Rivals

22

Large orange letters outside the studio said: No Entry When Flashing.

‘I should think not,’ said Rupert, draining his whisky and giving the glass to Daysee. ‘Do they want me to expose myself on air?’

‘Christ, he’s photogenic,’ said Cameron in the gallery, as she watched Rupert sit down opposite a tense, unsmiling Declan. ‘Look at that jawline, and the way his eyes lengthen when he smiles.’

‘Declan’s nervous,’ said the Vision Mixer, as the sound man tested both men for level. ‘Listen to the quiver in his voice.’

In his earpiece, Declan could now hear Daysee discussing a boyfriend who was coming to dinner tomorrow.

‘The recipe says lots of garlic, but I think I’ll leave it out. That Rupert’s dead attractive, isn’t he?’

Declan looked at Rupert, lounging, so relaxed, radiating élitism and privilege with his Red Indian suntan, his beautifully cut suit and his blue silk shirt matching his insolent blue eyes. He thought of Taggie sobbing with humiliation after Valerie Jones’s party, and of Maud sobbing in his arms the night of Patrick’s twenty-first, and his resolve hardened.

‘Either of you need a touch-up?’ asked the make-up girl, whisking on with her steel basket.

‘I’d love to give you one,’ said Rupert.

The make-up girl blushed. Rupert leaned forward and looked at the name-tape on one of Declan’s odd socks. It said Charlotte Webster-Lee.

‘She’s a friend of Caitlin’s,’ snapped Declan.

‘I think I used to know her mother very well,’ said Rupert. ‘Is Charlotte blonde with blue eyes?’

Can’t he let up for a second? thought Declan savagely.

Trouble ahead, decided Rupert, as he chatted idly with the crew about Cotchester’s chances against Wandsworth United on Saturday. This man’s out to bury me.

‘One minute to air, Declan,’ said the Floor Manager.

‘Good luck,’ said Cameron.

‘Stand by tape,’ said Daysee.

The floor manager raised his hand to cue Declan, the red light flashed on, and he was off.

‘My guest tonight needs no introduction. He has been described as the greatest show jumper in the world, the handsomest man in England, the icing on the cake of the Tory party. He is, of course, the Minister for Sport, and the MP for Chalford and Bisley, Rupert Campbell-Black.’

Dispensing with the introductory package, Declan weighed straight in: ‘Do you mind being described as the handsomest man in England?’

‘Why should I?’

‘You’re not frightened of being dismissed just as a pretty face?’

‘No.’

‘Of being dragged into the Tory party just to add an element of much-needed glamour?’

‘No, because it’s not true.’

‘For what other reason could you possibly have been brought in?’ said Declan dismissively.

‘I know more about sport than anyone else in the party,’ said Rupert simply. ‘Having lasted in show jumping for sixteen years on what must be the most gruelling circuits in the world, I can cope with the pressures. One day you’re king of the castle in show jumping, next day you’re bottom of the heap. It’s helped me to be resilient about the ups and downs of politics.’

‘Do you find politics as satisfying as show-jumping?’

‘Of course not, but it has its compensations.’

‘What are they?’

‘The Olympic Fund has just passed four million and we’ve still got eighteen months to go. Soccer violence is down by seventy per cent. Comprehensive schools are gradually upping competitive sport and’ — Rupert grinned nastily — ‘England trounced Ireland at rugger last Saturday.’

Gerald, sipping Perrier in the board room, winced. That was a cheap point. Rupert shouldn’t have made it.

‘The Government makes two hundred million pounds a year from tax on football pools,’ accused Declan, ‘and yet you’re asking the clubs to spend two million this year tightening up their security to reduce football violence. Why don’t you give them some help?’

‘With footballers earning one hundred thousand pounds a year and stars like Garry Lineker changing hands for over a million I think the football clubs can put their own houses in order.’

‘Some people feel you’re taking a strong line on soccer violence because it’s electorally attractive.’

