Bella

Chapter Thirteen

Bella, when she looked back later, could recall very little about her spell in prison. She remembered Rupert making the most appalling scene when the police arrested her and, later, beating her fists against the door of her cell. She remembered appearing in court the following morning, nearly fainting with horror when the magistrate refused her bail, and finally being gripped by hysterical panic at finding herself locked in a cell in Holloway.

One of the wardresses had brought her some revolting stew, and a sardonic doctor with rimless glasses had asked her endless questions about herself. Afterwards, she lay on a hard, narrow bed trying to control her mounting desperation. Why had Steve denied being with her during the murder game? Who had betrayed her to the police? Was it Chrissie, Angora or Steve? Who had planted the diamond in her suitcase? Would the papers get all the details of her past? If they did, her career was finished. At intervals, the thought of Lazlo rose, black and churning, choking her like a wave of nausea. He’s behind this, she thought, he’s the one who cooked my goose.

I’m innocent, she said over and over again but, in spite of the stifling heat in the cell, she couldn’t stop shivering.

Then a key turned in the door.

‘The Prison Governor wants to see you,’ said the wardress.

The Prison Governor had a kind, sheep-like face. She looked embarrassed. For a minute she played with a paper knife.

Then she said, ‘I’m afraid there’s been a mistake. The evidence was very conclusive against you, but the police have now discovered you’ve been framed. The Henriques family have withdrawn all charges.

‘We’re very sorry for all the worry this has caused you,’ said the Prison Governor, flashing her big teeth. ‘But of course, all the papers will print the fact that you’re innocent. It’ll be wonderful publicity.’

Bella didn’t smile back.

‘Why wasn’t I allowed bail?’

‘There have been several big diamond raids in the past few weeks. Police suspect the same gang at work. For some reason they felt you were mixed up in it.’

‘Have they arrested anyone else?’

‘Not yet.’

Suddenly she couldn’t stand the awful sheep-like face any longer.

‘I want to get out of here — at once.’

‘Of course. There’s a car waiting to take you to the court, where you’ll be released immediately.’

When she came out of court an hour later and felt the hot sun on her face, she threw back her head and took a deep breath. Then a group of reporters surged forward and started to bombard her with questions. Oh God! She hadn’t thought they’d get on to the story so fast. Suddenly, a tall man in dark glasses grabbed her arm and pulled her down the steps into a waiting car. It was only after he’d driven off, leaving the reporters gaping, that she realized it was Lazlo Henriques.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she stormed. ‘You’re the last person I want to see. I thought you were in Zurich.’

‘I was. Rupert rang me in hysterics this morning, begging me to come back and spring you from prison. The things I do for my family.’

‘It was your rotten family who got me shut up in the first place.’

She was overcome by a terrible fit of shaking. Lazlo got out a packet of cigarettes, lit one, and handed it to her.

‘Thanks,’ she said, trying to get a grip on herself. ‘Where’s Rupert?’

‘Gone to Zurich. Carrying on the deal I started. I thought it better if he was out of the way for a bit.’

‘Just in case I might have second thoughts about getting re-engaged to him.’

Lazlo grinned. ‘How perceptive you are, my dear.’

‘Was it splashed all over the papers? My arrest?’

‘It was too late for the dailies. But the evenings lead on it, with lots of pictures. By the final editions they’ll be leading on your release. It’ll look like a publicity stunt.’

‘That’s what the Prison Governor said.’

She started to relax. London in the blue haze of the late afternoon had never looked so lovely.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘To my flat.’

‘I want to go home.’

‘Don’t be silly. Once the big Press boys get on to this, they’ll never leave you alone.’

‘How did you manage to spring me, anyway?’

‘Pulled a few strings, leaned on a few people.’

‘I’d forgotten you were so influential. Who planted the diamond in my case?’

‘I’ll tell you the whole story when we get home.’

Lazlo’s flat was a surprise. She had expected it to be as ugly and impersonal as the Henriques’ London house. But it was sybaritic in the extreme, with grey silk walls, long fur rugs on the ground and brilliant scarlet curtains. Thousands of books and paintings covered the walls. Three large cats wandered up to welcome them.

Lazlo went straight to the drinks tray and poured Bella a vast brandy.

‘Get that inside you.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m still a bit stunned,’ Bella said, taking the glass. ‘Would you mind awfully if I had a bath?’

She soaked in emerald green scented water for a long time, and scrubbed and scrubbed herself to get every speck of prison dirt off. Later she pinched some of Lazlo’s scent from the row of bottles near the bath. Odd that he used Black Opal like Steve.

She put on a dark green towelling dressing gown that was hanging on the back of the door. In the kitchen she found Lazlo eating smoked salmon sandwiches and reading his mail.

