Jilly Cooper - Score!

‘This feud’s gone on too long. I’m sorry I fucked up your daughter because I hated you so much. But it looks as though she’s found the right bloke at last. I came to say my father’s been forced, for medical reasons, to jack in the yard. He and Mum’ll need supporting, so I wondered if you’d like me to come and ride for you.’

It took a lot to silence Rupert. Finally he said coldly:

‘We’re almost entirely flat here now.’

‘I know,’ said Isa, ‘but yesterday I tried out a mare who could win the National and the Gold Cup.’

Rupert stared at Isa’s pale, impassive gypsy face, so like Jake’s twenty-five years ago. It must have taken courage to come here. Getting to his feet, he took Isa’s hand. ‘I’ll have to check with Wolfie and Tab, but I’ve never turned down a good offer or one that might irritate my first wife. And I reckon if you and I joined forces no-one in the world could beat us.’

‘Except, perhaps, Little Cosmo,’ said Isa drily.

Bernard comforted Tristan the most by putting things in perspective.

‘When Étienne sent Laurent into his own regiment, hoping it would straighten the boy out, he asked me to keep an eye on him. I tried but Laurent was bent on bucking the system. They were torturing prisoners in Chad, Laurent hit a senior officer across the mess and there were persistent rumours of anti-French activities. Of course, there was outrage at the time that he’d been taken out by his own side but I think it would have happened sooner or later.’

‘I hate Laurent and my mother for what they did to Papa.’ Tristan’s face was haggard.

‘Laurent was the best-looking lad I ever saw,’ admitted Bernard. ‘He was your father’s most adored son, the true favori du roi , which made the betrayal much worse. He had all Posa’s charisma and courage.’

‘And his ruthlessness,’ snapped Tristan. ‘Pretty shabby cuckolding your own father.’

‘He was terribly young, only twenty, and she was sixteen. I loved Laurent,’ confessed Bernard. ‘I held him in my arms as he lay dying and he said, “Look after my son.”’

‘So you knew?’ said Tristan in amazement. ‘That’s why you came out of the army, and went into films, and became my first assistant.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ve been my guardian angel,’ he mumbled, grabbing Bernard’s hand.

‘Guardian angels don’t have brick-red faces and black moustaches.’

There was a pause. Tristan longed to pour his heart out about Lucy, but felt under the circumstances it was tactless.

‘I’m sorry about Rozzy.’

Bernard shrugged. ‘I’ve got a family at home. They’ve never seemed more precious.’

The Shaven Crown was packed out with members of the Inner Cabinet getting drunk. Gablecross usually felt sad at the end of a murder, even if they’d caught the criminal: it didn’t bring back the victims. Beattie had probably had a mother who was fond of her. But it was hard to feel upset about a monster like Rannaldini.

‘Well done, Karen.’ Gablecross patted her arm. ‘My second Charlie.’

Karen’s face lit up. But embarrassed, because she felt so colossally honoured, she immediately changed the subject. ‘Poor Rozzy seemed such a nice lady. What made her do it?’

‘Low self-esteem. Couldn’t hack not being loved by everyone. Kill anyone who slighted her. The exposure made her feel important, the centre of attention. She’s a singer, after all. Then she got a taste for it. In the end she’d have killed Tristan because he couldn’t have reciprocated her love. I’ll drive you home,’ he went on, seeing Karen suppress a yawn.

It was such a beautiful night. Moths danced in the headlamps. Shooting stars careered across a drained blue sky. The scent of limes drifted through the car windows. Gablecross had dropped Karen off and was turning off the Paradise Road towards Eldercombe. He was just congratulating himself on being home early for Margaret for once, so they could discuss Diane’s eighteenth birthday party, which he could easily pay for now, when he heard singing:

‘She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes, She’ll be coming round the mountain when she comes, Singing ay yay yippy, ay yay yippy…’

Some nutter was turning up his stereo at full blast. Next moment a huge maroon Roller roared past, shattering the peace of the evening.

Gablecross gave chase. But every time the road widened enough for him to catch up, the Roller’s driver put his foot down, and the laughter and singing grew more raucous. He finally managed to block them in as they swung into River House’s drive. Inside he found Hermione and Sexton.

‘“She’ll be coming round the mountain—” Sergeant Gablecross!’ cried Hermione, in amazement. ‘We thought you were our good friend the Chief Constable going home.’

Gablecross got out his notebook, and was just pondering whether to book them for speeding, drunk-driving, not wearing seat-belts, or creating a nuisance when Sexton said:

‘Come in and celebrate.’

‘You both appear to have been celebrating for several hours, sir.’

‘Indeed,’ Hermione bowed, ‘and with cause, Timothy. We want you to be the first to know. We are with child. A sibling for Little Cosmo.’

Gablecross hoped it would be a little brother, or Cosmo would certainly put her on the game.

‘We’ve got a smashin’ bottle of Krug in the fridge,’ said Sexton cosily.

‘Bubbly for the bobby, bubbly for the bobby,’ chortled Hermione, as she weaved up the drive.

Gablecross sighed. He obviously wasn’t going to get home to Margaret for a while.

In a mad frenzy of superstition, Tristan locked himself away editing twenty-four hours a day. Only when Don Carlos was finished and an unqualified triumph would he feel worthy of seeking out Lucy. It was an agonizing task because every frame with people in it was a testament to her genius.

How could she have made his cast so beautiful yet so full of character? Hermione looked not a day over twenty-five, Flora disturbingly boyish, Baby so pale, wan and fond, Chloe so languorously seductive, Mikhail so noble, Granny so unrelentingly evil, Alpheus so tortured yet kingly.

‘She’s actually made that prat look like a gent,’ observed Rupert, who popped in most days and got frightfully excited over the special effects. Tristan’s filming of the grey, writhing traveller’s joy in winter suggested a wonderfully ghostly Charles V.

On each visit, Tristan begged Rupert for information about Lucy’s whereabouts. Every day he telephoned Gablecross but met the same stonewalling refusal. Too much money was invested in the trial to allow any slip-up.

Another reason Tristan worked through the night was the bad dreams that racked him if he tried to sleep, of Lucy drowning in a sea of blood, of the painting of Cleopatra and the asp in Buckingham Palace — except it was Lucy’s face not Cleopatra’s from which the colour was draining.

Having finished editing, Tristan had to bite his nails until he showed the final cut to the press on 11 January and went into even deeper despair that the whole thing was junk.

‘You’re too close to it,’ said Wolfie soothingly.

‘But will the man in the street like it?’

‘You couldn’t get more philistine than my future father-in-law,’ confessed Wolfie, ‘and he’s mad about it. Admittedly, he’s convinced he directed the entire film. I even heard him singing “Morte de Posa” in the bath the other morning.’

But Tristan wasn’t to be reassured. He was always cold, always miserable. He dreamt of crumpets, big log fires and Lucy winning the mothers’ race. The only glimmer of cheer was that The Lily in the Valley had been nominated many times over in the incredibly prestigious Academia Awards in Edinburgh, which boded well for the Oscars in February. It was widely rumoured that Claudine Lauzerte would be flying up to Scotland for the ceremony. If so, she must have been tipped off she’d won Best Actress. She wouldn’t put her head on the block otherwise.