Jilly Cooper - Score!

‘The Famous Five,’ drawled Rupert, glancing at the others behind her. ‘That lot have as much chance of rescuing anyone as Mr Blobby.’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake!’ howled Tristan.

‘Rupert!’ came an excited cry as Hermione ran out of the house. ‘Now the party has really begun.’

‘You’re on!’ said Rupert, shooting faster than light back into the helicopter. ‘As long as Karen can sit on my knee — but I’m not taking that murderer.’ He glared at Clive. ‘He stole our Gertrude.’

‘You must,’ pleaded Karen. ‘He’s the only person who can lead us to Lucy.’

As she wriggled past Rupert to get into the back seat, she felt the hard bulge of a gun, but decided it wasn’t the moment to quibble. Anyway, they might need it.

Gablecross, still on the ground and on his mobile, was alerting the uniform boys at Valhalla.

‘Whatever you do, don’t arouse suspicion. She’s mad and extremely dangerous, and she’s got Lucy Latimer in there.’

As they flew over a pale lunar landscape, dark grey trees, black houses lit by a molten moon, Clive briefed them in his soft sibilant lisp: ‘The torture chamber’s fifteen feet from the lake and ten feet below the water level. The moment Rozzy presses the switch, the iron door slides up.’

‘I could swim under the guillotine and free her,’ urged Tristan, desperate for some action.

‘You haven’t time. You’d need a blow-torch to saw through the manacles and that wouldn’t work under gushing water. The switch to unlock the debtor’s chair is unfortunately inside the torture chamber just to the right of the light switch. Rozzy must have a key to the chamber. We’ve gotta get it off her to get inside at all. And we’ve only got five minutes. There are three underground approaches to the torture chamber,’ he went on. ‘One, you can go down on hands and knees from Rannaldini’s study but only if you’re a slim build, and that takes nearly twenty minutes. Another passage runs from the chapel and takes ten minutes. That’s the route Rozzy’ll come back up, once she’s slammed the door on Lucy. The third, which I don’t imagine Rozzy knows about because it hasn’t been used for years, consists of steep steps down from the middle of the maze. Takes about four minutes. The helicopter can drop us on the edge. Those steps come out through a side door into the passage which goes up to the chapel, about twenty yards from the entrance to the torture chamber. If someone’, Clive glanced round the helicopter, ‘could intercept Rozzy as she came out of the torture chamber and lure her past this entrance, at least one of us could run down the tunnel and switch off the water. Then once we’d relieved her of the key, we could get into the chamber and unlock the debtor’s chair.’

‘I can see exactly why you were Rannaldini’s hired assassin, up to every trick,’ snarled Rupert. Ahead he could see the lights of Paradise High Street.

‘We’ll be there in a minute,’ said Clive.

‘Tristan’s got to lure her out,’ announced Gablecross. ‘Rozzy’s absolutely nuts about him.’ Then, turning to Tristan, ‘You must wait for her to come out, tell her you love her and you’re frantic to get her away from the murderer.’

Tristan, who’d been going round every circle of hell, looked at Gablecross aghast. ‘I can’t tell Rozzy I love her.’ With his track record, the gods would punish him for lies like that by not saving Lucy. ‘I couldn’t convince her.’

‘For Lucy’s sake, you bloody well can,’ snapped Rupert. ‘If you hadn’t fired her this morning, none of this would have happened.’

‘Rupert’s right,’ begged Karen. ‘If you can tempt her out of the way and get her off her guard by indulging in some serious snogging.’

‘Fantasize she’s Madame Lauzerte,’ said Rupert sarcastically. ‘You’ve had enough practice at screwing geriatrics.’

‘Shut up,’ howled Tristan, seizing and violently shaking Rupert’s shoulders so the helicopter lurched as it started its descent.

‘Pack it in, you two,’ ordered Gablecross.

Narrowly missing the floodlit spire of All Saints, Paradise, flying over sleeping cottages in the high street, and Hermione’s house with its tall chimneys, Rupert followed the silver ribbon of the river Fleet and swung left at the glimmer of Rannaldini’s lake. Tristan gave a groan at the thought of all that water pouring into Lucy’s gasping, choking throat. There was the black dartboard of the maze, with policemen like ants closing in from all sides.

‘D’you know the way to the centre?’ asked Tristan, as he and Clive jumped down from the helicopter.

‘If I concentrate.’

A minute later, they had pounded down a yew corridor slap into a dead end.

‘For Christ’s sake,’ yelled Tristan, doing a U-turn.

For a moment, as they backtracked, Clive lost his nerve, then the helicopter was overhead and a hovering Rupert was aiming a spotlight and leading them to the left and then to the right, backwards, forwards, sideways, across. Perhaps it was God’s hand guiding them as well, because Tristan never stopped praying. Then, miraculously, the honeyed scent of philadelphus swept over them. They had reached the centre of the maze.

This time Clive’s memory didn’t fail. As he kicked the stone alcove three times, it swung sideways and darkness loomed. They could smell damp, rotting wood and weed.

‘The steps are very slippery,’ warned Clive.

It was like a yew corridor without any ceiling. Clive led the way. Tristan was as soaked with icy sweat as from the dripping walls of the stairway he kept crashing against. Often he was too hasty, and felt himself falling against the snake-like caress of Clive’s leather suit. The steps seemed greased with goose fat.

‘I haven’t got a head for depths,’ he confessed, as he battled against an ancient phobia of being trapped underground: an irate nanny had locked him once in a dark cellar.

Lucy was what mattered. Oh, please, God. But it was to Hades, God of the Underworld, he should be praying. Please spare my Eurydice. He kept imagining the water choking Lucy until her generous heart gave out and he’d never be able to tell her how much he loved her. He was losing his balance, about to stumble down into the darkness. Clive was far too slight to support his weight. Then, suddenly, they’d reached level ground and collapsed, thankfully, against a solid oak door.

Behind them, they could faintly hear Gablecross on his mobile. ‘Uniform boys have located the entrance to the torture chamber from the lakeside,’ he was telling Karen. ‘They can’t see any sign yet of water being sucked inside.’

‘Perhaps Rozzy hasn’t left?’ whispered Karen hopefully.

‘Open the door into the passage now ,’ Gablecross hissed down the stairs to Clive. ‘We may be able to pre-empt her.’

The door was warped by damp and opened inwards, after a lot of tugging and kicking.

‘Turn right,’ muttered Clive to Tristan. ‘The passage kinks sharply to the left. Lurk behind there until she comes out.’

Tristan had never known such darkness: the total blindness of the Grand Inquisitor. No-one dared shine a torch in case Rozzy saw a light ahead as she came out, but she must hear the thunderous crashing of his heart as he edged along the wall.

Once she emerged, he mustn’t betray his fear. His mouth tasted as acid as a rotten lemon, he was trembling violently, he reeked of sweat, his knees were jumping frantically as he positioned himself round the rocky bend. However could he act well enough to convince Lucy’s murderer that he loved her? Then he was aware of dim light. Whipping round he heard a clang of steel, a heavy door creaking shut, a switch being flicked on, followed by arpeggios of crazy laughter. He nearly turned and fled.