by Jilly Cooper
‘Then she evaded arrest and ran off into the garden,’ added Gablecross.
‘Arrest?’ snarled Tristan. ‘Whatever for?’
‘Hanging on to my lapels won’t do any good. Just let go,’ said Gablecross irritably. ‘Lucy was arrested for the murder of Rannaldini, Beattie and the attempted murder of Tabitha.’
‘That’s crazy! Lucy couldn’t kill an earwig.’
Gablecross explained that her DNA profile matched up. ‘Since then she vanished into thin air.’
‘And James?’
‘Not a sign,’ sighed Karen.
‘Someone’s either hiding her, she’s hiding out in the wood, or the murderer’s got her,’ said Gablecross. ‘It would help if Rozzy turned up.’
‘Oh, my Christ.’ A distraught Tristan was pacing up and down, thinking and thinking. ‘And they’ve searched Valhalla?’
‘Everywhere.’
Next moment, Griselda rushed in, shaking with horror.
‘Tristan, Karen, Sergeant Gablecross, listen to this horrible message on my machine.’
Griselda was followed by Flora, George, Bernard and Simone. Her hand was trembling so much they had to endure several seconds of whirring speeded-up chatter before she found the right place on the tape. The voice on the machine was so high and terrified at first no-one recognized it.
‘Please let me have your cloak for a second, I’m so cold.’
‘Lucy,’ gasped Tristan, looking round with desperate bloodshot eyes.
‘Poor child.’ At first the second voice was sympathetic, then it burst into gales of dreadful crazy laughter, then became chillingly hard and cruel. ‘You’ll be burning hot where you’re going. Where were we? Oh, yes, in Rannaldini’s torture chamber. He strapped them just where you are, in the debtor’s chair.’
‘That’s Rozzy’s voice,’ said Bernard hoarsely.
George put an arm round Flora’s shoulders.
Tristan jumped to his feet. ‘Do something, for Christ’s sake.’
Gablecross raised a shaking hand for silence, as Lucy, in a high, terrified voice, spoke again: ‘I can’t believe you killed Rannaldini. You’re far too slight and, anyway, you were in Mallowfield.’
‘Since I’m going to kill you in a minute,’ it was Rozzy’s voice, amused bitchy, ‘I’ll tell you while I do my face. Now, are you sitting comfortably?’
‘What time was that call made?’ barked Gablecross.
‘Someone called me before that,’ said a trembling Griselda.
‘It was me playing seely buggers.’ Simone had gone scarlet. ‘I rang you on the upstairs phone, Grisel, around twelve less ten minutes.’
As if trying to help the police with their inquiries, the clock on the mantelpiece chimed midnight.
‘So it could have been as little as ten minutes ago,’ said Karen, making lightning calculations.
‘I don’t understand why those obscene outpourings are on my machine,’ wailed Griselda.
‘You’re in her memory,’ said Bernard, who’d gone as grey as Simone had scarlet. ‘Rozzy’s as blind as a bat. I called her just after eleven forty-five to ask if she’d seen Lucy and check when she was coming over. She probably meant to switch her phone off after that, not wanting to be interrupted, and pressed your number instead.’
‘We’ve got to get Lucy out.’ Tristan was suddenly roused from shock. ‘Where the fuck’s the torture chamber?’
‘I can show you,’ said a soft voice.
Clive was hovering in the doorway. Never can so many people have been pleased to see him. He was still clutching Lucy’s lilies.
Pray God, they aren’t destined for her grave, thought Tristan in horror.
‘If Rozzy slams the door and flicks the switch to let the water in, Lucy’s got five minutes at best,’ said Clive.
‘Take my plane,’ urged George.
But as they rushed out of the front door towards the hangar, there was a tick, tick, tick and a judder overhead. Like a troupe of dancing stars, a helicopter landed on the lawn. As Rupert opened the door, his blond hair silver in the moonlight, Gablecross, Tristan, Clive and Bernard, cursing as he stubbed his toe on a reconstituted-stone cherub, raced towards him. But Karen outstripped them.
‘Quick,’ she panted. ‘It’s Lucy, in terrible danger. We’ve got to get to Valhalla and rescue her.’
‘The Famous Five,’ drawled Rupert, glancing at the others behind her. ‘That lot have as much chance of rescuing anyone as Mr Blobby.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ howled Tristan.
