She’s Out

Chapter 16

Mike had a few beers with Colin. He’d called him to say that the prearranged dinner would have to be on another night as there were problems at work; some of his mates had got flu so he was doing extra night shifts.

They talked for a while about the army but then Colin switched the subject to Mike possibly being taken on at his company.

‘Yeah, well, you know, Colin, I’ve been thinking about it, but it sounds like it’d bore the pants off me. I’m not into schleppin’ around in a security wagon all day with a few drops here and there.’

Colin downed his pint. ‘You got it wrong, Mike, this isn’t that kind of company. Like I told you, we handle the big stuff.’ He leaned in and lowered his voice. ‘We deliver the sacks to the mail trains. Ever since they had the big robberies at the main stations, we were brought in. You know about them?’

Mike drank some beer. ‘Nah, they’d be handled by the Robbery Squad, special division, well, if it’s a big one.’

Colin stood up, buttoning his jacket. ‘Well, if anyone hit what we’re carrying it’d be the biggest in history.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ Mike could feel his bladder giving way.

Colin leaned ever closer and whispered something as Mike looked on in stunned amazement. ‘You kidding me? That much?’

Colin winked, tapped his nose. ‘That’s classified information but that’s how much.’

‘Shit. That’s mind-blowing.’

‘Yeah, and so’s the security. Routes change every few months, just to safeguard it ever being leaked.’ Colin patted Mike’s head, grinning. ‘Think about it and we’ll have that curry next week.’

‘Okay, how about next Thursday?’

Colin agreed. ‘Fine by me. We’ll take the wives, shall we? Make a night of it.’

Ester slipped her arm around Julia, drawing her close. ‘What are you taking, Julia?’ She tried to move away but Ester held on tightly. ‘I know, Julia, I can tell by your eyes and your mouth. You get very chatty. So what are you taking?’

Julia shoved at her. ‘For chrissakes, nothing. What’s got into you?’

Ester pushed her away. They kept their voices low, afraid to be heard. ‘Lemme see your arm.’

‘No, I won’t. Why are you doing this? Don’t you trust me?’

Ester pinched her face. ‘No, I don’t. You’ve been acting up since you got back from your mother’s.’

Julia shook her off but Ester grabbed her again. ‘Tell me, Julia, or I’ll tell Dolly.’

Julia rolled her eyes. ‘Okay, look, I took one hit, some gear I’d left at Mother’s, just the one, I swear before God. I was feeling so bad, and that Norma was hanging on to me.’

Ester got out of bed and looked around the room. ‘I’ll find it, if you got a stash here. I’ll find it, Julia.’

Julia reached out for her. ‘Darling, there’s nothing, on my mother’s life. There was just a teeny-weeny bit. I wouldn’t get back on it, you know that.’

Ester slowly allowed Julia to draw her back to bed. ‘I hope not, Julia, because if you have started, you’re fucked. And if Dolly found out she’d kick you out of here so fast.’

Julia wrapped her arms around Ester, kissing her neck. ‘I wouldn’t do it, Ester.’

They kissed and then curled up together as Julia tried to think of a good hiding place for her stash and Ester wondered if she should warn Dolly. To use Julia in the robbery if she was back on junk would be dangerous. Then she started to think about returning the video and the more she thought about it, the more she began to think she should piss off and leave. The robbery was becoming a farce anyway.

Gloria felt restless. Her back ached constantly from all the horse riding and she kept thinking about Eddie, wondering how he was. Not that she missed him; if she calculated the years they had been married, the time spent together was minimal because he had been in and out of prison so much and she had been inside herself on and off. It hadn’t really been a marriage at all. He was just somebody that was connected to her, bad or good, and there was nobody else. Her kids didn’t even know who she was by now. She wouldn’t know them if she came face to face with them. Maybe it was having the little girls around her that brought back the memories. She’d had her kids taken away when she first got arrested. Like Kathleen’s girls, they had been shuttled from one foster home to another before she signed the adoption papers. She did it to give them a better life. She wondered if they had, and then started to cry. She cried for the long, wasted years and eventually fell asleep.

