Score!

Particularly when the bell rang again, and Clive, sulkily, had to admit Bobby Clintock, another of Gablecross’s contacts and the best safecracker in Rutshire, armed with rugs and explosives.

At five thirty-five, a loud thud set the horses neighing and the Rottweilers barking in their quarters below.

‘Shit,’ muttered Clive, peering through the smoke. ‘The Montigny’s not there, nor the Picasso. Must have been torched in the fire. That’s five million up the spout.’

Otherwise they found a lot of foreign currency, enough cocaine to make a snow-dwarf, a print-out of three hundred pages of the memoirs, and a pile of videos and photographs. Pushy Galore straddling a sofa didn’t do much for Clive and neither did Bussage roped to the table. Then he saw Chloe.

‘Jesus! Expect the goat’ll sell its story to Farmer’s Weekly.’

Poor old Granville Hastings. Gablecross picked up a photo of a devastated-looking Granny. No wonder he didn’t want the police called.

Rannaldini must have locked this stuff away on the Sunday afternoon before he died. There was even a copy of his last will, dated 8 July, leaving everything to Cecilia and her children, except for four million each to Hermione and Little Cosmo and a hundred thousand to Clive and Miss Bussage. Nothing to Helen or Wolfie.

No wonder Wolfie had been going to kill his father.

Flicking through a yellow memo pad, Gablecross found notes that Rozzy Pringle had throat cancer, the poor lady, and reminders to contact Rozzy’s husband Glyn and also Tristan’s aunt Hortense in the Tarn. In a Bible, he discovered a letter in French, on writing paper headed with a crest of a snake and a drawing of two lovers, and shoved it in his inside pocket to read later. Turning, he found Bobby Clintock salivating over Hermione’s naked body and Clive drooling over a book of medieval tortures with many of the pages turned down.

‘What was it with this guy?’ asked Gablecross in disgust.

‘He was bored with normal pleasure,’ said Clive flatly.

‘Where was his famous torture chamber?’

‘Didn’t exist.’ Clive’s pale eyes flickered.

‘Did you take that Rottie away from the watch-tower earlier so you could kill him without it barking?’

‘You’ll have to take my word on that.’

‘Thanks for your co-operation,’ said Gablecross, as Clive and Bobby, albeit with great reluctance, helped him to carry the safe to his car.

52

Gerry Portland was outraged when Gablecross emptied the contents of the safe on to his desk.

‘Tim-out-on-a-limb again. How dare you go off intimidating suspects and blowing safes? Nothing has been printed.’

‘There were two of them, and Bobby Clintock’s much bigger than me.’

‘You could have torched the evidence. What’s the defence going to say to this?’ Having bollocked him, however, Portland was soon immersed in the material. ‘Jesus! Jesus. How the hell did Rannaldini pull birds like that?’

As a result, the morning’s briefing was lively, excited and often ribald.

‘If you see steam coming out of my ears,’ announced Portland, ‘it’s because Tim’s got hold of a copy of the memoirs. We also have the missing tape from the answering-machine at Valhalla.’ He pressed the play button. ‘Oh, Wolfie, help me! Rannaldini’s just raped me, and he’s killed Gertrude. Oh, please get Sharon from the cottage!’

Tab’s clipped, breathless voice faltered as tears took over.

Despite the sun streaming through the window, a shiver went through the room.

‘It was after hearing this tape’, went on Portland, ‘that young Wolfgang announced he was going to kill his father. If he’d gone to the watch-tower and read the draft will, he’d have had the added incentive that he’d been disinherited. Rupert also received a phone call from Tabitha a few minutes later.’

‘Rupert looked capable of murder last night,’ admitted Gablecross.

Fanshawe, who was livid about Gablecross’s latest coup, and Debbie Miller had been to Magpie Cottage yesterday. The only unusual thing on Monday morning, Betty had told them, was that Tab’s and Isa’s double bed had been neatly made. On the other hand, the bathroom had been a shambles. Fanshawe had pocketed a pale coral lipstick, Lancôme’s Brilliant Beige, Clinique blusher, base and powder, and a hairbrush full of blonde hairs. Kicked under the bath, perhaps so Isa shouldn’t see it, had been the packaging from a newly opened bottle of scent called Quercus.

‘Perhaps she didn’t want her husband to know she was on the pull,’ said Debbie.

Gablecross reported on his and Karen’s visit to Miss Bussage. ‘The lady was very bitter about her sacking and unashamedly confessed she had meant to steal a copy of the memoirs and photographs. Said she was protecting Rannaldini’s reputation.’

‘I reckon she was going to flog them,’ piped up Karen.

‘Certainly enjoyed being flogged,’ said Portland, grinning down at the photo of Bussage roped to the kitchen table.

‘Disgusting,’ chuntered DC Smithson.