A Death in Diamonds

Chapter 16

‘Good Lord, Joan McGraw. Who’d you have to sleep with to get this?’

‘Auntie Eva! Stop it!’

Joan faced her grinning aunt across the art deco sitting room of the chichi flat in Dolphin Square. Her flat. It was clean and smart, with a bedroom all to herself and a downstairs lobby where she and her aunt had just passed two women in mink jackets, who had given them a friendly ‘hello’. Instead of the bus, Joan now had a brisk, pleasant walk through Westminster. She could no longer bring in babkas as peace offerings to the men in moustaches, but replaced them with sticky buns from a Pimlico bakery, which were almost as popular.

‘I thought the building was a hospital when we drew up outside,’ Auntie Eva said. ‘So grand.’

‘It was one, during the war,’ Joan agreed. ‘And the HQ of the Free French.’

‘La-di-da! Look at you!’

Eva was amused by Joan’s turn of fortune but, of the two of them, she was the one who looked the most at home here. She was a dressmaker who worked for fashionable ladies who couldn’t afford the top designers. Using the latest patterns, her suits and dresses were easily as stylish as the ones Joan saw in magazines. On her clients, it was difficult to tell them from the couture originals. It’s all about fit and fabric, she would say. Right now, in a slim-fitting H-line tweed dress and jacket, copied from Dior, she looked as well turned out as Deborah Fairdale – and not unlike her, if you gave her an expensive hairdresser and overlooked the nose.

Joan ran her hand along the edge of a plush blue sofa. The living room had a small, round dining table at the far end, next to an archway that led to a kitchen with a gas-ring stove and its own electric refrigerator.

‘Did you say it was the private secretary who put you here?’ Eva asked.

‘Yes. It’s owned by a Major Ross. An absentee landlord. Sir Hugh Masson has organised everything.’

‘A man of sense,’ her aunt pronounced with a nod. ‘You can’t look good for the Queen if you’ve traipsed halfway across London.’

‘It’s not about looking good!’ Joan protested.

‘What is it about then?’ Eva raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

‘It’s about the work. We connect. It’s about getting things right.’

‘Well, if you say so . . . Talking of which, if you ever get the chance to look at the boning in her evening gowns, can you let me know how Mr Hartnell does it? Because I’m sure he has a new technique.’

‘It’s not about her evening gowns either!’ Joan insisted with a laugh. ‘I don’t get to look inside them.’

‘More’s the pity.’ Her aunt sighed. She walked over and gave Joan a hug. ‘We’re going to miss you, you know. The flat won’t be the same without you.’

‘No. Alice can have a proper bed instead of a mattress on the floor.’

‘She never minded. She adores you.’ Eva placed a gloved hand affectionately against Joan’s cheek.

‘I love her too,’ Joan said, squeezing her aunt’s slim body tightly. ‘And you.’

Auntie Eva had the same figure as her mother, who had died when Joan was a teenager. These hugs always brought a wave of nostalgia that threatened to overwhelm her. Alice, the youngest of the three cousins whose room Joan shared, had her mother’s vivid red hair and the same dusting of freckles across her nose. She would miss all the girls, but even so, Joan deeply savoured her new-found independence. It felt like her last chance.

After nearly four decades on this earth, Joan’s life fitted into four suitcases, two of which belonged to Auntie Eva. As she unpacked their contents onto her bed so her aunt could take the empty luggage home with her, she found an unexpected package tucked into one of them. It was a brown paper parcel, neatly tied with ribbon.

‘Oh, that’s for you,’ Eva said airily. ‘I ran it up last night with some scraps I had left over. Open it later.’

After some more close-hug goodbyes, Joan went back to the package in her bedroom. She unwrapped the paper and held up the folded garment inside. It was a jade silk kimono, lined with more silk in a cherry blossom pattern. Auntie Eva had certainly not made it out of ‘scraps’: the fabric alone must have cost her a fortune. It was fit for a princess – or the sort of lady who mixed with neighbours in mink coats and reclined on plush blue sofas. Joan slipped it on over her dress and wondered what might happen to jinx this moment. Because it felt too good to last.

