Score!

Debbie Miller was writing frantically. ‘What’s reine de pré and gaillet?’

‘Wild flowers.’

‘Should have been London Pride,’ giggled Debbie. ‘He claimed he was in town.’

‘Perhaps it was Sexton rolled in the grass with Mees Chloe Super-bitch, that’s eight things. And Bernard ’ave ash in his hair, and Helen come in wearing false eyelashes and black pencilled eyebrows as eef she cover up singeing.’

‘Very good,’ said Fanshawe delightedly.

‘So Bernard and Helen could have been in the wood,’ squeaked Debbie.

‘And Sexton up to no good,’ shrugged Simone. ‘Chloe could also have been with Mikhail or Alpheus, although I think now they both hate her.’

‘Who around here wears signet rings or rings on their left hand little finger?’ asked Fanshawe.

‘Rupert Campbell-Black.’ Simone glanced up at the telephone list. ‘Granny. Tristan, although he hasn’t worn it recently. Now, Sexton is interesting. He used to wear a signet ring on wedding-ring finger, but since ’Ermione thinks he go to Eton, he move it to leetle finger, and it is too loose, so he ’old it on like Prince Charles.

‘Valentin, Oscar and Bernard all wear wedding rings,’ she continued. ‘Griselda wear bloodstone on little finger, ’Ermione often wear big diamond Rannaldini gave her, Gloria like flaunting big sapphire, probably a fake, Rannaldini also give her that too. Wolfie’s signet ring keeps falling off because he lose so much weight too, so in the finals he gave it to Lucy to wear for him.’

‘Was Lucy there all the time?’

‘No, she take James away for queek run. He was whining but she was back before we finish and she give ring back to Wolfgang.’

So both Lucy and Wolfgang could have nipped into the wood and done the business, thought Fanshawe.

‘Why d’you want to know?’ Simone gave Chloe’s Polaroid a squint.

‘We have reason to believe the murderer was wearing a big ring when he strangled Rannaldini.’

‘Then, it could have been me,’ laughed Simone. On the little finger of her tiny left hand glinted an amber in a gold setting.

‘That’s beautiful,’ gasped Debbie. ‘Who gave you that?’

‘A secret admirer — too precious to tell anyone.’

‘You had no motive to kill Rannaldini,’ teased Fanshawe.

‘Only for putting artistic consideration before continuity,’ said Simone, with unconcealed venom.

After all this evidence, Sexton’s alibi of speeding in his maroon Roller down the M4, after a weekend of heroically raising money, and Hermione’s, of watching Pride and Prejudice, ringing her husband Bobby, and spending quality time with Little Cosmo, were looking thin.

Fanshawe and Debbie found Hermione alone and just managing to polish off a large tub of pistachio and ginger ice cream. She had lost a stone and a half, received six and a half thousand letters, she told them, and was ready to return to the set tomorrow because she couldn’t let down Rupert Campbell-Black.

Hermione rather liked Fanshawe’s sleek dark hair and flat stomach until he accused her of not watching Pride and Prejudice.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, it’s my favourite novel. Why isn’t Timothy conducting this interview?’

‘Nor did you ring your husband.’

‘Oh, well, it must have been the day before. When one is jet-lagged and wrestling with artistic problems, time ceases to have any meaning.’

‘Evidently. How d’you explain the fact that Mr Kemp’s Rolls-Royce was parked under your Judas tree at around ten twenty, and Mr Kemp’s clothes, when he finally rolled up at Valhalla some time after two o’clock in the morning, were covered in lady’s bedstraw and meadowsweet? In fact, Mr Kemp lied to us about being on the M4 at the time of the murder, Dame Hermione. He was at River House with you.’

If Sergeant Fanshawe had expected a battle of wits he was disappointed.

‘Indeed,’ Dame Hermione bowed her head, ‘I must tell you the truth, Officer. Are you married?’

‘I have a partner.’

‘I am a married woman, but Sexton and I found we cared deeply for each other, and our love tryst occurred in the summerhouse on Sunday evening. Sexton laid down a carpet of lady’s bedstraw and meadowsweet, which was what Elisabetta would have lain on in the sixteenth century.’

‘Didn’t you notice the fire engines and the police sirens and the watch-tower going up in flames?’ asked Fanshawe in amazement.

‘The summerhouse is behind River House, so one cannot see the watch-tower — and frankly, Officer, we were too busy setting each other aflame.’

Debbie Miller had contracted Karen’s complaint, and was laughing so much she had to gaze out of the window.

‘Why did you lie about this, Dame Hermione?’

‘I couldn’t humiliate my husband, Bobby.’

‘You and Rannaldini managed to humiliate him for the last few years,’ snapped Fanshawe, ‘presumably your husband knew which side his bread was buttered when the royalties came in.’

‘Unkind, Officer.’ Hermione bowed reproachfully.

‘Did you know that Rannaldini was planning to have his vasectomy reversed so he could have children?’

‘I am not past childbearing age. Cosmo would have adored a little sibling.’