Divas (56 page)

‘You stole my husband, and you
killed him!
’ Suzanne accused, pointing her finger dramatically at Carin. ‘And you tried to frame my
daughter!
What the hell is
wrong
with you, you evil bitch?’

‘Yeah! You tell her, Mom!’ yelled one over-excited woman.

‘Suzanne, I love you! Marry me!’ called a guy from across the room.

‘You know, when you moved in on my husband, when you convinced him to leave me, when you
married
him, I knew you were a
gold-digging bitch
, ’ Suzanne continued
magnificently. ‘But I had no idea you were truly evil! What are you, some kind of
psychopath
?’

‘Right, that’s IT. Let’s take this show outside! Go, go, move this out,
MOVE THIS OUT!’
yelled the bailiff in a big booming voice. ‘Everyone
OUT OF THE
COURTROOM NOW!
’

‘Fucking
get away from me
!’ Carin screamed back into Suzanne’s face. ‘You couldn’t keep your fucking husband, so get out of my fucking face!’

‘At least I didn’t
kill
him!’ Suzanne retorted superbly.

‘Mrs Fitzgerald, we’re taking you out now—’ the police officer started.

‘Take your hands off me!’ Carin screamed, out of control now, wrestling her shoulders away from him so that he grabbed hold of her harder.

Rico barreled into him from the side, knocking the officer off-balance.

‘Show Mrs Fitzgerald some respect!’ Rico shouted. ‘You can’t just pull her around like she was some cheap hooker!’

Carin, incredibly, managed to wriggle free of the police officer and, staggering up to Suzanne, spat in her face. Suzanne slapped her, a ringing slap that echoed right round the courtroom and
sent Carin sprawling back against Rico. As he caught her, Lola, who was craning her neck to see the scene unfold, saw Evie slip up to him from behind.

What is she
doing
?
Lola wondered.

Evie was pulling at Rico’s jacket, her hands swift and deft as they reached around the bulk of his body, slipping into his left-hand front pocket, lifting out a handful of something that
sparkled brightly for a second or two before her hands disappeared again, burying themselves in her bag. Another second later, she was sliding back through the crowd, her small body easily weaving
away towards the door. Rico was totally unaware that anything had just been stolen from him: he was understandably distracted by the fact that he was being grabbed by two burly NYC cops, his arms
wrenched behind his back as they yelled at him that he was under arrest for assaulting a police officer.

‘Fuck you!’ Rico yelled back, as they dragged him out through the courtroom doors. ‘Fuck you!’

‘You should be arresting that woman!’ Carin screamed over her shoulder. ‘She just assaulted me! She
hit
me! There are
witnesses!
’

‘Very impressive, Mrs Myers, ’ said Marco Ranieri, strolling up to Lola’s mother. ‘That was a great right hook.’

‘
Thank you
, ’ Suzanne said fervently, reaching out to grasp his hand in both of hers. ‘You saved my baby! Thank you so much!’

‘Well, I never turn down an embrace from a beautiful woman, ’ Ranieri said, enfolding Suzanne in a long hug, ‘but I can’t claim most of the credit—’

‘People! We need to
clear the courtroom!
’ yelled the bailiff, shepherding everyone towards the doors.

‘We’ll be making a statement on the courthouse steps, ’ Simon Poluck said to Lola. ‘Feel free to speak if you want, or we can schedule a press conference
later—’

But as they pushed their way through the doors, hearing the screams of journalists, the roar of the spectators gathering at the foot of the steps, the hum of the TV vans parked below, engines
going, an endless series of flashes popping in Lola’s face, Lola was sure she couldn’t say a word. She felt completely drained, limp as an old piece of lettuce. She had been trying so
hard to stay strong, to summon up as much energy as she could, and now she had nothing left. She clung to her mother as the fresh air hit her, a free woman, the wide marble portico of the
courthouse, held up with its huge marble pillars, the most beautiful sight she had ever seen in her life.

And then adrenaline raced through her veins, the strongest and most powerful drug in the world. Her blood pounded so hard it was like a physical pain, an explosion of excitement and shock;
because she had just spotted the last person she had ever expected to see here. He was leaning against one of the pillars, hands thrust into the pockets of his sleek grey suit, staring straight at
her, unsmiling.

It was Niels van der Veer.

L
ola had thought she was burned out. That if another huge surprise hit her today, she would just stand there, blankly, unable even to process it,
utterly exhausted by the sheer volume of crises that she had just had to confront. But clearly, the rollercoaster ride wasn’t over; she was still strapped into her seat, and the last drop was
the steepest of all.

