She couldn’t close the door because one sandalled foot of Ringer’s still protruded out into the corridor. That wouldn’t do, and this was her only chance. Perhaps she could hit his foot with something heavy, but that was the thing with motorhomes; you tried to keep the contents lightweight. There was the fire extinguisher, of course. Then, just as Connie wondered if she could lift it from its bracket and crash it down on his foot with enough force, the dog, still growling, sank his teeth into the back of Ringer’s ankle.
Ringer screamed in pain, automatically retracting his foot and yelling every obscenity he knew, and he was well versed. And then Connie slammed the door shut. Not only was he wedged tightly inside and it would take him some time to stand up and turn round, but he wouldn’t be able to open the door either. He would, of course, be able to knock it down comparatively easily, but it did give her some precious time. Connie grabbed her keys, called out for the dog, and dashed out of Bella’s door, locking the vehicle behind her. Forgive me, Bella, she thought; I’m leaving you in the hands of a madman but I don’t know what else to do.
Then she heard footsteps approaching from the road. Someone was walking fast. Oh God, who’s this? she wondered, and almost cried with relief when a breathless Maggie came round the corner.
Connie, in tears, ran towards her friend. ‘Oh, Maggie! You won’t believe—’
‘Oh, I do believe,’ Maggie interrupted, hugging her. ‘I should not have left you here on your own today.’
‘I’ve locked him in, and he’s going to take a few minutes to get out of the loo as well,’ Connie said. ‘And when he does get out he’ll be hobbling, I hope. Thanks to this brilliant little dog.’ The brilliant little dog wagged his tail. ‘But he’s found a lot of your money, Mags.’
In the background they could hear muffled thumping and shouting.
‘Don’t worry, Connie. I took lots of it with me today and I’ve still got a bra-full. I’ll tell you everything later. Now, let me handle that bastard.’
‘No, Maggie, no!’ Connie panicked as she watched Maggie heading towards the door. ‘Let me call the police now, please!’
‘Not until I tell the bastard what I think of him,’ Maggie said calmly. She inserted her key in the door, then stopped as they heard a car approaching. Probably the Dutch couple returning, or perhaps it was one of the new visitors who’d booked in for the night. This little scenario should send them packing pretty quick, Connie thought.
When the Fiat came round the corner and screeched to a halt Connie couldn’t think for a moment who it might be. Then Gill got out from the passenger door and bent down to fuss over an ecstatic Toto, who’d made a beeline for her. ‘What’s up?’ she asked, picking up the dog.
‘It’s Ringer!’ Connie said. ‘I’ve got him locked inside Bella.’
‘Oh my God!’ Gill turned towards Alfonso, who was still in the driver’s seat on his phone. ‘He’s here!’
Connie turned her attention back to Maggie. ‘Please don’t go in, Mags, please! He’s got a knife, please!’
Maggie hesitated for a moment, staring at Gill and then at Alfonso, who’d now got out of the car, still clutching his phone to his ear, and was striding purposefully in their direction.
‘I deal with him!’ he said.
Gill caught his elbow. ‘No, Alfie, he’s got a knife! Didn’t you hear what Connie said?’
‘Yes, I heard. Please open the door, Maggie.’
Oh Lord, thought Connie, what’s going to happen now? Alfonso will get himself knifed for sure, and probably Maggie will as well.
The door open, Alfonso stepped inside and there followed a commotion of shouting, swearing and crashing, while Bella swayed alarmingly, and all the time Maggie, at the doorway, was directing an impressive string of obscenities at Ringer. Connie could see that Ringer had broken down the shower-room door and that the two men now appeared to be wrestling in the lounge area. My poor Bella! Connie thought.
Gill was in tears. ‘My poor Alfie!’
Connie placed a comforting arm round her shoulders. ‘He’ll be OK, Gill; he’s a policeman and he’ll know how to handle this.’
At that moment Alfonso appeared in the doorway, his arm locked round the neck of a swearing, kicking Ringer, and hauled him down the steps. ‘Stand back!’ he ordered, as the dog went into paroxysms of barking.
