Score!

‘Is This the Greatest Montigny of Them All?’ said the headline. Below was a big picture of himself. Flanking it were smaller pictures of Étienne, and Tristan’s older brothers, including an incredibly rare snapshot of Laurent, who had looked so like Che Guevara.

‘One reason I make Don Carlos’, Tristan was quoted as saying, ‘was my brother Laurent die twenty-eight years ago, blown up in Chad fighting injustice, like Posa. His death broke my father’s heart. I wanted to give him my own memorial.’

Étienne would have gone ballistic at the mention of Laurent. Tristan hoped the crescendo-ing of thunder wasn’t his father smashing furniture in heaven.

But it seemed a lovely piece. Perhaps he was being too harsh on the press in Don Carlos. They weren’t all bad apples like Beattie Johnson. But his head was too full of Tabitha.

He wished his mother, who had been only two years younger than Tab when she died, was alive to celebrate with him. Idly he switched on his machine.

‘Dearest boy.’ It was Rannaldini at his most silken. ‘However late you get in, pop down to my watch-tower. We must talk.’

Bloody hell, thought Tristan, as he pulled on a pair of jeans. He hoped Rannaldini wasn’t going to be insanely jealous.

33

The moon, pale and sinister as Rannaldini, kept vanishing behind fluffy sable cloud. A witch’s trail soared straight through Hercules. A chill breeze ruffled the leaves as Tristan walked through Hangman’s Wood. The stench of decaying wild garlic was stronger than ever.

Rannaldini, waiting in the watch-tower doorway, was wearing a black crew-necked sweater that gave him a vaguely ecclesiastical air.

‘How’s Tab?’ he asked, as he led the way to the glowing red sitting room on the first floor.

‘Very shaken.’

As Tristan collapsed on a pale-grey sofa, his tummy rumbled. The last thing he’d eaten had been one of Rozzy’s croissants at breakfast, and he didn’t remember finishing it. The vast Armagnac Rannaldini handed him would go straight to his head. ‘She’s OK,’ he went on, ‘but we must tell the police. It can’t have been an accident, and about Flora’s fox being cut up. Tab was so brave,’ then, unable to help himself, ‘and so adorable.’

Rannaldini had gone very quiet, frowning as he paced up and down, trampling on the red roses that patterned the faded Aubusson carpet.

‘I have been sad recently that you and I have so often come to blows,’ he said gently, ‘but we only fight because we so passionately want Carlos to work.’

‘Of course.’

‘But I never stop loving you, Tristan. You are still my little godson.’

Rannaldini’s voice was so hypnotic. Perhaps he should do those introductions after all, thought Tristan.

‘And I love you,’ he stammered. He felt very happy that everything was falling so wonderfully into place. But Rannaldini went on pacing.

‘There is…’ he began. ‘No, I cannot.’

‘Go on,’ urged Tristan.

‘There is secret I prayed I would never have to tell you, but as very close friend of your father…’ He paused.

Tristan went cold.

‘Have you never wondered why Étienne neglected you and never loved you?’

Tristan winced.

‘All the time,’ he said wearily. ‘Laurent died, I suppose. I lived. Laurent was my father’s favourite son, then Maman committed suicide. Maybe it deranged him. On his deathbed, he was rambling on that my father was my grandfather. I didn’t know what he was talking about.’ He shuddered, remembering Étienne in the huge bed, with the determinedly cheerful nurse siphoning off the fountains of blood.

The moon, like a Beardsley rakehell, was leering in through a high window covered in a black lacing of clematis, whose quivering shadows in turn cast an illusion of mobility on Rannaldini’s cold, impassive face.

‘Your mother was most stunning woman I ever meet. Turn round. I don’t think you ever see painting your father did.’

Tristan leapt to his feet. Behind him on the scarlet wall was a small oil of a young girl, her naked body as white as Tab’s but far more softly curved and passive. She leant against a dark green sofa. The young Rannaldini, black-haired, black eyes glittering with lust and power, was stripped to the waist in tight breeches and boots. He had a hunting whip in his hand, and had coiled the long lash round the girl’s neck. There was an expression of terror and wild excitement on her face.

‘Maman,’ stammered Tristan, finding himself blushing in horror and sick, shaming excitement at what was clearly one of his father’s masterpieces.

‘It is called The Snake Charmer,’ purred Rannaldini. ‘The texture of her body is quite extraordinary. I shall miss her dreadfully.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘The Tate and the Louvre are planning a huge Montigny retrospective. Your beautiful mother will tour the world and take her place in the pantheon of women who inspired great artists.’

‘Non!’ cried Tristan, in outrage. ‘For God’s sake, Rannaldini.’

He wanted to throw his shirt round Delphine’s naked body. Dragging his eyes away, he collapsed, trembling, on the sofa, fumbling for a cigarette.