Score!

63

When Hermione and Chloe’s little scene still wasn’t in the can by twelve thirty, a despairing Tristan called a break. He was sure the crew were deliberately going slow. There were dark mutterings as they set off sulkily for the canteen. How could they be expected to flourish on roast pork, minty new potatoes, spring rolls, red cabbage and apple pie and cream without a few glasses of red?

‘Just one glass,’ Tristan pleaded with Rupert. ‘It’s getting cold.’

‘No,’ said Rupert, switching on his mobile.

Immediately it rang.

‘Don’t want to alarm you, Rupe,’ confided an old racing crony from the Sun, ‘but we’re convinced that Eulalia Harrison’s Beattie Johnson in disguise.’ Rupert felt icicles dripping down his spine. ‘Any chance of us getting your side of the Abigail Rosen story?’

‘No,’ snarled Rupert, and hung up.

No wonder Eulalia had seemed familiar. Over the years Beattie had nearly destroyed him and everything he loved. This time she wasn’t going to get away with it. He had never bedded Abby Rosen. He would kill to protect Taggie.

The telephone rang again. Talk of the angel. It was Taggie with brilliant news. Gablecross had found the man who’d driven Tabitha home on Sunday, who could give her an alibi. Rupert had never dreamt he would feel passionately grateful to George Hungerford. ‘Whatever happens,’ he told Taggie, ‘I want you to know I’ve always loved you.’

Looking up he saw what must be Eulalia/Beattie’s window in darkness. It was much colder. Everyone was putting on jerseys. The clapper-loader was changing his board to Friday the thirteenth.

Rupert’s friend on the Sun wasted no time in breaking the news of Beattie’s masquerade to Hermione, who choked on her second helping of roast pork, to Chloe, who went green, and to Flora, who looked about to faint. Soon the rumour was circulating to universal panic: nearly everyone had spoken on and off the record to Eulalia. Suddenly the large police presence, hovering in the surrounding bushes or watching from the top floor of the south wing, seemed totally inadequate.

‘Beattie’s not answering her mobile,’ said a shaken Griselda.

‘She was talking to Clive earlier. Probably buying the memoirs for the Scorpion.’

Tristan had gone very white but, determined to limit any damage, said that Rupert’s friend from the Sun had probably been fishing.

‘We must stay calm,’ he told Oscar.

The crew were sourly drinking Perrier. Mikhail was appropriating more forks. Bernard retreated to a quiet corner of the canteen with a roll, a piece of Brie and his crossword. He was glad there were people around. The park beyond was very shadowy and dark.

Then he gave a gasp as his crossword swam green before his eyes.

‘It’s been completely filled in by Rannaldini.’ His hoarse voice was falsetto with fear. ‘Even his Ms are the same, like football posts.’ He brandished the pages with a frantically shaking hand, as everyone gathered round.

‘Mon Dieu.’ Valentin crossed himself. ‘Where did you leave it?’

‘On the set — on top of my briefcase, beside Tristan’s chair.’

Wolfie had gone dreadfully pale. ‘I don’t believe it,’ he stammered, returning the crossword to Bernard. ‘I swear the body was my father’s.’

‘Of course it was! How often do I have to tell you there are no such things as ghosts?’ snapped Rupert.

‘I’ll take that newspaper, if you please,’ said DC Lightfoot.

‘Lucy!’ cried Simone, dragging Flora into Make Up, pointing to the white strip on her neck above the suntan, which had been revealed by her latest short back and sides.

‘That strip shows the executioner where to drop the axe,’ sobbed Flora, as Lucy blended it in. ‘If Beattie dumps, George and I are finished.’

A worried Trevor couldn’t lick away her tears fast enough.

A bored James whined irritably from his bench seat.

‘Oh, shut up, James,’ wailed Lucy despairingly.

‘I’ll walk him and Trev for you after the break,’ said Rozzy soothingly.

Helen was packing five suitcases of clothes to be unhappy in at Penscombe, when a trembling Mrs Brimscombe rushed in.

‘Oh, my lady, they’re saying that woman typing next door all week is that Beastly Johnson.’

‘Omigod!’ Helen clutched a bedpost. Eulalia had been far more supportive than the bereavement counsellor. They had spent hours and hours discussing Helen’s hangups about Tabitha, Rupert and Taggie. ‘She must be stopped,’ she whispered.

Meanwhile, talk of Bernard’s briefcase had reminded Rupert his own was still on the set. With Beattie on the prowl, he had better retrieve it.

