“I’ll leave you alone, Moyra, but any more of this carrying on and I’ll go down to the pub, and I’ll bloody stay there...”
“I just need to get myself together. It’s all—”
“All what?” he snapped.
She sat on the edge of the bed, plucking at the bedspread that matched the floral curtains. She just wanted to be left alone. He came and sat just behind her and she stared at him through the mirror, looked at his concerned, confused face, watched as his big hand reached out, to touch her back, a gentle, sweet move that made her cringe, but she managed a smile.
“Sorry, I’m sorry, love...” He inched closer and wrapped his arms around her. Her body was stiff and unresponsive. “I’ll put the kettle on, make you a cup of tea, yeah? You’ll feel better then.”
She nodded, and felt relief as he got up and walked out, closing the door behind him. She flopped back, turning to bury her face in the coverlet, afraid he would hear her, hear the sobs that shook her body. After all these years, the pain was as raw as it had been when Eddie left. She had loved him, loved him so much, and nothing anyone said made it easier. Time didn’t heal her pain and neither could sweet big-hearted Phil. It had been better when she believed he was dead, then at least she knew no one else had him. But Eddie was alive, had been alive all these years. No letter, no explanation why he had left in the first place. Had she really meant so little to him? Had she done something to him, said something that had made him go? All the questions came back as fresh as they had been when he had walked out, and they were still unanswered.
“You don’t know anythin’ about him, Moyra!” That was her father.
“He’s very handsome, love, but, you know, you’re so young, your whole life is ahead of you. Wait. Why don’t you wait? It’s just a few weeks, Moyra, you can’t know what you want in that short time.” That was her mother.
“You don’t know anything about him.” That was her father again. But Moyra hadn’t listened to anyone, even her friends. They’d all been suspicious of the dark handsome boy who just suddenly appeared in their local pub one night. It had not been Eddie who had made the first move, but Moyra. She’d watched him standing, leaning against the bar. It had been Moyra who had gone up to him, after passing him twice to go to the ladies, and he had not given her so much as a second glance. Moyra wasn’t used to that. She was exceptionally pretty, a daddy’s girl. Only daughter of a wealthy builder, she’d even been given a new car for her seventeenth birthday, all tied up with a big blue ribbon... Moyra had virtually always got what she wanted, all the local boys chased her, her mother had said she could have had her pick of any one of them, but Moyra had gone after Eddie.
The tea was a bit stewed and Phil sat smoking, the ashtray piled up with cigarette butts. She walked in and sat down, drawing the cup with the rose pattern closer. She was about to reach for the sweeteners when Phil said softly he’d already put one in. Moyra looked into his concerned face. His eyes seemed a little afraid, almost unable to meet her wide, baby blue, daddy’s baby’s eyes.
“I love you, Moyra, I love you so much...”
“Yes, I know,” she whispered.
“You do love me, don’t you?” Phil asked, flushing.
“You know I do...” and his smile made her want to weep, because it was so unlike Eddie’s. He was so unlike Eddie.
“They’ll lock the bastard up well and good now, he won’t get out for a long time, if ever.” Phil’s mouth turned down, his face, a moment ago flushed with embarrassed love, was now taut with anger. “I’d fuckin’ like to strangle the shit.”
“So would I,” said Moyra, as she sipped the cold tea. But she knew, if he walked in the door, looked at her with that half-mocking wonderful smile, she would, like she had all those years ago, walk out with Eddie, run away with him, to the end of the world if that’s where he wanted to go. But he hadn’t wanted her — no letter, no phone call, nothing. She would never understand why he had hurt her, when all she had ever done was love him.
16
In the sitting room of Suite 340 at the Hyde Park Hotel Lola del Moreno was taking a telephone call. It was nine o’clock in the evening; she had just stepped from the bath when the call came. Now she stood wrapped in a towel, listening as Detective Sergeant Jackson explained himself. Charlotte Lampton stood beside Lola. She was grinning.
“You are in reception?” Lola said. “You want to come up and see me?” She wriggled, making Charlotte giggle. “I’m all alone. No! No! Please come up.”
She put down the receiver and screeched with laughter.
“I don’t believe it!” she howled. “I do not believe it! He’s here... He’s here! At the Hyde Park Hotel!”
“Brilliant.” Charlotte was suddenly bustling and businesslike. “Okay...” She grabbed her handbag. “I’m off. Put some clothes on.” She picked up her coat as Lola hurried into the bedroom. “No, on second thoughts, don’t.” She went to the door. “Get whatever you can out of him,” she called. “I’ll get them to send up food. And open the champagne, it’s chilled already. Who’s the lucky girl?”
Lola emerged from the bedroom in a smoky see-through wrap.
“Don’t you mean lucky boy?” she said, winking. “Go on, hurry! He’ll be here — oh!” A thought occurred. “Oysters! Get oysters!”
Less than three minutes later Larry was standing outside Suite 340, combing the fingers of both hands through his hair. He took a deep breath and tapped the door with his knuckles, trying to make it soft, nothing like the harsh rap he used as the bearer of tough tidings. Coming up in the lift he had asked himself, again, what he was doing here. Beyond the superficial excuses it wasn’t simple to rationalize. There were several reasons. For a start, he didn’t want to feel excluded from the case, even during a lull when there was no option but to suspend questioning. And now there was incentive to keep himself involved, because he had either been made privy to an important secret, or he had been spun a cynical lie by a man he had begun to trust and respect. There was, too, the undeniable fact that Larry was a changed person — changed and still changing — and he wanted to explore the limits of the alteration in himself. To do that he had to skirt his normal patterns of behavior. It was also true that he didn’t really want to go home yet, but he refused to let his mind do any probing in that area.
He knocked on the door again, unaware that Charlotte Lampton was peeping at him around the corner of the corridor.
The door opened and Larry felt something like a blow at his solar plexus. Lola, small and beautiful, stood before him in her diaphanous wrap, her golden body a shadowy glow through the folds.
“Hi!” she said brightly, smiling, showing him her perfect teeth. “Come in.”
She turned away sharply and walked back into the apartment, leaving Larry standing in the doorway. Awkwardly he straightened his tie and stepped inside, closing the door. His feet were silent on the rich carpet Lola settled herself in the corner of a chaise longue, folding one leg beneath her with a flash of thigh. She indicated a chair opposite. Larry sat down, quietly dazzled by her, hardly able to believe this was the same woman who had radiated such malice and called him a little prick the last time they met. He began, haltingly, to explain why he was there, but Lola interrupted him wordlessly by getting up and wandering out of the room. She i came back carrying an ice bucket between her small hands, a bottle of Cordon Rouge sticking up out of the ice. She put the bucket on a side table, snatched up the champagne bottle and opened it with an admirable lack of struggle. Larry took up the thread of his story again. He explained how he had managed to trace Lola to the Hyde Park Hotel. “I called the villa, you see. The housekeeper said, after a bit of difficulty, because I don’t really speak Spanish... anyway, she explained that you—” Lola handed him a glass of champagne. “How is he?” she said, shortcutting the narrative. “He’s okay. He... there was an accident, a car crash. But he’s fine.” Lola sipped her champagne and lowered herself onto the chaise lounge again, elegantly blasé, exposing so much leg this time that Larry had to glance away. When he looked at her again she was smiling pleasantly, apparently unconcerned by the news about Von Joel.