It felt as if she’d only just dropped off when her door was banged loudly.

‘Come on, get up! Time to ride.’ It was Julia. She was usually the first up and about as she took Helen of Troy out in the early mornings.

That morning they had a breakthrough. It happened almost all at once: the fear left them and they went from a canter into a gallop and at the end of the two-hour lesson, they all began talking at once, well pleased with their progress. The general up feeling continued as they ate the eggs and bacon Angela had prepared. Coffee and toast went down as they listened to Julia giving each one separate hints as to where they had gone wrong that morning.

Dolly had a private discussion with Julia. She was getting worried that the stable girls might get suspicious and she wanted Julia to book in at the other place so they could switch for a while. This also meant they would have to get used to different animals, which Julia was a little pessimistic about, but Dolly was insistent. She also mentioned to Julia about finding out exactly where they kept the keys to their local stable yard and then asked her to find out how they could clad the horses hoofs.

‘What do you want to do that for?’ Julia asked.

Dolly kept her voice low. ‘We’ll make a hell of a lot of noise coming out of that stable. We got to ride down the lane, past two cottages, so look into it. We got to be silent.’ She went back to her coffee and was left at the table with her precious notebook as Angela washed up. Ester and Gloria checked the tapes to see if there had been any developments at the signal box. They were now armed with Connie’s information and the number she had seen Jim dial to cancel out the police. They also knew they had four minutes before the police could get to them unless a panda car happened to be cruising nearby.

Gloria had also been under the signal box. She had called out for Buster, a make-believe dog, but nobody had stopped her as she clocked the electric cables, the main electricity-power sector and the telephone wires. Gloria had also seen the large danger signs with the red zig-zag and hadn’t dared get any closer as they unnerved her. Shivers went up her aching spine because the voltage was so high: Connie had told them at supper one night that a dog got on to the line and was thrown up into a tree!

When Gloria got back to the manor, she had severe doubts. ‘How do we get on the line? We’d get blown into a friggin’ tree if any of us hit that cable.’ She was drawing a map of the signal box and the railway junction. ‘If the gates open and that train moves, it’s gonna go over the bridge, right? Well, after that it’ll pick up speed and no way is it gonna stop.’ Gloria prodded her diagram with a chipped fingernail.

Ester frowned, turning the map round. ‘Maybe she’s gonna think to stop it just at the crossings, then we ride up to it.’

‘No way. She stops it there and we’re screwed. There are lanes either side of it — we couldn’t stop a cop car with a bleedin’ horse!’ Gloria sniffed.

Julia leaned over them, arms around each of their shoulders. ‘Maybe she’s gonna blow it up.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ Ester rapped.

‘We still got three shotguns,’ Gloria said flatly, ‘but it’s a bloody big train.’

Ester shook her head. ‘No way, they’d be like ping-pong balls off the side of the train.’

They all remained staring at Gloria’s drawing as she took a thick red pen and drew in the danger zigzags. These will blow us off the track without any shotgun, loves.’

Ester said to Julia. ‘You know. I think it’s time we had a serious chat. We’re all here being ordered around to do this and that and she’s keeping her mouth shut, scribbling in that ruddy black book of hers. I reckon we’ve got to face her out, ask her just what she intends doing and, more important, how she’s gonna do it.’

Gloria crossed to the window and drew back the curtain. ‘We got a visitor. Shit! It’s that ruddy cop, Angela’s bloke. I told you we couldn’t trust that two-faced bitch.’

They huddled at the window, watching, as Dolly walked towards Mike, who was getting out of the car. ‘Stay put, love, let’s just go for a drive, shall we?’

Mike waited for Dolly to get in beside him and then reversed, turned the car round and drove out.

