Score!

Then there was Chloe’s frolic with the goat on the Internet. And Isa’s parents certainly wouldn’t want to know what he’d been getting up to with Baby, or Isa what Baby had been getting up to with Flora. How gay was Baby, really? And what a shame Mikhail had lapsed last night. That marriage would take a long time to repair.

Sighing with pleasure, Rannaldini picked up his photograph album. What a lot of beautiful women he’d slept with! There was Flora, a plump, ravishing schoolgirl, and Chloe, whose skin was white-hot in texture, but who had been almost too easy to bed. And Wolfie’s mother Gina, hangdog because she’d loathed being photographed in the nude. Not a beauty but incredibly rich, she had given him his start in life.

Sharing a page were Serena the nympho and Pushy, whose pillow talk had been very limited. Over the page was Beattie Johnson, who was helping him with his memoirs and who knew rather too much about him. Beattie had been a marvellous fuck, his second wife, Cecilia, an even better one. And there was his third wife, plump Kitty, so anxious to please, who had escaped to marry Rupert’s friend Lysander. One day he would get even with those two.

Across the centre spread was an emaciated Helen — what a contrast to Hermione: rosy, Rubenesque, probably the most beautiful of them all, and certainly the best in bed. Yesterday he had punctured her self-esteem, but she was turned on by punishment and would soon bounce back.

Before the end of filming he would screw Lucy. She deserved a treat. And what a wonderful evening he had had last night, watching Cheryl and Lara exploring each other’s bodies. He’d hardly been able to get a cock in edgeways.

But, flipping through the pages, there were two Everests still to conquer: Rupert’s women. There was only a head shot of the divine Taggie, taken at Tab’s wedding, but by secreting hidden cameras in both her bedrooms, at Valhalla and at Magpie Cottage, he had some stunning shots of Tabitha, naked, slender and most disdainful of them all.

Rannaldini felt chained to a lunatic by his lust, his cock about to detonate. He had fantasized recently of marrying Tab, and giving her blond, beautiful babies.

But things hadn’t gone to plan. Rannaldini found himself increasingly identifying with Philip II. He had ‘sought in the vast desert of men, for a friend’. He had found Tristan, but Tristan had flouted his authority and won Tab’s affection.

It was the same with Wolfie. Rannaldini had wanted his son back so much, but how could it happen that Flora once, and now it seemed Tabitha, had grown increasingly fond of such a ham-fisted, formal, slightly ridiculous, hopelessly romantic young man.

Tab was infatuated with Tristan, but Wolfie was busy gaining ground. In his son’s top drawer, under the lining paper, Rannaldini had found Polaroids of Tab in her dunce’s cap. He’d kill rather than relinquish her to Wolfie. Suddenly he had a brainwave and picked up the telephone.

‘Clive, I want you to make a trip to Penscombe.’

36

Tab was amazed and touched when Chloe rang her the following day, which was a Sunday, asking her to come to Harvey Nichols’ sale in Rutminster. But who was there to buy dresses for? Isa was as cool as ever, and Tristan hadn’t telephoned since he’d blown her out. But knowing that he wanted polo in Don Carlos and that Rannaldini was baulking over the expense, Tab explained to Chloe that she was going over to Rutminster Polo Club that afternoon, to try and persuade some of the England players, all mates of Rupert, to appear in the film for a crate of Moët apiece.

‘Not much of a hardship negotiating with those guys,’ said Chloe. ‘At least drop in on the tennis tournament later.’

‘I can’t, Chloe. Evenings are the only time it’s cool enough to work The Engineer.’

‘Well, look after yourself, little one.’

Tab wiped away the tears. How kind of Chloe to be so solicitous.

Inspired by a fortnight’s Wimbledon, and the fact that it was 8 July, the day the real Carlos had been born, the tennis tournament had been scheduled for early evening in the forlorn hope that the heat might have subsided. Alas, it was hotter than ever, with black storm-clouds massing like the Grand Inquisitor’s army in the west.

The tennis courts at Valhalla flanked Hangman’s Wood. Already the poplars were yellowing and every chestnut leaf was edged with brown. It was so still, the smouldering trees seemed turned to stage scenery. Rannaldini had retired to his watch-tower to drool over the newly arrived rushes of himself on the rostrum. Over and over again the opening bars of the overture, like hunting horns deep in the wood, advertised his evil presence.

To add to the tension, people who had fondly arranged to partner one another weeks ago were no longer on speaking terms. Pushy was playing with Alpheus, which would put Cheryl into orbit, Chloe, a reputed demon on the court, with Mikhail, which would equally enrage Lara.