Score!

The drought was so terrible, it was as if Meredith had carpeted the surrounding fields brown. Wild flowers that had survived were a quarter of their usual height. Wolfie disappeared in a cloud of dust as he drove his Land Rover round the park. All the cast complained non-stop about not being able to breathe. Wolfie could have burnt the lot of them on the bonfire.

It was the last set-up before lunch as, surrounded by leather-clad paparazzi, with Tristan’s four black cypresses in the background overseeing things, Granny as Gordon Dillon took up his position on the battlements of the cathedral. While the heretics were tied to the stakes below, shredded piles of the Scorpion were thrown under their bare feet.

‘As people in the sixteenth century flocked to see heretics burn, today we devour the papers and gloat over reputations being destroyed,’ explained Tristan. ‘Think of the poor Duchess of York.’

‘Think of Chloe in a week or two,’ murmured Flora to Baby.

Out in the park, through the heat haze, they could see Chloe, ravishing in palest pink, having her photograph taken for the Scorpion. Hotfoot from a very promising Samson and Delilah audition, she had returned to Valhalla for an in-depth interview with Beattie Johnson, the Scorpion’s most dreaded columnist. Beattie had written to Chloe direct, claiming she was a long-term fan of Chloe and the opera.

‘I can handle the press,’ Chloe had told Hype-along haughtily when he expressed horror at the planned interview.

Having read Chloe’s cuttings and a page-long synopsis of Don Carlos in the limo driving down, Beattie Johnson was highly diverted to see the identical twin of her notorious boss, Gordon Dillon, on the battlements and was now shredding reputations, ‘off the record, of course’, with Chloe.

Lucy, who’d already had to make up Chloe as well as the cast, was having a day from hell. The gruesome concept of an auto da fe upset her dreadfully. Her passport had gone missing and she’d spent two hours looking for it. Her back, from so much bending, was killing her. She’d have gone straight to James Benson, if she hadn’t given more money to Rozzy who’d been in tears all morning. This was because, after a weekend at home, Rozzy had forgotten Flora’s newly repaired puppet fox and done a U-turn only to find her horrible husband Glyn and his glamorous housekeeper, Sylvia, opening a bottle to celebrate her departure.

I can’t go on shoring everyone up, thought Lucy in despair.

Having not had any breakfast, she was feeling faint and decided to grab a salad from the canteen, where she found Chloe and Beattie Johnson, two glamorous blondes, sharing a bottle of Muscadet.

‘Bernard, the first assistant, has a thumping great crush on Rozzy Pringle,’ Chloe was whispering.

‘Who’s she?’

‘Oh, Beattie,’ giggled Chloe, ‘you must have heard of Rozzy. She’s so refined she pees eau-de-Cologne.’

Both women shrieked with laughter. Lucy’s blood started to boil.

‘Here comes Tristan,’ hissed Beattie. ‘You must introduce me.’

She’s got the hard, set little face of a terrorist waiting to lob a bomb into all our lives, thought Lucy.

‘I’ve seen all your films,’ Beattie was now telling Tristan.

Lucy was on her way out when she heard Tristan, who’d taken an empty seat at the table, explaining the auto da fe to Beattie. ‘The Spaniards are experts at ritualistic torture,’ he was saying. ‘Look at the ballet of killing the bull. In the same way, auto da fe sets fire to humans in dunces’ caps to humiliate and express power of Church.’

‘I love Spanish men,’ said Chloe, who hadn’t been listening.

‘Me too,’ sighed Beattie.

‘Well, you’re both stupid bitches,’ said a furious voice.

Looking round, everyone was amazed to see a trembling, red-faced Lucy holding a tray, off which a glass of orange juice and a salad were sliding.

‘I hate Spaniards. Hate, hate, hate them,’ she went on hysterically. ‘When greyhounds are past their sell-by date in England, they’re sold to Spain where they’re raced into the ground.’

‘Oh, pur-lease.’ Chloe raised her eyes to heaven.

‘But the fucking Spaniards are too stingy to shoot them or put them down so they string them up in the woods with their toes just touching the ground and have bets on which is going to die first. It takes hours. The poor dogs scream in agony like the heretics. And you like fucking Spaniards?’

The appalled silence was broken by Lucy’s salad crashing to the ground, and orange juice spilling all over Chloe’s new pink dress. Flora, Baby and Granny leapt to their feet, but Tristan reached Lucy first.

‘It’s all right, sweet’eart, of course it’s terrible, whether it’s greyhounds or heretics.’

But Lucy had wriggled out of his arms and, shouting, ‘Why don’t you have a word with King Carlos? I bet he shot partridge with your father,’ she fled, sobbing, back to her caravan.

‘Dear, dear,’ drawled Chloe. ‘When make-up artists start having tantrums, the rot has set in.’

‘Oh, shut up,’ yelled Flora.