‘No, ma’am - though Phoebe is. Why do you mention him?’
‘He’s not answering his phone.’
Wilson looked across the road. He caught something in her tone of voice.
‘That’s a police offence?’
‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you. I was just concerned about him in light of what you said.’
Wilson looked at his watch.
‘Well, where I’m sitting it’s hard to think of ordinary life carrying on but it is around that time of day. He’s probably schtupping Evangeline.’
‘Siesta ended hours ago.’
‘I don’t know what you want me to do or say…’ Wilson said.
‘Leave it,’ Horton said. ‘Just leave it. I’m sure it’s something and nothing.’
Ruth remained comforted by Phoebe and Barbara and watched blankly as things developed around her. She was shocked at how her faltering confidence had crumpled so abruptly when faced with the woman with the gun. But, gradually, over the past hour or so, she had begun to gather her strength.
She could see that Karen and Chris were struggling to keep control of the situation in the house. That made her quake inside – at the mercy of thugs twice in one lifetime was more than anyone deserved.
They had already lost control of the situation outside. She couldn’t see any way they were going to get off the island.
It was all a horrible mess. There were six male hostages, if she included David, which she wasn’t inclined to do. He’d scarcely moved since he’d sat on the floor at her feet, staring at nothing
Her money was on Tom Haddon and Natasha Innocent, who, despite her size, was a tough cookie. Barbara was feisty too. They wouldn’t know quite what kind of hornet they had in the jar with her until they lifted the lid off. Ruth knew. She looked at her friend now as she leaned in and whispered in Ruth’s ear.
Ruth and Barbara had gone to Italy during one of the long summer breaks. They’d been hitching from Naples to Venice. It didn’t look too far on the map but that was because neither of them could read a map and neither had noticed the Apennines, this long spine of high mountains separating west and east Italy.
What they expected to take a day seemed likely to take three. They got a lift from a friendly enough lorry driver. He had big, hairy forearms and a habit of looking across at their phrase book when he couldn’t understand what they were saying.
That was fine – more or less – when they were on the flat but once they started climbing into the mountains and hit a series of hairpin bends over long drops it made them very nervous.
Progress was slow and as it went dark the driver announced he was going to stop for the night in a tiny village in the middle of the mountains. Not much more than a truck stop, actually.
There was a small café with a large car-park around it. In the fug of the café a boisterous gathering of men with spaghetti, wine and beers. They made room for Ruth and Barbara. Their driver joined his mates. The waitress was friendly. They had a carafe of red wine that blackened their teeth and spaghetti with a sauce so rich and so full of garlic they just giggled and bared their blackened teeth at each other.
They asked the waitress about a room for the night. She didn’t have one. All the men were sleeping in their trucks. Ruth was aware of a few sly looks from other tables.
‘May I help?’
A slender man with a Zapata moustache, tight-fitting jeans and a white T-shirt. He had a splodge of Bolognese sauce over the beginnings of a paunch.
‘I speak okay English. I’m Eduardo. I worked for my uncle in London in his restaurant. You know the King Road?’
They nodded.
‘You need a place to sleep?’
‘We do,’ Barbara said.
‘These men here good guys – don’t be alarmed by them. Good guys but all they have are their cabs. My wife’s brother has a holiday home he’s been making right here. You could sleep there – but it would cost you.’
‘We have money,’ Ruth said, just to avoid any confusion about method of payment.
The man looked from one to the other of them and gave a little tug of his moustache.
‘Okay. Let me phone him.’
He pushed himself up and went over to the telephone on the wall beside the waitress. The waitress saw them watching him and gave a thumbs-up and a big smile.
‘Who’d want to have a holiday here?’ Barbara murmured.
‘Seems okay though, don’t you think? I mean the guy’s married and everything.’
Barbara shrugged.
‘Let’s see what he wants to charge us.’
The waitress walked across the road with them then waved them down the little track to a clump of houses some 20 yards down. Eduardo let them in and turned on the power and showed them round the place. It was expensively furnished, with marble bathroom and tiled kitchen.
