Ten minutes later, the three women were seated round a large crate, stocked up with tea, coffee and biscuits, looking at the maps and drawings Dolly had laid out for them. Linda was nibbling the top off a Custard Cream, Shirley was nibbling her broken nail into some sort of acceptable shape while wafting Dolly’s cigarette smoke away from her face, and Dolly was hunched over the plans, writing copious notes in her diary — things they needed to buy, to do, to learn.
‘Our main problem is going to be the weight we got to carry on our backs from here—’ Dolly added a neat line to her drawing of the Strand underpass — ‘right up to here. That’s where we’ll have the getaway car parked. It’s a run of about fifty yards.’
Dolly looked up to see Linda scraping the custard out of her biscuit with her bottom teeth. ‘You listening?’ Dolly demanded.
Linda confidently recapped everything Dolly had been saying. ‘Nicked van up front to stop the security wagon in the underpass. Nicked van behind to block it in. Shooter keeping cars in check. Shooter getting the guards to open up. Rucksacks full of money.’
‘Very heavy money,’ Shirley corrected.
‘Very heavy money.’ Linda repeated. ‘Fifty yard run to nicked getaway car.’ Linda was clearly very pleased with herself.
Insubordinate bitch, Dolly thought. She’d have to tame her before the big day but, for now, she let it go. ‘One of us will have to learn how to use a chainsaw as well and that’s really heavy,’ Dolly continued.
‘I’ve got no strength in my arms,’ Shirley said. ‘My legs are OK so I’m not worried about the weight of the money.’
‘You’ve carried a third of a million in notes, have you?’ Dolly snapped.
Shirley fell silent. She was too tired to care how much this mythical third of a million weighed so she changed the subject. ‘What happens if we get trouble from anyone in the cars behind us?’
Linda butted in. ‘Weren’t you listening?! I just said: “shooter keeping cars in check” — that’s me. Don’t you worry your pretty little head. There’ll be no have-a-go heroes on my watch.’ Linda grabbed another Custard Cream. ‘What about explosives?’
Dolly glared at Linda — one long, cold stare that said it all. If looks could actually kill, Linda thought, I’d be dead on the floor.
‘Sorry, Dolly,’ she said and reached a comforting hand across the crate.
Dolly moved her hand away and changed the subject. ‘I’m arranging a meeting with the security contact soon. We know from the ledgers that the wagon always uses the underpass, but that the runs vary in the time and the exact route they take. Once a month there’s a big run with extra cash — we’ll go for that one about four months from now. The contact will confirm the exact date and give us the route map — and we’ll need every minute to prepare.’
As Dolly reached down to her bag, Linda and Shirley rolled their eyes at each other. Two months, four months, six months — did Dolly honestly believe they could pull off an armed robbery?
Dolly sat upright again, two large brown envelopes in her hand. ‘Get yourself wheels,’ she instructed, handing them over. ‘Pay cash and make sure they’re taxed and registered, then, after the job’s done, we’ll ditch ’em.’
Linda opened her envelope and swallowed hard, eyes glinting. She tingled all over — there had to be two grand inside! She was grinning like the Cheshire cat as Dolly handed her a set of keys to the lock-up and brought the meeting to a close.
‘From now on, this’ll be headquarters. Be careful how you come and go.’ Dolly held up another set of keys for Shirley. ‘Now’s your chance, love,’ Dolly said. ‘You in or out?’
Shirley squeezed the envelope full of cash, looked at Linda who eagerly nodded — and she took the keys.
Dolly stood up, pleased with how well the evening had gone. ‘That’s it for tonight,’ she said. ‘Golden rule is you two never call me at home, I’ll get in touch with you as and when I need to. Inside your envelopes is a list of details of what each of you have to do. We take this in stages. Stage one is to get the motors sorted, and for you Shirley, to get all the clothing gear I’ve put on your list.’
Dolly didn’t wait for confirmation; she didn’t need it. They’d taken her money and they’d taken her keys. As far as she was concerned, they were now a team and she was in charge. They’d do as she said, just as Joe and Terry had always done what Harry said. ‘You two can lock up. Don’t leave together, just like at the spa.’ And she was gone, with Wolf quick on her heels.
Linda and Shirley still sat at the crate, their envelopes of money in front of them. They listened to Dolly’s footsteps echo out of the lock-up, heard the Alsatian barking like a lunatic, then nothing.
It was Shirley who broke the silence.
‘You scared, Linda?’
‘If I believed that this was for real I’d be shitting myself, darlin’,’ Linda laughed, taking her money out of the envelope to count it.
Shirley agreed, but she was genuinely concerned for Dolly. ‘She’s not right, is she?’
‘Not even close! Look, I dunno why she’s doing this, Shirl, but it seems to be helping her. Making her feel better. And I have to admit, talkin’ about it makes me feel alive, like I’m tingling all over.’
‘So you’re just going to go along with it?’
‘I’m not proud. I need the cash. Joe left me broke and I know your Terry did the same to you. Dolly’ll come to her senses eventually and we’ll all just go back to our lives but, for now, I’m going to keep on taking the money and Dolly can live in her little fantasy world with us for company.’ Linda could see that the decision to play along with Dolly was nowhere near as easy for Shirley. ‘We’re actually doing her a favor, Shirl. We’re looking after her, giving her something to aim for... making sure she doesn’t end up naked in Trafalgar Square with a traffic cone on her head.’ Linda reached across the crate and put her hand on Shirley’s.
Shirley looked down at Linda’s comforting hand and noticed that she no longer wore her wedding ring. Then she looked at her own long, slender fingers. They were shaking and her gold wedding ring glistened. She didn’t feel elated, or as Linda had put it, ‘tingling all over.’ If this was all just part of Dolly’s grieving process, then Shirley felt terribly, terribly guilty. And if this was really about three widows getting together to commit their dead husbands’ armed robbery, then she felt petrified. But the envelope of money in her hand was lifesaving. Without it she’d lose the house and everything in it.
‘Come on.’ Linda said, helping Shirley to her feet. ‘Let’s go home.’
As Dolly walked along toward the Dorchester, she could see Andrews in his car outside. He was every bit as predictable as she’d thought he was; a foot soldier, nothing more. As she passed his window, she couldn’t resist giving him a small smile. She tipped the doorman when he returned with her Merc, and then drove off like a cat who’d got the cream.
Back home, Dolly locked the garage doors from outside, allowing Wolf to have a pee in the front garden before heading in for the night. Usually she would have entered the house through the connecting door in the garage to the kitchen, but she couldn’t resist toying with Andrews, who had parked up in his usual place outside her house. As she took out her front door key and let herself in, Dolly smiled to herself, thinking how adept she was becoming at losing her police tail. But when she opened her front door, her smile turned to shock, a chill ran through her body from her head to her toes, and her eyes stung with anger as she took in the mess before her. The hallway carpets had been lifted, vases and figurines were knocked over, the upholstery had been slit open, houseplants upturned and the soil tipped out.