by Jilly Cooper
Then, as the moon emerged from a scurrying black cloud, she saw Rannaldini’s face, colder and whiter than any moon, but with eyes crueller and hotter than hell. The dark cloak slid over the dewy grass, as he swept towards her on his way to conduct a requiem.
The words ‘I never meant to slag you off’ withered on Beattie’s lips. She couldn’t scream, only retreat, as he came nearer and nearer. Then she tripped backwards over a little stone fox, and felt herself falling. The pain was unimaginable.
64
By three o’clock in the morning the wind had risen, all the crew had put on jackets, and Hermione had grumbled bitterly enough about the treacherous night air to have appropriated Rozzy’s dark red mohair cardigan and Bernard’s duffel coat.
Noticing Rozzy shivering uncontrollably and fighting a racking cough, Tristan took off his bomber jacket and put it round her shoulders. ‘You must take care of that throat.’
In fascinated horror, Lucy watched Rozzy turn her head and drop a kiss on his hand as it rested for a second on her shoulder. Her ecstasy was unmistakable. Earlier in the day, Rozzy had been into Rutminster for treatment for her cancer, but recently Lucy had noticed her poring over the score of Der Rosenkavalier, marking in the part of Marschallin with yellow Pentel. Had Rozzy convinced herself she could sing in the opera after all?
Wolfie, constantly taunted by nightmarish visions of Tab being photographed in the nude by his father, glanced up at Valhalla, where chandeliers blazed in nearly every window to create an illusion of a ball in progress. A light was still on in Helen’s bedroom. ‘She shouldn’t be going to Penscombe,’ he muttered furiously to Lucy. ‘She’ll only upset Tab. Christ, I miss her.’
‘Poor Wolfie.’ Lucy hugged him. ‘She’ll be back for the polo shoot.’
‘When you’ve finished snogging, Lucy and Wolfgang…’ called out Tristan, but so acidly no-one laughed.
‘Quiet, please,’ brayed Bernard.
At three forty-five, Pushy, deciding no-one on the set was paying her enough attention, suggested that as she was so much younger than Chloe and Hermione, she and Flora should have a carefree little bop together for the sake of continuity, while the older women discussed the ball. ‘We did have a love scene earlier,’ she pouted.
‘No,’ cried Flora in revulsion. It was the scene with Pushy that had wrecked her and George.
Seeing Flora about to bolt, and knowing he wouldn’t get another night’s filming out of her, Tristan told Pushy to pack it in. ‘We’ve got to get this ball scene in the can before sunrise and before Rupert come back and knock our heads together!’
‘No way he’ll return till Rannaldini’s safely back in his coffin,’ said Ogborne, in a sepulchral voice.
Three-quarters of an hour later Oscar, pretending to look into his view-finder, had fallen asleep. Flicking his fingers for Ogborne’s help, Valentin laid his father-in-law across two chairs. A faint pink flush in a very pale sky heralded the approach of sunrise, pigeons were cooing, blackbirds pecking the lawn for worms.
‘Cut and print. Well done, everyone, particularly Chloe,’ shouted Tristan. Thank God there were pros like her, who could dispatch a scene in one take. Thank God the deepest anxiety could be dispelled temporarily by a good night’s work.
Beyond the set, emerging from the uniform greyness of night, he could see urns overflowing with pink geraniums, white and yellow roses swarming up dark yews and cypresses. Beyond, the tall chimneys of River House soared like pale lupins.
Why aren’t I filming dawn? Tristan sighed.
As the crew dismantled the camera tracks, took down lights and prepared the film cans for the courier to take for processing, Lucy wearily removed make-up and wigs, and thought longingly of her bed. Everyone was cheered up by a particularly sumptuous breakfast of fluffy buttery scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and bagels, followed by strawberries and cream. DC Lightfoot, Gablecross and Karen, who didn’t want to miss the fun, and half Rutshire Constabulary, who’d been flatfooting round like the chorus of The Pirates of Penzance, were soon tucking in as well. Even the French contingent managed to crack a smile when Rupert rolled up with several crates of white and red.
‘You can drink yourselves insensible now.’
Having nervously glanced around for Rannaldini’s ghost, he dragged a newly arrived Sexton into the production office. Expecting another bollocking about overpaying Lord Waterlane, Sexton was amazed when Rupert announced that George Hungerford was a seriously good guy.
