that evening.
He checked into his favourite hotel in Palm Beach, the charmingly old-fashioned Faversham, where he had been given the Kennedy Suite overlooking the ocean. Showering, then changing his shirt, he found a note in his suitcase from Taggie.
‘Darling Rupert, I love you dessparately and miss you, pleese come home quickly, I promiss not too do too much. All my love, Taggie.’
It was not Eloise and Abelard standard, but to Rupert it was immeasurably more precious. Taggie had tried so hard to conquer her dyslexia. He was tempted to ring her, but hoped she would be having an afternoon sleep. He was unable, however, to resist getting out of a secret pocket in the lid of his briefcase three nude photographs he’d taken of her last week. One from the waist up showed off her glorious breasts, the second three-quarters turned away from him and smiling shyly over her shoulder displayed her narrow waist, high bottom and endless legs; in the third, she was sitting in an arm chair with her legs apart, showing a muff Rupert had shaved down to a small goatee. Rupert felt himself go hard. God, she was beautiful and all his. Bugger Venturer and Ferranti. He swore as the telephone went. It was Cameron ringing from the lobby.
‘Thank Christ you’re here. I’ve got a car waiting downstairs.’
Nine hours later they were still deadlocked – both sides refusing to give an inch. It was immaterial that Ferranti’s contract was for a thousand times as much money. Venturer had signed Perdita up first.
‘But not exclusively,’ drawled Dino Ferranti, his beautiful, blue silk shirt creased, his Siamese cat’s eyes squinting with tiredness and irritation. He and Rupert had exchanged very sharp words. But Rupert’s real animosity was reserved for Red Alderton, who, in his promiscuity, viciousness, arrogance and total lack of repentance, reminded Rupert of everything he wanted to forget about his own past. He was also allergic to red hair because it reminded him of his first wife and his appallingly grasping mother-in-law. Red, absolutely terrified of losing the $2,000,000 Ferranti’s were contracted to pay Perdita, much of which had already been spent, kept butting in, until Rupert lost his temper.
‘Just fuck off, Maureen O’Hara and curl your eyelashes,’ he yelled. ‘You knew all about the Venturer contract when you set up the Ferranti deal, you little pimp. Fucking leech! You’d make Dracula look like a blood donor.’
‘You’re a fine one,’ screamed Perdita, leaping to Red’s defence. ‘What about those memoirs? Talk about a cock in every porthole. You could bore out the Channel Tunnel solo.’
Dino Ferranti suppressed a smile. Then, as Red weighed in, a fearful slanging match ensued and the lawyers banished both Red and Perdita from the building.
Back at Red’s house Perdita lounged on his dark blue silk counterpane drinking Green Devils and watching Red pacing up and down, ranting on and on about Rupert.
‘Arrogant shit, who the hell does he think he is?’ Then he paused, face lit up with satanic excitement. ‘I’ve got it! I know how we can make him back off.’
‘We can’t,’ breathed Perdita in appalled wonder two minutes later.
At three o’clock in the morning the lawyers decided to adjourn. Rupert rang Taggie, who was still staying at Declan’s, to say he definitely wouldn’t be home next day. Taggie tried not to sound disappointed, saying she was fine and it had frozen last night and now it was snowing and she missed him dreadfully. Rupert said it was a nightmare and the only person going to make any money were the lawyers, and that he loved her indescribably and would ring her in the morning.
Letting himself into his suite half an hour later Rupert longed to ring her again, but felt he shouldn’t crowd her. The quickest undresser in the world, he stepped out of his clothes in the sitting room and wandered into the bathroom to clean his teeth. He’d have a shower when he got up – he glanced wearily at his watch – in about three hours’ time. Thinking it would make Taggie seem nearer, he decided to have another look at her photographs, then panicked when he couldn’t find them. He was sure he’d left them under his shirts. Checking the bedroom he froze.
‘Hello, Rupert,’ said Perdita softly. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you earlier. I thought you might be lonely.’
