by Jilly Cooper
‘Meredith Whalen was even more forthright.’ DC Smithson pursed unpainted lips. ‘He said why didn’t we buck up and bury Rannaldini so he could organize a grand ball for three hundred people to dance on his grave?’
Portland laughed – so everyone else did.
‘Has Meredith got an alibi?’ he asked.
DC Lightfoot puffed out his cheeks and went even pinker. ‘Well, he claims to have sloped off and had a half-hour lovey-dovey chat with his boyfriend, Hermione’s husband Bobby, in Australia after he’d finished umpiring the finals – oh my God!’
‘You’re right, lad,’ chipped in Gablecross. ‘That was when Dame Hermione claims she was having a loveydovey chat with Bobby in Australia.’
‘Perhaps they were on a conference call,’ giggled Karen.
‘Melbourne can sort that out too,’ grinned Portland. ‘Rozzy Pringle, poor lady, checks out,’ he went on. ‘But why did Rannaldini make a note to ring Glyn, her husband? You and Karen go and see him, Tim.’
‘I could have cheered when Rozzy told that MCP Campbell-Black to eff off,’ said DC Smithson.
Every surface of Portland’s immaculate office was now covered with paper cups and overflowing ashtrays. As other pairs were given their orders, Gablecross fought sleep. Buoyed up by the findings of the safe, the team were now exhausted at having to assimilate so much information and in need of another fix.
It came from the gallant fingertip team who, having crawled through brushwood, brambles and nettles, had finally concluded their search. Their findings had been passed on to the lab to be printed and analysed, but included, said Portland, as he opened an orange file, an opaque glass lighter patterned with lilies.
‘Tristan de Montigny was looking for his on Monday morning and he made a film called The Lily in the Valley,’ said Karen excitedly.
‘Good girl. An empty two-litre bottle of vodka. That’ll be Mikhail Pezcherov’s,’ said Fanshawe.
‘Green chewing-gum, probably chucked out by some young lady sweetening her breath for a lover’s tryst,’ went on Portland. ‘Vomit containing sweetcorn, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, a tumbler engraved with Rannaldini’s initials and marked with coral-pink lipstick, a handsome gold signet ring, a dark crimson lipstick.’
Chloe, thought Karen, with satisfaction.
Among other discoveries were a blue petrol can reeking of paraffin, several used condoms, a dog lead, a number of green and pink tennis balls and a bullet lodged deep in the ground. Also noted had been a crushed clump of deadly nightshade, hemlock and agrimony.
‘We’ll provide you with the list.’ Portland glanced at his watch. ‘That should give you plenty to be going on with.’ Then, turning to DC Lightfoot with a sceptical grin, ‘Any more on Rannaldini’s ghost in the highwayman’s cloak signing Lady Griselda’s receipt?’
Lightfoot shook his head. ‘Nothing, except we searched Wardrobe and Rannaldini’s house. Not a trace of the cloak anywhere.’
‘Oooh, how creepy,’ shivered Debbie.
‘People on the unit think so too,’ said DC Lightfoot. ‘They’re very jumpy.’
‘Clive is certain Rannaldini’s still around,’ volunteered Gablecross.
‘They’re a bunch of hysterics,’ said Portland slowly, ‘but we mustn’t rule out the fact that the murderer could be impersonating Rannaldini to give himself anonymity and putting the shits up everyone. Now, bugger off, all of you.’ He waved the video tapes, ‘I’m going to spend the morning at the pictures.’
Then, as everyone shuffled out of the room with their paper cups and ashtrays, he said, ‘Mind staying on a second, Tim?’
Fanshawe looked delighted: Gablecross was clearly in for a bollocking. Gablecross thought so too, until Portland smiled engagingly.
‘Count yourself publicly reprimanded,’ he said, slamming the door. ‘But well done, we’ve made a big step forward. Let’s chew the cud and have a decent coffee,’ he added, switching on the percolator, ‘then go and see what the pathologist has to tell us. Her report’s going to be longer than Rannaldini’s memoirs. I called off the press conference. You were right. Lady Rannaldini’s off the wall, and Dame Hermione wanted to charge twenty thousand for the use of her services.’
The post-mortem revealed a wonderfully fit body, showing no sign of ageing, with the huge shoulder muscles of a conductor and an athlete.