Chapter 17

It was now the second week in May, more than a month since the bodies in Chelsea had been found. Sir Hugh arrived at the Queen’s study to go over her diary.

‘I’ve allowed an extra fifteen minutes in your schedule this morning, ma’am. The police report you requested arrived on my desk last night. I’ve had time to go through it. If you’d like me to . . .’

‘Thank you, Hugh.’

There were one or two things in particular that the Queen wanted to know, but it would be better if she didn’t ask directly.

‘First of all, ma’am, I can confirm that it was a blonde princess that the male victim asked for. He probably meant Princess Grace of Monaco, which would explain the tiara. I hope that puts your mind at ease . . .’ he looked uncomfortable ‘. . . with regard to your family, et cetera.’

‘Not entirely,’ the Queen said. ‘But do go on.’

‘Inspector Darbishire has also made excellent progress in establishing how the murders were done.’

‘Not Chief Inspector Venables?’ the Queen interrupted. ‘I was rather expecting him to be in charge.’ She was familiar with Venables from several high-profile investigations, which always made the front page of the papers.

‘Not this time, ma’am. He was, er, otherwise occupied. But Darbishire is very thorough. And discreet.’

Sir Hugh’s eyes met hers with a look of brief intensity. She wondered if it was merely an effect of the light on his spectacles.

‘Does he need to be discreet?’ she asked.

‘Always,’ he said, without further explanation. The Queen was about to press the point, but her private secretary moved on smoothly.

‘You’ll be pleased to know the Dean of Bath has been all but ruled out, although he’s still on the suspect list.’

‘Oh good. Does he have an alibi?’

‘Far from it, ma’am. But, without going into detail, it was a crime requiring two people to, um, subdue the victims. There’s no evidence he had an accomplice, or indeed a motive. It has since been established that the house was used entirely without his knowledge for illicit assignations.’

‘Ah. I knew about that.’

‘Did you, ma’am?’ Sir Hugh was too polite to express surprise verbally, but his bushy eyebrows shot up, leaving his spectacles behind.

‘Deborah Fairdale told me.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Sir Hugh retrieved a page of notes from the file tucked under his arm. He quickly consulted them. ‘However, there remain some unanswered questions. If the murders happened when the police think they did, then the dean either just missed the killers, or slept through the whole thing. Why didn’t he notice that the flowers he had bought for his bedside the day before were missing? Or that the back door was unbolted? Or – most importantly – that the door to the second bedroom, opposite his own, had been left partially open, as the charlady found it the following week? He would have to be very unobservant indeed.’

‘Did he give a reason?’ the Queen asked. The Clement Moreton she remembered was a sharp, quick-witted man, as you had to be if you were going to beat her mother at canasta, which he had done more than once.

‘He put it down to toothache, ma’am. He was in London in the first place so he could see his dentist in Harley Street on the Monday morning. He drank a little too much the night before, he says, to dull the pain. A hangover didn’t help.’

‘I see.’ This seemed plausible. The Queen knew how painful toothache could be. Earaches too . . .

‘Anyway, Inspector Darbishire strongly suspects a link with a London gang. He’s already found out that Perez was consorting with some dubious characters. He was from Argentina, ma’am. The inspector’s in touch with Buenos Aires.’

‘You say he knows how the murders were done?’

‘Yes. As I say, it’s best if I don’t go into details, but Perez was attacked first, almost certainly, and Fonteyn killed as a witness. Perez was taken by surprise in the, um, bedroom and left where he fell. The knife was applied afterwards, in some sort of vengeful act. Or possibly as a message. All very sordid.’

‘Was there anything about a gunshot?’ she asked.

‘A gunshot?’ The eyebrows shot up again. ‘Miss Fairdale, ma’am?’

‘Actually, yes.’

Sir Hugh glanced through his notes. ‘Um . . . here we are. Two witnesses in the mews reported something of that sort, at about three in the morning. But one of them heard a motorbike roaring off at about the same time, so it was almost certainly a backfire. There’s no sign of any bullet, casings or damage that might have been caused by one.’ He glanced up from the file. ‘There are some witness statements that don’t quite make sense. That’s often the case early in an investigation, I believe . . .’

