by Jilly Cooper
‘It’s horrendously hot.’
‘A good dress rehearsal for hell fires.’
‘And I don’t think you’re well enough.’
‘I’m the best judge of that.’
Everywhere outside was evidence that Hortense had lost her grip on the place. A jungle of plants, their huge leaves pressing against the glass, was struggling to get out of the conservatory. Ivy throttled the shutters. An emerald carpet of algae covered the moat. Grass had grown over the stepping-stones of the path leading to the fields of lavender.
But if Étienne had painted with a palette, and Tristan with light, Hortense had created as dazzling effects with plants. As Lucy wheeled her down the garden, she pointed out some pale yellow hollyhocks with pink centres.
‘Those came from Monet’s garden at Giverny.’
Like a brass section about to explode, to the right was a proud clump of Regale lilies.
‘Pick them for my brother,’ ordered Hortense.
Rozzy would do her nut, thought Lucy, as she laid the lilies across Hortense’s knees.
‘What a pity we couldn’t have used this for Charles V’s tomb.’ She sighed as they approached a splendid mausoleum.
‘“Étienne Alexandre Henri Blaize de Montigny, 1905–1995, painter,”’ she read out in a shaky voice.
Although Étienne had died eight months ago, there were as many flowers outside the tomb as at Valhalla. Pilgrims, acolytes, students and admirers came from all over the world and, denied access to the château, paid homage at the grave.
‘Now leave me,’ said Hortense. ‘I’ll call you when I want to go back.’
The noonday sun was punishing. Beads of sweat were breaking through Hortense’s make-up, red lipstick was escaping down the lines round her mouth as Lucy wheeled her back.
‘Those lilies were struck down in their prime, like Laurent,’ reproved Lucy. ‘Why didn’t they fly his body back and bury him here?’
‘Because he was blown up,’ said Aunt Hortense tartly.
‘By his own side, Tristan told me,’ persisted Lucy. ‘Why didn’t Étienne insist on an inquiry? He had the clout.’
‘Would that have brought Laurent back?’
As Lucy eased Hortense back into bed, her flesh felt as soft as marshmallow.
‘Was Étienne buried or cremated?’ she asked.
‘Buried, of course.’
‘Great,’ crowed Lucy. ‘That means his body can be dug up and DNA-tested to see whether he’s Tristan’s father or not.’
‘How dare you suggest that, you conniving hussy?’ gasped Hortense hoarsely. ‘Coming in here, stirring up trouble.’ Then, after an eternal silence, she seemed to cave in. ‘All right, Étienne wasn’t his father. Now are you satisfied?’
‘No,’ stormed Lucy. ‘I’m not leaving till I know who it was.’
But Hortense, whether deliberately or not, had fallen asleep.
After that Lucy lost any sense of time. As night fell and lightning flickered round the hills illuminating the clouds, she made one last attempt.
‘Please, please, Tristan can’t marry and have children if he believes a psychopath rapist was his father. He needs a family of his own so badly to give him the love none of you provided. All he ever did was try to please Étienne.’
The clock ticked, the cicadas chirped, Lucy longed to pick up La Grande Mademoiselle’s velvet-handled musket, which Hortense kept always by her bedside, and empty it into her.
‘I have nothing to say.’
But as the nurse frogmarched Lucy out, Hortense called after her, ‘Goodbye, Miss Latimer. Don’t forget to put your name and address in the visitors’ book.’
‘I bloody well won’t,’ shouted Lucy. ‘What d’you want me to say – that you’re a stubborn old bitch who, through your pigheadedness, sent Tristan to prison for life?’
She wept all the way back to the hotel. ‘I handled her all wrong,’ she told the chauffeur. ‘If, by any chance, she changes her mind, here’s my mobile number.’
She found Wolfie only just recovering from last night’s excesses. Rupert had flown home. All she knew was Tristan would be charged in court tomorrow.
Back in Rutshire, as Gablecross and Karen were tied up full time with Tristan, other detectives took over their leads. Fanshawe had never been happy with Chloe’s alibi about jogging round Paradise in the dusk. She would also have more to lose than most, if Beattie had dumped about her in the Scorpion.
