by Jilly Cooper
‘She said you argued for several hours.’
‘Rubbish! I pass out.’
‘With respect, sir, you might not have been in a fit state to remember.’
‘I remember her going, I pass out under wipping ash, I also have a perfect motive for murder. Rannaldini set up party knowing I’d be kissing everyvun, then he introduce my vife. I love my vife, and he visks her off to votch-tower, and make me cockhold.’
Karen, who was given to laughter, buried her face in her notebook.
‘How d’you know Rannaldini took your wife to his watch-tower? Have you spoken to her since then?’
‘Of course not.’ Mikhail smote his breast. ‘Rannaldini visk all vomen to votch-tower. Whoever murder Rannaldini is ’ero. Vork is vonderful. I am booked for Figaro, for recording of Elijah. Cecilia Rannaldini, who play Delilah with me, who eat bass baritone for breakfast, ask me to stay in Rome.
‘But all that is nothing’, Mikhail unhooked Gablecross’s Parker pen from his breast pocket to sign the bill, ‘vizout my Lara. Vot price crocus-yellow Range Rover I just buy if there is no Lara to drive round steppes?’
He would be back on Wednesday or Thursday, he assured Gablecross, when they could talk more. ‘OK, Mr Wolfgang,’ he added, as Wolfie appeared at his shoulder. ‘I come and am quite sober.’ He belched loudly. ‘I am off to murder Eboli. Votch my knife slide into that bitch.’ Then he burst into earth-shattering song, ‘“Vot has he said? Unhappy woman, tremble,”’ as he strode off.
Gablecross turned to a grinning Karen. ‘Nice straight bloke.’ He liked men who loved their wives. ‘Goodlooking, too. Now where the hell did I put my pen?’
Overhead Jupiter danced a stately gavotte with a newish moon. Below the rows escalated.
‘The beetch keeked me on front legs,’ roared Mikhail.
‘I’m not having him brandishing that knife at me,’ screamed Chloe.
A white rose in a plant pot flew out of the maze, narrowly missing Gablecross’s head.
‘Don’t worry,’ said a soft, sweet voice, ‘they’re only psyching themselves up to sing. Come and have a nice cup of tea. My name’s Rozzy Pringle.’
The Tristan-worshipper, thought Karen.
Back in Make Up, which was deserted because Lucy was on the set, Karen saw that Rozzy had a lovely face but so criss-crossed with lines it was as though some Victorian beauty was peering through a lattice window.
Since her trip home for Glyn’s birthday, Rozzy had abandoned her short, becoming curls and regressed to her seventies style of straight hair falling to below her collarbones with a straggly fringe. Her pale pink lips, and big dark-ringed eyes were seventies too, as were the flat shoes, and the bra-less figure in the calf-length floral shift. Gablecross thought she looked like a hippie Deborah Kerr. His wife, Margaret, was a huge fan of Rozzy.
‘It was my husband Glyn’s fiftieth birthday yesterday,’ she confided. Switching on the kettle, she took some slices of chocolate cake from a polythene bag. ‘So I’ve brought back some of his cake. We’ve been married twenty years – it seems like yesterday. How long have you been married, Officer?’
Gablecross clapped his head with his palm. ‘You must remind me,’ he begged Karen. ‘It’s our twentieth anniversary on Sunday. Murder inquiries take over, you forget everything.’
‘Have you got kids?’ Karen asked Rozzy.
‘I’d so love to have had,’ sighed Rozzy. ‘My husband has two from a previous marriage. But how pretty you are, child.’ Rozzy gazed at Karen in wonder. ‘I bet you’re hungry. We’ve got basil in the window-box outside, I’ll make you some tomato sandwiches.’
‘Piece of cake’ll be fine,’ said Gablecross, who wanted to start the questions. ‘You must be upset about Rannaldini.’
‘Very.’ Rozzy’s eyes filled with tears. ‘He had such a dreadful childhood, you know. His father was a German officer, fighting in Italy at the end of the war, his mother an Italian intellectual. They fell in love, Rannaldini was the result. The officer went back to Germany, the Italian intellectual was married anyway to a farmer, but always felt little Roberto had blighted her political career. She was terribly harsh on him.’
