Widows

Throughout Dolly’s tirade, Linda had been standing in the kitchen doorway chewing her nails. Although Shirley’s shopping trip had clearly been a stupid waste of time, it was Linda who had put Dolly in a foul mood in the first place, and she did feel guilty. Not guilty enough to take any of the heat off Shirley, but even so. She decided she’d make some tea.

Seeing she’d hurt Shirley, Dolly decided to backtrack. ‘If you sew up the mouth hole completely and the eye holes a little bit, it’ll be fine, Shirley. Dye the other ones black and we’ve got ourselves the first bit of our outfit. But the jumpsuits are no good, I’m afraid. We need overalls, like I said. Once you’ve bought the right ones, cut the labels out and burn them so they can’t be traced after we dump them.’

Shirley knew this was Dolly’s way of apologizing. ‘What about the plimsolls?’ she asked.

‘Dye them black and they’ll do fine.’ Dolly lit a cigarette. ‘Come and sit down, both of you. I didn’t ask you here to talk about jumpsuits and plimsolls.’ As Dolly finished speaking, the kettle clicked off and Linda went to fill the teapot. ‘Leave it!’ Dolly bellowed.

In her rush to join Shirley and Dolly seated on the crates, Linda tripped over Wolf and kicked his backside to move him out of her way. Dolly gave her a nasty look and called Wolf over to sit next to her. She opened her bag and pulled out her notebook.

‘We got problems,’ Dolly started. ‘I’ll go through ’em one at a time, but most important, I’ve been thinking about what I read in the ledgers and I reckon Harry used four men in the raid, not three.’

‘Four?’ Linda repeated. She and Shirley looked confused.

‘Four men and one of them got away. Leaving Joe, Terry and Harry to fend for themselves.’ Linda and Shirley were riveted by what Dolly was telling them. She continued. ‘This fourth man must have been called in from the outside, to drive. He must have driven the truck up front. Now there’s been nothing about him in the papers, nothing at all. That means the law either haven’t figured it out yet, which I doubt, or they’re after him.’

‘They won’t be the only ones!’ Linda shouted, leaping to her feet, red-faced with anger. ‘The bastard!’

‘Linda,’ Dolly said gently, trying to calm things down again.

‘No! I’ve got a right to speak. If he left my Joe burning to death... if he could have saved them and didn’t, I’ll kill him, Dolly, I swear I will.’

Again, Dolly tried to calm Linda. She was a hothead, after all, simply reacting in the only way she knew how.

Linda was having none of it. ‘I’ll kill him! You might not care about your man, Dolly Rawlins, but—’

Dolly was on her feet and at Linda so fast she didn’t even get to finish her sentence. The heavy slap to the side of her face knocked her sideways.

‘Don’t you ever suggest I don’t care!’ Dolly growled. ‘I saw how much you cared this afternoon, so stop with the hysterics, sit down and shut up!’

Linda slowly sat back down, holding her stinging cheek and trying to keep back the tears of grief, pain and embarrassment.

Shirley was frozen to the spot, trembling. God, Dolly has a temper! She’d never seen her fly off the handle like that before and could hardly believe it. And here was Dolly, sitting back smoking and checking over her notes as if nothing had happened.

From beneath her mop of black hair, Linda quietly spoke, ‘Why is it I’m always in the wrong?’ she asked in a trembling voice.

Dolly took a huge drag of her cigarette before replying. ‘Because you’re twenty-six and I’m forty-six and I’m the one paying the bills.’ She looked at Shirley, who was white-faced with shock. ‘Finish off making the tea, would you, Shirl?’ she asked. Shirley went off to the kitchen without a word.

Dolly looked at Linda’s red cheek, where her four finger marks were clearly visible. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ Linda got up and moved away from Dolly before she said something they’d all regret. Dolly didn’t care about Linda’s mood and continued as though her brief apology had solved all their problems. ‘You know what this means, though, don’t you? It means we’ll have to get someone else in.’

‘Not a man,’ Shirley piped up from the kitchen. ‘If we bring a fella in, half of London will know what we’re up to.’

‘Preferably not a man, no. There’s no one in the ledgers I know well enough to trust, so I’ll have to think on it. But we might need to put the date of the job back to give us time to find the right woman.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ Linda said impatiently. ‘If all we need is another woman, I’ll find one.’

‘I’ll find her,’ Dolly said defiantly. There was no way anyone else was going to make a choice as important as that.

‘You’re the boss.’ Linda sneered.

‘And if you don’t like it, you know what you can do! You can go back to bed with that bit of rough trade. I bet he’s a right keeper and, if he’s not, well, I’m sure there’ll be another one along in a minute.’