Score!

‘Or he’d sit up here watching them drown, then press a button to release them from the debtor’s chair, so they floated choking upwards. But in your case, Miss Goody Two Shoes, I won’t press that release button till tomorrow.’ Rozzy’s face contorted with hatred. ‘And you’ll float out into the lake, not pretty like Ophelia, but bloated and smelly with wrinkled fingers.’

‘The police’ll know I’ve been strapped in.’

‘No, they won’t, those manacles are very soft. Rannaldini knew about hurting people without marking them. And they’ll find your sweet little suicide note. I tore up your last letter to Tristan — “your loving Lucy”, you presumptuous bitch — and retyped it: “Dear Twistan…”’ it was Rozzy’s obscene baby voice again, ‘“I’m sowwy I killed all those people and did all those wicked things, but I had to be favori du woi.” Well, I’m favori du roi now,’ added Rozzy viciously, ‘and I’m excellent at forging your signature. I’ve done it on enough cheques.’

Lucy flipped. ‘How dare you write a suicide note on my behalf?’ she yelled. ‘I’d never do that, because of James.’

‘James is dead,’ said Rozzy indifferently. ‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you snivelling while I did my make-up. He whined so much I let him out on the motorway.’

Lucy rolled her head in agony as she remembered James pirouetting with joy or leaning against her or darting off with a biscuit, or sitting quietly enjoying the rain after a heatwave.

Pressing the button so the steel door slid back, Rozzy flung on Rannaldini’s cloak and escaped quickly, in case Lucy’s howl of desolation reached the outside world.

‘I’m doing you a good turn,’ she called back softly. ‘According to Schiller, “the peace of death” is the only escape from the pangs of unrequited love.’

As one steel door clanged shut, the metal guillotine keeping out the lake slid upwards and water started to trickle in.

83

Back at the wrap party, it was ten minutes to twelve. People had anaesthetized themselves with drink against the terrors and were now dancing. But a shiver went through the room as Clive strolled in, holding a bunch of white lilies. Here was Rannaldini’s hitman, who knew far too much about all of them, as difficult to ignore as a mamba sliding across the floor.

‘Where’s Gablecross?’ murmured Clive to DC Lightfoot.

‘Guarding Tabitha Lovell at Rutminster General.’

‘He isn’t. I just called there.’

‘Where the hell have you been anyway?’ demanded DC Lightfoot. ‘Everyone wants to question you.’

‘That’s why I haven’t been here. Where’s Lucy?’ Clive’s pale, lashless eyes flickered round the room. ‘I bought these flowers for her. Always liked Lucy. No-one streaked my hair better. And there’s tasty Tristan.’

Tristan was smiling for the first time that evening because Hype-along had just presented him with an album of stills through which Tristan was flipping with exclamations of delight. There was Baby looking romantic, and Mikhail heroic, and Hermione naked and enormous from behind, and Oscar asleep, and Rupert narrow-eyed and mean in his executive producer’s chair.

‘Thank you, Hype-along, it’s all here to remind me,’ said Tristan, kissing his press officer on each sideboard.

On the last page, finding two photographs stuck in side by side, he gave a gasp of pleasure. In the first Lucy, naked except for a pink towel, was stretched on a table with Rozzy massaging her shoulders. In the second, she had reared up in alarm, gorgeous breasts flying.

‘Look at Lucy’s boobs, everyone,’ shouted Ogborne, who was peering over Tristan’s shoulders. ‘How d’you get her to do that, Hypie?’

‘Banged on her caravan window after dark.’

As people crowded round, Tristan seized the album, not wanting everyone to drool. Then his heart stopped as he noticed the venom on Rozzy’s face as her fingers closed round Lucy’s neck.

‘Oh, my God.’ Glancing up in horror, he saw Gablecross and Karen running through the door. ‘Where’s Lucy?’ he yelled.

‘I hoped you were going to tell us that,’ said Gablecross.

‘Regardez.’ Tristan thrust the photograph album at him.

For a second, Gablecross studied the two pictures, then he drew Tristan into George’s study next door.

‘Where the hell is she?’ asked a grey and shaking Tristan.

‘She was last seen around seven thirty outside Make Up,’ said Karen.

‘Then she evaded arrest and ran off into the garden,’ added Gablecross.

‘Arrest?’ snarled Tristan. ‘Whatever for?’

‘Hanging on to my lapels won’t do any good. Just let go,’ said Gablecross irritably. ‘Lucy was arrested for the murder of Rannaldini, Beattie and the attempted murder of Tabitha.’

‘That’s crazy! Lucy couldn’t kill an earwig.’

Gablecross explained that her DNA profile matched up. ‘Since then she vanished into thin air.’

‘And James?’

‘Not a sign,’ sighed Karen.

‘Someone’s either hiding her, she’s hiding out in the wood, or the murderer’s got her,’ said Gablecross. ‘It would help if Rozzy turned up.’

‘Oh, my Christ.’ A distraught Tristan was pacing up and down, thinking and thinking. ‘And they’ve searched Valhalla?’