Putting three tomatoes in a bowl, Rozzy poured boiling water on them. ‘Then, when Rannaldini was only in his teens,’ she went on, ‘he realized his fairy godmother had given him good looks, alarming charm and musical genius. The world was at his feet, and I’m afraid it spoilt him. But underneath he was sick at heart, because he’d had four wives and endless, endless women, but never been able to maintain anything permanent.’
‘What about Dame Hermione?’ asked Karen.
‘They made a huge amount of money for each other,’ said Rozzy tartly, ‘ditto Cecilia Rannaldini.’
‘How’d you know so much about him?’
‘We often worked together.’
With the swiftness of the working stepmother, forced to do things in a hurry, while she had been talking Rozzy had made a pot of tea, put milk in a jug, laid out cups and saucers, skinned and chopped the tomatoes, and topped them with basil, salt and pepper. Now she slapped them between slices of buttered brown bread.
‘Voilà.’ She put the plate of sandwiches in front of Karen. ‘Please tuck in too, Detective Sergeant.’
Gablecross patted his gut. ‘Can’t get into any of my suits. Could you describe your movements on Sunday?’
It seemed her husband’s birthday party hadn’t been much fun.
‘I came out of the kitchen and found Glyn kissing Sylvia, our nanny-stroke-housekeeper.’ Rozzy’s lip trembled. ‘Stroke’s the operative word. She’s very pretty, and it was his birthday.’
‘This sandwich is yummy. Did you have a lovely dress?’ said Karen, longing to cheer the poor lady up.
‘Rainbow-striped silk,’ said Rozzy, ‘I made it myself.’
‘What time did the party end?’ asked Gablecross, helping himself to a slice of chocolate cake.
‘After midnight, but I’m afraid I sloped off to bed about eight. It’d been going since lunchtime. I had a terrible migraine. About quarter to eleven I suddenly remembered I hadn’t rung Lucy. We’ve become such friends on Carlos. I was so distracted by the din still going on at our end that I forgot what I’d rung up for, so I called her back five minutes later to remind her to get Hermione’s cloak out of Wardrobe. The wretched thing’s gone missing. I wonder if Mikhail’s whipped it?’
‘Can I have your telephone number at home?’ asked Gablecross.
‘Actually I rang on my mobile. I found Sylvia’s things by Glyn’s and my bed,’ Rozzy blushed scarlet, ‘a horrid porn mag and a jar of baby oil, so I took refuge in the spare room, which doesn’t have a telephone.’ She gazed down at her roughened hands.
‘What a bastard.’ Karen attacked the chocolate cake. ‘I’d have given him a smack in the face for his birthday.’
Rozzy smiled. ‘Flora got her mother, Georgie Maguire, to sign her latest album and some photographs. Glyn is such a fan. He was over the moon, until Sylvia gave him a single of “S’Wonderful”. He played it all night.’
‘What a plonker,’ said Karen furiously.
Gablecross shot her a reproving look. He found Rozzy a little too helpful. He knew the type: professional martyr, brave little wife, who hadn’t the guts to walk out and who couldn’t bear to relinquish public sympathy. Lacking love at home, they embraced the whole world. Husband probably was a shit. Rozzy clutched herself when she wasn’t bustling about and blinked a lot. But Gablecross had stopped relying on body language after he’d seen himself on TV, making a statement at some press conference, blinking and twitching enough to be the Yorkshire Ripper.
‘When did you last see Rannaldini?’ he asked.
‘On Saturday morning. He’d caught me watering his plants very early. I couldn’t bear the way he let them die in the drought. He pulled me into his study and shouted at me. It didn’t last long.’
‘He seems to have rowed with everyone recently,’ Gablecross said, starting on the t
omato sandwiches. ‘Didn’t he and Tristan de Montigny fight over Tabitha Campbell-Black?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Gablecross had noticed that women’s voices grew shrill and men’s thickened whenever Tabitha’s name was mentioned.
‘We gather she was the only woman Tristan showed any interest in.’ Gablecross knew it was cruel, but he wanted to test Rozzy.
Rozzy went on pouring tea into his cup until it spilled over.
‘Tabitha had nearly burnt to death,’ she said sharply. ‘She was badly frightened. He was a grown-up comforting a child.’
‘Whose fault was it that the newspaper caught fire?’
‘Wolfie’s. He hadn’t checked properly and one can still contained petrol.’
‘Could he have tried to kill Tabitha?’
