She's Out (20 page)

Dolly went into the washroom at the town hall and told Angela to see which room they should go to. When she returned, Dolly had carefully stashed the bag of diamonds on top of
one of the old toilet cisterns. She reckoned she might have a visit later: if some bastard set her up, they wouldn’t leave it as it was. Somebody was bound to come sniffing around at the
manor.

She turned as Angela slipped in and whispered, ‘I said we’d been here for fifteen minutes waiting down the hall. They said they’re running a bit behind and for you to go into
the waiting room outside the boardroom.’

Dolly examined her face in the mirror. She looked a bit ruffled but she put on some lipstick and only then did she realize she was shaking.

Angela was biting her nails as she sat next to Dolly in the waiting room. Ten minutes ticked by, during which two women came in and walked out, Dolly making a point each time
of saying, ‘Good afternoon.’

Angela suddenly started to cry again and Dolly squeezed her hand tightly. ‘Don’t. Just hold on.’

‘I think he was dead, Dolly. I’m sure I killed him.’

‘You did, love.’ Angela gasped with shock but it calmed her, just as the boardroom doors opened and Mrs Tilly walked out.

‘I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting, Mrs Rawlins, but please do come in.’

Dolly smiled and straightened her jacket. She noticed Mrs Tilly looking at her watch and she said quietly, ‘We got here early. I didn’t want to be late, this is too important for
me.’

Mrs Tilly held open the door, allowing Dolly to walk into the boardroom ahead of her. As the door closed behind them, Angela sniffed and pressed her hand to her mouth. She’d killed that
poor man, she’d killed him and she couldn’t face it. She pressed her hands to her mouth, then got up and hurried out.

Mike’s wife picked up the phone. She could hear someone sobbing on the other end. ‘Look, whoever this is, don’t keep calling here, do you hear me? Leave us
alone.’

Angela sobbed that she had to talk to Mike, it was urgent, and there was something in her terrified voice that made Susan not put down the receiver. She didn’t know where Mike was, but she
paused. ‘What’s your name? Do you have a number he can contact you on? Hello?
Hello
? Who is this?’

‘It’s Angela, it’s—’ Susan couldn’t make out what else was said because of the sobbing, and then the phone went dead. She called the office and they said he
was out. She called her mother-in-law. Audrey answered.

‘Is Mike there, Mum?’

‘No, love, I’m waiting for him to call. Did he tell you? I’m going to Spain, I’m just waiting for my passport.’

Susan asked Audrey to get Mike to phone her straight away if he happened to call.

‘Are you all right, Susan?’ Audrey asked, concerned.

‘No, Mum, I’m not. If I ask you something, will you be honest? I mean it, Audrey, I don’t want you to lie to me.’

‘I won’t, love.’ Audrey had never heard Susan so agitated.

‘I think Mike is seeing someone else. I’m getting hysterical phone calls and then sometimes they just put the receiver down on me.’

‘Oh, Mike wouldn’t, love, it’ll be somethin’ to do with his work, he wouldn’t carry on.’

Susan clutched the receiver tighter. ‘You ever heard him mention a girl called Angela?’

Audrey sighed because she had. In fact, he’d called an Angela a couple of times from her flat. When she asked about her, he had said she was a kid he was trying to help out. Maybe
he’d been doing a bit more than helping her out. ‘I’ll talk to him, don’t you worry about it. I’ll find out. But I think you’ve got it wrong – he
wouldn’t, not Mike. I’ve got to go now, love, don’t you worry.’

Audrey could hear Susan crying and then the phone cut off. She replaced the receiver, feeling a bit guilty, but there were more important things on her mind. She looked at the clock: it was
almost five. She crossed her fingers. Dolly Rawlins should have been arrested by now. She went back to her packing, half an ear listening for the phone, selecting her clothes for the trip to Spain.
The face of her dead daughter stared back from the picture frame. Shirley Miller looked on with that sweet, vague smile.

The women were huddled in the kitchen as Gloria told her side of it, then Ester hers. Julia said nothing. Kathleen looked glum and Connie wanted to cry. She said, ‘So,
there’s no diamonds?’

