by Jilly Cooper
Alpheus was hopping, particularly as he’d just read Hermione’s interview in the Daily Telegraph: ‘Now Rannaldini has passed away, it is my duty to shine more brightly as the only star in Don Carlos.’
Alpheus was also brooding over the loss of his Jaguar, which a newly steely Sexton was refusing to replace.
At ten thirty on Thursday morning, therefore, Alpheus drew Fanshawe and Debbie into his caravan and confessed he had been withholding information because he wanted to protect his colleagues. After wrestling with his conscience since Monday, he felt he must reveal that, on his jog through the dusk to Jasmine Cottage on Sunday night around ten thirty, he had seen Sexton’s maroon Roller parked under Dame Hermione’s Judas tree.
Having taken a statement, trying not to betray their glee that they were about to rush in where Gablecrosspatch had failed to dent, Fanshawe and Debbie also, at long last, found a chink in Simone’s frantic schedule.
As she stuck Polaroids of Mikhail, Baby and Chloe into a huge scrapbook, she said how furious she was with Chloe.
‘How dare she tell flics I had said my uncle Tristan never went to Aunt Hortense’s birthday party. She eaves-drip my private conversation with Lucy. No-one appreciate pressure in making this movie. Tristan’s head was too much in it to go to a party. Can you imagine Beethoven stopping composing Ninth symphony to go to aunt’s bunfight?’
Furiously Simone drew a black Pentel moustache on Chloe’s Polaroid.
She was very young, Fanshawe told Simone, to have such a responsible job.
‘I am Tristan’s niece. Everyone theenk favori du roi so I must be better than everyone.’
‘You notice things?’
‘It is my job.’
‘Bet you didn’t notice ten things out of the ordinary on Sunday night,’ said Debbie Miller.
‘Bet I did.’ Simone covered Chloe’s dimpled chin with a black beard. ‘Mikhail change his shoes and put on loafers before he finally come into house. And I notice lots about Chloe. For first time she come in without lipstick – always she wears bright crimson colour and she look much better without it. She had also changed her clothes. She still wore tennis skirt . . . but . . . folds?’
‘Pleats?’ suggested Debbie.
‘Oui, oui, but the pleats were bigger, and on her T-shirt the blue stripes were paler and wider, but look same.’
‘Why?’
‘She must have change for a man,’ said Simone darkly, ‘but didn’t want to show it.’
‘Well done. Who d’you think it was?’
‘Probably Alpheus – they leave at same time.’
‘That’s six things,’ said a counting Fanshawe.
‘And Sexton,’ Simone giggled, ‘he had reine de pré in his hair and steeking out of the back of his trousers, and gaillet in the buckle of his Guccis and in his medallion.’
Debbie Miller was writing frantically. ‘What’s reine de pré and gaillet?’
‘Wild flowers.’
‘Should have been London Pride,’ giggled Debbie. ‘He claimed he was in town.’
‘Perhaps it was Sexton rolled in the grass with Mees Chloe Super-bitch, that’s eight things. And Bernard ’ave ash in his hair, and Helen come in wearing false eyelashes and black pencilled eyebrows as eef she cover up singeing.’
‘Very good,’ said Fanshawe delightedly.
‘So Bernard and Helen could have been in the wood,’ squeaked Debbie.
‘And Sexton up to no good,’ shrugged Simone. ‘Chloe could also have been with Mikhail or Alpheus, although I think now they both hate her.’
‘Who around here wears signet rings or rings on their left hand little finger?’ asked Fanshawe.
‘Rupert Campbell-Black.’ Simone glanced up at the telephone list. ‘Granny. Tristan, although he hasn’t worn it recently. Now, Sexton is interesting. He used to wear a signet ring on wedding-ring finger, but since ’Ermione thinks he go to Eton, he move it to leetle finger, and it is too loose, so he ’old it on like Prince Charles.
‘Valentin, Oscar and Bernard all wear wedding rings,’ she continued. ‘Griselda wear bloodstone on little finger, ’Ermione often wear big diamond Rannaldini gave her, Gloria like flaunting big sapphire, probably a fake, Rannaldini also give her that too. Wolfie’s signet ring keeps falling off because he lose so much weight too, so in the finals he gave it to Lucy to wear for him.’
‘Was Lucy there all the time?’
‘No, she take James away for queek run. He was whining but she was back before we finish and she give ring back to Wolfgang.’
So both Lucy and Wolfgang could have nipped into the wood and done the business, thought Fanshawe.
