Score!

‘Can’t find that cloak anywhere. Madam must have taken it to Milan. Hope she hasn’t got it dirty. Here’s the key.’ Griselda dropped it into Lucy’s shirt pocket. ‘Rozzy can find it. Why should I bother if I’ve been fired?’

Alpheus arrived next. He had changed into terracotta trousers and a blue checked shirt, and kept glancing sourly at his watch. Everyone was deliberately staying up late in the hope of waking late to get into the rhythm of night-shooting. But eleven thirty was a ridiculous hour to dine.

‘I’m starved. Where in hell’s Wolfgang?’ he said tetchily.

‘Don’t tell me the Nazi machine’s broken down at last,’ mocked Chloe, ignoring a scowl from Simone.

‘I’m off to raid the larder.’ Going in through the french windows, Ogborne went sharply into reverse as he met Helen, in her honeysuckle and lilac silk dress, coming the other way.

Pretty woman, mused Alpheus. That would really annoy Rannaldini. He was about to offer Helen one of her own drinks when, most uncharacteristically, she poured herself a massive vodka and tonic with a frantically shaking hand.

‘Such a fascinating play on Puccini on Radio Three,’ she told Bernard. ‘I had no idea that he never finished Turandot and that Toscanini conducted the première.’

‘We won’t get any dinner out of her,’ murmured Ogborne to Lucy.

‘My God!’ shouted Griselda. ‘Our very own auto da fe.’

Swinging round, they saw Hangman’s Wood going up in flames and a shower of sparks, like an orange inferno. The crackling could be heard four hundred yards away as parched trees and dry undergrowth submitted helplessly to the fiery furnace. They could feel the heat from where they were standing, as the blaze lit up the entire valley.

‘Rannaldini’s watch-tower’s on fire,’ screamed Helen. ‘All his papers and compositions will be burnt.’

‘Hurrah,’ said Granny, pouring himself a drink.

‘Probably knew they were junk and set fire to them himself,’ crowed Griselda, holding out her glass.

All Rannaldini’s evidence against Tristan would be torched! Lucy felt giddy with relief.

‘What about the rushes?’ asked Alpheus, horrified because he was in them.

‘There’s a duplicate set at the lab,’ said Ogborne. ‘Hadn’t someone better call the fire brigade?’

Someone already had. With a manic jangling, a fleet of fire engines came pounding up the drive and were soon sending fountains of water into the wood.

Five minutes later, the firemen were joined by an hysterical Flora. Having run through brambles, thistles and nettles all the way from Angels’ Reach, she was panting so hard she could only croak.

‘What about Tabloid?’

‘Keep back, Miss,’ shouted a fireman in a yellow tin hat, aiming a huge hose at a blazing oak tree.

‘Rannaldini’s Rottweiler.’ Flora tugged frantically at his sleeve. ‘His kennel’s under the watch-tower — we’ve got to get him out.’

‘Too late, Miss, place’s been torched.’

‘He might be alive,’ panted Flora in desperation. ‘Please! Please!’

Shielding her eyes with her arm, she inched forward, but jumped back as the oak tree crashed to the ground, narrowly missing her and spraying sparks everywhere. Someone grabbed her arm, brushing her down and yanking her to safety. It was several dazed seconds before she recognized Clive behind the blackened face and hair.

‘Tabloid!’ she sobbed.

‘It’s OK. I took him back to the yard earlier.’

‘Are you sure?’ Flora yelled over the crashing and crackling.

She didn’t trust Clive.

‘Get back, for God’s sake!’ bellowed another fireman.

For a few seconds, the blaze had been pegged by the jets of water. But as the flames merrily leapt back to life again, Flora, hastily retreating, out of the corner of her eye, suddenly saw a body on the ground.

For a crazed second, she thought it was some leering Silenus, caught catnapping in the wood after a surfeit of dryads. Then, slowly, horrifically, she realized that the lolling tongue, the hideously engorged lascivious features belonged to Rannaldini. Alpheus’s pink and purple dressing-gown had fallen open to reveal a mini watch-tower of an erection. Flora began to scream.

‘That’s Rannaldini! He’s been murdered.’

‘We have found a body,’ admitted the chief fire officer cautiously, ‘and the police are on their way. If I were you,’ he added to Clive, ‘I’d take this young lady back to the house.’

39

People were always screaming at Valhalla, often to the accompaniment of classical music. Cars frequently hurtled up the drive, helicopters landed like swarms of fireflies, shots were heard in the wood. As television was so dire on Sunday nights, many of the inhabitants of Paradise had got into the habit of switching off their lights, turning round their chairs and focusing their binoculars on the great abbey.

Those watching the goings-on on Sunday, 8 July, included old Miss Cricklade who took in ironing, pretty Sally and Betty, the maids who worked at Valhalla, Pat and Cath, two village beauties with crushes on Tristan, and that Paradise worthy, Lady Chisledon.