by Jilly Cooper
‘Take it away,’ she hissed at the first driver. ‘You’re too bloody late. The Maestro wanted his ponds and lake filled up, but he’s dead, so we don’t need you any more.’
‘Yes, we do,’ shouted Wolfie, following her out through the omnia vincit amor arch. ‘Forecast says the heatwave’s coming back. I’m head of the house now,’ he added coolly, ‘and no ponds are drying up on me.’
Then, turning to Mr Brimscombe, who was rubbing his green fingers in glee that at last someone was taking on Bussage:
‘Please show the drivers where we need the water.’
‘You’re not the head of the house,’ Bussage exploded with rage. ‘I typed his last will. He left everything to Cecilia, and her family. She was the one he loved, who got the part of Delilah. Not a penny to you or your boring mother, or that gold-digging Helen or her slut of a daughter.’
In daylight, Wolfie could see the scurfy grey roots of Bussage’s oily dark hair, her malevolent little eyes, her open pores.
‘You’re fired, you disgusting bitch,’ he said furiously.
‘You can’t fire me!’
‘I bloody can!’
Dialling the car pool, he ordered a driver to take Miss Bussage to her sister’s house in an hour.
‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ lisped Clive.
‘That’ll give you time to pack,’ Wolfie told her. ‘We’ll send the rest of your stuff on later.’
Reaching inside his blazer pocket, resting his cheque book on his knee, he wrote her a cheque.
‘That’s six months’ salary. Consider yourself lucky.’
‘I’ll fight you through the courts.’
‘Feel free.’
Short of chaining herself to the balustrade, there was not much Bussage could do. Returning to her office, where she had reigned supreme and, for a while, experienced true love, she took the disks of Rannaldini memoirs and envelopes containing the most salacious photographs out of a filing cabinet and locked them into her briefcase, then went down to the cottage to pack.
‘Surely my father should go in an ambulance,’ protested Wolfie, as Rannaldini’s body was carried on a stretcher across yellowing lawns to a black mortuary van.
‘It’s considered unlucky to carry a body,’ said Gablecross gently. ‘Ambulances only take the living.’
As the mortuary van doors opened, Miss Bussage came out of Valhalla. Having loaded up her bags, Clive waited, smirking, by the limo. Saying goodbye to no-one, Bussage handed her card to Gablecross. ‘I’ll be at this address, I’d like to set the record straight.’
‘I’ll be in touch.’
On the steps outside the omnia vincit amor gates, Baby, Flora, Granny and an ashen Wolfie watched, with mixed emotions, the black van rumbling down the drive.
‘He was charismatic, glamorous, fearless,’ began Flora slowly, ‘a brilliant musician and the greatest conductor in the world.’ Her voice broke.
Wolfie’s face wobbled for a moment, then he put an arm round Flora’s shoulders. ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled.
And instinctively Baby launched into the heartbreakingly beautiful lament which he and Alpheus had sung over Posa’s body.
A few seconds later, Granny had joined in, singing Alpheus’s part, his clear voice ringing out less powerfully than Alpheus’s but with far more feeling. ‘“I have cast this man of pride and passion into the tomb,”’ he sang.
‘You should have played Philip,’ whispered Flora taking his hand.
Bernard had tried to persuade Rozzy to join him for a late lunch, but she wanted to pray for Rannaldini in the chapel. Gablecross found Bernard tucking into a large steak, pomme frites and half a bottle of rouge in the canteen, and started grumbling about Tristan’s lack of co-operation.
‘He’s only a boy,’ protested Bernard. ‘He’s had a bloody awful life, but the last six months have been the worst. Rannaldini was a monster. Tristan doesn’t mean to be rude, but the film comes first.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘I’ve known the family for thirty years.’
Breaking up a French loaf with those big red hands, which would have no difficulty strangling anyone, Bernard told Gablecross about being in the army with Tristan’s brother Laurent.
‘Tell me about the tennis match.’
‘Stormy.’ Bernard smiled, showing his rocking-horse teeth. ‘Women at the end of a shoot, all probably having their periods at the same time, all crying. Chloe and Gloria furious a part had gone to Rannaldini’s second wife, Lucy missing Tristan, Flora missing George – they’d had some row. Mikhail upset about his wife, Griselda and Meredith upset Rannaldini had sacked them. Alpheus cross Wolfie had smashed his Jaguar and Rannaldini wouldn’t give him another. Granville Hastings upset his boyfriend was on some troop ship. Wolfie in love with Tabitha, Simone mad about Wolfie.’
‘No-one very happy,’ said Gablecross who, without realizing it, was steadily eating Bernard’s chips. ‘Rannaldini was wearing Alpheus’s dressing-gown. Could someone have meant to kill him?’
‘Possible.’ Bernard tugged his moustache. ‘Nice guy, Alpheus, but somehow more unpopular than Rannaldini.’