‘Of course not, but Tab and Tristan are quite unsuited. He reads Bach cello suites for pleasure in the evening. Tab’s thick, insensitive, and arrogant – just like her father. Tristan’s interest in her was over before it began.
‘Rannaldini gave Tristan a hard time,’ went on Rozzy, clearly not wanting to discuss Tab any more, ‘but he did love his godson. Tristan and I get on really well too. He’s doing Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne and he’s asked me to sing Octavian.’
‘Who could have killed Rannaldini?’
‘I have no idea. Perhaps it was some Mafia plot.’
‘When did you come back to Valhalla?’
‘Early this . . .’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Heavens, it’s after midnight. Early yesterday morning.’
‘How far’s Mallowfield?’
‘About fifty miles away.’
Seeing his detective constable was falling asleep, Gablecross ate the last sandwich and called it a day.
‘What a lovely lady,’ sighed Karen.
‘Bit too good to be true. We’d better talk to Glyn and check out her alibi, but it looks as though she’s in the clear. I wonder how DC Miller got on with Rupert Campbell-Black.’
‘There are some advantages to this job, if you get to meet Rupert Campbell-Black,’ said DC Miller in excitement. ‘He’s supposed to be the handsomest man in England.’
‘Only because he’s loaded and owns a bloody great mansion,’ snapped DS Fanshawe, slamming his foot on the accelerator as he turned into Rupert’s drive in the hope of smearing the rose-pink lipstick DC Miller was applying to her delectable mouth.
The beeches, forming a halo round Rupert’s lovely, pale gold Queen Anne house, were already turning. In the park below, beautiful horses with whisking tails had taken refuge from the heat under great bell-like trees. The rim of brown rush above the water’s edge showed how much the lake had dropped. A dozen cars were parked outside an open front door, but no-one answered the bell.
‘He’s not worried about burglars,’ said Debbie Miller.
Shuffling down a rose walk, ankle deep in petals, ducking to avoid spiky unpruned branches, they reached Rupert’s yard, which was immaculate but deserted except for a comely girl groom, who was reading a handsome chestnut colt his Daily Mail horoscope.
‘It’s Peppy Koala,’ said Debbie in awe. ‘Oh, can I stroke him?’
‘He’s almost as good-looking as you are.’ Fanshawe, who considered he had a way with the ladies, smiled at the girl groom. ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked, waving his ID card.
‘Down at the graveyard. I’d wait until they come back.’
But Fanshawe was in a hurry, and paused only to take the serial number of the dark blue helicopter parked in a field behind the stables. Beyond a tennis court surrounded by a shaggy beech hedge, under the shade of a huge cedar, half an acre of grass was fenced off, before the land rolled into fields. For generations, the Campbell-Blacks had buried their best-loved animals here.
Grouped round a single grave were about a hundred people – estate-workers, grooms, gardeners, Rupert’s ancient housekeeper Mrs Bodkin and her husband – most of whom were in tears.
‘That’s Lord O’Hara, and his wife Maud in the big black hat,’ hissed Debbie, who scoured the tabloids every day. ‘They’re Rupert’s in-laws, and there’s Taggie’s elder brother, Patrick – isn’t he to die for? And his partner Cameron Cook, she makes films, and there’s Taggie’s sister Caitlin. She married Lord Baddingham’s son, Archie, and Billy Lloyd-Foxe, who show-jumped for England, and his wife Janey, Beattie Johnson’s great rival. Beattie’s already been digging up the dirt down at Valhalla. Next to her, that gorgeous boy who’s crying is Lysander Hawkley. Now this is interesting, he’s married to Rannaldini’s third wife, Kitty – she’s the round-faced one comforting him. And oh, look, there’s Ricky France-Lynch! Isn’t he gorgeous? And his wife Daisy, the pretty dark one, she paints. They must have driven over from Eldercombe.’
‘You ought to work for Hello!,’ said Fanshawe sourly. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
Edging forward, they caught sight of Tabitha, who looked as though she’d been struck by lightning. A big purple bruise on her left temple and cuts down her right cheek added the only colour to her deathly pale face. She seemed about to collapse, and was being supported by Rupert’s head groom, Dizzy. Next to them, with a face of granite, stood Rupert, holding Xavier and Bianca by the hand. In her other hand Bianca clutched a jam-jar full of harebells, scabious and meadowsweet, while Xavier held on to a carrier-bag and a Labrador as sleek and black as his face. A dozen other dogs milled round, snapping at flies and panting but unusually quiet, and on the other side of the fence, in silent sympathy, stood Rupert’s great horse, Penscombe Pride, Tiny the Shetland, and several red and white cows.