Ester gave a slow, burning stare. ‘That’s fucking bright of you to fathom out, Connie. What the hell do you think we’ve been talking about, Smarties?’

Mr Arthur Crow, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, looked over Dolly Rawlins’s forms and listened intently to her answers. She seemed nervous but that was only to be
expected. She described the manor and her intentions, how many staff she felt would be required to run it, how many children she could easily accommodate. That section was impressive: she was
concise and to the point, saying the grounds were ample, there were stables and a swimming pool but truthfully that the house was in a poor state of repair. That was why she had pressed Mrs Tilly
for an on-site visit as she wished to make the house suitable for children and therefore any structural work required by the social services she would carry out, but did not want to go to
unnecessary expense. She had costed the rebuilding and was able to give estimates and overall costs of running the home. No one there could have queried her good common sense. They now turned to
her criminal record and she made it clear what her crime was, how many years she had been sentenced to, and, as she had been sentenced for murder, that she would be on licence for the rest of her
life. She said quietly that she had never been involved in any criminal activity before the shooting of her husband and that it had been at a time when she was emotionally unstable because she had
at first been told he was dead, then had discovered he was alive and living with another woman who had his child. She spoke candidly about the therapy sessions she had been given at Holloway and
that she had required no therapy for the past five and a half years.

‘I found great solace in working with the young female offenders, especially in the maternity section of the prison. I developed an interest in working in the group-therapy sessions for
the inmates and became a trusty, working with probation officers and therapists, not as a patient.’

Deirdre gave Dolly small encouraging nods and Mrs Tilly was a constant source of encouragement. The men were offhand and cool, showing much more restraint.

‘You have no children of your own, no near relative with young children?’

‘No, I have not.’ Dolly looked directly at a ruddy-faced man, who had made copious notes throughout.

‘You have specifically requested young children.’ It was the stern-faced Arthur Crow’s turn; his thin wispy hair hung in a strand across his bald head.

‘If that were possible, but I would hope for any child, or children, and having so much space and accommodation, if there were children that came from the same family and were to be
separated, then I would accept any age, male or female.’

Dolly was asked further questions about whether she would be prepared to work with a foster carer and resident home advisory officers, and she agreed to be available and prepared to do anything
the board suggested that would enable her to open the manor as a home.

‘Mrs Rawlins, how are you at this present moment financing the running of the Grange?’

Dolly explained that she had a considerable private income that had enabled her to purchase the manor.

‘Do you know the previous owner?’ It was slipped in fast.

‘No, I do not. I believe her name was Ester Freeman and the place had a very bad reputation. Perhaps that is why I think, and my lawyers feel, I paid a fair price for such a substantial
property. At some time in the future I hope I can be self-sufficient as there is a large orchard and a considerable amount of good fertile soil for growing vegetables.’

Eventually, after over an hour and a half of questions and answers with Dolly maintaining her composure, she was asked if she would allow a visit within the next few days to assess the property.
She agreed and stated that they were free to come at any time – in fact, the sooner the better. Mr Crow ended the meeting by saying that everything she had said would be assessed and
obviously her past checked into in some detail. They thanked her for her honesty and wished her every success.

She walked out confidently, and was further gratified by Mrs Tilly’s light touch on her arm as she left. ‘Thank you so much for coming in to see us at such short notice, and we
apologize for keeping you waiting.’

Dolly returned to the manor by taxi. At the level crossing they were held up for almost ten minutes. The cab driver shook his head and turned to the back seat. ‘Sorry about this,
it’s the mail train. Holds us up for sometimes ten, twelve minutes. One night it was fifteen.’ The gates opened, and they drove on down the narrow country lane back to the manor.

Dolly breezed in, all smiles, trailed by a downcast Angela. ‘Well, it went very well. I feel positive and they’re gonna assess everything then come and look over
the house.’ She shut the back door and tossed her handbag on to the table. ‘I don’t know about anyone else but I’m starving. Who’s on the dinner tonight?’

Ester stared at her in disbelief. ‘Is that all you’ve got to say? I’m glad everything went well for
you
!’