‘What do you make of that, then?’

Ester sucked in her breath, Well, I dunno about you two but I think it stinks. What’s she doing driving around with him? What’s he doing here anyway?’

Dolly and Mike parked in a small turning which led into a field. He said what he’d come to say and then waited.

‘Ex-army bloke, is he?’ Mike nodded. ‘You sure it’s the truth?’

‘All I’m saying is what he told me. Now, I done what I said I would and that’s it.’

Dolly pursed her lips. ‘Yes, but I’m worried. I mean, how do I know I can trust you?’

Mike leaned back in his seat. ‘I have to trust you. Don’t stitch me up, Mrs Rawlins.’

‘Oh, I know, love, but I’ve got more to lose than you.’

‘I got my job, my kids, my wife. I don’t want to know anything else. Like I said, I’ve done what you asked me and that’s it.’

Dolly examined her fingernails. ‘Sorry, love, it isn’t. I need some Semtex.’

‘What?’

‘You heard.’

‘I can’t get that kind of thing!’

‘What about your friend?’

‘You must be joking! He works for the ruddy security firm, I can’t go asking him for bloody Semtex. As it is I’ve got myself in trouble — he thinks I want a job with his firm. No way.’

Dolly shifted her weight in the seat. ‘What about some of your other old army friends? Could they help at all?’

‘Look, I got to go, I can’t do any more.’ He hung on tightly to the steering wheel. ‘Let me off the hook, Mrs Rawlins, and if you want some advice, whatever you’re planning, and I’ve got a bloody good idea what it is, you’ll never hit that security wagon. It’s armour-plated, they got a convoy, cops at the front, cops at the back, they keep right on its tail. You do yourself a favour and scrap whatever you’re thinking of doing.’

‘Why? Because you know about it?’

‘Because it’s a no-hoper right from the start and—’

‘And?’ Dolly waited, watching him, seeing him sweating.

‘Look, I grass on you and I’m in the frame so hard I’d get time just for what I done to date — I won’t grass on you. All I’m doing is telling you to pull out, forget it. I don’t care how many blokes you’re using, you’ll never do it.’

Dolly opened the car door and looked down at him. Thanks for the advice, maybe you’re right.’

She straightened up and could see Angela heading towards her with the three little girls. ‘Here’s Angela and, Mike, she doesn’t know anything. You tell her and she’ll freak out.’

‘Well, at least that’s something.’

Angela was almost at the car when she saw Mike. ‘Hello, my darlin’s.’ Dolly held out her arms for the girls and they ran to her. One had been collecting some pussywillow twigs and presented them to her.

‘Thank you.’ She turned to Angela. ‘Have a word with Mike, just a few minutes, I’ll wait here.’

Dolly took the girls towards a hedge and began looking for a bird’s nest, but she could hear what they said and she’d noticed that Mike still had the pen stuck in his jacket pocket.

Angela sat on the edge of the passenger seat, the door open. ‘Hello, Mike.’

‘Hello, sweetheart.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘Look, I know what I said to you the other day was crass, I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry about the baby, I really am.’

She clung to his hand. ‘I love you.’

He sighed. ‘I know, but, Angela, it can’t work. I got a wife and two kids and I’ve no intention of leaving them. I never had. If I led you to believe I would, then it was a shit thing to do but you have to know, it’s over, sweetheart. It should never have started.’

‘But it did, Mike.’

‘Yes, I know, and it’s all my fault but you’re better off without me.’

She started to cry, and he cupped her face between his hands. ‘I’m sorry, really sorry.’

Dolly coughed and called over, ‘We should go, Angela love. Say goodbye to the nice man, girls.’

The three little girls waved at Mike, even though they had no idea who he was. Angela got out of the car, weeping. He pulled the door shut, feeling like a heel. He wound down his window. ‘Mrs Rawlins, can I have a quick word?’ Dolly went to the window. ‘You hurt her, get her involved, and I’ll see you get busted.’