‘It would have taken a super-strong person to strangle him,’ Dr Meadows’s freckled face was perplexed, ‘or someone fuelled by such a hatred or fear. He died’, she consulted her notes, ‘some time between ten fifteen and eleven fifteen. There were broken blood vessels and deep tissue injuries to the neck, and whoever strangled him was wearing a large stone or a signet ring, probably on the little finger of the left hand. The stone cut into the flesh and appears to have swung round to the palm side, perhaps because the wearer had lost weight.’
‘Check on everyone wearing rings,’ said Portland.
For a second, Gablecross had visions of Rupert’s big gold ring glinting in Oscar’s lights.
‘He was shot through the heart by a gun of the .38 type,’ went on Dr Meadows, ‘but the angle of the exit wound in his back suggests it happened when he was lying down, fired by someone about twelve feet away.’
‘At the same time?’ asked Gablecross.
‘No, I reckon about fifteen minutes after the strangulation.’
‘He had lacerations on his face and a big gash on the side of his head, which suggests he was pushed or fell against a sharp object, or perhaps the murderer hit him with an iron bar or a spade.’
‘There was also’, she went on, ‘saliva on his chest hair, traces of saliva in his mouth, saliva, canine and human blood on his dressing-gown and a bite on the ankle from an old dog with very few teeth. In addition there was perfume and lipstick, human hair and flakes of skin on his dressing-gown, and flakes of skin under his fingernails.’
‘Quite a lot of activity,’ said Portland.
‘There was also extensive bruising on his chest and face, a couple of cracked ribs, semen stains down his left thigh and vaginal fluid on his penis, suggesting brief penetration then ejaculation after the victim managed to struggle away.’
‘That figures.’ Gablecross and Portland exchanged glances.
‘Carpet fibres on the elbows and outside edges of the forearms also suggest that intercourse or rape took place indoors.’
‘On the lounge floor of the watch-tower?’ suggested Gablecross.
‘The rape victim clearly put up one hell of a struggle,’ added Dr Meadows, ‘but from the colour of the bruises and the drying of the semen – now, this is interesting – the rape took place a good twenty minutes before the point of death. As I already surmised, the shooting took place a good quarter of an hour after that.’
‘So he pushed his victim on to the carpet,’ mused Gerry Portland, ‘raped her. Maybe the dog – probably Campbell-Black’s dog, Gertrude – bit and distracted him, and the victim escaped.’
‘He pursued her into the wood,’ said Gablecross.
‘And walked some seventy-five yards looking for her – grass seed, enchanter’s nightshade and traces of hemlock were all found on his bare feet and dressing gown,’ volunteered Dr Meadows. ‘There was no evidence he was dragged outside.’
‘Perhaps the rape victim waited behind a tree and surprised him,’ suggested Portland.
‘Perhaps, but the evidence shows he was retracing his steps, because he fell backwards, as he was strangled, with his feet pointing to the watch-tower.’
‘Probably heard Dame Hermione singing,’ said Gablecross, putting his palms to his forehead, desperately trying to visualize the whole thing. ‘It would be impossible to strangle someone while they were raping you then shoot them as well. You’d have to pull the trigger with your little toe.’
‘Another abnormality,’ went on Dr Meadows. ‘At the moment of death there was extreme sexual arousal but no hint of panic or fear. He was completely relaxed so the murderer appears to hav
e been someone he knew and was delighted to see.’
‘Dame Hermione?’ pondered Gablecross. ‘He’d had a helluva row with her. Perhaps he was delighted she’d rolled up to make it up. Or perhaps he thought Tabitha had forgiven him.’
‘Or someone disguised as them,’ murmured Gerry Portland.
It would be hard to discern features at that hour of night, thought Gablecross, like Carlos mistaking Eboli for Elisabetta.
‘Finally,’ Dr Meadows turned over a page, ‘Rannaldini’s body was near enough to the watch-tower for the murderer realistically to hope he’d be torched in the fire and all the evidence of rape and DNA destroyed with him. There was ash on his body, but no smoke breathed into his lungs, so he died well before the watch-tower caught fire.’
‘Which the fire brigade think was started by paraffin around eleven twenty,’ said Portland, ‘presumably from the blue can found in the wood.’
‘From which all the fingerprints had been carefully wiped,’ added Gablecross.
