by Jilly Cooper
But we shall meet again in a better world.’
He was still a hero in Hermione’s eyes. She was showing him that no-one could sing the part better, and that she had forgiven him. Her top notes sounded as pure and lovely as they had in Paris, eighteen years ago. Hermione, who had given him more pleasure than any other woman. Why was he squandering his energy on silly young girls? Smiling, he walked down the ride and held out his arms.
‘My little darling,’ he called out.
Despite noisy encouragement from the spectators, Granny and Griselda lost 6–3, 6–4 to Wolfie and Simone. Leaving the others down at the court with plenty of drink, Wolfie loped back to the house to organize supper. In the larder he found a big plate of chicken à l’estragon, a ham, an asparagus and avocado salad, a chocolate roulade, a large blue bowl of raspberries, and was just thanking God for Mrs Brimscombe when she hobbled, white-faced and gibbering, into the kitchen. She refused a stiff drink and it was several minutes before she made any sense. She had seen a pale mauve light, she said. ‘It came bobbing out of Hangman’s Wood, across the big lawn, past the chapel and disappeared into the graveyard.’
‘Must have been someone with a torch.’
‘There was no footsteps, it went straight through the big yew hedge and a wall. Bobbing and pale mauve it was, Wolfie.’ Mrs Brimscombe put gnarled hands, shaking like windswept twigs, to her face. ‘Lights like that have been seen in Paradise before, come to guide the dead soul to his grave,’ she whispered.
Despite the stifling heat, Wolfie felt icy fingers on his heart.
‘It means there’s been a death, Wolfie.’
Refusing a lift home, she stumbled into the dark.
Wolfie was terrified. His father never allowed servants to sleep in the house although, to Helen’s distress, Clive and Bussage drifted in at all hours. For once, he was relieved to hear old bag Bussage tapping away on the keyboard in her office, and singing, probably on the radio, coming from Helen’s little study down the passage.
He must pull himself together and open some bottles. Grabbing a corkscrew from a kitchen drawer, he idly flipped on the answering-machine, and received the full horror of Tab’s message, that she’d been raped and Gertrude murdered.
‘This time I am going to kill my father!’ he yelled.
Oh, God, where was Tab? He must find her before Rannaldini caught up with her. The bastard! Wolfie dialled 1471 to discover where she’d rung from, then found out from directory inquiries that it was the call-box on the edge of Hangman’s Wood. No-one answered when he rang. It was so dark now, between flashes of lightning. He decided it would be quicker to drive, and found himself trying to open the BMW’s door with the corkscrew. But when he screeched to a halt beside the call-box, Tab had gone. There was blood all over the floor and the telephone. A terrible fear gripped him. Had that pale mauve light been guiding Tab?
Thunderclouds had blotted out the russet glare of Rutminster, the tiny sliver of new moon had gone gratefully to bed behind the wood. Down at the court, the conscientious, frugal Bernard suggested everyone look for balls, whereupon most people sloped off claiming the need to make urgent telephone calls. Lucy, who had returned after her storm of tears in time to watch the last game and give back Wolfie’s signet ring, set off with James clinging to her heels for a last run round the south side of Hangman’s Wood.
She soon regretted it. The wood exuded such evil. At any moment she expected dark branches to grab her, or the Hanging Blacksmith to thunder by. She was glad when the path curved and she could see the comfortingly twinkling lights of Paradise village. She was just wondering wistfully how Tristan had coped, knowing he was no longer a Montigny at such a tribal gathering as Aunt Hortense’s party, when James bounded forward, wagging his long tail, giving excited little squeaks.
Peering through the darkness, Lucy could see nothing. Perhaps James had caught a white glimpse of Sharon across the valley, but settling back on his haunches, still wagging, he gazed in the direction of the west gate. Perhaps he had seen a ghost. Turning in terror, Lucy raced back to the tennis court, to find Ogborne guzzling the last of the strawberries.
‘All sorts of exciting crashing,’ bellowed Griselda, emerging from the wood.
‘Probably cows,’ said Bernard, appearing from a more northerly direction.
‘And lots of shooting,’ added Griselda defiantly. ‘OK, Bernard, it probably was Teddy Brimscombe after pigeon. And a helicopter landing and taking off.’
‘I always feel this wood’s watching me,’ shivered Lucy.
