Murphy was now opening a roll-top desk, touching the beautiful carving with his fingers. The woman was definitely edgy. Murphy wondered if the clock had been nicked. But she didn’t look like a regular or anybody he recognized. Mind you, nowadays, everybody was dealing in hot stuff. That was the way life was. He saw Sonny come out of the back room and hand over the cash. The woman pocketed it fast, fast enough to convince Murphy that the clock was more than likely hot. If Sonny Chizzel had taken a bit more time, he’d have realized it too, but he was acutely aware that Murphy wanted something. And Murphy was not a man to keep waiting.

  As soon as the woman left the shop, Gordon Murphy went to the door. Sonny watched him turn the key, turn the Open notice to Closed and pull the blind down.

  “What do you want?” Sonny asked nervously.

  Murphy picked up the case. “Business. We talk in the back?”

  Sonny hesitated for a moment. He looked at the briefcase in Murphy’s hand, then gestured for Murphy to follow him out back.

  Shirley looked round her mother’s kitchen. It was a tip: the ironing board up, with a basket of ironing waiting to be done, the washing machine going, breakfast things still on the kitchen table—even the back door stood half-open.

  “Mum!” she called out, but there was no reply. Then she heard what sounded like a radio playing in the bedroom. She put her bags down on the kitchen table and went through. Her mother’s bedroom was in the same state as the kitchen. She paused outside her own bedroom door.

  “Lift your right leg. Now hold . . . straighten . . . and lower. Lift your left leg and hold . . . straighten . . . and lower. Now, lift both legs together . . . lift . . . hold. Don’t strain, whatever you do, ladies, don’t strain . . . lift . . . and hold . . . and down . . .” Shirley opened the door. It was a jumble of ladders, pots of paint, sheets thrown over her bed. Audrey was sitting on a chair, smoking a cigarette, her feet up on a box. She was reading a copy of Woman’s Own, as the radio cassette player on the floor beside her continued, “. . . and relax. Now lift both legs again, hold . . . straighten . . .”

  Audrey turned and gave Shirley a grin. “Hello, love, didn’t hear you come in.”

  Audrey surveyed the room. “What’s all this, then?”

  “It’s the nursery,” said Audrey, stubbing out her cigarette. Audrey showed Shirley the fabrics she’d chosen, and where she was going to put the cot. Then she lifted a sheet from a crib.

  “Greg gave me this.”

  Shirley crossed her arms. “Yeah, I’ll bet ’e did. Nicked it from Mothercare, did ’e?”

  Audrey frowned. Shirley really had been getting on her nerves lately. “Look, love, Greg’s giving me housekeeping now. I’m getting things organized here.”

  “So I can see, Mum,” Shirley replied with a shake of her head.

  Audrey waddled back to the chair and sat down. “Look, if you’ve only come over to pick on me, you can leave. A woman in my condition don’t need any aggravation.” She plonked her feet back on the box and picked up the magazine. “You seeing Micky, then, are you?”

  Shirley didn’t reply.

  “I ’ope you are. I think your problem is you’re not getting it. Everyone knows it makes you ratty.”

  “Well, the whole world can see you’re getting yours, and look where it’s got you,” Shirley retorted, sitting down on the bed.

  The two women looked at each other as the tape played on: “. . . repeat the exercise on your left side, lift the right leg up . . .”

  “Oh, shut up!” Audrey flipped it off.

  Shirley looked round the room again. She’d spent her childhood in this room, but it was a long time since she’d lived here. She was glad, in some ways, that it was all going to be done up.

  Audrey caught her looking at her. Slightly embarrassed, she held her tummy. She was now showing very clearly.

  “Did you want something, darlin’?”

  Shirley shrugged. “I just came over to see you, that’s all. D’you wanna cup o’ tea or anythin’?”

  “No thanks, love, I just ’ad one. I’m watchin’ me liquids. You go an’ ’ave one if you like. I’m just trying to decide on the wallpaper.”

  Shirley felt as if she wasn’t wanted, wasn’t needed.

  “I’m sure it’s going to look very nice, Mum.”

  Audrey held up a picture in the magazine. “I’m doin’ it just like this. I’m thinking of callin’ ’im ’Arry if ’e’s a boy, after the prince. Be nice, that, don’t you think? Harry Bates?”