‘Will you now?’

He knew the threat sounded empty. ‘Why? Why are you even thinking about it? You got those kids.’

‘And you got their mother banged up,’ she spat out fast and he turned to face her.

‘You got that house — why? Tell me why.’

She seemed bored by the conversation. ‘Because I won’t have it for long, I’m broke.’

‘So are a lot of people but they don’t do what you’re doing.’

She cocked her head to one side. ‘I’ll look after Angela, don’t you worry about her. You just worry about me, Mike love, and remember, I know everything.’

Mike felt worn to a frazzle but he knew she wasn’t finished with him yet. It wasn’t anywhere near over; now, somehow, he had to get hold of some Semtex and it made him sick just thinking about it.

They watched him drive down the lane, Dolly with a small child’s hand in hers. ‘Don’t cry over him, Angela, he’s not worth it. You’re gonna lead your own life now.’

Angela picked up little Sheena as they all walked down the lane.

‘You ever been to Switzerland?’ Dolly asked suddenly.

‘No, I never been nowhere abroad,’ Angela said.

‘Well, as soon as you get that passport, you’re gonna get us secret travel tickets, all five of us, with not a word to the others, because that’s where we’ll all go, Switzerland.’

Dolly breezed into the drawing room and was confronted by a stony-faced Gloria, Ester, Julia and Connie.

‘We want to know what the hell is going on,’ Ester said angrily.

Dolly put her hands on her hips. ‘You sorted out that business with the video, have you?’

‘You know I haven’t,’ Ester snapped.

‘Then when it’s done, when I’m ready, we’ll talk. That goes for all of you, all right? Is that all right?’ She crooked her finger at Connie. ‘You go and get the shotguns today. You, Gloria, give them all a lesson in how to use them. Go up into the woods and don’t come down again until you can all handle them.’

‘You know how to use them, do you, Dolly?’ Gloria asked sarcastically.

‘My husband made sure I could always take care of myself. And you, Ester, sort that video business. You, Julia, get the cladding for the horses, and, Connie, you go to that builder, and tell him to order a leaf-suction machine. I dunno what you call them but they suck up garden leaves.’

‘I can’t see him,’ Connie said petulantly.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I hate his guts.’

Dolly turned on her and pushed her backwards. ‘Then unhate him, just do it. That goes for all of you. We get through today and then maybe tonight we’ll talk.’

They watched her walking out, calling for Angela and the girls to get ready.

‘What did that cop want?’

Dolly stopped as she reached the door. ‘You’ll know later. Angela! Dress them up in warm clothes.’ She turned back to the angry women. ‘We’re going on a boat. See you later for the ride.’ The door closed behind her.

‘I think she’s bats,’ Gloria said.

Ester shrugged. ‘Well, she’s got until tonight and then we force her to come out with whatever she’s got inside that twisted head of hers.’

‘She is twisted, isn’t she?’ Connie said.

Julia sprang up, ‘Well, let’s get cracking. We’ll know by tonight so why waste time talking about it? Let’s just do what she wants and keep her happy.’

Dolly began to row. She had one oar, Angela the other, and they began to propel the boat slowly to the centre of the small lake, the three girls sitting on the seat at the bow.

‘Look, look, it’s a bridge,’ Sheena said, pointing.

Dolly nodded. ‘Yes, love, it’s a bridge. Maybe we’ll see a train crossing it today.’

The boat made its way, rocking — neither Angela nor Dolly was adept at rowing. It took them a while to get to the centre of the lake and then they sat and rested as Dolly caught her breath. She leaned on the oar and carefully monitored the bridge: there was at least a good twenty-foot drop down to the lake beneath at the lowest point of the bridge. She then glanced at the boathouse on the other side.

‘Is this your boat, Dolly?’ Kate asked.

‘No, love, it belongs to an old man, lives not far from the manor, in one of those cottages. He lent it to me.’

