Score!

51

Having drawn a blank with Rupert, Gablecross was driving wearily out of Valhalla in the hope of a couple of hours’ sleep when he noticed lights on in Clive’s flat over the stables. Remembering his conversation yesterday with Miss Cricklade, he pulled in.

Miss Cricklade, the local busybody, lived on the west side of Paradise High Street. Between training her binoculars on Valhalla and watching Pride and Prejudice on Sunday night, she had seen Clive, Rannaldini’s dreaded éminence grise, calling on Nicky Willard next door around eight o’clock. He had only stayed ten minutes but, during this time, a little white mongrel had been yapping continually in his car.

‘If she went on like that,’ Miss Cricklade had told Gablecross indignantly, ‘she would have lost her bark, like my Judy did when she went into kennels. I was about to complain when Clive came out and drove off.

‘But he was back to see Nicky around nine thirty,’ Miss Cricklade had gone on. ‘Nicky’s mum and dad had gone to Bath for the evening. I gave a scream when I saw Valhalla going up in flames. Next moment, Clive came out of Willard’s house like a bat out of hell. I don’t think George and Grace Willard would have liked him being there. I don’t trust that Clive.’

Nor did Gablecross. He had waived sentences against him in the past in return for information. Now it was time to call in the marker — particularly as Bussage had implied that Clive knew where Rannaldini’s safe, containing a second set of memoirs, was hidden.

He had to lean on the bell for five minutes before he was let in by Clive, clearly furious at the interruption. There was not a speck of dust in the upstairs flat, which was furnished with chrome and black leather. Sadomasochistic literature and videos filled the bookshelves. Posters of muscular youths on motorbikes with tufts of blond hair emerging under bikers’ caps adorned the walls. On the mantelpiece was a photograph of a young Clive and a middle-aged woman with pigeons on their shoulders in Trafalgar Square.

Even though it was five o’clock in the morning, Clive was fully dressed in leather trousers and a very white vest, showing off tattoos of bleeding hearts and black widow spiders.

Gablecross realized he must keep his wits about him if this especially slippery fish wasn’t to slide through his fingers, and baldly kicked off with the fact that several independent witnesses had reported Clive spending several hours at Nicky Willard’s house on Sunday night. Nicky Willard was only sixteen going on forty-five. Unless Clive wanted to be banged up for five years, he had better sing to the rooftops.

Clive promptly played, then handed over the tape he’d stolen from the answering-machine at Valhalla on Sunday night. No wonder Wolfie had wanted to kill his father, thought Gablecross. No wonder Rupert had wanted to kill everyone.

‘Where does the little dog come in?’ he asked sternly.

Clive displayed uncharacteristic shame. He admitted stealing Gertrude, but hadn’t realized Rannaldini would use her as bait.

‘Rupert will kill me if he finds out. I want a safe house,’ he whined.

‘He’ll certainly rearrange your features. Where are Rannaldini’s keys? There was no sign of them in the ashes.’

‘The murderer must have whipped them, which means he’s got the master key to every bedroom.’

‘Good God!’

‘More than that. Every room — including the dressing rooms, the caravans and the cottages — was bugged for sound. There were hidden cameras everywhere so he could watch people, or video their goings-on. He had a stranglehold like the Spanish Inquisition.’

Suddenly Gablecross didn’t feel tired any more.

‘What exactly were your movements on Sunday night?’ he asked, as Clive made him a cup of black coffee.

‘I delivered Taggie’s dog to the watch-tower around eight fifteen, brought Tabloid back here, walked him and Rannaldini’s other Rotties and gave them their dinner. Then I went over to watch the box with Nicky around nine thirty. Around eleven thirty we saw flames coming out of the watch-tower so I drove back to see if I could rescue Rannaldini or anything.’

‘What’s happened to the safe?’

‘Dunno. Rannaldini was always movin’ it around.’

‘Come on. Stealing that little dog, consorting with a minor, d’you want to be banged up for seven years?’

Clive didn’t. By that time, Nicky Willard would be twenty-three and have lost his bloom. On the other hand, he didn’t reveal all his cards. He had failed to flog the memoirs to Beattie Johnson on the night of the murder because she’d obviously had an offer from Bussage. Unable to get into the safe without Rannaldini’s keys, Clive had subsequently ransacked Bussage’s files, substituted the blank disks and fan photographs and flogged her set of the memoirs for two hundred thousand to Beattie, with a further eight hundred thousand promised on publication. None of this did he tell Gablecross. But, feeling flush, he admitted, ‘quite by chance’, that Rannaldini’s safe was currently hidden in the priest-hole behind the mantelpiece.

‘See? It’s ’ollow.’ Clive banged a panel, which swung open to reveal a large cupboard containing lots of cobwebs and a large steel box. ‘Rannaldini kept it in his indoor school — didn’t entirely trust Bussage. I moved it ’ere after the murder.

‘It’s funny.’ Clive poured Gablecross more coffee. ‘Since it’s been ’ere, I keep thinking the bugger’s alive.’ With a shiver, he glanced around the flat. ‘I’m sure I saw him outside the chapel last night.’

‘What did you intend to do with the safe?’

‘Hand it in when I got a moment.’

‘Very commendable,’ said Gablecross sardonically.

Particularly when the bell rang again, and Clive, sulkily, had to admit Bobby Clintock, another of Gablecross’s contacts and the best safecracker in Rutshire, armed with rugs and explosives.

At five thirty-five, a loud thud set the horses neighing and the Rottweilers barking in their quarters below.

‘Shit,’ muttered Clive, peering through the smoke. ‘The Montigny’s not there, nor the Picasso. Must have been torched in the fire. That’s five million up the spout.’

Otherwise they found a lot of foreign currency, enough cocaine to make a snow-dwarf, a print-out of three hundred pages of the memoirs, and a pile of videos and photographs. Pushy Galore straddling a sofa didn’t do much for Clive and neither did Bussage roped to the table. Then he saw Chloe.

‘Jesus! Expect the goat’ll sell its story to Farmer’s Weekly.’

Poor old Granville Hastings. Gablecross picked up a photo of a devastated-looking Granny. No wonder he didn’t want the police called.

Rannaldini must have locked this stuff away on the Sunday afternoon before he died. There was even a copy of his last will, dated 8 July, leaving everything to Cecilia and her children, except for four million each to Hermione and Little Cosmo and a hundred thousand to Clive and Miss Bussage. Nothing to Helen or Wolfie.

No wonder Wolfie had been going to kill his father.

Flicking through a yellow memo pad, Gablecross found notes that Rozzy Pringle had throat cancer, the poor lady, and reminders to contact Rozzy’s husband Glyn and also Tristan’s aunt Hortense in the Tarn. In a Bible, he discovered a letter in French, on writing paper headed with a crest of a snake and a drawing of two lovers, and shoved it in his inside pocket to read later. Turning, he found Bobby Clintock salivating over Hermione’s naked body and Clive drooling over a book of medieval tortures with many of the pages turned down.

‘What was it with this guy?’ asked Gablecross in disgust.

‘He was bored with normal pleasure,’ said Clive flatly.

‘Where was his famous torture chamber?’

‘Didn’t exist.’ Clive’s pale eyes flickered.

‘Did you take that Rottie away from the watch-tower earlier so you could kill him without it barking?’

‘You’ll have to take my word on that.’

‘Thanks for your co-operation,’ said Gablecross, as Clive and Bobby, albeit with great reluctance, helped him to carry the safe to his car.