Score!

The crew, resenting this, pinned a notice saying ‘Stalag Studios’ on Wolfie’s door and whistled ‘The Dambusters’ every time he walked past. Ogborne and three of the sparks had too much to drink one lunchtime and proceeded to circle the production office, where Wolfie was wrestling with the next day’s call sheet. Sticking their arms out, they pretended to be Lancasters and lobbed Scotch eggs through the window.

Wolfie ignored them, but later that evening Tristan found him gazing miserably into space. He knew Wolfie’s arrogance was a defence mechanism, and that beneath his reserve he was warm-hearted and thoughtful. It had been Wolfie who had told Tristan Lucy needed more light.

Tristan had also noticed the anguish Wolfie couldn’t hide when an ecstatic Flora, baseball cap tugged over her short back and sides, had flown off to join George that morning.

Tristan was a workaholic but, for once, he abandoned his storyboards and bore Wolfie off to dinner at the Old Bell in Rutminster. Wolfie had always been jealous of Tristan because Rannaldini had such a high regard for him but now, over several bottles, they discussed Schiller, horrendously competitive fathers and, inevitably, the cast.

As they walked back unsteadily from the Valhalla car park, across the valley, a light like a low bright star was shining in Magpie Cottage.

‘You could loosen up with Tabitha,’ said Tristan idly.

‘She’s appalling,’ said Wolfie bleakly. ‘The most awful human being I’ve ever met.’

‘The wicked stepsister.’ Tristan smiled in the darkness. ‘And you could stop bitching up Flora.’

‘I made love to Flora in every inch of this park,’ said Wolfie. His face was in shadow, but his voice was raw with pain. ‘The night I took her to the school dance, my father landed his helicopter on the cricket pitch, and Flora disappeared into it like Close Encounters. I left home the next morning or I’d have murdered him. And how can she live with that thug George Hungerford? He’s knocked down more buildings in Dresden than Winston Churchill.’

As they wandered past the north wing Tristan noticed, with a sinking heart, the curtains moving in Bernard’s still-lit window. If Bernard felt he was being usurped as Tristan’s confidant he would give Wolfie a hard time.

24

Next day Rannaldini pushed off to New York for a week and, heaving a sigh of relief, Tristan decided to kick off indoor filming with Posa’s moving death scene in the dungeons. This was scuppered by Mikhail missing the plane from Moscow. So Tristan switched to a later scene, in which Carlos and Philip are joined by Eboli and the Grand Inquisitor, with the Spanish rabble outside the dungeons all clamouring for Carlos to be set free. This meant an awful lot of people for Lucy to make up.

Her biggest challenge was to turn the silver-haired, noble-browed, patrician Granville Hastings into Gordon Dillon, the Neanderthal thug who edited the Scorpion and whose hairline rested on his straight-across brows. Lucy was terrified of letting Tristan down, but Granny promptly cheered her up by bitching about Hermione. ‘My dear, the only reason Madam is so addicted to playing the pink oboe is that she’s read that seminal fluid rejuvenates the vocal cords.’

Lucy giggled, then added charitably that it seemed to work.

‘She showed me the marvellous reviews she had for Rinaldo.’

‘Her mother must have written them,’ said Granny waspishly.

‘Oh, you do cheer me up.’ Lucy was sticking on a long line of beetling black eyebrow.

‘Don’t take any truck from her, Lucy Lockett,’ said Granny, ‘or from Alpheus, who’s such a wooden actor he makes that table look like Anthony Hopkins, and you’re going to have dreadful trouble with his hooter.’ Granny smirked admiringly at his own beautifully aquiline nose. ‘Alpheus has a bigger conk than Rudolph the Reindeer.’

Lucy had just grabbed a pair of scissors to trim the ends of Granny’s brows when Meredith bustled in in great excitement.

‘You can down tools, Lucy darling. Hi, Granville dear. Repairing a dungeon wall, one of the set-builders has unearthed a skeleton with a rosary round its neck.’

‘Oh, my God.’ Lucy nearly dropped her scissors.

‘Anyone we know?’ asked Granny, retrieving a dropped stitch.

‘Probably the planning officer,’ said Meredith gleefully. ‘He’s been so dire.’

The dungeons at Valhalla had always been damp and chill. Now none of the crew would go in there, even after Percy the Parson was summoned and sprinkled holy water from a Smirnoff bottle.

Ever conscious of a spiralling budget, Tristan gritted his teeth. He’d have to reschedule. Mikhail had now rung in from Moscow claiming to be laid low with bronchitis, so Baby could shove off for a few days and stop making a nuisance of himself and they could switch to the Great Hall, which had been transformed by Meredith, with the help of a massive white and gold silk four-poster, into King Philip’s bedroom.