‘Can we come out again?’ Sheena piped up.

‘Yes, we can borrow his boat any time we want.’

They shouted with excitement and Dolly spotted the floating dock. ‘Let’s go over to that boat-house, Angela, maybe we can go ashore for a little walk.’

The innocent-looking boating party headed towards a small wooden jetty. Two speedboats were tied up, well covered with green tarpaulins. Dolly made each girl remain in their seat until she herself had stepped ashore to guide each one out with Angela’s help.

‘Can we go in a speed-boat?’ Sheena asked.

‘Not today, darlin’, another time maybe.’

Angela was told to take the girls for a ramble, while Dolly remained sitting at the side of the jetty. She began to make notes in her little black book, her eyes flicking from the jetty to the bridge, from the lake to the undergrowth, and then she focused on the bridge for a long, long time.

The women lined up to practise with the shotguns. It was not as much of a fiasco as Gloria thought it was going to be. She showed them over and over how to load and unload the cartridges before she would allow them to fire. She told them sternly that they must pay close attention. She’d not listened when her dad was first showing her — it had been at the fairground — but she’d been over-confident. She held up her left hand. ‘See that? Did it when I was twelve. It wasn’t a shotgun, it was an automatic but it snapped back and bang, me thumb hung off at a very dodgy angle, so listen to what I tell you. We can’t afford no accidents. Take the weight into your shoulder, left hand to steady and support the barrel, right index finger on the trigger, but no need to give it much strength, they’re oiled and you need just a light squeeze, don’t jerk it. They got a big kick these shotguns, so be prepared for it. If you don’t hold it right, like what I’m showing you, you’ll get a bruise on yer collarbone an’ it could whack into yer cheekbone, bring tears to your eyes, I’m tellin’ you.’

Dolly stopped rowing as they heard the shotgun blasts. She turned towards the woods and then waved to Angela to stop rowing as she took out her notebook and quickly jotted something down. Bang! the shotgun went again.

‘Somebody’s firing a gun,’ Angela said.

‘Yeah, be up in the woods. Duck-shooting around here.’

Angela said, ‘I haven’t seen any ducks.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Soon as they hear a blast they take off.’ Dolly suddenly roared with laughter. Another bang. This time Dolly frowned. It was very loud and the last thing they needed was some nosy parker wondering what they were doing. Bang. Bang. She started to row as further gun blasts went off. She couldn’t blame them, she’d told them to do it, but she hadn’t reckoned it would be quite so loud. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Julia lowered the shotgun. The tree they were aiming at was splintered. ‘Maybe we’ve done enough for today. The last thing we want is some bastards coming up here to find out what’s going on.’

They all agreed, and under Gloria’s beady eye unloaded and collected all the spent cartridges before they started back to the manor. Midway they stopped. The shotguns were now wrapped in their waterproof covers, and the women stashed them in the trunk of a dead tree.

Ester had already left for London and Connie for the builder’s yard. Julia was sitting at the kitchen table, cutting old sacks with a knife. ‘I can use these with a drawstring, pad it out with some sawdust, that should be enough.’

‘Fine. Do it in the stables, not in the kitchen. And when Gloria comes back get her to help you.’

Julia snatched up the sacks. ‘Right, and we got a ride booked for five o’clock. I found out the stables’ key is always left under a plant pot and...’ But Dolly was ushering the girls ahead for an afternoon kids’ programme on TV, so Julia went out to the stables, closing the gate behind her. Opening one of the packets of cocaine, she took out a pocket mirror, and laid a small amount of the powder on the mirror. She chopped it deftly and fast. Then she took an already tightly rolled five-pound note and snorted, sniffing hard, licking the residue off the mirror. She felt better, carefully replaced the mirror and the fiver in her pocket, and then started hacking at the sacks. Stacking the squares in a neat pile at her feet, she had cut up about eight when Gloria burst in.