‘Rupert!’ came an excited cry as Hermione ran out of the house. ‘Now the party has really begun.’
‘You’re on!’ said Rupert, shooting faster than light back into the helicopter. ‘As long as Karen can sit on my knee — but I’m not taking that murderer.’ He glared at Clive. ‘He stole our Gertrude.’
‘You must,’ pleaded Karen. ‘He’s the only person who can lead us to Lucy.’
As she wriggled past Rupert to get into the back seat, she felt the hard bulge of a gun, but decided it wasn’t the moment to quibble. Anyway, they might need it.
Gablecross, still on the ground and on his mobile, was alerting the uniform boys at Valhalla.
‘Whatever you do, don’t arouse suspicion. She’s mad and extremely dangerous, and she’s got Lucy Latimer in there.’
As they flew over a pale lunar landscape, dark grey trees, black houses lit by a molten moon, Clive briefed them in his soft sibilant lisp: ‘The torture chamber’s fifteen feet from the lake and ten feet below the water level. The moment Rozzy presses the switch, the iron door slides up.’
‘I could swim under the guillotine and free her,’ urged Tristan, desperate for some action.
‘You haven’t time. You’d need a blow-torch to saw through the manacles and that wouldn’t work under gushing water. The switch to unlock the debtor’s chair is unfortunately inside the torture chamber just to the right of the light switch. Rozzy must have a key to the chamber. We’ve gotta get it off her to get inside at all. And we’ve only got five minutes. There are three underground approaches to the torture chamber,’ he went on. ‘One, you can go down on hands and knees from Rannaldini’s study but only if you’re a slim build, and that takes nearly twenty minutes. Another passage runs from the chapel and takes ten minutes. That’s the route Rozzy’ll come back up, once she’s slammed the door on Lucy. The third, which I don’t imagine Rozzy knows about because it hasn’t been used for years, consists of steep steps down from the middle of the maze. Takes about four minutes. The helicopter can drop us on the edge. Those steps come out through a side door into the passage which goes up to the chapel, about twenty yards from the entrance to the torture chamber. If someone’, Clive glanced round the helicopter, ‘could intercept Rozzy as she came out of the torture chamber and lure her past this entrance, at least one of us could run down the tunnel and switch off the water. Then once we’d relieved her of the key, we could get into the chamber and unlock the debtor’s chair.’
‘I can see exactly why you were Rannaldini’s hired assassin, up to every trick,’ snarled Rupert. Ahead he could see the lights of Paradise High Street.
‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ said Clive.
‘Tristan’s got to lure her out,’ announced Gablecross. ‘Rozzy’s absolutely nuts about him.’ Then, turning to Tristan, ‘You must wait for her to come out, tell her you love her and you’re frantic to get her away from the murderer.’
Tristan, who’d been going round every circle of hell, looked at Gablecross aghast. ‘I can’t tell Rozzy I love her.’ With his track record, the gods would punish him for lies like that by not saving Lucy. ‘I couldn’t convince her.’
‘For Lucy’s sake, you bloody well can,’ snapped Rupert. ‘If you hadn’t fired her this morning, none of this would have happened.’
‘Rupert’s right,’ begged Karen. ‘If you can tempt her out of the way and get her off her guard by indulging in some serious snogging.’
‘F
antasize she’s Madame Lauzerte,’ said Rupert sarcastically. ‘You’ve had enough practice at screwing geriatrics.’
‘Shut up,’ howled Tristan, seizing and violently shaking Rupert’s shoulders so the helicopter lurched as it started its descent.
‘Pack it in, you two,’ ordered Gablecross.
Narrowly missing the floodlit spire of All Saints, Paradise, flying over sleeping cottages in the high street, and Hermione’s house with its tall chimneys, Rupert followed the silver ribbon of the river Fleet and swung left at the glimmer of Rannaldini’s lake. Tristan gave a groan at the thought of all that water pouring into Lucy’s gasping, choking throat. There was the black dartboard of the maze, with policemen like ants closing in from all sides.
‘D’you know the way to the centre?’ asked Tristan, as he and Clive jumped down from the helicopter.
‘If I concentrate.’
A minute later, they had pounded down a yew corridor slap into a dead end.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ yelled Tristan, doing a U-turn.
