Jilly Cooper - Bella

‘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?’