A chill breeze scattered another snowstorm of petals from the rose arch and shook the pearly drops of the fountain. An owl hooted; ahead a cigar glowed like a tiny brakelight. Then, as Rupert’s eyes became accustomed to the dark, his blood ran cold and his heart stopped. For there, on the set, sitting in his executive producer’s chair, was Rannaldini. The collar of his highwayman’s cloak was turned up, caressing the planed cheeks of his cold, haughty face; his pewter hair gleamed in the moonlight. In a garden heady with the scent of lilies, honeysuckle and night-scented stock, Rupert was suddenly asphyxiated by a waft of Maestro.

‘Who are you?’ he managed to croak.

But as Rannaldini slowly turned towards him, Rupert bolted. Crashing through the dark garden, hurtling into the canteen, sending cast and crew flying, he rushed up to the bar.

‘Gimme a quadruple whisky.’

‘Mr Sexton insist no drink.’

‘Don’t be so fucking silly, I’ve just seen Rannaldini.’

‘Mr Sexton say no drink,’ persisted Maria.

‘I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts,’ said a grinning Baby.

Having gone behind the bar and poured Rupert a large Bell’s, Wolfie went in search of the briefcase, but when he returned with it five minutes later, he said the set had been deserted.

‘Well, there’s no way I’m putting up with this sort of thing,’ said Rupert shirtily. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he told Tristan, who tried not to look relieved. At least, they’d get on quicker.

‘I want everyone back on the set by one thirty,’ he shouted, as he picked up his mobile and vanished into the darkness.

Beattie returned to Valhalla, kicking herself for wasting time on such a jerk. As she let herself into her suite, however, she found a note, typed on dove-grey production-office paper, shoved under her door. ‘Meet me in the Unicorn Glade at one fifteen and I will tell you who killed Rannaldini.’

Beattie wanted to bay like a bloodhound. Hell! It was ten past already. She hoped she wasn’t too late. This was going to be the greatest exclusive ever. The scoop de grâce.

Quickly checking that no-one had tampered with her machine, she pressed the save button and set out for the Unicorn Glade. Thank God, when she was having an affaire with Rannaldini, she had memorized the shortcut through the maze. It was so dark and claustrophobic you could easily lose your bearings. She ran so fast she kept cannoning off the sides, the rough, clipped yew twigs scraping her face and arms.

‘Right, left, right,’ she panted, ‘and right towards the Pole Star,’ she could hear the crew chatting as they returned to work, ‘and left, right, left towards the great constellation of Pegasus,’ and she was out on the other side, leaping in terror as an icy hand clawed her face. Then she laughed, realizing it was only a weeping willow, wet from an earlier shower. Jumping the Devil’s Stream, Rannaldini’s only spring still flowing, running under a rose arch, she was into the Unicorn Glade.

Based on a fifteenth-century tapestry, hanging in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, this small, exquisite private garden had only been open to outsiders since Rannaldini’s death. Filled with scented flowers and herbs, it was populated with little stone foxes, weasels, cats and greyhounds lying down with crossed paws beside rabbits to symbolize that even natural enemies can live in harmony.

Legend had it that the unicorn could only be tamed by a virgin, and in the original tapestry a chaste lady sat in the centre of the garden with the unicorn crouched beside her, his front hoofs on her knee as she stroked his neck.

But, as the joke went, there had never been any virgins in Valhalla, so this touching tableau had been replaced by a lone unicorn, gleaming silver in the starlight as he tossed his head and pawed the grass.

Beattie could almost hear the proud little fellow snorting, as she leant against him to regain her breath. Caressing his smooth back, she ran her fingers up his mane, and his grooved horn, which was raised like a sword on guard. As a child, she had always longed for a pony. Rupert’s horses and Olympic gold for show-jumping had been one of the reasons she’d fallen so much in love with him. If he hadn’t dumped her, she would never have been bringing the gorgeous bastard down.

Glancing round at opulent shrub roses, towering delphiniums and massed white foxgloves, any of which could conceal the writer of the letter, she was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of doom and froze with terror as one of the shadows separated and came towards her.

Then, as the moon emerged from a scurrying black cloud, she saw Rannaldini’s face, colder and whiter than any moon, but with eyes crueller and hotter than hell. The dark cloak slid over the dewy grass, as he swept towards her on his way to conduct a requiem.

The words ‘I never meant to slag you off’ withered on Beattie’s lips. She couldn’t scream, only retreat, as he came nearer and nearer. Then she tripped backwards over a little stone fox, and felt herself falling. The pain was unimaginable.