Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 136, No. 5. Whole No. 831, November 2010

The Killing at Holyroodhouse by Robert Barnard

In its starred review of Robert Barnard’s new novel A Stranger in the Family (Scribner, June 2010), Booklist raved: “Each new whodunit from this highly regarded British master is both predictable and innovative. Barnard is comfortably predictable in that his plotlines are always tightly composed, his characters are created ‘in the round’ and are not just types, and his writing style is precise. He is innovative because his novels always feature fresh situations for him to explore.”

“Oh-ho,” said the palace assistant who stood in the doorway of Holyroodhouse looking across the forecourt with its elaborate fountain to the guardhouse, where the tickets were inspected. “She’s here again.”

The woman assistant, standing at the foot of the Grand Staircase, came to the door to have a look.

“Oh dear,” she said. “Poor Gavin. Who’s she got with her this time?” The male assistant shook his head.

“Someone to embarrass Gavin with, that we can be sure of. Skip up to the dining room and warn him, will you? Tell him he really should consider bringing the director in on this, get him to deny her entrance. She makes for a horrendous atmosphere in the palace, and it gives visitors a terrible impression of the place.”

The woman nodded and dashed away. Meanwhile, and taking their time, the pair approached. The woman, probably in her early forties, had bronze dyed hair, a thick stucco of makeup, and a red skirt halfway up between her knee and groin. Her companion was shorter than she was, a roly-poly figure who was trying to follow her babble of talk while taking in the impressive turreted towers at either end of the facade.

“And when was it builded?” the assistant heard him ask.

“Gawd only knows,” said the woman. “A bit here and there, I should think. I do know Mary, Queen of Scots, lived in the left-hand tower, but that is about the sum total of my knowledge. You should have bought a guidebook if you’re interested.”

“Why are w—?” began the plump young man, clearly wanting to know why they had come if she had no interest in the place’s history. He wisely thought better of it.

“You should see the place when the queen comes here in June,” said the woman in full, rehearsed flood. “There’s inspections of troops, investitures, garden parties in the rain—”

“Pardon, Marge — what is investitures?”

“Like giving away titles and things,” said Marge. “‘Arise, Sir Gavin’ — that sort of thing.”

“Does the queen always come here in June?”

“Always.”

“Why?”

“Buggered if I know. Probably hoping for a day without rain. Not that she gets it. It pours, always does. Mind you, the whole thing is arranged like clockwork, and things go ahead, rain or no rain. Brilliant, like a pantomime.”

“Have you been part of these festivities?”

“Not me. They’d never have given me a job — I’m too common. My accent isn’t Scottish, which is okay: It’s Cockney, which isn’t. It’s my ex who was involved — Gavin. Still is. It’s right up his street. Anything involving lots of niminy-piminy detail is Gavin’s sort of thing. He even screwed like he was a clockwork toy.”

The young Bulgarian, who had been nicely brought up in Varna, looked a little shocked, but his companion did not notice and marched through the door that was held open for them.

“Hello, James, hello, Linda.” This was to the woman coming down the stairway. “Been to warn Gavin, have you? You know, it should be a pleasure to him, having the woman he once loved paying him a visit at his workplace, but the truth is he never looks pleased to see me. Sad, isn’t it? Oh, this is Simon, by the way. He’s Bulgarian and a history-vulture, so you can do your spiels on Scotland’s bloody history — I’m not swearing, just telling the truth — to your heart’s content. Simon is an ice-cream seller.”

“Simeon, I’m called Simeon. And in Bulgaria I am a teacher of English, but here I drive a van and sell ice cream,” said the young man sadly.

“Well, that’s progress for you — getting ahead in the world. And it still involves children, doesn’t it?” She turned to James. “He loves children. Beats me why he would. It’s not as though they’re nice to him. Just shout their orders, try to cheat him on the money, and abuse him for his accent. I always stood out against having children. Not that Gavin was all that keen. He was a teacher then. Puts you off kids, does teaching.”

She marched towards the Great Stair and mounted it fearlessly. Simeon puffed some way behind, called out, “Wait, Marge,” but was not listened to. Marge steamed into the dining room as if she had a coach party with her and could not fall behind in her schedule.

“Just a lot of old crocks,” she said disparagingly. “I’ve had too many old crocks in my life.”

“What do all these cutleries mean?” asked Simeon. “Why are they in that order and which cutlery is for what?”

“Search me,” said Marge. “Those bloody great banquets give me the willies. After ten or twelve courses they’re good for nothing — just bundles of lard, fit only for groping and farting. As long as you’re with me it’s pizza, hamburger, or chili con carne. Like Mae West said, it’s the life in my man that’s the important thing.”

At the far door there was a scuffling sound, and Marge’s face lit up.

“Hello! Are you there, Gavin? Still spying and peeping through keyholes, then? They should make a film about you. Get Daniel Craig to play you. He’s got what it takes, but I wouldn’t tell on you.”