  “Is he gonna marry you then, Mum?”

  Audrey flicked through the pages. “When ’e gets ’is divorce, yes ’e is.”

  Shirley shook her head. “That’s what they all say, isn’t it, Mum?”

  Audrey was sharp this time. “Why don’t you just get out? Go on, go!”

  Shirley picked her way through the mess and into the kitchen. She looked round distastefully, then picked up her handbag—but she didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to face Dolly. She didn’t want to face Bella.

  She wondered why she hadn’t told Micky about Linda, but then, he’d seemed so proud of her, of the way she’d looked, she hadn’t wanted to ruin the moment.

  She sighed. Time to face the music.

  Vic Morgan was worried about Resnick. He seemed to be deteriorating fast. He needed to get a move on with things.

  Morgan leaned forward. “I checked out Dolly . . . Mrs. Rawlins’ story. Linda Pirelli was found last night, exactly where she said. Seemed she’d pushed Dolly out of the way. He was trying to kill her; Rawlins was trying to kill his wife.”

  Resnick lay back on the pillows and sighed. “And the girl’s dead? Linda Pirelli’s dead?”

  Morgan passed Resnick the autopsy report. As he flipped through it, Morgan noticed again how little movement he had in his right hand.

  Resnick handed the report back. “Could mean a murder investigation. We’re gonna have to move sharpish if we’re going to find Rawlins.” He grimaced with pain. “You think his wife’s on the level, do you, eh?”

  “I dunno,” said Morgan with a shrug.

  “Come on, you do, don’t you? You think she’s on the level?”

  “All right, yes, I do.”

  Resnick then rolled up a piece of newspaper and swatted at something on the bed Morgan couldn’t see.

  Morgan hoped to God Resnick wasn’t beginning to lose his mind.

  Resnick took another swipe. “Can’t you see these little buggers? Bloody flies everywhere.” Then he seemed to come back to reality. “You think Mrs. Rawlins is on the level, huh? Stayed at your place, did she? State of shock, I’ll bet. Don’t let that bitch wind you round her fingers, ’cos she’s all we’ve got, Vic, and if Rawlins wants her, then we’ll get to him through Dolly.” He swatted Morgan’s elbow. “Can’t you see it? They’re everywhere.”

  Morgan put a hand on his arm. “George . . .”

  Resnick focused again. “I reckon if you stay on her tail, we’ll get him. We’ll also get thirty grand’s worth of reward money. And you know something? I reckon with that money behind us, you and I could open up an agency. Whaddya say?”

  Morgan nodded uncertainly. Then he saw one of the tiny fruit flies land on Resnick’s pillow. So he wasn’t losing his marbles after all. He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Just you keep a watch on her,” Resnick repeated. “Watch her round the clock. Because he’ll find her, wherever she is, you’ll see.” He lay back and closed his eyes.

  Morgan turned round to find DI Fuller standing at the bedside.

  Morgan stood up and gave Fuller a nod. “I’m afraid he’s not too good.” He patted Resnick’s arm.

  “Be seeing you, mate.” He walked off down the ward.

  Fuller stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure if Resnick was awake. Eventually his old boss opened his eyes and coughed, before grimacing in pain. Fuller sat down in the vacant chair.

  “I’m sorry to hear . . . I . . . thought you’d be up and about by now.”

  Resnick pulled himself up. “Why don’t you cut the bullshit, Fuller? What do you want? You’re not here to inquire about my health. If you were, you would ’ave been ’ere weeks ago. So what is it?”

  Fuller took a deep breath, then told Resnick all about Linda Pirelli.

  Resnick stared at him. “Who?”

  Fuller thought he knew what Resnick was doing. He’d done it to him often enough in the office. He thought he was being funny. “Look, George, I’ve been over all your old files. You know there’s thirty grand for any information on the raid?”

  “What raid?” asked Resnick.

  “The second raid.”

  “Ah, yes . . . Well, nobody’d really be interested in the first raid, would they? I mean, they all died, didn’t they? Yes, they all . . . Joe Pirelli, of course! Terry Miller . . . Harry Rawlins . . . They all bought it on that raid.”