‘Bleedin’ walked to the local shop. What a load of halfwits! I dunno, they look at me like I got two fuckin’ heads.’

Julia studied Gloria. She was wearing a pair of jeans that were too tight, a strange purple silk shirt, knotted at the waist with her tits half hanging out from some wire contraption brassière that went out in the fifties. Her blonde hair was in need of bleach, the black roots over an inch long. She was also wearing a baggy man’s riding jacket. ‘It’s the wellington boots, Gloria, they’re very sexy.’

She laughed, a loud barking sound. ‘Piss off. I need them, having to wade through that bloody mud lane. Them potholes get you every time.’ She squatted down, picking up one of the cut squares. ‘What’re these for, then?’

‘The horses’ hooves.’

‘Oh, of course! Any fool would have known that. ‘What you talkin’ about?’

‘Dolly’s orders, Gloria, so don’t ask, just start sewing.’

Connie leaned against the hut door and peeked in. ‘Hi, how you doing?’

John looked across and went back to opening his bills. She strolled in and leaned closer. ‘You were very rude to me last night — you know that, don’t you?’

He sighed. ‘Yeah, but I’m not sorry, and don’t sit on the desk, it’s got a wonky leg. What do you want?’

‘Well, you’re supposed to be fixing our roof and, like, nobody is there so Mrs Rawlins sent me to ask when you’re going to do it.’

He scratched his head. ‘Tomorrow. I got a few things lined up for today and the men are all out.’

Connie slipped on to his knee. ‘Well, that’s convenient, then, isn’t it?’

He wouldn’t put his arm around her but leaned back in the old swivel chair. ‘What do you want?’

‘What you didn’t give me the other afternoon.’

She circled his face with her hands and kissed him, prising open his mouth with her tongue. He didn’t resist for long and his arms were soon wrapped around her. She could feel his erection and wriggled on his knee. ‘Oh, you’re very easy to please, aren’t you?’ she whispered, licking his ear. He started to unbutton her shirt and she kept on licking and kissing, hoping someone would come in and he’d have to leave. When they remained uninterrupted she knew he would screw her. Well, she’d been screwed in some worse places — but never for a machine that sucked up bloody leaves.

Ester leaned forward to the taxi driver. ‘Okay, love, I’m going in this house here. I want you to wait. If I’m not out within five minutes, will you ring on the doorbell? And keep this for me.’ She passed over the envelope with the tape. He looked at it, then at Ester. ‘Five minutes.’

‘Yep, that’s all, no more.’

They were parked outside a big elegant house in the Boltons. She stepped out, adjusted her dark glasses and walked slowly up the covered canopied entrance. She stood for a moment on the steps, noticed the two security cameras before ringing the bell. Part of her was saying what a stupid bitch she was to come here and do what Dolly had told her, but if it kept the old bitch quiet, why not?

Hector opened the door and looked at her. ‘Surprise, surprise! Ester Freeman herself!’

She stepped in and he shut the door behind her. She raised her arms as he frisked her for a weapon, spending more time than necessary patting her entire body. ‘Poor way to get your rocks off, isn’t it, Hector? Here, look in my handbag. I’ve not got the cash for a gun, darlin’.’

Hector searched it. ‘What do you want?’

‘To get off the hook.’

He smirked at her. ‘You got a lot of bottle, Ester. Either that or you’re fucking stupid.’

‘Look, prick, right now I’d go down on you for fifty quid, I’m that broke, so let’s stop the crap and talk.’

Hector ushered her along the thick-piled cream carpet into a double-doored drawing room filled with china cabinets and more Capodimonte than they have at Asprey’s. ‘Sit down.’

‘Look, I got five minutes. If I don’t walk out that cab driver out there will come in.’

‘That really scares me. Sit down.’

She sat on a peach-silk-covered chair and crossed her legs. ‘I’ve got the video, the only copy. You can have it but I just want to know that you’ll stop pestering me.’