‘Do they?’ said Rupert politely.

Shit, thought Declan, I walked right into that one.

Rupert relented: ‘Just because something is electorally attractive, doesn’t make it wrong. I want to clean up the terraces and make them safe places for fathers to take their families again — or the game’ll be drained of its support and future talent.’

Declan changed tack: ‘I see from the evening paper that you’re backing the British Lions tour of South Africa, thereby giving your blessing to a corrupt and evil regime.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Rupert, wondering if the PM was listening. ‘Sport’s outside politics. Athletes are so briefly at their peak, they should be allowed to compete where and against whom they like. It’s bloody easy to have principles when you’re not making the sacrifices.’

And so the programme went on, with nice bitchy repartee flashing back and forth, but on the whole Rupert deflected Declan’s needling easily.

Then Declan said: ‘You’ve been described as the Prime Minister’s blue-eyed boy.’

‘Boy’s pushing it. I’m thirty-seven,’ said Rupert, ‘but as I’ve got blue eyes, I don’t see how I could be anything else.’

‘She seems to prefer good-looking men.’

‘She’d need her head examined if she didn’t,’ said Rupert coldly. ‘Do you prefer dogs yourself?’

‘You’ve always got on well with women,’ said Declan. ‘Wasn’t it Amanda Hamilton — ’ a large glamorous picture of the Foreign Secretary’s wife appeared on the screen — ‘who drew you into politics?’

‘And her husband Rollo,’ said Rupert quickly. ‘They both encouraged me.’

Despite repeated probing from Declan, Rupert refused to give an inch on the subject of Amanda Hamilton.

‘It was Mrs Hamilton,’ said Declan pointedly, ‘who drove you down to your first meeting with your constituency. Do you find a conflict between your ministerial and constituency duties?’

‘Of course,’ snapped Rupert. ‘I don’t have enough time to devote to my constituency. They come first; they’re the people who voted me in. I’ve lived in the area all my life, and I don’t want a bloody great motorway half a mile from Penscombe any more than they do.’

Gerald put his head in his hands.

Tony, purring with pleasure, was pacing up and down the board-room carpet. ‘Rupert is beginning to lose his temper,’ he said softly.

I can’t help it, thought Sarah, I still love him.

‘Was it merely lust for power that drove you into politics?’ asked Declan dismissively.

‘It certainly wasn’t the money, or the free time,’ snapped Rupert. ‘Most ministers are hopelessly overworked. The civil service want control and pile work on to keep us quiet. Sometimes you get home at three in the morning after a session in the House, then still have to go through your box. That’s when the trouble starts. You’re so zonked you OK a nuclear power station in your constituency and six months later you realize to your horror what you’ve done. I’m very lucky. I have an exceptional private secretary in Gerald Middleton. He does all my donkey work, and wraps my knuckles if I go too far. I’m also lucky,’ went on Rupert, yawning ostentatiously, ‘because on the circuit I learnt to grab sleep at any time.’

‘With anyone?’ said Declan. He was taunting Rupert now.

‘No,’ drawled Rupert. ‘I’ve always been selective.’

‘That’s not what your press cuttings say.’

A still of Samantha Freebody, the starlet who’d told all about sleeping with Rupert while he was married, appeared on the screen, followed by a succession of beauties including Amanda Hamilton’s daughter, Georgina, Beattie Johnson and Nathalie Perrault.

‘Coming to 2. We must catch Rupert’s reaction after this lot,’ said Cameron. ‘Take 2.’

But Rupert’s face was expressionless.

Declan picked up a cutting from the table: ‘One Gloucestershire peer has described you as “rather a nasty virus, that everyone’s wife caught sooner or later”.’

‘If you’d seen his wife, it’s definitely later,’ said Rupert lightly, but there was a muscle going in his cheek.

‘With the advent of AIDS, don’t you feel you should mend your ways?’