‘So.’ Again the two men gazed at each other.
‘If one person had done all these things,’ said Portland quickly, ‘they would have been raped in Rannaldini’s watch-tower, strangled him outside, blasted him with a .38, had a butcher’s at the memoirs and decided to torch them as well.’
‘They would have to have humped a can of paraffin and a gun into the wood,’ continued Gablecross. ‘And Mr Brimscombe said Tab was empty-handed when he saw her running towards the watch-tower.’
‘Still could have used those hands to strangle him. Or after being raped she could have escaped, run to the phone, alerted Wolfgang or her dad, both of whom could have rolled up separately and taken out Rannaldini.’
‘They both wear signet rings on their little fingers.’
‘Perhaps Tabitha or someone strangled Rannaldini, found they weren’t strong enough and finished him off with the gun.’
Dr Meadows shrugged. ‘Possible but unlikely, bearing in mind the time lapses occurring between the two events.’
‘Unless someone quite separate from the rape’, said Gablecross, ‘turned up with a gun, shot him to steal the Montigny, the Picasso and the memoirs.’
‘And flogged them both for a fucking fortune. Good thinking. Could be the work of four isolated people, or a gang of people working together. Let’s DNA everyone who doesn’t check out.’
Portland turned to Meadows. ‘You have been a miracle as usual.’ He was about to kiss her hand but then, dubious at where it might have been, kissed her freckled, blushing cheek instead.
‘You and Karen buzz off,’ he added to Gablecross, ‘and see what you can find out from Lucy and Baby. Try to nail Isa Lovell and Granville Hastings as soon as possible. I’m off to the one and nines.’
Back at Valhalla, James, no respecter of the rigours of night-shooting, decided that ten thirty was time for a walk and squeaked and pawed the cupboards of the caravan until his weary mistress dressed and took him outside.
Walks, once her favourite pastime, gave Lucy no pleasure now. Every time James froze or dived into the undergrowth she expected the murderer to jump out. Resolutely avoiding Hangman’s Wood she headed north-east towards Cathedral Copse.
James, however, decided this was boring and swinging round, totally ignoring Lucy’s shrieks, hurtled towards Hangman’s Wood, bent on games with German shepherds.
Lucy had no option but to tear after him. Nothing much grew under the towering beeches of Cathedral Copse but in Hangman’s Wood, beneath ancient limes, chestnuts, oaks and sycamores broad enough in girth to conceal any lurking killer, thrived a treacherous tangle of traveller’s joy, nettles, brambles and goosegrass.
Everything reminded Lucy of death and decay. Ivy hung brown and sere from tree-trunks; moss on the banks was dusty, parched and yellow. Only an occasional torchbeam of sunlight penetrated the tree ceiling pushed down by Monday’s downpour. The German shepherds had left, but there were rustlings and bangings everywhere.
‘Oh, come back, please, James,’ shrieked Lucy.
Then she heard footsteps thundering after her, and broke into a run, tripping over the roots that groped the path like arthritic fingers. They were getting nearer. She let out a scream of terror, then felt a complete idiot as, with lurcher acceleration, which on the hard ground sounded like a herd of buffalo, James shot past her, shimmied round and landed at her feet with nonchalantly wagging tail.
‘Bloody dog.’ Grabbing his green collar, Lucy shook it furiously, ‘Don’t you dare run off like that again!’
Next moment, Karen and Gablecross pounded round the corner. ‘You all right, Miss?’
‘Fine,’ muttered Lucy, in embarrassment. ‘James hurtled up and frightened the life out of me. We’re all a bit uptight – every shadow seems a ghost.’
Gablecross introduced Karen and said he hadn’t bothered Lucy before because she’d seemed so busy, but could he ask her a few questions after they’d checked out the wood?
James had had his breakfast and, stretched out on the bench seat pensively licking liver gravy off his whiskers, had no intention of relinquishing his position, so when Karen and Gablecross appeared Lucy cleared a couple of chairs and switched on the kettle. As she put her brushes and combs to soak in a bowl of Fairy Liquid, she described the tennis tournament. ‘I gave Wolfie back his signet ring after the last match,’ she said finally, ‘then I came back to Valhalla and rang my mother.’
‘Everyone seems to have rung their mother,’ observed Gablecross.
‘It was Sunday night – you feel a bit low.’