‘Why d’you want to know?’ Simone gave Chloe’s Polaroid a squint.
‘We have reason to believe the murderer was wearing a big ring when he strangled Rannaldini.’
‘Then, it could have been me,’ laughed Simone. On the little finger of her tiny left hand glinted an amber in a gold setting.
‘That’s beautiful,’ gasped Debbie. ‘Who gave you that?’
‘A secret admirer – too precious to tell anyone.’
‘You had no motive to kill Rannaldini,’ teased Fanshawe.
‘Only for putting artistic consideration before continuity,’ said Simone, with unconcealed venom.
After all this evidence, Sexton’s alibi of speeding in his maroon Roller down the M4, after a weekend of heroically raising money, and Hermione’s, of watching Pride and Prejudice, ringing her husband Bobby, and spending quality time with Little Cosmo, were looking thin.
Fanshawe and Debbie found Hermione alone and just managing to polish off a large tub of pistachio and ginger ice cream. She had lost a stone and a half, received six and a half thousand letters, she told them, and was ready to return to the set tomorrow because she couldn’t let down Rupert Campbell-Black.
Hermione rather liked Fanshawe’s sleek dark hair and flat stomach until he accused her of not watching Pride and Prejudice.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, it’s my favourite novel. Why isn’t Timothy conducting this interview?’
‘Nor did you ring your husband.’
‘Oh, well, it must have been the day before. When one is jet-lagged and wrestling with artistic problems, time ceases to have any meaning.’
‘Evidently. How d’you explain the fact that Mr Kemp’s Rolls-Royce was parked under your Judas tree at around ten twenty, and Mr Kemp’s clothes, when he finally rolled up at Valhalla some time after two o’clock in the morning, were covered in lady’s bedstraw and meadowsweet? In fact, Mr Kemp lied to us about being on the M4 at the time of the murder, Dame Hermione. He was at River House with you.’
If Sergeant Fanshawe had expected a battle of wits he was disappointed.
‘Indeed,’ Dame Hermione bowed her head, ‘I must tell you the truth, Officer. Are you married?’
‘I have a partner.’
‘I am a married woman, but Sexton and I found we cared deeply for each other, and our love tryst occurred in the summerhouse on Sunday evening. Sexton laid down a carpet of lady’s bedstraw and meadowsweet, which was what Elisabetta would have lain on in the sixteenth century.’
‘Didn’t you notice the fire engines and the police sirens and the watch-tower going up in flames?’ asked Fanshawe in amazement.
‘The summerhouse is behind River House, so one cannot see the watch-tower – and frankly, Officer, we were too busy setting each other aflame.’
Debbie Miller had contracted Karen’s complaint, and was laughing so much she had to gaze out of the window.
‘Why did you lie about this, Dame Hermione?’
‘I couldn’t humiliate my husband, Bobby.’
‘You and Rannaldini managed to humiliate him for the last few years,’ snapped Fanshawe, ‘presumably your husband knew which side his bread was buttered when the royalties came in.’
‘Unkind, Officer.’ Hermione bowed reproachfully.
‘Did you know that Rannaldini was planning to have his vasectomy
reversed so he could have children?’
‘I am not past childbearing age. Cosmo would have adored a little sibling.’
‘Numerous independent witnesses heard you singing in the wood on Sunday night, Dame Hermione. I suggest Rannaldini had humiliated you and Mr Kemp intolerably on Friday night. He was about to pull the plug on the sham of your marriage and replace you as Elisabetta with Gloria Prescott. Your career was on the slide, and Rannaldini had plans to marry again and make a total fool of you in his memoirs.’
‘Nonsense,’ squawked Hermione. ‘I insist on talking only to Timothy.’
Fanshawe, however, had the bit between his teeth. ‘I think you went into the wood, distracted Rannaldini with your lovely voice, and Mr Kemp did the business, getting his clothes and shoes covered with wild flowers in the struggle.’
‘Nonsense, nonsense! You have no proof. It was my Bentley you saw in the bushes. Sexton arrived with armfuls and armfuls of lady’s bedstraw and meadowsweet . . . the most tender and cherishing lover . . . I shall ring my friend Chief Constable Swallow at once.’
‘Where was Little Cosmo while this was going on?’
‘Tucked up in bed, of course, where all good boys should be.’
Unfortunately for Sexton, a complaint had just been logged by the incident room from a couple driving towards the M4 around one a.m. last Monday morning.