The police cars moved silently up the driveway, two officers from Thames Valley in front, followed by DCI Craigh, accompanied by DC Mike Withey and one uniformed driver. Craigh
was first out. He walked up the manor steps, sidestepping the sacks of cement, and waited as the local police moved around to the back yard to enter from there. Then he radioed in that he was about
to enter.

He gave one soft knock and murmured it was the police and that they had a warrant to search the premises. He then stepped back as the locals banged on the door. They didn’t need much force
as it was only on the latch, and they burst into the hallway, Craigh holding up the warrant.

‘We have a warrant to search the premises. This is the police.’

Kathleen ran up the stairs, on to the first landing and legged it out on to a low roof at the back and stayed there. The other women ran this way and that, only Dolly remaining unflustered as
she picked up the kettle to put it on the stove. Angela cringed back, crying, terrified that they had come to arrest her for the hit-and-run.

Seeing Angela in such a state was the only time Dolly worried. ‘Angela, keep your mouth shut, you don’t say one word. Just give them your name, nothing more, understand
me?’

Gloria was clasping the back of the chair. She grabbed at Ester. ‘What the fuck do we do?’

Ester shrugged her away. ‘Nothing. There’s nothing here.’

Gloria was almost passing out. ‘Yes, there is. We put the bloody things in the cellar.
Eddie’s guns are in the cellar
.’

Ester froze, but could say nothing as they were surrounded by police and herded into the drawing room.

Craigh looked at Dolly as she calmly opened a tea caddy. ‘I am Detective Chief Inspector Craigh.’

Dolly smiled. ‘Dorothy Rawlins.’ She held out her hand for him to shake.

‘Do you mind if I talk to you first? Do you want to see the warrant?’

‘Of course. I’d also like to know what this is about.’

Craigh passed her the warrant and watched her study it. He looked into the hallway to Mike. ‘I’ll take Mrs Rawlins’s statement first, then the others. Get their names,
addresses, you know the deal.’

He looked back at Dolly. ‘My men will begin searching the entire house and outbuildings.’

She nodded, seemingly still intent on reading the warrant. He waited patiently.

The women wandered around the drawing room; Gloria was now crying and Angela hadn’t stopped, but it was Julia who asked in a furious whisper what the hell they were
getting so upset about.

‘There’s an arsenal of weapons down in the sauna, Gloria’s husband’s guns, three bags full of them.’

Ester sat down, her face drawn in fury. Julia looked at Gloria, stunned. ‘Are you serious?’ But she knew she was because she had never seen Gloria so scared. Before she could say a
word, Mike Withey walked in.

‘I’ll need all your names, dates of birth, present and past addresses.’

Behind Mike, the women could see the officers searching, moving up the stairs, some heading down to the cellar. They remained silent, all of them waiting with trepidation for the police to find
the weapons.

C
raigh sat with his notebook open as Dolly drank a cup of tea, never offering him one. She had agreed that she knew James ‘Jimmy’
Donaldson immediately, and seemed shocked when told he was dead.

‘Dead? But he can’t be. I only spoke to him yesterday. I met up with him a few days ago.’ She sat sighing, asking how it had happened.

‘Would you mind telling why you met Mr Donaldson?’

‘Er, no, no, I don’t mind. You see, he was keeping something for me. I’ve been in prison, you see, and, oh, this is a shock . . .’

Craigh tapped his pen on the table. ‘What was he holding for you, Mrs Rawlins?’

‘Well, they were nothing to look at, really. You wouldn’t even think they were valuable, but they are, they’re worth a lot of money.’

He leaned close. ‘What exactly, Mrs Rawlins?’

‘They used to be in my front garden at Totteridge, gnomes, two Victorian garden gnomes. Not the bright plastic things but old carved stone ones. Jimmy Donaldson was holding them for me
until I got out. I called him about them, asked him if he still had them and told him I was going to collect them today, as a matter of fact.’

Craigh wrote down every word, gritting his teeth. ‘Did you collect them from Mr Donaldson?’

‘I couldn’t get away because I had a very important meeting at the town hall.’

‘What time?’

Dolly slowly repeated that she was at the town hall from three fifteen until after five – in fact up to shortly before they had arrived: she had been there for an assessment interview.