‘We got a bargain,’ Barbara said to Ruth as Eduardo was trying to get a dimmer switch to work.
‘When he’s gone we’ve got a bargain,’ Ruth said.
Eduardo left readily enough. Ruth thought he was giving them an appraising look but Barbara waved it away.
‘He’s Italian. The men just see women as bodies – you know that. They don’t respect women as individuals at all.’
Ruth nodded, thinking her friend was off again. Just warming up, in fact.
‘Haven’t you noticed that in restaurants a woman sits on the outside of the table and the man sits with his back to the wall. So he can survey the other women in the room but all she can do is look at him?’
Ruth nodded. She was tired.
‘Have you still got that bottle of limoncello?’ Barbara suddenly said.
‘I was hoping to keep that …’
Barbara grabbed Ruth’s rucksack.
‘Come on – I’m going to have a bubble bath in that fucking enormous bath and I want to do it with something nice to drink.’
She rooted in Ruth’s bag and pulled out the limoncello. She waggled it in the air and winked.
‘It’s a big bath. Wanna join me?’
‘Barbara – that bottle is mine.’
‘I’ll buy you another.’ Barbara stood. ‘Come on.’
Ruth sighed.
‘Alright. But I’ll skip the bath.’
Barbara leered.
‘Chicken. Run the bath for me whilst I find the glasses.’
Ruth ran the water and poured what she hoped were bath salts in from the cupboard above the sink. She looked at herself in the mirror. Tired eyes, peeling skin on her nose and forehead. But looking pretty good. Aside from her lop-sided breasts, obviously. Which made her a freak.
Barbara came in with the limoncello and two wine glasses. She put them down by the sink and filled each glass almost to the brim. She waved her hand through the water.
‘Perfect,’ she said, pulling off her top and unclasping her bra. She dropped her loons and knickers, gave a little foot wiggle and left them on the floor as she stepped into the bath.
As she sank under the water, she reached out her hand in a mock-imperious gesture.
Ruth passed over one glass and sat down on the loo with the other. Barbara took a sip and slid down further in the bath.
‘This is the life. I’ll settle for no less from now on.’
‘We’re in the youth hostel in Venice, twenty four to a room.’
Barbara drained her glass.
‘Aside from that.’
Ten minutes of yawning later, Ruth said:
‘I’m going to bed.’ She pointed at the bottle. ‘You finish it.’
Barbara smiled and waggled her glass.
‘I intend to – pop it over here will you?’
Ruth’s head was swimming when she went to bed. She took the left side of the double bed and sank immediately into a drunken sleep. At some point she was dimly aware of Barbara clattering about somewhere in the apartment.
She woke at four dry-mouthed and needing a pee. She rolled out of the bed, groggily but carefully, trying no
t to disturb Barbara. It was pitch black so she felt her way along the wall and along the short corridor to the bathroom. She fumbled for the light switch.
She kept her eyes squeezed shut as the bright light flared. When she got up from the loo and stepped across to the sink she felt a sharp pain in the sole of her foot.
‘Shit,’ she said, leaning against the sink and lifting her foot to peer at the sole. There was a piece of glass embedded in it, blood dripping from around it. She pulled the glass out and put her foot down on tiptoe.
She was awake now. She looked down at the bathroom floor. She could see a couple of other tiny shards glittering in the bright light and smears of blood. She knew exactly what had happened.
Barbara, drunk, had knocked over either her glass or the bottle – or maybe both – and hadn’t quite cleared it up properly, cutting her own foot in the process.
Ruth crudely wrapped a hand towel round her foot and limped into the corridor. In the light from the bathroom she could see the kitchen and living room to her right. She had a raging thirst.
She turned on a light over the cooker and looked at the taps. They’d been strongly advised not to drink from taps in Italy. She opened the fridge and found a bottle of water. She didn’t bother with a glass. She turned, her head tilted back and gave a start as she saw Barbara, sitting sideways on the sofa, her knees tucked up to her chest, staring at her with wide eyes.