‘She was pleased to hear from you?’
‘Not awfully,’ confessed Lucy. ‘She was asleep. I hadn’t realized it was gone eleven o’clock. Then I went along to the party.’
‘Any idea who might have done it?’
‘Any of us, I suppose, except Oscar, and Valentin, and darling Rozzy, who was at her vile husband’s birthday party,’ Lucy got a packet of shortbread out of the cupboard, ‘and Mikhail, who was far too hammered to do anything.’
James, who’d been corrugating his long nose in search of fleas, opened a long yellow eye as Lucy took off the wrapping.
‘Lovely dog,’ said Karen from a safe distance.
‘They’re known as gazehounds because they hunt by sight rather than scent, and funnily enough when I was taking him for a quick run round Hangman’s Wood after the tennis he suddenly bounded forward, wagging his tail as though he recognized someone.’
‘Who does he like?’
‘Well, Tabitha, Wolfie, Baby, Granny, Flora, Rozzy, of course. He adores Alpheus too. Alpheus loves dogs, and misses his German shepherd, Mr Bones.’
‘Tristan?’ asked Gablecross innocently.
‘Oh yes,’ Lucy’s voice softened, ‘James adores Tristan, but it couldn’t have been Tristan, he was in France.’
‘Mikhail says he saw him.’
‘He’d have seen him in quadruple, he was so drunk.’
Gablecross liked Lucy. She looked so reassuringly normal. Her voice after the initial screaming was so soft, he liked her large sludgy green eyes, and her turned-up nose and big generous mouth, plenty of openings in an open face.
‘Rozzy Pringle adores Tristan, doesn’t she?’
‘Not difficult,’ said Lucy quickly. ‘He’s been so kind to her, and I don’t know what we’d have done without her. She sewed up Flora’s puppet fox when some fiend cut it to pieces.
‘A lot of unpleasant things have been happening,’ she went on.
As the kettle boiled and switched itself off, she told them about the slug pellets, and the champagne that burnt a hole in the tablecloth.
‘What happened to the glass?’
‘It shattered as Rannaldini took a sip out of it. Dame Hermione sang a top note. Rannaldini doesn’t normally drink before conducting, maybe Hermione meant it for me and launched into song when she realized he’d picked up the glass. Oh, God.’
‘Who brought the glass in?’ asked Karen.
‘I d
on’t remember,’ lied Lucy. ‘We were so busy that night. I’d always assumed it was Rannaldini, or Clive on his instructions doing these horrible things, but now . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘People talk to you,’ said Karen admiringly.
‘Like they talk to minicab drivers and hairdressers,’ said Lucy, with a shrug. ‘There’s no eye-contact. They tend to babble things out because they’re nervous of going on the set, and you’re not likely to meet them socially after the movie,’ she added, with a trace of bitterness, ‘so they feel they can let their hair down.’
‘Does Rozzy Pringle’s husband know she’s got cancer?’
‘Oh, no,’ whispered Lucy in horror. ‘Who told you that?’
‘We’re not free to reveal our sources,’ said Gablecross sententiously.
‘Oh, goodness.’ Lucy collapsed on the bench seat, too close to James, triggering off a low growl and a flash of long fangs. ‘Oh, poor Rozzy, she’s frantic for people not to know. It could finish her career. I have to cover for her each time she goes for treatment. Oh, please don’t tell anyone.’ With frantically trembling hands she gathered up the empty blue mugs she’d put in front of Gablecross and Karen and shoved them back in the cupboard.
‘Who else knows?’
‘Only Tristan. I shouldn’t have told him, Rozzy would kill me, but I was so upset. Tristan was wonderful, he offered her a part in Der Rosenkavalier, way in the future, which she’ll never be able to take up, but just to keep up her spirits.’
‘Tristan de Montigny has admitted he was in England on Sunday night,’ said Karen, noticing Lucy’s eyes darting in terror. ‘Said he was looking for locations in the Forest of Dean.’
‘That’s utterly logical,’ gabbled Lucy. ‘He hadn’t slept for weeks, keeping the whole show on the road.’
‘Talked a lot to you, didn’t he?’
‘Probably because I didn’t want to know my motivation for putting on blusher.’
‘Women got very jealous he spent so much time with you,’ persisted Karen. ‘But he doesn’t seem to have wanted to sleep with any of them.’