It was then that Connie heard the police cars. How on earth had they known to come here? Alfonso, of course. She didn’t know whether to feel relieved or fearful as the cars screamed round the corner and pulled up abruptly behind Alfonso’s Fiat. Four policemen swung open the car doors and ran to assist the struggling Alfonso. Much shouting in Italian went on for several minutes while Ringer was handcuffed and paraded, limping – Connie noted with satisfaction – towards one of the police cars where he was pushed unceremoniously into the back seat.
‘This man,’ Alfonso translated for their benefit, ‘I tell them he wanted by police in London for bank robbery. He go now, and you not see him any more.’
In the meantime, Maggie had followed Ringer and continued her tirade. ‘The blonde bitch ain’t going to get you now!’ she concluded.
One of the policemen was taking copious notes. ‘He follow this lady,’ Alfonso said in English to the policeman, ‘but she not want him any more.’
The policeman turned to stare, somewhat incredulously, at a scruffy, perspiring, furious Maggie.
‘These ladies on holiday!’ Alfonso continued loudly in English.
One of the policemen, also in English, said, ‘He says she stole his money.’ He pointed at Maggie.
‘Pazzo!’ Alfonso gave a dramatic sigh. ‘He crazy. Maggie has no money – look at her!’ They looked at her. ‘Does she look like rich lady? She’s in caravan, not hotel.’ There followed further conversation in Italian, with a great deal of gesticulating, before the police appeared satisfied. And Connie noted, with relief, that he’d talked the police out of going inside Bella, which was just as well as there were liable to be twenty-pound notes lying all over the place.
‘Tell them, Alfie, that he’ll likely need a tetanus jab,’ she said. ‘Toto had a taste of his ankle.’
Alfonso nodded and turned to Maggie, who’d quietened down. ‘We go to police station to make statement. You come with me.’ He beckoned towards the Fiat.
‘Must I?’ Maggie looked close to collapse, her earlier anger appearing to have drained her.
‘Yes,’ said Alfonso, ‘you must.’
She shrugged and followed him to the car. ‘I’m so relieved this is over,’ she said to the other two. ‘For your sakes more than mine.’
‘Oh, Maggie!’ Connie said as she and Gill both hugged her. ‘It’s going to be all right. And I have to say I’ll sleep better tonight!’
‘Me too!’ echoed Gill.
Twenty-Eight
TIME TO SAY GOODBYE
Connie felt as if a great weight had been removed. She and Gill stood silent and still for a moment as the three cars drove off. Then Connie said, ‘But how on earth did you two manage to appear at this exact moment?’
‘I told Alfie the truth about Ringer,’ Gill admitted. ‘I know I promised Maggie I wouldn’t, but I had this feeling that Ringer would show up sooner or later. Alfie was worried and said we should come over each day to make sure everything was OK. He reckons that Ringer was able to work out where we were, or had been, by tracking Maggie’s phone, every time she switched it on. But, poor you! You shouldn’t have been involved in any of this! And what damage has that lout done to poor Bella?’
‘There’s one way to find out,’ Connie said as she headed towards Bella. As she entered, she saw the shower door hanging sadly by one hinge.
‘Never mind,’ said Gill, still carrying the dog. ‘We can get that fixed.’ She turned right towards the sleeping quarters. ‘Oh my God!’ She stared at the ripped mattresses and the butchered carpet. She put her hand on Connie’s shoulder. ‘Maggie’ll buy you new ones, you know she will. And who needs a carpet any
way? The floor’s not damaged.’
‘I could get a nice little rug instead,’ Connie said. ‘More hygienic anyway.’ She turned towards the front. Fortunately he hadn’t had time to do much damage here although there was evidence of the struggle between the two men, with cushions strewn around and the glass of orange juice she’d been drinking lying in smithereens on the floor. There were also some streaks of blood, presumably from Ringer’s injured ankle.
‘Here, take the dog for a minute, in case he cuts his feet.’ Gill passed Toto across to Connie and proceeded to dig out the dustpan and brush. ‘First thing is to get rid of this glass, and then we’ll give the floor a good wash. It could be a lot worse.’
‘Thanks, Gill. But I wonder how Maggie’s getting on? Do you think she’ll be in trouble?’
‘No,’ Gill replied firmly. ‘Alfie will sort it out.’