Ruth hiccoughed and put the bottle down on the counter between them.
‘Jesus, you startled me,’ she said. ‘Why have you been sleeping there – you wouldn’t have disturbed me.’
Barbara continued to stare then seemed to snap out of it.
‘Wasn’t sleepy.’ Her voice was slurry.
‘It wasn’t because I -?’
‘What? No, no. Don’t flatter yourself.’ She must have realised how sharp she was. ‘Sorry – didn’t mean that as it sounded.’
‘That’s okay. I see you had an accident in the bathroom. I just cut my foot.’
‘Accident?’
‘The bottle, I assume.’ She half raised her leg. ‘You missed a piece.’
‘Sorry,’ Barbara said, still staring.
‘You alright?’
Barbara nodded slowly.
‘Course. Still pissed.’ She looked towards the French windows at the back of the living room. Outside the sky was lightening. ‘We should get moving. Get an early start.’
‘You don’t want to make the most of our expensive apartment? Have a leisurely breakfast in the café?’
‘And be stuck here the rest of the day? I don’t think so.’ She swung her feet off the sofa. ‘I bet those lorry drivers will already be on the move.’
‘Well, I should have a bath,’ Ruth said, sniffing under her arm.
‘Not time for that,’ Barbara said.
‘Barbara, I’m paying a lot of money for this place and all I’ve done is lie in bed.’
Barbara walked over and lightly tapped Ruth’s nose.
‘You’re right. So I’ll pay for last night. Come on, I’ll lend you my patchouli to hide your stink.’ Barbara started off down the corridor, turning on the light switch as she went. ‘And I’ll pay for the limoncella.’
Five minutes later they were lugging their rucksacks up the steep track. On the road above their heads they could hear the roar of engines bursting into life. When they got to the road, only half of the trucks from the previous night were there, even though the sky was still only streaked with light.
‘There’s one,’ Barbara said, heading towards a lorry near the back of the car park that a man was just climbing into.
‘Wouldn’t it be easier to ask in the café?’ Ruth said, hurrying after her.
‘The café had a certain happenstance magic last night. I don’t want to spoil it by seeing the same people in the ugly light of early morning.’
Barbara waved at the man in his cab. He rolled down his window. Two minutes later, Ruth and Barbara were climbing up into the passenger seats. Five minutes later they were driving out of the car park. Ruth saw the waitress from the previous night – she must have been the café owner – come out of the front door and appear to wave but Barbara grabbed her hand and distracted her.
‘Where’s he going?’ Ruth said.
‘Firenze.’
‘Florence – but we’re going to Venice.’
‘I know, I know – but have you seen how tight his jeans are?’
He was a good-looking man.
‘But we’ve got reservations at the youth hostel,’ Ruth said.
‘Look, we were going to go to Florence eventually weren’t we?’
‘Yes, but –’
‘We’ll just swap the order.’ Barbara squeezed her hand. ‘I’m feeling frisky.’
Ruth didn’t mind whether they went to Venice or Florence first. And she’d got used to falling in with Barbara’s whims. And fancies. Although, ironically, on the journey up to Florence, Barbara, wiped out from her limoncella binge, slept, open-mouthed, head back on Ruth’s shoulder.
The driver ended up trying to flirt with Ruth but, given her dire Italian, gave up. He was pretty disgruntled when he dropped them off on the outskirts of Florence. Barbara, still groggy, didn’t really notice.
‘The guy you fancied?’ Ruth said.
‘Oh yeah,’ Barbara said. ‘How was he?’
‘Thorough,’ Ruth said and they both giggled.
And so they went to Firenze.
A week later, sitting cross-legged on the Ponte Vecchio, some German guy squatted down next to them, offered them a joint, scraped his hand through his hair.
‘You’re the girls,’ he said.
‘Oh, we’re the girls,’ Barbara said, throwing back her own hair and giving him The Look. Ruth knew she liked lean, long-legged men.
