Jilly Cooper - Score!

‘Police fink we’ve done it, Rupe.’

Flora, meanwhile, had returned for a last night’s shooting, a ghost of herself. Three days in London with Abby and Viking, utterly mad about each other and wildly excited about the fast-approaching birth of their baby, had made her loss of George even more acute. As her eyes were too red and swollen even for Lucy to repair, Tristan had agreed she could be filmed in dark glasses.

Having changed into a rather shiny dinner jacket, her bodyguard’s disguise for the ball, she had nipped into the production office on her way to the set in the forlorn hope George might have left a message in the last hour. There was nothing.

Hollow with desolation, she slouched towards the ruined cloisters that flanked the chapel. Broken columns and arches, smothered in ivy and moonlight, cast jagged shadows on paving stones almost worn away by the pacing of monks over the centuries.

Did any of them ever pray for anything as fervently as she was now begging for George’s return? Poor God must feel like an undertaker. His services only sought at the death of a love affaire .

Then Flora’s despair turned to terror as she breathed in indescribable menace. She couldn’t move. A scream froze in her throat, she was being suffocated by chloroform. Then she realized it was Maestro, Rannaldini’s aftershave, as a figure emerged from the darkest shadows and swept up the cloisters, his black cloak slithering after him like a peacock’s tail. In the moonlight, as he opened the chapel door, she could see a pale, cruel, carved profile and a handsome head of pewter hair.

Screaming, Flora fled back to the production office. Thank God, a group was chatting outside.

‘I’ve just seen Rannaldini,’ she shrieked. ‘I saw him, I swear I saw him.’

Bernard was quite gently telling her she was imagining things, when Valentin, with rare animation, announced that he, too, had seen Rannaldini disappearing into the chapel earlier. By the time he’d woken his father-in-law, Oscar, and they’d screwed up enough courage to follow Rannaldini inside, he had vanished.

‘Probably returned to grab the Murillo Madonna,’ said Rupert contemptuously. ‘There are no such things as ghosts. It is a figment of your feverish Frog imagination. Another reason for not drinking until night-shooting’s over.’

‘I saw heem,’ said Valentin sulkily. ‘He had that queek walk with his head thrown back.’

‘I saw his cloak slithering,’ whispered Flora, who was having difficulty getting her lighter to her cigarette. ‘I think he’s still alive.’

‘Don’t be fatuous,’ snapped Rupert. ‘Rannaldini is dead.’

‘How d’you know for certain?’ asked Baby, who had rolled up eating a Danish blue sandwich studded with whole garlic cloves to ward off Hermione, Pushy and Chloe through the night. ‘Did you actually see the body?’

‘Wolfgang did,’ said Rupert sharply. ‘If you’ve been bullied by some bastard for twenty-four years, you tend to recognize them.’

‘Very true,’ agreed Baby. ‘I couldn’t mistake you, and you’ve only been bullying me since Tuesday.’

Bernard brayed nervously, but before Rupert could retaliate, Baby put an arm round Flora’s quivering shoulders and bore her off to his caravan for a large drink.

‘Rupert said we mustn’t,’ said Flora listlessly.

‘Fuck him.’

‘I nearly did earlier. He was so sweet to me, said George and I are totally unsuited.’

‘He’s right. Marry me instead.’

‘That is the loveliest compliment I’ve ever been paid,’ said Flora, in a choked voice. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d be happier with, but I’m stuck with loving George.’

Blowing her nose firmly, she looked up at Baby, worried how grey and pinched he looked.

‘Suitably lovesick for Carlos,’ said Baby, handing her a large vodka and tonic. ‘Dame Hermione assured me earlier that she didn’t believe a word of the beastly rumour that I had Aids.’

‘Bitch! God, I wish the memoirs weren’t on the loose. Every time I open a paper, I expect to see you and me cavorting naked on the lawn at Angels’ Reach.’

‘Doubt if they’d find space for us, they’re so obsessed with Rannaldini.’

The murder was still dominating every radio and television bulletin and every newspaper. Press and police helicopters prowled overhead, giving poor Sylvestre terrible sound problems. There was increasing pressure on Gerald Portland to find the killer. Rannaldini’s records were expected to dominate the charts for months to come.

‘Very shrewd career move to cop it,’ mused Baby. ‘Even shrewder if he hasn’t. And, talking of dreadful things, I saw Clive in an extremely expensive new beige leather suit, secreting himself into Eulalia Harrison’s bedroom just now. What d’you think that means?’

‘Something horribly sinister. Perhaps the Sentinel’ s bought the memoirs.’

Eleven o’clock — it was dark at last. Illuminated by the powerful lights from beneath, like giants with hollowed eyes and great black devouring mouths, Valhalla’s trees glowered down. Thunder rumbled behind the black mantle of cloud. Everyone had been ready for hours, but still Dame Hermione had not emerged from her caravan.

Glancing up at the house, Rupert saw one of those aggressive, cropped-haired harpies he used to tangle with when he was an MP, glaring out of an upstairs window. She looked vaguely familiar.

‘Where the fuck is Tristan?’ he howled.

‘Winding Hermione up like Big Ben,’ giggled Chloe who, ready and ravishing in her crimson taffeta, was making sly, sliding eyes at Rupert.

‘Christ, she’s looking good,’ muttered Sylvestre. ‘Who the hell’s giving her one?’

‘Valentin, Oscar again, Wolfie, Mikhail again, you again, me again, Alpheus again, Rupert probably, the goat again,’ intoned Ogborne. ‘God, I could murder a beer.’

Back in her caravan, which, like the canteen, had been towed up to the set, Hermione’s determination to look even lovelier than Chloe was not helped by her breaking down every few minutes. ‘How could Sergeant Fanshawe think Sexton and I killed Rannaldini? I loved him so much.’

‘You are the belle of this wonderful ball,’ Tristan was telling her for the hundredth time, ‘but you daren’t dance with Carlos because all the court is spying on you.’

Tristan looked so strung up and defeated Lucy wanted to kiss away the migraine that was crushing and pincering his tired brain like one of Rannaldini’s tortures. But instead she carried on pressing powder into Hermione’s forehead, which was wrinkling again.

‘You were there, Tristan, when I made my début as Elisabetta in Paris. Rannaldini was my handsome prince, my forbidden Carlos, married to Cecilia — who’s now got all the money,’ Hermione snorted indignantly. Then, reverting to tragedy, ‘Can you believe he has gone?’

Oh, don’t cry again, prayed Lucy, who had just added mascara to every single lower lash.

They all jumped at an imperious rat-tat-tat on the door.

‘It’ll be sunrise in a second,’ shouted Rupert. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘Briefing Hermione,’ said Tristan evenly.

‘Brief is not the word. You’ve been in there two hours.’

‘I am directing this movie,’ said Tristan haughtily.

‘Even more deeply into the red. For Christ’s sake, move it.’

‘Is that Rupert?’ cried Hermione in excitement.

‘No, it isn’t,’ said Rupert, running away.

Chloe and Pushy thought this was hysterical.

Despite the delays, everyone clapped dutifully when Hermione finally arrived, because Hype-along had bribed the entire crew with miniature bottles of Jack Daniels — very welcome at a time of Rupert’s enforced abstinence.