by Jilly Cooper
‘What’s she been spending her money on?’ Karen brushed her breasts in the cream shirt against Andy’s arm.
‘Sends two hundred and fifty a month home to her parents,’ said Andy, consulting the statement. ‘Subscribes to a number of animal charities, but most of it seems to have gone to someone called Rozzy Pringle. She’s given her nearly three grand in the last two months.’
Karen whistled. Could Rozzy be blackmailing Lucy?
Parker’s department store in the high street was having an after-hours preview of new stock for account customers. Heading for Evening Gowns, Karen tried on a spangled horror in shocking pink.
‘That looks gorgeous,’ said the sales girl truthfully, who was used to Peggy Parker’s friends, who needed a shoehorn to get into a size twenty. ‘You part of the Don Carlos crew?’
Karen shook her head. ‘But I know a lot of them shop here.’
‘We had that Rozzy Pringle in last Thursday,’ said the girl wistfully. ‘Bought a floaty grey Belinda Belville dress.’
‘Are you sure it was last Thursday?’ squeaked Karen.
‘Quite sure. It was my afternoon off. I always miss the celebs.’
Karen was fighting for breath by the time she reached Gablecross, who was hovering outside Tabitha’s hospital room. ‘Sarge, you’ll never guess. Lucy’s given huge sums of money to Rozzy, and Rozzy bought her wrap-party dress on Thursday afternoon, the day she claimed to have been going to the doctor. She must have slashed her rainbow dress yesterday to avert suspicion.’
For a second, Gablecross digested this: Rozzy was such a lovely lady too. ‘Doesn’t make her a murderer,’ he said. ‘She needn’t have cut up her dress. Cancer makes people behave strangely – but good girl, well done.’
Blushing with pleasure, Karen peered into Tab’s room, where she could see a smooth, rakishly handsome man shaking Wolfie by the hand. ‘He’s nice.’
‘James Benson, the Campbell-Black and Rannaldini family doctor,’ said Gablecross. ‘Charges a fortune for being fazed by nothing.’
James Benson was smiling broadly as he came out.
‘Not much to worry about there,’ he told Gablecross, ‘although young Wolfgang must have had a harrowing afternoon. Never a dull moment with that family. I delivered that little tearaway nineteen years ago. Glad she’s found the right bloke at last.’
‘Wolfie’s a good lad,’ agreed Gablecross.
‘Very good. Needs a big family to cosset him and Tab needs guy-ropes.’
‘Could we have a word?’
James Benson looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got two patients to see, Tim, and I’m due out to dinner at nine.’
‘Won’t take long. This is my colleague, Detective Constable Needham.’
James Benson smiled in delight. ‘Oh, well, then I’m sure I can spare a few minutes.’
He led them into the Consultant’s office.
‘I wonder if we can find some sherry – it’s been a long day. How can I help you?’
‘D’you have a patient called Rosalind Pringle?’
James Benson stopped in his search. ‘Funny you should ask that. Rannaldini wanted to know the same thing, the Friday before he died. Came to see me about having his vasectomy reversed, said he’d heard I was treating her. Take a seat both of you,’ he went on, as he perched on the arm of a sofa. ‘Said I wished I had been, always thought Rozzy Pringle the most dishy lady, got all her LPs, used to hang round the stage door at Covent Garden when I was a student at the Middlesex. Funnily enough she’s exactly the same age as I am. Rannaldini’d heard a rumour she’d got throat cancer. I said I hoped not, tragedy to wreck that heavenly voice, but that I’d never treated her for that or anything else. Funny, I’d forgotten all about it, until you reminded me.’
‘You’ve been incredibly helpful, sir,’ said Gablecross. ‘If you’ll forgive us.’
‘That means not only was she bleeding Lucy white under false pretences,’ bleated Karen excitedly as they ran down the stairs, ‘but she could have sung Hermione’s last aria in the wood.’
‘Still circumstantial,’ panted Gablecross. ‘Not going to cancel out a DNA profile.’
But popping into the incident room at the station, they learnt that Rozzy’s local doctor had confirmed he had no knowledge of her having cancer.
‘Have they brought Lucy in yet?’ asked Karen.
‘She gave them the slip,’ sighed the Custody Officer.
Immediately the smile of satisfaction was wiped off Gablecross’s face.