‘Sure,’ said Rupert. ‘I’m giving up casual sex for Lent.’

Tony was getting restless, and, picking up a telephone, dialled the control room:

‘Tell Declan to stop farting around and put the boot in.’

‘Tony says put the boot in, Declan,’ Cameron told Declan. ‘Get him on to cruelty.’

Declan squared his shoulders. ‘Over the past two years you’ve expressed sympathy for the football hooligans.’

Rupert stared at his shoes. ‘Most of them probably lead appallingly dull lives during the week. Many are out of work, or just turning lathes in a factory. The terraces are their stage, their chance to vent the frustrations of the week. They generally riot because they’re losing, or there’s been a bad penalty at half-time.’

‘You were a bad loser, weren’t you?’ said Declan gently.

It was the voice of Torquemada, the pale intent face of the Grand Inquisitor.

Rupert looked wary: ‘What’s the point of competing — except to win?’

‘Even to the extent of beating up your horses?’

Rupert’s eyes narrowed, but he just stared back at Declan, saying nothing.

‘Look at this picture,’ said Declan, showing a still of a horse so thin it was almost a skeleton.

‘This was one of your horses, Macaulay. You beat him up so badly he wouldn’t jump for you, so you sold him to the Middle East, where he ended up in the stone quarries.’

‘That was bad luck,’ said Rupert. ‘I sold half-a-dozen horses to the same Sheik. One of them’s at stud in America now. Two of them are still with him. The horse didn’t click with him so he sold it on.’

‘And your deadly enemy Jake Lovell nursed the horse back to health, and then entered it in the World Championship, and in the finals, when you all had to ride each other’s horses, Macaulay wasn’t very keen on having you on his back. Remember this?’

On the screen came a clip of Rupert being finally bucked off, then being chased round the ring by the maddened horse, before taking refuge in the centre of a vast jump.

‘Coming to 2, take 2,’ screamed Cameron, frantic once again to get the reaction on Rupert’s face. But once again it was completely blank. Only his long fingers clenched round the glass of water on the table betrayed any emotion.

‘He’s going to walk out,’ said Tony happily.

‘You’d beaten up that horse so badly,’ said Declan, almost in a whisper, ‘that it remembered and went for you. What d’you feel seeing that clip today?’

There was another long pause.

‘That I was in the wrong sport,’ said Rupert slowly. ‘With me running that fast, neither Seb Coe nor Ovett would have had a chance against me in the 1500 metres.’

For a second the two men glared at each other. Then Rupert grinned and Declan started to laugh.

‘Have you got any regrets you treated your horses so badly?’

‘I didn’t treat them all badly or they wouldn’t have jumped so well. Of course I regret it, but it helped me understand the football hooligans; poor sods out of work, their fathers out of work, often their grandfathers too. Out of sheer frustration at not winning, they resort to violence.’

‘You were in work.’

‘I know. There was really no excuse.’

‘You treated women very badly in the past.’

Rupert shrugged helplessly. ‘I liked winning there too.’

‘Jake Lovell,’ went on Declan remorselessly, ‘was your arch rival because you bullied him at school.’

‘Are we having oranges at half-time?’ protested Rupert, shaking his head.

Declan smiled slightly. ‘Jake Lovell finally got his revenge by running off with your wife, Helen, in the middle of the 1980 Olympics. How did you feel at the time?’

Rupert’ll kill Declan in a minute, thought Gerald in panic. No one’s ever dared ask him these questions.

‘I was principally outraged that she should distract me and Jake, when we should have been concentrating on a team gold,’ said Rupert.

‘But you still got your medal, despite dislocating your shoulder, and riding with one arm.’

‘That was just to show them that, even riding one man short and one man injured, we could beat the whole world.’

Prompted by Declan, Rupert went on to talk about the Olympics and Rocky, the horse he’d won a gold medal on, who still lived at Penscombe.

