Rivals

34

After his humiliation at the public meeting, Tony stepped up his campaign to discredit Venturer. Flipping through a list of their names the following morning, he decided his newsroom had been singularly inept in uncovering any dirt. The Bishop of Cotchester, it seemed, had neither fiddled with the collection nor with any of his more cherubic choir boys; Dame Enid had never straddled anything more exciting than her cello; Professor Graystock was recognized as an old goat, but no more so than the average don. On the other hand, Henry Hampshire was plainly capable of being led astray by Daysee Butler. Perhaps she ought to be sent off to interview him.

Nothing as yet on Rupert, except an alleged walk-out with Taggie O’Hara, which Tony didn’t believe. She was far too gormless. All the same it might be a good idea to allow her to cook for Monica again. Primed with a few late-night brandies, she might become indiscreet about the moles who were joining Venturer from other companies. In addition Monica had been so outraged because Tony’d banished Taggie from the house that she’d refused to give any more dinner parties, and Tony did need to entertain some of those boring but influential local dignitaries who might otherwise drift towards Venturer.

He added Taggie’s name to the list, but that didn’t bring him any nearer Rupert. He made a note to track down Beattie Johnson, who’d been writing Rupert’s memoirs when Rupert booted her out last year. There must be some grievances to fan there.

Freddie Jones, Tony decided blackly, was Venturer’s greatest asset. He was so solid, so dependable, so popular, so hugely successful after such a lowly start, which appealed to a crusading streak in the IBA. Ha! thought Tony, cherchez la femme. He buzzed Miss Madden. ‘Will you tell James Vereker to come up.’

James was not happy. Even through his layers of egotism he realized he’d made a fool of himself at the public meeting. He was still miffed because no one had asked him to join their consortium, and, opening a new edition of Who’s Who in Television that morning, he’d discovered two columns devoted to Declan and not even a reference to himself.

James brushed his hair and put on a tie. He hoped Tony wasn’t still miffed about the public meeting.

Tony, however, was at his most amiable, steering James towards the squashy green sofa, when usually he made male staff perch on hard-backed chairs, telling Madden they didn’t want to be disturbed, offering James a large drink.

James normally only drank Perrier at lunchtime, both for his figure and to keep his wits about him for his programme, but now he felt it fitting to accept a large Bell’s, just to show that he and Tony were both males capable of holding their liquor.

‘I’ve got a very special mission for you, James,’ said Tony.

Half an hour later James returned to his office in a state of euphoria to find Sarah exuding Anais Anais and expectancy.

‘Are we lunching, darling?’

‘Probably,’ said James. ‘I’ve got to make a call.’

When he rang Valerie Jones, she was absolutely ‘delaighted’ to hear from him. ‘Oh, don’t mention that silly franchise. If one can’t talk to one’s friends,’ she said. ‘I was going to phone you and your — er — lovely wife —’ she always forgot Lizzie’s name — ‘to remind you that we’re opening Green Lawns to the public on Saturday, and we hoped you’d both pop in. It is looking really rather lovely at the moment.’

‘What an extraordinary coincidence,’ said James. ‘I was phoning to say of course we’ve got your opening in our diary and we were hoping we might come and film it for “Cotswold Round-Up”. We’re only covering the best gardens. Tony and Monica’s, of course, and the Duchess’s at Badminton. Hullo, hullo, are you still there?’

‘She’s fainted,’ said Sarah.

‘Of course I am,’ shrieked Valerie.

‘Could I come for a recce this afternoon? Will Freddie be there?’

‘He’s away.’

‘Good,’ said James wolfishly. ‘Give me a chance to get you on my own.’

Valerie’s tinkle of laughter showed she was not displeased.

‘What are you playing at?’ asked Sarah as James hung up.

‘Tony wants a spy in the Venturer camp. He’s chosen me because he thinks I’m the one guy who can charm secrets out of Valerie.’

‘The spy who came in from the cold frame,’ giggled Sarah. ‘Are you going to stick poison umbrellas into Valerie’s garden gnomes?’

It was a muggy, still afternoon, French-grey sky on the horizon deepening to forget-me-not blue overhead. The tall seeding grasses in the hayfields were turning gold against the deep summer greens of the trees. At the bottom of the Jones’s drive was a large sign saying: ‘Garden Open on 13th July, to be televised on “Cotswold Round-Up”. Come and meet James Vereker in person — proceeds to the Red Cross.’

