Having slipped the photos of a nude lip-licking Pushy straddling Rannaldini’s sofa into his hip pocket, Fanshawe asked if Lady Rannaldini had known her husband was having an affaire with Pushy.
‘Course not. Ay never slept with him. That’s why he respected as well as loved me.’ Gloria’s eyes filled with just enough tears not to swamp her mascara. ‘Roberto was so caring. When Ay left a party frock at home, he sent the helly to get it, if Ay wanted to go shopping he lent me the limo, but Ay was careful not to upstage Lady Rannaldini.’
Fanshawe got out his notebook. ‘What did you do on the night of the murder?’
‘Ay was so choked not to be in the finals Ay went for a walk — it was such a lovely evening. Then Ay came into the house to phone Mum — as Ay told you Ay always do on a Sunday night — because Roberto had urged me to use the Valhalla phones at all taymes.
‘Anyway, Ay nipped into Lady Rannaldini’s cosy den next to the kitchen to borrow her Harpers. Some play about Puccini was on the radio but she wasn’t there. So Ay borrowed her handset, Ay know it was cheeky, and settled into the big sofa in the hall between the kitchen and Lady Rannaldini’s den.
‘It’s very spooky, that part of the house. When Ay became Lady Rannaldini Ay was going to whaytewash all that dark panelling. Anyway, Ay’d rung Mum and was still reading Harpers, Tabitha’s dad and stepmum were in it. Ay don’t know if Ay’m telling tales.’
‘You mustn’t hold back anything that might help us to find your fiancé’s killer,’ said Fanshawe gravely.
‘Well, Wolfie came past around quarter to eleven, Ay’m so little he didn’t see me, and he switched on the machine in the kitchen. Next moment he came out, whayte as a sheet. “This time I am going to kill my father!” he shouted. There was a crunch on the gravel and he was gone.
‘But even stranger, around eleven fifteen — the clock in the ’all had just struck — Ay nipped back to return Lady Rannaldini’s handset and her Harpers, and it was most embarrassing. Even though I hadn’t heard her come back and I was outside the only door to that room all the time, she was back in there. Perhaps she emerged from some secret passage. Anyway, she reeked of paraffin and had torn that lovely dress, and walked straight past me. Next moment I heard her running up the back stairs.’
‘That is extremely valuable information,’ said a jubilant Fanshawe. ‘Would you like to make a statement?’
‘If it helps Roberto, of course.’
‘I don’t think you’ve met my colleague, DC Miller,’ said Fanshawe, beckoning a hovering Debbie from the public bar.
Pushy looked quite hostile until Debbie told her Alpheus had raved about her beautiful voice.
‘And I gather you knew Elisabetta’s part very well.’
‘Backwards. Maestro used my top notes instead of Hermione’s in the recording. Her intonation was very suspect.’
‘You and Rannaldini had an argument on Saturday morning,’ went on Debbie.
‘Only a lover’s tiff. I was upset his ex-wife got a role I wanted. But Cecilia is a name.’
‘People heard Elisabetta’s last aria in the wood. They said it sounded miraculous.’
‘That must have been my tape.’
‘Did you know Rannaldini was planning to reverse his vasectomy?’ asked Fanshawe.
‘What did I tell you? That was the only condition I’d have made before I gave him my body, I dote on kiddies. Rannaldini and Ay had agreed to be celibate for one another.’
Those were exactly the words she’d told Eulalia Harrison in their in-depth interview yesterday so they must be true.
Having got his statement firmly in the can, Sergeant Fanshawe kept his in-depth question to the end. Was it because Gloria had insisted on celibacy that Rannaldini had been reduced to raping Tabitha Campbell-Black?
In a flash, the innocent virgin became a fishwife.
‘The absolute fucker,’ screamed Pushy, not minding who heard her. ‘We agreed to keep ourselves chaste. I’ll have him for breach of promise.’
‘These photographs that have come into our possession do suggest your relationship was a little closer.’
‘The bastard swore no-one would ever see them. I want my solicitor,’ screeched Pushy.
Helen had been ashamed how relieved she was that Rannaldini was dead. No longer did she tremble to hear the front door creaking, and the cat’s feet padding stealthily along the corridor. She had been comforted by the flood of letters, many written by authors or television producers seeking her opinion, by the telephone calls fielded by the police and the obituary in The Times, which described her as the last and most beautiful of Rannaldini’s wives.
On the other hand, she couldn’t quite believe the lawyers’ assurances that the last will was unsigned and Tab’s naked photos danced slyly before her eyes. Then Gerald Portland had telephoned yesterday, asking her to appeal for information in a press conference. Helen had panicked. Faced with a barrage of questions, she’d break down and the truth would come out.
Yesterday, Tuesday the tenth, had also been a terrible day for Wolfie. The cast and most of the crew had taken refuge in their beds, but he, Bernard and the production office had had to work flat out all day in preparation for Rupert’s first night on the set.
In the middle of the afternoon, Wolfie had just realized the dustman he’d tipped twenty pounds to take away the empties had been none other than Nigel Dempster in disguise. He was also thinking that if Mr Brimscombe didn’t stop moaning about his missing petrol can there would certainly be a second murder, when he was summoned to the house to find his stepmother in hysterics. Perhaps shock had worn off and the loss of his father had kicked in. Despite the heat, he drew her into her study, shutting the door and all the windows.
‘Oh, Wolfie, I’ve done such a wicked thing.’
‘It can’t be that bad.’ Even if she’d killed his father, she’d had enough provocation.
‘I burnt down the watchtower,’ then, at Wolfie’s look of thunderstruck amazement, ‘with paraffin from Teddy Brimscombe’s petrol can. The memoirs were so hideous and in the new will he hadn’t left me a cent.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t valid.’ Wolfie was amazed Helen had had the nerve. ‘The lawyers will sort it out. Papa wasn’t ungenerous.’
‘Don’t you stick up for him! He cut you out too.’
Wolfie winced. ‘Did anyone see you?’
‘I don’t know, I heard Hermione singing, and I ran away. The memoirs were so dreadful.’ She was shaking so violently, Wolfie was forced out of pity to take her in his arms.
‘He said such humiliating things about me, he’d taken nude photographs of me, I looked like a skeleton. I had to stop them being published. Everyone was in them, Chloe, Hermione, Gloria, Serena, who I thought was my friend, that slut Flora!’ Her voice rose shrilly.
‘I’m sure he loved you best.’ Wolfie patted her jagged shoulder.
Like a cat reacting to human warmth, Helen pressed against him. Wolfie longed to pull away; he could feel her rubbery breasts and bony pelvis against him. Her freckles on her deathly white disintegrating face were like flecks of blood on the snow.
‘Even Tab,’ she hissed, ‘naked, whole rolls of film, and she was tarted up in a black G-string in some of them.’
‘I don’t believe it.’ Wolfie leapt away with clenched fists. It was as though she was branding the words on his heart with a red-hot poker.
He wanted to shout that his father had never left Tab alone, but ringing in his ears were Tab’s anguished pleas not to tell Helen about the rape.