With a wild, rising thrill, she stared at Niels, her eyes huge, colour rising to her cheeks as she speculated frantically about what he was doing here—

And then two more figures emerged from round the side of the pillar, and Lola’s heart melted as one of them squealed with excitement and started running towards her.

‘
Lola! Darling!
’ cried Jean-Marc, his golden hair blowing in the breeze, his blue eyes sparkling with health as he dashed towards her, picked her up and spun her around,
laughing with happiness. ‘You’re free! You’re free!’

Looking down at Jean-Marc’s ridiculously handsome face, laughing herself as she took in the truth of his words, Lola rested her hands on his shoulders and let herself be twirled in a huge
circle of celebration. Jean-Marc was holding her round the waist; she let her head go back, and then she took her arms off his shoulders too, trusting his grip, and spread them wide, laughing
louder and louder, her hair coming loose from its clasp and tumbling onto her shoulders, the two of them, golden and beautiful, like the couple they had thought they were, once upon a time.

They were so gorgeous, Lola and Jean-Marc, so seemingly perfect together, that none of the spectators could resist a sigh of appreciation. And one photographer, who had managed to sneak up past
the cordon of police officers keeping the media penned together halfway down the steps, snapped a couple of photographs of them, Lola raised high in Jean-Marc’s arms, their clothes sleek to
their slim figures, their golden heads thrown back in triumph, that went round the world. They made the cover of the
Herald,
the
New York Post
, and most of the weekly gossip magazines
from Europe to Asia.

‘
FREE TO LOVE!
’ blared the
Herald
the next morning. Which, as David observed on reading it, was at least technically true.

‘Oh, darling, ’ Jean-Marc said, finally lowering Lola to her feet and enfolding her in a tight hug, ‘you’ve lost weight, you poor thing . . . you’re just skin and
bone . . .’

‘Exaggerating as always, ’ Lola scolded him. She squeezed his back under his suede jacket, feeling a new layer of muscle there. ‘And you’ve been
working out
? You
feel fit!’

‘It’s Cascabel, ’ Jean-Marc said proudly, pulling back to get a good look at her face. ‘They have an exercise facility. With cute trainers. I’ve been
pumping
iron
, believe it or not.’

‘I don’t, ’ Lola giggled, remembering the Jean-Marc she had been engaged to, who thought raising a martini glass to his lips counted as exercise. ‘I don’t believe
it.’

In her turn, she took in Jean-Marc’s face: the smooth skin, the clear whites to his eyes, the air of health and stability that he exuded now. He looked more relaxed and happy than she had
ever seen him.

‘Jean?’ came a hesitant voice from behind Lola.

‘Oh,
David – angel
—’ Jean-Marc exclaimed ecstatically.

David, with exquisite tact, had come up behind Lola and waited there patiently. Jean-Marc, his eyes blazing aquamarine with happiness at the sight of his boyfriend, opened his arms wide, as did
Lola, and David flew into them, the trio hugging each other tightly, as they had done so many times in Jean-Marc’s apartment, cuddling together, remembering the time when it had been just the
three of them against the world.

And then, gently, Lola detached herself so that Jean-Marc and David could wrap their bodies together, dark and blonde curls blending, their builds so similar they fitted perfectly. Over their
heads, she met the steady gaze of the third person who had emerged from behind the pillar: Frank, the sober buddy who had escorted Jean-Marc to Cascabel, a bare fortnight ago. Solidly built, his
balding head shaved, wearing a scruffy old sweater that sagged over his bulk, and an equally baggy pair of jeans, Frank nodded calmly at Lola in acknowledgement.

‘We just flew in to be here to see the charges against you dropped, ’ he said, with the raspy voice of a recovering addict who has replaced his previous addictions with a minimum of
two packs a day. In fact, a Marlboro dangled from between the fingers of one of his meaty hands, and he raised it to his mouth now, taking a drag. ‘Special dispensation. We’re turning
round and heading back for the West Coast as soon as Jean-Marc’s had an hour or so of visiting time.’

Lola gaped at him in bafflement.

‘To see
the charges against me dropped?
’ she exclaimed, taken completely aback. ‘But you’d have had to leave hours and hours ago – how could you have the
faintest idea—’

Frank didn’t do anything as unprofessional as grin on duty, but a light of amusement shone in his deep-set eyes.

