by Jilly Cooper
Gablecross and Karen, who were right at the bottom of the list for letting Tristan off the hook and hassling Taggie Campbell-Black, were allotted the dreary task of trailing over to Mallowfield to interview Rozzy’s feckless husband. Gablecross was in despair. Only Karen’s enterprise had proved Tristan’s innocence. His loathed rival, Fanshawe, was poised to make a strike and Margaret wasn’t speaking to him because he’d left the anniversary party so early.
As she had also refused to make him any breakfast, Gablecross popped into the Paradise village shop to buy several Yorkie bars to misery-eat on the way to Mallowfield. Ahead in the queue, he saw Little Cosmo Harefield shoving some photographs and a letter into a large brown envelope. As Cosmo stopped to rest the envelope on a pile of Rutminster Echos, Gablecross noticed he was addressing it to the editor of the Sun.
‘Please register and express this on my mother’s account,’ Cosmo told Eve, the proprietor, grandly.
‘What have you got there, sonny?’ demanded Gablecross.
‘Nothing,’ lied Little Cosmo.
‘Let me look.’ Grabbing Little Cosmo by his T-shirt, Gablecross relieved him of the envelope.
‘Gimme that, you bugger,’ hissed Little Cosmo, trying to knee Gablecross in the groin.
Two photographs got slightly torn in the scuffle, but were still clearly discernible as Hermione and Sexton on the job.
In custody, and possession of one of Gablecross’s Yorkie bars and a cup of black coffee, Little Cosmo thawed a fraction.
‘Obviously you were upset about your dad’s death.’
‘Very,’ sighed Cosmo.
His father, he grumbled, had divided his inheritance between Cecilia, his ex-wife, Cosmo and all his step-siblings, except Wolfie. This meant Little Cosmo only ended up with four million, which was quite insufficient, after estate duty, for a growing lad, particularly one intending to own racehorses. Cosmo had therefore decided to augment his income.
‘Give us a fag,’ he added, looking longingly at Gablecross’s pack.
Gablecross, however, was not going to risk it, in case Cosmo’s mother’s friend, the Chief Constable, walked in. He and Karen then learnt that on the night of Rannaldini’s murder, Hermione’s notion of ‘quality time’ had consisted of shoving Little Cosmo upstairs with 101 Dalmatians and a jar of humbugs. Regarding this as insufficient, Cosmo, who had inherited his father’s specialist interest, had borrowed his mother’s camera and crept across the lawn to the summerhouse. Peering through the windows, he had discovered and photographed his mother and Sexton romping on their carpet of lady’s bedstraw. Cosmo liked Sexton and thought he would suit very well as a stepfather. Luckily for his mother and Sexton, Cosmo had taken a mid-shoot break for sloe gin and smoked salmon, and unintentionally recorded both ten twenty-five and ten forty on the large clock on the summerhouse wall.
Although this gave Hermione a vagina-tight alibi, Gablecross had ticked off Little Cosmo roundly for shopping his mother at a time of mourning.
Hermione, who’d just endured another most unchivalrous grilling from Fanshawe and Debbie, was extremely displeased to see DS Gablecross and Karen.
‘I didn’t do it, Timothy.’ She opened her eyes very wide. ‘Why should I want to murder Little Cosmo’s father?’
She might, however, feel like murdering Little Cosmo, said Gablecross, spreading the photographs on the table in front of her.
For a moment Hermione was lost for words, then her face lit up. ‘But, Timothy, these are quite beautiful. Far more flattering than anything Valentin or Oscar could produce. I never knew my son was so talented. They compare very favourably with the work my good friend Patrick Lichfield did for the Unipart calendar. Such a lovely texture.’ Hermione ran her finger over her naked body. ‘And I look so fragile beside Sexton’s manliness. Even in his birthday suit, Timothy, you can tell an Old Etonian by his commanding air.’
Hermione was so carried away, she didn’t notice Karen doubled up with helpless laughter as she fled from the room. Gablecross, chewing his lip, just managed to keep a straight face. ‘But Cosmo was sending these pictures to the Sun, Dame Hermione.’
‘Very enterprising. I told Cosmo he wouldn’t get a penny until probate came through. I know Higgy will adore them. We could even try Charles Moore on the Telegraph, such a charmer. That one of me on my own is so lovely, Serena could use it on the next CD. Bravo, Cosmo.’