‘The stupid fuckers!’
‘I thought you’d be pleased, knowing she’s your pin-up.’
‘You thought bloody wrong. She’d be safe in custody. If she’s on the loose, she’s in terrible danger. Come on Karen.’ Gablecross raced towards his car.
‘Ought we to tell Gerry Portland?’
‘Certainly not, we’re going to show him and Rupert Campbell-Black we can catch villains.’
But the tale of murder twists and turns. Wolfie, working a sixteen-hour day for the past three and a half months, was unused to so much happiness. He still couldn’t believe Tab was going to be OK and all his, at the same time. Every sound seemed to threaten the head that he loved. So he swore as his mobile rang.
It was Rozzy in tears.
‘Oh, Wolfie, they’re trying to arrest Lucy.’
‘Whatever for?’
‘Killing your father and Beattie, and trying to kill Tab.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Wolfie appalled. ‘Look, Tab’s asleep, I’ll go into another room. We’re not supposed to use mobiles in intensive care, it buggers up the equipment. Get onto Rupert, he’ll vouch for Lucy’s innocence, so will Gablecross. He’s in the hospital somewhere, I’ll go and find him.’
But as Wolfie ran down the poorly lit and deserted corridor, Isa appeared from the Emergency Stairs at the other end, carrying a bunch of blood-red roses.
Having not been clocked by Gablecross and Karen as they rushed out of the front door, Isa had had no difficulty getting past the uniformed policemen guarding the lift. After all he was Tab’s husband and the champion jockey and had given them an excellent tip for Goodwood.
‘Hello, my darling,’ said Isa softly, as he catfooted into his wife’s room. ‘Time you and I had a little talk.’
News either travels faster round a film crew than the fleetest greyhound or it never leaves the starting gates. No-one, even two hours into the wrap party, was aware that Lucy was now prime suspect and still evading a massive murder hunt. But they knew Tab’s fall had not been accidental, and the presence of policemen everywhere, frisking still arriving guests, taking their cars apart, murmuring into radio mikes, added to the general edginess. Guests had spilled out into the walled garden, where the scarlet and orange rambler roses clashed less gaudily by night. Beyond lay shadowy shrubberies, but there was no incentive to escape into the bushes with someone who might be the killer. The revellers clung close to the house in the light cast by George’s big golden windows, discussed in lowered voices who might have tried to bump off Tab, and leapt if someone touched them accidentally.
Maria had excelled herself with a huge cold turkey and salads, laid on a side table in George’s big drawing room. But everyone was too hot and jumpy to eat – as to fear of the murder was added fear of tomorrow, when they would no longer be a close-knit community. How would they cope without Lucy to listen to their problems or Sylvestre to mend their hair-dryers or Hermione to bitch about? So they all kept busy filling their Filofaxes with names and addresses they probably wouldn’t be able to put faces to in a week or two.
‘Do drop in at Cherrylands, if you’re ever in Surrey,’ Pushy kept telling everyone.
Revellers even fell on the suntanned neck of Granny’s ex-boyfriend, Giuseppe, when he had the temerity to roll up with Serena Westwood, who was flashing a large ruby engagement ring.
‘What is the French for arsenic and strychnine?’ murmured Granny, who pointedly ignored them both.
‘A
rsenic and strychnine,’ said Oscar, waking up to slot another Gauloise into his jade cigarette holder. ‘Malevolence is universal.’
‘The point of a wrap party’, announced Ogborne, who was motoring down his second bottle of Moët, ‘is to make your number with the director and producer so they’ll employ you again, then get rat-arsed and pull as many women as possible.’
‘I’ve pulled them all anyway,’ said Sylvestre.
‘You never pulled Simone,’ taunted Valentin.
‘Unsimple Simone.’ Sylvestre glanced across the room. ‘She looks pretty in that flowered dress. Maybe tonight is the night.’
‘I’m saving myself for my beautiful wife,’ said Valentin. ‘The only woman approaching her is Tabitha, and Rupert and lucky Wolfgang will put the biggest guard round her tonight.’
Oscar had fallen asleep again on the sofa, his head in Jessica’s lap. Tristan’s boys were very happy. They had worked hard and been well paid. Tomorrow they would go home to even better food, August in the country, then start work on Hercule in a few weeks.