‘We’re still about twenty balls short,’ sighed Bernard.
‘Here are two more.’ Coming out of the wood, Granny dropped a shocking pink and a lime green one on the pile.
As the chapel clock struck a quarter to eleven, Ogborne filled up everyone’s glass.
‘What are we going to do about Rannaldini’s balls?’ he intoned.
‘Chop ’em off,’ said Granny.
It wasn’t very funny but even Bernard was braying with laughter, when Lucy’s mobile rang. It was Rozzy. Terrified, as the howls of mirth escalated, that Rozzy might think people were laughing at her, Lucy spanked the air with her hand to shut them up.
‘How did the party go, Rozzy? Really well, judging by the din in the background.’
Rozzy, however, sounded suicidal. After all her hard work to make Glyn’s birthday special, Sylvia the housekeeper had given him a single of ‘S’Wonderful’, and he’d been playing it and dancing with her all evening.
‘Oh, poor you, how was the food?’
‘They seemed to like it, although Glyn fed his smoked-salmon parcel to the cat, and everyone’s plastered.’
Over drunken shouts of ‘Happy birthday, dear Glyn’, Lucy could hear the strains of ‘S’wonderful, s’marvellous’.
‘He’s a pig, Rozzy. How was your dress?’
Glancing round, Lucy saw Granny and Griselda playing imaginary violins and Ogborne holding his fat sides, and wandered away from them.
Rozzy admitted the dress had been a success.
‘You’ll see it at the wrap party. Are you having fun?’
‘Yes,’ lied Lucy.
‘I miss you all so much.’
‘And we you, Rozzy. Where are you ringing from?’
‘Upstairs. I’ve got a migraine.’
‘Not surprising, if they’re making such a noise.’
Lucy could now hear roars of ‘Why Was He Born So Beautiful?’ ‘When are you coming back?’
‘First thing tomorrow. ’Bye, Lucy darling.’
‘She’s always been a masochist,’ sighed Griselda, when Lucy had recounted Rozzy’s tale of woe.
‘In the old days, they were known as Glyn and Bear It,’ said Granny. ‘Mind you, I’m one to talk.’
Lucy’s mobile rang and she blushed, feeling disloyal when it turned out to be Rozzy again.
‘I forgot to say why I rang in the first place. Can you remind Griselda to get Hermione’s cloak out of Wardrobe, or leave me a key so I can mend that tear? I doubt . . .’ Rozzy paused to listen to the laughter at Lucy’s end ‘. . . you lot’ll surface before the afternoon.’
‘Griselda and Granny reached the finals,’ began Lucy, but Rozzy had rung off. ‘She wants you to get out Hermione’s cloak.’
‘What a little treasure she is— Whoops, sorry, dearie,’ added Griselda, as she cannoned off one of Rannaldini’s bronze nudes. ‘I’d better fetch it before I get really whistled.’
‘Rozzy doesn’t sound in carnival mood,’ said Granny.
‘She’d never have gone home this weekend if Tristan hadn’t shoved off to Paris,’ observed Griselda. ‘Oh, sorry, Bernie, I forgot you had the chauds for her.’
Up at the house, unable to find Wolfie, the others were having a rip-roaring party on the terrace.
‘Where’s Mikhail?’ giggled Simone. ‘Still snoring under weeping ash?’
‘Shouldn’t we wake him?’ said Lucy.
‘Oh, leave the bloody killjoy. Wit
h any luck he’ll get struck by lightning,’ said a newly arrived Chloe, who was looking lit from inside and wonderfully beautiful.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her without bright crimson lips, thought the eagle-eyed Simone. She looks so much softer.
Five minutes later, Griselda tottered in.
‘Can’t find that cloak anywhere. Madam must have taken it to Milan. Hope she hasn’t got it dirty. Here’s the key.’ Griselda dropped it into Lucy’s shirt pocket. ‘Rozzy can find it. Why should I bother if I’ve been fired?’
Alpheus arrived next. He had changed into terracotta trousers and a blue checked shirt, and kept glancing sourly at his watch. Everyone was deliberately staying up late in the hope of waking late to get into the rhythm of night-shooting. But eleven thirty was a ridiculous hour to dine.
‘I’m starved. Where in hell’s Wolfgang?’ he said tetchily.