So, late on the afternoon of Saturday the fourteenth, Fanshawe and Debbie went over to Valhalla and found Chloe working out in the gym. She was wearing shorts and a pale blue sleeveless T-shirt. Fanshawe, having gone into a frenzy of hair-smoothing and tooth-licking, couldn’t keep his eyes off her glistening cleavage and her smooth buttocks, continually on display as she stretched and twisted at the bars.
‘Sunday was a sad day for me, Sergeant,’ she told him soulfully. ‘After a long affaire, Mikhail dropped me because his wife found out.’
‘Your mother phoned you from abroad at around nine thirty.’ Fanshawe frowned at his notes. ‘You were going to find out where she was staying.’
‘I completely forgot. I’ll do it tonight.’
‘Then you went for a jog round Paradise.’
‘I was depressed, the tennis had hardly been taxing.’ Shoving her fists into her armpits, Chloe rotated her elbows so her breasts thrust forward. ‘I jogged over the River Fleet up past Magpie Cottage. I wanted to see if Tab was in. She’d been terribly down since Tristan blew her out. How’s he bearing up, by the way?’
Such was Chloe’s egoism, it was the first time she’d thought of Tristan. At least, as he’d been arrested, this must only be a routine call.
‘We haven’t heard,’ said Debbie.
‘Poor Tristan,’ said Chloe lightly. ‘Anyway, Tab was out so I jogged back through Paradise. I like street-lights at that hour.’
She extended a smooth, brown foot under Fanshawe’s nose as though she was expecting him to kiss it.
‘Mr Brimscombe claims he saw you running from the tennis court into Hangman’s Wood,’ said Debbie, not without pleasure, ‘then coming out from a different, northerly direction five minutes later and disappearing into the north wing. He says you came out of the north wing fifteen minutes after that, smelling of perfume and toothpaste. An expert on floral scents, he thinks the perfume was the same he smelt earlier on Tabitha.’
The change in Chloe was phenomenal. Suddenly she was a snarling, cornered vixen. ‘Disgusting old lech! Brimscombe’s always spying on me.’
‘What was the name of your perfume?’
‘People are always giving me perfume,’ said Chloe hysterically. ‘I think it’s called Quercus.’
‘Why did you go into the wood?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Going to kill Rannaldini, were you? Traces of Quercus were found on his dressing-gown.’
‘I d-d-don’t believe it.’ Chloe clung to the bar for support.
‘The fingertip team found your lipstick, Fiery Fuchsia,’ persisted Fanshawe, ‘fifty yards from his watchtower.’
She’s guilty, guilty, guilty, thought Debbie in elation. She could smell Chloe’s sweat turning acid. For a second, Chloe’s eyes darted towards the door, then she slumped to the floor.
‘All right, you win. I went to Magpie Cottage to meet Isa Lovell.’
There, it was out. Fanshawe and Debbie both looked shocked.
‘I don’t feel guilty,’ said Chloe defiantly. ‘That marriage is fucked. Tab’s been lusting after Tristan all summer. It was Isa, not my mother, who rang at nine thirty to say Tab was taking some dog back to Penscombe and the coast was clear. I intended going straight to Magpie Cottage and darted into Hangman’s Wood to put on lipstick and scent, then I thought better of it. I hate being hot and sweaty so I made a detour through the wood where the tennis party couldn’t see me – they’re such horrendous gossips. Back at the house, I showered, brushed my teeth, changed into almost identical clothes,
so people wouldn’t suspect anything, and jogged over to Isa’s.’
‘What time did you arrive?’
‘Around ten.’
‘See anything out of the ordinary?’
‘I was far too excited.’
‘What time did you leave?’ asked Debbie.
‘About eleven ten, I guess. Isa didn’t want me to jog home in the dark so he dropped me off half-way up the drive, then drove home to Warwickshire.’
So that puts her and Isa in the clear, calculated Fanshawe, in disappointment, unless they had got rid of Rannaldini together.
‘Oh, yes,’ Chloe smiled spitefully, ‘something significant did happen. Alpheus rolled up in a white suit in the middle, he was clutching white lilies like the Archangel Michael and started singing “La ci darem la mano” under our bedroom window. Isa poured a bottle of red over him and told him to fuck off. Such style.’
