‘What the fuck happened?’ Ester screamed.
Julia was white-faced with fear, eyes to the front, to the back as they could hear sirens. ‘Dolly sussed she was being set up, that’s all I know.’
Gloria screamed that Dolly was out of her mind. She had gone right round the Shepherd’s Bush roundabout and was heading back the way they had come. ‘You’re crazy! You’re driving us right back to Ladbroke Grove — you should have gone up on the motorway.’
Dolly said nothing. She turned left on to Ladbroke Grove again and began to move into the side-streets crisscrossing Ladbroke Grove.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What we supposed to have done, Gloria? If we get stopped we was just up in London shopping, now shut up! Besides, if they’re trying to find us, they won’t be looking for us right on his bloody doorstep, will they? I’m going back on to the Harrow Road and then to the station. There’s a train at three and I’m gonna be on it.’ Dolly knew that if she was picked up, they must have Donaldson and he must have talked. She could be arrested.
Palmer was sitting with a damp cloth held to his neck. DCI Craigh was out in one of the cars searching for Donaldson. It was now bordering on utter farce and one they would all be in heavy trouble about.
Mike sat on the stairs, shaking his head in disbelief. His radio crackled. There was still no sighting of Jimmy Donaldson, who was at that moment running for his life with a bagful of fake diamonds. But only Mike knew they were fakes.
Jimmy Donaldson didn’t know he’d risked everything for a bag of glass. He was running and dodging down the alleyways, hugging the pouch bag to his chest. He reached the end of Ladbroke Grove and he was still in the clear. He ducked and dived down Portobello Road, in and out of the stallholders, catching his breath in antique shops. He was making his way towards a back link road that led on to Harrow Road, and he knew he’d be able to nick a motor easy. They were sometimes being worked on by blokes he knew so he reckoned if he made it there he’d be away.
Dolly forced Gloria into the back seat of the Volvo as she knew they’d be looking for a middle-aged blonde. Then she dragged Angela out of the car and shoved her into the driving seat. ‘Get in and drive.’
Angela had never driven an automatic in her life. Dolly crouched in the back seat with Gloria. ‘Just put the gear into “Drive”, Angela, and take it nice and easy. Go up to the end and you take a right. There’s a small slip road, we can ease through it onto the main Harrow Road.’
Dolly was calm, quiet until Angela took a left instead of a right, then she almost punched the back of Angela’s head.
Donaldson was panting, sick with having run himself into the ground as he wove in and out of the parked cabs and trucks. He saw the car, saw the door open with the keys inside, and his heart lifted. He got another surge of adrenalin and was ready to make a charge for the parked car.
As he did the run, Angela careered down the alley, terrified, still shouting that she couldn’t control the car, that she had never driven an automatic and hadn’t even passed her test on an ordinary car. Dolly gritted her teeth with fury. She knew they’d only be looking for a middle-aged blonde woman.
‘Stay fucking calm,’ screamed Gloria. ‘I dunno where we are. Where the hell are we? It’s a dead end, Dolly.’
Dolly knew exactly where they were and told Angela to keep going straight ahead. Either side of the road were garages, some with their doors open, mechanics working on vehicles, but no one was paying them much attention. By now they were moving more slowly. As they turned at the top end of the narrow yard and Dolly told Angela to put her foot down on the accelerator, Jimmy Donaldson, scared he was being followed and looking back over his shoulder, didn’t see the car and ran out straight into the Volvo.
His body took the full impact of the car side on. It threw him up into the air, he rolled across the bonnet and slithered to the ground on the opposite side. Angela rammed on the brakes, both Gloria and Dolly lurching forward in their seats. ‘What the bloody hell was that?’
‘A bloke! You’ve gone an’ hit a bloke, for chrissakes!’ bellowed Gloria. She then screamed as Donaldson, still alive, tried to stand, his face pressed against the window, clawing at the door.
‘Back up,’ shouted Dolly, ramming the car into reverse. Angela slammed her foot down on the accelerator again and as the car lurched backwards, Donaldson’s body disappeared.
‘He’s under the fucking car,’ shrieked Gloria. She leaned over and pressed the car into ‘Drive’. Angela was sobbing hysterically as the car bumped forward. They all felt the hideous bump and heard the sound beneath the wheels.
Donaldson’s chest was crushed. He lay face down in the gutter and, as Dolly ran from the car, two mechanics from one of the nearby garages, hearing the women screaming, began to look over. They were too far away to see who was in the car or what had happened.
Dolly almost fainted when she turned the body over and recognized Jimmy Donaldson. As she felt his pulse, she saw the black velvet pouch containing the diamonds. It was half in, half out of his jacket. She didn’t miss a beat. She snatched them, stuffed them into her pocket, and returned to the car. Neither Gloria nor Angela saw her do it. Both were in a state of shock.
‘Get out of here and fast. Move it, Angela!’ Now the watching men were more interested in what was going on at the bottom of the yard. The Volvo’s tyres screeched as it hurtled round the corner and disappeared. Not until they stood in the centre of the road did they see the body.
By the time the police arrived at the scene, Donaldson’s body was covered and being lifted into a stretcher. No diamonds and, for DCI Craigh, useless witnesses who could not say for sure the exact make of the car or even give a description of the driver. All Craigh did know was that it had been a major cock-up. Jimmy Donaldson was dead and no one had seen Dolly Rawlins anywhere near his home. If she had been in the car that killed Jimmy, they had no evidence. They had, as he put it to DI Palmer, fuck all. What was worse, they could all get into very deep trouble over what had taken place, and they all knew it.
Dolly made it to the train just in time. She had to run along the platform and opened one of the doors as the train was moving. The guards shouted but she was on it and she hauled Angela after her. They sat in the compartment heaving for breath. Dolly felt the pouch bag in her pocket sticking into her stomach. She leaned back, closing her eyes.
‘We made it.’
Angela was still panting, scared to death. ‘That — that man I ran over.’
Dolly opened her eyes. ‘Not your fault — you couldn’t stop. Eh, this is where we both get arrested for not having tickets.’
She smiled, but Angela couldn’t. All she could see was that grey object as it hit the windscreen, felt that hideous bump as she ran over him, not once but twice. She started to cry.
‘Pull yourself together, Angela, we don’t want anyone to... remember us. So I’ll sit up front, away fro m you, all right, love?’
Dolly made her way up the train, slipped into the toilet and held the bag of diamonds tightly to her chest. She’d got them and she’d still make the meeting.
Gloria took a steady, almost scenic, route back to the rental garage, first stopping at a car wash and checking for any signs of damage or blood on the bumpers, but the car didn’t even have a dent. The windscreen wasn’t cracked either. She was impressed with the Volvo. It dawned on her that there were no diamonds, and she was depressed and fed up by the time she collected her Mini and drove back to the manor. She had Eddie’s guns, though — they’d make a nice packet. Gloria decided she should have stuck with what she knew, not been drawn into the diamond scam by Ester Freeman and her big ideas — she’d get the hell away from that Dolly Rawlins. She reckoned she was unlucky anyway.