‘I’ve just weighed myself,’ she said. ‘I’ve lost five pounds in the last two days.’

Lazlo handed her the plate of sandwiches.

‘Well, you’d better eat something. I’ll get you another drink.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ she said. Then, realizing suddenly that she was ravenous, she wolfed the lot. The brandy was giving her heartburn, but a mild euphoria stole down inside her. She sat down on the sofa. A large ginger cat jumped on to her knee, and started purring and kneading her with his paws.

‘How did you get me out?’ she said.

‘I told you, I leant on a few people.’

‘But, please, who put the diamond in my case?’

A guarded look descended like a curtain over his face.

‘Chrissie,’ he said.

‘Chrissie!’ said Bella in amazement. ‘What on earth for? It was her diamond.’

‘She loves Rupert — to distraction. Seeing you and him together, when she knew you weren’t in love with him, pushed her over the top. She thought — quite wrongly, as it turns out — that if you were arrested, Rupert would go off you.’

Bella thought for a minute. She’d gone through enough hell over Steve to understand exactly what Chrissie must have suffered.

‘Oh poor, poor Chrissie,’ she whispered.

For once Lazlo looked surprised. ‘Well, it’s nice of you to take it like that. The irony was that you broke it off with Rupert that evening anyway, so she needn’t have bothered.’

‘Did you tell the police she did it?’

He shook his head.

‘How did you get me off then?’

‘I said you were with someone else the whole time we were playing murder.’

Happiness flooded over her.

‘Oh, so Steve’s at last admitted that he was with me! Why on earth did he say he was with Angora?’

‘He was with Angora,’ said Lazlo in a level voice.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ said Bella crossly, ‘I know I was with him.’

‘You weren’t, you were with me.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I know it was pitch dark, but I couldn’t mistake Steve. I recognized him by his aftershave, Black Opal.’ Then she gave a gasp of horror.

‘Oh no! It couldn’t have been!’

‘I’m afraid it was, darling,’ said Lazlo. ‘I was one of the stars of the Footlights when I was at Cambridge. It isn’t very difficult to imitate Steve’s American accent. I’m the same height and build as he is, our hair is more or less the same length. All I had to do was to douse myself in that rather noxious aftershave he uses — and, er, well, just leave the rest to nature.’

For a minute Bella was speechless, then she screamed, ‘You bastard, you bastard! You tricked me into thinking Steve was still in love with me, and into breaking it off with Rupert, and what’s more, I practically let you rape me.’

Lazlo laughed and helped himself to another drink. ‘I must say I enjoyed that bit. I’d never have dreamt you could be so passionate. We must arrange an action replay sometime.’

Bella gave a snarl of rage like a maddened animal.

‘Dirty, lousy son of a bitch,’ she shouted. ‘You’ve ruined my life.’

‘What play did you say that in?’ he said, still laughing.

His amusement snapped her last thread of control. Gibbering incoherently, she jumped to her feet and leapt at him trying to claw his face.

‘Stop it,’ he said, catching her wrists. ‘Unless you want your eyes blacked. I don’t have any scruples about hitting women.’

For a moment she glared at him, then, realizing herself beaten, she tore her hands away and slumped on the sofa.

The door bell rang. Bella ran out into the hall and opened the door. Two men with hard, inquisitive faces stood outside.

‘Miss Parkinson,’ said one of them. ‘Congratulations on your release. Can we ask you a few questions?’

‘No, you can’t,’ said Lazlo.

He pulled Bella back into the flat.

‘Mr Henriques, Mr Lazlo Henriques, isn’t it?’ said the second man in an oily voice.

‘Get out,’ said Lazlo icily.

They wilted as he slammed the door in their faces.

‘How did you know I didn’t want to talk to them?’ Bella said furiously.

‘You haven’t got time.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘You’re due on stage in an hour’s time.’

‘Don’t be stupid, they’ll have got an understudy.’

‘They haven’t. I rang Roger and told him you’d been let out!’

‘But I can’t go on, not after what’s happened.’ She collapsed on to a chair. ‘I’m exhausted and my hair’s dirty.’

‘Don’t be so bloody wet,’ Lazlo said brutally. ‘Whatever your faults, I thought you’d got guts.’

There was a crowd of reporters waiting outside the theatre, but Lazlo just elbowed them out of the way. If Bella hadn’t loathed him so much, she would have been speechless that anyone could swear as fluently as he could.

In her dressing room Rosie Hassell was waiting in a petticoat and a fever of excitement.

‘Bella, darling, what drama! How on earth did you get off so quickly?’

‘That snake pulled strings,’ Bella said, pointing at Lazlo, who was just behind her.

Roger Field popped in just before the five minute call.

‘Bella, darling,’ he said. ‘Thank God you made it. How do you feel?’

