Score!

82

Lucy regained consciousness into darker nightmare. She was trapped in a chair, her wrists clamped to its arms by what felt like iron manacles padded with velvet, her ankles and knees similarly secured to the chair legs so her thighs were forced humiliatingly apart. This must be the debtor’s chair in which Rannaldini had once imprisoned Tab. The room was cold and dreadfully airless. It smelled like a slaughter-house, of blood, sweat and fear.

As her eyes grew used to the dark, she realized she was in a large steel container. She and the debtor’s chair were on a lower level in a kind of pit. Up some steps, on a higher level, stood an imposing carved armchair — like a bishop’s throne — a bed and a dressing-table pushed against the wall. From the only wall that wasn’t mirror, dully gleamed a highly sophisticated collection of whips and knives.

Then she heard hoarse, unearthly screaming. It was several seconds before she realized it was coming from herself. Shuddering with horror, she pieced together earlier events, Tristan firing her, the police arresting her, Rozzy hiding her in the priest-hole, then Rannaldini’s utterly terrifying ghost, or had it been Rannaldini himself? Thank God, Rozzy would seek help and could be trusted to give Tristan his important papers.

Then she remembered James’s cries growing more and more piteous. Someone must have tortured him. She started to cry, but as her eyes and nose streamed she had nothing on which to wipe them. Her ankle ached where she’d twisted it, her legs throbbed with nettle stings and, in the mirror opposite, her dim reflection showed her face, arms and legs cut even more to pieces from stumbling down the stony secret passage. She looked like a victim of Third World brutality.

Glancing at the whips and knives, she knew the churning fear Carlos and Elisabetta must have felt, aware that torture awaited them. The light was too faint to read her watch. She tried to pray. Rozzy wouldn’t let her down. But as the hours crawled by, and she grew colder and more dehydrated, her legs racked by agonizing cramps, hope faded.

She must have nodded off. She was woken by terror beyond imagination. Instead of her own reflection, glaring evilly back from the mirror was Rannaldini. Maybe she had died, or her mind was slowly unravelling. Then he was gone, and her blanched, bloodstained, lacerated reflection gazed back at her again.

There was a creak. Jerking her head round as far as it would go she saw a steel panel on the upper level slide back and there was Rannaldini, a monstrous black vulture, poised to swoop down and tear her apart.

‘No, no, please not.’ Her screams echoed round the chamber, then died on her lips. As the steel door clanged shut, off came the cloak, the pewter wig, the mask. Lucy breathed in a heavenly waft of Femme and wept with relief.

‘Oh, you angel, thank God.’ Then the questions poured out in a hoarse gasping rush. ‘Are the police still looking for me? Have you found James? Did you give Tristan the parcel? What a brilliant disguise! You fooled everyone.’

As Rozzy flicked on a side light, and arranged her newly washed hair, Lucy saw she was wearing a beautiful dove-grey chiffon dress and long grey gloves.

‘Please unlock this horrible chair,’ she begged. ‘What time is it? Where am I?’

‘Nearly midnight. You’re in Rannaldini’s torture chamber.’ Rozzy’s voice was strangely high and hard. ‘Quite the Grand Inquisitor’s adventure playground, isn’t it? Soundproofed like a recording studio, so no-one can hear the screams.’

‘What d’you mean?’

Little by little, terror was taking over again.

‘Rannaldini brought the pretty ones down here,’ mocked Rozzy.

‘I don’t understand.’

Both of them jumped as the telephone rang. In an instant Rozzy had grabbed her mobile, whipped a gun out of her bag, and running down the steps, rammed the muzzle against Lucy’s temple.

‘Don’t make a sound,’ she hissed.

Rigid with horror, Lucy could hear Bernard’s bray so close she could have reached out and stroked his glossy black moustache.

‘I’ve been delayed again, Bernie darling.’ Rozzy’s voice was caressing. ‘Lucy? I haven’t seen her.’ As Lucy gasped, the gun was rammed harder into her head. ‘She must have pushed off home to Cumbria. One more pressie to wrap, then I’ll be over. No, no, dearest, you’ve been drinking — at least, I hope you have. I’ll make my own way. Keep the champagne on ice.’

Flicking off her mobile, Rozzy peered at the buttons for a second before pressing one. ‘I’ll turn it off altogether,’ she said chattily. ‘We don’t want to be disturbed.’

Retracing her steps up the stairs, she placed the gun and the mobile on the dressing-table. ‘That was Bernard. The silly old fart was looking for you.’

‘You’re the murderer,’ whispered Lucy.

‘I thought you’d never guess,’ said Rozzy acidly. ‘The whole world is searching but no-one has a clue.’

‘And I gave you Tristan’s papers.’

Lucy’s chattering teeth became a terrible shaking, jolting her body like an earthquake. ‘Please let me have your cloak for a second. I’m so cold.’

