Widows

Chapter 38

Linda’s hand was shaking as she replaced the receiver on the hotel room phone. She felt numb and the hairs on her arms were standing on end, as if a blast of ice-cold air had struck her body. She looked up at Bella, who was standing at the bathroom door in yet another creation she had bought from the hotel boutique store the night before. This time, she was wearing a green and white silk dress and she was swathed from head to foot like a Greek goddess in a matching body scarf.

‘Right, tell me straight Linda, do you think I should change this dress for the blue one, or treat myself and buy both?’

Linda was staring at the wall. That voice — she knew that voice...

Bella was oblivious as she plonked a sequin-covered hat at a jaunty angle on her head. ‘What do you think? Does the hat go with the outfit or not?’

They’d only been in Rio for a matter of hours, but Bella had been going spend-crazy in the hotel boutique. The money Dolly had given her had gone in the blink of an eye, and her bed was covered in dress boxes, handbags, shoes and bathing suits. The hotel staff were already treating Bella as if she was Shirley Bassey, and so they should: she had so far spent thousands on hotel credit and was still going strong.

Bella looked over to Linda. She was beginning to get on her nerves. ‘You been phoning London again? Shirley will be here when she’s here. Stop worrying. If you call again, I’ll chuck the phone in the pool.’

While Bella had been spending herself silly, Linda had been drinking herself silly. She’d drunk all the bottles of miniatures from the fridge and had been on to room service so often last night that they’d stopped asking her what she wanted; they just brought her ‘usual.’ She’d been drunk all night, barely slept, and now she was getting neurotic and imagining all sorts of terrible things had happened to Shirley.

Bella threw one of her new swimsuits at Linda and it hit her on the head. ‘Come on, Linda, stop worrying about Shirley. Dolly told me her ankle was bad and she’d fly out later. Let’s go for a morning dip — there were some good-looking guys down by the pool last night.’

Linda was looking confused. ‘Dolly told me that Shirley’s flight was canceled; she never said anything about her ankle being too bad to fly. Why give each of us a different story? Something’s happened.’

‘Like what?’ Bella asked sarcastically.

‘Like — I don’t know. But I’m really worried about her now.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Linda. All that booze is mushing your brains.’ Bella began to strip off to change into one of her new bikinis. She held it up for Linda to see. ‘What do you reckon — skimpy and sexy, yet classy and upmarket, right?’

Linda didn’t reply.

‘Listen, sweetheart, if we go round lookin’ like a couple of well-to-do rich bitches then we’ll be treated as such. If you look like a slag, you’ll be ignored. Let’s enjoy ourselves, have a swim and then later we can get some dinner at the rooftop restaurant.’

‘I just called Dolly’s house,’ Linda finally said. ‘A man answered. He said... “That you, Doll?”’

Bella was stunned. ‘It can’t be,’ she gasped.

‘He’s the only one who calls her “Doll.” She told us that herself.’

Bella desperately tried to be the voice of reason. ‘You ever heard his voice before? Think, Linda, have you ever heard Harry Rawlins’s voice before?’

‘Not sober... me, that is, not him.’ Linda laughed feebly, trying to think straight. ‘He had a deep voice, like velvet. Joe always said that the deep tone of Harry’s voice could melt chocolate. It was him, Bella. I know it was. “That you Doll?” Calm as you like. That bastard’s still alive and Dolly’s with him.’

‘So, where’s Shirley?’ Bella was now as worried as Linda.

Linda leapt to her feet. ‘You’re a bloody idiot, Bella! You’ve got a bedroom full of fancy gear that you can’t carry and no cash! We’ve got to get out of here!’

‘Hang on, hang on!’

‘Hang on? Shirley could be dead and buried in Dolly’s back garden for all we know — or worse, she could be with the cops right now. She won’t last two minutes in a police interview! We’re stuffed. Well, if I’m going to do time, I ain’t doing it in a Rio jail.’ Linda moved quickly to the bedroom window, then the door, then the mini-bar — empty — then a silver-domed room service tray. She lifted the dome, no booze left.

‘Linda!’ Bella shouted. ‘Just stop! If Dolly’s double-crossed everyone with Harry, how come he’s at the house answering the phone like he doesn’t know where she is? Why are they not hot-footing it to the other side of the world? It can’t have been Harry. It’ll be the cops. Sitting there like idiots because they don’t know what else to do. Dolly and Shirley will be on their way. You’ll see.’

Quite unexpectedly, Linda began to cry. Bella gave her a hug.

‘Listen, love. If they’re not here in a day or two, we’ll do a runner. Just like we did from that curry house when we was young and skint.’

Linda leaned heavily against Bella’s shoulder. ‘Oh, Bella. We ain’t meant to be lucky, are we?’ She sighed. ‘All I ever wanted to do was be a racing driver and be the first female World Champion. I was going to give James Hunt a good seeing to — on and off the track.’

Bella laughed and Linda, letting go of all her tension, laughed too. Through the open balcony window, the pool band started up and Ike and Tina Turner’s ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ filled the air. Linda was the first to join in, quietly at first, and then she turned the volume right up.

Bella joined in and they reached a crescendo together, singing at the top of their voices, jumping around and waving their arms in the air. As the song came to an end, they slowed to a stop and they got their breath back. It was not knowing that was killing them.

‘Me and you’ll be all right, won’t we, Bella?’ Linda asked.

‘We all will.’ Bella was a dab hand at reassuring paranoid drunks. ‘Let’s get room service.’

As she waited for someone to answer, Bella’s smile dropped. The man who had answered the phone at Dolly’s house was a real worry. If it was Harry, then Dolly had done them over for sure. If it was the cops, then Bella reckoned Dolly and Shirley were already in cells. And if it was someone working for the Fishers — then God knows where Dolly and Shirley were. Whatever the truth, Bella would take all her new gear back to the shop and get refunds on everything. She would give Dolly and Shirley one more day — and then she’d take Linda and run.