‘I’m so cruel to Rocky,’ drawled Rupert, ‘that he has the entire run of my garden, and spends his time trampling over the flower beds and peering in at the drawing-room window.’

I like this man. Why I am trying to crucify him? thought Declan.

I like this man, even though he’s trying to crucify me, thought Rupert.

Tony went into the next-door office to ring Cameron, so the advertisers wouldn’t hear him.

‘Declan’s gone soft, for Christ’s sake. Tell him to fucking nail him.’

‘What did you feel,’ Declan was asking now, ‘when Helen split up with Jake and married your old team manager?’

‘Well, I didn’t let off fireworks. It was like one’s childhood sweetheart marrying one’s headmaster.’

‘Do you mind her being happy now?’

‘Not at all,’ said Rupert in surprise. ‘It’s better for the children. Anyway she deserved it; she had a rough time with me.’

‘In what way?’

‘Show-jumping and marriage don’t mix. I was never there when she needed me. When she was having Marcus I was stuck on an alpine pass. She was an intellectual and I hardly know Oscar Wilde from Kim Wilde. Then the dogs were always getting in the bed.’

‘Yes,’ said Declan. ‘People say you were fonder of your black labrador, Badger, than of Helen.’

‘I had him first,’ said Rupert flatly. ‘He lived with me six years after she left me. He never criticized or tried to improve me.’

‘Is that what you want from women, uncritical adulation?’

Rupert grinned. ‘Probably.’

The questions were still barbed, but the animosity had gone.

‘Your name’s been linked since your divorce with some dazzling women. Have you ever thought of marrying again?’

‘Just because I enjoy flying on Concorde doesn’t mean I want to buy the plane. These questions are giving me earache,’ grumbled Rupert.

Out of the corner of his eye, Declan could see the Floor Manager holding up his hand for three minutes.

‘When you get any free time, what’s the thing you like doing best?’

Rupert put his head on one side: ‘I thought this was supposed to be a family programme.’

‘You must have some hobbies,’ said Declan hastily.

‘Hunting, shooting, fishing,’ said Rupert.

‘All the blood sports.’ Declan’s lip was curling.

‘Not all. I didn’t include being interviewed by you on television.’

‘Touché,’ said Declan, laughing. ‘Who are your heroes? If you could choose, who would you like to meet in an afterlife?’

For a second Rupert seemed to have difficulty in speaking: ‘I’d like to see Badger again,’ he muttered.

‘Oh, how sweet,’ said Daysee, who was now revving up for her most important moment: pressing the cue switch. The Floor Manager was making wind-up signals to Declan.

‘Looking back on your sixteen years in show-jumping, can you remember the hardest thing you had to do? Was it getting the first bronze, winning the King’s Cup three years running, clinching the team gold in 1980, or finally winning the World Championship?’

There was another long pause.

‘What was the hardest thing?’ Declan urged him.

Just for a second the despair showed through on Rupert’s face.

‘The thing that nearly killed me,’ he said bleakly, ‘was giving it up.’

As Schubert’s Fifth Symphony pounded out and the credits came up, Declan most uncharacteristically could be seen getting out of his chair and shaking Rupert by the hand. As soon as they were off air, Cameron came down onto the studio floor. Maybe it was because she was blinking in the unaccustomed light after the darkness of the control room, but for once her yellow eyes seemed to have lost all their aggression.

‘Great programme, Declan. Best you’ve done for us — and you were marvellous.’ Flushing slightly she turned to Rupert. ‘Declan threw you some really tough questions and you handled them so well.’

‘I hope my boss thinks so,’ said Rupert. ‘Coming on your programme’s rather like being interrogated by the IRA. I was expecting electrodes any minute.’

Cameron had amazing legs, he noticed, as she walked upstairs in front of them.

Up in Hospitality, Tony Baddingham was feeling far from hospitable, but had to restrain himself in front of his two big advertisers, who were terrific fans both of Declan and Rupert, and who felt they had just witnessed a great gladiatorial contest. With a shaking hand, the normally teetotal Gerald helped himself to a triple whisky.

