had never got out of the habit of leaving his cup face down on the saucer, spoon at the side. In prison, some things you never forget.
Bella watched Dolly drive off. She hadn’t spoken a word since they’d left the lock-up, and the drive back to the house had been made in uncomfortable silence.
Sometimes Dolly unnerved Bella, the way you couldn’t tell what she was thinking, what was going on in her head. Not like Shirley — or Linda. Bella bit her lip. Linda... poor Linda. She wasn’t coming home again, not now, not ever. And they’d let her be buried without so much as a single flower. Dolly had given them strict orders: no one was to contact the morgue or the Pirelli family. Linda would be laid to rest with Joe. Well, that was one thing, at least: the Pirelli family might have hated Linda, but in the end they had to let her be buried with him.
Bella slipped into the house. The hall light was on. She popped her head into the lounge and saw Shirley’s dress on the sofa. She turned the lights off and went quietly up the stairs. The landing was dark, and Bella pushed open Shirley’s bedroom door. She could see a vase of roses on each side of the bed, and Shirley sprawled out between them, with just a sheet over her, deeply asleep. Bella closed the door. It was strange, Shirley didn’t seem to have been affected by Linda’s death; she’d cried at first, but just as quickly it was over.
Bella undressed, tossing her clothes onto the spare bed — Linda’s old bed. She pulled back the covers and climbed in, not bothering to wash or clean her teeth.