Score!

66

‘Just like rush-hour on the Piccadilly line,’ grumbled Chloe, as most of the unit, including several plain-clothes policemen, squeezed into the centre of the maze. ‘Ouch, someone goosed me.’

‘Only my brolly, bad luck,’ boomed Griselda.

Everyone giggled nervously.

‘Quiet, please,’ roared Bernard.

Who knew if they were standing next to the murderer? Shirts already soaked in sweat were additionally drenched by the towering rain-soaked yew walls. Even Tristan was wearing his director’s cap back to front to stop the drips running down his neck.

‘Now I know how labs feel when they’re rammed into their kennel after a wet day’s shooting,’ grumbled Griselda.

‘The shooting ees to come,’ said Mikhail, admiring his.22.

Everyone else shivered and tried to read Rozzy’s copy of the Evening Scorpion.

‘Killed in Action,’ said a huge headline, above an incredibly glamorous photograph of Beattie.

There were endless delays. The moon sailing through an archipelago of angry indigo clouds was making lighting a nightmare.

‘Are we going to have problems with those police helicopters?’ Tristan asked Sylvestre.

‘Music should blot them out but we’ll have to watch the long pauses.’

They’d just finished rehearsing when the crush was intensified by Rupert’s arrival. As one who believed one should get back on to a horse immediately after a fall, he had dragged along a reluctant, scowling Tab. Wolfie promptly dropped Tristan’s shooting script in the mud, which went unnoticed by Tristan, who also felt his heart fail. Tab looked so thin, so pale, so impossibly, ferociously adorable. Griselda hugged her, which made Tab scowl more than ever.

‘How ridiculous! We’re overcrowded enough as it is,’ hissed Rozzy, as she turned over a page of the Scorpion to find a large picture, taken years ago, of Rupert arm in arm with Beattie.

‘Friend of the Famous,’ said the caption.

Having left Tab in the care of an utterly tongue-tied Wolfie, Rupert pushed off to talk to Sexton. The only thing that had driven her out of the house, Tab hissed to Lucy, was the arrival of Helen.

‘She insisted Mrs Bodkin unpack for her, then grumbled she couldn’t find anything, then pushed Taggie’s divine food round her plate all lunch going on and on about Beattie and nurturing a viper in her bosom. Daddy said, “Any self-respecting viper would die of malnutrition trying to survive on all that silicone.” He’s such a bitch but he does make me laugh. Oh, God, Luce, isn’t Tristan divine? I’m not cured at all.’

Glancing surreptitiously across at Tab, Tristan found her gazing at him with such longing it burnt him. He mustn’t weaken. If only he could bring himself to explain about Maxim.

‘Stand by to shoot,’ shouted Bernard.

‘We’ll have to wait thirty seconds for this cloud, Tristan,’ called Oscar, lowering his view-finder from his eye.

‘Oh, here’s Timothy. I wonder if his wife liked her present,’ said Rozzy, as Gablecross, Karen and two uniformed men with their hats on forced their way in.

‘The Grand Inquisitor,’ sang Baby. Then, as the music died in the speakers, he launched into ‘“A policeman’s lot is not a happy one, happy one”.’

‘Hello, Tim,’ cooed Chloe, kissing him on both cheeks.

‘Tristan de Montigny…’ began Gablecross, furiously wiping off lipstick.

‘Oh, go away,’ said Tristan irritably, ‘we’re about to shoot.’

‘Tristan de Montigny,’ repeated Gablecross sternly, ‘you are being arrested on suspicion of the murders of Roberto Rannaldini and Beatrice Johnson. You don’t have to say anything but you may harm your defence if you fail to mention when questioned something you rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence.’

There was a scream from Rozzy, and a rumble of horror that rose to a roar. No, thought Lucy, in dread, I shopped him. Only the people hemming her in kept her from fainting. As chests were thrust out in outrage and the moon went in again, the maze seemed even more terrifyingly claustrophobic.

‘You cannot arrest me,’ said Tristan haughtily, ‘I am making a film, and I have to fly out first thing tomorrow to Toulouse where my aunt is seriously ill.’

And that’s the last we’d see of you, matey, thought Gablecross.

‘Unfortunately that’s irrelevant,’ he said. ‘You’ve been arrested on suspicion of murder.’

‘At least we finish the scene’ said Bernard firmly.

There was a murmur of assent. Gablecross looked round at the solid phalanx of crew, muscular arms folded like a rugger team, blocking any escape, and felt there was no way an English lorry could get through a French blockade.

‘Stand by to shoot. Nice and quiet behind the camera,’ called Bernard.

Up started the strings, out sailed the moon. Gablecross had to admire the professionalism, particularly Tristan’s.

‘Roll sound, turn camera,’ he said quietly, standing there, as if without a care in the world, never taking his eyes off his singers.

Eboli, with heavy sarcasm, was now attacking Elisabetta’s hypocrisy for posing as a virtuous wife when she was all the time having an affaire with Carlos, until Mikhail whipped out his.22, spinning it over and over like a hired killer.