  Fuller had had enough. “Come on, George, don’t mess me about! Rawlins isn’t dead. You know that as well as I do.”

  Resnick just looked at him. He couldn’t stand the little prick.

  “Come on, George, you saw him.”

  Resnick shrugged. “I must’ve been mistaken. I’d taken a hell of a beating, remember? Must’ve been seeing things.”

  Fuller tried another angle. “What about his wife?”

  Resnick smiled and nodded. “Oh, she’s a lovely lady.”

  Fuller had had enough. “All right, George, have it your own way.” He shook his head. “You always were a stubborn bastard.” He carefully pushed the chair back against the bedside cabinet, then leaned against the bed. “Rawlins is alive, and I’m gonna damned well find him—with or without your help.”

  He waited for some witty retort from Resnick, but it didn’t come. “You hear me, George? Rawlins is alive, and I’m gonna get him.”

  Resnick nodded. “Well, I hope I live long enough to see it, sonny.”

  He watched Fuller turn and walk stiffly off toward the doors. God, how he loathed him. He saw Fuller stop to charm the matron, saw her get all fluttery, before ushering Fuller out. He hadn’t wasted any time; by God, he’d risen fast. Detective Inspector—and he must be, what, thirty-three? Thirty-four? Smooth bastard.

  Matron was steaming down the ward toward the bed.

  “Mr. Resnick, as you well know, visiting hours are between 2:30 and four. Please, in the future, do not entertain during rounds. It isn’t fair to me, the doctors, or the other patients. We’ve already had a complaint.”

  Resnick frowned. “And I’ve got a complaint, too. There’s damned flies everywhere in this bloody ward!”

  She opened Resnick’s bedside cabinet and brought out a bowl of moldy grapes. She turned and smiled sweetly at Resnick. “Are you intending to eat any of this rotten fruit?”

  Resnick was about to give her a smart reply, when he buckled up in agony, gritting his teeth, his breath hissing.

  Matron moved quickly to his side, then looked round the ward and beckoned for a nurse to join her. Leaning over Resnick, she said, “It’s all right, Mr. Resnick, just lie back. Everything’s going to be all right.”

  He looked up into her face. Even gripped with pain, he managed to grin. “Is it, you reckon . . . ? All gonna be all right?”

  That was the moment when she realized, despite his bravado, just how scared Resnick was. Something had happened. He’d somehow lost a fight, way back, and he was afraid to get into the ring again for this final bout. She took his hand, feeling an unexpected surge of emotion. To her surprise, after all her years on the ward, this loud, blustering, rude and lonely man had got to her.

  She didn’t really know why, but Shirley had expected Dolly or Bella to be sitting in the lounge, waiting for her, when she got back. But Bella was in the kitchen cooking, and when Shirley asked her where Dolly was, all she said was, “Upstairs.”

  In the spare room, Dolly had a suitcase open on Linda’s bed and was filling it with clothes.

  Shirley touched the case. “Are these all her things?”

  “I thought it was best to clear them away,” Dolly answered. She held up a bright blue silk dress. “You don’t want this, do you? Knowing Linda, it’s probably yours anyway.” She stopped, bit her lip and threw the dress into the case, then grabbed a whole bunch of clothes from the wardrobe, coat hangers and all, threw them in on top.

  Shirley went to the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  Shirley felt close to tears. “I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it.”

  Dolly spoke to her firmly. “We’re gonna have to, love. Linda’s dead and we’re all gonna have to talk about it.”

  Shirley twisted her hands together. “I know. I know.” Then the tears started.

  Bella suddenly barged into the room.

  “Put the kettle on, will you?” Dolly asked her quickly. “We’ll be down in a minute.”

  “That’s all I ever seem to be doing,” Bella complained. “Putting the kettle on, taking the bleedin’ thing off!”

  Dolly gave Bella a hard look and jerked her head. She was starting to get a little bit too pushy, that one.

  Shirley was sitting on the bed, still twisting her hands. Dolly didn’t quite know how to begin. She went back to packing, aware of Shirley watching her.

  “So you got yourself a job, did you?” She tried to keep her voice light.

  Shirley told Dolly all about her day and about everything that had happened at the studio—that there’d been times when she’d been able to forget, and then it would all come rushing back to her.

  Dolly sat next to her on the bed and took hold of her hand.

