Widows

Harry had been at the blackjack table when Trudie sat down next to him and deliberately let her thigh brush against his. He looked at her and she smiled seductively. It had the desired effect. His hand moved under the table and he gently pressed and ran one finger along her inner thigh. The tingling sensation that ran through her body was exquisite torture; she didn’t want it to stop. When Harry began to move his hand away, she grabbed it and moved it closer to her crotch. The way he made her feel, she’d have let him take her there and then on the blackjack table.

After that first chance meeting, days and nights of illicit passionate sex followed, mostly in cheap hotels, the back of a car, woodland — in fact anywhere they were unlikely to be caught. No matter where or when Trudie was with Harry, she was always putty in his hands.

She remembered Harry’s face that one special afternoon in a grubby hotel when she told him she was having his baby. At first, he’d doubted her and asked if it could be Jimmy’s child. She assured him it wasn’t: she and Jimmy had not had sex for over a month. Harry had held her close. He’d hugged and kissed her and then he’d rested his head on her stomach. Trudie couldn’t see his face, but she knew his eyes were wet.

After the child was born, Harry had sat in his car at the hospital, waiting for Jimmy to leave. When he did, Harry snuck up to the maternity ward. He was quiet, almost as if there was something about the maternity ward that disturbed him, and she could see the adoration in Harry’s eyes — the boy that Dolly could never give him. But he never said it out loud.

Harry had held the baby close and kissed its soft silky head, but then the smile turned to a scowl and his eyes had narrowed to a glare of distrust.

‘Why was Jimmy here if it can’t possibly be his?’ Harry had asked.

‘I lied to him,’ Trudie explained. ‘All the way through the pregnancy I lied about how far gone I was. I swear to you Harry, on my life, he’s your baby...’

Harry had settled down, but she’d never forgotten the look of evil as he stroked the baby’s head. ‘If I ever find out you lied to me,’ he’d whispered, ‘you’ll regret it.’

Trudie snapped out of her daydream as soon as Harry pulled her down onto the bed and slid his hand inside her dressing gown and onto her breast. He pulled her on top of him and slipped the dressing gown over her shoulders so she was naked. When Harry wanted sex, his smile altered his whole face, softening his eyes. She found it hard to believe this was the same man who, no more than two minutes ago, had frightened her and whacked Eddie.

Harry sat up and started kissing her neck and moved down slowly to her breasts. Wrapping her legs round his waist, she squeezed him tight as her body started to tingle and quiver. None of the men she’d ever had sex with had been able to make her feel the floods of erotic sensation that Harry did. He laid her gently onto her back and began kissing every inch of her body. The weeks of being closeted up with him since his ‘death’ had made no difference to how much she wanted him. All he had ever had to do was touch her and she needed him inside her. When Harry made love to her, he never spoke a word. He didn’t need to, because the sex was that good — but she so wished that once, just once, he would tell her that he loved her.

Chapter 33

Once at the convent, Dolly had to work fast in the empty classroom. The children would be coming back from lunch in a few minutes. She was relieved to see that the brightly colored floor-to-ceiling lockers, which she had bought as a gift for the convent, were now in place and being used. All except the top ones, which were far too high for the children to put their coats and play equipment in. This was where the money from the robbery would live until Dolly was ready to collect. She couldn’t think of a better guardian than the Mother Superior.

On her way to the convent, Dolly had taken a diversion to the lock-up. It was a risk, but she needed somewhere to count the money into four equal amounts and fill four identical bags. Dolly had taken a small amount of cash from each of the bags to create a fifth, smaller share — their spending money for the next few weeks.

As she hefted the four bags into four of the lockers, the sweat poured from her forehead and stung her eyes. Each locker had its own key: one for herself and one each for Bella, Linda and Shirley. Once the lockers were secure and the keys were safely in Dolly’s pocket, she set to, pasting the back of a series of large nursery posters. Once they were stuck across the doors, no one would know there were any lockers up there at all.

With one more poster to stick in place, Dolly heard the bell ring to indicate lunch was over. She quickly dunked a brush in one of the glue pots she had lined up on the trestle table and smeared the paste over the back of ‘Little Miss Muffet.’

‘Hello, Mrs. Rawlins, not gone on holiday yet?’ Sister Teresa bustled in. She seemed surprised.