‘But they’ve had six weeks, Hugh!’

‘Five, from when the bodies were discovered. These things take time.’

The Queen tried not to sound personally invested in any way. ‘And there was nothing else in the street that night? To explain the gunshot, I mean?’ She didn’t mean that exactly, but it would do.

Sir Hugh gave her that odd look again. ‘I can’t imagine what that might be, ma’am,’ he said evenly. He held out the file. ‘You can read it for yourself if you like.’

‘Perhaps later. Leave it with me. Thank you.’

‘There was an anonymous phone call, later on that Monday morning. It came from a public call box on the King’s Road. A muffled voice, telling the operator that there had been a terrible accident in the mews. But the operator didn’t catch the full address, and the police went round and found nothing. They’ve only recently realised it might be important. In the meantime, the focus has turned to Lord Seymour, the Minister for Technology. You heard about the tiara?’

‘I did, last night. He bought it at auction. Have they spoken to him yet?’

‘Not in person. He’s been taken up with Government business, you know. He’s given a statement explaining that the diamonds were stolen from the safe at his home.’

‘Has he?’ the Queen said, raising an eyebrow.

‘Quite, ma’am. Inspector Darbishire is hoping to interview him imminently. Fortunately, he has the prime minister and half the Cabinet as his alibi. He was with them at a dinner in the House until after ten thirty on the night of the thirty-first. He went straight home, where the servants and Lady Seymour can vouch for him. As alibis go, it’s a pretty good one.’

‘That’s a relief,’ the Queen said. ‘I’d like to think my ministers are . . . not cold-blooded killers, at least.’

‘No, ma’am. Seymour’s well regarded. Mr Macmillan himself has said he’s destined for high office. This discovery of the tiara has caused an obvious strain. The police have yet to confirm that there was a robbery. And if a gang had stolen the diamonds, it’s very hard to understand why they’d let them be used out in public, so to speak. But I suppose the tar— woman in question was wearing them to a private encounter, so perhaps that explains it. If Seymour was involved, then why he’d use his own diamonds to dress her is even more beyond comprehension. But Darbishire’s pursuing every avenue.’

‘And are there any others? Avenues, I mean?’

‘The initial theory about a gangland execution is the main one for now. It’s quite possible that a fellow escort was involved. She was supposed to be with Perez that night, but she somehow managed to swap with Miss Fonteyn. Darbishire isn’t convinced by her excuses. It’s all very lurid and unfortunate, but nothing remotely related to the family.’

‘Whose?’

‘Yours. I hope that reassures you, ma’am.’

The Queen wasn’t reassured, but didn’t say so.

‘Thank you very much for updating me, Hugh.’

‘My pleasure, ma’am. If I hear anything else of interest from the CID, I’ll let you know.’

The Queen smiled, but her tone was firm. ‘A weekly report would more than suffice,’ she said, sensing that otherwise she would probably get nothing. ‘And I can read it personally, to save you the time.’

‘I assure you, ma’am, it’s no—’

‘I’m quite happy to read it myself.’

Nonplussed, Sir Hugh nodded obediently. ‘Absolutely, ma’am. I’ll see it’s done.’

Chapter 18

Darbishire took his secret warning seriously. He fundamentally refused to give in to whichever dark forces had approached him, but he was a pragmatic man. They knew who he worked with. No doubt they knew where he lived. They would know he had a wife and two precious little daughters, whom he’d lay down his life for. He wasn’t going to make any dangerous moves until he understood exactly what he was up against.

Meanwhile they didn’t want him to stop the investigation, which he had no intention of doing anyway. He had plenty to do that didn’t involve lifting up stones and seeing if the inconsistent Gregsons crawled out from under them. For now, he was busy. In fact, he was about to interview a Government minister concerning the matter of some inconveniently located diamonds.

He had put on his best suit today – of the two that he possessed – and his favourite tie. It was navy blue and slightly narrower than was traditional. He liked to think it gave him a certain air. Woolgar, needless to say, had traces of egg on his lapel which he tried to brush off with one hand when they were pointed out to him.