  “Oh, what are we going to do, Dolly?” Shirley asked in her little girl’s voice.

  Bella reappeared at the door, then picked up a brush from the dressing table and began brushing her hair. “Well, first we’ve got to change the money.”

  Shirley stood up. “I hate the money! I hate it, I hate it. I don’t want anything to do with it!”

  Bella threw the brush down. “Is that right? Well, we’ve still got to change it.” She turned to Dolly. “You got it worked out, then, Dolly? What we’re gonna do about the money?”

  Dolly moved away from the bed and took another of Linda’s dresses from the wardrobe. She began folding it. She couldn’t look at Bella.

  “I can’t find the book,” she almost whispered.

  Bella just looked at her. “What?”

  “I said I can’t find the book.”

  “What book?” Shirley asked.

  “The book with the list of names. The little black book. I put all the names down, the fences. I copied them down from Harry’s ledgers.”

  “What d’you mean you can’t find it?” said Bella.

  “Well, I’ve lost it, that’s what!” Dolly sat down on the bed, going over everything in her mind. She’d burned the ledgers, and when she’d come back from Rio she’d burned all the other paperwork in the bonfire at the house, just before she’d sold it. Maybe she’d burned the book then.

  “I might have . . . burned it.”

  Bella shook her head in amazement. “You burned it? Is that what you’re tryin’ to tell us? You burned the book? I don’t believe it, Dolly. You knew we’d need it.”

  Dolly rubbed her head. “I’m trying to remember when I last had it.”

  Shirley looked as if she didn’t understand. “But you always had it, Dolly!”

  “But I haven’t got it now!” Dolly snapped. She began walking up and down the bedroom, and then started miming putting a coat on, taking it off. She stopped abruptly and snapped her fingers. “It’s in the pocket of my raincoat!”

  “OK, Dolly,” Bella began in a coaxing voice, as if talking to a five-year-old. “Where do you think the raincoat is? Can you remember?”

  Dolly’s face brightened. “It’s behind the door.”

  “What door?”

  “At . . . the lock-up,” Dolly said slowly. “It’s hanging behind the door at the lock-up.”

  Murphy was strolling through Alfie’s Antique Market in Paddington, scanning the stalls. He was looking for stall 54A, Sonny Chizzel’s extra little bit of business—the stall he used to get rid of the smaller items, the little knick-knacks he acquired. Murphy had always loved the place, and he took his time wandering among the stalls, picking things up and checking them over. He liked to buy the odd little thing for his mother. She liked antiques, especially pictures. Eventually he arrived at stall 54A, only to find it bolted up. The woman on the next stall dealt in Art Deco masks. They were quite nice, and he wondered if maybe his mother would like one.

  He pointed to a mask. “How much is that one?”

  “Well, it’s a Goldscheider,” the woman replied in a posh voice, smiling sweetly. “It’s about two hundred and eighty, the little one, and four hundred and fifty the big one.”

  Murphy had to hold on to the edge of the stall. “Right . . . er, I’m looking for Sonny, Sonny Chizzel. He has the place next door.”

  The woman rolled her eyes, realizing he wasn’t a customer. “Oh, ’e’s in the coffee bar, love.”

  Oh yeah, the coffee bar, Murphy thought to himself.

  Sonny Chizzel was already on his second cup of coffee. He hated to be kept waiting, and he also hated to be carrying this amount of money.

  He spotted Murphy coming his way, wandering casually through the market, picking up bits and pieces. Anyone who saw him for the first time would think he was harmless—just a typical punter. But Sonny knew better. He was a strange one, all right. He still lived with his mother—the only person he had ever seemed to care about. It was a well-known fact that Murphy wrote to her every single day when he was in prison, but his mother never wrote letters back; she used to send him tape recordings instead, and Murphy would sit in his cell and play them over and over. He said it was as if his mother was in the prison with him.

  Sonny shuddered as Murphy approached the coffee bar. He quickly picked up his newspaper and from behind it watched him go to the counter and look down the menu.

  “I’ll have a coffee, milk and three sugars, and a toasted ham and cheese sandwich.” Murphy scanned the people at the small tables. Then he took out his wallet and handed one pound to the boy at the counter. “Keep the change, son.”