She laughed a parakeet laugh and turned to go into the next room. It was quite large by Holyroodhouse standards, but Marge had to emphasize that she was not impressed.

“The throne room. You’d think it was the largest bog in the Western Hemisphere, but it’s not. These two unimpressive chairs are, in fact, thrones. You can tell the Royals have never taken much trouble when it comes to their Scottish subjects, can’t you? Some moth-eaten black velvet, a bit of embroidery, a back that doesn’t come up to the shoulder blades and that’s what they call a throne.”

“It looks quite impressive to me,” said Simeon.

“Gawd ’elp me, I wouldn’t want to see your unimpressive. Believe you me, most of the rooms are no better than this. A bit mouldy, a bit dusty, a bit this-is-the-best-we-can-do. Some of the rooms are just dumping places for unwanted tapestries. You can’t imagine any real person actually living here. Are you listening, Gavin? That’s what most of the visitors say about your precious palace.”

The five or six other visitors in the throne room looked at each other, and made decisions on whether to hurry ahead or hold back. Marge, pleased with herself, turned towards Simeon.

“I bet you have better big houses in Bulgaria, don’t you?”

“We have a big royal palace in Sofia. It is made of wood. It is used as a picture gallery since we became a republic.”

“Didn’t know you’d ever been anything else.”

“I was named after our last king,” said Simeon proudly.

“Never heard of him. What became of him?”

“Well, he became prime minister for a time.”

“I don’t know if that’s going up in the world, or going down. RIGHT — WE’RE COMING ON, GAVIN. MAKE YOURSELF SCARCE.”

They walked on, through two medium-sized, sumptuous rooms. “See what I mean about tapestries, can’t you? Who’d want to look at crappy old embroideries like that all day? This was Charles the Second’s privy chamber — no, that doesn’t mean lavvy, either. Think of all the work a room like this involves for some poor girl. I don’t suppose the second Charles gave that a moment’s thought. People like that never do. They just think how generous they are to give the girl a regular job. Makes you puke, doesn’t it?”

There was a snuffling sound from the next room.

“Gavin doesn’t like me abusing the Royals. He’s grateful to be given a job, just like the poor skivvy, I suppose. Fawn, grovel, lick arse — that’s Gavin’s natural frame of mind. Now we’re not far off the king’s bedchamber. Come on — you can’t be interested in pictures like that — not gods and goddesses in a state of undress… there’s nothing worth seeing here… But this is the bedchamber. And I’d have to admit it’s quite a bedroom. All that pink velvety stuff, and the four posts so you can draw curtains around you and have as much privacy as you like. This appeals to you, doesn’t it, Simon.”

“Simeon. It is a very fine bed.”

“I always feel it’s not large enough. Charlie Two, my Gavin said, was a bit of a one for the ladies, and you can just about imagine three in a bed, but with four you’d be cramped, and if you’re royal and that’s your taste you don’t want to be cramped. Still, I don’t think Charlie Two came to Scotland after he became king. I expect that was the reason: He knew they didn’t make the beds large enough for his appetites.”

“It was a long way to come,” said Simeon.

“I suppose so. Would they have had the royal train then?”

Not waiting for a reply, Marge made her clattering way through a couple of rooms which she didn’t feel worthy of a commentary before they landed up in a long, well-lit room stretching almost the width of the palace.

“Now — don’t laugh — this is the room I call the Gallery of the Nose. See all these portraits? What strikes you about them?”

“All the people have large noses.”

“Exactly. It must have been a bit of a status symbol in olden days. These are all supposed to be kings of Scotland, but nobody’s ever heard of some of them. Well, the artist — the same bloke painted the whole lot of them, which is a bit of a giveaway, I’d say — he gave every one of them a family resemblance in the form of a long nose. It doesn’t enhance their beauty, does it? Imagine when they have a state dinner here — the poor old queen having to explain why all her ancestors had been given that family feature, whether they really had it or not.”

“So they have great banquets here, do they?”

“Yes — the ones that are too big for the dining room. Gavin is often involved in the preparation. You’ve no idea how finicky everything is, every little thing has to be just so, and that’s over six or seven courses. Ordinarily you’d call it gluttony, wouldn’t you? But I don’t suppose anyone could enjoy their food in a situation like that. It would be all ‘Yes, ma’am,’ ‘No ma’am,’ and never a joke cracked.”

“I can imagine the atmosphere, the elegance,” said Simeon. “It must be very splendid.”

“Oh, you’ve really got the Royal bug, haven’t you? What you’d usually have at these dos is a collection of frowsty Scottish ladies in their best dresses and smelling of mothballs, and red-faced Scottish husbands smelling of Glenfidditch. And the poor old queen and duke nodding off to sleep with the boredom of it all. Come on — I’ve got a last treat for you.”

