Gablecross let an unbearably long pause elapse, until Helen said in a low voice, ‘Tristan de Montigny tried to kill him on Friday night. Hermione, Chloe and Gloria Prescott were all furious they hadn’t got a particular part. Particularly Gloria who everyone nicknamed Pushy. My husband’s been so kind to her, lending her the limo and the helicopter. She took so much for granted.
‘He had that terrible row with Alpheus this morning, and one with Mikhail, and Hermione too. He felt she hadn’t sung her part very well. But my husband fights with everyone.’
A moth was banging like a muffled funeral drum against the window.
‘He can’t bear music to be any less beautiful than he hears it in his head.’
Her mobile rang. Helen snatched it up.
‘Rannaldini? It’s the Scorpion,’ she whispered in terror.
Gablecross seized the mobile. ‘Piss off,’ he roared.
Next moment, two photographers had rammed their lenses against the window. ‘Look this way, Helen.’
‘Bugger off,’ bellowed Gablecross, yanking the dove-grey curtains across their faces.
From now on, the media would move into Paradise waving their cheque-books, like flies round a cowpat, eyes in their backsides, making the work of the police ten times more difficult.
Turning back to Helen, Gablecross caught a glimpse of a photograph, pushed to the back of a shelf, of Rannaldini smiling down at a ravishing girl. She was the spitting image of Rupert Campbell-Black. It must be Helen’s daughter.
‘How did your husband get on with Tabitha?’
Images of the photographs in Rannaldini’s watchtower swam before Helen’s eyes, with a naked, scornful Tabitha on the top. As she burst into tears, there was an impatient knock and a tall young man in a dark blue polo shirt and tennis shorts barged in. With his dark blue eyes, gold hair and thighs as strong, smooth and brown as its onyx pillars, the drawing room, leading out on to the terrace, might have been decorated to compliment his handsomeness, but he looked much too large in here. Wolfie disliked Helen intensely for neglecting Tab, but he hated to see anyone in distress.
‘What the hell’s going on?’
‘I’m sorry, we’ve found your father’s body, sir.’
The colour drained out of Wolfie’s suntanned face.
‘He had a heart-attack?’
‘I’m afraid he’s been murdered.’
The boy took it wonderfully calmly. Was it something he’d half expected, even longed for? It must have been a terrible burden to have had Rannaldini as a father.
Wolfie turned to Helen.
‘I’m so sorry.’
Crossing the room, he hugged her awkwardly, patting her shoulder until her sobs subsided. In reality he was playing for time, his mind racing.
‘How did he die?’ he asked, still with his back to Gablecross.
‘He was strangled and shot.’
Wolfie felt a lurch of fear. Had Tabitha killed him? ‘What time did he die?’
‘We don’t know. The pathologist hasn’t arrived yet.’
The police mustn’t find out his father had raped Tab. He must remove that tape from the machine in the kitchen.
‘Can I get you a drink or a cup of coffee?’ he asked Gablecross.
‘I’m fine.’ Gablecross could see Wolfie wrenching his thoughts into order, he could smell his sweat and see the gooseflesh on his bare legs and arms. ‘I’d like a few words with you, sir.’
‘Let me just find someone to look after my stepmother,’ and Wolfie had bolted.
The kitchen was empty but, to his horror, so was the answering-machine. Who could have whipped the tape? Sprinting down the passage, he put his head round the Blue Living Room door.
‘Wolfie!’ shouted everyone.
They were all drunk. Who could he trust?
‘Lucy,’ he pleaded, ‘could you look after Helen for me, and ring Mrs Brimscombe and ask her to come and help her to bed?’
‘I’m ever so sorry, Wolfie.’ Lucy jumped to her feet.
‘Perhaps we should ring James Benson,’ suggested Meredith.
‘He’ll be out at some smart dinner party,’ said Griselda.
‘I’ll come and check how she is the moment the police have finished with me,’ Wolfie promised Lucy.
‘I’m going to fetch you a sweater first,’ said Lucy.
Gablecross interviewed Wolfie in the kitchen. The boy was now making coffee and wearing a red V-necked jersey, which he loathed because his stepmother Cecilia Rannaldini had given it to him for Christmas.
As if there were never any question that he wouldn’t, Wolfie said that he and Simone had won the tournament. Returning to organize supper, he’d found a message from Tabitha, his stepsister, on the machine.
‘D’you know where the tape is?’
‘Must be still in the machine,’ lied Wolfie. ‘Tab went home because her parents’ dog had disappeared. She’s living in one of my father’s cottages. As I had a second key, she asked me to fetch her dog and take it back to Penscombe.’
Gablecross admired a screen covered in hundreds of photographs of Rannaldini with the famous.
‘Couldn’t Mrs Lovell’s husband have taken the dog?’
‘He’s away.’
‘Rather inconsiderate of Mrs Lovell to expect you to drive over a hundred miles in the middle of a tennis party.’
‘She was distraught about her parents’ dog,’ said Wolfie quickly. ‘It was a very old family pet.’
‘Did you see anyone when you first returned to the house?’
‘I heard Miss Bussage in her office, and my stepmother’s wireless.’
‘Did you hear anything unusual?’
‘Only Hermione singing in the rushes as I walked back to the house. Sound carries much further on thundery nights. Although…’ Wolfie wrinkled his forehead, perplexed ‘… I don’t remember the bit she was singing being filmed on Friday.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Around half ten, I think.’
Switching the kettle on to boil for the fourth time, he made two cups of coffee.
‘Why didn’t Mrs Lovell take the dog with her in the first place?’
‘Sharon’s on heat. Tab’s father has a pack of dogs. Tab hadn’t seen him for two years. Probably didn’t want to rock the boat.’
‘Could a more major crisis have made her rush home?’ asked Gablecross.
‘A dog going missing is a major crisis in that family,’ said Wolfie coldly.
‘How long did you stay at Penscombe?’
‘Only to hand Sharon over.’ Wolfie was treading carefully now. ‘Someone had just brought Gertrude — their missing dog — back. She’d been run over so I didn’t stop.’
As he handed Gablecross the sugar and a biscuit tin, he could only think of Tab’s tearful, choked words when she rang to thank him on his way back to Valhalla.
‘Please, don’t tell anyone Rannaldini raped me. It would kill Mummy.’ He had wanted to drive straight back to Penscombe to comfort her.
‘Very attractive young lady, Mrs Lovell.’ Gablecross helped himself to a chocolate biscuit. ‘Did that cause any tension between your father and stepmother?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Wolfie.
‘It still seems excessive to abandon your guests and drive all that way in the middle of a party.’
‘My guests’, said Wolfie dismissively, ‘have been freeloading here all summer. I felt they could fend for themselves.’
The iron has entered into that young man’s soul, decided Gablecross. He’s not only madly in love with Tabitha Lovell but lying through his extremely good teeth. Glancing at the screen again, he noticed how colourless the famous people appeared beside Rannaldini. You couldn’t fail to respond to the flashing whiteness of the smile, the hypnotic eyes, the undeniable magnetism.
‘Could you come and identify the body, sir?’
‘Certainly,’ said Wolfie, emptying the rest of his cup of coffee into the wastepaper basket.