‘I fort you loathed him, said he was more of a yobbo than me.’
‘Only because he was threatening to ram a motorway up my estate. He’s given Tab an alibi and he’s offered us his polo field for nothing. And he says we can have the wrap party there too, get us away from Valhalla.’
‘What about Lord Waterlane?’ asked a wistful Sexton, who’d been invited to lunch at the House of Lords.
‘It’ll really piss him off, the greedy sod,’ said Rupert happily. ‘And his vulgar wife too, who was expecting to nail the cast to open her fêtes for the next forty years. Good bloke, George.’
‘You are so bleedin’ irrational,’ sighed Sexton.
‘I know how to save money, and I’m also dazzling at playing Cupid.’
Flora, who had changed out of her dinner jacket into a pair of grey linen shorts and a red and yellow striped blazer, looked as young and desolate as a small boy going back to prep school for the second term. Everyone was hugging her, taking her telephone number and saying they’d see her at the wrap party.
‘Yes, lovely, I’ll be there,’ lied Flora, through numbed lips.
She’d send them a crate of champagne — or rather plonk in her new impoverished state — and be at the bottom of the River Fleet by then.
As she walked wearily down to Make Up to collect Trevor, an early bumble bee was burying its face in a dark blue delphinium, the clouds overhead were turning from yellow to pale pink, a black crow swayed on top of one of the Lawson cypresses. In the fields below, black plastic bags of hay lay on the gold stubble like slugs. Any minute Rozzy would rush out and scatter little blue pellets. One magpie for sorrow rose out of the Unicorn Glade.
Even the sight of Trevor, standing on top of James to see out of the caravan window and wagging his tail so hard he nearly fell off, didn’t bring a smile to her lips.
As she opened the door, both dogs hurtled down the steps. Having had pees that went on for ever, crapped extensively and examined all the croquet hoops on the lawn to see what foxes and badgers had been about, they belted off, Trevor to woo Maria in the canteen, James to find Lucy.
It was now light enough for Flora to define the stones in the regard ring George had given her on the eve of filming. R for Ruby, E for Emerald, G for Garnet, A for Amethyst, R for Ruby, D for Diamond, spelling the word Regard. At the thought that her darling George would never have regard for her again, Flora collapsed against a huge oak tree sobbing piteously. Everyone swung round, a hush fell at the utter desolation of the sound.
Baby was about to race over and comfort her, when Rupert put a restraining hand on his arm and nodded towards the rose walk where, from arches of acid-green hop fantastically garlanded with a pink rose appropriately called The New Dawn, emerged George Hungerford. He was wearing a dark red polo shirt, dirty white chinos, which looked about to fall down because he’d lost so much weight, and odd shoes. His dark hair was all over the place, and in his hands, in gaudy contrast to Rannaldini’s exquisite pastels, was a hastily snatched-up bunch of marigolds, salmon-pink gladioli, scarlet roses and mauve dahlias, which quivered increasingly, like some exotic butterfly.
No-one uttered a word as he approached. Then, in front of four of the finest singers in the world, in a croaky strangulated bass, he started to sing ‘Zärliche Libre’, Beethoven’s little rondo about tender love, which Flora had sung to him so often. He started too high, couldn’t reach the top notes and had to begin again. Blood was trickling from hands clutching the roses too tightly. At one moment his voice was
so choked by tears he couldn’t go on, and the cooing pigeons had to fill in the gap.
Flora appeared frozen to the oak tree; only her knees were quivering as much as George’s flowers. Next minute Trevor had erupted jauntily from the maze, nose caked in mud from burying a pork bone, and giving a joyous bark he hurtled across the grass, squashing the flowers as he landed in his master’s arms. Once again George nearly ground to a halt, but having dried his eyes on a wriggling Trevor, he managed to falter to the end.
There was a long silence, followed by a burst of cheering and clapping. Swinging round, blinking incredulously, Flora catapulted across the grass, crashing into George’s chest. The arm that wasn’t holding Trevor and the flowers clamped around her.
‘Don’t say anything. It’s my fault, I’m such a stupid tosser,’ mumbled George, as he led her off down the rose walk into the sunrise.