Smirking, James drove up a black tarmac drive as wide as the M1. Long before he reached the house he was almost blinded by a blaze of colour. Every flowerbed was packed with serried clashing ranks of French marigolds, yellow calceolaria, royal-blue cineraria, flaming-red geraniums, billiard-ball pink zinnias and mauve asters. As he drew up in front of the house a lorry was unloading plants. Having denuded every garden centre for miles around, Valerie was now hiring four hundred scarlet salvias and three hundred yellow begonias from Rent-a-Garden.

Round the corner came a sweating youth pushing a wheelbarrow crammed with scarlet and mauve petunias. Next moment Valerie came screaming after him, brandishing a small fork.

‘What are you doing, Spicer?’

‘Putting them on the rubbish heap, ma’am.’

‘They’re meant to be planted in the wheelbarrow, you idiot. Can’t you recognize creative gardening when you see it? Take it straight back to the patio.’

Then she saw handsome James getting out of his pale-blue Porsche and her face softened.

‘James,’ she said, holding out both her hands, ‘it’s been too long.’

‘You’re looking lovely, Mousie,’ said James, taking her hands and holding them, also a little too long. ‘And so’s your garden.’

‘It’s a miracle if it is,’ said Valerie. ‘Our darling old gardener dropped dead last week — wasn’t it maddening? — and we’re having to make do with jobbing gardeners, like that idiot. No, not that way,’ she screamed as another jobbing gardener was carted across the lawn slap into a bed of mauve dahlias by an out-of-control computerized mower.

When she’d finished berating that gardener, Valerie swept James round to the patio and asked him if he’d rather have iced coffee first or wander round.

James said he’d rather have iced coffee, and sat down very quickly on the hammock seat, for fear of being concussed by half-a-dozen hanging baskets weighed down by every colour of petunia. But although he coyly patted the seat beside him, once Valerie had poured the iced coffee she insisted on prowling the patio, dead-heading petunias and showing off her slim figure in the floral pink shirt-waister.

‘What’s happened to your poor legs?’ asked James, noticing several marks on the back of her calves.

‘Bites,’ sighed Valerie. ‘I seem fatally attractive to midges.’

‘And to men, Mousie.’

Valerie smiled. She wasn’t going to tell James that Henry Hampshire had promised to take Freddie and her fly-fishing, and that she’d spent all day practising on the lawn and catching the backs of her legs with the hooks.

‘Tony sent his special love, so did Monica,’ lied James.

‘Oh, we miss them both,’ sighed Valerie. ‘I do wish Freddie’d never got caught up in this stupid franchise. It’s all so pointless.’

‘D’you get roped into meetings?’ asked James, sipping his coffee and wincing because the orange marigolds and magenta petunias in a nearby tub reminded him rather too forcibly of Ginger Johnson’s face.

‘No, no,’ said Valerie, ‘but the socializing side of it’s quite fun. Henry took us to As-Cot; we had cocktails with him on the way home. I was shocked by the number of weeds in his seat. But they have made rather lovely use of white buddleia in the walled garden.’

‘With such interesting programme plans, Venturer must have roped in some pretty considerable production people,’ said James idly.

‘I hope you like our border of massed glads over there,’ said Valerie. ‘Bring your coffee and let’s have a wander.’

Having admired every petal, every gnome, every plastic Venus de Milo, James still hadn’t learned anything more about Venturer.

‘Freddie used to pop into Corinium a lot,’ he said as they passed a dolphin regurgitating Blue Loo into a pond. ‘Does he still see any of his old friends there? I bet they’re knocked-out by this lovely garden.’

‘It is lovely, isn’t it?’ said Valerie smugly, ‘but I wish we could grow rhodos in Gloucestershire.’

‘Are Venturer recruiting their staff locally?’ asked James. ‘Who else have they signed up?’

But Valerie was off leaping across a stream to tug up some mare’s tail.

‘I know Tony’s keeping an eye out for moles at Corinium,’ fished James as Valerie joined him again.

‘So are we,’ said Valerie. ‘Moles are Freddie’s biggest worry.’

‘Perhaps we should compare notes, Mousie,’ said James.

As they were now hidden from the house by a row of yellow conifers, he slid his hand around her waist. It was nice and trim.

