by Jilly Cooper
‘When did your dog Gertrude die?’ asked Gablecross, admiring the handsome glossy chestnut.
‘Tab brought her home on Sunday night. I woke and looked out of the window. She had blood all over her dress. Daddy went off in the helicopter earlier.’
‘Did he?’ Gablecross stroked Peppy Koala’s sleek, arched neck only a little faster.
‘He took his gun because he was so angry.’
‘When did he get back?’
‘Before Tab. When she arrived with Gertrude, Daddy went out and hugged her. He hadn’t seen her for years. She cries a lot and looks past you. Gertrude’s funeral was the next day. Mummy won’t cry in front of Tab, but Tab’s gone to polo today. Daddy promised us Gertrude has gone to heaven, but Bianca’s worried Rannaldini’s gone there too and might hurt Gertrude again. But Daddy said Rannaldini would be sitting in a bonfire with demons sticking these into him.’ As he closed Peppy’s half-door, Xav tapped a pitchfork leaning against the wall. ‘Tab’s mother’s staying too. She’s a drip. Daddy hates her.’
‘Are you sure your father took the helicopter on Sunday night?’
‘I said so, didn’t I?’
‘Where’s he now?’
‘Abroad, to find out more about Tab’s boyfriend who’s in prison.’
Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, thought Gablecross in jubilation.
They found Taggie planting heartsease and polyanthus round Gertrude’s grave. Bianca was helping her with a toy trowel. Both children were dispatched to the kitchen to organize cups of tea.
The moment Gablecross laid the roses beside Gertrude’s wonky cross, Taggie started to cry again.
‘I’m so sorry.’ She collapsed on to the grave of Rupert’s great Olympic horse, Revenge. ‘But Gertrude was with me the whole time before I married and when I lost the babies, and when Beattie Johnson dumped twice. I thought she’d be jealous when we adopted Bianca and Xav. We had to leave her for six weeks when we went to Bogotá, but beyond the odd sniff, she loved them, finished up the food they didn’t like. She always kept a biscuit hidden in her basket so she could rush out and eat it very slowly in front of the other dogs. I’m sorry.’
Taggie raised streaming eyes to Karen and Gablecross. ‘She was such a mascot. I live in such a lovely house, but it seems so empty without Gertrude. I feel our luck’s running out.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ protested Karen, putting an arm round Taggie’s shoulders. ‘You’ve got everything to live for. Those kids are so cute.’
‘It’s probably because Rupert’s first wife’s staying,’ confessed Taggie, wiping her nose with the back of her hand and covering her face with earth. ‘She keeps saying Gertrude “had a good innings”, like some stupid cricketer. Oh, God, I’m being a bitch. Lysander, Rupert’s assistant, has an incredibly clever, handsome headmaster father, who’s coming to supper tonight. He and Helen can quote poetry at each other.’
The afternoon sun peering through a lime tree showed up her dreadful pallor.
‘Mrs Campbell-Black,’ said Gablecross, feeling a louse, ‘I know this is distressing, but Beattie Johnson’s last call on Friday night was to your husband. According to Gordon Dillon on the Scorpion, she had some dirt on him and some other woman while you’ve been married.’
Taggie looked up in bewilderment, Karen in horror.
‘Your husband was overheard telling Beattie he’d bury her. He left the set at midnight. An hour and a half later she was dead. Have you any idea of his movements that night?’
Taggie almost fell off Revenge’s grave, frantically digging a hole in the still iron-hard earth with Bianca’s trowel.
‘He was so pleased George Hungerford had given Tab an alibi,’ she mumbled, ‘he rushed off to persuade him to get back with Flora.’
‘He hardly spent all night playing Cupid,’ said Gablecross sarcastically. ‘Are you worried your husband might have killed Rannaldini and Beattie?’
‘Of course he didn’t,’ gasped Taggie. ‘Oh, bugger.’ In her violence she had snapped the little trowel in two. ‘Oh, poor Bianca, of course he didn’t.’
A witness, went on Gablecross relentlessly, had seen Rupert taking a gun and leaving Penscombe by helicopter. A helicopter had also been seen landing at Valhalla and two men running into the wood near Rannaldini’s tower. Another witness had seen Rupert with a gun in his hand.