‘You need to get yourself in hand, Woolgar,’ Darbishire said, not unkindly. He sent his sergeant off to the lavatories to do a better job of it. Lord Seymour was a VIP. For the sake of the Met, they need to look their best.

The minister lived with his wife and servants in a large house on Smith Street, a gentle stroll from Westminster Abbey and the political cut and thrust of Whitehall. When Darbishire and Woolgar knocked at the polished front door, it was answered by a butler who took their hats and showed them upstairs to a book-lined room, lit by a large Georgian window, with the promise that the minister would be with them shortly.

‘Not bad, sir,’ Woolgar pronounced, giving the walnut bookcases and antique carriage clock an approving eye.

‘All right if you can afford it,’ Darbishire admitted.

Seymour had inherited a family business and a small property empire, which he had made bigger by investing in car parks after the war, buying up old bomb sites and exploiting them in ways no one else had thought of. All this while rising rapidly through the ranks of the Conservative Party. It was widely thought that Mr Macmillan had great plans for him.

He had avoided meeting the police for two weeks since the auction house leaked news of the tiara, citing travel abroad and urgent Government business. Darbishire expected someone lofty and dismissive, but the man who arrived two minutes later was smooth and smiling, warm in his handshake, keen to look you in the eye. He apologised profusely for the delay in seeing them and asked them to make themselves comfortable in a couple of club chairs. Ashtrays were placed beside them by the butler before he withdrew. Seymour offered them cigarettes. Darbishire refused, but he could see why this man had gone so far in politics.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you while you’re so busy, sir.’

‘You’re not disturbing me at all, Chief Inspector. Only too happy to help.’

Seymour crossed one immaculate, pinstriped leg over the other. His face bore faint traces of a suntan, his jowls a hint of good living – but he’d retained much of his youthful attractiveness. His eyes were friendly behind wire-framed spectacles and something about his high forehead suggested a keen intelligence. Or perhaps it was all those leatherbound volumes behind him. Anyway, Darbishire found himself thinking it wouldn’t be hard to vote for the man.

If he hadn’t strangled a tart to death and stabbed and garrotted her companion, obviously.

‘As you know, I’m investigating the events of the night of the thirty-first of March. You’ve been good enough to give us an account of your whereabouts that night . . .’

‘Of course, I’m only sorry that I need to explain at all. Awful business, awful.’

Darbishire ran through the minister’s alibi for the early part of the evening, which had been corroborated by fellow ministers and staff at the House of Lords.

Seymour gave a light laugh. ‘There’s many people who will lie for you in life, Chief Inspector . . .’

‘It’s just Inspector,’ Darbishire corrected him. He’d let it go the first time, but if it was an attempt at flattery or bribery, it was important the minister understood that Fred Darbishire didn’t work that way.

‘Really? Is it?’ Seymour seemed stumped for a moment. ‘I do apologise, Inspector. As I was saying, many people will lie for you, but not the barmen of the House of Lords. Nor the policeman at the gate. I have no memory of when I left, exactly, but if they say it was twenty past eleven, then you can be certain that’s when it was.’

‘Quite. However, you say you walked home. When you got here, fifteen minutes later or thereabouts, there were only John Richards, who I assume is the man who greeted us at the door, and your wife to vouch for you. And they, I might say . . .’

‘. . . Are less reliably dispassionate,’ Seymour finished for him. ‘What can I tell you? Richards has been with us for twenty years. He would certainly lie without a second thought, if he believed it was in my best interests. My wife, on the other hand, is pure as the driven snow. She wouldn’t lie if her life depended on it, to save me or to sink me, but you have only my word for that.’ He smiled again. ‘You’re very welcome to meet her and judge for yourself. She’s out this morning, but at your disposal in general terms.’

‘Thank you. I will,’ Darbishire said. For all the good it would do. He already knew what Lady Seymour would say, and whether or not it was true, she couldn’t be compelled to give evidence against her husband in court, so it wasn’t a rabbit he intended to spend much time chasing.