Hector perched on an identical chair, swinging a set of gold worry beads round his finger. ‘What you done with the Saab? You nicked it, didn’t you? Rooney was screaming about it.’

‘You must be joking. I wouldn’t touch any motor of his, more than likely hot as shit. He’s just a liar and he got his heavies to give me a real going-over. You get your bloody Range Rover back, did you? He gave me the money for a taxi. That was the last I saw of Rooney.’

‘So what you after? If it’s money, you’re even more stupid than I give you credit for.’

‘To give you the video of your boss’s kids screwing two of my girls. You can have it back and for nothing. I just want to know that it’s over.’

Hector chortled. ‘Don’t be so fucking stupid. You’ve been a naughty girl, and you know he won’t let you off the hook. You shouldn’t have been so greedy — you got paid a lot of dough.’

‘I also did three years and I’m telling you, you beat me up, knock me around, and I’ll go straight to the cops. This time I’ll give them names, all right, and he won’t get off with his diplomatic immunity this time.’

Hector was about to hit her when the door opened. Even though Ester couldn’t see who was behind it, she knew, from Hector’s face, it was the boss.

She saw the cameras at the corners of the embossed ceiling — the whole place was monitored so every word they said must have been overheard. She waited as the two men whispered outside the half-closed door, and began to get a little uneasy, afraid Hector might turn back and beat the hell out of her. She was putting a lot of trust in the cab driver.

Hector gestured for her to join him. ‘Your lucky day. The tape.’

‘I’ll go and get it but it’s over, Hector.’

‘Yeah. Like I said, it’s your lucky day. Come on.’

They went out just as the driver was getting out of the taxi. Ester got into the back. ‘Give him that envelope, love.’ The cabbie looked at Ester, then at Hector, and reached in for the envelope.

Hector snatched it out of his hand and pulled down the passenger window. ‘Ester, this had better be the only copy. If it isn’t, you won’t just get a rap round the head, you’ll get taken out, understand?’

Ester rapped on the glass between her and the driver. ‘Marylebone station.’ They drove off, Hector watching from the pavement, as the cabbie eased back the partition.

‘I won’t ask what that was about, darlin’.’

‘Good,’ she said, slamming it shut. She sat back in the seat. Maybe it was for the best. It just pissed her off that if she’d had the right back-up, been able to afford a few heavies, she’d have made a lot of dough on that video. As it was, she didn’t have more than a few quid to her name. She hated being broke. She hadn’t been dependent on anyone since she first went to prison aged seventeen. She’d learned then not to trust anyone, especially a man, had spent the majority of her life sussing men out, what they wanted, and she’d given it, until she’d made enough money and got girls to do it for her.

She was still in debt up to her eyeballs with the bank but that didn’t concern her — that kind of debt never did. She’d just move on. What did concern her was where she would move to. She gazed unseeingly from the cab window. If Dolly really was serious about the robbery, she would live abroad, maybe Miami. All she needed was a break and a lot of cash — she’d always needed both. When she’d had the cash she never got a break because she’d been busted so many times. Ester had spent much of her life in prison, all over the country, busted if not for prostitution, for kiting and dealing in stolen goods. At one time her only ambition was to be top dog in prison and she had become it, taking more punishment or solitary than any other con. She climbed up walls with hysteria, kicked and bit prison officers with a blind fury that used to overtake her. Sitting in the cab, remembering, she reckoned that Dolly Rawlins would be at the end of one of her furies very soon. She’d taken enough of her orders, enough of her bullshit. There had better be a talk when she got home, and if there wasn’t she’d let Dolly have it. It was about time one of the women did. They were being taken for suckers.

Ester paid off the taxi but didn’t give him a tip — she couldn’t, it had cleaned her out of all the cash she had. The journey back to the manor didn’t calm her down, quite the reverse. She was about to challenge Dolly: if she wasn’t serious about robbing that security wagon then Ester would do it.