by Jilly Cooper
‘Boris Better. Wolfie’s much nicer looking and such a good boy,’ said Granny approvingly, as Wolfie topped up everyone’s glass and handed round strawberries, giving Simone time to get her breath back before the final. He had lost so much weight, his signet ring kept falling off, so he gave it to Lucy to look after.
As the chapel clock struck half past nine, the finalists took up their positions. Lucy and Simone are so sweet, thought Wolfie, as he jumped from foot to foot on the baseline. Why was he too hopelessly in love with Tab to consider anyone else? Glancing across the valley he felt sick to see a car, looking suspiciously like his father’s Merc, creeping stealthily up the little lane to Magpie Cottage. An ace from Griselda whizzed past his ear. He mustn’t give in to weakness. If he was incapable of returning Simone’s love, he could at least ensure her victory.
‘Oh, well played, Wolfie,’ said Simone, five minutes later, as he aced Granny for a second time.
Alpheus, sitting away from the rabble on the other side of the court, much envied the way Simone ran around picking up balls for Wolfie. It was high time he had an adoring young woman in his life again. He picked up his mobile.
Moths were bashing against the floodlights. Even Rannaldini’s sapphire delphinium bed, the only thing watered in the garden, was losing colour in the dusk. A mobile rang, everyone dived hopefully — but it was for Chloe.
‘OK,’ she purred, ‘terrific. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
Not having had any exercise, she announced she was going for a jog and, giving Mikhail a kick in the ribs as she passed the weeping ash, disappeared into the darkness. Shortly afterwards, Alpheus muttered about swimming his twenty lengths, drained his glass of Perrier and also left.
‘He and Chloe must have started up again,’ hissed Flora.
‘I hate Rannaldini,’ said Pushy.
‘So do I,’ agreed Bernard, stunning everyone, because he never bitched.
‘No-one hates him as much as I do,’ said Griselda, as she remembered Rannaldini wrecking Hermione’s dress.
Mikhail must have been roused by Chloe’s kick for suddenly he reared up and sang, ‘“Thunder rumbles deep in the heavens, a man must die,”’ then slumped back to sleep.
Everyone exchanged nervous glances, particularly when real thunder started to grumble round the hills in sympathy. A slight breeze rattling the summer-hardened poplar leaves sounded like rain. Lucy put her arms round a quivering James: she’d have to trank him if the claps grew louder.
‘Guess what I had to do earlier today,’ she asked the remaining spectators, as the players changed ends. ‘Streak Clive’s hair.’
‘Whatever for?’ asked Meredith.
‘He had an important date, he said. His bloodless face went quite pink. Actually, he was really sweet and told me about his mum, and he tried to pay me afterwards.’
‘Must be the first time,’ shuddered Flora. ‘Clive scares me more than Rannaldini. That black crow’s been sitting on top of the cypress for the last two hours. D’you think it’s stuck?’
‘Its name is Death,’ said Ogborne, with a sepulchral laugh. ‘Christ, that girl’s got amazing legs.’
Everyone turned as Jessica, Sexton’s beautiful secretary, loped back from the house.
‘You’ll never guess what?’ she gasped.
‘You’ve been streaking Clive’s hair,’ said Ogborne.
‘I just saw Tristan.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Bernard roughly. ‘He’s in Paris. You’ve had too much to drink.’
‘Keep your hair on, Bernie,’ said Meredith. ‘Baby saw a ghost yesterday.’
‘What was Tristan doing?’ asked Flora.
‘Nearly running me over, belting down the drive.’
‘Must have been someone else,’ insisted Bernard angrily.
‘I find it a relief Tristan’s away,’ confessed Flora. ‘He’s so uptight, and he was bitchy on that tape. I always thought he adored us all. Oh, well played, Simone.’
Lucy hugged an increasingly trembling James. If only she could explain to the others why Tristan was being so difficult.
‘I miss the birds singing at twilight,’ she said, looking up into the trees.
‘They’re all exhausted feeding their young,’ said Jessica. ‘Mr Brimscombe told me nightingales disappear in July. One morning they’re here, the next they’ve gone, departing silently in the dusk.’
‘Like us next week,’ said Ogborne.
Burying her face in James’s coat, Lucy burst into tears, then leaping to her feet fled into the wood.