They had been pushed into the hogweed on the verge by a lunatic overtaking in a maroon Roller, number plate SK 1. To their apoplexy, twenty minutes later, the road-hog had hurtled past in the same Roller but in the other direction going towards Rutminster, and shoving them into the hogweed again.
Outraged to learn that Sergeant Fanshawe had made a breakthrough on his patch – bonking on lady’s bedstraw indeed! – Gablecross set off for Penscombe, determined to succeed where Fanshawe had failed by nailing Tabitha. Not wanting anyone censoring his questions, however, he and Karen lurked over excellent fish pie in the Dog and Trumpet until the dark blue helicopter had carried Rupert, Lysander and Xavier off to Newmarket.
All round the pub walls were photographs of generations of Campbell-Blacks triumphing at horsy events. Noticing the ferocious intensity on Tabitha’s face as she rode a much older and larger boy off the ball in some Pony Club polo finals, Gablecross thought she would have had little difficulty in strangling Rannaldini. One of the specialities chalked on the blackboard was ‘Campbell-Black Chowder’.
‘What’s that made from? Shark and piranha?’ asked Gablecross, as he paid the bill.
‘No way,’ laughed the landlady. ‘That’s Taggie’s recipe. She’s the best thing that ever happened to that family. Got her hands full at the moment. Tab’s still in shock and won’t eat. Floods one moment, shouting the next. Rupert’s a continually erupting volcano. Just seen Taggie, dark glasses hiding her poor red eyes, driving off to Cotchester with Bianca.’
Better and better, thought Gablecross. With Taggie out, they must lose no time.
‘Shit,’ muttered Karen, as she drove up to the gates. ‘There’s even more paparazzi here than at Valhalla.’
Rupert’s beautiful house, pale gold as a drowsy lioness in the burning afternoon sunshine, made Gablecross’s Hungerford home seem even pokier. Fucking nobs.
As Ann-Marie, the au pair, knocked nervously on the study door, a shrill voice shouted, ‘I don’t care what Daddy or Tag say, I’m not having any lunch.’
Having admired Tab’s amazing beauty in the silver frames in Helen’s sitting room, and without clothes between the pages of Rannaldini’s memoirs, Gablecross was appalled by the reality.
Her normally flawless skin was grey and blotchy, the bruise on her cheekbone parsnip yellow, her eyes reddened and staring. The drastic weight loss had given her the prematurely aged look of a terminal anorexic. Her very loose signet and wedding rings clashed as she ran a hand covered with more yellow bruises through her lank hair.
Despite the heatwave, she wore grey cords and an inside-out dark green cashmere cardigan. On a nearby table were a billowing ashtray and a three-quarters-drunk vodka and tonic. All over the floor, open at the murder hunt, were today’s papers, which Tab had pinched from the kitchen, despite Taggie trying to hide them. Newmarket was on Channel Four with the sound turned down.
Slumped on a blue and white striped sofa, Tab was flipping through a photograph album. When Gablecross and Karen flashed their ID cards, she said would they please go away. To make up for her mistress’s rudeness, Sharon jumped off the sofa, grabbed a lemon-yellow silk cushion and carried it over to Gablecross singing with delight.
‘Lovely dog.’ Gablecross patted her.
‘Lovely flowers,’ said Karen enviously. ‘You are popular.’
‘It’s like a funeral parlour. Can you get me another vodka and tonic,’ Tab shouted, in a slurred voice, to Ann-Marie.
Mixing tranks and booze, thought Karen, as she clocked a Stubbs of two chestnut mares and a Turner of Cotchester Cathedral against a rain-dark sky on the walls.
‘D’you want a cup of tea before you go?’ asked Tab.
‘We’ve just had lunch, thanks.’ Gablecross nearly shattered his coccyx as he sat down heavily on an ancient beef bone. Removing it from the bowels of the armchair, he placed it on the floor.
Tab went back to her album, patting the sofa for Sharon to sit beside her, exhorting her to admire the pictures of Gertrude. ‘There she is at Daddy and Taggie’s wedding, and there she is disapproving of Daddy’s helicopter. God, she was sweet,’ then, in case Sharon was hurt, ‘but so are you.’
Having glanced at Gablecross, who tapped his head and mouthed ‘plastered’, Karen took out her notebook.
