Rivals

de Milo. ‘And we’re all having to behave ourselves, as I’m sure your husband knows. Why have you got that rash on your hands?’ he asked more gently as Lizzie whipped off the same sticker.

‘The doctor says it’s stress-related,’ said Lizzie bitterly. ‘Mistress-related, more likely.’ Suddenly she could bear it no longer. ‘James is having an affair with Sarah Stratton. I shouldn’t have told you that. You’ll leak it to Private Eye and discredit Corinium even further.’

‘Why don’t you leave him? He’s such a cunt,’ said Rupert, putting another sticker as a figleaf over a cherub, and dragging Lizzie on before she could remove it.

‘Helen didn’t leave you.’ Lizzie paused to examine the pond which was a mass of scarlet and yellow water lilies. ‘God, isn’t this hell?’

‘She did in the end,’ said Rupert. ‘Besides, I’m not a cunt.’

They had reached the end of the garden now; cornfields the colour of French mustard and bluey-green woods stretched to the horizon. On the right, a red tractor chugged back and forth, anxious to get the hay baled and away before tonight’s promised rain.

‘Heaven to see some decent country,’ said Rupert. ‘Do you think “cunt-ricide” means murdering one’s mistress?’

Lizzie laughed. ‘You do cheer me up. I wish someone would murder Sarah.’

Leaving the pond, they wandered back to the house and walking under a weeping willow went slap into Freddie.

He looked very tired, and only nodded at them politely until he realized who they were. Then he jumped up and down with pleasure, giving Lizzie a big hug.

‘’Ullo, Rupe, ’ullo Lizzie. ’Ow are you, love? You look grite. Better not let Valerie see Beaver, Rupe, she’s a bit uptight. Been dead-’eading petunias in her sleep all night; fink she’s abart to dead-’ead me. I’ve had this bleedin’ lot up to ’ere. Let’s go inside and ’ave a drink. Val’s doing her TV interview. Finks the sun shines out of James Vereker’s arse. Oh, sorry, love —’ he squeezed Lizzie’s arm — ‘I quite forgot he was your ’usband!’

‘James thinks the same,’ said Rupert, spiking another sticker on a garden gnome’s fishing rod. ‘I’m sure he’s only here because he wants to worm secrets out of your wife, Freddie.’

Although, watching the way Freddie and Lizzie were looking at each other, Rupert reflected that Lizzie, with all her warmth and sympathy, would be far more skilled at getting Venturer’s secrets out of Freddie.

Cameron had expected to spend Friday night with Tony, but he’d decided to fly to France a day early, leaving her with an unexpected free evening. Unable to get in touch with Rupert, she’d taken two Mogadon, slept alone and very well for the first time in months and woke feeling rested and happy. As she wasn’t due to meet Rupert until the evening, she decided to wander along and see how James was getting on filming gardens. She didn’t stay long at The Falconry. The garden was too wonderful, and she didn’t like such tangible proof of Monica’s skills. She was surprised Tony hadn’t stayed at home to crow.

By comparison Valerie’s garden was utterly dreadful, but had certainly attracted large crowds, particularly round the television crew. Fighting her way through until she was blocked by a large bed of purple and salmon-pink gladioli, Cameron saw James up the other end interviewing Valerie and quickly stifled a scream of laughter. Valerie was dressed for Ascot in a yellow and white shirt-waister and a huge buttercup-yellow hat trimmed with yellow roses, but was totally unaware that someone had stuck a ‘Support Venturer’ sticker on her bottom.

Looking across the sea of mauve and salmon-pink, Cameron caught her breath in joy, because there, beside Freddie and Lizzie Vereker, also trying very hard not to laugh, was Rupert. As if drawn by her longing, he looked up and gave a brief grin of surprise before instantly resuming his normal deadpan expression.

‘Cotswold Round-Up/Green Lawns/Take Four,’ said the second assistant, snapping the clapper board.

‘One only has to look at your flower beds, Valerie,’ said James as the camera panned slowly in on the sea of mauve and salmon-pink, ‘to appreciate what a truly caring gardener you are. Tell us your secret.’