‘You’re the kiss of death,’ Gerry Portland chided Karen and Gablecross, as they gathered round his office table later that morning to admire the Live Sexton Show, as it was now called.
‘Moment you start interviewing a perfectly legit suspect — Tristan, Rupert, Hermione — an alibi comes jumping out of the woodwork. I suppose we can assume she was unlikely to have jumped out of bedstraw to murder Rannaldini.’
‘It would have taken her at least a quarter of an hour even to run from River House,’ said Gablecross, ‘and if she’d been out of breath, she couldn’t have sung Elisabetta’s last aria so beautifully.’
‘She’s got a marvellous body,’ said Portland, ‘and knows a few tricks for an old ’un.’
‘Hermione agrees with you,’ said Karen, who was still laughing.
‘I hope the lad isn’t too traumatized.’
‘Camera’s only thing likely to be upset,’ said Gablecross. ‘That boy’s more evil than his father.’
As a result Gablecross and Karen didn’t reach Mallowfield until teatime.
Having admired the grandeurs of River House earlier, Gablecross’s first angry impression was that Rozzy, as a well-known and much beloved singer, ought to be living in a better house.
Clearly no-one had been watering the garden during the drought or washed the milk bottles, sour and queuing up outside the door. The carpets were threadbare, the paint peeling. Flowers Rozzy had obviously arranged beautifully for Glyn’s party the Sunday before last had shed their petals on dusty surfaces. There were no portraits or photographs of Rozzy, even in her radiant youth. Any cups or awards she’d won over the years had been hidden away. The colours were beautiful, but Gablecross had the feeling, looking at shelves denuded except for cards, that most things of value had been hocked.
He was further irritated to find he quite liked Glyn, who had an unlined face, a beer gut, and who was eating pizza, drinking his way down a pint mug of red, and watching Rutshire bowl out Oxfordshire. Half rising to his feet, he apologized, but without much conviction, for the bottles still littering the place from his party.
‘Know I ought to make a trip to the bottle bank but it’s easier to bung the dustmen, and they always come before I get up. Tend to let things slide when Rozzy’s away. But Syl will have the place like a new pin for when she comes home — on Wednesday, isn’t it?’
Sylvia, the housekeeper, was extremely pretty with big blue eyes, a shiny red bob and a regulo-nine smile, which could be turned off as quickly. She was obviously better at keeping herself beautiful than the house. Karen understood why poor Rozzy had sleepless nights over Sylvia.
‘Have a drink,’ urged Glyn. ‘Both of you can’t be driving. Get some glasses, Syl, love. How’s it going at Valhalla?’
‘Must be spooky,’ shuddered Sylvia, as she reluctantly left the room.
‘I gather you had a wonderful birthday party,’ beamed Karen, who found herself sitting very far forward in an armchair stuffed with tapestry cushions.
‘Wonderful,’ agreed Glyn. ‘Syl wanted to help. But Roz insisted on doing everything. Loves to feel needed. I wanted to get in caterers,’ added Glyn expansively. ‘Roz wouldn’t hear of it. We never save any money. Ex-wife costs a bomb, two kids at boarding-school.’
‘When do they come home?’ asked Gablecross.
‘Wednesday,’ said Sylvia, without enthusiasm, as she returned with a jug of orange juice, cans of iced beer and another bottle of red.
So Rozzy’ll be back to look after them, thought Karen crossly. You wouldn’t put yourself out for anyone.
‘Did Rozzy enjoy the
party?’ she asked.
‘Frankly, the old girl has been working so hard on Don Carlos, and worrying about the film’s budget and our budget, and tidying and cooking, she retired to bed with a migraine.’
Bet that was diplomatic, thought Karen, accepting a glass of orange juice. Perhaps Rozzy’d caught hers from Tristan.
‘What time did she go to bed?’ she asked, getting out her notebook.
‘Ooo, if we’re going on record, we’d better check our facts,’ said Sylvia skittishly. ‘Around, er…’ She glanced at Glyn.
‘Eight thirty,’ said Glyn. ‘Loads of people were still here. I checked she was asleep at nine thirty. Syl checked her at ten, I put my head round the door about ten thirty and eleven.’
Those up to no good check all the time, thought Gablecross.
