by Jilly Cooper
‘Only the cat, who’s not great on alibis.’
‘Did you notice anything unusual on the way?’
‘Like Hermione praising another singer?’ Flora topped up her glass. ‘Sorry, silly joke. I heard her singing Elisabetta’s last duet. Might have been a CD or a tape. There were lights on in River House and Magpie Cottage, I heard sheep bleating — they always bleat when anyone comes through Hangman’s Wood, hoping it’s the shepherd with their hay. The grass is so poor.’
‘Live at home, do you?’ asked Gablecross, who knew the answer.
‘No, I live with George Hungerford — at least, I did until recently. I was going to marry him.’ She accepted one of Gablecross’s cigarettes with a shaking hand.
‘I’ll pay you back. That lipstick really suits you,’ she added to Karen, who put it down hastily and picked up her notebook.
Flora dolefully relayed the drama of George landing his helicopter in the middle of her snogging scene with Pushy.
‘He went ballistic, I told him to fuck off,’ she said, finally and sadly.
‘So George has landed his helicopter here before?’ said Gablecross quickly. ‘Didn’t you notice one landing last night around ten thirty and someone running towards the watch-tower?’
Flora’s eyes flickered in horror. ‘It couldn’t have been George,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sure he’s in Germany.’ She kept fiddling with her mobile to make sure it was switched on.
‘How did you get back to Valhalla?’
‘I drove. It was dark by then. It gets very creepy — funny things have been happening recently.’
Topping up her drink, she listed Granny’s patchwork quilt, the adder in Lucy’s make-up box, slug pellets in James’s water-bowl, Tab nearly burning to death in the auto da fe.
‘Why didn’t anyone call the police?’
‘We were so desperate to finish the film — the budget was spiralling like Rannaldini’s staircase — that we avoided anything that might hold it up. Oh, I forgot. Foxie’, she waved her puppet fox, ‘was cut to pieces. I was so lucky, Rozzy Pringle spent hours sewing him together, like surgeons in casualty labouring through the night.’
Taking Foxie from her, Gablecross examined the joins.
‘Can I borrow him?’
‘No!’ Flora snatched him back. ‘I need the luck.’
Outside a huge rainbow reared up on the other side of Paradise.
‘It’s stopped raining. Let’s go for a walk.’
Hearing the word, Trevor ran yapping out of the caravan. Flora followed him, carrying her glass and Foxie. The fingertip team, who’d been struggling through Hangman’s Wood all day, were drenched, pricked, lacerated and stung. Handlers patrolled the edge of the trees.
‘Aren’t they sweet?’ sighed Flora, as their Alsatians strained at their choke-chains barking at Trevor, who yapped back, dancing just out of reach. ‘Think of those brave pointed noses sniffing out clues.’
‘We use dogs more to intimidate the public,’ confessed Gablecross. ‘Not very reliable at finding things.’
‘I did a dog-evading course once,’ volunteered Karen. ‘I hid in a badger set, covered myself with twigs, and a bloody great Dobermann came up, peed on me, then passed on.’
‘Pissed on.’ Flora started to laugh, then shuddered.
‘Look, there’s Clive, no doubt flogging his story, which must be horrendously steamy, to that disgusting crone, Eulalia Harrison from the Sentinel. When did Rannaldini actually die?’
‘Hard to be accurate. Bodies cool very slowly on a hot night.’
‘What happens if you don’t find a body at once?’ asked Flora, as they splashed through puddles the colour of weak tea.
‘Flesh gets eaten by foxes and badgers.’
‘Now I know why you didn’t want any lunch,’ Flora told Foxie petulantly.
‘The eyes go first,’ added Gablecross. ‘Crows peck them out.’
‘Oh, my God.’ Flora started to tremble. ‘Rannaldini had wonderful eyes, conductor’s eyes. He could transform an orchestra just glaring at them.’
She leapt as her mobile rang.
‘George!’ she gasped in ecstasy, then slumped. ‘Viking, how kind, if you’re sure it won’t be too much trouble. I’m too pissed to drive, I’ll get a taxi.’
‘That’s one of my exes, Viking O’Neill,’ she told Gablecross listlessly. ‘I’m going to stay with him and his wife for a few days.’
‘Just leave us the phone number and address.’
