He also admitted that next morning he had bagged up the wine-soaked suit and given it to the dustmen. Unfortunately, charred fragments of the second, gulls’ egg and grass stained, white suit, together with white rock rose and chimpanzee orchids, identical to the ones used by Beattie to plug herself, were found in the garden at Jasmine Cottage. Suspicion was therefore heavily on Alpheus.
Alpheus’s day had not improved. He was furious about his Shirley Temple curls and Rupert not allowing him to play polo.
If the third white suit didn’t arrive in time, he would be forced to wear some tacky blazer, and Tab had been so rude. He was furious with himself for still fancying the brat rotten. Even worse, the DNA tests were due back tomorrow, which would certainly identify his semen, and Lord knows what else, inside Beattie.
Returning to Jasmine Cottage after filming, he poured himself a rare whisky, and jumped nervously as the doorbell rang. He hoped to God it wasn’t any more grizzled lady botanists rolling up to revere the chimpanzee orchid. It was very dark outside and at first he thought no-one was there. Then, looking down, he saw Little Cosmo.
One of Cosmo’s best buys, acquired for 20p at the Paradise Conservative fête, had been a second-hand Scout uniform, in which he always dressed when he was collecting house to house for himself.
For 50p, Alpheus allowed Cosmo into Jasmine Cottage to clean his shoes. Once inside Little Cosmo produced his favourite photographs of Alpheus outside the summerhouse watching Hermione and Sexton, with twelve lilies in one hand and an enormous hard-on in the other.
When Alpheus tore up the photograph, Cosmo, echoing his late father, replied that he had the negs.
‘Let us do a deal,’ suggested Cosmo. ‘I’d like cash before I hand over the negs. Otherwise I thought I’d offer copies as going-away presents at the wrap party tomorrow night.’
Considerably richer, Little Cosmo left Jasmine Cottage. Closing the gate behind him, he broke into Elisabetta’s last aria in a flawless treble, then pedalled off on his bike into the gloom with a maniacal cackle. Alpheus gave a shiver. Could Little Cosmo have murdered his father and Beattie to gain control of the memoirs?
Having been too tired to draw the curtains, Tristan was woken at four by Pegasus, Aries and Taurus, a veritable zoo of brilliant stars, blazing in through the big square window, and a silver glow in the east. Switching on the wireless he learnt of storms causing havoc to flights and cross-Channel ferries. He hoped a returning Wolfie and Lucy would be struck by lightning or horrendously seasick. Then he remembered despairingly that he was still Maxim’s bastard son without any money, and that in a few hours the world would be picking over his affaire with Claudine. Perhaps her husband would call him out and he would die impaled on a sword, like Beattie on Rannaldini’s unicorn.
His musings on the ruins of his life were interrupted by a forecast of a beautiful day with temperatures in the nineties. Opening the window, he breathed in the smell of meadowsweet and wet earth, and felt a warm breeze caressing his skin. Then he noticed the cathedral spire, black on the horizon as the Grand Inquisitor’s pointed hood, and remembered he had only one day left to make a great film.
Oscar was aghast to be woken so early. Anticipating a light half-day’s shooting, he and Valentin had been out on the toot. On the bedside table was a half-eaten Parma ham and artichoke baguette, an empty Moët bottle and a glass of red wine in which several moths had drowned. By hastily pulling up the duvet over Jessica’s russet curls, Oscar revealed her bright mauve toenails.
‘It’s going to be a scorcher,’ announced Tristan. ‘And we are going to reshoot all yesterday’s scenes.’ Then, cutting short Oscar’s stream of expletives, ‘We can do it if we really motor. I want polo under a burning sun as a contrast to the hunt in winter. Jessica has booked everyone’s plane tickets and tomorrow they will disperse, not necessarily to the right place,’ Tristan waggled Jessica’s left foot, ‘but to different parts of the world. This is our last chance. Tell Bernard to round everyone up, I want to start shooting by nine.’
‘This is the last time I work for you,’ said Oscar, draining the glass of red, moths and all.
By a miracle, René, the finest make-up artist in France, who had made Claudine look so delectable in The Lily in the Valley, had yesterday been discovered to be available. For a fat fee and a favour to Tristan, and an even fatter fee from Paris-Match for an interview on his day’s work, by eight o’clock he was busy transforming hung-over geese into swans.
By nine o’clock, by even more of a miracle, all Tristan’s troops — in various states of disarray — including Rupert’s polo friends, had assembled on George’s field for a pep talk. Giving them no time to gossip over the Daily Mail or let the Alka-Seltzers melt in their glasses, Tristan quietly told them exactly how much they had to get through, and how long they could allow for each set-up.
‘This is the clock,’ he pointed to the big, tickless clock that timed the polo chukkas at the end of the field, ‘this is the schedule. There will be no tantrums. We are going to concentrate and get it right on the first take.’
Surreptitiously reading the Mail, folded to the size of a CD case, Oscar’s eyebrows were getting nearer and nearer to his widow’s peak.
‘No wonder Tristan was uptight yesterday,’ he murmured to Valentin. ‘And where does this put Tabitha?’
‘Oooh!’ squawked Jessica, looking over Oscar’s shoulder. ‘You’re in the paper, Tristan, “Froggy would a-wooing go”. What a gorgeous picture of you, and oh, my goodness—’
‘Put that away and just shut up.’ Tristan’s voice wiped any incipient grins off people’s faces.
‘I would, dearie,’ whispered Meredith, stemming Jessica’s protest with half a buttered croissant. ‘He’s not as sunny as usual. Have a read in the break.’
‘There will be no breaks,’ said Tristan icily.
‘We’ve got our director back,’ muttered Ogborne to Bernard. ‘At least on a polo field there won’t be any pretty ornaments for Meredith and Simone to fight over.’
‘Except the players,’ giggled Meredith, gazing in wonder at Rupert’s friends, Ricky France-Lynch and the Carlisle twins.
Oscar glanced round at rain-fluffed, already turning trees, at the emerald-green pitch, the wonderful view, dotted with russet villages, fields striped where the hay had been cut, and pale gold where the wheat ripened, the blue curve of the river Fleet emerging from the mist, and sighed with pleasure.
‘Tristan was right to reshoot. But what the hell is Rupert going to say?’
‘Of all the fucking two-timing shits,’ roared Rupert, brandishing the Mail.
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ said Taggie, aghast.
‘Montigny’s been screwing Madame Lauzerte for the past three years. They only released him from gaol because he was caught bonking her in Wales the night Rannaldini was murdered.’
‘Oh, the beast,’ wailed Taggie.
‘And all the time he’s been two-timing darling little Tab. I never liked him, poncy intellectual, you can’t trust the Frogs. And he had the gall to summon her onto the set by nine o’clock. She mustn’t see the Mail, it’ll break her heart.’
Tristan was very white when he came off the telephone to Rupert.
‘He’s one to talk,’ said Meredith indignantly. ‘There was a frightful scandal some years ago when it came out that he’d been rogering Amanda Hamilton, who was not only aeons older than him and the wife of the finance minister but also liked being spanked. Rupert’s conveniently forgotten all that. Don’t let it faze you.’