Jilly Cooper - Bella

Chrissie woke up.

‘I can’t stand it,’ she sobbed. ‘I can’t bear being cooped up any more.’

‘Hush,’ said Bella sharply. ‘I want to listen.’

She could recognize Carlos’s thick accent, and Eduardo’s deep, authoritative voice, and Ricardo’s oily whine, but she couldn’t hear Diego’s light, gentle drawl. Her palms were soaking; she must keep calm.

The next moment the door was unlocked and in came Ricardo and Eduardo, looking thunderous, and dragged her off into the living-room. Ricardo seized her and forced her arm behind her back, his fingers biting into her flesh.

‘You’ve been talking to Diego, haven’t you?’ he said. ‘Where is he?’

‘Ow, you’re hurting me,’ said Bella, joy bubbling up inside her. ‘How should I know where he is? I’ve been locked up all the time. Isn’t he here?’

Ricardo bent her arm even farther back.

‘He liked you. He fancied you. You’ve talked him round.’

‘I have not,’ said Bella indignantly. ‘It’s more than my life’s worth to talk to anyone here. Where is he?’

‘None of your business,’ snapped Eduardo.

They cross-questioned her endlessly. Had she talked to Diego? What was his mood last night? Several times they gave her stinging slaps across the face, but she was too elated to care.

Finally she asked if she could have a cigarette.

‘We haven’t got any,’ said Ricardo. ‘Diego’s done a bunk with all the supplies.’

She was thrown back into the room with Chrissie.

‘Don’t get too excited, and don’t ask me any questions,’ she muttered, ‘but things are looking up.’

‘Tell me,’ whispered Chrissie.

‘Better if I don’t,’ said Bella. ‘If you don’t know, they can’t beat it out of you.’

Outside the door she could hear the panicking getting worse. Hope grew inside her. If only they didn’t get frightened into becoming violent. She re-read that damn Woman’s Own over and over again. She could crochet that matinée jacket in her sleep now, but she had to force herself to do something or she’d go nuts.

Hours limped by, waiting for a crunch on the gravel that didn’t come. She listened to every bulletin on the wireless, but there was still no reference.

Chrissie’s cough was getting worse, and on Bella’s nerves. She suddenly started panicking that they’d notice her ring was missing. There was a suntan band where it had gone. Could she say it had dropped off because she’d got so thin and she couldn’t find it?

Back came Eduardo and Ricardo to cross-question her.

‘What did he talk about last night? Tell us again.’

‘Nothing much, mostly about his son. He was worried about his health. Maybe he’s telephoned home and got bad news and made a bolt for it.’

‘You know something?’

‘God, I wish I did. I’d have hitched a lift if I knew he was going to do a bunk.’

‘Stop fooling about,’ said Eduardo.

‘We’re going to start cutting bits off you and send them to El Gatto through the post,’ said Ricardo evilly.

Chrissie gave a sob.

‘He should have got your hair by now,’ said Eduardo. ‘What shall we send him next?’ He picked up her hand and examined her fingers. For a minute Bella froze with horror, then she realized it wasn’t her seed pearl ring hand.

Ricardo was waving a razor, making patterns in the air. Then he ran it down Bella’s face.

‘Shall Eduardo and I play noughts and crosses?’ he said.

‘Come on, talk,’ snapped Eduardo.

‘I don’t know anything,’ Bella muttered, cringing away from him.

‘Talk,’ hissed Ricardo.

Suddenly Eduardo stiffened.

‘Listen,’ he said sharply.

And above the thumping of her heart, Bella could hear a faint droning, like a Hoover in a far off room. Then it grew louder, buzzing like an angry wasp, coming nearer and nearer.

A helicopter, thought Bella. Thank God.

It was obviously taking its time, buzzing round and round overhead.

Eduardo swore softly. Both he and Ricardo went out to look. She could hear their anxious voices outside.

‘I think,’ she said to Chrissie, ‘we’ve been located.’

Pablo came and sat on guard in their room and picked up his book, but Bella noticed he was reading with unnatural slowness, his eyes fixed on the same place. Occasionally his fingers drummed on the back of the book, and he kept darting fearful glances towards the window.

They’re rattled, thought Bella joyfully. Really rattled.

Next door she could hear Eduardo gabbling away to Ricardo in Spanish. It was too fast for her.

‘What are they saying?’ she asked Chrissie.

‘They’re arguing about whether to make a bolt for it now, or wait until dark,’ said Chrissie.

Bella’s red and white dress was drenched in sweat. It was impossibly hot. Suddenly there was a flash, followed by a huge clap of thunder, and the storm that had been lingering for days broke over the house. Flash after flash filtered through the boarded-up window. The rain was falling like machine-gun fire on the roof.

People were crashing about next door. Oh God, they’re getting ready to move out, thought Bella. Perhaps we haven’t been discovered at all. Maybe the helicopter was just a farmer going home, or a politician returning to his constituency. Ricardo, probably for something to do, returned to his taunting and questioning.

‘We’ll cut off your foot, I think,’ he said. ‘And send it through the post to El Gatto.’

‘Wouldn’t go through the letter box,’ said Bella. ‘Lazlo’s always out anyway, so the Post Office’d have to send him one of those buff pieces of paper saying we have tried to deliver this foot several times; why not apply to Knightsbridge Post Office?’

She began to laugh hysterically, then clapped her hands over her mouth. She mustn’t crack up, she mustn’t.

Ricardo then tied up their hands and took them into the living-room. Everything had been tidied up, a couple of suitcases packed. Carlos was burning rubbish in the fireplace; Pablo was running a duster all over the furniture to remove the fingerprints.

There was a commercial on the wireless now, a girl’s voice crooning about men loving her shining, lustrous hair.

Lucky thing, thought Bella wistfully, remembering her long mane. What would Lazlo think when he got the parcel, she wondered. Would he be sorry, or just think how ugly she must be now? It’s what you are — funny, talented, beautiful — that matters. Oh, Lazlo, Lazlo. She felt the tears trickling down her cheeks.

Suddenly her musings were interrupted by the calm impassive voice of the newsreader.

‘News has suddenly come to light of a double kidnapping which began in London nine days ago, when Christine Henriques, the niece of Charles Henriques, chairman of Henriques Brothers, the banking firm, was seized as she was leaving her uncle’s house in Chelsea. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of two million pounds, but warned the family to raise the money privately and not to notify the police. Three days later, actress Bella Parkinson, who is engaged to Rupert Henriques, the son of Charles Henriques, was also kidnapped on her way home from the theatre, and the kidnappers stepped up the demand.

‘Today, however, there was a major breakthrough when one of the gang contacted the family with vital information about the whereabouts of the kidnappers and their victims. The men are all believed to be South American, and police have made important steps in tracing the men behind the kidnapping, both in England and South America. The kidnapping is not believed to be motivated by politics.’

There was a long pause, then everyone started shouting and swearing. Bella didn’t dare look at Chrissie.

‘They’ll kill us in a minute,’ said Chrissie in a shaking voice.