‘The bitch went for me,’ said Ricardo, blood dripping from his head, and the next moment he’d turned on Bella, slapping her viciously across the face, back and forth, back and forth.
‘That’s enough,’ said Eduardo. ‘We’ll teach her a lesson another way.’ He gave instructions in Spanish over his shoulder to Pablo, who went out and came back with some rope with which he tied up both Bella and Chrissie.
They sat Bella down on a chair. She could feel the blood trickling down her cheeks where Ricardo’s ring had cut her.
Then Carlos came in with a towel and put it round Bella’s shoulders. Suddenly Bella remembered, terrified, how they’d cut off Paul Getty’s ear.
‘Oh please no!’ she whispered.
‘Shut up,’ said Eduardo, lifting up her hair.
They were all standing behind her.
‘No!’ screamed Chrissie, ‘please don’t hurt her.’ For she could see what Bella could not, that in Eduardo’s hand was a razor blade glinting evilly in the dim light.
Bella jerked her head forward.
‘Keep still,’ swore Eduardo. ‘Or you really will get hurt.’
She felt her hair being tugged backward, and sawed at, this way and that.
‘Oh, no!’ she wailed. ‘Not my hair.’
Eduardo ran the razor blade gently down her cheek.
‘Quiet,’ he said softly. ‘Or we really will give you something to remember us by.’
They cut her long mane off to a ragged three inches all over her head, short as a boy’s, shorter than most boys’, tugging and sawing till it lay in a heavy mass all over the floor.
Eduardo then told Pablo to gather it up.
‘We’ll parcel it up and send it to El Gatto. It might make him get off his arse about raising the dough,’ said Eduardo.
After that, they took her next door and stood her up, with her hands and feet still tied and her head in a noose of rope hanging from the ceiling.
‘Don’t fall asleep or the rope will snap your head off,’ said Ricardo, and he went out, locking the door.
Bella couldn’t stop crying. Her only irrational thought was that now she’d finally lost Lazlo. She remembered him saying he only liked girls with long hair, not that she’d ever had him. But now, with short hair, there was no possibility that he could love her.
For four nights sleep had eluded her. Now that she had somehow to keep from dropping off, she felt overwhelmed with exhaustion. She
must
keep awake. She tried to remember all the snatches of poetry she had ever known, ‘Farewell, thou art too dear for my possessing, And like enough thou know’st thy estimate . . . How like a winter hath my absence been from thee . . . How sad and bad and mad it was, then. But, how it was sweet . . . Oh heart! oh heart! if he’d but turn his head. You’d know the folly of being comforted.’
The trouble with every poem was that it turned her thoughts back to Lazlo, making her re-live the moments they’d spent together. The last time she’d seen him with his back to the fireplace, very suntanned in that dark blue shirt, with strangely softened face, saying, ‘Come here,’ and her going to him in spite of being frightened, and then the telephone interrupting them just before she reached him.
Then she allowed her thoughts to stray into the dangerous fantasy of the telephone not ringing, of being in his arms and hearing all the lovely things he was saying, his voice husky with passion.
Oh God! she thought, it wasn’t the racehorses or the yachts or the fur coats she wanted from him, it was the understanding, the kindness beneath the mocking exterior, the protectiveness he displayed to his family and people he loved.
She started to cry again, overwhelmed by utter despair. Why not fall asleep and die? No! She pulled herself together. Chrissie had to be looked after. They’d got to get out.
Diego took over the watch at four o’clock and was obviously appalled by what he saw.
‘My God! What have those bastards done? Your beautiful, beautiful hair.’
He untied the rope round her neck and feet and hands, brushed away the hairs that were itching down her back, and gave her a cigarette.
‘What happened?’
She shrugged her shoulders.
‘Ricardo tried to rape Chrissie.’
‘And?’
‘I went for him with a chair.’
‘So he had to take his revenge. Is the kid all right?’
Bella nodded. ‘Physically anyway. Where are the others?’
‘Sleeping. I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
He went out, leaving his gun on a chair. Bella could have picked it up and used it, but she felt too tired; and that Diego trusting her was her one chance of getting out. He came back with hot water and soap and washed her face and hands for her. Then he brought her a cup of tea and a pear, which he cut into quarters and peeled for her. Bella had never tasted anything so delicious in her life.
‘You’re so good to me, Diego,’ she said. ‘Do I look absolutely hideous like this?’
He shrugged. ‘It was prettier long, but it will grow soon.’
‘Will I be allowed to live long enough for it to grow?’
‘Don’t think about things like that. I don’t know. I am only given orders.’
She took a gulp of the sweet, scalding tea. It seemed to give her strength.
‘Why are you caught up in this racket?’ she asked.
‘Mine is a very poor country. The only way to make big money in a hurry is on the wrong side of the law.’
Then he told her about his son who was five, who had a very rare heart complaint.
‘If he doesn’t have an operation soon, he will die. We do not have your health service in my country. Everything has to be paid for. This operation costs a lot of money.
‘When this business is all over, and El Gatto pays up, I will have enough to pay for the operation, and be able to take my wife and children to live in a new country. They will arrange a new passport for us.’
‘But won’t the people who give the orders expect you to do other things for them?’
‘No, only one job; that’s the deal.’
‘But can’t you understand the kind of people you’re dealing with?’ said Bella. ‘They’ll never let you go once they get their teeth into you. You’ll be doing jobs for them for the rest of your life, and one day you’ll slip up and it’ll be curtains.’
‘Shut up,’ said Diego. ‘It’s not true.’
Bella played her trump card.
‘Juan Rodriquez is behind this, isn’t he?’
Diego started. ‘How do you know?’