Taggie sat back on her heels, mouthing in horror.
‘He had plenty of motives.’ Gablecross ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Tab being raped by Rannaldini, Gertrude being killed, Rannaldini arranging for Tab to marry Lovell, Rannaldini trying to murder your stepson Marcus.’
‘Rannaldini did that?’ whispered an appalled Taggie.
‘And your husband had more than enough reason to kill Beattie. Where is he, anyway?’
‘Abroad,’ said Taggie numbly. ‘He didn’t leave a telephone number.’
‘Oh, come on, Mrs C-B. Your husband wouldn’t cross the lawn without leaving a phone number.’
‘How’s Tabitha?’ asked Karen.
Gablecross, like a hound tugged off the scent, kicked her ankle.
‘Better, I think.’ Grateful for the distraction, Taggie planted a polyanthus upside down. ‘Wolfgang’s been so wonderful to Tab. He keeps ringing to see if Helen’s OK. Helen’s convinced he fancies her, but I’m sure he’s only hoping to get Tab. Oh, help, I’ll be punished for being a bitch again.’
Gablecross returned to the attack. ‘What time did your husband leave the house last Sunday?’
‘I don’t remember, I was so upset about Gertrude.’ Taggie began to cry again.
As the stable clock struck five, Xav and Bianca came round the corner carrying a trayful of tea in which floated three cups and some melting chocolate biscuits. They’d been joined on the way by a beautiful young man and a Jack Russell, who was rough-housing noisily round the graves with Xav’s black Labrador.
‘How dare you bully my mother?’ said Xav in outrage.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ asked the beautiful young man in horror.
‘It’s all right.’ Taggie mopped her eyes on her T-shirt.
‘I’ll give you a pound each if you go and find my cigarettes,’ the young man told Bianca and Xav. ‘Now, what the hell’s going on?’ He turned furiously on Gablecross.
‘He thinks Rupert murdered Rannaldini and Beattie,’ sobbed Taggie.
‘Right.’ The young man squared his shoulders. ‘My name’s Lysander Hawkley. I’m Rupert’s assistant and it’s time I made a statement.’
‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ pleaded Taggie.
‘I was with Rupert last Sunday,’ went on Lysander, ‘when Tab rang and said Rannaldini’d raped her. We took the helicopter. Rannaldini, incidentally, is the most evil person in the world.’
‘How d’you know, sir?’
‘He was married to my wife Kitty for five years, nearly destroyed her. I had to give her a lot of therapy when we were first married,’ Lysander added solemnly. ‘Anyway, Rupert swore he was going to kill Rannaldini, and I wanted part of the action. We landed in the park just after ten thirty. We couldn’t find Tab, but about ten minutes later we stumbled on Rannaldini lying on his back in the middle of the wood. It was a bit dark for sunbathing.’
‘How did he look?’
‘Not well. He’d been strangled.’
‘Was he dead?’
‘Very, so Rupert emptied his gun into him.’
‘What kind of gun?’
‘A .38. He bought it in Bogotá when he adopted Xav and Bianca. It’s got a silencer on it, and it sounds like a wet fart. If I’d had a gun I’d have done the same thing. As it was I kicked Rannaldini very hard in the ribs. We didn’t hang about. We’d already tried to find Tab but the telephone box was redder inside than out. Rupert was going bananas with worry, then Taggie rang him to say someone with a Yorkshire accent was bringing Tab home.’
‘And you’re prepared to sign a statement that’s what happened? You’re not just making
this up because Rupert’s your boss?’
‘No. I’m far too stupid to do that.’
Over on George’s polo field, they were coming to the end of a long, shambolic day. Valentin had just filmed Baby hitting a ball around and being drooled over by Chloe and a lot of groupies. The sun was setting; they were waiting for the gate. Baby had moved away from the others under the shade of a huge sycamore tree and was sharing a Kit-Kat with his weary chestnut mare. Anything to do with horses reminded him agonizingly of Isa. They had not spoken since the night of Rannaldini’s murder, but would have to soon, about the future of Baby’s three racehorses.
At least a couple in the next-door room at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons had come forward and confirmed that they had heard Baby singing on the balcony between ten and eleven on the night of Rannaldini’s murder.