‘Poor child,’ said Rozzy sympathetically, then suddenly burst into maniacal laughter. ‘You’ll be burning hot where you’re going. Where were we? Oh, yes, in Rannaldini’s torture chamber. He strapped them just where you are, in the debtor’s chair.’

What had Gablecross told her? Lucy tried to marshal her crazed thoughts. With psychopaths you had to be passive, respectful, admiring.

‘I can’t believe you killed Rannaldini.’ Every word had to be forced out. ‘You’re far too slight and, anyway, you were in Mallowfield.’

‘Since I’m going to kill you in a minute I’ll tell you while I do my face. Now, are you sitting comfortably?’

Settling down on the bed, Rozzy calmly took a tube of moisturiser out of her make-up bag.

‘I killed Rannaldini,’ she said dreamily. ‘He put me down so much he deserved it. It was so easy to slip away from Glyn’s party, I pretended I had a migraine. The land slopes up steeply behind our house — such a small drop on to the lawn from the spare-room window. Everyone was too drunk to notice my car had gone. I drove to Valhalla and parked up a little pebbled track in Paradise woods. Then I climbed over the west gate into Hangman’s Wood.’

‘So James did see you. He wagged his tail and peered into the gloom. Oh, Rozzy, where is he?’

‘Don’t interrupt,’ hissed Rozzy. Then, giving a mirthless laugh, even more sinister than her mad cackle, she went on, ‘I saw that tramp Tabitha staggering out of Rannaldini’s watch-tower. Got her comeuppance at last. No-one heard her screams. They were too busy cheering on the finalists. I wore Hermione’s green cloak. Pretending it was Granny’s cut-up quilt, I’d smuggled it out of Wardrobe on Saturday.’ With an adoring smile, Rozzy was smoothing base into her face and neck. ‘Wandering up one of those rides like the rays of the sun, I saw Rannaldini wearing Alpheus’s smart dressing-gown. He was out looking for Tab. So I launched into Elisabetta’s last duet.’

The next minute Lucy thought her eardrums would rupture as Rozzy’s voice exploded like an atom bomb in the tiny room.

‘You can sing,’ she gasped.

‘I always could, as soon as I recovered from the laryngitis I had at the recording.’ Rozzy rocked with obscene laughter once more. ‘Pretending to have cancer was such an easy way of milking you. Unfortunately Rannaldini bugged your caravan. The Saturday morning before he died he told me he’d seen James Benson and was going to expose me as not having cancer at all.’

‘But I gave you so much money,’ said a shattered Lucy. Then forgetting for a second not to be judgemental, ‘This ought to be called the creditor’s chair.’

‘Don’t you cheek me,’ screamed Rozzy.

Grabbing one of the knives, she ran down the steps, eyes rolling, teeth clenched, and drew the blade along Lucy’s cheek. ‘It was you who told Tristan I had cancer, you meddling bitch, because you didn’t want him to give me any work. Shut up!’ she yelled, as Lucy tried to protest.

Then sauntering back up the stairs, Rozzy used the knife to sharpen an eye pencil as she continued her story. ‘Catching sight of Hermione’s cloak, enchanted by how much his mistress’s voice had improved, Rannaldini strode down the ride, took me in his arms and kissed me. As he broke away, my hands closed round his neck.’ Rozzy’s voice trembled with excitement. ‘His last words were Carlos’s “Dear God, it’s not the Queen.” I saw the terror in his eyes, and felt his windpipe give. God, I enjoyed that. Hell!’ She had snapped her eye pencil, and began to pare away the wood again.

‘How could you, Rozzy?’ whispered Lucy, then, hastily forcing herself to sound admiring, ‘Rannaldini was as strong as an ox.’

‘I hated him so much and I was wearing Tristan’s signet ring for luck. Tristan had given it to me as a keepsake. My hands are smaller than his — it must have fallen off.’

Lining the knife up carefully beside her mobile and the gun, Rozzy drew a dark line along the top of her lashes with an utterly steady hand.

‘It was like Piccadilly Circus in Hangman’s Wood that night. Having killed Rannaldini, I was about to whip the memoirs from the watch-tower, but I only had time to snatch his keys, when a helicopter landed and Rupert Campbell-Bastard came running into the wood, shortly followed by Mikhail, who stole the Montigny. Then I ran back to the west gate, shoved the bloodstained cloak in the boot and called you.’

‘But you were at Glyn’s party,’ protested Lucy. ‘I heard everyone singing “Happy Birthday” and “Glyn’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.’

‘I taped it when Glyn cut his cake much earlier,’ said Rozzy. ‘I only had to slot the cassette into the car stereo. I rang you twice — the second time to remind you about the cloak — and established the perfect alibi. I drove home singing my head off. I didn’t even have to climb back in through the window. I’d put a pillow in my bed, and a melon inside the wig you so caringly made for when my hair fell out from the chemo — “You’ll look just as beautiful, Rozzy”, you patronizing cow.’ The sickening little-girl voice soared to a scream and exploded into gales of terrible laughter.

‘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.

‘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.