The chapel clock struck seven thirty. The deluge had swept cypress twigs on the paths into long brown snakes. The rainbow was fading. As they moved through the yew rooms of Rannaldini’s garden, the rain had dusted and polished the nude nymphs lurking in every corner. There would be no-one to fondle them now.
‘What happened when you got back to Valhalla?’ asked Karen.
‘I saw the watch-tower on fire, and thought of Tabloid trapped in his kennel. So I left Trev in the car on the edge of the drive and hurtled through Hangman’s Wood.’
‘Risky under the circs, whole place ablaze.’
‘I got to know Tabloid well, when I was sleeping with Rannaldini.’
‘You didn’t notice anyone in the woods?’
‘Only firemen and Clive — God knows what he was doing. There was a disgusting smell of burning feathers, probably Rannaldini’s mattress going up. Safety regulations weren’t his forte.’
‘Could you describe his tower for us?’
‘Well, the top floor was all bed, with an appallingly narcissistic mural round the walls of an audience in evening dress, cheering him on to intenser orgasm. The next floor down was all dark blue jacuzzi, the next was a red-wallpapered pouncing chamber, full of low sofas and bowls of exotic fruit on marble tables, and a Picasso on the wall.’
‘You don’t know where he kept his safe?’
‘Nope.’
‘Or where he worked?’
‘On the ground floor. He had an edit suite.’
‘Was that where he did his composing?’ asked a scribbling Karen.
‘Decomposing now.’ Flora giggled, then began to cry. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She groped for a piece of orange loo paper. ‘Jokes are the only way I can cope.’
‘It happened when my nan died.’ Karen put an arm round Flora’s shoulders. ‘It’s a typical reaction to shock.’
‘Rannaldini never took you into any torture chamber?’ asked Gablecross.
‘He didn’t need a chamber,’ said Flora bleakly. ‘His presence was enough.’
They had reached a balustrade looking over the fast-filling mere. Reaching behind a cascade of bright pink roses for a tin of fish food, Flora chucked a handful of pellets into the water. Goldfish, lying still as autumn leaves, burst into activity, but a huge black fish, ten times their size, suddenly swam to the surface, ravenous mouth not only devouring the pellets but ready to swallow anything alive that got in its way.
‘Just like Rannaldini,’ shivered Flora. ‘Don’t ever kid yourself he was a victim. We only met up, after he chucked me, because I sang in The Creation. He took me back afterwards to the watch-tower, then beat me up because I wouldn’t stay the night. You can see why George hated me being around him this summer.’
‘“Let us forget the universe, life and heaven itself!”’ A ravishing voice floated across the hot, muggy air. ‘“What matters the past? What matters the future? I love you.”’
‘It’s Baby,’ sighed Flora, collapsing on a stone bench in ecstasy. ‘Doesn’t he make even the hair on your legs stand on end?’
‘Was George jealous of Baby?’ asked Gablecross idly.
‘Oh, no,’ stammered Flora. ‘Baby’s just a friend.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t go to the watch-tower to get these back? They were in Rannaldini’s dressing-gown pocket when he was murdered.’ Gablecross splayed out the photographs on the bench like a poker hand. Next moment the ground was covered in fish pellets and Trevor had rushed forward to hoover them up.
‘Oh, God,’ whimpered Flora. ‘Baby comforted me after George and I had our screaming match.’
‘So you took him home?’ Gablecross pointed to a shadowy angel in the background.
‘I thought he was gay. By the time I realized he wasn’t, it was too late.’
‘Seem to be enjoying yourself.’
‘Oh, I was, hugely.’
‘Was Rannaldini blackmailing you?’
‘He threatened to give them to George or the Scorpion.’
‘Did you burn down Rannaldini’s watch-tower?’
‘No, no,’ protested Flora. Huddled on the stone bench, she burst into tears again. ‘I love George so much. I keep seeing Rannaldini in the wood, sneering even in death. What’ll they be doing to him now?’
‘Cutting him up, weighing every organ.’
‘They won’t find a heart.’
‘Did you kill him?’
‘No, but I wanted to. I must get a taxi.’
They were interrupted by retching. Trevor had thrown up all the pellets back into the mere. Instantly, the great black fish swarmed up to the surface and swallowed the lot.
‘Yuk!’ screamed Flora. Snatching Trevor and Foxie, she fled towards the house.
‘Poor Flora,’ said Karen indignantly, as she and Gablecross made their way through the twilight towards the maze. ‘I’m sure she didn’t do it.’