She hurried him ahead through rooms she wanted him to ignore, and which he only managed to get a passing glimpse of, until they found themselves at the bottom of a cramped stone staircase. Marge stopped. From above there was a scrambling sound, a cry, and then steps.

“BAD LUCK, GAVIN,” shrieked Marge. “NEARLY FALL, DID YOU?”

“Why do you hate your husband?” asked Simeon.

“Hate Gavin? Not at all. He hates me. I DESPISE him.”

They began carefully up the stairs, Marge talking the whole way.

“These are the rooms Mary used when she had Rizzio around.”

“Who was he?”

“Officially secretary. Really toy-boy. Do you understand ‘toy-boy’?” Under her breath but audibly she muttered, “You bloody well should.”

“That’s an Italian name,” said Simeon. “What was an Italian doing in Edinburgh in the sixteenth century?”

“Probably selling ice cream, I should think,” said Marge blithely. “That’s what half the Ities in Edinburgh do today.”

They came to a large room, rich in pictures, with extra portraits on flat screens and a burly attendant keeping guard. “Darnley,” said Marge. “And his brother.”

“Who was Darnley?”

“Mary’s husband. English. Not long married. And a real plonker — just like mine.”

“Which one is him in the picture?”

“Don’t remember. Pick the one who looks a total dead loss and that’ll be him… Now, this is where they were on the night.”

They had come to a stop at the entry to a tiny room. It was really a sort of window in the castle’s turret. There was hardly room for two, and the inevitable closeness of the people there struck Simeon most forcibly. He stood, for the first time wonderstruck.

“Imagine,” said Marge, “what the pair of them got up to in this cosy little room.”

“They couldn’t have done much,” protested Simeon, “not with courtiers waiting and listening in the bigger room — here.”

“Ah, but you forget, royalty does everything with the eyes of the world on them — just like footballers today. The skivvies see and hear them, the courtiers do, too — a snooty lot, I should think, then and now. So you couldn’t do anything if you were worried about who was looking on at what you were up to. What do you think they did — their foreplay, let’s call it. Did they alternate in licking their ice-cream cornet that David Rizzio had brought up from his horse-drawn van?”

“I think you wrong about ice cream. Not invented then. You didn’t have refrigerators then.”

“You had the Scottish climate. That could freeze anything, and keep it frozen. Well, forget about ice cream. What would you imagine they might have been eating in — when was he killed?”

“Early March,” said Simeon, who had been reading the rubrics.

“Brrr. Not ice cream, definitely. What about a nice treacle sponge? Both of them have spoons, they look into each other’s eyes, lovingly, lustfully. And when the dribble of treacle slips down Rizzio’s chin, Mary bends down and licks it off.”

They jumped at a noise behind them. Peering round one of the screens on which pictures were hung was Gavin, and Simeon had his first sight of him: big, shambling, clutching a mobile, and peering through rimless spectacles at them.

“Oh Lord, it’s my Darnley,” said Marge.

Not much of a Darnley, thought Simeon. He did not say so, but Gavin saw him looking over to the double portrait of the Darnley brothers.

Marge was not to be interrupted, though, and once again came on in full flood.

“Mary’s Darnley was followed by three or four macho noblemen, or clan chiefs, or whatever they called themselves. They no sooner got to this point than they took out their knives.”

“What did Rizzio do?”

“Clung to Mary’s skirts — and a lot of good that did him! They dragged him through this room and over to the Outer Chamber, and that’s where they killed him. You can see his blood to this day. But clutching her skirts! Doesn’t that tell you something? Lousy judge of men, Mary. Just like me, I often think.”

“Watch out!” came a cry. Marge turned. It was the burly attendant. He was running forward and pointing at Gavin. Gavin had drawn from his pocket a deadly-looking carving knife, probably procured in the dining room. The attendant ran straight at Simeon and tackled him to the floor. Then he realized with horror that Gavin was running straight past him: He had not been aiming at the foreign lover, but at his wife. The attendant grappled with the lumbering ankles but Gavin kicked him away and continued to where his wife was gazing at the little window-room with an odd smile on her face. She liked being fought over. As she began to turn towards her husband, disdain on her face, she felt the knife go through her shoulder and back. Running footsteps came from the poky staircase, tripping and stumbling, as attendants from the lower floor, alerted by the noise, were coming up to see. By the time they arrived outside the tiny love-nest Marge was lying on her back, her eyes glazing over, and the attendant had Gavin’s arms pinned behind his back, the right hand dripping blood.

It was the material for a thousand stories in the newspapers and the weekly magazines for the feeble-minded. “Palace Love Triangle,” whooped the Sun newspaper. “Royal Slaughter Gets Repeat Showing,” said the Daily Mail. “Slaughter in Queen’s Love-Nest,” said the Express. It didn’t worry them that the wrong person had got killed. Perhaps in their blundering, ignorant, sensation-seeking way they sensed that this time it was the right one.

Copyright © 2010 Robert Barnard