‘Don’t tell me the Nazi machine’s broken down at last,’ mocked Chloe, ignoring a scowl from Simone.
‘I’m off to raid the larder.’ Going in through the french windows, Ogborne went sharply into reverse as he met Helen, in her honeysuckle and lilac silk dress, coming the other way.
Pretty woman, mused Alpheus. That would really annoy Rannaldini. He was about to offer Helen one of her own drinks when, most uncharacteristically, she poured herself a massive vodka and tonic with a frantically shaking hand.
‘Such a fascinating play on Puccini on Radio Three,’ she told Bernard. ‘I had no idea that he never finished Turandot and that Toscanini conducted the première.’
‘We won’t get any dinner out of her,’ murmured Ogborne to Lucy.
‘My God!’ shouted Griselda. ‘Our very own auto da fe.’
Swinging round, they saw Hangman’s Wood going up in flames and a shower of sparks, like an orange inferno. The crackling could be heard four hundred yards away as parched trees and dry undergrowth submitted helplessly to the fiery furnace. They could feel the heat from where they were standing, as the blaze lit up the entire valley.
‘Rannaldini’s watch-tower’s on fire,’ screamed Helen. ‘All his papers and compositions will be burnt.’
‘Hurrah,’ said Granny, pouring himself a drink.
‘Probably knew they were junk and set fire to them himself,’ crowed Griselda, holding out her glass.
All Rannaldini’s evidence against Tristan would be torched! Lucy felt giddy with relief.
‘What about the rushes?’ asked Alpheus, horrified because he was in them.
‘There’s a duplicate set at the lab,’ said Ogborne. ‘Hadn’t someone better call the fire brigade?’
Someone already had. With a manic jangling, a fleet of fire engines came pounding up the drive and were soon sending fountains of water into the wood.
Five minutes later, the firemen were joined by an hysterical Flora. Having run through brambles, thistles and nettles all the way from Angels’ Reach, she was panting so hard she could only croak.
‘What about Tabloid?’
‘Keep back, Miss,’ shouted a fireman in a yellow tin hat, aiming a huge hose at a blazing oak tree.
‘Rannaldini’s Rottweiler.’ Flora tugged frantically at his sleeve. ‘His kennel’s under the watch-tower – we’ve got to get him out.’
‘Too late, Miss, place’s been torched.’
‘He might be alive,’ panted Flora in desperation. ‘Please! Please!’
Shielding her eyes with her arm, she inched forward, but jumped back as the oak tree crashed to the ground, narrowly missing her and spraying sparks everywhere. Someone grabbed her arm, brushing her down and yanking her to safety. It was several dazed seconds before she recognized Clive behind the blackened face and hair.
‘Tabloid!’ she sobbed.
‘It’s OK. I took him back to the yard earlier.’
‘Are you sure?’ Flora yelled over the crashing and crackling.
She didn’t trust Clive.
‘Get back, for God’s sake!’ bellowed another fireman.
For a few seconds, the blaze had been pegged by the jets of water. But as the flames merrily leapt back to life again, Flora, hastily retreating, out of the corner of her eye, suddenly saw a body on the ground.
For a crazed second, she thought it was some leering Silenus, caught catnapping in the wood after a surfeit of dryads. Then, slowly, horrifically, she realized that the lolling tongue, the hideously engorged lascivious features belonged to Rannaldini. Alpheus’s pink and purple dressing-gown had fallen open to reveal a mini watch-tower of an erection. Flora began to scream.
‘That’s Rannaldini! He’s been murdered.’
‘We have found a body,’ admitted the chief fire officer cautiously, ‘and the police are on their way. If I were you,’ he added to Clive, ‘I’d take this young lady back to the house.’
People were always screaming at Valhalla, often to the accompaniment of classical music. Cars frequently hurtled up the drive, helicopters landed like swarms of fireflies, shots were heard in the wood. As television was so dire on Sunday nights, many of the inhabitants of Paradise had got into the habit of switching off their lights, turning round their chairs and focusing their binoculars on the great abbey.
Those watching the goings-on on Sunday, 8 July, included old Miss Cricklade who took in ironing, pretty Sally and Betty, the maids who worked at Valhalla, Pat and Cath, two village beauties with crushes on Tristan, and that Paradise worthy, Lady Chisledon.
