by Jilly Cooper
They had already found the murder weapon, a.22, chucked into the long grass by the Devil’s Stream. It had been taken from Props.
‘Who has a key?’ Fanshawe asked.
‘Everyone in that department, but the prop master said the doors are often open all day, it would be easy for the murderer to get a key cut. It’s a single-shot gun,’ he continued, ‘so the killer would not be expecting to miss. It’d been handled in filming during the auto da fe by Baby and Mikhail, and covered in their prints which Forensic are isolating.’
It had been a pretty lively evening, according to DC Lightfoot, what with the sightings of Rannaldini and the filling in of Bernard’s crossword, which had gone off to the graphologist. As a final act of defiance, one of Rannaldini’s cigars had been found stubbed out in Beattie’s ashtray.
‘Wow,’ sighed Karen. ‘D’you think our murderer’s really dressing up as Rannaldini, and that’s what terrified Beattie? She probably wrote worse things about him in her pieces for Sunday than anyone else.’
‘Possible,’ mused Portland, examining the note again.
‘“Meet me in the Unicorn Glade at one fifteen.” This was written by someone familiar with a keyboard — it’s not a two-finger job.’
‘Who would have wanted to murder Beattie?’
‘Everyone,’ said Portland, with feeling. ‘If she had the memoirs, and if she hadn’t, they’d all blabbed or been stitched up by her.’
Paddy, Rupert’s racing crony on the Sun, had quickly been on to Portland, saying he’d tipped off Rupert and all the big names that Eulalia was Beattie just after twelve thirty.
‘Sounded like a turkey farm in mid-December,’ Paddy had added gleefully. ‘Most of them were only too happy to give their side of the story for a consideration. News travels so fast on a film set, everyone must have known Beattie was Eulalia by the middle of the break.’
‘Still didn’t give them much time to send her a note and murder her before they had to start work again,’ said Gablecross.
‘If the murderer had a master key,’ said Karen excitedly, ‘they could have let themselves into Eulalia’s room much earlier, discovered she was Beattie and waited till Friday, just before she filed copy, to kill her and whip the piece so they could get hold of as much sleaze as possible.’
‘Good girl,’ said Portland approvingly.
‘Mrs Brimscombe says Beattie went out about ten thirty,’ said DC Lightfoot. ‘Murderer could have nipped in then, nicked all the stuff, printed out the piece and left a note under the door.’
‘Risky,’ said Karen. ‘If Beattie returned, found the memoirs and disks missing and the piece run off, she might have smelt a rat or two and not gone to the Unicorn Glade.’
‘More likely’, said Fanshawe dismissively — anyone would have thought DC Needham was running this meeting, ‘the murderer killed her, then returned to her room, fucked the computer, having printed off and nicked Beattie’s stuff, then hidden that and returned to the set by one thirty as though nothing had happened.’
‘Unlikely it was as early as that,’ said Gablecross, who was pissed off with Karen but wasn’t having anyone bullying her. ‘Sylvestre, the sound man, who can hear mobiles three streets away, heard a scream around one twenty and assumed it was some singer acting up but swears he heard a crash as late as one thirty-five.’
‘By which time most of them would have been back on the set.’
‘Not Mr Campbell-Black,’ said Gablecross darkly. ‘He hates Beattie most of all. He pretended to see a ghost and buggered off to visit George Hungerford, or so he says. They came back together, both quite capable of putting out a contract on Beattie. Tristan de Montigny disappeared into the darkness with his mobile.
‘Alpheus Shaw’, Gablecross pointed up at the unit photograph, ‘says he made a few phone calls in the production office, where he was seen by Mikhail, then he returned to Jasmine Cottage for an early night. Baby says he was with Flora.
‘Immediately Chloe, Gloria, Hermione, et cetera, learned it was Beattie,’ he continued, ‘they were trying to get on to her, begging her not to shop them. I imagine those were the phone calls Lady Rannaldini heard through the night. She swears she had no idea that Eulalia was Beattie. I think she’s lying. She’s now shoved off to Penscombe to stay with Rupert and Taggie. Sexton Kemp rolled up on the set at four thirty.’
‘Funny time to be wandering around,’ said Fanshawe, who was still hoping to nail Hermione and Sexton for the murder. ‘Lucy Latimer spent most of the evening giving Dame Hermione resprays, Rozzy Pringle ferrying clean shirts.’