‘I finally went to bed around midnight,’ boasted Glyn, reaching for the corkscrew to open the red. ‘Tripped over the landing carpet, woke Rozzy up. She came out looking all in.’
Sylvia got up to put on a record.
‘What did Rozzy give you for your birthday, apart from the party?’ asked Karen.
‘She got me a signed copy of Georgie Maguire’s latest album, and a signed photo,’ said Glyn. ‘Syl loves Georgie too, don’t you, Syl?’
‘S’wonderful, s’marvellous,’ sang the record player.
‘Lovely single, isn’t it?’ said Glyn fondly. ‘We played this and Georgie’s album all day.’
‘When did you cut your cake?’
‘Around eight, I should think. There were still people here at midnight — I left them to it.’
‘Your wife made two calls to Valhalla during the evening.’
Glyn laughed. ‘She likes to check up, always checking up on me.’ He winked at Karen who didn’t wink back.
‘Why didn’t she use the house phone?’
‘She was in the spare room — doesn’t have a phone. We often sleep in separate rooms. I tend to snore, particularly when I’ve had a few. The spare room looks north over the back of the house so it was a bit quieter during the party.’
‘You ever meet Rannaldini?’
‘Sir Roberto? Only after performances in the old days. Charismatic bloke.’
‘Think of any reason why anyone should kill him?’
‘I could have done a few years ago — he was always jumping on Rozzy.’
‘You didn’t tell me that,’ snapped Syl.
‘Why should Rannaldini have made a note to ring you the day he died?’ asked Gablecross.
‘Me!’ said Glyn somewhat flattered. ‘I’ve no idea. Perhaps Rozzy’s singing hadn’t been up to scratch, or she might have overtired herself. She’s always been delicate.’
She obviously hasn’t told Glyn about the throat cancer, thought Gablecross. He ought to mention it, instead he said, ‘Perhaps her GP could shed some light. Can you let me have his name?’
‘Of course. I know she was worried about the young chappie directing it.’
‘That is the most loathsome creep,’ stormed Karen, as she drove through the dripping dusk. ‘Bernard would make Rozzy much happier.’
But Gablecross was talking on his mobile to the incident room.
‘Interpol had a tip-off that Rupert was staying in Montvert,’ he told Karen as he switched it off. ‘Casing the Montigny joint presumably, but when they rolled up at the hotel early this morning the bird had flown. Another couple who sound suspiciously like Wolfie and Lucy, who also stayed there, gave them the slip. Rannaldini’s Gulf, on the other hand, has been clamped at Toulouse airport. Now, what the hell can that mean?’
‘That at least Lucy’s safe, Sarge,’ said Karen, patting his arm.
74
Very early that Monday morning, Lucy had been woken by a telephone call from Wolfie.
‘We gotta move it. Two plain-clothes men are downstairs looking for Rupert. Madame didn’t tell them we were here, but suggests we leg it as soon as possible out through the back garden.’
Wolfie was just gathering speed down the high street, when a loitering gendarme mistook his blond hair and suntanned face for Rupert’s, and whistled up his mate to give chase. Wolfie, who drove almost as fast as he flew, had no difficulty shaking them off. The airport was in sight, they could see Rannaldini’s Gulf jet merging into the heat-haze on the runway, when Lucy’s mobile rang. When she switched it off thirty seconds later she was as pale and trembling as a white poplar.
‘Hortense has changed her mind, but we’ve got to hurry. Dupont and the rellies are expected back before lunch.’
Lucy’s heart sank when a waiting Florence said Hortense didn’t want to see them. She led them upstairs and, with a lot of cursing, unlocked a bedroom door. As the door creaked reluctantly open, she stood back.
‘Madame said you’ll find all the information you need in here. You’re to be locked in for security reasons. Press that bell when you want to be let out.’
At first it was a question of not choking to death. As their eyes grew accustomed to the dark, it was plain that nothing had been touched for years, possibly centuries. By yanking open the shutters, Wolfie triggered off an avalanche of dust. Cobwebs, woven on top of cobwebs and dotted with flies and wasps, formed net curtains across windows and in corners.
On the walls, a little Van Gogh and several of Étienne’s enchanting drawings of dogs fought for space with school and army photographs and peeling posters of Jane Birkin, Juliette Greco and Bardot. Astérix leered up at them from the yellowing duvet covering the bed in the corner.