For a moment, as they backtracked, Clive lost his nerve, then the helicopter was overhead and a hovering Rupert was aiming a spotlight and leading them to the left and then to the right, backwards, forwards, sideways, across. Perhaps it was God’s hand guiding them as well, because Tristan never stopped praying. Then, miraculously, the honeyed scent of philadelphus swept over them. They had reached the centre of the maze.
This time Clive’s memory didn’t fail. As he kicked the stone alcove three times, it swung sideways and darkness loomed. They could smell damp, rotting wood and weed.
‘The steps are very slippery,’ warned Clive.
It was like a yew corridor without any ceiling. Clive led the way. Tristan was as soaked with icy sweat as from the dripping walls of the stairway he kept crashing against. Often he was too hasty, and felt himself falling against the snake-like caress of Clive’s leather suit. The steps seemed greased with goose fat.
‘I haven’t got a head for depths,’ he confessed, as he battled against an ancient phobia of being trapped underground: an irate nanny had locked him once in a dark cellar.
Lucy was what mattered. Oh, please, God. But it was to Hades, God of the Underworld, he should be praying. Please spare my Eurydice. He kept imagining the water choking Lucy until her generous heart gave out and he’d never be able to tell her how much he loved her. He was losing his balance, about to stumble down into the darkness. Clive was far too slight to support his weight. Then, suddenly, they’d reached level ground and collapsed, thankfully, against a solid oak door.
Behind them, they could faintly hear Gablecross on his mobile. ‘Uniform boys have located the entrance to the torture chamber from the lakeside,’ he was telling Karen. ‘They can’t see any sign yet of water being sucked inside.’
‘Perhaps Rozzy hasn’t left?’ whispered Karen hopefully.
‘Open the door into the passage now,’ Gablecross hissed down the stairs to Clive. ‘We may be able to pre-empt her.’
The door was warped by damp and opened inwards, after a lot of tugging and kicking.
‘Turn right,’ muttered Clive to Tristan. ‘The passage kinks sharply to the left. Lurk behind there until she comes out.’
Tristan had never known such darkness: the total blindness of the Grand Inquisitor. No-one dared shine a torch in case Rozzy saw a light ahead as she came out, but she must hear the thunderous crashing of his heart as he edged along the wall.
Once she emerged, he mustn’t betray his fear. His mouth tasted as acid as a rotten lemon, he was trembling violently, he reeked of sweat, his knees were jumping frantically as he positioned himself round the rocky bend. However could he act well enough to convince Lucy’s murderer that he loved her? Then he was aware of dim light. Whipping round he heard a clang of steel, a heavy door creaking shut, a switch being flicked on, followed by arpeggios of crazy laughter. He nearly turned and fled.
‘Now!’ hissed Clive.
‘Rozzy?’
‘Who’s there?’ called out a high, terrified voice.
Tristan could see the outline of a cloaked figure.
‘Rozzy, it’s me.’ His voice, sounding surprisingly deep and strong, seemed to echo round the dripping walls.
But before he could add ‘Tristan’, he heard a bang and felt an agonizing pain in his right shoulder. She had shot him. Reeling back from the shock, he crashed against the side of the tunnel cracking his head.
‘Me, Tristan,’ he gasped. Then, righting himself, he stumbled forward. ‘Rozzy, are you OK? I’ve been so worried.’
‘Tristan?’ whispered Rozzy in horror. ‘I thought you were the police.’
As he came towards her, she saw blood seeping into his pale grey shirt. ‘Oh, my poor darling,’ she cried. ‘I’m so sorry, I must bandage that wound.’
She looked so normal, and unusually beautiful, her big eyes so full of concern and tenderness that, for a fleeting moment, Tristan thought they’d all been imagining things. Then, through the dimness, he saw the switch to the right of the door.
‘How could I have hurt you?’ moaned Rozzy.
‘It’s nothing.’ Tristan moved towards her, then, taking a deep breath, ‘The murderer’s on the loose. I was so scared for you.’
If he rammed her against the torture chamber door and kissed her, he could surreptitiously reach up and turn off the switch. Unfortunately, she was bearing down on him. ‘Let me wrap this round your shoulder,’ she tugged off her red feather boa, ‘till we reach the outside world.’
As she coiled it round his neck, hanging on to the two ends to contain him, he nearly bolted.
‘I’ve come to take you to the wrap party.’ He forced himself to sound light-hearted. ‘Everyone’s waiting.’