Such faith, thought Connie, such love! And, for the first time, she considered that Gill might really be in love.
* * *
It was two hours before Alfonso and Maggie reappeared, looking remarkably unperturbed.
‘Let’s see the damage then,’ Maggie said.
‘Oh, Maggie!’ Connie hugged her. ‘Are you all right? What happened at the police station?’
‘Ringer’s in custody,’ Maggie said. ‘He’s to be sent back to the UK in the next few days. Apparently he’s been staying in Naples and driving a Vespa.’
‘A Vespa!’
‘Yup, a Vespa. He hired a Vespa because the Lexus broke down and is having a new clutch fitted somewhere in the city. Which is probably why he didn’t appear yesterday.’
‘Everything OK now!’ Alfonso announced, and then turned to survey the bunk area. ‘I measure and we get new…’ He waved his arms around.
‘Mattresses,’ Gill put in.
‘I get new mattresses for you, but maybe not today.’
‘We can cope,’ Maggie said, peering over his shoulder at the devastation. ‘The top one doesn’t look too bad. I can sleep on that.’
‘And we have the other divan at the front, Gill, because you can’t possibly sleep on yours,’ Connie said.
‘Not important,’ Gill said airily.
‘She stay with me,’ said Alfonso. ‘Now, I go back to police station. I come back’ – he consulted his watch – ‘after one hour, for to take Geelee back to Positano.’ He kissed Gill, waved, and was gone.
‘We need a drink,’ said Connie, putting away the mop after sponging and disinfecting the floor.
‘Large ones,’ Maggie agreed.
‘Several,’ added Gill.
Connie withdrew the remaining bottle of Bombay Sapphire from the cupboard and poured out hefty measures while Gill sliced a lemon and got tonics out of the fridge.
When each had a glass in her hand, Connie raised hers and said, ‘Here’s to us!’
‘Here’s to us!’ they repeated.
‘Tell me,’ Connie said after they’d all had a gulp, ‘did the police not suspect you’d taken that money, Mags?’
‘I don’t think so. They were all going at it in Italian so I hadn’t a clue what was being said. But, so far as I can gather, Alfonso convinced them that Ringer was a bit deranged because he thought I’d taken off with another man. I think they were mainly interested in getting Ringer deported back home.’
‘Good old Alfonso!’ Connie said with feeling. She looked at Gill. ‘I wonder what he really thought though?’
Maggie shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
‘I know,’ Gill said. ‘Alfie will believe what he thinks is best for us all because, let’s face it, we’re all involved in this.’
‘Ringer found a lot of the money,’ Connie remarked.
‘Well, he won’t be having it for long,’ Maggie said. ‘Anyway, he won’t have found all my hiding places.’
‘As a matter of interest, was there money behind that panel in the shower room?’ Connie asked.
Maggie shook her head. ‘There won’t have been much. I’ve been taking it out from there over the past few weeks, so he’d be damned lucky if he got a hundred or two. Anyway, your Alfie’s been great, Gill, and I shudder to think what might have happened if you two hadn’t come along when you did.’
‘He’s a lovely, lovely man.’ Gill cleared her throat. ‘On the subject of which, I have some news.’
They both looked at her expectantly.
‘I’m sorry, girls,’ she went on, ‘but I think we’ve come to the parting of the ways. Alfie’s asked me to move in with him.’
Connie gulped. ‘What, permanently?’
‘Yeah, I hope so.’
‘That’s great news!’ Maggie raised her glass. ‘Here’s to Gill and Alfie!’
‘So, will you ever be honouring us with your presence here again?’ Connie asked.
‘Just tomorrow night,’ Gill replied. ‘Alfie’s flying home in the morning and then he’ll drive straight back down again to pick up me and Toto, and all my belongings.’
‘He’ll need a bloody big car,’ said Maggie.
‘Will you get married, do you think?’ Connie asked.
‘Who knows? Does it matter at our age? It’s enough, for the moment, just to be together,’ Gill replied with a faraway look in her eyes. ‘Me and Alfie, and Toto.’ She bent to stroke the dog.
‘What will your family think?’ Connie asked. ‘Will they try to talk you out of it?’
