Dolly gripped Kathleen’s hand tight.
Just after Dolly had left the manor, Gloria marched up the stairs and banged on Angela’s bedroom door. ‘Oi, what you doin’ in there? We want you out. Come on. Angela?’ She tried the door. It was locked but the key was not on the outside.
‘Angela?’ She banged on the door, turned the handle and pressed it hard, but it was securely locked from the inside.
Gloria darted out to the stables and picked up a hammer. Connie appeared.
‘That Angela has locked herself in so I’m gonna break down the door and drag her out by the scruff of her neck.’
She went back upstairs and hit the door hard, then the door handle, and Connie pushed. It eventually gave way and they stumbled into the little box room. Angela was lying on the floor by the bed, face down. Beside her was a bottle of bleach. When the two panic-stricken women turned her over her face was blue, her mouth burned, but she was alive.
Julia was walking up the driveway and looked up to the top window as she heard Gloria scream at her out of the window to hurry. She jumped up the stairs three at a time and burst into the bedroom. Connie had Angela on the bed but stood helplessly to one side.
Gloria hovered. ‘She’s drunk bleach, Julia. I dunno how much but look at her mouth!’
Julia barked orders, to call an ambulance, get jugs of water, and drew Angela into a sitting position, feeling inside her mouth as Gloria and Connie hurried out, glad to be told what to do.
‘Angela, can you hear me? Angela? It’s Julia.’
The girl lolled forward. Julia tested her pulse, which was very weak, and began to pour water down her throat from a jug Connie had brought in.
Dolly was shown into the Governor’s office. She was freaking out: being in the visitors’ section was bad enough, but now, in the office, she hated it. All she wanted to do was leave.
Mrs Ellis had tea brought in. She was friendly and seemed to want to discuss Kathleen’s wish that Dolly become her children’s legal guardian.
Dolly sipped the tea, refusing to meet Mrs Ellis’s eyes, looking anywhere but into her face.
‘Do you have a job?’
‘Not easy at my age but I’ve got a few things I’m working on.’
‘I know about your application to the social services. Dolly, to run an institution requires training and people with qualifications.’
‘It was just a home, Mrs Ellis. This place is an institution. But it doesn’t matter now, I was rejected, they didn’t think me suitable, and if you don’t mind I don’t want to discuss it further.’
‘If you need any help in the future...’
‘I won’t, thank you.’
‘You know, Dolly, it isn’t wise to keep up some friendships you make inside. It is much better to make a clean break.’
Dolly slipped the cup and saucer back on to the desk. ‘Thank you, and thank you for the tea, but I’ve got to leave now.’
Mrs Ellis stood up, put out her hand to shake Dolly’s but she was already at the door.
‘Will we be seeing you again?’ she asked, still forcing herself to be pleasant.
‘No, I won’t come back. Goodbye.’
Mrs Ellis sat back in her chair. Dolly had looked well, almost affluent, stylish, but she was hard, a brittle quality to her every move, and she had not smiled once. An unpleasant woman, Mrs Ellis mused, but then her attention was drawn to other matters and Dolly Rawlins was forgotten.
The ambulance rushed Angela to hospital. Julia had gone with her but left when Angela was taken into the emergency section. Gloria had been upset but by the time Julia returned she was arguing with Connie, saying it wasn’t anyone’s fault but Angela’s and she wasn’t going to waste any pity on her. She could have got them all arrested.
‘She’s only eighteen,’ Julia snapped, irritated.
‘Yeah, so was I when I first went down but I still never grassed anyone. She’s got no morals, coming here, playing us for idiots.’
‘The way we all tried to play Dolly?’
‘No, we fucking didn’t,’ screeched Gloria.
‘Yes, we did,’ Connie said stubbornly.
‘Well, it’s all going to change soon, isn’t it?’ Julia said quietly.
‘What you mean?’
Julia sat down. ‘We think she’s planning a robbery.’
Gloria gaped. ‘I knew it — I fucking knew it. Soon as those shotguns was missing I said to Ester, I said to her, “She’s got something going down,” and I was right.’
Connie shifted her weight to the other foot. ‘I wish to God in some ways I’d never come here. I never done anything illegal in my entire life.’ Gloria snorted and she glared. ‘I haven’t. I’m not like you, Gloria. We all know what you are.’
‘Oh, yeah, what am I? You tell me that.’
Ester had come in, unnoticed, and answered, ‘A loud, brassy tart. So what’s all the aggro?’
‘Where’ve you been?’ Gloria asked.
Ester took off her coat and chucked it over a chair. ‘Talking to that half-wit Raymond Dewey. Dolly wants to know the times of the mail train.’
Gloria’s jaw dropped and she drew a chair close. ‘Is she gonna hit the security wagon, then? One that does the drop for the mail train?’
Julia crossed to the back door. ‘If she does, it’s madness. According to Norma they have the place sewn up. The local police come out in force, cut off the lanes. There’s no main access, we’d never get a vehicle near, never mind one that’d carry anything away.’ She pushed at the broken door and sighed. ‘This is crazy, you know, even discussing it.’
Ester looked at her. ‘No harm in it, though, is there? Unless you’d prefer to talk about Norma. Do you want to talk about Norma?’ Ester repeated the name with a posh, nasal twang. Julia pursed her lips. ‘Oh, have I hit a sore point? Don’t want to talk about Noooorma, do we?’
‘No, I don’t. And stop being childish.’
‘I’m not being childish. It’s you that’s got all uptight and your little mouth is all pinched up. All I’m doing is making conversation about Norma.’
Julia glared, then half smiled. ‘Jealous?’
‘Who me? Jealous? Of what? Norma? Oh, please, do me a favour. I couldn’t touch anyone with that arse anyway.’
Julia opened the door. ‘You don’t have to, but I do, and it’s quite tight, actually.’ Ester’s face twisted in fury. ‘She has a very good seat, as they say in riding circles.’
Julia was out of the door, shutting it behind her, before Ester could reply. She was pleased: Ester’s jealousy was proof that she cared.
Dolly drew up and parked outside Ashley Brent’s electrical shop. She squinted at the meter and shook her head with disgust: twenty pence for ten minutes — it was a disgrace! She walked to the boarded-up door of the shop, rang the bell and waited. Eventually a voice asked who it was.
‘Dolly Rawlins.’
There was a cackle of laughter and the sound of electronic bolts being drawn back before the door opened. Ashley Brent stood in the centre of his shop floor, arms wide, his glasses stuck on top of his bald head. ‘As I live and die. So you’re out then, gel. Give us a hug. You’re looking good, sweetheart. How long you been out, then?’
‘Oh, just a few months. Takes a bit of getting used to, especially those ruddy parking meters.’
‘Don’t tell me. I mean, in the old days you could find a broken one, use it for the day. Now they tow you away if it’s busted, tow you if you’re a minute over, tow you for any possible excuse. What they don’t do is tow the fuckers that block off the traffic. I’m telling you, everything nowadays is geared to get the punter, Doll. You’re screwed in this country if you got a leg it business, taxed, VAT... It’s like we got the Gestapo after us for ten quid rates due but then you hear of blokes coining it and they’re on social. Makes you sick.’