Boxer recognized her grief instantly because he felt it himself. Suffused by guilt, his face softened. ‘I’ll come back.’
‘I don’t want nobody round here! Nobody! Get out!’
‘It’s all right, Dolly, don’t worry. Just don’t go to anyone else, OK? The Fishers wouldn’t like it. I’ll come back.’
‘GET OUT... GO ON, GET OUT NOW, BOXER!’ she shouted and hurled her glass at him. He ducked just in time and it shattered against the door. Raising his hands in surrender, he turned and made a hasty retreat.
As soon as the front door slammed, Dolly went over to the record player. As the heavy beautiful voice of Kathleen Ferrier filled the room, she felt her anger calm. She sang along to the record: ‘What is life to me without thee? What is life if thou art dead...’ Suddenly she remembered the package that Eddie had given her before the funeral. Picking up her handbag, she tipped out the contents onto the floor in a jumbled mess. Dolly fell to her knees, scrambling to find the piece of paper wrapped round a set of keys, hoping and wanting it to be a message from Harry. Quickly unwrapping the note, she instantly recognized his neat writing.
Bank vault — H. R. SMITH — PASSWORD — ‘HUNGERFORD.’
Sign in as Mrs. H. R. SMITH
There was more written below.
Dear Doll,
Remember the day you signed at the bank with me for the deposit box? It’s all yours now. The keys are to the lock-up near Liverpool Street. You’ll find some things there, but you need to get rid of them.
Dolly knelt on her plush cream carpet with Wolf by her side and clutched the paper to her chest. She read and reread it, trying to make out when it was written. There was no date, no message of love, just simple instructions. The bank vault contained the ledgers, she was sure of it. She’d always known they existed because Harry was always making lists. His mother had taught him that without the trust of contacts — criminal or legitimate — any business would fail. She had shown him how to keep a ledger, recording names, dates and purchases made, legitimate or illegitimate, and insisted he keep the ledgers safely locked away; they would be insurance against anyone who turned against him.
Dolly memorized the letter before burning it, and slipped the keys onto her own key ring. Harry would have been proud of her. As she carried Wolf up the stairs, she repeated the password over and over to herself: ‘Hungerford, Hungerford.’ The name was easy to remember and the sign-in at the bank was simple, too: ‘Mrs.,’ then Harry’s initials and then ‘Smith.’
As she got ready for bed she wondered how much money the Fisher brothers would give to get their hands on the ledgers. She brushed her hair and then went over to the bedroom window. An unmarked police car was parked a little way down from her front gate, waiting, watching. ‘Bastards,’ she muttered to herself, and pulled the curtains.
Chapter 3
A crowd of police officers had been at Dolly Rawlins’s place for nearly two days, searching every inch of the house. They had even stripped bare the little cot in the nursery and slit open the tiny mattress with a penknife. And they think we’re the animals, she thought to herself as she held back the tears. Their dead baby’s nursery, the untouched, sacred reminder of the little boy she and Harry had lost, was now soiled, tainted and dirty. She felt as if she was losing her baby all over again, but although the callous disregard for her feelings wounded her deeply, she didn’t show it.
After the police had finished inside the house, they moved outside. Nothing was left unturned. The garden was dug up, the plant pots were emptied and the soil sifted through, but they found nothing. Not even a stray dry-cleaning ticket was unaccounted for.
In the lounge, all the drawers from Harry’s desk had been tipped out on the floor, every letter and envelope, every picture frame pulled open. Dolly watched as they mutilated her beautiful home. She didn’t speak, just watched, her body tense with anger; she knew they would find nothing. Harry was too clever, far too clever for the filth. At the sight of DC Andrews, sitting on her upturned sofa taking apart a photo frame he’d picked up from the fireplace, Dolly snapped.
‘You leave that, you bastard!’ She made a grab for it.
Andrews looked to Fuller, who was standing reading Dolly’s private letters. Dolly turned to him.
‘Tell him not to take that! It’s the last photo we had taken together, on our anniversary.’
Fuller continued reading. ‘Take it down the Yard,’ he said to Andrews, without looking at Dolly. ‘We need a recent shot of Rawlins to show the victims of this and every other unsolved armed robbery in London.’
Dolly had had enough. She picked her way through the debris strewn across her lounge, to the telephone.
‘This is harassment!’ she barked at Fuller. ‘I want to talk to your commanding officer. What’s his name?’ There was no reply. ‘I’ll have you for this! And I want my husband’s watch back... you hear me? I bought it for him and I want it back! It’s the only thing I have left of him.’
Fuller continued to ignore Dolly, which infuriated her further. She picked up the phone. ‘Your commanding officer! Who is he? I want his name!’
Now Fuller looked at her. ‘Detective Inspector George Resnick,’ he said with a smirk.
Dolly replaced the receiver as if it had burned her hand. The only time she had ever seen Harry bothered was over Detective Inspector George Resnick. Determined to prove Harry’s involvement in a security van raid, Resnick had turned up at the house to interview Dolly. Resnick threatened that no matter how often Dolly lied, one day he would send Harry Rawlins down for life.
Dolly had warned Harry that he needed to get Resnick sorted. ‘Wouldn’t it be funny,’ she had said casually, ‘if Resnick was the one stitched up? Imagine if everyone thought he was taking bribes and the press got hold of it?’
The following Sunday at breakfast Harry had dropped a copy of the News of the World on the table. Resnick’s career lay in tatters on the front page. Harry had smiled at his wife and opened a bottle of champagne. They had toasted seeing the last of him.
But now it seemed Resnick was back on Harry’s case, determined to sully his name now that he wasn’t around to defend himself or to protect her.
‘My husband’s dead,’ Dolly said to Fuller. ‘Isn’t that enough for you?’
The short squat figure of Detective Inspector George Resnick thudded down the station corridor, the inevitable cigarette stuck in his mouth, his overcoat open and a battered hat perched on the back of his head. Resnick carried a thick heavy folder under his arm and, as he passed the main detectives’ offices, he flicked doors open and barked his orders without breaking stride.
‘Fuller, my office pronto, bring the reports. Andrews, get me some coffee! Alice, I want those forensic reports back today!’ Resnick didn’t actually catch sight of anyone he shouted at — but he knew they were there and he knew he’d get what he wanted. Reaching his own office, he took his key, opened his door, entered and kicked it closed behind him, causing the already cracked glass to shudder.
Alice hurtled out of her office clutching the requested forensic reports, just as Andrews collided with Fuller in the corridor.
‘The coffee machine’s broken!’ she said.
The color drained from Andrews’s face. This wouldn’t go down well with Resnick. He scampered down the corridor in search of another one.