Despite repeated calls to the Home Secretary, it didn’t look as though Tristan would be bailed even after his court appearance on Monday. As everyone in the unit was hanging about on Sunday, having been forbidden to leave the country, Sexton, Oscar and Bernard decided to push on and film the polo scenes at George Hungerford’s. This had been kept from Tristan until Griselda rang the police station, late on Sunday morning, and chivvied the custody officer into asking Tristan if he wanted the ponies’ bandages to match the players’ shirts.
Tristan went berserk. ‘They cannot shoot polo without me.’
But when he tracked down Bernard, he was even more upset to discover Rupert, Lucy and Wolfie had all done a runner.
‘We cannot film without Lucy,’ he yelled. ‘Who will make up Granny and Mikhail? Who will disappear Baby’s double chin and Alpheus’s nose?’
‘Rozzy’s offered,’ said Bernard fondly.
‘Don’t be so fucking stupid.’
How could Lucy bugger off like that? raged Tristan. She had left him no message since the now torn-up sprig of honeysuckle. The final straw was Gablecross popping in, all dressed up for his silver-wedding lunch, to put him through the mangle again. Not only had he blocked Rupert’s application for bail, he announced bullyingly, but Interpol had broken into Tristan’s flat in Paris, found some very interesting material and were about to blow the safe.
‘W-h-a-a-a-t?’ howled Tristan, his fingers clamped round Gablecross’s neck once more. ‘You bastard!’
‘Don’t be stupid!’ screamed Karen, leaping forward to prise Tristan off. Feeling the shivering rigidity of his body, seeing the madness in his eyes, there was no doubt he was capable of murder.
‘When are you going to tell us the truth?’ asked a somewhat shaken Gablecross, straightening his unusually smart blue silk tie.
Tristan collapsed in his chair. Suddenly it came spilling out. ‘OK, I came back to Valhalla. I need my address book to call an actor, Colin Firth, to see if he was interested in playing Hercule. I parked the Aston in a field off the drive, I didn’t want to be pestered. I sweat like a peeg, so I had a shower.’
‘And changed back into your favourite peacock-blue shirt and jeans.’ Karen couldn’t contain her excitement.
‘Oui, and then I buggered off to Forest of Dean.’
‘Did you call Colin Firth?’
‘Non.’ And beyond that he wouldn’t budge.
‘He can bloody well appear in court tomorrow,’ said a furious Gablecross, as, armed with Hermione’s CD and Rozzy’s cards and presents, he set off to his anniversary party.
He had looked almost attractive, conceded Karen grudgingly, as she wandered round the incident room, gazing at the map of Valhalla, flipping through statements, looking for silly little details in the jigsaw puzzle. As a detective you had to keep pushing yourself beyond the point you were able or wanted to go, continually asking how, when, why?
Even in the group photograph of the unit, Tristan looked sad. There were enough tears in those haunted eyes to put out any funeral pyre. Why was he so sad?
Karen glanced through the Sundays, which had all led on Tristan’s arrest. Rannaldini’s fans were still streaming into Paradise. A lynch mob had tried to burn down Tristan’s caravan. Portland had put a uniformed man outside. The Scorpion had bussed down a lot of actors clutching more tulips in Cellophane, and photographed them weeping and pretending to be Beattie’s fans. Much was being made of Tristan’s cutting Hortense’s party, his rows with Rannaldini, his callous dumping of Tabitha, the raid on the Paris flat. Tristan’s family had all said, ‘Je ne dis rien’, but Alexandre, the judge, huffing and puffing with disapproval, was expected to fly over for the court hearing tomorrow.
In the Sunday Times there was a big piece by George Perry describing Tristan’s ever-flowering genius, and comparing Claudine Lauzerte with Garbo.
‘Oh, what a beautiful woman,’ sighed Karen, admiring Claudine’s huge, languorous eyes and the thick, dusky hair.
Madame Lauzerte, went on the piece, was currently filming in an adaptation of Rose Macaulay’s novel, The World Is My Wilderness, in Wales. Why should Tristan need an address book and clean clothes to drink brandy in a field? pondered Karen. Who was he gabbling in French to on the telephone when he came back after Rannaldini’s murder? The incident room was having difficulty in tracing the owner of the mobile as the number was unlisted. How could such a devastating man have had no suspicion of a relationship – except for a disastrous skirmish with Tabitha – for the past three years?