‘Oh, how sweet,’ sobbed Lucy, running off into the park. Tristan wanted to race after her and apologize for being so sarcastic earlier, but he still had so much to do.
‘Why can’t Don Carlos have a happy ending?’ said Griselda, wiping her eyes on a tablecloth.
Even Rupert and Gablecross blew their noses noisily.
‘I’ve always thought Flora a drama queen,’ said Hermione sourly.
‘Now, now, Hermsie,’ said Sexton reprovingly, as he topped up her glass, ‘Flora’s a sweetheart, and didn’t Rupert make a terrific Cupid bringing them togevver?’
Baby, however, who’d been in low spirits all evening, drained his glass of red, turned to Rupert with an expressionless face and said, ‘Thank you, Mr Cupid-Black, for ruining the only chance of happiness I’ve ever had,’ and wandered off unsteadily towards the house.
‘Another drama queen,’ said Chloe scornfully.
‘What’s the stupid queer going on about?’ asked Rupert, in bewilderment.
‘Irrespective of his sexual orientation,’ said Tristan sharply, ‘Baby really loves Flora.’
‘At least George and Flora’s is one relationship Beattie Johnson hasn’t screwed up,’ said Sexton. ‘What’s up for this evening?’
‘We’ll really have to motor,’ Tristan reeled off a punishing list of cover shots, ‘and we’ve got to shoot Alpheus praying before his coronation and Hermione walking up the aisle to join him, and I must reshoot Carlos removing Posa’s knife. I’ve decided it would work better with a gun, and the scene in the centre of the maze didn’t work either, too small and claustrophobic. The Unicorn Glade is ringed with yew hedge. We could fake it as the centre of the maze.’
‘Let’s go and look,’ said Oscar, helping himself to a second plate of scrambled eggs for the journey. A yawning Valentin brought a bottle and glasses as well.
‘See you in ’alf an ’our, Princess,’ whispered Sexton to Hermione, before belting after the others.
A thrush was singing joyfully, ‘Night is over, night is over.’
Had Rannaldini deliberately grown roses up his nymphs to see thorns plunging cruelly into their naked flesh? wondered Rupert. A faun, leering wickedly out of ferns snaking above a water trough, seemed to wink at him.
‘What are we going to do about that Beattie Johnson?’ muttered Sexton in an undertone. If Hermsie found out he hadn’t been to Eton, she’d drop him like an ’ot coal.
‘Take her out,’ said Rupert. ‘George has some ideas, we’ll thrash it out after this.’
Noticing crows circling like vultures above the Unicorn Glade, he quickened his step, admiring the stone rabbits and hounds frolicking peacefully with cats and foxes amid the flowers. But although the sun no longer cast a rosy glow, the little white unicorn snorting and pawing in the centre had become a strawberry roan, and Eulalia in her flowing black robes, resting against his raised head, had become an hermaphrodite.
As the men moved closer, they noticed an expression of terror grotesquely contorting her features. Then they realized it was her blood streaming over the unicorn’s noble head and running in rivulets down his shaggy mane. His grooved horn had pierced through her back and was now rising from her belly like a bloodstained phallus.
‘Jesus.’ Rupert was the first to speak. ‘It’s Beattie. She’s finally stabbed herself in the back.’
‘Are you sure?’ drawled Oscar, hastily refilling his glass, draining it, then filling it for Valentin.
‘Quite,’ said Rupert, lifting her skirt as he had so often in the past. ‘Look, there’s a cat tattooed on the inside of her left thigh. To get into the part she’s even dyed her bush black.’
‘And green,’ said Oscar, pointing to the handful of wild flowers Beattie had earlier stuffed between her legs.
A little tape-recorder had been attached to her thigh, but the tape had been removed.
‘Her spectacles are broken.’ Tristan picked up the buckled, paneless granny glasses.
The resourceful Ogborne, never without a camera, was taking pictures even of the ashen Wolfgang throwing up into some mauve campanula.
‘She’s also been shot,’ said Sexton, walking round the body. ‘There’s an exit wound big as a grapefruit on this side. You all right?’ he asked a returning Wolfie, who, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, looked terrified and absurdly young.
Wolfie nodded. ‘Here’s a note.’ He retrieved a grey crumpled piece of paper from some catmint.
‘Meet me in the Unicorn Glade at one fifteen,’ read Rupert.
