Widows

Dolly shivered slightly. She hadn’t realized that Harry had organized and committed so much heavy crime. Looking at the dates, she realized that most of the robberies had taken place after her third miscarriage; then there was a lull before they picked up again after her baby boy was stillborn. This hurt her deeply, but she also understood. The untouched nursery had been a sanctuary for Dolly, who suffered bouts of depression, but Harry had never once set foot inside the beautiful, cornflower-blue room. She knew he had distracted himself from the traumas of their personal life by throwing himself into his work; but she’d thought he was away at antiques auctions. He hadn’t exactly lied, but he had allowed her to misunderstand exactly what ‘work’ he was throwing himself into.

Dolly continued to flick through the last ledger — and stopped, shattered. There, in Harry’s neat, immaculate handwriting, were the detailed plans for the raid in which he died. Dolly saw the number of guns required, the vehicles to be used and the names and contact numbers for Joe Pirelli, Terry Miller and the security firm insider. The names Pirelli and Miller both rang a bell with Dolly. They’d been at some event or other with their respective wives — respective widows now. For a second Dolly wondered what the two women were doing right now, allowing herself a smile. Well, they won’t be doing what I’m doing, she thought to herself.

The meticulously detailed plans, drawings and directions for the robbery read like the script for a play. She couldn’t quite believe that a man so reluctant to pick up his dirty clothes from the bedroom floor could be so organized when it came to robbing an armed security wagon... but then, there was nothing life or death about laundry. Suddenly she remembered Harry’s blackened wristwatch. Feeling sickened, she slowly shut the book. Within seconds, she’d opened it again, now turning the pages rapidly to see what Harry had planned for their future, desperate to find out all the secrets she could about the man she loved.

‘My God,’ she whispered to Harry as she read his words, ‘you even worked out crimes as far ahead as ’86!’ As the scope of his plans sank in, Dolly looked at her watch. An hour had gone by since she’d left the hairdressers and she knew she had to go.

In the taxi on the way back to Myra’s, Dolly made copious notes in her small black Gucci diary of what she had read in the ledger about the failed robbery. She used her own shorthand, just in case the coppers watching her ever fancied a random stop and search.

Dolly snuck back into Myra’s the way she had gone out. From inside the salon, she spotted one of the detectives approaching the front door. Thinking quickly, she pulled off her coat, grabbed a magazine and sat down under the hairdryer just as the officer entered the salon. Dolly smiled sweetly at him then, as he walked out looking embarrassed, got out the diary to read over what she’d written.

Chapter 5

Arnie Fisher was in a fury, the sort of fury that used to get him shut in a cupboard as a little boy. His hard blue eyes flickered with anger, and spittle foamed at the side of his thin lips as he paced around his enormous desk. He wore a pale gray suit, immaculate, handmade gray shoes and a silk blue-gray tie, which was now loose around his neck. He pulled out one of the desk drawers and threw it across the room.

Arnie had just had his Soho office on Berwick Street redecorated; the velvet wallpaper and plush carpet were now a matching snooker-table green. He’d also ordered new furniture: two heavy brown leather sofas, a brown mahogany bookcase and a matching cabriole-legged coffee table. The log-effect gas fire was half in, half out of its hole, waiting to be connected to the gas supply. A chandelier, yet to be fitted, balanced precariously on the edge of the coffee table, and stacked on the floor next to it was a collection of sporting prints waiting to be hung on the green walls. In his efforts to be tasteful, Arnie had created a hideous, gloomy room. He’d even had an en suite bathroom fitted with a dark green bath, green wash basin and gold taps. The bidet he’d wanted had had to be abandoned because there wasn’t enough room. Arnie was moving up in the world: new office, new patch — once he’d got his hands on the Rawlins’ ledgers, there’d be no stopping him.

The en suite toilet flushed and his brother Tony came out, doing up his fly and rearranging his balls. He never washed his hands.

‘Who did you get to do this?’ Arnie asked, pointing to his desk.

‘Do what?’

Arnie slapped his hand down on the desk. ‘I said I wanted it French polished! It’s a bleedin’ antique. Some ham-fisted git’s only gone and bloody varnished it!’