There was also the fact – though Darbishire didn’t raise it now – that even if Seymour had caught a cab and raced to Chelsea, for which they had no evidence, he would only have had five or ten minutes before the dean and his guests had arrived at Cresswell Place. There was no way Seymour could have conducted the bloody murders and cleaned up in time, and no evidence of him and the dean knowing each other or colluding.

On the other hand, Seymour could easily have hired someone else to do the dirty deed while he was at the House. The perfect alibi. What Darbishire needed was a motive.

‘Did you know Dino Perez?’ Darbishire asked.

‘As I told you in my statement, I did not,’ Seymour said. ‘I never met the man, or heard of him.’

‘And Gina Fonteyn?’

This time, Seymour cocked his head. He coughed. ‘I knew of her. I might as well give you full disclosure. Her popularity at Raffles was hardly a national secret.’

Bravo, Darbishire thought. Because he’d done his homework. He knew Seymour was a valued client of the agency. He appreciated all the good old conversation they offered the discerning gentleman. He would certainly have heard of Miss Fonteyn, and to deny it would be foolish. It appeared the Minister for Technology was not foolish.

‘But you never met?’

‘Never. She wasn’t my, er, type.’

‘Do you know any of the men she saw?’

Seymour raised his eyebrows and shifted in his chair.

‘Really, Inspector. I have no idea. I’m not in the habit of questioning my friends about their nocturnal escapades.’

‘But you say Miss Fonteyn’s popularity was well known.’

He looked uncomfortable. ‘It was talked about in the club, you know, in general terms. Unfortunate banter, when some men had had too much to drink.’

‘Which club?’

‘White’s.’

‘Not the Artemis?’

‘I don’t think so. I haven’t been there in a while.’

‘So, you have no idea how she came to be wearing the diamond tiara you bought last year.’

‘None at all, as I said in my statement. The tiara was taken, and I can only assume that whoever took it gave it to her to use, for reasons I can’t begin to imagine.’

‘You must admit, that seems unlikely,’ Darbishire persisted.

Seymour’s gaze was frank. He smiled slightly. ‘I do admit it, certainly. I realise what a position I’m in. But it’s the truth.’

‘Do you mind showing us the safe?’

‘With pleasure.’

Seymour was about to get up, when Darbishire raised a hand.

‘I’m sorry. One more question first.’

‘Yes?’

‘Have you ever visited Cresswell Place? You neglected to mention it in your statement.’

There was a flicker in Seymour’s eyes, and Darbishire saw him hesitate and calculate. It was the first time he’d done this. He inclined his head.

‘Yes. Once. I . . . went there with another escort from Raffles. I wanted somewhere low-key. They suggested number forty-four. That was several months ago.’

Good decision, Darbishire thought. I’d have found that out eventually. And if he was worried about any fingerprints or other evidence at the house, it was a nice way of explaining them.

But they hadn’t found his fingerprints. The char was a pretty thorough cleaner. No wonder she sounded like a Sherman tank.

‘Thank you. Oh, and one other thing. Sergeant Woolgar, the photograph?’

Woolgar pulled out a picture of the stag handle flick knife found in Perez’s eye. It was a German made gravity knife, Deedar said, designed to be used one-handed. The minister winced.

‘Do you recognise this knife?’

‘Yes, absolutely I do.’ Seymour looked up. ‘It was stuck in the victim, wasn’t it? The man, I mean. I saw it in the papers.’

‘It was. Had you seen it before?’

He looked at the picture a bit more closely and pursed his lips. ‘I can’t be sure. I’ve seen a lot of knives like this in my time. As I’m sure you have, Inspector. Sorry. Shall we go?’

‘After you, sir.’

They headed for the dining room, which was on the same floor as the library. Seymour lifted a Venetian oil painting of the Grand Canal off its hook, and indicated the safe set into the wall behind it. It was about eighteen inches by twelve, with two brass handles and a central keyhole set into the door. Darbishire had seen hundreds like it.

‘It was put in five years ago,’ Seymour explained. ‘The best that money could buy at the time. I use it for keeping bond certificates and essential paperwork and so on. My wife uses it for her pearls and the other jewels she wears on a regular basis. The tiara had been at the bank, but I’d got it out two weeks before to give to her for her fortieth birthday.’

‘When was that, may I ask?’