37
It was nearly nine and even hotter when Tab got home from working The Engineer. She went straight into the shower, then put on the coolest clean thing in her wardrobe, a virginal calf-length grey cotton shirtwaister, which she had never worn but which her American bosses had given her last summer for her birthday, probably as a hint she might curb her dissolute lifestyle.
God, it was stifling. She was already breaking out in sweat again. In the past she would have got stuck into the vodka, but staying off it seemed to be the only achievement she had to cling on to.
She missed Tristan so dreadfully. But as she breathed in a familiar smell of night-scented stock and philadelphus, she was flattened with longing for Penscombe. Tristan, however, had urged her to work at her marriage. Isa was back in England, and as she expected him home later she opened and applied the chic French make-up Simone had given her for her birthday. Then she drenched herself in Quercus, the disturbing, sweet yet lemony scent which Isa so loved.
Going downstairs she found Sharon panting on the kitchen floor. She was on heat, and most of the local dogs, including James, Trevor and Tabloid, when he escaped from his dungeon, had been hanging round Magpie Cottage. ‘At least one of us has got admirers,’ sighed Tab.
Listlessly she switched on the wireless. They had all been so caught up in Don Carlos, they had forgotten the outside world existed. Then she jumped to hear a soft, gruff, utterly familiar voice.
‘One of the children had taken her collar off for fun,’ her stepmother was saying.
‘Oh, no.’ Tabitha clutched herself in horror.
‘We were playing Grandmother’s Footsteps in the woods,’ went on Taggie, ‘and suddenly Gertrude had vanished. She’s deaf and blind. She must be so frightened.’ Taggie’s voice broke.
‘What does Gertrude look like?’ asked the interviewer.
‘She’s only a little black and white mongrel, but her black patches are mostly white because she’s eighteen.’
‘A good age,’ said the interviewer, ‘and your husband Rupert has offered an amazing ten-thousand-pound reward. A lot for such an old dog.’
‘She’s special to us,’ sobbed Taggie. ‘She eats Bonios in her paws like ice-creams. She was eating one yesterday, and this magpie, one for sorrow, snatched it away. She’ll be so bewildered. We just want to know she’s safe.’
‘Well, I’m sure with a ten-thousand-pound reward we’ll have the whole of England looking for her. That’s Gertrude, and the number to ring is…’
Tears were flooding Tab’s face. She had known Gertrude, Taggie’s dog, since she was eight, even before Taggie married her father. Rupert had had to work hard to win over Gertrude.
Gertrude had also starred at Taggie and Rupert’s wedding, escaping up the aisle and standing panting between her mistress and Rupert while the Bishop ranted about sexual mores. When anyone had a row at home, Gertrude, the peacemaker, would rush in rattling a box of Bonios. She had so much character.
Oh, poor Taggie, thought Tab. She must ring home at once. It took her three goes to dial because she was shaking so much, then the number was engaged. Feeling the need of Wolfie’s solid comfort, she dialled Valhalla.
Seeing Magpie Cottage’s number coming up, Rannaldini picked up the telephone. ‘My little one.’
‘May I speak to Wolfie?’
‘He is out. The calls are being diverted to the tower. I’ve been listening to your poor stepm
other on the radio.’
‘Oh, God, it’s terrible.’
‘Maybe not so much. Clive was driving back from Cotchester just now and pick up small white terrier, smooth-haired and with curly tail. Maybe it’s Gertrude.’
‘Has she got a greyish patch over one eye and on her tail?’
‘She has.’
‘I’ll be over in a sec.’
Telling a reproachful Sharon she wouldn’t be long, Tab put on gym shoes so she could run faster.
Outside in the dusk it was even hotter. The once deep and dangerous river was so low she could paddle across it. The lights were on in Hermione’s house. She could see Mr Brimscombe still dead-heading roses in anticipation of night filming, and waved as she raced past. From the shrieks issuing from the tennis court, the final was reaching a climax. Someone called out but she ran on.
By the time she reached Hangman’s Wood, she was drenched in sweat. She had never visited the watchtower. A combination of Rottweilers and Rannaldini’s rapacity had deterred her. No guard dogs patrolled tonight, but racing down a woodland ride, she heard an imperious yap. Blind and deaf, yapping was the only way in the big house at Penscombe that Gertrude could broadcast her whereabouts to the family. Crashing open the door, Tabitha stumbled upstairs.
