‘I walked upstairs to the spare room.’ Rozzy clutched her shaking sides. ‘Glyn and Sylvia were having a fuck in the “master bedroom”, as the common little slut insists on calling it. Naturally they didn’t notice my return. There are pluses in having an un-uxorious husband. Ten minutes later, Glyn came out on to the landing to check I was asleep and tripped over the carpet.’
Gradually the laughter ebbed away. More terrifying were the uncharacteristically foul language and the mood-swings. Beth in Little Women one moment, Lady Macbeth the next.
‘Clever to murder Beattie,’ mumbled Lucy. ‘She was such a bitch.’
‘And so short-sighted. Never once asked me for an interview, when I’ve got the most beautiful voice in the world and wonderful stories of all the greats I’ve sung with. And Beattie was gagging for Tristan. Shit.’ Rozzy’s mascara wand had slipped, leaving a blob on her cheekbone. ‘She bought the memoirs from Clive, you know, who stole them from Bussage. Beattie was going to expose Tristan as being Maxim’s incestuous bastard. Why didn’t you tell me about that, Lucy? That wasn’t friendly to have secrets.’ The voice was hard and cruel again. Lucy steeled herself as Rozzy picked up the knife, but for the moment her venom was concentrated on Beattie.
‘I didn’t want Tristan exposed. I didn’t give a stuff that Maxim had fucked his own daughter because Tristan and I never want children. But I do fancy being Madame de Montigny.’ Rozzy removed the blob of mascara with a cotton-bud. ‘It has such a charming nineteenth-century ring, like a novel by George Sand. Perhaps I should have asked you to do my eyes.’ Meditatively Rozzy admired her reflection.
‘You look stunning,’ stammered Lucy. Praise her, keep her talking, she told herself. She was racked by cramp in her leg, her eyes watering with pain. ‘How did you kill Beattie, with so many people around?’
‘Best thing about my job on Carlos was that no-one knew where I was supposed to be at any one time. Earlier in the week I’d let myself into Beattie’s room and read the filth she intended to publish. The night she was killed and you were so busy brown-nosing Hermione I said I’d walk James and Trevor, but I never did.’
That was why James had made a puddle on the caravan floor — and I shouted at him, thought Lucy, in anguish.
‘Instead,’ went on Rozzy, ‘I shoved a note I’d typed on the production unit word processor under Beattie’s door. Then I dressed up as Rannaldini. I felt so safe disguised as him — even that arrogant shit Rupert bolted like a frightened hare. Beattie was so terrified she backed on to the unicorn. Its horn came up through her belly like a corkscrew,’ Rozzy’s voice quivered with delight again, ‘and her blood spurted out like a fountain. But I couldn’t risk her screaming, so I finished her off with the.22 from Props. I had a key cut back in June. I was wearing gloves. See — I can even make up in them now. I’d no idea Tristan had left his prints on the same gun when he’d tried it out that afternoon.
‘Still dressed as Rannaldini, I raced back through the night to Beattie’s room. There I stole memoirs, photographs, videos and tapes, printed out Beattie’s piece to give me all the gen and smashed the computer on the floor.’ Rozzy couldn’t speak for wild laughter. ‘Then I went into the chapel to pray for Beattie’s departed soul, and hid everything in my little priest-hole behind the Murillo Madonna.’
‘You did all that in the break? You are clever.’
‘I ought to get the Nobel Prize for ridding the world of those monsters.’
‘You ought.’ Lucy was casting round frantically for things to ask. ‘What about The Snake Charmer?’
‘I’ve so often found things hidden under Glyn’s mattress,’ Rozzy became the tragedy queen for a second, ‘that out of habit I often checked Tristan’s room. The only thing I discovered was the Montigny, and I knew Mikhail had stolen that so I hid it in my priest-hole. Isn’t this a nice lipstick? Revlon’s Fire and Ice. It exactly matches this feather boa Tristan bought me. He chose the dress too.
‘Oh, I have had fun.’ Rozzy’s voice dropped to cosy intimacy. ‘I devastated that silly old poof, Granny, by slashing his patchwork quilt. I got so many Brownie points for sewing up Foxie after I’d cut him to pieces. And I had so many goes at you, Lucy. Who put the adder in your make-up box? Who poisoned your champagne? I knew Rannaldini didn’t drink before concerts, although he lapsed on that occasion. If Hermione hadn’t shattered that glass with her top E, he’d have died that evening instead. And I put slug pellets in James’s bowl.’
‘I thought you loved James.’ Lucy made heroic efforts to keep the hysteria out of her voice. ‘Oh, please, where is he?’
‘I’ve no idea. I had two goes at that arrogant tart Tabitha. I substituted the can of petrol, I put on gloves to cut her stirrup leather today with the little penknife on your key-ring. Then I dumped the key-ring in Wardrobe’s dustbin, which even those dolts from Rutminster CID couldn’t miss.’
‘You tried to kill Tab today,’ cried Lucy in horror. ‘That must be her attempted murder they were arresting me for. Oh, God, is she all right?’
‘Tragically,’ Rozzy paused dramatically, ‘she is — the little whore.’
‘I still don’t understand why the police suspect me.’
‘Oh, my child,’ said Rozzy gently, as she drew lipstick outside the lines of her mouth, ‘because your DNA profile’s on Rannaldini’s dressing-gown and in his saliva where I kissed him and on the bite on Beattie’s shoulder. I just loved plunging my teeth into her, knowing it would incriminate you, and it’s in the blood on Hermione’s cloak, and your fingerprints are all over Tab’s saddle and the penknife.’
‘But I never had a DNA test.’
‘No, but you lost your passport, remember.’ Rubbing cream into her hands, Rozzy clasped them in ecstasy. ‘I borrowed it and stuck my passport photograph on top of yours, and when the two flat-footed cretins rolled up at Make Up, I said I was Lucy Latimer, showed them your passport and took a saliva test in your name. I wasn’t on the list of suspects due for a DNA test, because the police knew I was in Mallowfield.’
Lucy could take no more. ‘That’s the most horrible part,’ she sobbed. ‘I thought we were friends.’
Radiant, smiling, the great diva making her entrance, Rozzy glided down the steps and stroked Lucy’s hair. ‘You poor darling,’ she said, in such a sweet, sad voice that Lucy knew the whole thing had been a bad dream. Then Rozzy grabbed her hair, yanking it back until she screamed.
‘You stupid bitch! I did love you until you started meddling. Why did you go to France to free Tristan? He’d have been so much better off in prison, safe from all those drooling, ravening bitches. I’d have visited him every week.
‘Why didn’t you and Wolfie take me with you? You deceitful cow, sucking up to his family.’ Rozzy’s eyes were glittering, foam frothing along her mouth, mad laughter echoing horribly off the walls. ‘I know you’re crazy about Tristan,’ Rozzy was hissing in her ear, spraying it with saliva, ‘but having spent his life surrounded by beautiful people, how could he settle for someone as plain and common as you?’ Seizing Lucy’s face, Rozzy wrenched it towards the mirror. ‘Look at yourself, you ugly bitch!’ As Rozzy slapped her face back and forth, Lucy felt blood trickling from her nose to join her tears, choking her.