‘We thought, Oh, my God,’ they had said. ‘Then, once he opened his mouth, we sat back and enjoyed it. Is he going to be the next Domingo?’
So Baby had an alibi. On the other hand, the police had found the bottle of Quercus he had left behind in his bathroom at Le Manoir so he wasn’t altogether in the clear.
‘You know Isa?’ A voice interrupted Baby’s thoughts. It was Chloe, who’d been in a strange, excited mood all day.
‘He’s my trainer.’
‘I was with him the night Rannaldini was murdered. We’ve been having an affaire.’
‘You what?’ Baby’s pony, picking up the sudden tension, tossed up her head and pulled away.
‘I confessed it to Fanshawe, who has such a divinely uppity bum in that grey tracksuit,’ went on Chloe. ‘I felt awful shopping Isa but I needed an alibi. The police know I was in the wood earlier because I dropped a lipstick, and they’ve found the scent Isa gave me, called Quercus, on Rannaldini’s dressing-gown. Baby?’
Seeing his horrified face, Chloe launched mockingly into Eboli’s lines:
‘Oh, heavens, what thought makes you blench stock still,
Your word freezing on your lips?
What ghost rises in between us?’
Then, when Baby still seemed incapable of speech, she asked plaintively, ‘Will Tab go berserk, and d’you think Isa’ll back me up?’
Baby reached up a hand to scratch his restless pony behind the ears. ‘Good girl,’ he murmured affectionately, ‘which is more than can be said for you, Chloe. You’re a whore.’
‘That’s unkind,’ pouted Chloe. ‘I have to have a man in my life.’
‘Have someone’s husband, you mean.’
‘Tab was keen enough to get her long claws into Tristan.’
‘Tab was lonely and neglected.’
‘You’ve never stuck up for her before. Loosen up, Baby. What will Rupert do?’
‘Give you a medal. He loathes Isa. Isa, on the other hand, will go apeshit.’
‘Isa’s bats about me,’ said Chloe defensively, then leapt back as, for a terrifying second, she thought Baby was going to hit her with his stick.
‘“Bat” is the operative word,’ said Baby harshly. ‘Isa’s a bloodsucker. He’s got a perfectly good mistress, called Martie, bankrolling him in Oz. He didn’t break up with her when he married Tab, who turned out to be not rich enough because Rannaldini wouldn’t help out. I bet Isa suggested you buy some horses for him to train.’
Then, ignoring bellows from Bernard that the gate wasn’t clear, Baby vaulted on to his pony and galloped off in the direction of Valhalla.
It took Chloe some hours to trace the ex-directory number of Jake Lovell’s yard.
Having gone to bed early, Isa was woken not by the news of a sick horse, which he would have understood, but by Chloe in hysterics.
‘Who the hell’s Martie?’ she screamed.
‘My business partner.’
‘A bit more than that.’
‘Well – it’s all over anyway. Who told you about her?’
‘Baby. I told him about us.’
Isa sat bolt upright. ‘You what?’
‘The police found my lipstick near Rannaldini’s body and Quercus on his dressing-gown. I needed an alibi.’
‘Well, I’m not giving you one, you stupid bitch. Anyone who kisses and tells deserves all they get.’ And Isa hung up.
Tristan paced in torment up and down his baking, airless veal crate of a cell. The light was fading outside his frosted window, but he could see nothing except the inside of his own heart. He knew that a gentleman never named the women he had slept with. Montignys didn’t fuck and tell, as Rannaldini had, although Étienne had fucked and painted enough.
For the last three years he had been having an affaire with Claudine Lauzerte, so discreetly that not even Rannaldini’s secret service had rumbled them. He had fallen in love with her back in 1977 when she’d joined their table, the first time Rannaldini had taken him to Don Carlos.
His dream had come true in 1993 when he’d cast her as the object of a young man’s adoration in Le Rouge et Le Noir. As she had grown in beauty under Oscar’s lighting and his direction, so had their passion for one another. At first she had held off. Only when he had found her sobbing wildly over a newspaper report that he was sleeping with some starlet had he broken down her defences and they’d become lovers.
But at what price? Claudine’s husband Jean-Louis, the appropriately named Minister of Cultural Affairs, was universally acknowledged to be a brute.