‘Probably. I don’t care. And are any of them really going to want to look after me when I’m dribbling and incontinent?’
‘You’re not far off that now,’ Maggie said with a grin.
‘Aw, shut up!’
‘So let’s hope Alfonso’s well stocked up with incontinence pads!’
Gill ignored her. ‘And no more awful British weather!’
‘It does get very cold in Tuscany in the winter though,’ Connie said. ‘I hope he’s got central heating in that great big house of his.’
‘Well, she can cuddle up to Alfie,’ Maggie said. ‘It’ll be like sleeping with a rug.’
‘What,’ Gill asked, grinning, ‘are you going to do when I’m not around to have a go at?’
‘God only knows,’ Maggie said sadly.
‘So now there’ll only be the two of us,’ Connie remarked, looking at Maggie.
It was a few moments before Maggie spoke. ‘Not for long, Connie. I’m leaving too. It’s an idea I’ve had for a while now, and probably well timed just in case the police might start to believe there’s some truth in what Ringer’s been saying.’
‘What!’ Connie nearly choked on her gin. ‘And where might you be going?’
‘Australia,’ said Maggie.
‘Australia!’ Connie and Gill chorused.
‘Australia,’ Maggie confirmed.
‘But – but you said you couldn’t fly all that way…’ Connie said.
‘I’m not flying. I’m sailing.’
‘Sailing!’ Gill looked at Maggie, then at Connie who seemed dumbfounded, and then back at Maggie again.
‘Yes, sailing.’ Maggie paused for a moment. ‘I’m leaving on a freighter from Naples the day after tomorrow, in the evening, bound for Sydney, with hundreds of cars on board. They have four passenger cabins and I’ve got the last one.’
There was complete silence for a minute.
‘Oh, Maggie!’ Connie said at last, tears visible in her eyes.
‘How long will that take?’ Gill asked.
‘Around six weeks. That boat will stop at places I’ve never even heard of, so it’ll be quite an education. And I’ll be eating at the captain’s table every night!’
‘Just as well you bought yourself a couple of decent dresses then,’ said Gill.
Connie was refilling their glasses. ‘So that’s what you’ve been up to in Naples!’
‘Will you be coming back?’ Gill asked.
‘Nope. This is a one-way ticket to my new life with Al and his family.’
‘Oh, Mags!’
‘It just feels like the righ
t thing to do.’
‘Of course!’ Connie agreed. ‘But what about your flat and all your stuff?’
‘It’s Ringer’s flat. And there’s not a lot there that I’d want to take with me anyway. But I’ve rung Pam to say I’ll send her the key and she’ll pack up the stuff I want and freight it on to me. I won’t need much, only personal bits and pieces, because I’m going to be starting again. New life, new country!’
‘My God!’ Gill took a large slurp of her gin. ‘And I thought my news would have you both gasping!’
Connie remained silent.
Then Maggie said, ‘The thing that bothers me most, Connie, is will you be OK driving back to England on your own?’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said Connie. In fact, she hadn’t given the return journey any thought. Perhaps she wouldn’t be driving back at all.
* * *
Alfonso flew home the next morning, having deposited Gill back in Sorrento and leaving the three to spend their final twenty-four hours together. True to his word, he’d ordered two new mattresses and they arrived mid-morning.
‘Well, at least you’ll both get a decent night’s sleep,’ Connie said, although Maggie had spent the night without complaint on her top bunk. The deliverymen from Naples had been instructed to remove the two slashed mattresses, which they duly did with exchanged glances, but asked no questions.
‘Let’s have a nice lunch at our lovely restaurant up in the square,’ Maggie said. ‘My—’
‘My treat!’ the other two mimicked.
‘How often have you said that over the weeks, I wonder?’ Connie mused. ‘You’ve been treating us ever since we left home. It’ll be a shock having to dig into our own bank accounts, won’t it, Gill?’
‘I shall be digging into Alfie’s,’ Gill said with a giggle.
‘And Connie,’ Maggie said, ‘you’ll probably still find a few quid hidden in here from time to time because, to be honest, I can’t remember exactly where I hid it all. But I’d like to leave you some cash to get yourself and Bella home.’
The Getaway Girls: A hilarious feel-good summer read Page 27
