‘People have said your voice was unaccompanied.’
‘I often sang for him alone.’
‘So you didn’t leave home at all?’
‘Certainly not. I rushed back from Milan to spend quality time with my son Cosmo. I spent the rest of the evening recharging my spiritual batteries. I needed to be fresh for Monday, in case Rannaldini wanted to reshoot Act Five. Or, if he’d carried on with the schedule, I had an important ballroom scene in Act Two, Scene Two. I won’t pass for nineteen if I don’t get my eight hours,’ she added skittishly.
‘What else did you do?’
‘I was tucked up in bed with camomile tea, like the Flopsy Bunnies,’ Hermione put on a soppy face, ‘by nine o’clock, to watch Pride and Prejudice. It’s my favourite novel.’
‘Who’s your favourite character in it?’ asked Karen innocently.
‘Emma Woodhouse,’ replied Hermione, without missing a beat. ‘She’s beautiful and headstrong. Fans have often compared us.’
For a second, Karen’s eyes met Sexton’s. She wondered if she recognized pleading.
‘And my husband Bobby rang me from Australia for a chat around ten forty-five,’ said Hermione airily.
‘Does your husband mind Little Cosmo being Rannaldini’s son?’ asked Gablecross.
‘Not in the least. We have a very close and open marriage, Timothy. Bobby is devoted to Little Cosmo.’
Gablecross couldn’t dent her. Rannaldini’s playing the evil tape on Friday night, his flirtations with Pushy, Serena, Cheryl, Lara, even Tabitha, his threats to replace her with a younger singer had been all part of a game to goad her into singing more beautifully.
‘What he loved about me, Timothy, was my ability to rise to the challenge. Ours was a special relationship. Are you married?’
‘My wife’s your greatest fan,’ blushed Gablecross.
Surreptitiously scraping a sticker saying ‘American Bravo Library Copy, Do Not Remove’ from its case, Hermione brandished a CD called Only for Lovers.
‘What’s your wife’s given name? I’ve had two thousand five hundred and twenty-two letters and lost over a stone, you know. I simply can’t eat.’
‘I’ve roasted a little chicken for lunch,’ said Sexton, bustling in in a striped apron.
‘Well, perhaps I could manage a slice,’ admitted Hermione, as she wrote her name on the CD sleeve.
Shoulders shaking frantically, Karen was gazing intently at the river again.
‘We’re off, Karen,’ said Gablecross icily.
‘Leave the poor child,’ cried Hermione. ‘She is only weeping, like the whole world, for Maestro’s death.’ Then, catching sight of Rannaldini’s photograph on the CD case, handsome and smiling with his hands on her bare shoulders, Hermione broke into genuine tears of despair. ‘You will bring his killer to justice, won’t you, Timothy?’
On the way out, Sexton made a brief statement.
‘I ought to fill you in on my movements on Sunday night, Tim. Frankly it was Sunday, Bloody Sunday. I ’ad a hellish day trying to drum up money. Rannaldini had fucked us with his delaying tactics, refusing to release any dosh until Tristan gave in to his demands.
‘I left London after midnight, shattered. But I wanted to be there on Monday morning in case fings turned nasty after Rannaldini playing that evil tape on Friday night. Anyway, Wally and I was about to come off the motorway wiv only the hard shoulder to cry on, when Bernard rang and said Rannaldini’d copped it.’
‘What time was that, sir?’
‘One fifteen. I called Rupert Campbell-Black. Luckily he’d just got back, and agreed to come in and save the movie.’
‘Just like that?’ asked Karen.
‘He’s that sort of bloke. Then we belted down to Valhalla, as Bernard and I agreed’, there was pride in Sexton’s voice now, ‘I should be the one to break the sad news to Dame Hermione.’
‘Look after her,’ Gablecross was amazed to hear himself saying.
‘The fat cow’s lying through her teeth,’ fumed Karen, as they walked back to the car. ‘Imagine thinking Emma Woodhouse was the heroine of Pride and Prejudice. The only thing the silly bitch reads is rave reviews and the directions on the Prozac bottle.’
‘And Sexton had a lot to lose if the film went belly-up,’ mused Gablecross.
‘And Rupert Campbell-Black had only just come in at one fifteen,’ said Karen. ‘What was he doing in the meanwhile?’ She wished Gablecross would loosen up. As a cop you often had to laugh to stop yourself crying. She wasn’t looking forward to him wincing over her driving all the way to Abingdon to see Miss Bussage.
50
Rupert arrived at his first night’s filming in a murderous mood. If he hadn’t spurned Tab and let her fall among thieves, she would never have married so disastrously. And Rannaldini would never have been reduced to kidnapping Gertrude. He felt directly responsible both for the rape and Gertrude’s death, and his brain filled with blood whenever he thought of it.
He had agreed to save Don Carlos because he wanted to make a not-so-quick buck and amends to Tab. But talking to her the following day, he learnt of Tristan’s treachery and only hung in because of her pleading.
‘But the fucker blew you out.’
‘I know,’ sobbed Tab. ‘But I still love him and maybe with Rannaldini out of the way…’
She was so near the edge, raging one moment, sobbing wildly the next, or just gazing into space, he didn’t want to push her into the abyss.
Over at Valhalla, excitement at his impending arrival had reached fever pitch. Chloe, already buoyed up by fifty thousand from the Daily Mail, calls from La Scala and the Opéra Bastille, and the press yelling, ‘Chloe, Chloe, Chloe,’ whenever she passed, was now squirming lasciviously in front of the mirror in Make Up.
‘I want an ace face for Rupert, Lucy Lockett.’
‘That would be an Everest for you,’ said Baby irritably, as he pored over accounts of the murder in all the papers.
‘The prospect of having Tab as a stepdaughter would deter even me,’ sighed Chloe, ‘but one could always dally.’
‘Rupert’s mad about his wife,’ said Lucy crossly, as she clipped Chloe’s fringe to one side.
‘That’s a nice picture of moi.’ Chloe glanced sideways. ‘What paper’s that?’
‘The Scorpion. They list you as a prime suspect, alongside most of the cast, plus Helen, Wolfie and Tristan.’
‘Ouch, careful,’ squeaked Chloe, as Lucy knocked over a bottle of base, narrowly missing three thousand pounds’ worth of crimson taffeta. ‘Don’t mention that name in our make-up artist’s presence.’
One flare-up was averted by Lucy’s mobile ringing, which triggered off another. ‘No, I cannot do your roots, Meredith,’ shouted Lucy. ‘I don’t care if Rupert is due later, the cast has priority.’
From an upstairs window, Helen watched the press go berserk at the bottom of the drive as her ex-husband’s dark blue helicopter landed.
It was absolutely typical. Not only had Rupert won Tab back, he was now swanning in like a prince, stalking towards the maze, with fat Sexton running to keep up, passing Jessica and Simone, who swung round in wonder. When would Rupert bloody well lose his looks?
‘You wouldn’t have a moment to pop in and see Dime Hermione?’ panted Sexton.
‘Not unless you provide guards and a chastity-belt,’ replied Rupert.
‘Here comes Beauty-with-Cruelty,’ sighed Meredith, adjusting the baseball cap now hiding his roots.
The setting sun had lent a warmth to Rupert’s sleek blond hair and added a touch of colour to his unusually pale face, but his mouth was set in an ugly line, and the glare he gave Tristan could have halted global warming for several decades.