Only Bernard was sad. After tonight he wouldn’t see Rozzy. He had had an original La Scala poster of Don Carlos, with Callas singing Elisabetta, framed for her as a wrap present. She was blow-drying her hair when he dropped it off. The hot blast swept the tendrils off her face, emphasizing the good bones but also the wrinkles on which one could play noughts and crosses. I would love her when she grew old, he thought despairingly.
Knowing singers love singing, George had booked a trio from the Rutminster Symphony Orchestra. Installed at the end of the big drawing room with a crate of red, they were now accompanying Alpheus. ‘“Some enchanted evening,”’ he sang, crinkling his eyes at Serena. He’d missed out on her during the recording but had always thought her very lovely.
‘It isn’t enchanted at all,’ said Pushy fretfully. ‘No Wolfie, no Mikhail, no Rupert or any of his tasty polo friends, and George, although perfectly gracious, would clearly far rather be alone with Flora. And none of those hunky PCs are allowed to dance with us, and where on earth are Sexton and Tristan?’
‘They’ve got an awful lot of loose finishes to tie up,’ explained Simone.
‘It’s called “supervising the winding-up of production”,’ said Flora who, as the thunder grew more ominous, was trying to get a tranquillizer down a panting, shuddering Trevor, ‘which, in Sexton’s case, is probably a euphemism for pleasuring Dame Hermione.’
‘And it’s no party without Lucy,’ said Jessica indignantly, looking at the mountain of presents piling up for her on the table. ‘I got her a little silver lurcher brooch from Past Times. I did want to see her open it.’
‘I got her a little eighteenth-century drawing of a greyhound,’ pouted Meredith. ‘I wanted to see her open it too.’
‘Why the hell did Tristan fire her? Here he is at last,’ said Jessica, wriggling out from under Oscar’s head. ‘I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.’
‘You won’t have much left, then,’ snapped Chloe, who was feeling utterly miserable. She was thirty-six. There was no man in her life. And she had not merely lonely hotel bedrooms but also a solitary Fulham flat to look forward to. How could Isa have dumped her?
The only bright spot, she told Flora, was four performances of Salome in Vienna.
‘Brilliant casting,’ said Flora enthusiastically, ‘it’s so rare to have a Salome whose veils people really want to come off.’
‘Chloe’s an old hand at taking off clothes,’ drawled Baby, who was missing Isa, jolted by Tab’s fall and extremely drunk. ‘Is there a goat in Salome? Has anyone seen Chloe’s video? It’s called No Kidding.’
‘Shut up, Baby,’ muttered Flora.
‘Look out!’ yelled Valentin.
For Chloe had grabbed a carving knife off the table and jumped on Baby, screaming, ‘Take that back, you little fag-fucker.’
The band stopped and a gasp of horror went round the room.
‘Was that why you killed Rannaldini and Beattie? To shut them up?’ taunted Baby and, showing surprising strength for someone so languid, yanked the hand holding the knife down to thigh level.
‘No, I did not,’ shrieked Chloe.
For a few seconds, they struggled in a deadly embrace, eyes filled with loathing six inches apart.
‘You fucked up me and Isa,’ hissed Chloe.
‘Correc-shon. You fucked up me and Isa.’
‘You and Isa?’ whispered Chloe in horror. ‘I don’t believe it, you bloody liar. I’ll kill you.’
Tangled in the folds of her mesh dress, the knife quivered like a trapped fish.
‘George!’ screamed Flora.
But as he raced in through the French windows, Hermione made her entrance from the hall with her head held high.
‘Good evening, everyone.’ Then, catching sight of Baby and Chloe locked in their dance of death, ‘Good gracious, I had no idea you two were an item.’
For a second, Baby’s face twitched, then Chloe corpsed too, and they had collapsed in helpless laughter.
‘I’ll have that,’ said George, as the carving knife thudded on to the autumn-leaf-patterned carpet.
‘We’d better have another bottle and compare Black Cobra bites,’ said Baby, ruffling Chloe’s hair.
‘I’ll never understand singers,’ sighed Ogborne, piling on a second helping of strawberry Pavlova.
‘Gifts for all, gifts for all,’ cried Hermione, beckoning in Sexton, who was buckling under a log basket of presents.