‘Well, James,’ began Valerie; then her little laugh turned to a squawk of rage as the normally well-trained Beaver, suddenly seeing Cameron, who’d spent a great deal of time sharing his master’s bed recently, crashed across the bed of gladioli, snapping and flattening most of them, and throwing himself on her in total ecstasy.

Just for a few seconds, to a crescendo of Valerie’s squawks, Cameron and Rupert were caught on camera, absolutely collapsing with laughter, before Rupert sharply called Beaver off.

As she drove home rather tight later in the evening with James, Lizzie said, ‘Cameron’s the one you and Tony should be watching. I’m certain she’s having an affair with Rupert.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped James. ‘Cameron only cares about Corinium.’

On Sunday night on his way back from France, where he’d made great strides in acquiring a stake in French television, Tony dropped in at the office to see how The Falconry garden looked on video. The cameraman had left the tape on his desk. Loosening his tie, pouring himself a large drink, Tony put the tape in the machine and lay back on his squashy sofa to watch. He was enchanted with the results. Monica had really come up trumps this year. How right he’d been not to leave her for Cameron — when one considered the ghastly shambles Paul Stratton had made of his career after he’d left Winifred. Having played back The Falconry footage twice more, he decided to have a good laugh, and ran the tape on to have a look at Valerie’s garden. Having located it, he played the tape back five times, particularly freezing the frame on the last ten seconds.

Then he walked out of the building not even bothering to lock the drinks cupboard or his office door, and drove straight over to Hamilton Terrace. Cameron was not there. Letting himself in, he searched systematically through the house. In the bedroom wastepaper basket he found what he was looking for. A pile of tiny torn-up scraps of paper. No one tore paper up that small unless they wanted to hide something. And it was an added precaution, as Cameron wasn’t expecting to see him until tomorrow night and by that time the daily would have emptied the basket. It took him a long time to put the pieces together because his hands were trembling so much, but finally he was able to read the words: Venturer meeting, Henry’s house, 12.30 Sunday.

Cameron got home about midnight. Sated and reeling from Rupert, she hadn’t even bothered to shower afterwards as she wanted to keep the sweat and smell of him on and inside her body as long as possible. Dropping her briefcase in the hall, she wandered into the drawing-room. The bulb that turned on by the door had blown, so in the faint light from the street lamps she groped her way across the room to turn on the light by her desk. The next minute she leapt in terror as a hand shot out, grabbing her leg just above the knee. Burglars, was her first panic- stricken thought; then, as a light flashed on, she saw Tony crouched on the sofa like a venomous toad.

‘What are you doing skulking in the dark?’ she stammered.

‘What are you doing,’ said Tony in a voice that utterly froze her blood, ‘going to a Venturer meeting at Henry Hampshire’s house today?’

Cameron’s gasp of horror gave it all away: ‘I–I-I had a tip-off. I went along to spy. I just hung around outside the gates, trying to see who was going in.’

‘Who gave you the tip-off?’

Cameron’s mind raced. ‘I overheard people talking in the Bar Sinister — in the next booth.’

‘You bloody liar,’ hissed Tony. ‘And how long has Rupert been stuffing you?’

‘He isn’t,’ gibbered Cameron, wincing as his hand tightened on her leg. ‘He’s a bastard. The last person I’d shack up with.’

Tony tugged her towards him, burying his nose briefly in her groin.

‘You reek of him, you fucking whore. And how come his dog knows you so well? It’s all on tape, sweetheart.’

And the next moment he’d hit her across the room. She fell with a crash, catching her head on the bookshelf. Then he was on her again, picking her up by her shirt and smashing his left fist into her face. This time she crashed back into a small table, knocking over a vase of buddleia.

He’s going to kill me, she thought, as he lunged at her again, kicking her in the ribs until she groaned for mercy. Yet, at the same time, another part of her terror-crazed mind was thinking that she had to get out of there before he got his hands on her briefcase which contained all her notes on the meeting, and, even worse, the names of the Corinium moles.

As he dragged her to her feet and hit her again, she managed to grab a chair and, swinging it round, caught him on the side of the head, narrowly missing his eye with one of the legs. It gave her a breathing space. Grabbing the vase of buddleia that was now leaking onto the floor, she hurled it at him and stumbled out of the room, banging the door behind her. Gathering up her briefcase, she just managed to put up the double catch on the front