Karen picked up a telephone. ‘How would you like that drink?’
Ogborne, having read down the right side of the Heavenly Host menu all summer and chosen the most expensive food, was so fat he could only fit into tracksuit bottoms. Undaunted, he met Karen at the Old Bell in Rutminster during the break.
The willows trailing in the river Fleet were already turning yellow; holidaymakers were hanging over the bridge.
‘Shooting polo’s been a shambles,’ confided Ogborne. ‘Mikhail’s fallen off three times. All he’s interested in is getting his new crocus-yellow Range Rover resprayed before he goes back to Russia – I’m sure it’s nicked. Tab has been yelling non-stop. With no Tristan to smarm, charm and calm, and no Rupert, Lucy or Wolfie, we might as well have stayed at home. How’s Tristan? Bet he’s enjoying the peace. He’ll be auditioning for Hercule soon, so they can send potential leading ladies in with his caviare every day – can’t be bad.’
‘Is Claudine Lauzerte going to be in Hercule?’
‘I’m sure. If Tristan had had his way, she’d have played Elisabetta, but she’s even older than Dame Hermione.’
‘Did she give him that peacock-blue shirt and jeans he never takes off?’
‘Dunno,’ said Ogborne, going vague. ‘Secrets and Lies is on at the Odeon. Fancy going to see it this evening?’
‘I might. Did the crew give him a Lalique lighter covered in lilies at the end of the shoot?’
‘Naah,’ said Ogborne. ‘Bit upmarket for us.’
Karen thought she’d better offer some plums of gossip.
‘We’ll be getting the DNA results tomorrow or Tuesday, Tristan’s as well, if they pull their fingers out,’ she said. ‘Botanists in Forensic are frightfully excited. Among the plants shoved up Beattie’s vagina’, she lowered her voice as the couple at the next table stopped talking, ‘was a really rare white rock rose and an even rarer relation of the monkey orchid, the chimpanzee, which hasn’t been found in England for fifty years.’ She collapsed with laughter. ‘So there’s added pressure to locate their place of origin.’
‘Shouldn’t fink they needed any potting compost up Beattie’s snatch,’ grinned Ogborne.
‘What’s Claudine like?’
‘Well,’ Ogborne deliberated, ‘Valentin described her as a bourgeois ’ousewife whose face had been touched by the finger of God.’
‘Did anything happen between her and Tristan?’
‘I gotta go back to the set. You coming to that movie?’
‘Yeah, sure.’
Ogborne glanced round furtively.
‘I’ll see you outside the Odeon at the start of the big film,’ said Karen.
She was not at all pleased when a call on her mobile asked her to whizz over to Penscombe to investigate the whereabouts of Rupert Campbell-Black. Interpol had had no success in finding him, so Gerald Portland wanted her and Gablecross to pump Taggie.
Neither of them talked on the drive. Karen’s head was full of Tristan and how to prove his innocence. Gablecross was feeling beleaguered. All his Brownie points over Hermione’s CD and Rozzy’s presents had been cancelled because he’d had to leave his silver-wedding lunch in the middle of the speeches. Nor would Margaret ever forgive him for snatching up the pink roses and silver foliage, sent by her sister and Australian brother-in-law, to hand over as a peace-offering to Taggie after his mauling of Tabitha last Thursday.
‘No-one’s got any right to live in such a big house,’ fumed Karen, as she pressed Rupert’s doorbell with unnecessary force. ‘This place would make a wonderful hospital.’
Xavier and a pack of dogs answered the door. For a second he and Karen gazed at each other. Then he said, ‘My mother can’t be disturbed, she’s crying. My sister Bianca is comforting her.’
What a beautiful child, thought Karen, wondering how he fitted into such a privileged white right-wing environment.
‘Why’s she crying?’ she asked.
‘Because her dog died. Shall I give her those flowers?’ Xav eyed the pink roses in Gablecross’s hand.
‘No, we’d like a word with her.’
‘She’s down at the graveyard,’ explained Xav. ‘I’ll take you, if you promise not to upset her. My father left me in charge.’
Karen’s disapproval evaporated when Xav introduced her to Peppy Koala on the way. She had won twenty-five pounds on him in the police sweepstake and bought a ribbed scarlet sweater, which she had worn to dramatic effect at the local disco.