‘Here she is,’ said Rannaldini.
The little white dog sat in the middle of the room looking around anxiously with clouded, unseeing eyes. She gave another yap.
Tabitha dropped to the floor beside her.
‘Oh, my angel,’ and suddenly Gertrude, who had often wriggled under Tab’s duvet in the mornings, smelled someone familiar who reminded her of home. She whimpered incredulously, frantically wagging her tail, as she jumped off her front legs, to lick Tab’s sweating, tearful face. Gathering up Gertrude, burying her face in her neck, Tabitha also breathed in the smell of home.
‘Oh, Gertrude,’ she sobbed, ‘oh, thank God, Rannaldini. Taggie’ll be so relieved. I must ring her at once.’
Her breath was coming in great gasps from running.
‘Have a drink,’ said Rannaldini cosily, pouring her a vodka and tonic. ‘Go on. This is a celebration.’
He reeked of Maestro and wore only Alpheus’s coveted purple and pink striped dressing-gown. But Tab was too happy to notice, or that, not wanting to be interrupted, he had just diverted the calls back to the house.
‘I shouldn’t.’ She took a gulp of vodka and nearly choked. ‘I’ve got to drive her back to Penscombe. It’s all right, darling.’ She dropped a kiss on Gertrude’s forehead. ‘Can I ring Magpie Cottage and ask Isa to look after Sharon?’
Isa still wasn’t home, so she left a message. As she rang off she briefly noticed a disgusting painting of a black-haired Rannaldini whipping some naked tart.
‘Wasn’t I ’andsome in those days?’ he demanded.
‘You’re better-looking now,’ said Tab, but without interest. ‘Oh, Rannaldini. Finding Gertrude’ — she smoothed the lipstick left on the little dog’s forehead — ‘gives me the excuse to go home, and maybe Daddy’ll be so pleased he’ll forgive me. I’ve missed him so much.’
She had never looked more touching. Two blonde strands, escaping from her black velvet toggle, framed her face. Her eyes shone, her cheeks were hectic red, the innocent grey dress clung to her still heaving breasts and wet body.
‘I honestly don’t want it.’ Leaving the vodka, she jumped to her feet. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’
Putting her infinitely precious burden on the floor for a second, she reached up to kiss him on the cheek. Rannaldini breathed in her scent. Next moment he had grabbed her with the grip of a madman. Then the solid wedge of his body hit her, winding her, throwing her on the floor, and he was on top of her. Sending buttons flying, he ripped open her dress, suffocating her with his other hand. She could see the black hairs, feel the clash of the wedding ring he had been given by her mother, against her teeth.
Struggling like a wild cat, Tabitha scratched his face and pummelled his ribs, but lust doubled Rannaldini’s considerable strength. As he tore at her knickers, she jerked away her head and screamed.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ hissed Rannaldini, ‘but you need to be taught a lesson.’
Ducking her head to avoid him kissing her, she found her lips crushed against his dressing-gown. Then he had rammed his cock into her, not minding if his aim was off centre. At first it buckled against her tightness then, tearing her because of her dryness, forced itself inside.
But Tab’s screams, like bats’ shrieks, had roused Gertrude, who could also see faint but frenziedly moving shadows. Edging towards the noise, she encountered Rannaldini’s leg and plunged her few teeth deeply into it. Rannaldini gave a bellow, and groped for the bronze of Wagner on a nearby marble table.
‘No!’ screamed Tab. ‘Please — not Gertrude!’
Too late, Rannaldini had hurled it, catching the side of the little dog’s head with a crack, but still Gertrude the lionheart clung on. Reaching down, Rannaldini grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and flung her against a big carved cabinet. With a sickening crunch and a faint yelp, Gertrude slid to the ground.
Rage gave Tabitha strength. Catching Rannaldini off balance, she wriggled away from him, at the same time shoving his head very hard against the sharp corner of a marble table.
‘You’ve killed her, you murdering bastard.’
Jumping to her feet, she scooped up Gertrude, who was gushing blood from a cut-open head, and stumbled down the spiral staircase out into the dark wood. She could still hear cheers and yells of excitement. If only she could reach the tennis court, but terror, fury and grief made her lose her bearings. Turning left away from Valhalla, tripping over roots and bramble cables, she reached a little clearing and paused, gasping for breath.
‘Oh, please, don’t be dead,’ she sobbed.