‘Last week. Until the auction house contacted you about it, I had no idea it wasn’t still on the top shelf, in its box, where I’d put it. As I said in my statement, I didn’t see the description of the diamonds in the gutter press – we don’t read that sort of thing. When Bonhams got in touch, I was certain they must be wrong: it couldn’t be the Zellendorf. But when I opened the door to check, all my wife’s jewellery was missing, along with the tiara and a couple of rather valuable watches I’d inherited from my father.’ He looked helplessly at them both. ‘When exactly we were burgled, we don’t know, but we’ve had workmen in and out. My wife’s been redesigning the drawing room and bedrooms. I’ve given the names of all the relevant businesses in my statement. The safe was as I’d left it, externally. I keep one key on my fob and the spare at the bank. Neither was used. Whoever got into it knew what he was doing. It was an expert job.’

Darbishire could think of half a dozen experts off the top of his head who could do it. He’d never store anything truly precious in a safe like this.

‘How much was it all worth, do you think?’ he asked.

Seymour frowned at him slightly, as if such questions were improper. People this rich didn’t like to talk about it. ‘Oh, upwards of twenty thousand pounds,’ he said. ‘It’s in the hands of the insurers. They like to question the value of everything as soon as one puts in a claim. And naturally, they’re awaiting the result of your investigation.’

‘I’m sorry to hold them up.’

Seymour caught the barb in Darbishire’s voice, but didn’t rise to the bait.

‘I’m sure you’ll take as long as you need to,’ he said evenly. ‘You have my full support.’ He breathed out a small sigh and looked towards a group of cherry trees swaying in the breeze beyond the dining room window. ‘It does me no good either, to be caught up in all this. I realise how unconvincing it looks, that we didn’t know.’

‘Correct,’ Darbishire agreed. He checked his notes. ‘You said in your statement that the last time you looked in the safe was on the twenty-fifth, six days before the murders.’

‘Yes. I needed some paperwork.’

‘Your wife didn’t need her other jewellery in the meantime?’

‘No. She had her pearls out anyway. We only put them there when we go away. She rarely uses the other pieces.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, sir – why the tiara at all?’

‘Because of her fortieth birthday, as I told you. She was going to wear it to her party.’

‘But why a tiara?’

‘Isn’t that for duchesses and the like?’ Woolgar butted in. Darbishire had been searching for a polite way of putting it.

For the first time, Seymour gave in to annoyance. He drew himself up to his full height, which was still several inches shorter than Woolgar. ‘Because we’re going to America, if you must know. We’ll be guests at a ball and dinner with the Queen, the UN Secretary-General and the Governor of New York. I’d like my wife to be appropriately dressed.’

‘I’m sure she’ll look very nice,’ Darbishire said, momentarily forgetting that the diamonds were in a different safe now, in Scotland Yard.

Seymour had not forgotten. ‘She won’t be wearing the tiara. But yes, she’ll look as lovely as she always does. She doesn’t need diamonds. She never did.’

Darbishire caught Woolgar’s eye, and though his sergeant had the sense to say nothing this time, he knew what he’s thinking. Until now, the inspector had been far from convinced by the minister’s stated devotion to the wife he regularly cheated on with prostitutes. But something in the way he talked about her suggested it wasn’t impossible that this politician might, for once, be telling the truth.

Chapter 19

Joan woke with a start.

Was that the sound of a key in the lock? She sat up in bed, pulling the blankets around her. Moonlight streamed in through a crack in the curtains, casting an eerie glow over her new bedroom. It was full of unfamiliar shapes – but as her eyes adjusted she recognised these as her own clothes, draped over the furniture. Fully alert, she listened hard. Beyond the bedroom, a narrow hallway led down to the flat’s front door. For a moment, there was silence. Then she heard a quiet footstep in the hallway.

She was not alone.

She armed herself with the heaviest thing she could think of, which was the hard-edged alabaster lamp base from beside her bed. As she reached out to unplug it from the wall, her thoughts were rapid, and mostly regrets.

