Score!

‘A waiter brought me the second bottle of Krug — Raymondo, I think his name was. I’d have delayed him if he’d been prettier.’

‘What was the name of the lady who stood you up?’ snapped Gablecross.

Baby was ashen beneath his suntan, his jaw rigid with pain, but still he joked, ‘Even for those eyelashes — really, you must dye them for full impact, Sergeant — I am not going to tell you.’

‘You need an alibi,’ pleaded Karen.

‘I don’t care.’

Out in the park, Baby could see a black horse rolling, its back legs whisking from side to side like a bottom-slimming exercise. When it struggled to its feet, grey with dust, much bigger than the horses around it, Baby recognized The Prince of Darkness.

‘It was a guy,’ he said flatly, ‘married, very high profile, wouldn’t do either of our careers any good and would create a frightful scandal, which would break his very straight family’s hearts.’ Then, seeing Gablecross frowning and perplexed, Baby laughed. ‘No, it’s not Alpheus.’

‘You need this other gentleman’s corroboration, even if he didn’t show up,’ said Gablecross mulishly. ‘Two bottles of Krug don’t constitute an alibi.’

‘And a bar of chocolate and some jellybeans?’

‘Don’t upset the detective,’ said Gablecross angrily. ‘If you play ball with us, we won’t shop you.’

‘I can’t.’

Seeing the hurt in his eyes, Karen said, ‘Were you very close?’

‘The closeness, I guess, was on my side. He pleases himself. What pisses me off is I’ve been had — or, rather, wasn’t had on Sunday night.’

‘Did you know Rannaldini had two-way mirrors and bugs in every room, even Lucy’s caravan?’

‘Really?’ Baby cheered up instantly. ‘No wonder he was so vindictive, after hearing the terrible things people said about him.’

‘Any idea who might have killed him?’

‘Harder to think who might not — question of bottle.’

‘What about Tabitha?’

‘Only thing she’d kill for is cruelty to animals, although I gather that Rannaldini killed her stepmother’s dog. My money’d be on…’ Baby looked furtively round the room ‘… our hostess. She’d been cut out of the will. According to Clive, there was a horrific photograph of her in the memoirs.’

Gablecross returned to the attack. ‘You weren’t meeting Tristan de Montigny?’

‘I wish,’ sighed Baby. ‘Tristan’s definitely not gay. He asked me to the cinema and didn’t put his hand on my crotch once.’

Karen burst out laughing. Gablecross snorted in disapproval. ‘The man you went to meet, does his wife know he’s gay?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘You’re lying,’ snapped Gablecross. ‘It was Flora Seymour stood you up, wasn’t it? Because Rannaldini showed her these.’

‘Shit.’ As Baby gazed at the photographs, he looked shocked for the first time. ‘Where did you find those?’

‘In the pockets of the dressing-gown Rannaldini was wearing when he was murdered.’

‘Does Flora know where you found them?’

‘I told her on Monday.’

‘Oh, hell, she told me Rannaldini had pictures of us. But she’d shoved off to London by the time I’d come off the set on Monday night. I suppose George Hungerford’s seen them by now.’

‘Two witnesses saw George in Paradise around ten thirty.’

‘Well, there’s your murderer.’ Baby had regained control of himself. ‘They’re very good.’ He picked up the pictures. ‘I must have lost ten pounds and my double chin’s gone.’

‘Did you really see a ghost on Friday night?’

‘No,’ confessed Baby. ‘I was so pissed off with Dame Hermione masking me. Fainting was the only way to make sure they didn’t use that take. I must go and practise.’ Wandering out on to the terrace, he threw out his arms and opened his lungs: ‘“Drunk with love, full of an immense joy, Elisabetta, my dear, my happiness, I await you.”’

‘What a pity that guy’s gay,’ sighed Karen.

‘As fags go, I rather like him,’ confessed Gablecross. ‘But I wonder if he really was meeting anyone at the Manoir.’

Meanwhile, news of DNA testing had roused others from their beds in panic.

‘It’s so definite,’ grumbled Griselda. ‘I might have pricked my finger when I was turning down that dressing-gown for Alpheus, or put my saliva on it when I broke off the cotton with my teeth.’

‘And Alpheus might have left semen stains on it any time as he romped with Hermione, Chloe and Pushy,’ said Ogborne.

‘Ugh!’ said Simone.

‘And Mikhail could easily have gobbed on it during the quartet, or Dame Hermione, or Chloe, even.’

‘I do not gob,’ snapped Chloe.

‘Granny and Sharon were in the earlier part of the scene, Sharon slobbers on everyone, bless her,’ said Griselda.

‘And how many peoples might Rannaldini have bonked in it, since he neeked it from Alpheus,’ yawned Sylvestre.

‘I cannot find my passport anywhere,’ moaned Lucy. ‘We’ve got to produce proper identification. I wonder if my driving licence will do.’

Gablecross was dreading the next encounter. They found Granny gazing wistfully at a strip of wasteground. Covered in thistles, poisonous hemlock, mildewed burdock, gaudy pink willowherb, rusting sorrel, yellowing nettles, it divided the footpath from one of Rannaldini’s wonderfully cherished fields of wheat stretching golden to infinity.