‘Well, Freddie’s been putting down Mole-Ban everywhere,’ said Valerie, ‘but I’m still terrified I’m going to wake up tomorrow and find mole hills all over the lawn.’

James gave up. Mousie was far too preoccupied with her plot to think about plotting at the moment. He arranged that he and the crew would arrive at about three-thirty, and asked if she could keep any Venturer T-shirts and posters to a minimum.

‘Tony feels you’re so special and that a lovely garden is above personalities. But we really can’t use the footage on “Round-Up” if it’s full of plugs for Venturer.’

As James was filming gardens all Saturday afternoon, Lizzie had planned to work on her book. Then, feeling rather old and dried-up, she rubbed a lot of skin-food into her face, only to realize she’d forgotten her neck, which is supposed to betray your age most, so she rubbed the excess skin-food down into it. Then she remembered you were supposed never to rub skin-food downwards as it made your face droop. Would her life have been different, she wondered, if she’d always remembered to rub skin-food upwards? Would James have stayed faithful to her? Unwisely, knowing it would hurt her, she snooped around in James’s drawers and found a ravishing photograph of Sarah Stratton under his boxer shorts. Feeling utterly miserable, she thought how nice it would be to see Freddie Jones again. Abandoning any thought of work, she decided to go along to Valerie’s opening.

As she drove through Green Lawns’s electric gates, she noticed a large ‘Support Venturer’ sticker on the huge sign announcing that James and Corinium Television would be present that afternoon. Lizzie felt so off James that she couldn’t even be bothered to peel the sticker off. In the car park she found Rupert unashamedly sticking more Venturer stickers on everyone’s windscreens.

‘Darling.’ He kissed her. ‘Divided as we are by our rival consortiums, we shouldn’t consort, but do let’s go round together. I need a good laugh. Mrs Jones’s new rockery is like the polar bear pit at the zoo; she’s been training blow lamps on her roses all night and twenty-four-hour fluorescent lighting in the greenhouse is forcing out the Christmas roses.’

Lizzie laughed. ‘You can’t bring that dog,’ she said as Rupert let Beaver out of his car. ‘Particularly if he’s not on a lead. Mrs Jones will have a coronary.’

‘Good,’ said Rupert, locking the car. ‘Look how well he’s trained,’ he went on as Beaver lifted his leg on a cohort of salmon-pink petunias. ‘Do you think Valerie drills her flowers every morning?’

‘It’s just like a park,’ said Lizzie as they walked towards the house.

‘Unfair to parks,’ said Rupert.

On the edge of the lawn a stall was selling clothes from Valerie’s boutique, with the mark-up going to the Red Cross. Models, sweating in Valerie’s Autumn Range, wandered aimlessly round, fanning themselves with price tags. There was not a Venturer plug in sight.

‘What a lot of people,’ said Rupert. ‘Judging by the mob on the lawn, your husband’s holding court. Let’s go the other way. Isn’t that hell!’ He pointed to a crescent-shaped flower bed crammed with fuchsias and French marigolds that looked as if it had been dug out by a pastry cutter. ‘Lady Valerie of Vulgaria’s gift for self-publicity is only equalled by her appalling taste.’

As they proceeded giggling down the crazy pavement, they could hear Valerie graciously dispensing advice on the other side of the yellow conifer hedge.

‘How d’you manage to grow such whopping glads?’ asked a neighbour admiringly.

‘I feed them with Grow-More,’ said Valerie.

‘She’s obviously been feeding her children the same thing,’ muttered Rupert as poor fat Sharon, blushing at the sight of Rupert, waddled past them.

‘Hullo, Bishop,’ they could now hear Valerie screaming. ‘How good of you to look in. I’m about to be interviewed on TV, but you’ll find Fred-Fred in the grounds.’

‘It’d be grounds for divorce if I was married to her; the only person not allowed into Valerie’s opening is Fred-Fred. The frigid bitch,’ said Rupert, grabbing Lizzie’s arm. ‘Come on, buck up, let’s look at the pond. I don’t want to get trapped with the Bishop.’

‘I thought the Bishop was on your side,’ said Lizzie, panting after him.

‘He is, and a god-awful bore too. He’s mad about Taggie, so he keeps dropping in at The Priory unannounced, and finding Maud and Declan having a bonk, or hurling plates at one another, which, bearing in mind the Bishop’s views on sex and violence, doesn’t go down very well.’