Taggie Campbell-Black, paler even than Tabitha, biting her lip to stop herself crying, held Gertrude, wrapped in an old orange and blue blanket, in her arms. Dropping a last kiss on her white forehead, she laid the little dog on her beanbag, already in the grave. On a wonky wooden cross, Taggie had written the words: ‘Gurtrude, are most preshous treshure, is berried hear.’
No-one had corrected her spelling.
Stepping forward, Xav dropped a packet of Kit-Kats and a box of Bonios into the grave beside Gertrude, then took his mother’s hand. Suddenly Bianca ran forward and knelt by the grave.
‘If you’re just pretending, Gertrude,’ she called out, in a shrill voice, ‘now’s the time to wake up.’
For a second, laughter rippled round. Then Declan O’Hara stepped forward. Known to cry on every possible occasion, today he was dry-eyed.
‘We all loved Gertrude.’ His deep, tender Irish brogue echoed round the fields. ‘She lived with us in London and the Priory opposite for eight years, and then with Rupert and Taggie for ten. But even this year she would struggle across the valley every morning for a Bonio and a bowl of milk. What we will remember is Gertrude’s kindness and her merriness, but none of us would have imagined that such a frail body contained a heart as stout as Beth Gelert.’
As Tab gave a sob, covering her face with her hand, Debbie noticed the dark bruises along the side and up the little fingers. She must have fought someone off like a wild cat. For a second, she swayed. As Rupert caught her, she buried her face in his shoulder.
‘Nothing in Gertrude’s life became her like the leaving it,’ intoned Declan. ‘She died as one—’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Declan, get on,’ snapped Rupert.
‘We will never forget you,’ Declan’s voice broke, ‘and on your grave, with shining eyes, may the Cotswold stars look down.’
There were flowers everywhere. Xavier picked up a trowel to help his father as, with gritted jaw, Rupert heaped powdery earth over Gertrude’s body. The moment he’d finished, muttering about organizing drinks, frantic not to break down, he belted back to the house.
‘Pity, with such a turn-out, it wasn’t video’d,’ Declan’s wife Maud was saying fretfully.
Slumped in despair, Taggie stood alone by the grave. But as she turned for home, Debbie and Fanshawe pounced. It was a while before she took in what they were saying.
‘Tab’s had a terrible s
hock over Gertrude,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t think she can talk to you.’
‘She was at Valhalla, yesterday,’ said Fanshawe, flashing his teeth. ‘We need to ask her her whereabouts. Uniformed police will be along to fingerprint her later,’ he added smoothly.
‘You’d better come in,’ said Taggie.
Tabitha was in an even worse state, shivering on the drawing-room sofa, gazing into space. Debbie noticed her ankles, criss-crossed with red weals.
‘I’ll ask the questions,’ hissed Fanshawe.
‘Great turn-out for a little dog,’ he began.
Tab looked at him uncomprehendingly.
‘Wonder if you could tell us what you did yesterday from eight o’clock onwards?’
‘I worked my horse,’ said Tab, in a high, jerky voice.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ snarled Rupert, as he barged into the room.
‘Investigating the murder of Sir Roberto Rannaldini.’ Determined not to let nobs order him around, Fanshawe stood his ground. ‘We’re checking Mrs Lovell’s movements, in case she saw anything unusual.’
‘She didn’t,’ said Rupert coldly. ‘She came home because Gertrude died.’
‘Can we ask her a few questions?’
‘No, you fucking can’t.’ He turned to Tab. ‘You OK, darling?’
From next door could be heard voices and the popping of champagne corks.
‘Could we ask you a few questions, then?’ asked Debbie, smoothing her blonde bob. Rupert really was gorgeous.
‘If you want to, but you’d better be quick.’
‘I’ll do this one,’ hissed Debbie, as they followed Rupert into his office.
Debbie was very much into the non-confrontational, non-judgemental police interview. She was unfazed by the fact that Rupert was reading faxes, watching the first race runners in the paddock on Channel Four, and filling in entry forms. At least it meant he was relaxed.
‘I’d like you to shut your eyes, make your mind go blank, Mr Campbell-Black, and remember exactly what Tabitha said when she called you last night.’