‘Think any of them could have killed Rannaldini?’
‘All of them. It was the worst shoot I’ve ever been on, something had to give. Rannaldini needled Tristan crazy. Tristan adores that little madam, Tabitha. Rannaldini put the boot in there.’
‘Tell me more,’ said Gablecross.
Having averaged a couple of hours’ sleep and half a bottle of gin a day over the past week, Baby looked frightful.
‘You could drive to Rutminster on my red veins,’ he told Lucy, as she got to work with her paintbrushes and pencils, smudging, moulding, embellishing, only half listening to the interminable news bulletins and the chat between Baby and Flora, who had sought refuge in her caravan.
‘Hermione, Helen and Gloria are all seeing bereavement counsellors,’ said Flora.
‘Then why can’t I?’ grumbled Baby.
‘You loathed Rannaldini,’ chided Lucy.
‘I know. But I adore talking about myself.’
Noticing Flora was trembling again, Baby put a hand on hers.
‘It’s OK, sweetheart. Rannaldini was murdered for revenge or to stop him doing something even more unspeakable. Now he’s out of the way there’s no need to murder anyone else.’
‘There is, if someone’s still got the memoirs and the photos,’ shivered Flora.
Next moment, they were distracted by John Dunne’s voice on the wireless. ‘The music world is in shock and mourning today for Sir Roberto Rannaldini,’ he was saying. ‘We have on the line someone who worked with Sir Roberto for many years, the great diva Dame Hermione Harefield.’
‘Turn it up,’ beseeched Baby.
‘Roberto Rannaldini was a great conductor, a father figure, and the closest possible personal friend.’ Hermione’s voice throbbed with emotion. ‘He had an amazing gift for recognizing genius in the young. Nearly twenty years ago he cast me as Elisabetta in Don Carlos, the part I am singing at the moment. After that first night I well remember Rannaldini saying, “You have the loveliest voice I have ever heard, Dame Hermione.” No, I tell a lie, I wasn’t a dame in those days.’
The inhabitants of Lucy’s caravan were clutching their sides, when Hermione was interrupted by an impatient clicking on the line, and a shrill voice saying, ‘Get off the fucking line, Mum. I gotta ring Ladbrokes.’
Little Cosmo, who had smashed his mobile in a fit of temper that morning, wished to use his mother’s telephone. To accompanying squawks, John Dunne could be heard saying firmly, ‘I’m afraid we’ve lost Dame Hermione.’
Miss Bussage enjoyed the journey to her sister’s house. If, as promised, she had become the fifth Lady Rannaldini, she would have travelled always in a limo, although she would have preferred that leering scoundrel Clive to have worn his chauffeur’s cap.
She had no regrets. Valhalla without Rannaldini would have been like lemon and black pepp
er without oysters. Anyway, whichever newspaper eventually bought the memoirs would give her enough to live on comfortably for the rest of her life.
When she arrived, she couldn’t resist getting out the floppy disks and the photographs so she and her sister could have a gloat together. Only when she tried to print out the disks did she find they’d been switched for blanks and the dirty pictures all replaced with a pile of Rannaldini’s fan photographs. Her howl of rage could have woken Rannaldini in his chill chamber in Rutminster Mortuary eighty miles away.
With all the rescheduling, Gablecross and Needham were anxious to interview the released singers before they dispersed. They caught Alpheus by the pool, bronzed and glistening from his daily twenty lengths.
What a hunk, thought Karen, feeling herself blush as Alpheus’s wet hand held hers a fraction longer than necessary as he crinkled his eyes at her. ‘I don’t know if policewomen are getting younger, but they’re sure getting more beautiful.’
‘You sure keep in shape.’
‘There’s no excuse for singers to gain weight,’ said Alpheus, lovingly drying his rippling muscles.
‘What were you doing between nine thirty p.m. and eleven thirty yesterday?’ asked Gablecross sharply.
‘Finishing off a tennis match.’
‘I bet you play real good,’ said Karen admiringly.
‘I used to be rated in the top fifty.’
As he vigorously rubbed his hair, Alpheus was frantic to sculpt his waves with a blow-dryer, but didn’t want to appear a cissy in front of Karen.
‘I can only give you a few minutes, Officer,’ he said. ‘I’ve shifted a recording to Milan tomorrow and Lady Rannaldini is kindly lending me the Gulf.’
‘Why did you throw the game?’ asked Gablecross.
‘I had a delightful but not very strong partner, and my mind was on other things.’
‘According to our information, you left around nine thirty and didn’t stay to watch the finals.’
‘I didn’t want to catch cold.’
‘In ninety degrees?’
‘To be truthful,’ Alpheus pulled a face, ‘I was choked about not winning. Singers are overly competitive.’