‘Wasn’t it wonderful?’ said Sarah, busily powdering her nose and undoing another pearl button of her little grey dress. ‘Declan brought out a really vulnerable side of Rupert. I’m sure he just needs the love of a good woman.’

And the attention of a whole harem of mistresses as well, thought Gerald. He had disapproved very strongly of Rupert’s affair with Sarah, regarding it as political dynamite. He hoped it wasn’t going to start again.

But, as Rupert walked in with Declan and Cameron, Sarah rushed up and flung her arms round his neck, giving him the benefit of unsupported breasts and half a bucket of Anais Anais. ‘Darling, you were wonderful, so honest.’

‘Not much else I could do without walking off the set.’

‘When am I going to see you?’ murmured Sarah. ‘Thank you so much for your Valentine.’

But before Rupert had time to answer her, Gerald muscled in.

‘I’m sorry, Minister, I never dreamed Declan’d go that far.’

Rupert raised an eyebrow at Gerald’s glass of whisky.

‘Are we in trouble?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Gerald. ‘The press are going berserk already. I told the switchboard to say you’d left. We’ll have to smuggle you out by a side door.’

Tony, having introduced the big advertisers to Rupert, went and vented his fury on Declan.

‘I thought I told you to fucking well crucify him.’

‘I tried to,’ said Declan coldly, ‘but he was too good for me,’ and, turning on his heel, he headed towards the drinks.

Seeing Tony coming to give her an earful, Cameron grabbed a plate of quiche and took it over to Rupert, who, to Sarah’s fury, turned away from the group to talk to her. After the tension of the interview, he was gripped by the lust that always used to overwhelm him after a big show-jumping class. In the old days he would have screwed a groom or a show-jumping groupie in the back of his lorry. Tonight he was sure he could choose between Daysee, Sarah or Cameron. Daysee was too thick, Sarah too possessive, Cameron on the other hand had a reckless, scrawny nymphomania and pulling her would have the added charm of irritating the hell out of Tony.

‘Well,’ he said icily, ‘I had to box bloody clever to get out of that one. I suppose Tony put Declan up to it.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Cameron.

Glancing up, she found she couldn’t tear her eyes away.

‘Being sorry isn’t enough,’ said Rupert softly. ‘I’m going to get my own back.’

Cameron gasped. She could see Tony bearing down on them.

‘I was wondering if you’d like to come on another programme? It’s the third Thursday in March,’ she stammered.

‘And have open-heart surgery all over again without an anaesthetic? No, thanks. Besides it’s Cheltenham.’

‘It’s not until the evening,’ said Cameron quickly. ‘All we’d want you to do is to judge “Miss Corinium Television” with Declan. There are some beautiful girls entered.’

‘I might just be able to drag myself away,’ said Rupert, ‘as long as you promise me a night in the Cotchester Arms with the winner as second prize.’

‘What’s the first prize?’ said Cameron, knowing the answer.

‘A night in the Cotchester Arms with you,’ said Rupert, ‘and my God, I’d make you walk differently in the morning.’

It was several seconds before they both realized that a tense-looking Gerald was tapping Rupert on the arm.

‘Telephone. It’s the PM.’

‘Oh Christ,’ said Rupert. ‘Back benches here I come.’

‘Well done,’ said the Prime Minister in her rich deep voice that always sounded like Carnation Milk pouring out of a tin. ‘We were very proud of you.’

‘You were?’ said Rupert in amazement.

‘Well, what else could you have done, faced with that spiteful little pinko? You handled him very well. That interview will do us a lot of good in the opinion polls.’

‘Good God,’ said Rupert putting down the telephone, ‘she actually liked it.’

‘Was that really the PM?’ said one of the big advertisers in awe.