‘Very easy to come and go on a film set.’ Gablecross shook his head. ‘Never use everyone at the same time.’
‘Better search their rooms,’ said Portland.
‘Can’t at the moment.’ DC Lightfoot looked at his watch. ‘They’ll be sleeping. They get wake-up calls around five.’
‘Funny old time for Beattie to cop it,’ mused Portland, ‘missing the nationals.’ Then, answering his telephone, ‘Great, thanks, I’ll be along.’ Rubbing his hands, he told his team, ‘They’ve identified the fingerprints on the.22 and the wheel marks in the field off Rannaldini’s drive.’
But as Portland left the room, Gablecross followed him into the corridor, looking extremely sheepish.
‘Could I have a word, Guv’nor?’ Then, pulling a letter and a bit of paper out of his inside pocket, ‘I’m afraid in the excitement of blowing Clive’s safe, I forgot I’d left this in my other jacket. It was in French. Karen’s translated it.’
Having made a statement about Beattie’s murder, Helen had left for Penscombe. This in turn left her maids, Betty and Sally, with more time on their hands. They were so terrified of hearing Rannaldini’s cloak slithering along the corridors that they always worked as a pair now.
They were concerned about their beloved Tristan. He had always been so courteous and grateful. Filming all night, caught up in admin all day, he looked absolutely dreadful. They had learnt never to touch his papers, but after they’d emptied the ashtrays and removed the cups, chewing-gum papers and glasses on the morning of Friday the thirteenth, they decided to turn his mattresses. No-one deserved a good sleep more. Having worked at Valhalla, Sally and Betty were not easily fazed. They had found strange sex toys in the past, but were truly shocked to discover between Tristan’s mattresses a little pornographic painting of their late master, with a long whip in his hand, flicking the lash round the neck of a beautiful girl.
‘Never thought Tristan was into SM,’ muttered Betty, as they hastily remade the bed.
At lunchtime, Betty had a drink with Fanshawe in the Pearly Gates, and after the second vodka and bitter lemon confessed their finding.
‘Blimey!’ Fanshawe had never downed a St Clement’s faster. Belting back to the house, gathering up Sally on the way, up in Tristan’s bedroom, they found the Montigny had vanished.
‘I know it was here,’ panted Sally. ‘We saw the horrible thing.’
‘Tristan must’ve come back, seen you’d cleaned the room, and whipped — pardon the pun — the evidence,’ said Fanshawe.
But all was not lost: his eyes lit on a pair of off-white chinos and a bottle-green polo shirt lying newly ironed on the bed.
‘When were those washed?’
‘First thing Monday morning,’ replied Sally. ‘We always go round the rooms gathering up the washing. Even on the morning after he was murdered, and everyone was flapping around because Tristan hadn’t come back, Wolfie said it’d be better if we kept to our routine.’
Gablecross and Karen were both dreading their next interview. It coincided with an unexpected hailstorm, which had sent the press racing for shelter. Lucy’s caravan was empty. They found her rescuing a meadow brown from the stony deluge and setting it down under the protection of a hawthorn bush. Her day’s sleep had been wrecked by flickering nightmares of Rannaldini, by a restless James barking at prowling police and paparazzi, and by her churning misery that Tristan, as never before, had no
t apologized for bitching at her.
Her eyes were red and swollen, her skin shiny and unhealthily sallow, her dark brown curls in need of a wash, but her smile was welcoming and she was still, thought Gablecross, easily the most attractive woman on the unit. He and Karen accepted cups of tea, but neither had the stomach for Battenburg cake.
‘James hates marzipan too,’ said Lucy, going back to sticking Polaroids into a scrapbook with toupee tape.
Initially the questions were innocuous. What had she been doing in the break? Had she noticed anything odd?
‘I didn’t really have time to notice anything.’
‘Sweet little kids.’ Karen admired Lucy’s nieces round the mirror, as she took out her notebook.
At first when it spun glittering gold on the table, Lucy thought Gablecross had thrown down a coin. Then she realized it was a signet ring. Had she seen it before?
‘Of course, it’s Tristan’s.’
‘Motto’s in French, know what it means?’
