Score!

As the crew dismantled the camera tracks, took down lights and prepared the film cans for the courier to take for processing, Lucy wearily removed make-up and wigs, and thought longingly of her bed. Everyone was cheered up by a particularly sumptuous breakfast of fluffy buttery scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and bagels, followed by strawberries and cream. DC Lightfoot, Gablecross and Karen, who didn’t want to miss the fun, and half Rutshire Constabulary, who’d been flatfooting round like the chorus of The Pirates of Penzance, were soon tucking in as well. Even the French contingent managed to crack a smile when Rupert rolled up with several crates of white and red.

‘You can drink yourselves insensible now.’

Having nervously glanced around for Rannaldini’s ghost, he dragged a newly arrived Sexton into the production office. Expecting another bollocking about overpaying Lord Waterlane, Sexton was amazed when Rupert announced that George Hungerford was a seriously good guy.

‘I fort you loathed him, said he was more of a yobbo than me.’

‘Only because he was threatening to ram a motorway up my estate. He’s given Tab an alibi and he’s offered us his polo field for nothing. And he says we can have the wrap party there too, get us away from Valhalla.’

‘What about Lord Waterlane?’ asked a wistful Sexton, who’d been invited to lunch at the House of Lords.

‘It’ll really piss him off, the greedy sod,’ said Rupert happily. ‘And his vulgar wife too, who was expecting to nail the cast to open her fêtes for the next forty years. Good bloke, George.’

‘You are so bleedin’ irrational,’ sighed Sexton.

‘I know how to save money, and I’m also dazzling at playing Cupid.’

Flora, who had changed out of her dinner jacket into a pair of grey linen shorts and a red and yellow striped blazer, looked as young and desolate as a small boy going back to prep school for the second term. Everyone was hugging her, taking her telephone number and saying they’d see her at the wrap party.

‘Yes, lovely, I’ll be there,’ lied Flora, through numbed lips.

She’d send them a crate of champagne — or rather plonk in her new impoverished state — and be at the bottom of the River Fleet by then.

As she walked wearily down to Make Up to collect Trevor, an early bumble bee was burying its face in a dark blue delphinium, the clouds overhead were turning from yellow to pale pink, a black crow swayed on top of one of the Lawson cypresses. In the fields below, black plastic bags of hay lay on the gold stubble like slugs. Any minute Rozzy would rush out and scatter little blue pellets. One magpie for sorrow rose out of the Unicorn Glade.

Even the sight of Trevor, standing on top of James to see out of the caravan window and wagging his tail so hard he nearly fell off, didn’t bring a smile to her lips.

As she opened the door, both dogs hurtled down the steps. Having had pees that went on for ever, crapped extensively and examined all the croquet hoops on the lawn to see what foxes and badgers had been about, they belted off, Trevor to woo Maria in the canteen, James to find Lucy.

It was now light enough for Flora to define the stones in the regard ring George had given her on the eve of filming. R for Ruby, E for Emerald, G for Garnet, A for Amethyst, R for Ruby, D for Diamond, spelling the word Regard. At the thought that her darling George would never have regard for her again, Flora collapsed against a huge oak tree sobbing piteously. Everyone swung round, a hush fell at the utter desolation of the sound.

Baby was about to race over and comfort her, when Rupert put a restraining hand on his arm and nodded towards the rose walk where, from arches of acid-green hop fantastically garlanded with a pink rose appropriately called The New Dawn, emerged George Hungerford. He was wearing a dark red polo shirt, dirty white chinos, which looked about to fall down because he’d lost so much weight, and odd shoes. His dark hair was all over the place, and in his hands, in gaudy contrast to Rannaldini’s exquisite pastels, was a hastily snatched-up bunch of marigolds, salmon-pink gladioli, scarlet roses and mauve dahlias, which quivered increasingly, like some exotic butterfly.

No-one uttered a word as he approached. Then, in front of four of the finest singers in the world, in a croaky strangulated bass, he started to sing ‘Zärliche Libre’, Beethoven’s little rondo about tender love, which Flora had sung to him so often. He started too high, couldn’t reach the top notes and had to begin again. Blood was trickling from hands clutching the roses too tightly. At one moment his voice was so choked by tears he couldn’t go on, and the cooing pigeons had to fill in the gap.