She shouldn’t have taken this flat, which was obviously too good to be true. The rent was minimal, and the place was smart, with fancy furnishings, a view of the river, and posh neighbours who wore mink coats and dined at the Ritz. The only catch was that it contained a second bedroom with a locked door that she’d been told she couldn’t use.

Now, here, in the freezing middle of the night, Joan thought of the house in Cresswell Place. In the wake of the Chelsea murders, what single woman in London was mad enough to take a place with a locked spare room? Especially when, ironically, the key to her own bedroom door was missing. True, the flat had been recommended to her by Sir Hugh Masson himself. But hadn’t the Queen told her, in no uncertain terms, that she couldn’t trust him? Joan knew she’d been moving in dangerous waters, but she’d never begun to imagine that it could come to this.

The light in the hallway went on and heavy footsteps began to pad down the corridor towards her. The lamp base, unplugged, felt reassuringly chunky in her hand. Joan was only wearing her pyjamas, but there was no time to struggle into her dressing gown. To her vast relief, the footsteps turned off into the sitting room before they reached her. Was he a burglar, plain and simple?

But how would he have a front door key?

She realised how certain she had been that he was coming to kill her; she’d been ready to fight for her life. Now, she put her ear to the bedroom door and tried to hear what he was up to.

There was a grunt and a swear word. Whatever he’d come for, he wasn’t pleased. Doors opened and closed. Then the footsteps got faster and closer. He was coming back down the corridor now. The bedroom door handle rattled. Joan stood back. The door opened and she raised the lamp base above her head.

‘What in God’s name?’

His voice was guttural and he stood stock-still, silhouetted against the light from the hallway. He didn’t advance.

‘Who on earth are you? Put that down, for God’s sake.’

Joan lowered the lamp base slowly.

‘Who are you?’

All she could see was the broad-shouldered shape of a man in a mackintosh.

‘Who d’you think? I’m Ross. What are you doing in my spare room? Oh God – does McGraw have a bit on the side? Christ! Look, this isn’t going to work. Put some clothes on. I’ll meet you outside.’

He retreated to the sitting room, but Joan’s racing heart took a while to slow down. It was a few minutes before she emerged from her room, wearing slacks and a Fair Isle knit, her hair brushed, looking militant but unarmed.

Major Ross, her ‘absentee’ landlord, was waiting for her in an armchair, with a finger of whisky in a tumbler in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He had taken off his mackintosh and was dressed in a thick woollen cardigan and corduroy trousers. He looked confused, amused and very unthreatening.

Ross motioned to the sofa and Joan perched on the edge of it. He gestured to a cigarette box on the coffee table between them. She didn’t normally smoke, but she accepted both a cigarette and his offer of a light.

‘So,’ he began, leaning back. ‘You’re McGraw’s . . . ?’ He left her to finish the sentence.

He had an air of authority about him. Older than her: in his forties, probably. His hair fell into a cowlick that he brushed unconsciously from his face. His skin was freckled, like hers, and his eyes were tired. There was a certain cragginess to him.

‘I’m McGraw,’ she said simply.

He frowned. ‘But . . . he was called John. I was distinctly told so. That’s why I said he could stay.’

‘I’m Joan.’

‘Oh.’

They both realised what must have happened. Ross’s face relaxed.

‘That explains the damp stockings on the shower rail.’

Joan remembered that the bathroom was draped in her drying underwear. ‘Oh no! I didn’t realise—’

‘I got rather a surprise.’

‘Not half as big a shock as I did,’ she said crossly. ‘I was told I had the place to myself.’

‘Well, ah. I’m not up often, but I do come over occasionally. They should have explained . . . But you shouldn’t really be here. Anyway, I’m sorry. And for my language earlier. The shock, you know. Can I offer you tea?’ The gentle sound of a kettle boiling on the stove was just rising to a keen whistle. He got up to deal with it. ‘Or a wee dram?’ There was an edge of a Scottish burr to his voice.

‘I’ll take the whisky. Actually, both.’

‘Good idea.’

He dealt with their drinks and Joan settled herself in his comfortable little sofa.

‘There’s been a misunderstanding, obviously,’ she said.

‘Obviously.’