‘Lazlo knows it too, and he’s not stupid. It won’t be long before he tracks us down and, whether we’re dead or alive, you’ll have a long, long spell in jug.’
‘You’re bluffing,’ said Diego, suddenly very agitated.
‘Juan Rodriguez is hardly the sort of name I’d make up. Look, I know all about him, how powerful and vicious he is. He’ll never let you go after one job. And if he bumps off Chrissie and me – which he intends to, doesn’t he? – whether they get the cash or not, Lazlo will hunt the lot of you down until he gets his revenge. With two man-eating tigers on your tracks, you’ll never get that peaceful life you want with your wife and child.’
Diego got up and began to pace about the room.
Bella’s heart was pounding, but she tried to keep her voice calm:
‘Look, Diego, I swear something – if you tip Lazlo off where we are, and it’ll only take one telephone call, he’ll look after you, he’ll get your wife out of Buenos Aires, and he’ll see your child gets the best medical treatment in the world. And you’ll be able to live in peace for the rest of your life, not as a hunted man.’
‘You’re crazy,’ said Diego. ‘The Fuzz’ll grab me the minute I get out of here.’
‘You’ll do a year at the most – particularly as it’s your first offence – but probably Lazlo’ll be able to fiddle it so you don’t even do that – and at least your wife will be safe and your little boy saved.’
Diego sat down and picked up his gun and pointed it at her.
‘Don’t you realize the greatest crime among my people is
infamita
,’ he said sternly. ‘To talk to the authorities. If I shopped the others, Juan would make sure I was dead in a week.’
‘Not if you had Lazlo’s protection. They’re not worth being loyal to, this lot. They’re a bunch of cheap crooks. You’re different, Diego. You’re a good person, I can tell.’
‘Don’t talk to me like that. If the others heard you, it wouldn’t be just your hair they’d chop off,’ snapped Diego. ‘Lie down and get some sleep.’ He took off his coat and laid it over her shoulders.
‘I ache all over,’ said Bella, ‘I can’t sleep. Rub my back and tell me more about your little boy.’
Chapter Twenty
Another day and night limped by. Pablo, feeling contrite, perhaps over his part in last night’s shearing, gave her an old copy of
Woman’s Own
to read. To Bella it was like stumbling on Chapman’s Homer. Over and over again she read the cosy hints on crocheting and making lampshades, and the romantic stories with their happy endings. How her mouth watered as she pored over the pictures of Lancashire Hot Pot, and cheap ways with end of neck.
Best of all was being able to look at new faces. Apart from Chrissie, she’d seen nothing but masks for the last five days. But at the back of her mind was always the thought that time was running out, like
High Noon
. Do not forsake me, oh my darling.
The following morning Pablo was keeping guard in her room, smiling to himself as he polished his gun. Then shouting broke out next door.
‘Get on guard,’ she could hear Eduardo yelling. ‘You know there should be two of you.’
‘I need a drink.’ It was Ricardo’s chillingly oily whine.
‘You’ve had your ration for the day,’ snapped Eduardo. ‘Go back to your post.’
‘I want a drink.’
‘There’s only half a bottle left.’
‘Well, someone’s got to go out tomorrow and get some more.’
‘It’s too dangerous,’ said Eduardo’s voice, harsh with exasperation.
As the day crawled by, the atmosphere grew more and more tense, quarrels flaring up at the most innocent remarks. Carlos complained Ricardo hadn’t put sugar in his tea. Ricardo hit the roof. Eduardo nearly got all the soup poured over him when he suggested there wasn’t enough salt in it. If this inaction goes on much longer, thought Bella, they’ll be at each other’s throats.
At midnight, Diego took over the guard. At first he was offhand, and sullenly refused to talk to her.
‘It must be very hot in Buenos Aires now,’ said Bella.
Diego took no notice.
‘Not much fun for a young mother looking after a sick child,’ she went on.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ exploded Diego.
‘I was brought up in the slums myself,’ said Bella. ‘And I know what hell it is, and what it’s like to escape and leave it all behind.’
‘Ending up in a deserted farmhouse with a gun at your head, eh?’ said Diego.
‘That was just bad luck, but every child deserves a chance to get away, and one’s own child most of all. Oh, Diego, don’t you
love
him?’
‘Of course I do,’ he snarled. ‘What do you think I did this for?’
‘Then give him a chance to get better, and run in the sunshine, and go to a good school, and wear nice clothes.’
‘Juan’ll give me all that.’
‘Rubbish. He’s just put a noose round your neck, which he’ll tighten if ever you don’t play ball and do what he wants. Lazlo Henriques is a good man, whatever you’ve heard to the contrary,’ she went on, her voice breaking slightly. ‘He’s tough but he knows how to look after his own people.’
‘You love him, don’t you?’ said Diego softly.
Bella nodded, a great lump in her throat. ‘And I’ll probably never see him again.’ The tears ran down her cheeks and she was overwhelmed by such despair that it was a few seconds before she realized what Diego was saying.
‘If I contact El Gatto, how will he know I’m on the level?’
Bella’s heart leapt. ‘You’re going to do it?’
‘I don’t know. Come on, how will he know?’
‘I’ll write him a note.’
‘No, that’s too dangerous.’
‘Well, have this ring,’ she slid the little gold ring studded with seed pearls off her finger. ‘Rupert gave it to me. Lazlo always said it was the only thing he’d ever seen me wear that wasn’t in appallingly bad taste. And use Black Opal as the password. Those are both private jokes that no-one would know anything about. Oh, Diego, you won’t regret it, I promise you. Just tell him where we are and how to find us.’
‘I haven’t made up my mind yet,’ said Diego, pocketing the ring.
Suddenly, there was a great crash from next door.
‘They’re quarrelling again. Probably about you,’ said Diego, getting up and going out.