And that was another reason why Tristan had identified with Carlos. He had experienced all the hell of loving a married woman, with a stern, undemonstrative, unfaithful yet possessive husband. He could never drop in on Claudine unannounced, never expect her to ring him in case the telephone number showed up on a bill closely scrutinized by Jean-Louis’s accountants, never ring her at home in case one of the spying servants answered. Nor could he write because Jean-Louis or his secretary, also a spy, frisked the post.
As Claudine became even more adored because of Tristan’s films, and was voted the Most Admired Woman in France, Jean-Louis’s jealousy increased, and so did the interest of the press who followed her every move.
At first she had been reckless and while they were on location spent all night in Tristan’s arms. This had compensated for the endless taunts that he was a closet gay, impotent, incapable of sustaining a relationship. He had also had to endure the hostility of beautiful women like Chloe and Serena, who couldn’t understand why he rejected their advances, not to mention the endless matchmaking of his brothers’ wives.
He had prayed Claudine would leave Jean-Louis and move in with him or, better still, marry him. He didn’t give a toss about the twenty-four-year age gap. Sometimes, when life became unbearable, she had come near to it.
But just before Étienne’s death, one of Claudine’s friends had rung to say a newspaper was on to her and Tristan and about to blow her saintly Madame Vierge image sky high. Claudine had no desire to relinquish the moral high ground, so she had retreated into her arid marriage. Gradually, for Tristan, hope had died, but he couldn’t stop loving her.
Until suddenly he had been jolted by Tab, and believed, by some miracle, there might be life and love after Claudine. But Rannaldini had promptly stamped on that flower.
In his most despairing thoughts since then, Tristan had dreamt that Claudine, having four children of her own, might not mind that he couldn’t give her children. He had so longed to see her again at the screening of The Lily in the Valley: he knew Jean-Louis was in Tuscany and was devastated when she’d failed to show up, on the excuse that filming commitments in Wales were too heavy.
He had forced himself to go to Hortense’s party the next day, but the sight of numerous Montignys, a tribe to which he no longer belonged, milling around the lawn – Aunt Hortense in navy blue pinstripe, the Croix de Guerre in her lapel, his self-regarding brothers and their braying wives, and the smell of crayfish drifting over the white rose hedge – had sent him fleeing back to Valhalla.
Here he collected the address book with Claudine’s telephone number in Wales, showe
red, changed into the peacock-blue shirt and the jeans she had given him, and on which Lucy had put the patch of a greyhound’s head, and set out for the sleepy village of Llandrogan.
He had rung from Valhalla to say he was on his way, his mobile cutting out before Claudine could say no. He had driven like the devil and arrived while she was getting ready, her hair, which she hadn’t had time to wash, still in rollers, with only one eye made up and her tummy still blown out from an early supper.
As he bounded upstairs like Tigger, she had sent him down again to pour himself a huge drink, which, by the time she had joined him, had become two. She had looked so exquisite, he had swept her back up to bed, which had not been a success. He had come instantly. In the old days, he would then have made love to her with his tongue and his hands, until he was raring to come again. Now he sensed her relief.
‘It couldn’t matter less, chéri, we’re both exhausted. I have lines to learn and I’ve got to get up at six. I’m not as young as I was.’
It was a far cry from The Lily in the Valley when they had made love all night, and the violet shadows beneath eyes softened by happiness had only enhanced her haunting beauty.
Claudine herself, that Sunday evening in Llandrogan, had suddenly felt too old and set in her ways. Reason has reasons the heart knows nothing about. She didn’t want him to stay the night. She longed to take off her make-up and cover her face with skin food. Worry about the lurking paparazzi would keep her awake when she needed to look good on the set, and if she fell asleep she might snore.
When Tristan told her about the problems with Rannaldini, she had been unsympathetic. All directors became increasingly twitchy as the end of a shoot approached. Unable to bear it any longer, he had dropped the bombshell that Maxim was his father. To his amazement, she wasn’t very interested.
‘The aristocracy have always been irregularly conceived, chéri. My sister wasn’t my father’s daughter. I’m not sure I was either. Jean-Louis’s father was a naughty old boy too. Whenever we go shooting on the estate I notice how the beaters all look like Jean-Louis.’