‘Fine by me, but she’s such a wily old cow she might pick them up and that’s the last we see her.’
‘No, she’ll be back. All her gear’s still in her room.’
‘Ah, she might be back. I’m not that interested in her, darlin’, but will she be bringin’ back the diamonds?’
‘I bloody hope so.’
Ester walked out as Kathleen slowly got off the bed. She heard Ester tell her to stop nicking booze as she ran the cold water in her washbasin, splashed her face with cold water and patted it dry. The photographs of her three daughters were placed on the dressing-table, positioned so she could see them from her bed. They were the last thing she saw at night and the first in the morning: the nine-year-old twins, Kathy and Mary, and five-year-old Sheena. They were in care, a convent home, but how long they would remain together Kathleen couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that when she got the cut of the diamonds, they were going home, all of them, going back to Dublin. She’d be safe, the cops wouldn’t find her there. She hoped they wouldn’t find her here either. ‘You get the diamonds, Dolly, love,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Pray God you get them before the cops trace me.’
Kathleen, like every one of them apart from Dolly, was in trouble. But Kathleen’s problem was not some bloke out to make her a punch-bag: a warrant was out for her arrest on two charges of cheque-card fraud. She had simply not turned up for the hearing. Ester’s invitation to come to the manor not only gave her hope for a lot of cash, but also a safe place to hide.
Dolly trailed from one station to another until she eventually got a taxi for the last stage of the journey to Thorpe Park. Julia was right on her heels, train to train, and lastly the taxi. She didn’t have to say, ‘Follow that cab,’ but she did say, ‘You see that woman with the short haircut, the blue coat? Will you follow the taxi she’s in?’
As they arrived at the theme park Julia began to doubt that Dolly was collecting the diamonds. In fact she started to curse at the stupidity of trailing Dolly around like she, Julia, was Sherlock Holmes but, follow her she did, keeping her distance until Dolly headed towards the funfair section.
Meanwhile, positioned at each exit and entrance, were plain patrol cars and plainclothes officers. Sitting in another plain patrol car was a moody Jimmy Donaldson. They had arrived at three fifteen and he’d been in the car for over an hour and a half. They were all almost giving up when they got the contact. ‘Suspect has entered gate C, over.’
Donaldson was wired up, instructed to move slowly, and told not to approach any of the officers. He would be monitored at all times. He was still angry they had not found the diamonds because it meant that some other bugger had, and he spent his time trying to think who could have shifted them. Only Audrey and Dolly knew where they were, and maybe his wife. Could she have moved them? Did she know? Had she found them? It was possible, and they had now shifted his poor wife to stay with her sister in Brighton, so the ‘you’ll be at home, Jimmy’ was all a cock-up. He wished he’d never agreed to it but then he thought that if they could swing it for him to be in a nice, cushy, open prison, why not? What did he care? Well, he knew Dolly Rawlins was a hard-nosed cow but without her old man, just how hard could she be? It was Harry who had had enough on him to put him behind bars for years. Now he was dead. Then he got to thinking that as Dolly had shot Harry she might just whack him one, so Jimmy Donaldson was not a happy man, and getting more and more pissed off by the minute.
DCI Craigh beckoned him out of the car, pressing his earpiece into his ear, listening. ‘Okay, Jimmy. She moved to the hoop-la stand or something, so you start walking in by gate B, the one closest to us. Just act nice and casual, and don’t keep looking round. Off you go.’
Donaldson shook his head. ‘You know this won’t work. She’s not gonna like it me not having them with me, you know. She won’t like it.’
Craigh sighed. None of them liked it one little bit but they couldn’t do anything about it. ‘Just do the business. Tell her to meet you back at your place, that it was unsafe to bring them here — tell her anything.’
‘This is entrapment, you know,’ Donaldson whined.
‘You fuckin’ do the business, Jimmy, or you’ll be trapped and for longer than you got in the first place.’
He moved off on his own, walking through entrance B and heading, as he had been told, to the hoopla stand. When he got there he couldn’t see Dolly so he went over to the shooting arcade and paid over two quid for three shots. ‘Let her find me,’ he said to himself as he took aim. ‘Let her bloody find me.’
Dolly walked casually around, enjoying the stands, looking at the amazing rides. It was all beyond anything she had ever come across when she was a kid, and it all cost a hell of a lot more. She fingered the hoops, fifty pence a throw. In her day as a kid it had been threepence but she paid over her money and took aim with the wooden hoop.
‘Rawlins is at the hoop-la stand. She’s throwing hoops now.’ Palmer wandered past, not even looking at Dolly as she threw her third hoop and was presented with a goldfish in a plastic bag. As she reached for the fish, she caught sight of Julia, hovering at another stand. She did a double-take and stared.
Julia sighed. She was hopeless at it and she was so tall she stuck out like a sore thumb. As Dolly walked towards her, she smiled weakly. ‘I was following you,’ she said lamely.
‘Well, you just won yourself a prize. Here, take it back to the manor.’ As Julia took the goldfish bag, Dolly looked up at her, ‘Why you following me?’
‘Ester told me to.’
‘Oh, I see, and what she tells you to do, you do, is that right?’
‘Yeah. Well, now you’ve caught me at it, I’ll push off.’
‘You do that, love. I’m only here for the entertainment.’
Julia couldn’t help but smile but Dolly remained poker-faced, watching the tall woman as she threaded her way out of the area. Dolly was piecing it all together: they were, as she had suspected, after her diamonds. Well, they were going to be in for a shock. They wouldn’t get anything out of her. As soon as she had them, she would be on her way and they could all rot in hell as far as she was concerned. Apart from Angela: she liked that little kid.
Dolly wondered if she’d missed Jimmy Donaldson — maybe he’d got tired of waiting.
‘She’s looking around now, handed a fish to a woman who’s walked out. Should be coming through exit E, check her out.’
Julia made her way to the courtesy bus stop and waited, unaware she was being monitored. She had decided she would go and see her mother. It had been a long time since she had seen her.
Dolly saw Donaldson and walked off in the opposite direction towards a Ferris wheel.
‘I think she saw him but she’s walked off, straight past him. Now at the Ferris wheel. She’s talking to the boy on the ticket box.’
Dolly smiled at the spotty young kid and slipped him a tenner. ‘I’ll be back for a ride in a bit and you’ll get another if you make sure I get a nice view from the top of the wheel. Say about five minutes’ worth of view, all right, love?’
He grinned. It was not unusual, he often had requests, and for twenty quid, why not? He watched as she strolled back into the crowds of kids and families. It was not a busy day — midweek and not during school holidays it was often quiet, apart from the shooting arcade that was a constant battle with the eardrums.
Donaldson had another three shots. On his last he got a bull’s-eye and the stall owner begrudgingly handed over a stuffed white rabbit. He turned to see Dolly standing directly in front of him.
‘Okay, they’re together. He’s just won a white rabbit so we can’t miss them. He’s walking off with her to the other stands.’