Jilly Cooper - Score!

‘Better, I think.’ Grateful for the distraction, Taggie planted a polyanthus upside down. ‘Wolfgang’s been so wonderful to Tab. He keeps ringing to see if Helen’s OK. Helen’s convinced he fancies her, but I’m sure he’s only hoping to get Tab. Oh, help, I’ll be punished for being a bitch again.’

Gablecross returned to the attack. ‘What time did your husband leave the house last Sunday?’

‘I don’t remember, I was so upset about Gertrude.’ Taggie began to cry again.

As the stable clock struck five, Xav and Bianca came round the corner carrying a trayful of tea in which floated three cups and some melting chocolate biscuits. They’d been joined on the way by a beautiful young man and a Jack Russell, who was rough-housing noisily round the graves with Xav’s black Labrador.

‘How dare you bully my mother?’ said Xav in outrage.

‘Whatever’s the matter?’ asked the beautiful young man in horror.

‘It’s all right.’ Taggie mopped her eyes on her T-shirt.

‘I’ll give you a pound each if you go and find my cigarettes,’ the young man told Bianca and Xav. ‘Now, what the hell’s going on?’ He turned furiously on Gablecross.

‘He thinks Rupert murdered Rannaldini and Beattie,’ sobbed Taggie.

‘Right.’ The young man squared his shoulders. ‘My name’s Lysander Hawkley. I’m Rupert’s assistant and it’s time I made a statement.’

‘It’s nothing to do with you,’ pleaded Taggie.

‘I was with Rupert last Sunday,’ went on Lysander, ‘when Tab rang and said Rannaldini’d raped her. We took the helicopter. Rannaldini, incidentally, is the most evil person in the world.’

‘How d’you know, sir?’

‘He was married to my wife Kitty for five years, nearly destroyed her. I had to give her a lot of therapy when we were first married,’ Lysander added solemnly. ‘Anyway, Rupert swore he was going to kill Rannaldini, and I wanted part of the action. We landed in the park just after ten thirty. We couldn’t find Tab, but about ten minutes later we stumbled on Rannaldini lying on his back in the middle of the wood. It was a bit dark for sunbathing.’

‘How did he look?’

‘Not well. He’d been strangled.’

‘Was he dead?’

‘Very, so Rupert emptied his gun into him.’

‘What kind of gun?’

‘A.38. He bought it in Bogotá when he adopted Xav and Bianca. It’s got a silencer on it, and it sounds like a wet fart. If I’d had a gun I’d have done the same thing. As it was I kicked Rannaldini very hard in the ribs. We didn’t hang about. We’d already tried to find Tab but the telephone box was redder inside than out. Rupert was going bananas with worry, then Taggie rang him to say someone with a Yorkshire accent was bringing Tab home.’

‘And you’re prepared to sign a statement that’s what happened? You’re not just making this up because Rupert’s your boss?’

‘No. I’m far too stupid to do that.’

Over on George’s polo field, they were coming to the end of a long, shambolic day. Valentin had just filmed Baby hitting a ball around and being drooled over by Chloe and a lot of groupies. The sun was setting; they were waiting for the gate. Baby had moved away from the others under the shade of a huge sycamore tree and was sharing a Kit-Kat with his weary chestnut mare. Anything to do with horses reminded him agonizingly of Isa. They had not spoken since the night of Rannaldini’s murder, but would have to soon, about the future of Baby’s three racehorses.

At least a couple in the next-door room at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons had come forward and confirmed that they had heard Baby singing on the balcony between ten and eleven on the night of Rannaldini’s murder.

‘We thought, Oh, my God,’ they had said. ‘Then, once he opened his mouth, we sat back and enjoyed it. Is he going to be the next Domingo?’

So Baby had an alibi. On the other hand, the police had found the bottle of Quercus he had left behind in his bathroom at Le Manoir so he wasn’t altogether in the clear.

‘You know Isa?’ A voice interrupted Baby’s thoughts. It was Chloe, who’d been in a strange, excited mood all day.

‘He’s my trainer.’

‘I was with him the night Rannaldini was murdered. We’ve been having an affaire .’

‘You what?’ Baby’s pony, picking up the sudden tension, tossed up her head and pulled away.

‘I confessed it to Fanshawe, who has such a divinely uppity bum in that grey tracksuit,’ went on Chloe. ‘I felt awful shopping Isa but I needed an alibi. The police know I was in the wood earlier because I dropped a lipstick, and they’ve found the scent Isa gave me, called Quercus, on Rannaldini’s dressing-gown. Baby?’

Seeing his horrified face, Chloe launched mockingly into Eboli’s lines:

‘Oh, heavens, what thought makes you blench stock still,

Your word freezing on your lips?

What ghost rises in between us?’

Then, when Baby still seemed incapable of speech, she asked plaintively, ‘Will Tab go berserk, and d’you think Isa’ll back me up?’

Baby reached up a hand to scratch his restless pony behind the ears. ‘Good girl,’ he murmured affectionately, ‘which is more than can be said for you, Chloe. You’re a whore.’

‘That’s unkind,’ pouted Chloe. ‘I have to have a man in my life.’

‘Have someone’s husband, you mean.’

‘Tab was keen enough to get her long claws into Tristan.’

‘Tab was lonely and neglected.’

‘You’ve never stuck up for her before. Loosen up, Baby. What will Rupert do?’

‘Give you a medal. He loathes Isa. Isa, on the other hand, will go apeshit.’

‘Isa’s bats about me,’ said Chloe defensively, then leapt back as, for a terrifying second, she thought Baby was going to hit her with his stick.

‘“Bat” is the operative word,’ said Baby harshly. ‘Isa’s a bloodsucker. He’s got a perfectly good mistress, called Martie, bankrolling him in Oz. He didn’t break up with her when he married Tab, who turned out to be not rich enough because Rannaldini wouldn’t help out. I bet Isa suggested you buy some horses for him to train.’

Then, ignoring bellows from Bernard that the gate wasn’t clear, Baby vaulted on to his pony and galloped off in the direction of Valhalla.

It took Chloe some hours to trace the ex-directory number of Jake Lovell’s yard.

Having gone to bed early, Isa was woken not by the news of a sick horse, which he would have understood, but by Chloe in hysterics.

‘Who the hell’s Martie?’ she screamed.

‘My business partner.’

‘A bit more than that.’

‘Well — it’s all over anyway. Who told you about her?’

‘Baby. I told him about us.’

Isa sat bolt upright. ‘You what?’

‘The police found my lipstick near Rannaldini’s body and Quercus on his dressing-gown. I needed an alibi.’

‘Well, I’m not giving you one, you stupid bitch. Anyone who kisses and tells deserves all they get.’ And Isa hung up.

Tristan paced in torment up and down his baking, airless veal crate of a cell. The light was fading outside his frosted window, but he could see nothing except the inside of his own heart. He knew that a gentleman never named the women he had slept with. Montignys didn’t fuck and tell, as Rannaldini had, although Étienne had fucked and painted enough.

For the last three years he had been having an affaire with Claudine Lauzerte, so discreetly that not even Rannaldini’s secret service had rumbled them. He had fallen in love with her back in 1977 when she’d joined their table, the first time Rannaldini had taken him to Don Carlos .

His dream had come true in 1993 when he’d cast her as the object of a young man’s adoration in Le Rouge et Le Noir . As she had grown in beauty under Oscar’s lighting and his direction, so had their passion for one another. At first she had held off. Only when he had found her sobbing wildly over a newspaper report that he was sleeping with some starlet had he broken down her defences and they’d become lovers.