Score!

Lamborghini and a passionate embrace.

‘Monsieur de Montigny, could I have a word about Claudine Lauzerte?’ asked Lynda Lee-Potter, who was snazzily disguised as a policewoman.

‘Not a single syllable. I talk enough to the flics,’ snarled Tristan. ‘Get back to fucking work,’ he roared at the crowd around Lucy.

Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sexily smudged, her long legs smooth and brown below the clinging pink dress. Moving closer Tristan caught a whiff of brandy, which annoyed him almost as much as the Fracas wafting muskily from her hot, excited body, instead of the usual sweet, delicate Bluebell.

The diatribe pouring forth was mostly in French, but Lucy got the gist: that Tristan felt she had been totally irresponsible; that she had wrecked yesterday’s shoot by buggering up any hope of continuity, and had now come back to rot up this one. Totally appalled that a mouth that was made for kissing, drinking red wine and quoting poetry should be shouting such terrible things, Lucy remained speechless.

‘Couldn’t you have waited two more days to push off on your dirty little weekend?’ howled Tristan. ‘Get out, you’re fired.’

‘You’ve got it wrong,’ stammered Lucy, ‘We only went to France to—’

‘I don’t want to know,’ interrupted Tristan. ‘Collect your cheque from Production and get out.’

‘You ungrateful bastard!’ screamed Lucy. ‘After all Wolfie and I have done for you.’ And still clutching Tab’s saddle, she fled back to Wardrobe.

‘Whaddja do that for?’ Baby turned furiously on Tristan. ‘You’ll have a strike on your hands.’

‘Strike and you won’t be paid a penny!’ yelled Tristan. ‘Get back on that pony, and you get back into those black robes,’ he roared at Granny, then scowling round, ‘Where’s Wolfgang, so I can fire him?’

‘Too late,’ sighed Meredith happily. ‘Grisel’s just dispatched him to Bristol airport to collect Alpheus’s suit.’

‘Tristan’s just fired me.’ Lucy stumbled into Wardrobe, sobbing helplessly.

‘Oh, darling,’ cried Rozzy, putting down her steam iron to hold out her arms. ‘I’m so sorry, don’t cry. He’ll calm down. He’s just got so much on his plate.’

‘He’s still an ungrateful bastard. He’s convinced Wolfie and I have been bonking all weekend, when we’ve been working our backsides off proving he can marry Tab after all. I don’t know why we bothered.’

‘Have you told him?’ Rozzy handed Lucy a wodge of Kleenex.

‘No, Wolfie can.’ Then, hearing Tab yelling outside, ‘Oh, God, I’ve still got her saddle, I can’t cope with her bawling me out as well. You give it to her. I must go and find James. Hell, I haven’t got a car.’

‘Take mine,’ said Rozzy.

Tears blinding her, Lucy somehow reached Valhalla. She was so furious and upset, she went straight to the production office and wrote a furious letter to Tristan.

‘This is to let you know you’re a Montigny and can marry your precious Tabitha and be happy after all, you ungrateful pig. Don’t be horrible to Wolfie. I’m going to give all the papers and photos and things you need for proof to Rozzy.’

Having printed off the letter, she wrote ‘Dearest Tristan’ at the top and ‘your loving Lucy’ at the bottom, and streaked the ink with her tears.

She was shoving the envelope into Tristan’s pigeon-hole when she caught sight of a ravishing photograph of him on the front of the Daily Mail. How young and carefree he looked. She was just tearing it out, when she noticed the pictures beneath: one of Claudine Lauzerte, and another, slightly blurred, of Claudine with her hair — rather too long for a middle-aged woman, some would say — streaming down her back, as she kissed a beautiful dark-haired boy, who was fingering her cheekbones in wonder. Their eyes were shut but their long, long eyelashes tangled.

Lucy gave a moan. Slowly, agonizingly, she read the copy and understood why Tristan had never made passes, why he disappeared to his room early but never seemed to sleep much, why he was always so sad, the prince with the heavy heart. And how ludicrous had been all those speculations that he was impotent or terrified of women or in love with some smooth, older man, like Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief, when all the time he was sleeping with the most beautiful woman in France.