‘Did she mention me?’ said James, who’d rolled up from a Save-the-Aged fund-raising party.

‘I’ve booked a table for us at the Horn of Plenty at nine-thirty,’ said Cameron casually to Rupert. ‘The cars are waiting downstairs.’

Despite her off-hand manner, Rupert noticed she was quivering with expectancy, like a greyhound ordered to sit when the woolly rabbit sets off round the track. Then he caught a glimpse of Declan, looking grey and utterly shattered. Once again he remembered Taggie’s tears on New Year’s Eve.

‘Sweet of you,’ he said to Cameron, ‘but Declan and I are going back to Penscombe. We’ve got things to discuss.’

Aware of Tony watching her, Cameron hid her bitter disappointment. Being very young, Sarah had no such reserve. ‘You can’t go,’ she wailed. ‘We’ll be far too many girls.’

‘James can come instead,’ said Tony smoothly. ‘That’s if he hasn’t got to rush home to Lizzie.’

‘Of course not,’ said James.

‘That’s rather uncaring of you,’ said Sarah sulkily.

‘Work comes first,’ said James sanctimoniously. ‘And you haven’t told me what you thought of my Valentine, Sarah. I thought it was rather nice that it was sold to raise money for the Cat’s Protection League.’

Back at Penscombe, two Jack Russells, a young black labrador, two springer spaniels and a blue lurcher threw themselves on Rupert in ecstasy. Once inside, Rupert whisked Gerald and Declan past tapestried hunting scenes and portraits of ancestors, only pausing to point out a huge oil painting of Badger, into the kitchen, which was low-beamed with a flagstone floor, and a window looking over the valley. As Gerald found a bottle of whisky and three glasses and Rupert investigated the fridge and the larder, Declan looked at the pictures on the wall. They were mostly paintings of dogs and horses and framed photographs of two incredibly beautiful children.

‘That’s Tabitha,’ said Rupert, pointing to a little girl on a pony festooned with rosettes.

‘She’s magic,’ said Declan.

‘She’s doing bloody well in junior classes already.’

‘Does the boy ride?’ said Declan, looking at the sensitive, nervous face and the huge eyes.

‘No. He gets asthma, but he skis well, and he’s extremely clever.’ There was a slight edge to Rupert’s voice.

‘Can I have a look round?’ asked Declan.

‘Go ahead,’ said Rupert.

As he wandered through beautiful pastel room after pastel room admiring the incredible pictures: a Romney, a Gainsborough, a Lely, a Thomas Lawrence, and two Stubbs for starters, and the lovingly polished furniture, he thought the whole house was like a museum, beautiful but crying out for someone to live in it, or like a horse, constantly bridled, saddled and groomed to perfection, but with no one to ride it.

Finding the library, Declan was lost in admiration. He’d never seen such books in a private house — first editions of Scott, Dickens, Trollope, Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley, and a whole set of Oscar Wilde, and other books so rare there couldn’t be more than half-a-dozen copies in the country.

Half an hour later Rupert found him, oblivious of time, immersed in a first edition of Middlemarch.

‘Supper. Christ, you can’t read in this light!’

‘Can I come and live here?’ said Declan, shaking his head in bewildered reverence.

‘Borrow anything you like whenever you want to. No one else reads them. Helen pretended to, but never seemed to get beyond the first chapter.’

Laid out on the kitchen table was smoked salmon, brown bread, gulls’ eggs and half a heated-up chicken pie. Gerald had also made a tomato salad and fried some potatoes.

‘It’s very good of you,’ mumbled Declan. ‘I couldn’t have faced dinner with Tony.’

‘Not up to Taggie’s standard, I’m afraid,’ said Rupert, adding casually, ‘How is she?’

‘Very pleased with Gertrude’s Valentine.’

‘Oh, she got it?’ said Rupert. ‘Ironic that the first Valentine I ever sent in my life should be to a dog.’