‘There’s no hurry,’ said Rozzy coyly. ‘Orphée.’
‘There is, because you’re in danger.’ He seized her left hand and found it empty. The gun must be in her bag, or concealed in the folds of Rannaldini’s cloak. ‘I love you.’ Tristan crossed his fingers as he led her up the tunnel.
‘I always knew you did, darling,’ said Rozzy adoringly.
As they passed the entrance where Clive and the others were lurking, Rozzy stopped and so did Tristan’s heart. ‘Look at me,’ she insisted.
‘Orpheus wasn’t allowed to look at Eurydice.’ Tristan tried to sound playful.
‘Take me away,’ begged Rozzy, ‘to Paris and then your house in the Tarn. I want to meet Aunt Hortense and see where you grew up.’
If he got his arms round her, he could clamp hers down, but he didn’t know whether his right arm was strong enough — it didn’t seem to belong to him any more. He felt increasingly dizzy and the feather boa was tightening terrifyingly round his neck. But as he lured her round to the right, he could see Clive stealing, like a ghost, out of the side entrance.
‘What’s that noise?’ she asked sharply.
‘Probably a rat — oh, Rozzy.’
She jumped as she heard another footstep, but as she spun round, Tristan grabbed her. ‘You look so young.’ He took her face between his hands.
‘You don’t still love Claudine?’
‘Of course not,’ breathed Tristan. ‘I just never in a million years presumed someone as beautiful as you could love me back.’
Utterly repelled, he felt her scrawny fingers, entrapping his neck like a sea anemone, the bumpy ribs, the razor-sharp collarbones, the slack breasts beneath the grey chiffon. By contrast her tongue was bone hard as she rammed it between his lips almost down his throat, and rubbed her body feverishly against his. The sour milk stench of her breath was enough to make him gag.
‘Make love to me, Tristan.’
With Lucy drowning? he thought in fury.
Then he felt her clawing fingers tightening round his neck and her big black bag, which was still hanging from her arm, pressing against his chest.
‘You’re in danger,’ he mumbled, dickering as to whether to grab the bag. ‘Lucy’ll take out anyone I lo
ve.’
‘Lucy’s taken care of.’ Rozzy smiled beatifically, and Tristan found himself looking into the eyes of true madness, as Rozzy went into hysterical laughter. ‘We needn’t worry about Lucy any more.’
To stop her laughter, Tristan kissed her again, on and on as, in frenzied rage, he grabbed her arms forcing them behind her back, gripping her tighter and tighter, until the pain in his shoulder became unbearable.
‘Let me go, darling.’ Rozzy was laughing and struggling.
Christ, she was strong, as she bucked and writhed against him. He was going to black out, he couldn’t hold on any longer.
Then, mercifully, he was aware of shadowy figures approaching and seizing her. But Rozzy had wriggled out of their grasp.
‘Bastard! You double-crossed me!’ She was ranting, screaming, foaming at the mouth, lunging forward to plunge her teeth into Tristan’s chest, trying to knee him in the groin and claw his face, as Rupert and Gablecross dragged her off. It took all their strength to yank her arms back, so Karen could clip on the handcuffs. ‘Gotcha!’ yelled Gablecross.
As Rozzy’s bag fell to the floor, Karen leapt forward and up-ended it. Out fell gun, mobile, mask and wig. Karen pounced on a huge set of keys, glinting in the torchlight.
‘Which one belongs to the torture chamber, Rozzy?’ she asked gently.
‘I’m not telling you,’ giggled Rozzy. ‘You’re too late. The randy bitch’ll be dead by now.’
She went into more crazed laughter, which turned into a howl of agony as Rupert seized her arm. ‘I’ll break it unless you tell us.’
‘I can take pain, you bastard, aaaaaaah!’ screamed Rozzy. ‘It’s the purple Yale. Christ, let me go!’
‘And to open the inside door?’ With no compunction, Rupert applied more pressure.
‘Ouch! Oh, no!’ Rozzy’s head fell forward. ‘It’s the steel one splashed with blue paint,’ she whispered.
Rupert raced down the passage to where Clive and Bernard were trying to break down the door. Uniformed police were pouring down the stairs. Everyone was yelling instructions.
Tristan stumbled after Rupert, his shirt totally red now.
Rupert fumbled with the key. ‘Give me some light, for Christ’s sake.’
