‘Valentin, Oscar and Bernard all wear wedding rings,’ she continued. ‘Griselda wear bloodstone on little finger, ’Ermione often wear big diamond Rannaldini gave her, Gloria like flaunting big sapphire, probably a fake, Rannaldini also give her that too. Wolfie’s signet ring keeps falling off because he lose so much weight too, so in the finals he gave it to Lucy to wear for him.’

‘Was Lucy there all the time?’

‘No, she take James away for queek run. He was whining but she was back before we finish and she give ring back to Wolfgang.’

So both Lucy and Wolfgang could have nipped into the wood and done the business, thought Fanshawe.

‘Why d’you want to know?’ Simone gave Chloe’s Polaroid a squint.

‘We have reason to believe the murderer was wearing a big ring when he strangled Rannaldini.’

‘Then, it could have been me,’ laughed Simone. On the little finger of her tiny left hand glinted an amber in a gold setting.

‘That’s beautiful,’ gasped Debbie. ‘Who gave you that?’

‘A secret admirer — too precious to tell anyone.’

‘You had no motive to kill Rannaldini,’ teased Fanshawe.

‘Only for putting artistic consideration before continuity,’ said Simone, with unconcealed venom.

After all this evidence, Sexton’s alibi of speeding in his maroon Roller down the M4, after a weekend of heroically raising money, and Hermione’s, of watching Pride and Prejudice, ringing her husband Bobby, and spending quality time with Little Cosmo, were looking thin.

Fanshawe and Debbie found Hermione alone and just managing to polish off a large tub of pistachio and ginger ice cream. She had lost a stone and a half, received six and a half thousand letters, she told them, and was ready to return to the set tomorrow because she couldn’t let down Rupert Campbell-Black.

Hermione rather liked Fanshawe’s sleek dark hair and flat stomach until he accused her of not watching Pride and Prejudice.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, it’s my favourite novel. Why isn’t Timothy conducting this interview?’

‘Nor did you ring your husband.’

‘Oh, well, it must have been the day before. When one is jet-lagged and wrestling with artistic problems, time ceases to have any meaning.’

‘Evidently. How d’you explain the fact that Mr Kemp’s Rolls-Royce was parked under your Judas tree at around ten twenty, and Mr Kemp’s clothes, when he finally rolled up at Valhalla some time after two o’clock in the morning, were covered in lady’s bedstraw and meadowsweet? In fact, Mr Kemp lied to us about being on the M4 at the time of the murder, Dame Hermione. He was at River House with you.’

If Sergeant Fanshawe had expected a battle of wits he was disappointed.

‘Indeed,’ Dame Hermione bowed her head, ‘I must tell you the truth, Officer. Are you married?’

‘I have a partner.’

‘I am a married woman, but Sexton and I found we cared deeply for each other, and our love tryst occurred in the summerhouse on Sunday evening. Sexton laid down a carpet of lady’s bedstraw and meadowsweet, which was what Elisabetta would have lain on in the sixteenth century.’

‘Didn’t you notice the fire engines and the police sirens and the watch-tower going up in flames?’ asked Fanshawe in amazement.

‘The summerhouse is behind River House, so one cannot see the watch-tower — and frankly, Officer, we were too busy setting each other aflame.’

Debbie Miller had contracted Karen’s complaint, and was laughing so much she had to gaze out of the window.

‘Why did you lie about this, Dame Hermione?’

‘I couldn’t humiliate my husband, Bobby.’

‘You and Rannaldini managed to humiliate him for the last few years,’ snapped Fanshawe, ‘presumably your husband knew which side his bread was buttered when the royalties came in.’

‘Unkind, Officer.’ Hermione bowed reproachfully.

‘Did you know that Rannaldini was planning to have his vasectomy reversed so he could have children?’

‘I am not past childbearing age. Cosmo would have adored a little sibling.’

‘Numerous independent witnesses heard you singing in the wood on Sunday night, Dame Hermione. I suggest Rannaldini had humiliated you and Mr Kemp intolerably on Friday night. He was about to pull the plug on the sham of your marriage and replace you as Elisabetta with Gloria Prescott. Your career was on the slide, and Rannaldini had plans to marry again and make a total fool of you in his memoirs.’

‘Nonsense,’ squawked Hermione. ‘I insist on talking only to Timothy.’

Fanshawe, however, had the bit between his teeth. ‘I think you went into the wood, distracted Rannaldini with your lovely voice, and Mr Kemp did the business, getting his clothes and shoes covered with wild flowers in the struggle.’