‘I thought it was you having a walk-out with Taggie,’ said Lizzie slyly as they passed Hybrid Teas, massed in clashing colours above totally weedless beds.

Rupert raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Would that I were! She’s so sweet.’

‘Why aren’t you then?’

‘Declan would do his nut, and she’s too young.’

‘Never deterred you in the past.’

‘Ah, but it’s franchise year.’ Rupert bent down to press a Venturer sticker on the bare belly of a plastic Venus de Milo. ‘And we’re all having to behave ourselves, as I’m sure your husband knows. Why have you got that rash on your hands?’ he asked more gently as Lizzie whipped off the same sticker.

‘The doctor says it’s stress-related,’ said Lizzie bitterly. ‘Mistress-related, more likely.’ Suddenly she could bear it no longer. ‘James is having an affair with Sarah Stratton. I shouldn’t have told you that. You’ll leak it to Private Eye and discredit Corinium even further.’

‘Why don’t you leave him? He’s such a cunt,’ said Rupert, putting another sticker as a figleaf over a cherub, and dragging Lizzie on before she could remove it.

‘Helen didn’t leave you.’ Lizzie paused to examine the pond which was a mass of scarlet and yellow water lilies. ‘God, isn’t this hell?’

‘She did in the end,’ said Rupert. ‘Besides, I’m not a cunt.’

They had reached the end of the garden now; cornfields the colour of French mustard and bluey-green woods stretched to the horizon. On the right, a red tractor chugged back and forth, anxious to get the hay baled and away before tonight’s promised rain.

‘Heaven to see some decent country,’ said Rupert. ‘Do you think “cunt-ricide” means murdering one’s mistress?’

Lizzie laughed. ‘You do cheer me up. I wish someone would murder Sarah.’

Leaving the pond, they wandered back to the house and walking under a weeping willow went slap into Freddie.

He looked very tired, and only nodded at them politely until he realized who they were. Then he jumped up and down with pleasure, giving Lizzie a big hug.

‘’Ullo, Rupe, ’ullo Lizzie. ’Ow are you, love? You look grite. Better not let Valerie see Beaver, Rupe, she’s a bit uptight. Been dead-’eading petunias in her sleep all night; fink she’s abart to dead-’ead me. I’ve had this bleedin’ lot up to ’ere. Let’s go inside and ’ave a drink. Val’s doing her TV interview. Finks the sun shines out of James Vereker’s arse. Oh, sorry, love —’ he squeezed Lizzie’s arm — ‘I quite forgot he was your ’usband!’

‘James thinks the same,’ said Rupert, spiking another sticker on a garden gnome’s fishing rod. ‘I’m sure he’s only here because he wants to worm secrets out of your wife, Freddie.’

Although, watching the way Freddie and Lizzie were looking at each other, Rupert reflected that Lizzie, with all her warmth and sympathy, would be far more skilled at getting Venturer’s secrets out of Freddie.

Cameron had expected to spend Friday night with Tony, but he’d decided to fly to France a day early, leaving her with an unexpected free evening. Unable to get in touch with Rupert, she’d taken two Mogadon, slept alone and very well for the first time in months and woke feeling rested and happy. As she wasn’t due to meet Rupert until the evening, she decided to wander along and see how James was getting on filming gardens. She didn’t stay long at The Falconry. The garden was too wonderful, and she didn’t like such tangible proof of Monica’s skills. She was surprised Tony hadn’t stayed at home to crow.

By comparison Valerie’s garden was utterly dreadful, but had certainly attracted large crowds, particularly round the television crew. Fighting her way through until she was blocked by a large bed of purple and salmon-pink gladioli, Cameron saw James up the other end interviewing Valerie and quickly stifled a scream of laughter. Valerie was dressed for Ascot in a yellow and white shirt-waister and a huge buttercup-yellow hat trimmed with yellow roses, but was totally unaware that someone had stuck a ‘Support Venturer’ sticker on her bottom.

Looking across the sea of mauve and salmon-pink, Cameron caught her breath in joy, because there, beside Freddie and Lizzie Vereker, also trying very hard not to laugh, was Rupert. As if drawn by her longing, he looked up and gave a brief grin of surprise before instantly resuming his normal deadpan expression.

‘Cotswold Round-Up/Green Lawns/Take Four,’ said the second assistant, snapping the clapper board.