The yew walls seemed to expand as people flattened themselves against them. Suppose the gun was loaded? Then Baby leapt forward, squeezing Mikhail’s hand like a dog’s muzzle.

‘Why d’you hesitate?’ taunted Chloe, yellow eye flashing.

Everyone jumped as the.22 clattered to the ground.

Lucy felt her eyes filling with tears of despair, as Mikhail begged Baby to hand over to him any incriminating papers he might be carrying to stop them falling into the hands of the Inquisition.

‘To you? The favourite of the King?’ sang Baby, in bitter irony.

It is the only moment in the opera when Carlos doubts Posa’s loyalty. Mercifully, no helicopters interrupted the long, long pause. Then, puppy-like, Carlos became all apology, handing over his ‘important papers’, not realizing he was fatally incriminating his friend, before falling into his arms.

The acting had been so wonderful that for those few moments people had forgotten the murders. As the entire orchestra pounded out the friendship theme, Lucy frantically mopped her eyes.

‘I have betrayed my friend,’ she thought in agony.

‘Cut. That was perfect,’ Tristan told everyone. ‘Well done. If the gate’s clear, print.’

‘We’ll wrap now, call a weekend break,’ said Bernard, who was quivering with rage, ‘and by then you’ll be bailed.’

‘I may not. You, Oscar and Valentin know exactly what to do.’ Taking off his director’s cap, Tristan plonked it on Bernard’s head. ‘Now’s your chance to play Truffaut.’ Then he kissed Bernard on both cheeks, handed him his shooting script and added, with a break in his voice, ‘Here are my important papers.’

Finally he turned to Gablecross, mockingly holding out two clenched fists.

‘Put on the handcuffs.’

Ogborne and the crew closed in menacingly, but when Tristan shook his head they fell back.

All this was too much for Tab. With a scream of rage, she flew at Gablecross, hammering him with her fists.

‘He’s innocent, you stupid asshole, Tristan wouldn’t hurt a fly. You just need a conviction. Yesterday you thought I’d killed Rannaldini.’

‘With some justification,’ murmured Chloe.

‘Once you get him into that horrible place,’ went on Tab hysterically, ‘you’ll trick him into a confession.’

‘Bébé, bébé, stop it, please.’ Tristan turned back in anguish and pulled Tab off Gablecross. A second later she had fallen against him, sobbing pitifully.

‘It’s all right.’ His arms closed round her. ‘I didn’t do it, I promise.’ For a second, he laid his ashen face against her pale hair and they clung to each other, like souls in torment.

‘Mr de Montigny,’ said Gablecross, not unkindly.

Tristan searched the appalled, often weeping, faces for one he could trust.

‘Lucy, please look after her.’

But as he was led away, Tab had to be prised off by Wolfie.

‘He’ll be OK.’ Lucy made heroic attempts to sound convincing.

‘How d’you know?’ screamed Tab.

‘It’s all a terrible mistake,’ reassured Wolfie.

‘How d’you bloody know either?’ Tab was about to fly at him, when she caught sight of the photograph of Beattie and her father.

‘Stop reading that shit.’ She snatched Rozzy’s newspaper and tore it to shreds, before storming, like Eboli, out of the maze.

She found her father heaping abuse on Gablecross: ‘Tim-Dim-But-Not-At-All-Nice strikes again,’ he yelled, then, turning to Tristan, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll bail you first thing tomorrow.’

Having poured so much money into Don Carlos, there was no way Rupert was going to lose his director before filming was completed.

‘Poor, poor Tristan but also poor me,’ sighed Sexton.

They were insured against violent death but not against the director murdering the producer, although it must be a fairly frequent occurrence. He had better get on to the backers to reassure them.

As Tristan vanished into a police car, which in turn vanished under a black tidal wave of press, Hermione could be heard complaining, ‘It’s very inconsiderate of Timothy. My last night on the set, a most taxing scene. Who will now give me direction?’

‘The wrong man’s been arrested,’ screamed Tab. ‘Can’t you think of anyone but yourself?’ She picked up Valentin’s discarded plate of porridge and was about to ram it in Hermione’s perfectly made-up face when Wolfie grabbed her wrist.

‘Pack it in. You’re behaving like a stupid child.’

‘I’m not stupid. Why don’t you do something to help Tristan rather than standing round like a stuck pig?’

After that Rupert took her home.

There was no time to think then until Alpheus and Hermione’s little scene in the chapel was safely in the can, but as dawn broke on Tristan’s first morning behind bars Wolfie realized Lucy was missing. He found her sobbing in Make Up.

‘It was my fault he was arrested. I let out his terrible secret.’

She didn’t want to hurt Wolfie by revealing his father’s part in it, but she had to tell someone she could trust.

Wolfie was totally practical.

‘As soon as we get away tomorrow, we’re going to France to track down Aunt Hortense and the truth. We’ll take the Gulf and leave before anyone finds we’ve gone.’