At first Tab denied everything, discounting the people who’d seen her racing towards the watch-tower and later weeping bloodstained on the edge of Hangman’s Wood. Her fingerprints were all over the telephone box, and on a glass found in the wood, persisted Karen. Her lipstick was on the glass, and her powder and traces of Quercus were all over Rannaldini’s dressing-gown.
‘Really,’ drawled Tab disdainfully, but her hand trembled as she pointed to a picture of Gertrude wearing a green paper crown at Christmas.
‘Why did you doll up and put on a new dress on Sunday night?’
‘It was an old dress, a present. I hadn’t worn it before, because I didn’t like it. I’d been riding all afternoon. It was baking, I was expecting Isa, I hadn’t seen him for ages, so I tried to look nice. We’ve only been married six months. Then I heard Gertrude was missing and forgot everything.’
‘So you rang Rannaldini?’
‘No, Wolfie,’ snapped Tab, ‘but I dialled the house instead of his mobile by mistake, and it was switched through to Rannaldini, who said he had Gertrude.’
‘What a coincidence,’ said Gablecross sarcastically. ‘So you dolled yourself up to go and see him.’
‘No.’ For a second Tab closed her eyes, clenching her fists against the memory of a hurtling weight knocking her to the floor. ‘But I wanted to get to Gertrude.’ She paused for a second, feeling her way. ‘She’d cut her paw. Rannaldini didn’t want me to take her. He’s bats about Taggie and probably wanted to return her personally. So I grabbed her and ran off, but I tripped over a bramble cable. Gertrude hit her head on a stump as I fell – that’s why she bled so much. Then I realized she was dead.’ There was a rattle of ice as Tab grabbed her vodka and tonic. ‘Her grave’s behind the tennis court.’
‘Why did you leave that message on Wolfie’s machine that you’d been raped?’
Tab’s eyes flickered in terror, her tongue ran over her gnawed, reddened lips. ‘No-one raped me,’ she whispered.
‘You’re lying. Rannaldini had a nasty dog bite, dog hairs and dog’s blood on his dressing-gown. I’m afraid’, Gablecross gave a sigh, ‘the only way to find out the truth is to dig up Gertrude and do a post-mortem.’
Tab caved in completely.
‘No, no, please not,’ she gasped. ‘It’d destroy Taggie. All right, Rannaldini did rape me.’
She was shaking so violently, Karen put down her notebook.
‘You’re being too rough on her,’ she hissed. ‘Let me talk to her.’
Pushing Sharon off the sofa, she sat down and put her arm round Tab’s shoulders.
‘I can’t take away the pain,’ she said gently, ‘but it’ll go, I promise. I’m sure you have secrets you never told your mum about, going too far with boys, smoking dope at school. Rannaldini was stunningly attractive.’ Karen picked up the Telegraph arts page, which had a big picture of him conducting. ‘Look at his beautiful hands. Your husband’s been away a long time, probably neglecting you.’
Tab’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Yes, he has.’
‘Rannaldini didn’t neglect you. He’d given you a wonderful horse, paid for you to go to America, paid for your wedding, given you a cottage and a wonderful job working on Don Carlos.’
‘I know,’ sobbed Tab, ‘but – he screwed up my mother, and Tristan’s film and I’m sure he screwed up Tristan and me.’
‘Only because he wanted you so badly, and you found him attractive. No, let me finish,’ Karen was holding Tab’s hand and stroking it. ‘It was a hot summer evening, you weren’t getting it from Isa, you have a bath and wash your hair, you ring Rannaldini, and he suggests you go over, so you put on a pretty dress and make-up for the first time in weeks, and wafting perfume you arrive all hot and excited and Rannaldini greets you wearing nothing but a dressing-gown, but knowing his reputation, you still go in.’
‘I wanted to see Gertrude, for Christ’s sake.’
‘The last telephone call Rannaldini made in his life was to you.’
‘That was me,’ protested Tab furiously, ‘ringing Isa, telling him I’d found Gertrude and was taking her straight back to Penscombe.’
‘Thereby giving yourself a pink ticket for as long as you liked with Rannaldini,’ interrupted Gablecross brutally. ‘Meanwhile, you accepted a drink from him.’
‘He thrust a vodka and tonic into my hand.’
‘What did you talk about?’
‘I said how excited I was to have a chance to go home and make it up with Daddy. Gertrude was in my arms doing a lot of wagging. I couldn’t bear to waste any more time, so I put her down, and was just pecking Rannaldini goodbye, when he swung his head so his mouth landed on mine. Then he pushed me to the floor—’