‘One only has to look at your flower beds, Valerie,’ said James as the camera panned slowly in on the sea of mauve and salmon-pink, ‘to appreciate what a truly caring gardener you are. Tell us your secret.’

‘Well, James,’ began Valerie; then her little laugh turned to a squawk of rage as the normally well-trained Beaver, suddenly seeing Cameron, who’d spent a great deal of time sharing his master’s bed recently, crashed across the bed of gladioli, snapping and flattening most of them, and throwing himself on her in total ecstasy.

Just for a few seconds, to a crescendo of Valerie’s squawks, Cameron and Rupert were caught on camera, absolutely collapsing with laughter, before Rupert sharply called Beaver off.

As she drove home rather tight later in the evening with James, Lizzie said, ‘Cameron’s the one you and Tony should be watching. I’m certain she’s having an affair with Rupert.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped James. ‘Cameron only cares about Corinium.’

On Sunday night on his way back from France, where he’d made great strides in acquiring a stake in French television, Tony dropped in at the office to see how The Falconry garden looked on video. The cameraman had left the tape on his desk. Loosening his tie, pouring himself a large drink, Tony put the tape in the machine and lay back on his squashy sofa to watch. He was enchanted with the results. Monica had really come up trumps this year. How right he’d been not to leave her for Cameron — when one considered the ghastly shambles Paul Stratton had made of his career after he’d left Winifred. Having played back The Falconry footage twice more, he decided to have a good laugh, and ran the tape on to have a look at Valerie’s garden. Having located it, he played the tape back five times, particularly freezing the frame on the last ten seconds.

Then he walked out of the building not even bothering to lock the drinks cupboard or his office door, and drove straight over to Hamilton Terrace. Cameron was not there. Letting himself in, he searched systematically through the house. In the bedroom wastepaper basket he found what he was looking for. A pile of tiny torn-up scraps of paper. No one tore paper up that small unless they wanted to hide something. And it was an added precaution, as Cameron wasn’t expecting to see him until tomorrow night and by that time the daily would have emptied the basket. It took him a long time to put the pieces together because his hands were trembling so much, but finally he was able to read the words: Venturer meeting, Henry’s house, 12.30 Sunday.

Cameron got home about midnight. Sated and reeling from Rupert, she hadn’t even bothered to shower afterwards as she wanted to keep the sweat and smell of him on and inside her body as long as possible. Dropping her briefcase in the hall, she wandered into the drawing-room. The bulb that turned on by the door had blown, so in the faint light from the street lamps she groped her way across the room to turn on the light by her desk. The next minute she leapt in terror as a hand shot out, grabbing her leg just above the knee. Burglars, was her first panic-stricken thought; then, as a light flashed on, she saw Tony crouched on the sofa like a venomous toad.

‘What are you doing skulking in the dark?’ she stammered.

‘What are you doing,’ said Tony in a voice that utterly froze her blood, ‘going to a Venturer meeting at Henry Hampshire’s house today?’

Cameron’s gasp of horror gave it all away: ‘I–I-I had a tip-off. I went along to spy. I just hung around outside the gates, trying to see who was going in.’

‘Who gave you the tip-off?’

Cameron’s mind raced. ‘I overheard people talking in the Bar Sinister — in the next booth.’

‘You bloody liar,’ hissed Tony. ‘And how long has Rupert been stuffing you?’

‘He isn’t,’ gibbered Cameron, wincing as his hand tightened on her leg. ‘He’s a bastard. The last person I’d shack up with.’

Tony tugged her towards him, burying his nose briefly in her groin.

‘You reek of him, you fucking whore. And how come his dog knows you so well? It’s all on tape, sweetheart.’

And the next moment he’d hit her across the room. She fell with a crash, catching her head on the bookshelf. Then he was on her again, picking her up by her shirt and smashing his left fist into her face. This time she crashed back into a small table, knocking over a vase of buddleia.

He’s going to kill me, she thought, as he lunged at her again, kicking her in the ribs until she groaned for mercy. Yet, at the same time, another part of her terror-crazed mind was thinking that she had to get out of there before he got his hands on her briefcase which contained all her notes on the meeting, and, even worse, the names of the Corinium moles.

