Score!

‘After midnight, but I’m afraid I sloped off to bed about eight. It’d been going since lunchtime. I had a terrible migraine. About quarter to eleven I suddenly remembered I hadn’t rung Lucy. We’ve become such friends on Carlos. I was so distracted by the din still going on at our end that I forgot what I’d rung up for, so I called her back five minutes later to remind her to get Hermione’s cloak out of Wardrobe. The wretched thing’s gone missing. I wonder if Mikhail’s whipped it?’

‘Can I have your telephone number at home?’ asked Gablecross.

‘Actually I rang on my mobile. I found Sylvia’s things by Glyn’s and my bed,’ Rozzy blushed scarlet, ‘a horrid porn mag and a jar of baby oil, so I took refuge in the spare room, which doesn’t have a telephone.’ She gazed down at her roughened hands.

‘What a bastard.’ Karen attacked the chocolate cake. ‘I’d have given him a smack in the face for his birthday.’

Rozzy smiled. ‘Flora got her mother, Georgie Maguire, to sign her latest album and some photographs. Glyn is such a fan. He was over the moon, until Sylvia gave him a single of “S’Wonderful”. He played it all night.’

‘What a plonker,’ said Karen furiously.

Gablecross shot her a reproving look. He found Rozzy a little too helpful. He knew the type: professional martyr, brave little wife, who hadn’t the guts to walk out and who couldn’t bear to relinquish public sympathy. Lacking love at home, they embraced the whole world. Husband probably was a shit. Rozzy clutched herself when she wasn’t bustling about and blinked a lot. But Gablecross had stopped relying on body language after he’d seen himself on TV, making a statement at some press conference, blinking and twitching enough to be the Yorkshire Ripper.

‘When did you last see Rannaldini?’ he asked.

‘On Saturday morning. He’d caught me watering his plants very early. I couldn’t bear the way he let them die in the drought. He pulled me into his study and shouted at me. It didn’t last long.’

‘He seems to have rowed with everyone recently,’ Gablecross said, starting on the tomato sandwiches. ‘Didn’t he and Tristan de Montigny fight over Tabitha Campbell-Black?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Gablecross had noticed that women’s voices grew shrill and men’s thickened whenever Tabitha’s name was mentioned.

‘We gather she was the only woman Tristan showed any interest in.’ Gablecross knew it was cruel, but he wanted to test Rozzy.

Rozzy went on pouring tea into his cup until it spilled over.

‘Tabitha had nearly burnt to death,’ she said sharply. ‘She was badly frightened. He was a grown-up comforting a child.’

‘Whose fault was it that the newspaper caught fire?’

‘Wolfie’s. He hadn’t checked properly and one can still contained petrol.’

‘Could he have tried to kill Tabitha?’

‘Of course not, but Tab and Tristan are quite unsuited. He reads Bach cello suites for pleasure in the evening. Tab’s thick, insensitive, and arrogant — just like her father. Tristan’s interest in her was over before it began.

‘Rannaldini gave Tristan a hard time,’ went on Rozzy, clearly not wanting to discuss Tab any more, ‘but he did love his godson. Tristan and I get on really well too. He’s doing Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne and he’s asked me to sing Octavian.’

‘Who could have killed Rannaldini?’

‘I have no idea. Perhaps it was some Mafia plot.’

‘When did you come back to Valhalla?’

‘Early this…’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Heavens, it’s after midnight. Early yesterday morning.’

‘How far’s Mallowfield?’

‘About fifty miles away.’

Seeing his detective constable was falling asleep, Gablecross ate the last sandwich and called it a day.

‘What a lovely lady,’ sighed Karen.

‘Bit too good to be true. We’d better talk to Glyn and check out her alibi, but it looks as though she’s in the clear. I wonder how DC Miller got on with Rupert Campbell-Black.’

47

‘There are some advantages to this job, if you get to meet Rupert Campbell-Black,’ said DC Miller in excitement. ‘He’s supposed to be the handsomest man in England.’

‘Only because he’s loaded and owns a bloody great mansion,’ snapped DS Fanshawe, slamming his foot on the accelerator as he turned into Rupert’s drive in the hope of smearing the rose-pink lipstick DC Miller was applying to her delectable mouth.

The beeches, forming a halo round Rupert’s lovely, pale gold Queen Anne house, were already turning. In the park below, beautiful horses with whisking tails had taken refuge from the heat under great bell-like trees. The rim of brown rush above the water’s edge showed how much the lake had dropped. A dozen cars were parked outside an open front door, but no-one answered the bell.

‘He’s not worried about burglars,’ said Debbie Miller.

Shuffling down a rose walk, ankle deep in petals, ducking to avoid spiky unpruned branches, they reached Rupert’s yard, which was immaculate but deserted except for a comely girl groom, who was reading a handsome chestnut colt his Daily Mail horoscope.

‘It’s Peppy Koala,’ said Debbie in awe. ‘Oh, can I stroke him?’