Score!

‘Oh, my child,’ said Rozzy gently, as she drew lipstick outside the lines of her mouth, ‘because your DNA profile’s on Rannaldini’s dressing-gown and in his saliva where I kissed him and on the bite on Beattie’s shoulder. I just loved plunging my teeth into her, knowing it would incriminate you, and it’s in the blood on Hermione’s cloak, and your fingerprints are all over Tab’s saddle and the penknife.’

‘But I never had a DNA test.’

‘No, but you lost your passport, remember.’ Rubbing cream into her hands, Rozzy clasped them in ecstasy. ‘I borrowed it and stuck my passport photograph on top of yours, and when the two flat-footed cretins rolled up at Make Up, I said I was Lucy Latimer, showed them your passport and took a saliva test in your name. I wasn’t on the list of suspects due for a DNA test, because the police knew I was in Mallowfield.’

Lucy could take no more. ‘That’s the most horrible part,’ she sobbed. ‘I thought we were friends.’

Radiant, smiling, the great diva making her entrance, Rozzy glided down the steps and stroked Lucy’s hair. ‘You poor darling,’ she said, in such a sweet, sad voice that Lucy knew the whole thing had been a bad dream. Then Rozzy grabbed her hair, yanking it back until she screamed.

‘You stupid bitch! I did love you until you started meddling. Why did you go to France to free Tristan? He’d have been so much better off in prison, safe from all those drooling, ravening bitches. I’d have visited him every week.

‘Why didn’t you and Wolfie take me with you? You deceitful cow, sucking up to his family.’ Rozzy’s eyes were glittering, foam frothing along her mouth, mad laughter echoing horribly off the walls. ‘I know you’re crazy about Tristan,’ Rozzy was hissing in her ear, spraying it with saliva, ‘but having spent his life surrounded by beautiful people, how could he settle for someone as plain and common as you?’ Seizing Lucy’s face, Rozzy wrenched it towards the mirror. ‘Look at yourself, you ugly bitch!’ As Rozzy slapped her face back and forth, Lucy felt blood trickling from her nose to join her tears, choking her.

‘I suppose he was kind to you,’ said Rozzy reflectively. ‘Kindness is such an aphrodisiac to ugly women. What would the Montignys think of you?’ she added mockingly.

‘I got on with Aunt Hortense,’ gasped Lucy.

‘She must have been appalled. A hairdresser with a broad Cumbrian accent! I’ll teach you to have ideas above your station, Miss.’

My station, thought Lucy, in crazed anguish, is Carlisle. Above the town soar the mountains, olive green, filled with lakes, criss-crossed with stone walls. She’d never see them again. And she’d never see her darling mum and dad, or her sister, or her little nieces — and they’d be told she was a murderer.

Rozzy was back at the table, spraying Femme between her breasts and legs.

‘What did you do with Tristan’s papers?’ whispered Lucy.

‘I’ll burn them when I get a moment.’

‘I promised Hortense he’d get them,’ said Lucy despairingly. ‘At least give him Étienne’s self-portrait and Laurent and Delphine’s letters. Then he’ll understand why his mother copped out and why Étienne rejected him.’

‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ snapped Rozzy. ‘Tristan needs love and understanding.’

‘He needs roots,’ sobbed Lucy. ‘Hortense’ll tell him the truth.’

‘I think not.’ Rozzy rose to her feet, Lady Macbeth’s presence dominating the room. ‘I took your passport to the chemist and bought rat poison.’

‘Please, no,’ shrieked Lucy. ‘Hortense is dying anyway. She’s such an old duck.’

‘Old dyke, you mean. I’m off,’ said Rozzy coolly.

‘Don’t leave me.’

‘You know it all now, sweetie. You’ve got to die. It’s so easy. There are two buttons to flood the torture chamber. As I’m leaving I’ll just press the one outside the door,’ Rozzy murmured lasciviously, ‘and Madame Guillotine over there will slide up and the lake will come pouring in. How convenient of Wolfie to fill it up — and we’ve had so much rain. It takes five minutes to flood the pit.’

‘Please, not,’ gabbled Lucy.

Rozzy posed before the mirror, the flame-red boa warming her face, the grey chiffon giving wondrous curves to her slight body.

‘You look beautiful, Rozzy. Your eyes are like stars.’

‘They’re the last stars you’ll see.’

‘What time is it?’ gasped Lucy, trying to cling on to some reality.

‘Nearly twenty past twelve. Cinderella shall go to the ball.’

Rozzy dropped her wig and mask, followed by the gun and her mobile, into her bag.

‘Shame you haven’t time to read in the memoirs about Rannaldini’s favourite games, Lucy. Either he’d fuck them in the pit as the water came over their noses so their cunt muscles, in their imagined death-throes, clamped round his cock. President Kennedy pushed whores under the bath-water for the same buzz.’ Rozzy smiled, as if she were telling a bedtime story.