‘In the right place, at the right time, with the right motive.’
‘She’s terrified, isn’t she? Mind you, I’d be terrified of losing a lovely rich bloke like that.’
‘Not so lovely,’ said Gablecross grimly. ‘What’s carving up our Flora is panic that George has done it.’
45
Night brought terror. The famous Valhalla Maze, planted in the eighteenth century, towered twenty feet high and extended more than a hundred yards in diameter. Even in daylight, people got lost for hours but now round every twist and turn of the ebony ramparts the murderer might be lurking.
While Carlos sang of his ecstasy that at last his beloved Elisabetta had summoned him by a letter signed ‘E’ to a midnight tryst, Chloe as Eboli, the real writer of the letter, was being tracked through the maze by Tristan and Valentin on the crane. Racing to meet the man she believed loved her, Chloe paused to spray on scent and rearrange her breasts in the low-cut taffeta.
Like all newcomers, Gablecross and Karen Needham were drawn to the fascination of film-making. From the terrace, they could see not only the singers, almost sanctified by their wonderful costumes — Chloe in her crimson ball dress, Mikhail and Baby in dinner jackets — but also the great paraphernalia of crew, cables and lights, with Bernard barking out instructions and Tristan completely absorbed, despite the tragedy that had broken over his head, encouraging, bullying, shouting ‘Cut!’ over and over again.
Now he was patiently explaining the plot to Mikhail.
‘This is turning point of play. Once Eboli realize Carlos loves the Queen, she will shop them to the King. Posa realize that not only will his beloved friend Carlos be burnt at the stake for cuckolding the King, but all his plans for liberating Flanders will go up in smoke so he moves in to silence Eboli.’
‘I won’t need to act at all.’ Fingering his flick-knife Mikhail glowered at Chloe.
The crew glanced round nervously. Their instinct was to huddle together, but in doing so, could they be standing next to the killer?
As Tristan filmed an apprehensive, excited Baby in the centre of the maze, Gablecross and Karen buttonholed Chloe in her caravan. Her beauty was heightened by Lucy’s make-up and the crimson dress, which matched her sly, smiling mouth and showed off her smooth golden shoulders. One eye was hidden by a black patch. The other glittered like a yellow tourmaline.
‘Traditionally Princess Eboli was blind in one eye,’ explained Chloe. ‘Baby strokes my face in wonder then realizes, as he reaches the eye patch, he’s declared passionate love to the wrong woman.’
As Chloe snuggled into a blue-checked armchair, sipping bottled water, and rotating a slender ankle to prove her long skirt wasn’t concealing tree-trunks, she seemed to glow with inner happiness, not entirely induced by a long lunch with Eulalia Harrison.
She was devastated by Rannaldini’s death, she told Gablecross. He had been wonderful to her. She had spent Sunday afternoon at Harvey Nichols’ sale trying on hundreds of things but not buying anything. She had been furious to be knocked out of the tournament. Mikhail simply hadn’t tried.
‘Afterwards I dragged him into the maze, hoping to sober him up enough to rehearse tonight’s big scene, but we rowed because I wouldn’t go back to Valhalla and sleep with him. Like all men, he was incensed that Lara, his wife, had rumbled us, but still wanted to carry on the affaire. He passed out at about nine o’clock under a weeping ash.’
‘How did Lara rumble you?’ asked Karen.
‘Rannaldini was Lord of Misrule on Friday night. He dragged Lara all the way from Moscow, then deliberately arranged for her to catch her husband kissing off my lipstick. Even worse, he relayed over the speakers a tape of Tristan and Meredith bitching about everyone, particularly Hermione. Tristan went berserk and tried to strangle Rannaldini.’
As she talked, Chloe kept stretching like a cat, hollowing her belly in ecstasy. As she looked up under her eyelashes at Gablecross, he found himself squaring his shoulders.
‘A crow with a sore throat has better intonation than Dame Hermione,’ went on Chloe, ‘but she didn’t deserve that humiliation. And by playing the tape Rannaldini completely destroyed Tristan’s street cred as a nice guy.’
‘D’you think he killed him?’
‘Possibly. Rannaldini was a deal-maker, Tristan a dream-maker. It was inevitable they’d fall out if they worked together. According to Simone, Tristan cut his aunt’s eighty-sixth birthday party in Paris so he could have got back. I always suspected he was one of Rannaldini’s illegits. Rannaldini was far nicer to him than to Wolfie. On the other hand, Tristan could be gay, and in love with Rannaldini. Only that could explain how their relationship survived such fearful rows.’