Having clocked Dame Hermione’s return from Milan and been disappointed by no sightings of Tristan on the tennis court, the spectators had assumed the flaming watch-tower was part of filming. But when five fire engines had been followed by Detective Sergeant Gablecross, the area CID man, in his battered Rover, and the we-ay, we-ay, we-ay of a police car with a flashing blue light, they realized something was up.
They were then delighted by the arrival of Detective Chief Inspector Gerald Portland, a local pin-up, who was equally delighted to have just returned from sailing in Turkey with a mahogany tan to flaunt at forthcoming press conferences.
Having seen that Rannaldini had not only been strangled but also shot through the heart, he ascertained murder had taken place and set in motion the wheels of inquiry. No doubt Chief Constable Swallow, a dinner guest at Valhalla, would soon ring Lady Rannaldini to express his sympathy.
In no time, two uniformed police had cordoned off not only Hangman’s Wood with blue and white ribbon but also the Paradise–Cheltenham road, which passed the main gates at Valhalla, for two hundred yards in either direction. A uniform car halted and took the names and addresses of everyone entering and leaving.
Watchers all down the valley were even more excited to see men in white hoods, overalls and boots, like astronauts landed on the moon, moving around the smouldering remains under brilliant floodlights. These were the scene-of-crime officers, videoing, fingerprinting, taking soil samples, waiting for the fire and ashes to cool, cursing under their breath that the fire brigade, who were more concerned with saving lives than trapping murderers, had drenched the place, hurrying as the storm drew nearer. The pathologist, due from Cardiff in an hour or two, would get soaked.
Up at Valhalla, two uniformed policemen were collecting names and addresses. Within half an hour twenty more were swarming in through the east gate, followed by three times as many press.
Rutminster Police were still recovering from the infamous Valhalla orgy in 1991 when PC, now DC, Lightfoot had rolled up to investigate complaints about noise and only been returned to the station with staring eyes thirty-six hours later.
Rannaldini had been cordially detested in the area. He had bribed too many local councillors in return for planning permission. There were endless rumours of rapes and unnatural practices. Two of the comelier village girls had vanished without trace in the past three years. Dark tales had always come out of Valhalla. To the legends of the Hanging Blacksmith and the Paradise Lad was now added that of the Strangled Maestro.
But despite their exp
ressionless faces as, armed with torches, they searched the sinister house and gardens, nothing could suppress the excitement of the police that this was bonanza time. The eyes of Scotland Yard, Interpol and the world would now be on little Rutminster. Every stop would be pulled out as they worked from dawn to long after midnight to find the killer. This would mean massive overtime to pay off mortgage and overdraft. Neither was the hunt tainted with sick revulsion over some fearful child abuse or loss of innocent life, only incredulity that no-one had murdered Rannaldini before.
Detective Sergeant Gablecross stayed with the body until the scene-of-crime men arrived, then made his way up to the house. He lived in nearby Eldercombe and knew a local network of villains, including Clive, as extensive as the secret passages under Valhalla. A racing fanatic, appalled by Rannaldini’s cruelty to horses, he had been trying to nail Rannaldini for years, but it seemed the Grim Reaper had got to the Grim Raper first. Gablecross’s primary emotion was passionate relief that overtime from the murder would pay for his daughter Diane’s eighteenth birthday party.
The tennis party, meanwhile, had retreated into the Summer Drawing Room.
‘This is diabolical,’ chuntered Alpheus. ‘Rannaldini’s name added billions to the film.’
‘You and Hermione will get top billing now,’ cried Griselda, as she waltzed round the room with Granny.
‘“A tombstone fell on him and squish-squash he died, squish-squash he died,”’ sang Granny, euphoric that with Rannaldini dead the police might not come and take him away. ‘“She went to heaven,”’ he trilled, ‘“and flip-flap she flied, flip-flap she flied.”’
‘For Chrissake, Granville,’ snapped Alpheus. ‘Most of us find this an unendurable strain.’
A second later, his mobile rang.
‘Hi there, who did you say?’ Alpheus turned his back on the room. ‘The London Times? The New York, ah. Well, if it was handled in a dignified fashion. Right, give me your number. There’s no need to call my agent, he only handles my performing and recording rights.’