She got up, went to Harry’s study and looked in his desk drawer for the deeds to the house, which she then folded up and placed in her handbag. This desk was so tidy, so unused and so... sterile. It was beautiful and ornate, but, when it came down to it, it could belong to anyone. There was nothing about this desk that screamed ‘Harry Rawlins.’ No personality, nothing to tell you anything about the man himself. The rest of the house said so much about them as a couple, but, Dolly now realized, this was mainly her doing. She was the one who had filled the house with beautiful things and made it into a home. She was the one whose personality was stamped across every room. Harry Rawlins had left little trace of himself anywhere. He was a mystery. ‘How can you have been so stupid for so long?’ Dolly whispered to herself.
Once again, Dolly was filled with a sense of clarity. She rifled through the small filing cabinet in the corner of Harry’s study and found a copy of his will and his latest bank statements. She put everything into her bag along with the deeds to the house. She was the one and only beneficiary named in Harry’s will and he, on paper, was dead and buried. Once her lawyers had got rid of the house, she’d have all the money transferred to a bank in Rio. She’d make at least a £150,000 on the property alone.
And once she was settled in Rio, she’d stop any unnecessary bank transactions. The first to be canceled would be the monthly rent on Iris Rawlins’s flat in St. Johns Wood! There was no way Dolly was going to continue sending money to a woman she loathed. Iris would have to fend for herself and Dolly rather hoped she would have to sell the flat and go into an old people’s home. The very thought of Iris in a home made Dolly smile. But the thought of Harry finding out that Iris was in a home made her stop smiling. Dolly’s actions today were irreversible. Harry, once he and Iris were both homeless and penniless, would kill Dolly if he ever saw her again.
Dolly’s heart ached for the days when she was happy and when she was ignorant of her husband’s betrayals. Harry had let her believe he was dead, he’d let her mourn and he’d let her bury a stranger — a man she now assumed was Jimmy Nunn. After all, if Harry was shacked up in Trudie’s flat, then Jimmy couldn’t still be on the scene. And that baby... Was it Harry’s baby? Dolly screwed up her eyes, trying to squeeze the thought right out of her head. But it wouldn’t go.
Through her tightly closed eyelids, the tears found their way out and rolled down her cheeks. If Harry had simply found the life he truly wanted with another woman and left Dolly, she could have forgiven him. It would have been heart-breaking of course, but she’d have understood because she, too, would have done anything to have a family. But Harry didn’t just leave her for another woman; he’d torn her apart in the process with his lies and deceit and cruelty. How could she ever know what was true and what had been a lie?
Shirley stood by the study door and repeated herself for the third time. Dolly was miles away. ‘There’s no answer at me mum’s, so she must be on her way.’
Dolly swigged back the brandy. It hit her stomach hard, warming her as she looked at the clock. Almost 3:15 a.m.
Shirley and Dolly went back through to the lounge. Dolly poured herself another brandy and sat opposite Shirley, who told her to go easy as it wouldn’t be a good idea to turn up at the airport pissed. Dolly swung one leg over the other, tapped the carpet with the toe of her shoe, got out a cigarette and lit up.
‘Chuck one over, Dolly.’ Shirley said.
Dolly threw a cigarette like a dart at Shirley and it landed neatly on her lap. ‘Wasn’t long ago you hated the stench of smoking,’ Dolly remarked.
‘We’ve all changed these past months, Dolly. Hard not to.’
The telephone rang and Dolly nearly jumped out of her skin. They both listened, frozen to the spot — one ring, two rings, three rings, four. On and on. ‘It’ll be Greg,’ Shirley said. She answered the phone cautiously at first, but then relaxed; she kept saying ‘yes’ and nodding. Then she put the phone down. ‘He’s parked my car in the cul-de-sac outside number fifteen; the keys are under the seat. He said don’t forget to give me mum the money for doing it.’
Dolly just dragged on her cigarette and swigged her brandy.
‘Seems funny Greg worrying about a hundred quid, considering how much I’m worth now.’ Shirley smiled. ‘How much you reckon, Dolly?’
‘You’re worth about two hundred and fifty grand, darlin’. I took off what I laid out for you each so far from my own pocket, but still. A real tidy sum.’ Dolly got up and peered out of the curtains again. ‘Shit!’ she exclaimed. ‘Eddie’s back.’ Shirley joined her at the window and they watched Eddie and Bill standing close to each other and talking in whispers. ‘Two of them complicates things.’
‘Why?’ Shirley asked, wide-eyed and vacant.
Dolly turned away from Shirley. Quite how Shirley had got through life so far was baffling, but then she’d always had Terry to look after her. Dolly sat down, lit another cigarette from the stub of the one she had on the go and threw it into the ashtray; her foot was now jerking up and down, twitching all the time.
The two sat in silence, the clock ticking away on the mantel. Shirley watched Dolly out of the corner of her eye. Her lips were moving, as if she was talking to herself. ‘What are we going to do Dolly? How can we lose two of them?’
‘Where in God’s name is your mother?’ Dolly was sick of having to have the answers to stupid questions.
Shirley moved to the window again. Bill was sitting on the bonnet of the BMW and Eddie was standing next to him. ‘What’s to stop them from coming into the house?’ Shirley asked. ‘What’s to stop them looking in the case and finding the money?’
Questions! Always questions! Dolly wanted to scream at Shirley. ‘Harry! Harry’s stopping them from coming into the house!’ Bill and Eddie must be under orders to watch and nothing more, otherwise they’d have come in by now. Course those orders could change in the blink of an eye but, right now, there was a stand-off.
Shirley was winding herself up. ‘Once they saw that money, they’d want the rest! They’d want it all. I can’t imagine what they’d do to get it.’
‘Don’t, then!’ Dolly shouted. ‘Don’t stand there imagining what might happen.’ Dolly took a breath. She had to calm Shirley down. ‘The money’s safe, love. They’ll never find it.’
‘But only you know where it is — and if anything happens to you, what then?’
Dolly closed her eyes and looked away from Shirley.
Shirley was getting herself into a state, ‘Why are they just watching? Why don’t they do something?’
‘Calm down.’
‘Calm down! How are you so calm? So cold? Stone cold. What aren’t you telling me?’ Dolly couldn’t believe that Shirley was choosing this moment to grow a pair of balls and turn into Linda. ‘Who’s that man with your Harry’s cousin? Another relative?’
‘My God,’ Dolly exclaimed. ‘Your brain’s working overtime all of a sudden, ain’t it?’
‘Well, you don’t seem scared by the fact that they could burst in here at any moment and kill us both! And that’s because you know they’re not going to, isn’t it? You know. How? You’ve got an arrangement, haven’t you?’ It hardly seemed possible, but Dolly’s face was becoming even more stern, her lips narrowing and her jaw twitching. Shirley was on a roll, fueled by fear. ‘You and Eddie got plans? Did I stop him from getting the money last time, did I? I’m feeling very outnumbered here, Dolly, and I want to know where the rest of the money is, right now!’