‘Mr van der Veer seemed pretty sure, ’ he said laconically.

‘Jean-Marc seemed pretty sure? But how—’

‘No, Lola, ’ Jean-Marc said from over David’s shoulder. ‘Not
me
, silly! Niels!’

‘
Niels?
’ Lola’s mouth dropped open.

‘He rang up and busted me out of prison’ – Jean-Marc grinned playfully at Frank, to show he was only teasing – ‘God knows how he convinced them, but I’m doing
so well at Cascabel, it was so sweet of them to let me come to see you walk out of that horrible place a free woman—’

‘
Niels?
’ Lola repeated.

And now she wasn’t looking at Frank any more, or Jean-Marc. She was pivoting on her heel, her whole body feeling as if it were moving through water, every gesture a slow, deliberate
effort. Until she was face to face with Niels, who didn’t look as if he had moved one iota from when he had first come round the corner of the pillar. He was still leaning against it, his
hands shoved in his pockets, an inscrutable expression on his hard features; they might have been carved out of stone, so little did they move. His mouth was a straight firm line, his eyes the
colour of steel. The only softness to his stance at all was the breeze lifting his dirty-blond hair, playing with a lock of it, moving it back and forth over his forehead.

Lola longed to go over and smooth it down for him.

‘This was all Mr van der Veer, ’ Marco Ranieri explained, smiling at Lola. ‘He found me, and convinced me to try opening the site with your father’s master feed.’
Ranieri pulled a face. ‘I don’t mind telling you, I had my balls in a wringer about that one. I knew your dad wouldn’t want me just telling the cops about the site without
checking exactly what was on it first, but there’s no way I could ever have guessed his password. But then Mr van der Veer’ – his black eyes glanced over at Niels –
‘tracks me down. Finds out I did some work for Mr Fitzgerald, tells me he knows you didn’t have anything to do with this, and what can I do to help? So I tell him about the master feed
– I was pretty damn glad not to be alone with that one any more – and he says, OK, I can tell you right now what that password is.’

Ranieri grinned.

‘I didn’t believe it. No way. But like I told ’em in court, we had three tries. So I say, well, go for it, we got nothing to lose. And I get my guys to pull up the website, and
he types it in, and—’ He threw his hands up in the air theatrically: ‘Bingo! We’re in!’

He looked around him, at his audience. Lola, Jean-Marc and David, India and Suzanne, all hanging off his words.

‘What’s the name of that Shakespeare play?’ he asked. ‘
All’s Well That Ends Well?
Here we are, eh?’

Lola was staring at Niels, whose silvery eyes were fixed on her. Everything else was dissolving away, going fuzzy at the edges, while Niels was as clear and in focus as if he was the last thing
left in the world, the only thing she had to hold on to. His square shoulders, his broad chest – she felt the colour hectic in her cheeks as she remembered the rest of his body, tried and
failed to resist picturing him naked.

He had been there for her all along.

‘What was the password?’ she asked in a tiny voice, her eyes never leaving his.

Niels’s lips curved, just slightly, as he reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and extracted a pale calfskin notebook. Flipping it open, he slipped out the pen held in its spine
and scrawled eight letters on the top sheet of paper, ripping it off and handing it to Lola.

She took it wordlessly, her eyes widening as she saw what Niels had written.

And then she turned, scanning the wide stone terrace of the courthouse, looking beyond Simon Poluck, who was shaking hands with the jury consultant, talking animatedly, beyond Serena Mackesy and
Joshua Greene, who were huddled together, conferring urgently, to a small slender figure in jeans and a baseball cap, who was stretching her arms above her head and rotating her neck.

‘Evie!’ Lola called. ‘Come over here!’

Evie, her hands linked above her head, met Lola’s eyes across the distance and mouthed:‘Are you
sure
?’ her expression pantomiming disbelief.

Lola nodded vehemently. Shrugging, Evie started over to Lola’s group, followed by Lawrence.‘Hey, ’ she said a little shyly.

Now that everything was over, now that Lola was free, Evie found she couldn’t meet Suzanne’s eyes. She had been buoyed up by the excitement while she was living in the unimaginable
luxury of the Plaza apartment, standing in for Lola; and besides, she had spent most of the time with India, watching TV, hanging out. India, Evie had quickly realised, was the least judgmental
person ever. There was no side to India about Evie having been Lola’s father’s mistress. India, seeing the best in everyone, had accepted Evie from the start, because she was trying to
help Lola, and Evie had instantly felt comfortable with her.