Shirley had to get rid of him. She turned on him and spoke softly but plainly. ‘No way... just piss off!’
Charles wasn’t expecting such a sudden rejection and, taking a step back, trod on a fat woman’s foot. She squealed and pushed him hard; he started to fall backward and as he turned to regain his balance, his rucksack hit another woman, who swore at him in Portuguese. Apologizing to everyone around him, he skulked off with his head held low.
Shirley turned to tell Dolly to leave the case. She wasn’t there, but the case was. Shirley couldn’t bring herself to pick it up; but then she noticed it was the case with the blue tag. While everyone was looking at Charles, Dolly had lifted the other red case off the carousel, swapped it with the money case and casually walked off.
Shirley’s mouth was dry, and her hands sweated. When she looked over to see Dolly in the queue by the trestle tables, the money case by her side, Shirley thought she’d faint. Dolly seemed so calm as she inched closer to the customs officer, kicking the money case along as she moved. Figuring that, as Dolly hadn’t lifted the money case up yet, she wasn’t next to be searched, Shirley turned back to the carousel to see if she could get her case — but it had just gone past her for the second time!
Charles’s rucksack was on the trestle table next to Dolly. Two officers were dealing with him, going over every nook and cranny of his clothing looking for drugs, before they decided to take him off for a strip search.
A customs officer pointed at Dolly and then her case. Trying hard not to show how heavy it was, she lifted it onto the table and laid it on its side, then quickly placed her small holdall on top and rested her hands on it. The officer stared at her, held his hand out and snapped his fingers.
‘Passport.’
She handed it over; he took a quick look and put it down beside him. ‘You’se have anythings to declares?’ he asked in broken English.
Dolly smiled sweetly and shook her head.
‘Any foods or plants wiz you?’ he asked, still staring.
‘No, but I do have a duty free bottle of gin and some cigarettes in my holdall. Do you want to see them?’
‘Yes... Tell me why you are here? Business or holiday?’ He seemed to be looking for any involuntary signs of nervousness.
‘Holiday,’ Dolly replied calmly as she slowly unzipped her holdall. Her head was spinning like mad and she was controlling every nerve in her body to keep herself from showing any sign, any twitch, any flicker of emotion that might make the officer more suspicious than he already was. She didn’t have a clue what was going on behind her or where Shirley was, but she wished to God she’d hurry up and put whatever distraction plan she’d decided on into action.
Shirley had now retrieved her cases and was standing in the queue waiting for customs. Looking over at Dolly, she saw the customs officer taking the booze and fags out of her holdall and then rummaging through the contents. He lifted the holdall off the case, handed it back to Dolly and started to turn the case round so the lock catches were facing him. Shirley knew it was now or never. She unzipped her handbag, put her hand inside and started screaming.
‘Help me! Oh, my God, help me! Someone’s stolen my passport!’ She rummaged round her handbag, tipping it sideways so the contents fell to the ground. ‘It’s not here, it’s not here! I’ve been robbed. I’ve been robbed.’
Everything came to a standstill and all eyes were on Shirley. The two officers at the exit door stepped forward to see what the rumpus was, the man behind Dolly threw up his arms in despair, then started shouting something in Portuguese and pointing at his wrist watch. The officer dealing with Dolly told him to be quiet, but he wouldn’t let it go and even Dolly knew what he meant when he called the officer idiota.
The officer, now very angry, handed Dolly her passport, pushed her case to one side and signaled for her to get out of the way. He then turned to the man behind her and slammed his hand on the table.
Dolly slid her suitcase off the table. It was over. All eyes were still on Shirley, further back in the queue, who was still screaming while on her knees, frantically looking through her strewn handbag contents. Dolly melted into the crowd and slowly walked through the automatic exit doors.
It was not until the doors closed behind Dolly that Shirley waved her passport above her head, indicating she’d found it. The customs officers took her off to a room, with her suitcases, to speak to her. Now that Dolly had got through, Shirley didn’t feel nervous: she had nothing to hide or declare in either of her cases.
Unbeknownst to Shirley, Charles was being spoken to in the next-door cubicle about the commotion he had caused by the luggage carousel. He was in tears as he explained that at Heathrow he’d helped a lady with an overweight case by saying it was his and then offered to carry it for her after landing in Rio. He had been hoping to get his leg over and was very disturbed by her sudden rejection.
One of the officers who had spoken to Charles came in to join the two who were questioning Shirley. He spoke good enough English to report what Charles had said. ‘I’m ever so sorry,’ Shirley said, with a little pout. ‘I didn’t have enough to pay the luggage excess, so I’m afraid I was a bit naughty. It was a silly thing to do and I am ever so sorry. It wasn’t my idea to lie though — that man said it was perfectly OK and no one would mind really. Was that wrong? Oh—’ Shirley exclaimed, getting into full dumb-blonde mode — ‘do you think he had other ideas?’
An officer told her to wait and he left the room. Shirley was now beginning to feel nervous, as she had thought that she’d be free to go by now. The officer returned a few minutes later, sat down opposite her at the table and glared into her wide blue eyes.
‘Why you tell the young man you do a shoot for a magazine in Rio?’
‘I lied,’ she said, bowing her head to pretend she was ashamed, but also to hide her nerves. ‘I sort of fancied him and wanted to impress him and—’
The officer banged the table, making Shirley jump. ‘Then why you tell him piss off when you land in Rio?’
Shirley leaned forward confidentially. ‘Well, on the plane he was sitting next to me and I could smell how bad his body odor was. When he approached me in the luggage collection area it was awful! I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but I had to be honest.’
The customs officers all burst out laughing.
‘He does smell bad!’ said one of them. ‘Especially in a small interview room! Off you go, missy.’ Opening the door for her, he ushered her out.
Alice found Resnick in a side room off the main hospital ward. He made a surprisingly small figure on the high bed, motionless, hooked up to a drip, his face so puffy and bruised he was barely recognizable. As she went over to him, she noticed his false teeth lying in a saucer on the locker and had to suppress a sob. Drawing up a chair as close as she could to the bed, she settled down to wait.
On her way to the hotel, Shirley looked out of the taxi window as Rio whizzed by, and thought of Terry. She had never known such an exhilarating feeling before. It was over, all over and she was free — free to do what she wanted, be what she wanted. She was rich. Very rich. She so wished that she could share this part of her life with the man she had loved. This was his dream too — well, maybe not Rio exactly, he was more of an East End boy — but being able to do anything they wanted. Shirley could hardly believe where she was and she certainly couldn’t believe how she’d got here. She couldn’t wait to see Linda and Bella again, she had so much to tell them.