Score!

‘To spend quality time with my wife. We’re big animal people. Mr Bones, our German shepherd, pines without her. We can’t bring him here because of your goddam quarantine laws so Cheryl never visits for more than a week.’ That should endear me to a traditionally dog-loving English cop, thought Alpheus sourly. ‘When Cheryl is here, we like to be alone,’ he went on, ‘and, frankly, not having been to an English public school like you, Officer,’ Alpheus crinkled his eyes again — let’s flatter the square-faced bastard, ‘I found the dormitory atmosphere at Valhalla claustrophobic, so Dame Hermione, a good friend, lent us Jasmine Cottage. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’ Alpheus smothered himself in a white towelling bathrobe.

‘Have you any idea who might have killed Rannaldini?’

‘Must be an outside job. No-one involved in this movie would want Rannaldini off the credits.’

‘You wore a pink and purple dressing-gown to play Philip.’

‘Sing Philip,’ said Alpheus fussily.

‘D’you know where it is?’

‘In Wardrobe, I guess.’

‘Rannaldini was wearing it when he was murdered,’ said Gablecross.

Clearly this jolted Alpheus: his wedding-ring glittered and quivered as his shaking hand moved through his hair. Had Cheryl taken the dressing-gown from the back of the wardrobe at Jasmine Cottage, he wondered, and given it to Rannaldini, who’d always coveted it?

‘D’you think someone could have mistaken Rannaldini for you?’

‘I have no enemies,’ said Alpheus coldly.

‘Alpheus Shaw claims to have no enemies,’ said Gablecross.

‘Nor has he many friends,’ said Flora. ‘But I mustn’t speak ill of the alive, in case you take it down in evidence against me.’

They found her slumped in Lucy’s caravan, watched beadily by Foxie, her puppet mascot, and Trevor the terrier. She was three-quarters down a bottle of white and was reading a small, leatherbound book in bad light. She looked wretched, deathly pale and red-eyed.

‘I suppose you’re not allowed drink. Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘We’ve had about a gallon each,’ said Gablecross sitting down opposite her. Karen edged wide-eyed towards Lucy’s make-up table.

Tipping the spine of Flora’s book, Gablecross saw it was Macbeth.

‘Enjoying it?’

‘Suits my mood,’ shivered Flora.

‘“And wither’d murder”’ she read out, ‘“… thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost.” Can’t imagine anyone withered or ghostly being strong enough to murder Rannaldini.’

‘Rage and adrenalin’, pronounced Gablecross, ‘give the smallest, frailest person strength.’

‘That puts little Meredith in the frame,’ said Flora. ‘He’s never forgiven Rannaldini for calling his auto da fe set suburban.’

‘Fond of him, were you?’

‘Rannaldini? No, I loathed him. He seduced me when I was sixteen, then dumped me. But it’s still a shock.’

‘What were you doing between nine thirty and eleven thirty last night?’

‘Getting pissed, mostly. Then I went home to feed the cat. My parents live next door — you can see the stone angels through the trees. I hadn’t realized how dark it was so I skirted the rose gardens, the maze and the stables and ran past our pond on the right.’

‘Who saw you at home?’

‘Only the cat, who’s not great on alibis.’

‘Did you notice anything unusual on the way?’

‘Like Hermione praising another singer?’ Flora topped up her glass. ‘Sorry, silly joke. I heard her singing Elisabetta’s last duet. Might have been a CD or a tape. There were lights on in River House and Magpie Cottage, I heard sheep bleating — they always bleat when anyone comes through Hangman’s Wood, hoping it’s the shepherd with their hay. The grass is so poor.’

‘Live at home, do you?’ asked Gablecross, who knew the answer.

‘No, I live with George Hungerford — at least, I did until recently. I was going to marry him.’ She accepted one of Gablecross’s cigarettes with a shaking hand.

‘I’ll pay you back. That lipstick really suits you,’ she added to Karen, who put it down hastily and picked up her notebook.

Flora dolefully relayed the drama of George landing his helicopter in the middle of her snogging scene with Pushy.

‘He went ballistic, I told him to fuck off,’ she said, finally and sadly.

‘So George has landed his helicopter here before?’ said Gablecross quickly. ‘Didn’t you notice one landing last night around ten thirty and someone running towards the watch-tower?’

Flora’s eyes flickered in horror. ‘It couldn’t have been George,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sure he’s in Germany.’ She kept fiddling with her mobile to make sure it was switched on.

‘How did you get back to Valhalla?’

‘I drove. It was dark by then. It gets very creepy — funny things have been happening recently.’

Topping up her drink, she listed Granny’s patchwork quilt, the adder in Lucy’s make-up box, slug pellets in James’s water-bowl, Tab nearly burning to death in the auto da fe.

‘Why didn’t anyone call the police?’