‘No – these girls.’
He proffered them a rolled up newspaper.
‘You speak Italian?’ he said.
‘Poco,’ Barbara said.
She took the newspaper and unrolled it. The German pointed with a long finger to the bottom half of the page. Ruth looked at the Italian words blankly.
‘It says a man has been murdered in a little village in the middle of the Apennines,’ the German explained. ‘The carabinieri are looking for two attractive American girls, both with long blonde hair. Students. Hitchhikers heading for Venice who stayed one night in the village and disappeared in the morning. The carabinieri are trying to track down the truck driver who gave them a lift off the mountains.’
The German pointed at Ruth and Barbara and grinned.
‘You fit the description.’
Barbara grinned back and waved her arm around the bridge.
‘Us and every other tourist girl in Firenze. Plus we’re English not American.’
‘True enough,’ the German said, squatting down beside them. ‘I’m Gunther.’
Gunther stayed with them the rest of that day. He was studying in Florence and that night Barbara went back to his room in the Piazza Santo Spirito. Ruth was left to fend for herself for the next couple of days. She almost bankrupted herself drinking expensive coffees and small beers in the Piazza della Signorina but she liked to watch the people go by and was fascinated by the delicacy of Michelangelo’s grand statue of David.
She spent too much time gazing up at dark paintings in echoey churches but fell in love with the Bargello Museum and the other statue of David, the bronze by Donatello.
Ordinarily she wouldn’t have minded being on her own. She would have wandered the streets and indulged herself. As she did now. But she found herself turning down side-alleys whenever she saw a carabinieri.
She hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to Barbara about the newspaper report. Didn’t have the chance to say they undoubtedly were the girls the police were looking for.
The morning they were due to leave Florence Barbara arrived back at the hostel just as the doors opened. Ruth was sitting in the small café beside the cramped reception desk w
ith both their rucksacks.
‘I packed for you,’ she said, when Barbara came bounding over.
‘Thank you, darling.’
‘And I’ve settled up.’
‘Seems wrong to pay for a bed I haven’t slept in.’
‘How was the bed you did sleep in?’
Barbara reached over and pinched Ruth’s cheek.
‘Who slept, bellezza?’
Ruth smiled.
‘So what’s the plan? Where are we going to hitch from?’
Barbara reached into her handbag.
‘I thought we’d go in style. Three hours by train, Firenze to Venezia.’
She handed over two train tickets.
‘My treat. Enough of this hitch-hiking shit.’
On the train Barbara slept. Nothing new there then. Ruth was stunned coming out of the railway station onto the Grand Canal, even though it was a cloudy day. They negotiated a route on vaporettos to the youth hostel. It was on an island almost opposite St Mark’s Square and the Basilica.
‘No dwarf in a red duffle coat yet,’ Barbara shouted as they stood in the prow of the second vaporetto, the wind tugging at their hair.
Ruth was keen to talk to her about the newspaper report but wanted to wait for the right moment.
There wasn’t one. Eventually, Ruth just grabbed the conversation over spag bol and a carafe of vino rosso – their staple diet – in a small café behind the Ca Rezzonica.
‘We’re those girls they’re looking for,’ she blurted out.
‘Which has what to do with Gunther’s sexual prowess?’
Gunther had been the subject of the conversation until that moment.
‘Nothing - but it’s something we need to talk about.’
‘We do?’ Barbara noisily sucked up three strands of spaghetti.
‘I have no idea what the name of that village was we spent the night in but there can’t have been two other blonde women hitch-hiking through there that day as well as us.’
‘So what do you want to do? Go to the police? And say what?’
‘Find out why they’re looking for us.’
‘They’re looking for us to pin something on us that we didn’t do.’
‘How do you know that?’ Ruth said.
Barbara put her fork down.
‘Well, did you do anything? Because I didn’t. But something has happened in that village and they’re looking for us.’
Paradise Island Page 15