‘How exciting,’ squeaked Jessica, tearing off the paper. ‘Thank you, Dame Hermione.’
‘What have you given us?’ asked Grisel.
‘Calendars,’ smiled Hermione.
‘How clever of you to get next year’s so early,’ said Pushy. After all, she might want to work with the old boot again.
‘They’re this year’s,’ said Grisel in outrage. ‘And it’s half-way through July.’
‘No-one’s interested in dates,’ said Hermione airily. ‘Particularly if one’s bookings extend beyond the millennium, as mine do. What matters is the lovely photographs.’
‘What are they of?’ asked Ogborne.
‘Why, me, of course. Next year, I’m hoping to show some of Cosmo’s oeuvre.’
‘“There is nothing like a dime,”’ sang Sexton, as he bopped happily with Hermione. ‘I love you, Hermsie.’
‘D’you feel you can truly care for Little Cosmo?’
‘I love ’im already,’ said Sexton truthfully. ‘He’s so sharp, I’ll be able to veg out in his pram while he goes to the office for me.’
A tranquillized, cross-eyed Trevor was now lying in Flora’s arms like a baby.
‘Why are you looking so cheerful?’ she asked Meredith.
‘Tomorrow I’m flying to Oz.’
‘To meet up with Hermione’s husband, Bobby?’
‘But not for much longer.’ Meredith nodded at a bopping Hermione. ‘It looks as though Madam is at last going to give Bobby a divorce.’
‘I’m so pleased.’ Flora kissed him on the cheek.
‘Come on, Meredith, on your feet,’ boomed Griselda.
‘New trousers.’ Halting in mid-bop, Hermione looked beadily at Grisel’s Day-glo pink harem pants. ‘I’m sure you’ll find them very useful.’
‘Useful for getting the entire harem in there as well,’ murmured Flora to Simone, who, in her pretty flowery dress, was leaning against the wall, sipping iced water.
‘I think Griselda’s days of promiscuity are over,’ said Simone gravely. ‘I want you to be the first to know, Flora, that Grisel and I are an item.’
Flora nearly dropped Trevor.
‘Was that why you got over Wolfie so fast?’ she squeaked.
Simone nodded. ‘I have never been so in love in my life. We are flying down to the Tarn to meet Mama and Papa tomorrow.’
‘Will they approve?’
‘They will probably feel Grisel is a little old for me. She’s six months older than Mama, but once t
hey meet her . . .’
‘Have you told Uncle Tristan?’
‘No, he doesn’t take much on board at the moment.’
Having immediately crossed the drawing room to admire George’s Picasso when he arrived, Tristan had hardly moved.
Normally at wrap parties he felt elated and disembodied: if someone rolled back the stone, he wouldn’t be there. But tonight there was no elation. His mind kept slipping into reverse gear as he bitterly castigated himself for being so brutal to Lucy. He wanted to drive over to Valhalla and find her, but having just arrived, he couldn’t abandon his cast and crew, who had endured so much.
Normally also at wrap parties he felt like a prince on a walkabout with everyone shaking his hand and thanking him for a wonderful shoot. But tonight, although no-one was openly hostile, he could feel their reproach, as palpable as the ever-increasing mountain of presents for Lucy on the polished table beside him.
‘What’s the matter with you all?’ he snarled at Valentin.
‘People may not want to work on Hercule unless you hire Lucy again,’ snapped back Valentin. ‘She was so good at calming down singers, and Oscar reckons she’s the best he’s ever worked with.’
‘That’s because the lazy sod gets more sleep if he doesn’t have to spend hours adjusting lights to compensate for the inadequacies of some make-up artist,’ said Tristan sourly.
‘Why d’you have to fire Lucy?’ demanded Ogborne, his mouth full of Danish blue.
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’ Tristan turned away and, for the thousandth time, punched out Lucy’s number.
‘Don’t bug the guy,’ Sylvestre chided the rest of the crew. ‘You all seem to forget that while he was losing three crucial days’ filming he was in prison on a murder charge, being put through the mangle by the flics. He’s entitled to the odd tantrum.’
‘The Vodaphone you have called is not responding,’ the operator was now telling Tristan, ‘please try later, please try later,’ until he wanted to wring her neck and hurl his mobile through George’s huge window-pane. If only Wolfie were here, he’d have found Lucy.