‘Nonsense, nonsense! You have no proof. It was my Bentley you saw in the bushes. Sexton arrived with armfuls and armfuls of lady’s bedstraw and meadowsweet… the most tender and cherishing lover… I shall ring my friend Chief Constable Swallow at once.’

‘Where was Little Cosmo while this was going on?’

‘Tucked up in bed, of course, where all good boys should be.’

Unfortunately for Sexton, a complaint had just been logged by the incident room from a couple driving towards the M4 around one a.m. last Monday morning.

They had been pushed into the hogweed on the verge by a lunatic overtaking in a maroon Roller, number plate SK 1. To their apoplexy, twenty minutes later, the road-hog had hurtled past in the same Roller but in the other direction going towards Rutminster, and shoving them into the hogweed again.


59


Outraged to learn that Sergeant Fanshawe had made a breakthrough on his patch — bonking on lady’s bedstraw indeed! — Gablecross set off for Penscombe, determined to succeed where Fanshawe had failed by nailing Tabitha. Not wanting anyone censoring his questions, however, he and Karen lurked over excellent fish pie in the Dog and Trumpet until the dark blue helicopter had carried Rupert, Lysander and Xavier off to Newmarket.

All round the pub walls were photographs of generations of Campbell-Blacks triumphing at horsy events. Noticing the ferocious intensity on Tabitha’s face as she rode a much older and larger boy off the ball in some Pony Club polo finals, Gablecross thought she would have had little difficulty in strangling Rannaldini. One of the specialities chalked on the blackboard was ‘Campbell-Black Chowder’.

‘What’s that made from? Shark and piranha?’ asked Gablecross, as he paid the bill.

‘No way,’ laughed the landlady. ‘That’s Taggie’s recipe. She’s the best thing that ever happened to that family. Got her hands full at the moment. Tab’s still in shock and won’t eat. Floods one moment, shouting the next. Rupert’s a continually erupting volcano. Just seen Taggie, dark glasses hiding her poor red eyes, driving off to Cotchester with Bianca.’

Better and better, thought Gablecross. With Taggie out, they must lose no time.

‘Shit,’ muttered Karen, as she drove up to the gates. ‘There’s even more paparazzi here than at Valhalla.’

Rupert’s beautiful house, pale gold as a drowsy lioness in the burning afternoon sunshine, made Gablecross’s Hungerford home seem even pokier. Fucking nobs.

As Ann-Marie, the au pair, knocked nervously on the study door, a shrill voice shouted, ‘I don’t care what Daddy or Tag say, I’m not having any lunch.’

Having admired Tab’s amazing beauty in the silver frames in Helen’s sitting room, and without clothes between the pages of Rannaldini’s memoirs, Gablecross was appalled by the reality.

Her normally flawless skin was grey and blotchy, the bruise on her cheekbone parsnip yellow, her eyes reddened and staring. The drastic weight loss had given her the prematurely aged look of a terminal anorexic. Her very loose signet and wedding rings clashed as she ran a hand covered with more yellow bruises through her lank hair.

Despite the heatwave, she wore grey cords and an inside-out dark green cashmere cardigan. On a nearby table were a billowing ashtray and a three-quarters-drunk vodka and tonic. All over the floor, open at the murder hunt, were today’s papers, which Tab had pinched from the kitchen, despite Taggie trying to hide them. Newmarket was on Channel Four with the sound turned down.

Slumped on a blue and white striped sofa, Tab was flipping through a photograph album. When Gablecross and Karen flashed their ID cards, she said would they please go away. To make up for her mistress’s rudeness, Sharon jumped off the sofa, grabbed a lemon-yellow silk cushion and carried it over to Gablecross singing with delight.

‘Lovely dog.’ Gablecross patted her.

‘Lovely flowers,’ said Karen enviously. ‘You are popular.’

‘It’s like a funeral parlour. Can you get me another vodka and tonic,’ Tab shouted, in a slurred voice, to Ann-Marie.

Mixing tranks and booze, thought Karen, as she clocked a Stubbs of two chestnut mares and a Turner of Cotchester Cathedral against a rain-dark sky on the walls.

‘D’you want a cup of tea before you go?’ asked Tab.

‘We’ve just had lunch, thanks.’ Gablecross nearly shattered his coccyx as he sat down heavily on an ancient beef bone. Removing it from the bowels of the armchair, he placed it on the floor.

Tab went back to her album, patting the sofa for Sharon to sit beside her, exhorting her to admire the pictures of Gertrude. ‘There she is at Daddy and Taggie’s wedding, and there she is disapproving of Daddy’s helicopter. God, she was sweet,’ then, in case Sharon was hurt, ‘but so are you.’