As he dragged her to her feet and hit her again, she managed to grab a chair and, swinging it round, caught him on the side of the head, narrowly missing his eye with one of the legs. It gave her a breathing space. Grabbing the vase of buddleia that was now leaking onto the floor, she hurled it at him and stumbled out of the room, banging the door behind her. Gathering up her briefcase, she just managed to put up the double catch on the front door, locking him in as she slammed it. By the time he’d managed to clamber out of the drawing-room window, she’d started up the Lotus and was on her way to Rupert’s.

Putting her hand up to her head where she’d hit the bookcase, she could feel her hair sticky with blood. Looking in the driving mirror she saw more blood pouring out of her right eye and nearly blacked out. She had got to make it to Rupert’s with the briefcase, or Tony would catch up and kill her. Somehow, in a daze of pain and sickness, constantly wiping the blood out of her eyes, she managed to reach Penscombe.

Rupert’s front door was unlocked. The hall was dimly lit. Tripping over the dogs she screamed for him.

‘Angel, how nice. Have you forgotten something?’ he said, coming down the stairs wearing only a pair of jeans and reading Horse and Hound.

Then she found and switched on the main hall light and he saw her properly. Her right eye had closed up now and her upper lip was cut and terribly swollen. Her face, hair and shirt were drenched in blood.

‘My Christ,’ he said, appalled. ‘What the fuck happened?’

‘Tony found out.’

‘My poor little baby.’ He raced down the stairs, drawing her into his arms, feeling the stickiness of her blood-soaked hair and the frantic racing of her heart. ‘The bastard, where is he? Let’s get you a doctor, then I’m going round to kill him.’

‘I’m OK,’ mumbled Cameron. ‘He had provocation. You’d probably have done the same thing under the circs.’ The next moment she passed out.

When she regained consciousness she was in Rupert’s double bed, dressed in one of his shirts, with most of the blood washed off. A Doctor Benson, who was rather smooth and glamorous, had rolled up in his dinner jacket, reeking of brandy and Gold Spot, and, after examining her, assured her that her face wouldn’t be marked. Having patched her up, saying she might have to have stitches in her head in the morning, he gave her a shot to sedate her.

‘I don’t want my head shaved,’ she muttered when Rupert came back.

‘Your hair’s so short it’s practically shaved already,’ said Rupert, sitting down on the bed and taking her hands. ‘I’m so desperately sorry, angel. I got you into it.’

It took all Cameron’s pleading to stop him going straight round to Hamilton Terrace or even to The Falconry to beat Tony to a pulp.

‘Think of the adverse publicity. It’ll only trivialize Venturer’s bid.’

‘Nothing trivial about those bruises,’ said Rupert, touching her swollen lip with his finger. ‘How did he rumble us?’

‘Saw the video of Valerie’s opening and Beaver’s crash-landing in the gladioli. And somehow he found out I was at the Venturer meeting yesterday.’

Very, very gently Rupert was stroking her cheek. Despite the pain in almost every part of her body, she had never felt safer or closer to him.

‘Hell knows no fury like a womanizer scorned,’ he said lightly. ‘Well, he had to know some time. You’d better move in here.’

Cameron utterly despised women who cried in front of men. It was taking an unfair advantage and outraged her feminist principles. But once the tears started spilling out of her bruised eyes, she found she couldn’t stop them.

‘Is it such a ghastly thought?’ said Rupert, taking her in his arms.

‘No, no it’s the nicest thought in the world. I guess I don’t want to railroad you.’

‘You’re not. You’ve no idea how I hated letting you go back every time, particularly to Tony. I’m sick of never seeing you. Don’t worry about your brilliant career. I’ll look after you. And tomorrow, as a symbol of your new dependence, I’m going to chuck that beastly briefcase into the lake.’

Cameron managed a weak smile. ‘You had better take the papers out first, or Tony’ll be dropping by, using the truth drug on your duck.’

She was drowsy with dope now, so he laid her back on the pillow.

‘I’ll try not to get under your feet,’ she muttered. ‘I d-do love you — so so much.’

‘I know you do.’ Rupert got to his feet. ‘Now go to sleep.’

‘Please don’t go.’ She was suddenly frantic. ‘You will sleep here, won’t you?’

‘’Course I will. I’ll be back in a minute. I’m just going to take the dogs out.’

Wandering mindlessly through the garden, Rupert found himself on the edge of the lake, breathing in the soapy smell of the meadowsweet, listening to the frogs croaking. There were no stars, and, glancing across the valley, he saw Taggie’s turret was in darkness.