They talked about politics, horses and sport, and then Rupert filled Declan in on local gossip, and some of the early history of Penscombe.

‘I hope Penscombe waits for me,’ sighed Declan. ‘I’ve been so busy since we’ve lived here, I’ve never had a chance to explore it. I haven’t even been into the local pub yet.’

It was not until they’d both got pretty drunk, and Gerald had gone to bed, that Rupert asked how things were at Corinium.

‘Bloody awful,’ said Declan.

‘Tony?’

Declan nodded wearily. ‘I seem to go from Baddingham to worse.’

‘He didn’t look very happy after the programme.’

‘He wasn’t. He wanted me to carve you up.’

Rupert grinned. ‘You had a bloody good try. I know why Tony was out for my blood, but why you? Just because I’m a Tory?’

‘No, for screwing up Tag at Valerie Jones’s dinner party.’

‘Ah.’

‘And I thought you were after her at Patrick’s birthday party.’

Suddenly Declan didn’t want to mention Maud.

Rupert inhaled deeply on his cigar. ‘Would that have been so bad?’

‘She’s eighteen and desperately insecure,’ said Declan roughly. ‘She’s simply not equipped to cope. You’d break her like a moth caught in the typewriter keys.’

‘Ouch,’ said Rupert wincing.

‘I saw them all slavering this evening,’ went on Declan, ‘Sarah, Cameron, that imbecile Daysee. You could have had any of them. Just spare Taggie.’

Rupert, however, was reluctant to drop the subject.

‘But she seems incredibly competent. She cooked brilliantly for Valerie and she coped with your party on New Year’s Eve virtually single-handed.’

‘Oh, she’s competent enough,’ said Declan. ‘You mustn’t assume people with dyslexia are thick, just because they have difficulty reading and writing. Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas Edison were all dyslexic. So was General Patton. He could never learn the alphabet or his tables by heart.’

‘Good God,’ said Rupert in alarm. ‘So we can expect to see Taggie commanding the Third Army at any minute.’

Declan grinned.

Rupert filled up their glasses with brandy.

‘Is Tony really giving you a hard time?’

‘Septic tankwise, I’m up to here.’ Declan drew a finger across his throat.

He got up and wandered slightly unsteadily towards the window.

‘Beautiful house this. Where’s The Priory from here?’

Rupert pointed to the left, where, through a spiky fuzz of trees, a light was burning. ‘Taggie’s still awake, that’s her bedroom,’ he added without thinking. Then, when Declan instantly looked bootfaced, ‘It’s all right. I had to bodily remove some drunk from her room the night of your party because Taggie wanted to go to bed — alone.’

As Rupert joined Declan beside the window, dogs, sprawled all over the floor, sleepily thumped their tails.

‘D’you know what I’ve always wanted to do?’ said Rupert idly. ‘Buy that wood below your house.’

‘Pretty useless piece of land,’ said Declan.

‘Fifty yards to the right of the stream you could make the most perfect dry ski slope. You wouldn’t see it from the road. It’d be hidden by trees on both sides.’

‘How much d’you reckon it’s worth?’

‘About thirty-five grand,’ lied Rupert.

‘Seems a helluva lot,’ said Declan, stroking Jack Russells with both hands.

‘You could still walk through the rest of the wood if you wanted to,’ said Rupert.

But Declan wasn’t listening. Thirty-five grand would get me off the hook for the moment with the tax man, he thought, and pay the electricity bill and Caitlin’s school fees.

‘Think about it, anyway,’ said Rupert. ‘You also need a day off. Come out hunting on Saturday week. I’ll lend vou a horse.’

When Declan finally got back to The Priory, he left all the car lights on, flattened several purple crocuses on the edge of the lawn and drove slap through a flower bed.

Waiting for him on the stairs, both looking equally disapproving, were Taggie and Gertrude.

‘Why,’ said Taggie, ‘were you so g-g-gratuitously beastly to Rupert?’