Dolly was feeling good, her dream already shaping into reality and so fast it took her breath away. Mrs Tilly frowned as she re-read the top form.
‘Grange Manor House? It had a bad reputation, you know.’
Dolly looked confused. ‘I’m sorry? I don’t understand. It was a health farm, wasn’t it?’
‘It used to belong to an Ester Freeman. Oh, I’m going back maybe three or four years. It’s been closed — I thought it had been demolished, to tell you the truth, not just because the motorway was built across the main access, but because it was such a scandal—’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re referring to,’ Dolly interrupted.
‘Grange Manor House was run as a brothel. The police raided it and arrested, oh, fourteen women, I think. It was run by Ester Freeman. I think she went to prison.’ Suddenly Mrs Tilly flushed. ‘Did you buy it from Miss Freeman?’
‘No I did not,’ Dolly lied, her hands clenched tightly. Thank you for all your help.’ She managed to keep a smile on her face but she was so angry she could have screamed. This was all she needed. Trying to open a foster home as an ex-prisoner was one hurdle to get over, but now she knew that the place had been run as a brothel any association with Ester would obviously go against her.
Dolly stormed out of the town hall. Ester was not waiting as she had promised. She forced herself to remain calm. She’d get out of this, and fast. She’d do a bit of shopping, get the next train to London, collect the diamonds and do just as she had planned to do: buy a small terraced house near Holloway and screw that bitch Ester Freeman.
Ester faced the bank manager, a small, dapper little man with a faint blond moustache. He shuffled Ester’s thick file of documents. The cheque from Mrs Rawlins, he assured Ester, was or would be cleared as he had already contacted Mrs Rawlins’s bank, but this still left Ester three hundred thousand pounds in debt. She would be declared bankrupt unless she had means to cover the outstanding balance.
‘But I’ve just paid in a cheque for two hundred thousand.’
The manager nodded, over-patient. ‘Yes, I know, Miss Freeman, but the bank are holding the house as collateral for the outstanding monies. I cannot release the property deeds.’
‘Fine. Then I have to take that cheque out. The money is for the sale of the manor and you know that it won’t get that price on the market. You sell it and the bank’ll lose out. This way, at least I’ve paid off some of it and I give you my word you’ll get the rest within a few weeks.’
He sighed. What she was saying made sense. ‘So, Miss Freeman, is this cheque from Mrs Rawlins for the sale of the property?’
‘Yes. That’s why I got to have the deeds returned to me. If you refuse, there will be no sale. You then have to put it on the market and—’
He interrupted, drawing back his chair, ‘I will, however, have to wait for the cheque to be cleared, Miss Freeman.’
She swore under her breath and asked if he could at least give her copies so she could pass them on to the buyer, then as soon as the cheque was cleared, the originals could be sent to the new owner, Mrs Rawlins.
That still leaves your balance over three hundred thousand pounds in the red, Miss Freeman, and unless this situation is rectified then we have no alternative but to begin proceedings against you.’
She leaned on his desk. ‘Give me just one more month — you’ll get the money. I am waiting to be paid a considerable amount, more than enough to cover my overdraft.’
Ester would have liked to scream at him ‘Try three million quid’s worth of diamonds, you fuckin’ little prat’, but instead she smiled sweetly as he sighed and flipped through her bank statements.
‘Well, we’ll give it three weeks, Miss Freeman, but then—’
‘You’ll get me the deeds? Yes?’
He nodded. ‘Yes. I’m prepared to trust you, Miss Freeman.’
‘You won’t regret it,’ she said softly, having no intention whatsoever of paying in another penny, not from the diamonds, not from anything. She was going to skip the country and fast, just as soon as she laid her hands on Dolly Rawlins’s diamonds.
Mike met up with DCI Craigh in the station corridor. ‘She only called from the Aylesbury social services and you won’t believe where she’s asked Donaldson to meet her.’
‘Oh, they find the diamonds?’ Mike asked innocently, knowing it was an impossibility.
Craigh shook his head. ‘I’m gonna need extra men, sort this out at the bloody theme park, and we’ll get Donaldson wired up. He’ll just have to stall her or get her to implicate herself. I’m beginning to wish we’d never started it in the first place.’
Craigh had no idea just how much Mike wished he had never mentioned Dolly Rawlins’s name, let alone the diamonds.
Gloria eased her way round the visitor tables, crowded with the wives and mothers, girlfriends, kids. It never ceased to amaze her how many women were always there every visiting day. Never as many men as women — they were all banged up like her old man.
Eddie Radford was staring at his folded hands, a glum expression on his Elvis Presley features. Eight years younger than Gloria, he’d never even bought an Elvis record but she had. She’d been a great fan and the first time she’d set eyes on Eddie she’d seen the similarity, with his thick black hair. If he’d had sideburns he’d have looked even more like Elvis.
‘You’re bleedin’ late,’ he muttered angrily.
‘Well, the back end of the van went, then I hadda get a train, missed the tube, waited fifteen minutes.’
‘Oh shuddup. Every time you come I got to listen to a bleedin’ travelogue of how you got here. You get me some fags?’
‘Yes.’
‘Books? Any cash?’
‘Yeah, in me left sleeve, can you feel it?’
Eddie leaned over and kissed her as he slipped his hand up her sleeve and palmed the money. ‘How much?’
‘Sixty quid, and that’s cleaned me out. I got to pick up me giro.’
‘Where’ve you been? I called the house three times.’ Eddie opened the cigarettes and lit one, looking around the room at the men and their visitors. The racket was mind-blowing.
‘The council have given me marching orders for nonpayment of rent.’
‘Oh, great! What you let them do that for?’
‘Could be because I’ve not got any cash and that Mrs Rheece downstairs is a bloody zombie. She let them in, found that bloke kipping down and so they said I was sublettin’.’
‘What bloke?’
‘You know, him with the squint, friend of your brother’s. I asked him to leave an’ all but he still stayed on. Pain in the arse, he is.’
‘So where’ve you been stayin’?’
‘I’m in Aylesbury, with some friends. You don’t know them, Eddie. I wish you wouldn’t grill me every time I come, it sets on my nerves.’
‘Who you staying with in Aylesbury then?’
She sighed. ‘Ester Freeman, you don’t know her. She did time with me. Julia Lawson, she was also in Holloway, Kathleen O’Reilly, a stupid cow called Connie and—’
‘Ester Freeman? They all tarts then, are they?’
‘No, they’re not. Dolly Rawlins, she’s there.’
‘Oh yeah, Dolly Rawlins, yeah, I remember Harry. So what you all there for?’
‘For God’s sake, I needed a place to doss down, all right? So we’re all sort of helping Dolly out until—’
‘Until what?’
Gloria flushed. ‘I always get a headache in here. They should keep the kids to another section.’
Eddie reached out and gripped her wrist. ‘I said, what are you doing there?’
She wrenched her wrist free and rubbed it. ‘Word is, she’s got some diamonds stashed and we’re, well, we’re waiting for her to get them.’