For a second, Lucy looked at the chained, hissing serpent, peering at the tiny words beneath. ‘“If you disturb the Montigny snake,”’ she said slowly, ‘“the Montigny snake will come looking for you,” i.e. “Leave us alone, and we won’t hassle you.”’
‘Rannaldini didn’t leave Tristan alone, did he?’
Careful, thought Lucy, not realizing she had stuck Hermione in upside down.
‘Take a look at this,’ said Gablecross. ‘We found it in Rannaldini’s safe.’
The same snake crest headed the yellowing sheet of writing paper. Beneath was an exquisite little drawing of two entwined lovers. The writing was so beautiful you were inclined to believe anything it told you.
‘My French is hopeless,’ she mumbled.
‘Here’s a translation,’ said Karen.
‘“My dear Rannaldini,”’ read Lucy. As the colour drained slowly out of her face, she forced her other hand to grab and ground the frantically shaking hand holding the letter. ‘So it was true,’ she whispered, before she could stop herself.
‘What?’ said Gablecross sharply.
‘Nothing,’ stammered Lucy. ‘That Étienne confided in Rannaldini so much.’
‘Come, come. Those two were friends for thirty years, Étienne’s paintings are all over the house. You can do better than that. “Obscene incestuous union… I can never bring myself to love him.” Étienne clearly wasn’t Tristan’s dad. Was that why Tristan killed Rannaldini?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Lucy glanced up at Gablecross’s square, bullying, ruthless face.
‘Why did he lie that he wasn’t back in Valhalla on Sunday night? Why’s he refusing a DNA test? He was clearly in shock when he finally rolled up on Monday.’
‘That was something else.’
‘We believe he killed Rannaldini and then Beattie because he was terrified of the truth coming out. His fingerprints are all over the gun that killed Beattie.’
‘They can’t be,’ whimpered Lucy in terror. ‘Oh, please, he was in shock not because he killed Rannaldini but because, when he reeled home rapturous, goofy from making love for the first time to Tab,’ her voice broke, ‘Rannaldini sent for him and told him this horrific thing, that he wasn’t a Montigny at all, and far, far worse, that his mad brute of a grandfather on the other side, had raped Delphine, his mother, because he was so wildly jealous that she’d married Étienne. The result was Tristan.’
There, it was out.
Karen winced. Gablecross whistled.
‘Wow, so that was it. Thank you, Miss Latimer.’
‘Please don’t tell anyone. You forced it out of me,’ gabbled Lucy, in desperate agitation. Oh, God, what had she done?
‘You know how proud Tristan is of being a Montigny, how naturally aristocratic. He had no mother to bring him up, Étienne was so cold and dismissive, his great arrogant family of brothers all got preferential treatment. Unlike them, Tristan got nothing personal in the will. Being a Montigny was all he had to cling on to.’
She picked up the signet ring.
‘Maxim, Delphine’s father, was sectioned and a violent psychopath, according to Rannaldini. Tristan’s so honourable he felt that as a result he shouldn’t have children.’
The hailstorm had turned to rain weeping down the windows. There was such a long pause that Lucy stumbled into more revelations. ‘I’m sure Rannaldini made the whole thing up, probably forged this letter. He was crawlingly obsessed with Tab. He couldn’t bear Tristan near her — he’d have made up anything to stop him.’
‘Probably why Tristan killed him. Why did he lie about bottling out of his favourite auntie’s eighty-sixth birthday party?’
‘Can’t you understand?’ pleaded Lucy. ‘She wasn’t his auntie if he was no longer a Montigny, any more than Simone was his niece, or his brothers his brothers. He’d have felt a fraud at that party.’
‘And he claimed to have spent all night in his car.’
‘I’ve told you about that.’ Lucy’s voice was rising. ‘He was exhausted, everyone drains him. This film has been so awful. The next one, now his roots have been severed, was all he had.’
An embarrassed, upset James had curled up almost as small as Tristan’s signet ring, which Gablecross was holding up to the light.
‘He dropped this beside Rannaldini’s body.’
‘I don’t believe it. He hadn’t worn that ring for ages. It was so loose it kept falling off.’
‘Beside Rannaldini’s dead body,’ intoned Gablecross. ‘The Montigny snake went looking for Rannaldini and coiled itself round his neck until it squeezed the life out of him.’