The sheet was drawn up to her chin, but she let it fall, swinging her feet off the bed.
‘You shabby little bitch,’ whispered Rupert. ‘Get out of here.’
‘Don’t be like that.’ Perdita’s eyes were as shiny as black olives drenched in oil and, as she stood up, her slender naked body seemed almost incandescent with heat and excitement.
‘You must know I’ve always fancied you.’ It was like a child actress trying to play Delilah.
‘How did you get in here?’ hissed Rupert.
‘Easy. I just told them you’d asked me round. The hall porter even winked at me. You must have had loads of girls here in the past.’
In the past Rupert certainly had. Now his mind was racing. If he rang Security, they’d be here in an instant, but with his track record someone would be bound to leak it to the press. The same went for the police. And if anyone saw Perdita leaving his suite, he was also in trouble. She was slowly advancing towards him.
‘Get your clothes on.’ He tried to sound calm.
‘Not so fast,’ drawled a voice and Red came out of the wardrobe. Before Rupert could stop him he’d taken half a dozen photographs of both of them naked and dived for the door. But Rupert was too quick for him. Giving a great cat jump, he caught Red by the ankles and brought them both crashing to the ground.
‘You little shit,’ he howled, grabbing the camera.
Next second Red had tried to knee him in the balls and Rupert had smashed his fist into Red’s face. Then, picking him up by his shirt, he smashed him to the floor again.
‘Don’t kill him,’ screamed Perdita.
While Red was lurching to his feet, Rupert grabbed a towel and wrapped it round his waist. Hurling the contents of a vase of flowers on the floor, he smashed the vase on a low glass table and brandished the jagged edge at Red with one hand, reaching for the telephone with the other. ‘D’you want me to call the police?’
Red deliberated. ‘I guess not.’
‘Then give me back Tag’s pictures.’
Very slowly Red removed them from his inside pocket and threw them down on the glass table. ‘Very pretty. You must introduce me some time.’
‘Shut up!’ Rupert gave such a howl that the windows rattled and the glasses rang. ‘If you ever come within a million miles of her . . . Get dressed.’ Picking up Perdita’s pink dress, he hurled it at her. ‘You cheap little blackmailing whore. I wouldn’t put anything past the Scarlet Pimp here, but I thought a bit of Luke or Ricky might have rubbed off on you.’
‘We wouldn’t have gone to the press,’ stammered Perdita. ‘We just wanted you to back off.’
Still drunk from the Green Devils, she put her legs into one of the arm holes of her dress and nearly fell over when the telephone rang. Rupert was ashen when he put the receiver down.
‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Perdita.
‘Taggie. She was worried no-one would feed the birds and sneaked over to Penscombe and slipped on the ice. Declan thinks she’s miscarrying. I’ve got to go back.’
The events of the last ten minutes might never have happened.
‘Borrow one of Dad’s jets,’ offered Red.
‘Thanks,’ said Rupert. All that mattered was getting home as fast as possible.
The truce was fleeting. Rupert got back to England to find Taggie had not only lost the baby, but nearly her life as well. She would get better, said James Benson reassuringly, who had never expected to see Rupert so devastated, but she’d never be able to have children. This seemed irrelevant to Rupert at the time, compared with the frantic relief that he wouldn’t lose her. Only when she began to recover did he appreciate how shattered she was not to be able to have his children. As she sobbed helplessly in his arms, he looked out at a robin pecking at the bird table, like a drop of blood against the snow which had already blotted out all the skid marks of her fall.
The same afternoon he discovered her weeping just as hopelessly in the nursery that Daisy had covered so riotously with butterflies and birds, and even Gertrude the mongrel, and his heart had blackened against Perdita. If he hadn’t had to go to America none of this would have happened. The only time he left Taggie’s bedside the next week was to ring Dino Ferranti and tell him they were dropping the case, and to call Cameron Cook home because Venturer had no more interest in making a film about Perdita.
