Blue lights flickered through the branches of the trees as Dolly, Julia, Connie and Gloria raced away on horseback towards The Grange. Gloria’s saddlebags had started to slip off one side of her horse, so she grabbed hold of them and held their weight, as best she could, away from the galloping legs. At some point, Gloria realised exactly what she was doing — she was riding a horse, for the first time in her life, one-handed, while holding on to her share of around £30 million! Gloria let out a scream of unadulterated joy. Dolly hoped to God that they were far enough away from the coppers for that not to be heard.
At The Grange, Ester was on autopilot. She had absolutely no idea whether the other women would make it back. The last time she’d seen Dolly, she was surfing a train carriage down a river embankment with Connie inside. So, Ester was blindly sticking to the plan. She’d emptied her share of money into the skip and thrown the sacks into the lime pit, dug and filled three days ago by Gloria. As the money sacks slowly dissolved, Ester used an industrial vacuum to get the cash out of the skip and into black bin bags.
By the time the other four women rode up from the back lane and into the grounds of The Grange, Ester was ready to explode. She swore, ranted, blamed Dolly for the rain that had made the train carriage slip down the embankment, cursed her for the danger she had put them all in. Dolly knew this rage came from fear and from relief; Ester had had to return to The Grange alone, not knowing if anyone else was alive or dead, free or arrested.
Dolly ignored her. ‘Quick — get the money into the skip! Dissolve the sacks and all of your clothes — nothing left! Nothing! Come on! We’re behind schedule!’
They emptied their cash into the skip, so that Ester could keep vacuuming it up and into bin bags.
‘Not one single note can be left behind,’ Dolly urged. ‘If they find one note — it’s over.’
Once all of the money was re-bagged, and all of the sacks and overalls were melting in the lime pit, the skip was dragged over the top. All of the bin bags were thrown into the back of one of John Maynard’s work vans, and all except Ester drove the quarter of a mile to Rose Cottage.
It had been Julia who had discovered the internal layout of Norma’s house. Norma fancied the pants off her and Dolly had told her to get into Norma’s home and, if required, her bed. The coal shaft under the cottage had a long-disused chute opening in the back garden, clearly marked with the construction date, 1841. The chute came out in Norma’s kitchen but had been bricked up decades ago; the only way of getting the cash back out of the chute once it was in was to take the kitchen wall down.
Tonight, Rose Cottage was empty. Norma was away on a police training course for four days. In the garden, Connie passed the bin bags full of money to Julia from the back of John’s van, and Julia poured them down the coal chute. Ester gathered the empty bin bags, Angela checked that not one single note went astray, and Dolly kept lookout. Gloria was back at The Grange, letting the horses loose — they knew that these trail horses would head straight back to the stables just along the road where Julia had stolen them some hours earlier.
Within forty minutes of the train robbery, the five women from The Grange had been in their nightdresses and in bed. As Dolly lay back in her crisp, clean white sheets, wet hair soaking into the pillow case, she allowed what they had just achieved to sink in. She pushed her head back, opened her mouth and let out the loudest cackle she could muster. It echoed down the hallway, seeping into every other bedroom and triggering a chain of celebratory screeching and laughing. No one could believe they’d actually done it — they’d robbed a mail train!
For as long as she could remember, Dolly’s life had been a series of events out of her control. It had all started when she made the mistake of leaving the diamonds with Audrey bloody Withey. Audrey had sold them for a fraction of their value, meaning that Dolly couldn’t afford to open the children’s home she’d dreamed of and had somehow ended up taking on responsibility for six other women. All of this had ultimately led her to the decision to rob a mail train.
Some days Dolly would reason that committing this crime had been the only way for all of the women to have the lives they needed, but on others she would admit that the opportunity had been too good to pass up. Whatever the reason, nothing would ever be good enough for Ester. She was the one person who still doubted Dolly’s integrity. The one person who, after all of the risks Dolly had taken, couldn’t see a future where she didn’t screw them all over and leave them with nothing. Dolly didn’t blame Ester for her paranoia — prison damages some people beyond repair.
It was one o’clock in Angela’s flat and the women were on to their third bottle of Cava. Connie sat on the floor, propped against the sofa where Angela sat with her legs out straight. Julia was curled up into an armchair — for a tall woman, she folded up into the smallest of spaces.
The lounge was quiet, except for the far-off sounds of Rob snoring gently from the bedroom at the other end of the corridor. The main lights were off; only a tall lamp in the corner of the room, by the balcony doors, provided any light. The bulb reflected in the glass through the cheap paper shade, highlighting the children’s little handprints. Out on the balcony itself, wrapped around the top railing, was a string of white lights. At Christmas they flashed on and off, but tonight they were permanently on.
Again, Connie was the one to break the silence.
‘I’m glad Ester’s not here. Is that horrible of me?’ Julia and Angela made faces in agreement. ‘I think she must be very sad. She can’t have many friends, can she? Not with her being such a bitch, I mean.’ Julia spat out a laugh. ‘After all, she’s the reason we couldn’t go anywhere near the money for 20-odd bloody years! “You make a move without me and I’ll see the lot of you inside!” Cheeky cow! She gets herself locked up for murder and we have to wait for her to get out!’
‘It wasn’t just her, Con,’ Julia pointed out. ‘Even after Ester got out, we couldn’t get near because Norma was still alive. Who knew she had so many friends? Most nights in her house was like the Policeman’s bloody Ball — coppers everywhere. I mean, we couldn’t have found a more stupid fucking place to hide the money if we’d tried.’
‘I think it was genius,’ Angela countered. ‘Dolly couldn’t have known Ester was going to lose her mind and shoot the place up.’
‘See!’ Connie added triumphantly. ‘Ester’s fault! Just like I said in the first place.’
Angela moved on to a happier memory. ‘Do you remember that guided tour we went on, Julia?’
‘I was gutted not to be able to come on that!’ Connie screeched.
Down the hall, Aggie stirred in her bed and mumbled, ‘Mummy.’ Connie slammed her hand over her mouth but Angela just smiled. Aggie could sleep through a hurricane.
‘I met you at the Dog and Gun, remember, for the “Murder and Mayhem Tour”?’ Angela continued. ‘That young barman took us up to The Grange and started...’ She couldn’t talk for laughing.
Julia took over. ‘He described us as five “wicked women”, drawn together by a thirst for mayhem and murder. The outcome was inevitable, apparently — he even suggested that we got Dolly there specifically to kill her. He claimed our debauched orgies were eye-watering! Clearly he was getting the children’s home mixed up with Ester’s whorehouse. I was described as a drug-addled GP, Dolly was a murderess and I think everyone else was a prostitute. That right?’