But Gertrude lay motionless in her arms. Frantically Tab tried to distinguish the dog’s heartbeat above the pounding of her own, but there was nothing. Gertrude’s merry, curly tail had wagged its last.
Crying hysterically, Tabitha reached the Paradise— Cheltenham road and a telephone box. Her grey dress was soaked in blood. She had no money and dialled 999.
‘Emergency. Which service, love?’
‘No, I want you to get this number for me.’
Wolfie’s machine was on.
‘Oh, Wolfie, help me! Rannaldini’s just raped me, and he’s killed Gertrude. Oh, please get Sharon from the cottage!’
She heard a deafening crash and swung round in terror but it was only thunder. She clutched Gertrude to comfort her, because the little dog had always been terrified of bangs, but now Gertrude was beyond thunder, shouting, loud music, Christmas crackers, even fireworks. Sobbing and shaking convulsively, Tab jumped in panic as the telephone rang. But it was only the worried operator.
‘Can you reverse the charges to my father at Penscombe?’
Gertrude’s body was losing its warmth and growing heavy.
‘I have a reversed-charge call from Tabitha Campbell-Black. Will you pay for the call?’ asked the operator.
There was a pause, then she could hear Rupert’s light, clipped drawl. ‘Yes, of course. Hello.’
‘Oh, Daddy,’ howled Tab. ‘I’ve got Gertrude and it’s a thunderstorm, but she can’t hear it any more because she’s dead. I’m so sorry, Daddy, Rannaldini kidnapped her and raped me. Gertrude bit him and saved my life, so he threw her against the wall and killed her. Oh, Daddy.’
It was so heartbreaking, for a second Rupert couldn’t speak. Then he said, ‘It’s all right, darling. Where are you?’
‘I’m not sure. In a telephone box on the edge of Rannaldini’s woods, about a mile out of Paradise. Oh, Daddy, I’m sorry I didn’t save her.’
‘If Gertrude saved you,’ Rupert tried to keep his voice steady, ‘that was the best possible way for her to go. Look, stay where you are. I’ll be with you in a trice. But, angel, you’re too conspicuous in a telephone box.’ He didn’t
want to terrify her that Rannaldini would soon be after her. ‘Hide behind a tree until someone turns up.’
‘I’ll kill him if he comes anywhere near me.’
Rannaldini fingered the bump on his head where Tab had pushed him against the table, and rubbed his leg, which was still bleeding. Fucking dog. Tab would calm down. He’d buy her stepmother a new puppy. He’d better find her before she caused trouble. Picking up her glass of vodka, he went outside. The wood was very dark. Not a star pierced the leafy ceiling. There was no sign of Tab. As he wandered northwards, blackberry fronds clawed at his dressing-gown, like women always wanting things.
Helen had spent most of the day packing. Everything was such an effort these days. She was off to London first thing and, to her heartfelt relief, Rannaldini appeared to be cooling off the appalling Pushy and had even offered her his helicopter.
For years, Helen had boycotted Rannaldini’s watchtower as a ghastly phallic example of Pandora’s box but, overcome by restlessness and curiosity as to whether Rannaldini had really dumped Pushy, she decided to take a late-night walk through the woods. Drawn irrevocably towards the tower, she was amazed to find the door open and lights blazing. On the first floor, she found a glass knocked over, a bronze of Wagner on the floor, a chair on its side, and tidied automatically.
Seeing nothing of interest, except one of Étienne de Montigny’s revolting paintings, she retreated to Rannaldini’s edit suite on the ground floor where he had been watching the rushes. Here, with pounding heart, she discovered Rannaldini’s memoirs: diaries bound in red leather with crimson endpapers and, in a huge scrapbook on the table, beautiful obscene photographs of her husband’s women.
There was that slut Flora, and Serena Westwood. Helen gasped with horror. She had trusted and made a friend of Serena. And look at Pushy straddling a sofa in a London flat! No wonder the little tart had treated Valhalla as though she owned it.
As if she were watching some horror film, Helen flicked over the pages faster and faster. Oh, heavens, there was Bussage roped to a bed, like an elephant being airlifted to another safari park. She’d been right all along about her and— Oh, God! Blood seemed to explode in her head. There was Tabitha, naked and, in her lean beauty and her arrogance, hideously reminiscent of Rupert.