A half-full bottle of brandy, Roget et Gallet cologne, LPs of Sergeant Pepper, the Stones and Manfred Mann, hairbrushes, their silver backs blackened, Esquire and Playboy, Paris-Match and Shooting Times were all jumbled together on the shelves. Newspapers on the table, faded to the colour of weak tea, were all dated 1967.
‘What the hell’s all this about?’ asked Wolfie, trying to open a window.
‘Must be Laurent’s room,’ pondered Lucy. ‘Florence said Étienne never allowed anyone in here after his death. But I still don’t see.’
Leaning against the wall was a gold-framed portrait. Wiping away the dust and grime with her T-shirt, Lucy gave a gasp because a younger, happier, bolder Tristan smiled back at her. Then her heart stopped as she noticed the now-towering trees of the lime walk then only reached his shoulders, and that he was the same young man who’d been staring down at the girl whose long dark hair was tied back with a scarlet ribbon.
‘This must be Laurent painted by Étienne,’ she said, in excitement. ‘God, he’s good-looking.’
Wolfie, rooting round a desk, had found a pile of letters.
‘These must have been sent him when he was in the army in Chad. “My darling, darling Laurent,”’ read Wolfie. ‘Sounds exciting. And here’s another pile with West African stamps on them.’
Swinging round Lucy knew, even before she saw them, that the letters would be tied together with scarlet ribbon.
‘Give them here.’ She snatched the package with a shaking hand, and, tearing open the top one, read, ‘“My darling angelic Delphine,”’ and knew everything.
‘Oh, my God, listen, Wolfie. “Don’t be frightened,” Laurent writes. “I’ll be home in two months to take care of you. Is our baby still kicking in your beautiful belly? If it’s a boy let’s call him Tristan, but he’s not going to be destined for tragedy, only joy.” God, they got that wrong. Then Laurent goes on, “I love you so desperately. Don’t worry about Papa. I just can’t bear to think of you in the same bed as him or even that he’s your husband. I know it’s important not to humiliate him, that this should never have happened, but the fact that you and I love each other is all that matters.”
‘Oh, God, Wolfie.’ Lucy looked up in horror. ‘Poor Étienne, cuckolded by his own son.’
‘Like Philip and Carlos.’ Wolfie shook his head in bewilderment.
Lucy skimmed the rest of the letter. Laurent had been full of plans for the new life he and Delphine would start in Australia wit
h their baby. He’d get a job, and they’d have love to live on.
‘Here’s a letter from Delphine to him,’ said Wolfie, ‘dated November the fourteenth. That must have been just after Tristan was born. She’s enclosed a little pencil drawing of the baby, look.’
‘Oh, how sweet.’ Lucy mopped her eyes. On the back she recognized Étienne’s elegant handwriting: ‘Tristan Laurent Blaize, a beautiful boy, one hour old.’
‘I thought you’d like to see your son and heir,’ Delphine had written. ‘Isn’t he adorable? Étienne is so proud of his imagined offspring. I feel so guilty. Oh, Laurent, please come home, he’s nagging me to have sex again. I can’t bear him to touch me.’
‘Here’s an even earlier one,’ interrupted Wolfie.
‘“Darling Delphine, it’s the best news in the world you’re pregnant. It seals everything. Let me finish my stint here, there are things I must do.”’ Wolfie looked up at Lucy. ‘That must have been for the rebels. “Then I’ll come home and take you away, you will divorce Papa and marry me. Everything will be very simple.” Christ, little did he know.’
‘Here’s another horrible one,’ cried Lucy, in distress, smoothing out the letter, holding it up to the dim light from the windows. ‘Must be early in her pregnancy, she sounds just like Elisabetta. “Étienne made love to me outside today. I noticed his grey eyebrows and chest hair, the liver spots on his hands, the pleats in his flesh, when he raised himself on his wrinkled arms. Oh, Laurie, I know he’s your father but he revolts me.”
‘I can’t read any more.’ Lucy thrust aside the letter. ‘Étienne was a vain old goat, but he must have been crucified by the son he adored, then constantly reminded of this betrayal as Tristan grew more and more like Laurent. And that’, Lucy choked on the swirling dust in the excitement of her discovery, ‘was what he was rambling on about on his deathbed, trying to tell Tristan that he was his grandfather not his father.’