After that, he said, he had swum his twenty lengths in the dusk. ‘Then I jogged back to Jasmine Cottage, showered, changed, then called my agent Christopher Shepherd of Shepherd Denston. My Carlos contract promised to release me by 8 July. I wanted him to pacify the record company and negotiate a few days’ vacation with my wife before I start Don Giovanni.’
‘What time did you ring him?’
‘Around ten thirty, I guess, but it won’t show on the phone bill. My agent and I have a code. I let the phone ring four times so he knows it’s me and calls me back. He takes twenty per cent of my earnings so he can pay for a few calls.’
‘May we have your agent’s number?’
Karen had studied body language. Alpheus was clearly nervous, the way he kept fiddling with his hair.
‘How did you get on with Rannaldini?’ she asked.
‘Between great artists there is a bond,’ said Alpheus firmly.
‘You were overheard having an argument on Saturday morning.’
‘Of course we fought – artists do. I was angry he had favoured Granville Hastings, not a great voice, on the tape. Rannaldini wanted to justify his decision to employ him. All conductors do this. My powerful instrument can stand it,’ said Alpheus pompously. God, if he didn’t get to a blow-dryer soon, he’d have an Afro.
‘Is it true you were close to your tennis partner, Gloria Prescott?’
‘It is the duty of the established singer to encourage talent,’ said Alpheus. ‘It’s even more gratifying when a fine voice belongs to a charming young woman.’ He winked at Karen.
‘We’ve had information you argued with Rannaldini about her, and about the attention Rannaldini was paying to your wife.’
‘Rumour, rumour. If you say good morning round here people think you’re in a relationship. Little minds have little else to do than fabricate stories about the famous.’
‘Why did you move into Dame Hermione’s cottage?’
‘To spend quality time with my wife. We’re big animal people. Mr Bones, our German shepherd, pines without her. We can’t bring him here because of your goddam quarantine laws so Cheryl never visits for more than a week.’ That should endear me to a traditionally dog-loving English cop, thought Alpheus sourly. ‘When Cheryl is here, we like to be alone,’ he went on, ‘and, frankly, not having been to an English public school like you, Officer,’ Alpheus crinkled his eyes again – let’s flatter the square-faced bastard, ‘I found the dormitory atmosphere at Valhalla claustrophobic, so Dame Hermione, a good friend, lent us Jasmine Cottage. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .’ Alpheus smothered himself in a white towelling bathrobe.
‘Have you any idea who might have killed Rannaldini?’
‘Must be an outside job. No-one involved in this movie would want Rannaldini off the credits.’
‘You wore a pink and purple dressing-gown to play Philip.’
‘Sing Philip,’ said Alpheus fussily.
‘D’you know where it is?’
‘In Wardrobe, I guess.’
‘Rannaldini was wearing it when he was murdered,’ said Gablecross.
Clearly this jolted Alpheus: his wedding-ring glittered and quivered as his shaking hand moved through his hair. Had Cheryl taken the dressing-gown from the back of the wardrobe at Jasmine Cottage, he wondered, and given it to Rannaldini, who’d always coveted it?
‘D’you think someone could have mistaken Rannaldini for you?’
‘I have no enemies,’ said Alpheus coldly.
‘Alpheus Shaw claims to have no enemies,’ said Gablecross.
‘Nor has he many friends,’ said Flora. ‘But I mustn’t speak ill of the alive, in case you take it down in evidence against me.’
They found her slumped in Lucy’s caravan, watched beadily by Foxie, her puppet mascot, and Trevor the terrier. She was three-quarters down a bottle of white and was reading a small, leatherbound book in bad light. She looked wretched, deathly pale and red-eyed.
‘I suppose you’re not allowed drink. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘We’ve had about a gallon each,’ said Gablecross sitting down opposite her. Karen edged wide-eyed towards Lucy’s make-up table.
Tipping the spine of Flora’s book, Gablecross saw it was Macbeth.
‘Enjoying it?’
‘Suits my mood,’ shivered Flora.
‘“And wither’d murder”’ she read out, ‘“. . . thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost.” Can’t imagine anyone withered or ghostly being strong enough to murder Rannaldini.’
‘Rage and adrenalin’, pronounced Gablecross, ‘give the smallest, frailest person strength.’
‘That puts little Meredith in the frame,’ said Flora. ‘He’s never forgiven Rannaldini for calling his auto da fe set suburban.’
‘Fond of him, were you?’
‘Rannaldini? No, I loathed him. He seduced me when I was sixteen, then dumped me. But it’s still a shock.’
‘What were you doing between nine thirty and eleven thirty last night?’
‘Getting pissed, mostly. Then I went home to feed the cat. My parents live next door – you can see the stone angels through the trees. I hadn’t realized how dark it was so I skirted the rose gardens, the maze and the stables and ran past our pond on the right.’
‘Who saw you at home?’
‘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 ha
y. 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.