How idiotic for Lucy herself to pretend she had thought of anyone but him since December or that every drop of make-up, every false eyelash hadn’t been put on his singers to please him. It had been the best make-up she had ever done because it had been an act of love. She had only gone to France in the faint hope that Tristan might realize he loved her not Tab. But all the time neither Tab nor she had been in the frame. How he must have loved Claudine not to betray her.

I love him, she sobbed in a frenzy of despair. No pain could be more unendurable. But there could be. When she got back to her caravan there was no James to whack his tail against the walls and squeak with joy.

Neither the police nor any of the local rescue kennels had news of him when she rang in increasing panic. With a shiver she remembered the gypsy encampment outside Paradise, which had moved on since she and Wolfie had left for France. Maybe they had stolen James, or he had gone back to his own people to die.

Noticing Rozzy’s end-of-shoot presents, all beautifully wrapped in purple paper and shocking pink ribbons, Lucy was creepily reminded of Alpheus’s dressing-gown. Weeping with despair she plunged into the woods in search of James.

Back at Rutminster Hall, Gablecross and Karen had watched the filming of Baby’s winning goal. Now the crew was setting up for Baby’s and Tabitha’s ride-off. Looking round at the ravening media baying for blood and the massive police presence watching from the house or mingling with the extras or hiding in the trees that surrounded George’s increasingly churned-up polo field, Gablecross felt a growing unease.

‘All this attention only exacerbates the problem,’ he muttered to Karen. ‘Murderers get off on it. They’re turned on when they read about themselves. It pushes them into overdrive. But, even more ominously, Tristan and Madame Lauzerte have shoved our killer off the front pages. The only way he can get back again is to commit another murder. He’s outwitted a massive international murder hunt, but ultimately he gets his biggest buzz out of someone knowing exactly how clever he’s been. Which means he’ll have to kill again, so that beforehand he can boast to his victim how he did it.’

Karen shivered. The polo had been so glamorous, she had hitherto thoroughly enjoyed herself. Several photographers had taken her picture. The dashing Carlisle twins had asked what she was doing later. Glancing round, she said, ‘We’ve got an almost full cast of suspects.’

‘Except Wolfie and Lucy,’ replied Gablecross, whom Interpol had alerted of their arrival in England.

‘Hello, Tim, hello, Karen.’ It was Rozzy with two cups of coffee, ‘I gather you went home yesterday. How did you like Glyn?’

‘Very much,’ lied Karen.

‘He’s a charmer,’ said Rozzy wistfully. ‘Was Sylvia much in evidence?’

‘No,’ lied Gablecross.

‘I hope you’ll catch the murderer today,’ Rozzy lowered her voice, ‘because we’re all dispersing tomorrow. I’ll miss you both so much.’

‘The feeling’s mutual. Have you seen Lucy?’

‘She was here,’ confided Rozzy. ‘She and Wolfie went all the way to France to clear Tristan’s name and the beast has gone and fired her. The poor darling’s rushed off to Valhalla in floods.’

‘Sorry to hear about your lovely dress,’ said Karen.

‘Horrible, wasn’t it?’ For a second Rozzy’s eyes brimmed. ‘But Tristan, who’s a darling, when he’s not being a beast, gave me some money to buy another so I rushed into Rutminster first thing.’

‘Find anything nice?’ asked Karen.

‘In Peggy Parker’s, of all unlikely places. I thought she was all Lurex and sequins.’

Gablecross looked at his watch. Tristan and Oscar were still fussing over lights. Anxious to get going before their ponies became maddened by flies, Ricky France-Lynch and the Carlisle twins were pointedly hitting balls to one another.

‘Ouch,’ yelled Sexton, as one hit him on the ankle. ‘Ow, Christ, ’ere comes trouble,’ he added as, parting crowds and crew like a flea comb, Rupert stalked up to Tristan.

‘Have you got some sort of death-wish?’ he hissed. ‘How dare you reshoot everything when we’re so pushed for time and money? And if you think I’m going to put a farthing into your crappy production after the way you