‘You reckon?’ Gablecross tried to hide his interest.
Karen’s eyes were on stalks as she scribbled frantically to keep up.
‘Well, Tristan’s incredibly buddy-buddy with his foppish French crew. And he’s taken all the attractive women in the cast out to dinner but never lifted a finger. Serena Westwood, who’s beautiful, had a next-door room to him in Prague. Not a pass was made.’
‘Didn’t he like Tabitha Campbell-Black?’ piped up Karen.
‘So did Rannaldini, bats about her.’ Taking another slug of bottled water, Chloe told them about the newspapers flaring up under Tab. ‘That was probably the first murder. If Tristan hadn’t dragged her free, she’d have burnt to death — and good riddance to most people, she’s such a brat. Anyway, they fell into a showy clinch, and he whisked her home, leaving Ranners foaming at the mouth and Tristan’s admirers ready to slit their throats. But during the night something happened. Perhaps he couldn’t get it up, perhaps Rannaldini put the boot in, but the next morning he blew her out. The atmosphere was terrible. Wolfie’s had to carry Tristan ever since.’
Chloe smiled wickedly.
‘What other soap updates would you like? Flora had a schoolgirl crush on Rannaldini until he dropped her from a great height. This summer he dropped Gloria, Hermione and Serena and didn’t provide parachutes for them either, and he was atrocious to Helen, always flaunting other women. Any of that lot could have done it.
‘A lot of people’, Chloe pondered, ‘might have bumped off Rannaldini for being horrible to Tristan, who does inspire devotion. I’m sure Bernard’s a closet gay and in love with him. Rozzy Pringle’s got a real old lady’s crush, posies in his caravan, darning-needles at the ready. And Lucy Latimer, our make-up artist, as they like to be called, shakes so much if Tristan drops into her caravan you risk getting your eyes gouged out with a mascara wand. Lucy’s one of those plain women men leave children and dogs wi
th rather than wives for. Anyone else?’ Chloe glanced up at the telephone list beside the mirror. ‘Most of the Frog crew were in Paris on Sunday night, but are quite capable of putting a cross-Channel hex on Rannaldini. Mikhail’s a kleptomaniac — removes your earrings when he makes a pass and never gives them back.
‘Wolfie’s cute. He arrived carrying a torch for Flora, but transferred his affections to the brat. Pushy Galore — that’s what we call Gloria Prescott — heard Wolfie threatening to kill Rannaldini around ten forty-five on Sunday night. I should wear a chastity belt when you interview Pushy, Detective Sergeant. She’s into hunks.’
Looking up from her shorthand notebook, Karen said tartly, ‘Alpheus Shaw told us Gloria was a delightful young woman and a lovely singer.’
In a second, Chloe’s look of amused composure was wiped off her face. ‘Alpheus Shaw — “Offshore”, to his accountant — is a serial adulterer,’ she hissed. ‘He’ll have to quarter his consumption, if he’s going to play Don Giovanni with any conviction. I don’t know who had the bigger ego, him or Rannaldini. But Rannaldini was so incensed that Alpheus beat him at swimming he seduced Alpheus’s ghastly wife Cheryl and, playing Leporello, listed every woman Alpheus had been up and down to this summer, which included Hermione and Pushy. Alpheus has also been up to one Stradivarius of a tax fiddle, putting, among other things, Mr Bones, his German shepherd, on the payroll as his financial manager. Rannaldini threatened to expose him, refused to replace the Jaguar Wolfie totalled, and teased him about his big nose. Oh, Mr Shaw had plenty of motive to murder Rannaldini.’
Slowly the quiver of rage subsided.
‘On a happier note I guess we have to congratulate you,’ said Karen innocently. ‘I’d love to play Delilah.’
Again, Chloe’s face convulsed with fury. ‘I’d got that part. That bastard Rannaldini, who saw himself as a global puppeteer, pulled strings and got it given to Cecilia, his geriatric ex-wife, no doubt in lieu of alimony.’ Again the rage cooled. ‘This is all off-the-record, of course.’ Chloe smiled sweetly. ‘Eboli is such a mischief-maker — I was psyching myself into the part.’
