charmers.’
‘She asked DS Gablecross to call her Hermione,’ giggled Karen. ‘It was hilarious when he shook hands with her waxwork when we arrived.’
Fanshawe’s guffaw was easily the loudest.
I hate that man, thought Gablecross.
Portland was flipping through the photographs, wincing as he came to the ones of Granny. ‘Anything on Granville Hastings?’
‘He’s due back tomorrow,’ said Karen.
‘And that sexy Gloria Prescott?’
Fanshawe blew a kiss to heaven. ‘We had a brief word as she was leaving on Monday, said she was calling her mum at the time of the murder, which checks out. Debbie and I’ve arranged to see her tomorrow.’
‘Lucky sod. And what did Lady Griselda have to say?’ Portland asked DC Lightfoot and DC Smithson.
‘She’s made a statement,’ DC Lightfoot went rather pink, ‘that she was looking for “bloody balls” while Rannaldini was murdered or she’d have done the “bloody job” herself, because she was so furious with Rannaldini for ripping up the beautiful dress she’d made for Dame Hermione.’
‘Meredith Whalen was even more forthright.’ DC Smithson pursed unpainted lips. ‘He said why didn’t we buck up and bury Rannaldini so he could organize a grand ball for three hundred people to dance on his grave?’
Portland laughed — so everyone else did.
‘Has Meredith got an alibi?’ he asked.
DC Lightfoot puffed out his cheeks and went even pinker. ‘Well, he claims to have sloped off and had a half- hour loveydovey chat with his boyfriend, Hermione’s husband Bobby, in Australia after he’d finished umpiring the finals — oh my God!’
‘You’re right, lad,’ chipped in Gablecross. ‘That was when Dame Hermione claims
‘Perhaps they were on a conference call,’ giggled Karen.
‘Melbourne can sort that out too,’ grinned Portland. ‘Rozzy Pringle, poor lady, checks out,’ he went on. ‘But why did Rannaldini make a note to ring Glyn, her husband? You and Karen go and see him, Tim.’
‘I could have cheered when Rozzy told that MCP Campbell-Black to eff off,’ said DC Smithson.
Every surface of Portland’s immaculate office was now covered with paper cups and overflowing ashtrays. As other pairs were given their orders, Gablecross fought sleep. Buoyed up by the findings of the safe, the team were now exhausted at having to assimilate so much information and in need of another fix.
It came from the gallant fingertip team who, having crawled through brushwood, brambles and nettles, had finally concluded their search. Their findings had been passed on to the lab to be printed and analysed, but included, said Portland, as he opened an orange file, an opaque glass lighter patterned with lilies.
‘Tristan de Montigny was looking for his on Monday morning and he made a film called
‘Good girl. An empty two-litre bottle of vodka. That’ll be Mikhail Pezcherov’s,’ said Fanshawe.
‘Green chewing-gum, probably chucked out by some young lady sweetening her breath for a lover’s tryst,’ went on Portland. ‘Vomit containing sweetcorn, scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, a tumbler engraved with Rannaldini’s initials and marked with coral-pink lipstick, a handsome gold signet ring, a dark crimson lipstick.’
Chloe, thought Karen, with satisfaction.
Among other discoveries were a blue petrol can reeking of paraffin, several used condoms, a dog lead, a number of green and pink tennis balls and a bullet lodged deep in the ground. Also noted had been a crushed clump of deadly nightshade, hemlock and agrimony.
‘We’ll provide you with the list.’ Portland glanced at his watch. ‘That should give you plenty to be going on with.’ Then, turning to DC Lightfoot with a sceptical grin, ‘Any more on Rannaldini’s ghost in the highwayman’s cloak signing Lady Griselda’s receipt?’
Lightfoot shook his head. ‘Nothing, except we searched Wardrobe and Rannaldini’s house. Not a trace of the cloak anywhere.’
‘Oooh, how creepy,’ shivered Debbie.
‘People on the unit think so too,’ said DC Lightfoot. ‘They’re very jumpy.’
‘Clive is certain Rannaldini’s still around,’ volunteered Gablecross.
‘They’re a bunch of hysterics,’ said Portland slowly, ‘but we mustn’t rule out the fact that the murderer could be impersonating Rannaldini to give himself anonymity and putting the shits up everyone. Now, bugger off, all of you.’ He waved the video tapes, ‘I’m going to spend the morning at the pictures.’
Then, as everyone shuffled out of the room with their paper cups and ashtrays, he said, ‘Mind staying on a second, Tim?’
Fanshawe looked delighted: Gablecross was clearly in for a bollocking. Gablecross thought so too, until Portland smiled engagingly.
‘Count yourself publicly reprimanded,’ he said, slamming the door. ‘But well done, we’ve made a big step forward. Let’s chew the cud and have a decent coffee,’ he added, switching on the percolator, ‘then go and see what the pathologist has to tell us. Her report’s going to be longer than Rannaldini’s memoirs. I called off the press conference. You were right. Lady Rannaldini’s off the wall, and Dame Hermione wanted to charge twenty thousand for the use of her services.’
53
The post-mortem revealed a wonderfully fit body, showing no sign of ageing, with the huge shoulder muscles of a conductor and an athlete.
‘It would have taken a super-strong person to strangle him,’ Dr Meadows’s freckled face was perplexed, ‘or someone fuelled by such a hatred or fear. He died’, she consulted her notes, ‘some time between ten fifteen and eleven fifteen. There were broken blood vessels and deep tissue injuries to the neck, and whoever strangled him was wearing a large stone or a signet ring, probably on the little finger of the left hand. The stone cut into the flesh and appears to have swung round to the palm side, perhaps because the wearer had lost weight.’
‘Check on everyone wearing rings,’ said Portland.
For a second, Gablecross had visions of Rupert’s big gold ring glinting in Oscar’s lights.
‘He was shot through the heart by a gun of the.38 type,’ went on Dr Meadows, ‘but the angle of the exit wound in his back suggests it happened when he was lying down, fired by someone about twelve feet away.’
‘At the same time?’ asked Gablecross.
‘No, I reckon about fifteen minutes after the strangulation.’
‘He had lacerations on his face and a big gash on the side of his head, which suggests he was pushed or fell against a sharp object, or perhaps the murderer hit him with an iron bar or a spade.’
‘There was also’, she went on, ‘saliva on his chest hair, traces of saliva in his mouth, saliva, canine and human blood on his dressing-gown and a bite on the ankle from an old dog with very few teeth. In addition there was perfume and lipstick, human hair and flakes of skin on his dressing-gown, and flakes of skin under his fingernails.’
‘Quite a lot of activity,’ said Portland.
‘There was also extensive bruising on his chest and face, a couple of cracked ribs, semen stains down his left thigh and vaginal fluid on his penis, suggesting brief penetration then ejaculation after the victim managed to struggle away.’
‘That figures.’ Gablecross and Portland exchanged glances.
‘Carpet fibres on the elbows and outside edges of the forearms also suggest that intercourse or rape took place indoors.’
‘On the lounge floor of the watch-tower?’ suggested Gablecross.
‘The rape victim clearly put up one hell of a struggle,’ added Dr Meadows, ‘but from the colour of the bruises