‘Utterly hellish,’ said Bella through chattering teeth. ‘I’ve just been sick.’

‘All that smoked salmon and brandy,’ sighed Lazlo. ‘What a tragedy.’

Bella ignored him. ‘I may be sick again any minute,’ she said to Roger.

‘It’ll be your entrails next,’ said Lazlo. ‘Have you got any whisky, Roger?’

Before the performance Roger went on stage and told the audience Bella had been released and cleared of all charges. When she made her first entrance there were a few isolated claps. Then a storm of applause followed and the audience cheered their heads off. Bella nearly broke down.

At the end of the play she received the biggest ovation of her career. But she felt like a husk, completely exhausted, very near to tears. In a dream she received congratulations from the rest of the cast, and had just finished changing when Lazlo walked into her dressing-room.

‘Can’t you knock?’ she said crossly.

‘Don’t be silly,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘Come on, we can’t fend off the Press any longer.’

‘I’m going home by myself,’ she said, snatching her arm away, and, running down the stairs, she tugged open the stage door. Immediately, she was blinded by a volley of flash bulbs and the whirring of television cameras.

‘There she is,’ shouted a hundred voices.

‘Oh, no,’ she yelped in horror, and retreated, slamming the door.

In the end it was the same rat race as before, Lazlo protecting her with his arms and Roger Field fending off the crowd. Somehow Lazlo got her into his car, and again, almost before she could draw breath, they seemed to be out on the M4 steaming towards Oxford.

‘Where are we off to now?’ she asked listlessly.

‘To stay with some friends of mine in the country.’

‘I don’t want to stay with any of your bloody friends, not if they’re anything like you.’

‘They’re not,’ said Lazlo calmly. ‘She’s a singer, he writes. You’ll like them.’

‘I haven’t anything to wear.’

‘You won’t need anything. Cass’ll lend you a bikini.’

He turned on the wireless and the hot summer night was suddenly flooded with Mozart. Bella listened to those lovely liquid notes pouring forth like a nightingale, and suddenly the terrible realization that Steve didn’t love her any more swept over her. Unable to stop herself, she broke into a storm of weeping. Lazlo took absolutely no notice and let her cry.

Finally, when she reached the gulping stage, he said, ‘There’s a hipflask in the dashboard; help yourself.’

‘No thank you.’

Heartless beast, she thought furiously. He tricked me, he pretended to be Steve. If Chrissie hadn’t started screaming, he’d have certainly gone the whole hog and screwed me. A hot wave of shame swept over her at the thought of how much she’d enjoyed it at the time.

They had turned off the motorway into deep country now. Cow parsley brushed against the moving car, a huge moon was gliding in and out of transparent wisps of cloud. Finally, Lazlo drew up near a big rambling house, covered in wistaria. Almost at once a woman came running out.

‘Darlings,’ she shouted. ‘You have made good time. How lovely to see you.’

‘This is Bella,’ said Lazlo. ‘She’s brought nothing with her, so you’ll have to lend her everything. I’ll just put the car away.’

The woman hugged Bella. ‘My name’s Cass,’ she said. ‘Lazlo tells me you’ve been having the most awful time. I do hate the Press when their blood’s up.’

They went into a huge untidy room with crumbs all over the floor, bowls of drooping flowers and two grand pianos covered with books and music.

A man with spectacles on top of his head put down his book and came forward to welcome Bella.

‘I escaped up to London for your first night. You were superb. Come and sit down and I’ll get you a drink.’

Cass plonked herself on the sofa opposite Bella and stretched out fat legs, burnt red by the sun.

‘Grenville’s been in love with you for years, ever since he saw you on television once.’

Grenville blushed. ‘I suppose we haven’t got any ice, darling?’

‘None at all,’ said Cass cheerfully. ‘The fridge is so frozen up I can’t get the ice tray back in.’

When he had gone out she said, ‘I didn’t know the set-up, so I’ve put you and Lazlo in different rooms, but he’s in a huge double bed so you can always join him.’

‘Oh no!’ said Bella, horrified into dropping her guard. ‘I’d rather sleep with a cobra than Lazlo.’

‘How are the children?’ said Lazlo, walking into the room, his arms full of bottles of drink.

Bella went scarlet. How much had he heard of her last remark?

‘The children are away this weekend, thank God,’ said Cass. ‘I do love them, but it’s bliss when they’re away. They’re boys,’ she added to Bella, ‘ten, eight and seven.’

‘I’ve brought them some gin,’ said Lazlo. ‘I know they like it.’

Cass laughed. ‘What are you doing after Othello?’ she said to Bella.

‘The Seagull — we start rehearsing on Monday.’

For the first time in days she felt at home. So much so that half an hour later she wasn’t too shy to ask if she might go up to bed.