‘Tristan’s a cool customer,’ Grisel muttered to Simone. ‘If he’d had a suitable stand-in, he’d have reshot that ride-off straight away.’
Tristan was now calmly briefing Alpheus. ‘You don’t have to look heavily disapproving, just a flash of outrage because your son is suddenly attracting the best girls.’
‘Quiet, please,’ shouted Bernard, for the hundredth time, as an incredible tension spread through the crowd round camera and actor.
‘Mark it,’ shouted Bernard.
‘Scene two hundred and fifteen, take six,’ shouted the clapper-loader.
‘And action,’ shouted Tristan.
Happily, at that moment Alpheus caught sight of Little Cosmo, showing some photographs to a giggling Jessica, and had no difficulty looking outraged.
‘Cut,’ shouted Tristan in delight. ‘Formidable, Alpheus. Just check the gate.’
Simone pressed her stop-watch. Total silence fell. Two hundred yards away uniformed police could be seen examining the cordoned-off area in front of the far goal posts where Tab had had her fall.
The gate was clear.
‘Shall we say it now?’ went up the chorus.
‘Oui,’ said Tristan.
‘It’s a wrap,’ yelled everyone, whooping and cheering.
‘I wanted to say it.’ Simone’s dark Montigny eyes filled with tears.
‘La fin, la fin,’ said Griselda, blowing her nose noisily.
Solemnly Tristan shook hands with Bernard, Oscar, Valentin, Sylvestre, Ogborne, followed by the crew. Then they all posed for a last photograph, taken by Hype-along, already resplendent in a pink seersucker suit for the wrap party.
‘Have you heard from Lucy?’ Tristan asked Bernard yet again.
‘No, but I’m sure she’ll turn up later.’
Over at Rutminster police station, Gerald Portland was going ballistic. ‘How could twenty-four of you lose Lucy Latimer? What the fuck am I to tell the press? They’re all outside.’
After consultation, however, he decided to put a massive guard on George’s house and go ahead with the wrap party.
‘Try to contain people in the walled garden,’ he told his men. ‘If Latimer’s that obsessed with Montigny, she’ll roll up to kill again. We’ve got her handbag, her passport, her car keys, she can’t get far.’
Down the road at Rutminster General, Gablecross was striding up and down the foyer, muttering, ‘I’m not a fucking guard-dog.’ Charlie, his old running mate, would be turning in his grave. The hospital was swarming with press.
‘Come on, Tim, who’s done it?’ asked the Mail on Sunday.
‘Not at liberty to say.’
‘Rutminster Constabulary, and Sergeant Gablecross in particular, can’t even catch the clap,’ yelled Rupert, dummying past the waiting journalists and racing for the front door.
Seeing Karen joining in the laughter, Gablecross turned on her in fury. ‘And you can bugger off down to the station and flash your tits at Andy,’ he roared, ‘in case anything interesting’s come in with Lucy’s stuff.’
‘Stop putting me down. It’s not my fault I’m not Charlie,’ sobbed Karen, and sending a nurse and a trayful of medicines flying, she ran out into the street.
‘Anything interesting on Lucy Latimer?’ she asked five minutes later, allowing herself a languorous flutter of the eyelashes.
Andy, the exhibits officer, had in the past lost a lot of sleep over Karen. Making sure no-one was around, he muttered, so she had to draw close to hear him, that a rude letter from a bank manager had been found in Lucy’s handbag. ‘She’s very overdrawn, and the bastard seems relieved funds are coming in at the end of filming. We’ve also got some bank statements.’
‘What’s she been spending her money on?’ Karen brushed her breasts in the cream shirt against Andy’s arm.
‘Sends two hundred and fifty a month home to her parents,’ said Andy, consulting the statement. ‘Subscribes to a number of animal charities, but most of it seems to have gone to someone called Rozzy Pringle. She’s given her nearly three grand in the last two months.’
Karen whistled. Could Rozzy be blackmailing Lucy?
Parker’s department store in the high street was having an after-hours preview of new stock for account customers. Heading for Evening Gowns, Karen tried on a spangled horror in shocking pink.
‘That looks gorgeous,’ said the sales girl truthfully, who was used to Peggy Parker’s friends, who needed a shoehorn to get into a size twenty. ‘You part of the Don Carlos crew?’
Karen shook her head. ‘But I know a lot of them shop here.’
‘We had that Rozzy Pringle in last Thursday,’ said the girl wistfully. ‘Bought a floaty grey Belinda Belville dress.’
‘Are you sure it was last Thursday?’ squeaked Karen.
‘Quite sure. It was my afternoon off. I always miss the celebs.’
Karen was fighting for breath by the time she reached Gablecross, who was hovering outside Tabitha’s hospital room. ‘Sarge, you’ll never guess. Lucy’s given huge sums of money to Rozzy, and Rozzy bought her wrap-party dress on Thursday afternoon, the day she claimed to have been going to the doctor. She must have slashed her rainbow dress yesterday to avert suspicion.’
For a second, Gablecross digested this: Rozzy was such a lovely lady too. ‘Doesn’t make her a murderer,’ he said. ‘She needn’t have cut up her dress. Cancer makes people behave strangely — but good girl, well done.’
Blushing with pleasure, Karen peered into Tab’s room, where she could see a smooth, rakishly handsome man shaking Wolfie by the hand. ‘He’s nice.’
‘James Benson, the Campbell-Black and Rannaldini family doctor,’ said Gablecross. ‘Charges a fortune for being fazed by nothing.’
James Benson was smiling broadly as he came out.
‘Not much to worry about there,’ he told Gablecross, ‘although young Wolfgang must have had a harrowing afternoon. Never a dull moment with that family. I delivered that little tearaway nineteen years ago. Glad she’s found the right bloke at last.’
‘Wolfie’s a good lad,’ agreed Gablecross.
‘Very good. Needs a big family to cosset him and Tab needs guy-ropes.’
‘Could we have a word?’
James Benson looked at his watch. ‘I’ve got two patients to see, Tim, and I’m due out to dinner at nine.’
‘Won’t take long. This is my colleague, Detective Constable Needham.’
James Benson smiled in delight. ‘Oh, well, then I’m sure I can spare a few minutes.’
He led them into the Consultant’s office.
‘I wonder if we can find some sherry — it’s been a long day. How can I help you?’
‘D’you have a patient called Rosalind Pringle?’
James Benson stopped in his search. ‘Funny you should ask that. Rannaldini wanted to know the same thing, the Friday before he died. Came to see me about having his vasectomy reversed, said he’d heard I was treating her. Take a seat both of you,’ he went on, as he perched on the arm of a sofa. ‘Said I wished I had been, always thought Rozzy Pringle the most dishy lady, got all her LPs, used to hang round the stage door at Covent Garden when I was a student at the Middlesex. Funnily enough she’s exactly the same age as I am. Rannaldini’d heard a rumour she’d got throat cancer. I said I hoped not, tragedy to wreck that heavenly voice, but that I’d never treated her for that or anything else. Funny, I’d forgotten all about it, until you reminded me.’
‘You’ve been incredibly helpful, sir,’ said Gablecross. ‘If you’ll forgive us.’
‘That means not only was she bleeding Lucy white under false pretences,’ bleated Karen excitedly as they ran down the stairs, ‘but she could have sung Hermione’s last aria in the wood.’