Widows

As Boxer scurried across the office, his slow brain churned over what Arnie had just said. He was right. It would be in his interest to get those ledgers. He’d acted as a hammer man for Harry on a couple of robberies. Boxer decided that he’d go and see Dolly again that night, whether she liked it or not. He quietly closed the door to Arnie’s office and moved down the staircase into the club. It was dark and seedy in the daytime as well as at night; the strong smell of stale cigarette and cigar smoke mixed with beer clung to the red velvet curtains. It was pungent and sickening.

Tony Fisher loitered at the bottom of the stairs. He’d have a bit of fun with poor old Boxer. ‘Arthur Negus of the Antiques Roadshow calmed down, ’as he?’

Boxer started to skirt round Tony nervously. Tony stepped in front of him and put his fists up in a boxer’s stance. ‘Come on, Boxer, come on... show me your mettle!’

Boxer put his fists up half-heartedly, Tony slammed him one, hard below the waist. He buckled, holding his belly and gasping for air.

Tony leaned over him menacingly. ‘You’re losing your touch, sunshine,’ he said, and laughing his guts out, he ran back up the stairs. Boxer felt like puking his up.

Chapter 6

Dolly stood behind the net curtain in the darkness of her bedroom, once again watching the filth watching her. The same unmarked police car that had followed her to the hairdressers was parked not far up the road. She smiled to herself and looked across at Wolf, who was curled up on the bed watching her. ‘Fancy parking under a street lamp,’ she cooed at her little baby. ‘We can see his stupid, bored face, can’t we?’ One of the plain-clothed men got out of the car and walked off, leaving Andrews slumped in the passenger seat. Dolly’s smile dropped and she headed downstairs, Wolf at her heels.

DC Andrews desperately tried to focus on Dolly as she left the house. With just a coat slung over her shoulder and no handbag, she was obviously taking her little dog for a walk. Andrews yawned. Surveillance was tiring. Ahead of him, he could see Dolly as she strolled along the pavement, repeatedly stopping while the tiny dog cocked his leg on every tree, wall and lamp post. Reaching the corner, he turned right out of sight. Dolly stood, hands on hips, with her back to Andrews. She clapped her hands: ‘Come here! Wolf — come here!’

Andrews smiled to himself. Dolly wasn’t exactly the commanding voice of Barbara Woodhouse, the TV dog trainer. ‘If you’re the wife of a master criminal,’ he whispered, ‘I’m a monkey’s uncle.’

Dolly followed the dog round the corner. Andrews thought briefly about getting out and following her on foot, but it was cold, and she was just fetching the dog. However, when she had still not returned after a minute, he became alarmed, got out of the car and ran to where he had last seen Dolly. ‘Christ!’ he said, squeezing the word out through clenched teeth. Dolly and Wolf were nowhere to be seen. He ran back toward the car just as his colleague, DC Richmond, approached with two cheeseburgers and milkshakes.

‘You seen her?’ Andrews was flustered.

‘Who?’ Then Richmond realized and snickered. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve lost an old woman and a pooch?’

‘Do you think Resnick’ll give a shit which one of us was watching her and which one was taking an unscheduled burger break?’

Richmond got the message loud and clear, threw the incriminating food and drink into the nearest garden and jumped in the car. ‘I’ll drive,’ he said. ‘We’ll find her.’

Dolly and Wolf had melted into a stag party crowd at the top end of Barnet Road and then she’d hailed a cab toward Liverpool Street Station. As the cab drove south, Richmond’s unmarked police car passed them going the other way, doing a circuit of the immediate area. Dolly smiled as she stroked little Wolf, who was curled up by her side. She could feel the adrenalin coursing through her body. She liked the way it made her feel close to her Harry.

In the rearview mirror, the cabbie watched the way her eyes had followed Richmond’s car as it passed. He’d had enough people in the back of his cab to know that Dolly was either on the wrong side of the law or was on her way home to her husband after an evening with her lover — and Dolly’s age suggested to him that she was dabbling in criminality.

Unaware of being watched, Dolly was mumbling to herself: ‘We showed him, Wolf, didn’t we, darling? Yes, we did. We showed him!’

At Liverpool Street Station, Dolly paid with the exact change, cash she’d put into her coat pocket for speed. Preparation would be everything from here on in. After a quick look round to make certain she hadn’t been followed, Dolly carried Wolf down the backstreets to the big arches behind the station. Here there was a row of lock-ups, mostly used by British Rail for storage, but some hired out to car mechanics for repairs.