‘“And wither’d murder”’ she read out, ‘“… thus with his stealthy pace, With Tarquin’s ravishing strides, towards his design Moves like a ghost.” Can’t imagine anyone withered or ghostly being strong enough to murder Rannaldini.’
‘Rage and adrenalin’, pronounced Gablecross, ‘give the smallest, frailest person strength.’
‘That puts little Meredith in the frame,’ said Flora. ‘He’s never forgiven Rannaldini for calling his
‘Fond of him, were you?’
‘Rannaldini? No, I loathed him. He seduced me when I was sixteen, then dumped me. But it’s still a shock.’
‘What were you doing between nine thirty and eleven thirty last night?’
‘Getting pissed, mostly. Then I went home to feed the cat. My parents live next door — you can see the stone angels through the trees. I hadn’t realized how dark it was so I skirted the rose gardens, the maze and the stables and ran past our pond on the right.’
‘Who saw you at home?’
‘Only the cat, who’s not great on alibis.’
‘Did you notice anything unusual on the way?’
‘Like Hermione praising another singer?’ Flora topped up her glass. ‘Sorry, silly joke. I heard her singing Elisabetta’s last duet. Might have been a CD or a tape. There were lights on in River House and Magpie Cottage, I heard sheep bleating — they always bleat when anyone comes through Hangman’s Wood, hoping it’s the shepherd with their hay. The grass is so poor.’
‘Live at home, do you?’ asked Gablecross, who knew the answer.
‘No, I live with George Hungerford — at least, I did until recently. I was going to marry him.’ She accepted one of Gablecross’s cigarettes with a shaking hand.
‘I’ll pay you back. That lipstick really suits you,’ she added to Karen, who put it down hastily and picked up her notebook.
Flora dolefully relayed the drama of George landing his helicopter in the middle of her snogging scene with Pushy.
‘He went ballistic, I told him to fuck off,’ she said, finally and sadly.
‘So George has landed his helicopter here before?’ said Gablecross quickly. ‘Didn’t you notice one landing last night around ten thirty and someone running towards the watch-tower?’
Flora’s eyes flickered in horror. ‘It couldn’t have been George,’ she whispered. ‘I’m sure he’s in Germany.’ She kept fiddling with her mobile to make sure it was switched on.
‘How did you get back to Valhalla?’
‘I drove. It was dark by then. It gets very creepy — funny things have been happening recently.’
Topping up her drink, she listed Granny’s patchwork quilt, the adder in Lucy’s make-up box, slug pellets in James’s water-bowl, Tab nearly burning to death in the
‘Why didn’t anyone call the police?’
‘We were so desperate to finish the film — the budget was spiralling like Rannaldini’s staircase — that we avoided anything that might hold it up. Oh, I forgot. Foxie’, she waved her puppet fox, ‘was cut to pieces. I was so lucky, Rozzy Pringle spent hours sewing him together, like surgeons in casualty labouring through the night.’
Taking Foxie from her, Gablecross examined the joins.
‘Can I borrow him?’
‘No!’ Flora snatched him back. ‘I need the luck.’
Outside a huge rainbow reared up on the other side of Paradise.
‘It’s stopped raining. Let’s go for a walk.’
Hearing the word, Trevor ran yapping out of the caravan. Flora followed him, carrying her glass and Foxie. The fingertip team, who’d been struggling through Hangman’s Wood all day, were drenched, pricked, lacerated and stung. Handlers patrolled the edge of the trees.
‘Aren’t they sweet?’ sighed Flora, as their Alsatians strained at their choke-chains barking at Trevor, who yapped back, dancing just out of reach. ‘Think of those brave pointed noses sniffing out clues.’
‘We use dogs more to intimidate the public,’ confessed Gablecross. ‘Not very reliable at finding things.’
‘I did a dog-evading course once,’ volunteered Karen. ‘I hid in a badger set, covered myself with twigs, and a bloody great Dobermann came up, peed on me, then passed on.’
‘Pissed on.’ Flora started to laugh, then shuddered.
‘Look, there’s Clive, no doubt flogging his story, which must be horrendously steamy, to that disgusting crone, Eulalia Harrison from the
‘Hard to be accurate. Bodies cool very slowly on a hot night.’
‘What happens if you don’t find a body at once?’ asked Flora, as they splashed through puddles the colour of weak tea.
‘Flesh gets eaten by foxes and badgers.’
‘Now I know why you didn’t want any lunch,’ Flora told Foxie petulantly.
‘The eyes go first,’ added Gablecross. ‘Crows peck them out.’
‘Oh, my God.’ Flora started to tremble. ‘Rannaldini had wonderful eyes, conductor’s eyes. He could transform an orchestra just glaring at them.’
She leapt as her mobile rang.
‘George!’ she gasped in ecstasy, then slumped. ‘Viking, how kind, if you’re sure it won’t be too much trouble. I’m too pissed to drive, I’ll get a taxi.’
‘That’s one of my exes, Viking O’Neill,’ she told Gablecross listlessly. ‘I’m going to stay with him and his wife for a few days.’
‘Just leave us the phone number and address.’
The chapel clock struck seven thirty. The deluge had swept cypress twigs on the paths into long brown snakes. The rainbow was fading. As they moved through the yew rooms of Rannaldini’s garden, the rain had dusted and polished the nude nymphs lurking in every corner. There would be no-one to fondle them now.
‘What happened when you got back to Valhalla?’ asked Karen.
‘I saw the watch-tower on fire, and thought of Tabloid trapped in his kennel. So I left Trev in the car on the edge of the drive and hurtled through Hangman’s Wood.’
‘Risky under the circs, whole place ablaze.’
‘I got to know Tabloid well, when I was sleeping with Rannaldini.’
‘You didn’t notice anyone in the woods?’
‘Only firemen and Clive — God knows what he was doing. There was a disgusting smell of burning feathers, probably Rannaldini’s mattress going up. Safety regulations weren’t his forte.’
‘Could you describe his tower for us?’
‘Well, the top floor was all bed, with an appallingly narcissistic mural round the walls of an audience in evening dress, cheering him on to intenser orgasm. The next floor down was all dark blue jacuzzi, the next was a red-wallpapered pouncing chamber, full of low sofas and bowls of exotic fruit on marble tables, and a Picasso on the wall.’
‘You don’t know where he kept his safe?’
‘Nope.’
‘Or where he worked?’
‘On the ground floor. He had an edit suite.’
‘Was that where he did his composing?’ asked a scribbling Karen.
‘Decomposing now.’ Flora giggled, then began to cry. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She groped for a piece of orange loo paper. ‘Jokes are the only way I can cope.’
‘It happened when my nan died.’ Karen put an arm round Flora’s shoulders. ‘It’s a typical reaction to shock.’
‘Rannaldini never took you into any torture chamber?’ asked Gablecross.
‘He didn’t need a chamber,’ said Flora bleakly. ‘His presence was enough.’
They had reached a balustrade looking over the fast-filling mere. Reaching behind a cascade of bright pink roses for a tin of fish food, Flora chucked a handful of pellets into the water. Goldfish, lying still as autumn leaves,
