‘I suppose he was kind to you,’ said Rozzy reflectively. ‘Kindness is such an aphrodisiac to ugly women. What would the Montignys think of you?’ she added mockingly.
‘I got on with Aunt Hortense,’ gasped Lucy.
‘She must have been appalled. A hairdresser with a broad Cumbrian accent! I’ll teach you to have ideas above your station, Miss.’
My station, thought Lucy, in crazed anguish, is Carlisle. Above the town soar the mountains, olive green, filled with lakes, criss-crossed with stone walls. She’d never see them again. And she’d never see her darling mum and dad, or her sister, or her little nieces — and they’d be told she was a murderer.
Rozzy was back at the table, spraying Femme between her breasts and legs.
‘What did you do with Tristan’s papers?’ whispered Lucy.
‘I’ll burn them when I get a moment.’
‘I promised Hortense he’d get them,’ said Lucy despairingly. ‘At least give him Étienne’s self-portrait and Laurent and Delphine’s letters. Then he’ll understand why his mother copped out and why Étienne rejected him.’
‘Don’t tell me what to do!’ snapped Rozzy. ‘Tristan needs love and understanding.’
‘He needs roots,’ sobbed Lucy. ‘Hortense’ll tell him the truth.’
‘I think not.’ Rozzy rose to her feet, Lady Macbeth’s presence dominating the room. ‘I took your passport to the chemist and bought rat poison.’
‘Please, no,’ shrieked Lucy. ‘Hortense is dying anyway. She’s such an old duck.’
‘Old dyke, you mean. I’m off,’ said Rozzy coolly.
‘Don’t leave me.’
‘You know it all now, sweetie. You’ve got to die. It’s so easy. There are two buttons to flood the torture chamber. As I’m leaving I’ll just press the one outside the door,’ Rozzy murmured lasciviously, ‘and Madame Guillotine over there will slide up and the lake will come pouring in. How convenient of Wolfie to fill it up — and we’ve had so much rain. It takes five minutes to flood the pit.’
‘Please, not,’ gabbled Lucy.
Rozzy posed before the mirror, the flame-red boa warming her face, the grey chiffon giving wondrous curves to her slight body.
‘You look beautiful, Rozzy. Your eyes are like stars.’
‘They’re the last stars you’ll see.’
‘What time is it?’ gasped Lucy, trying to cling on to some reality.
‘Nearly twenty past twelve. Cinderella shall go to the ball.’
Rozzy dropped her wig and mask, followed by the gun and her mobile, into her bag.
‘Shame you haven’t time to read in the memoirs about Rannaldini’s favourite games, Lucy. Either he’d fuck them in the pit as the water came over their noses so their cunt muscles, in their imagined death-throes, clamped round his cock. President Kennedy pushed whores under the bath-water for the same buzz.’ Rozzy smiled, as if she were telling a bedtime story.
‘Or he’d sit up here watching them drown, then press a button to release them from the debtor’s chair, so they floated choking upwards. But in your case, Miss Goody Two Shoes, I won’t press that release button till tomorrow.’ Rozzy’s face contorted with hatred. ‘And you’ll float out into the lake, not pretty like Ophelia, but bloated and smelly with wrinkled fingers.’
‘The police’ll know I’ve been strapped in.’
‘No, they won’t, those manacles are very soft. Rannaldini knew about hurting people without marking them. And they’ll find your sweet little suicide note. I tore up your last letter to Tristan — “your loving Lucy”, you presumptuous bitch — and retyped it: “Dear Twistan…”’ it was Rozzy’s obscene baby voice again, ‘“I’m sowwy I killed all those people and did all those wicked things, but I had to be favori du woi.” Well, I’m favori du roi now,’ added Rozzy viciously, ‘and I’m excellent at forging your signature. I’ve done it on enough cheques.’
Lucy flipped. ‘How dare you write a suicide note on my behalf?’ she yelled. ‘I’d never do that, because of James.’
‘James is dead,’ said Rozzy indifferently. ‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you snivelling while I did my make-up. He whined so much I let him out on the motorway.’
Lucy rolled her head in agony as she remembered James pirouetting with joy or leaning against her or darting off with a biscuit, or sitting quietly enjoying the rain after a heatwave.
Pressing the button so the steel door slid back, Rozzy flung on Rannaldini’s cloak and escaped quickly, in case Lucy’s howl of desolation reached the outside world.
‘I’m doing you a good turn,’ she called back softly. ‘According to Schiller, “the peace of death” is the only escape from the pangs of unrequited love.’
As one steel door clanged shut, the metal guillotine keeping out the lake slid upwards and water started to trickle in.
83
Back at the wrap party, it was ten minutes to twelve. People had anaesthetized themselves with drink against the terrors and were now dancing. But a shiver went through the room as Clive strolled in, holding a bunch of white lilies. Here was Rannaldini’s hitman, who knew far too much about all of them, as difficult to ignore as a mamba sliding across the floor.
‘Where’s Gablecross?’ murmured Clive to DC Lightfoot.
‘Guarding Tabitha Lovell at Rutminster General.’
‘He isn’t. I just called there.’
‘Where the hell have you been anyway?’ demanded DC Lightfoot. ‘Everyone wants to question you.’
‘That’s why I haven’t been here. Where’s Lucy?’ Clive’s pale, lashless eyes flickered round the room. ‘I bought these flowers for her. Always liked Lucy. No-one streaked my hair better. And there’s tasty Tristan.’
Tristan was smiling for the first time that evening because Hype-along had just presented him with an album of stills through which Tristan was flipping with exclamations of delight. There was Baby looking romantic, and Mikhail heroic, and Hermione naked and enormous from behind, and Oscar asleep, and Rupert narrow-eyed and mean in his executive producer’s chair.
‘Thank you, Hype-along, it’s all here to remind me,’ said Tristan, kissing his press officer on each sideboard.
On the last page, finding two photographs stuck in side by side, he gave a gasp of pleasure. In the first Lucy, naked except for a pink towel, was stretched on a table with Rozzy massaging her shoulders. In the second, she had reared up in alarm, gorgeous breasts flying.
‘Look at Lucy’s boobs, everyone,’ shouted Ogborne, who was peering over Tristan’s shoulders. ‘How d’you get her to do that, Hypie?’
‘Banged on her caravan window after dark.’
As people crowded round, Tristan seized the album, not wanting everyone to drool. Then his heart stopped as he noticed the venom on Rozzy’s face as her fingers closed round Lucy’s neck.
‘Oh, my God.’ Glancing up in horror, he saw Gablecross and Karen running through the door. ‘Where’s Lucy?’ he yelled.
‘I hoped you were going to tell us that,’ said Gablecross.
‘Regardez.’ Tristan thrust the photograph album at him.
For a second, Gablecross studied the two pictures, then he drew Tristan into George’s study next door.
‘Where the hell is she?’ asked a grey and shaking Tristan.
‘She was last seen around seven thirty outside Make Up,’ said Karen.
‘Then she evaded arrest and ran off into the garden,’ added Gablecross.
‘Arrest?’ snarled Tristan. ‘Whatever for?’