‘I’ll have that, if you please, Mr Campbell-Black,’ said Gablecross firmly. ‘No-one is to touch the body. After we’ve searched Miss Johnson’s room, I’d like statements from all you gentlemen.’
65
As Gablecross and Karen panted up the stairs they were met by Helen in a coffee-coloured silk dressing-gown and a frightful state.
‘I haven’t had a wink of sleep. Every light in the place has been blazing all night. Liberty Productions are damn well going to pick up the bill. Eulalia’s phone’s been ringing all night too, and her room’s locked so I can’t get in to answer it. It’s too bad, after all the hospitality we’ve given her.’
She was even more hysterical after Beattie’s door had been broken down to find drink rings and cigarette burns all over the Jacobean furniture, black coffee spilt on the priceless Persian rugs and scrumpled tissues all over the floor.
Gablecross’s first impression was that Beattie had done a runner. Except for an ashtray brimming over with fag ends, her desk had been cleared. There was no hard copy, notebooks, floppy disks, tapes of interviews or telephone conversations. All the drawers were empty. In the bathroom, however, was a sponge-bag and a bottle of black hair dye.
As they discovered her computer smashed on the floor, her mobile rang. ‘Answer it,’ snapped Gablecross. ‘Pretend you’re Beattie.’
‘Hi, there,’ purred Karen.
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ It was the graveyard tones of Gordon Dillon. ‘And where’s the fucking copy?’
‘What copy?’ asked Karen innocently.
‘Stop playing games. Six thousand fucking words. I’ve been trying to get you all night. I hope you locked up the fucking memoirs.’
‘What memoirs?’ Really, reflected Karen. As a journalist Mr Dillon should know not to use the same adjective more than once on the same page.
‘Rannaldini’s, for Christ’s sake. Are you pissed?’
‘There’s nothing here.’
‘Something must have been saved on the machine.’
‘Nothing. I’m afraid the computer’s been dropped and its entrails are spilling all over the floor. You could consult them like the Romans did. They might tell you who killed Rannaldini.’
Karen’s accent had slipped westward.
‘Who the fuck’s that?’
‘Detective Constable Karen Needham of Rutminster CID,’ and ignoring Gablecross’s horrified expression and furiously waving hands, ‘I’m afraid a body has been found, and Miss Beattie Johnson appears to have been spiked like her rotten copy.’
‘You’ll get fired,’ roared G
ablecross.
‘No, I won’t,’ said Karen, who could hardly speak for laughing. ‘Gerry utterly loathed Beattie.’
Once again Gerald Portland was absolutely hopping.
‘I put twenty men on night duty at Valhalla,’ he shouted at the emergency meeting, three hours later, ‘and they spend all night drooling over Gloria Prescott, stuffing themselves with roast pork and don’t notice a socking great murder two hundred yards away.
‘We’ll be a laughing stock, and the Scorpion will lynch us. They are alleged to have paid a million for those memoirs. They’re going to bill that fucking bitch as the greatest journalist since Homer. They’re offering fifty thousand for information leading to the capture of her murderer, so no-one will call us any more. Jesus!’
Portland had indeed been no lover of Beattie. While the rest of the media had nicknamed him Pin-up Portland, she had called him Inspector Portly, just because he’d gained a few pounds on a Caribbean cruise, and described his upwardly mobilized accent as ‘so camp you could cut it with a Boy Scout’s penknife’.
‘How come none of you realized it was her?’ he shouted at his team.
‘Bloody good disguise, Guv’nor.’ DC Lightfoot scratched his head. ‘Could have sworn she was the spinster maiden-aunt type.’
‘I’d forget that line of reasoning if I were you,’ snapped Portland. ‘Pathologist says she’s got a vagina like the M1.’
‘I beg your pardon.’ DC Smithson pursed her lips as the men grinned.
‘So many people have been up and down, stupid, it’s very well worn. It’s early days, but the pathologist also reckons she was killed between one and two, and had intercourse perhaps half an hour before that. The plants stuffed up her vagina appear to contain some rare specimens.’
‘Mustard and cress,’ giggled Karen.
‘Someone’, Portland threw her a look of fond reproof, ‘appears to have bitten Beattie’s shoulder — we can DNA that. Her specs were broken so we’re looking for fragments on the murderer’s clothes.’