‘No, no!’ Lucy clapped her hands over her ears.
‘Same reason he stole The Snake Charmer.’
‘Course he didn’t.’
‘Betty and Sally found it under his mattress on Thursday. By the time they’d alerted a police officer, he’d whipped it. Rannaldini was going to publish a copy of the painting in his memoirs. Tristan couldn’t cope with a pornographic photograph of his mum being on display so he killed Rannaldini and Beattie.’
‘No, no.’ Lucy burst into tears, head on the table, clenching and unclenching her hands.
‘Cooee, cooee,’ said a voice.
It was Chloe, avid with excitement, eyes swivelling, reeking of the same beautiful scent.
‘I hope you’re not bullying darling Lucy, Tim. She’s got a long night ahead, and I don’t want my lip-liner looking like an is-he-alive, is-he-dead heartrate in Intensive Care.’
Leaving Lucy’s caravan on the way back to the car park, both feeling sick, Gablecross and Karen saw a lone figure slumped at a table outside the canteen, and realized it was Wolfie.
‘Can we join you?’ asked Karen, slipping into the chair beside him.
‘You can arrest me if you like,’ mumbled Wolfie. ‘Why shouldn’t I have killed my father? He left me nothing and stole the only two girls I’ve ever loved.’ His teeth were chattering frantically.
‘It’s all right, lad.’ Gablecross patted the boy’s shoulder. ‘Your dad had cameras and bugs installed in every room, even at Magpie Cottage. Tabitha never posed for him, I could swear it.’
‘And’, went on Karen, taking Wolfie’s hand, ‘I’m sure he left you nothing because he was jealous of you.’
Wolfie raised incredulous, swollen, bloodshot eyes.
‘Because Tab liked you so much,’ added Gablecross. ‘I read it in the memoirs.’
‘Papa was jealous of me?’ Suddenly Wolfie was grinning from pink ear to pink ear. ‘Because of Tab?’
‘Certainly was,’ said Karen. ‘It was you she turned to after he raped her.’
But Wolfie wasn’t listening. ‘I don’t give a stuff about the money, I can earn my own. Tab’s the only thing I care about.’ Then, getting to his feet and going, somewhat unsteadily, towards the bar, ‘Let’s have a drink. The only problem’, he added wryly, ‘is that she’s madly in love with Tristan. Still, it’s a start.’
Over in his caravan, Tris
tan had neither been to bed nor had a moment to rejoice over the ecstatic reviews flooding in for The Lily in the Valley.
There had been so much to do. Someone had nicked Alpheus’s white suit from Wardrobe. The.22 stolen to kill Beattie had had to be replaced. Helen had gone ballistic about the electricity bill and been ringing all day from Penscombe. Mr Brimscombe had gone equally ballistic because the police had trampled over all his flowers. Rupert and George, who were all buddy-buddy now, kept wanting to have meetings about polo shoots.
He tried to work out tonight’s reshoot of the attempted murder of Eboli, an action sequence that required multiple angles and shots so it could be edited to look fast. It would have been complicated even in the Unicorn Glade. This, however, was now gift-wrapped in red and white ribbon and crawling with scenes-of-crime officers, so they’d have to go back to filming in the centre of the maze.
Then there would be several hours spent lighting Alpheus’s nose before he prayed in the chapel, but at least that was an interior, which wouldn’t be sabotaged by any sunrise.
Tristan was reeling from tiredness. Then another hammer-blow struck: Dupont had rung to say that Aunt Hortense had been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas, which could finish her off at any moment. She was heavily drugged and hardly conscious, down at the château in the Tarn.
Tristan was devastated. Hortense might not be his real aunt any more, but she was all he had. He had been saddened and amazed to hear how upset she’d been that he’d cut her party. Perhaps she was a little fond of him, but he had been too traumatized by events to call her to apologize. The moment they finished shooting tomorrow he’d fly out to Toulouse. He felt his world crumbling. If she died before he got there, he’d never discover if Rannaldini had been telling the truth.
‘She keeps asking for you,’ chided Dupont.
Tristan also felt bitterly ashamed that he wished Hortense had waited until he’d finished shooting to decide to die. Visions of Beattie’s stinking, impaled body swam before his eyes. He felt himself retching.