‘The Queen’s private secretary knew I needed somewhere to live. He arranged it incredibly fast. Something was bound to go wrong.’

Ross shrugged. ‘A chap got in touch at the club. Said he knew someone – I could have sworn he said John – who needed helping out. I was happy to oblige. We used to have guests often, but we’re not in town much these days. At least . . .’ He paused. ‘I am, but my wife isn’t. Dashed awkward.’

It was more than awkward. Joan couldn’t possibly stay in a flat with a married man. Dammit! She liked this place.

‘What do you do in town, Mr Ross?’ she asked, to take her mind off it.

He shrugged and lit another cigarette. ‘Oh, you know, this and that. Very boring. Civil servant.’

‘But you travel for work?’

‘No. That is, I tend to stay at my club these days. It’s more sociable. I was thinking of giving up the flat.’

Joan ignored the reference to the club. ‘What sort of civil servant?’

‘Hmm? You ask a lot of questions, don’t you? Just the ordinary kind, you know. Briefcase and bowler hat. Very dull.’

‘Yes, you said it was boring,’ she observed. ‘Where’s your office?’

‘Hmm? What is this, the inquisition? I might ask the same of you.’

‘You know where I work,’ Joan said. ‘Buckingham Palace.’ You really are very evasive, she thought. This interests me.

‘Yes, but what do you do?’ he persisted.

He was only trying to throw the spotlight back on her. She was already beginning to guess what he did. She knew other men who were evasive about their boring jobs and bowler hats.

‘I work for the Queen,’ she said. ‘Temporarily.’

‘Lucky you. How fascinating.’

When he smiled, his grizzled cheeks dimpled in a way that was undeniably attractive. His eyes were grey. Joan had always had rather a thing for men with grey eyes. Dammit again!

For an instant, the thought flashed into her mind that either Sir Hugh had engineered this precise situation . . . But that was so far-fetched. And the chances of such a scheme working out were a thousand to one. She might be on a secret mission for the monarch, but that was no reason to become paranoid.

Those grey eyes were peering closely at her. ‘I was just thinking . . . I’m sure I know you from somewhere.’

She smiled sardonically. ‘Really?’ It was the line so many pilots in the war had used.

He read her mind. ‘No, really! I’ve been trying to place you. The Admiralty. No . . . I know! Dorset, ’forty-four. Longmeadow. Hmm.’

‘I . . . Yes. Hmm.’

He’d been thinking aloud, but they both knew that the first rule of Longmeadow was that you didn’t talk about it. Even now, its existence and the identities of the people who had worked there remained top secret.

Joan wasn’t sure she remembered him, but men had come in and out all the time, and Brigadier Yelland had made her life very stressful. To have visited, Major Ross might well have been in Military Intelligence. And from the careworn look of him, he probably still was.

He smiled with just a corner of his lip.

‘A long time ago. Another life.’

‘Absolutely,’ she said, though she sensed that for him, it wasn’t.

They made small talk for a few minutes. He told her about the cottage in Hampshire where he was trying ‘make something of the garden’. She told him about Bow, and how much she had enjoyed living there, but that it wasn’t practical for work. Then she remembered what time it was and rushed off to the bathroom to denude it of stockings and handkerchiefs, which she had been drying against the bathroom tiles so they would be flat.

She looked at herself in the mirror and realised she was slightly flushed. Too much whisky, late at night. Her hair was a mess again and she put her fingers through it to arrange it, even though it was too late. Then she grinned at herself for being an idiot and went to bed.

Chapter 20

In the offices of Scotland Yard on the Victoria Embankment, Fred Darbishire looked up from his temporary desk. If he stood up a little and leaned to the left, he could see the River Thames through one of the office windows. On the opposite bank, where the Festival of Britain buildings used to be, they were building some sort of skyscraper between Waterloo Station and the Festival Hall.

He didn’t know how tall it would be exactly, but there were dark mutterings among the officers at the Yard who cared about London’s architecture. This was the city of Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Its skyline was defined by the dome of St Paul’s and a familiar scattering of church spires. Now, where the bombs had fallen heavily, buildings were starting to go up that were higher than the tallest churches. Big, concrete things that looked as if they belonged in New York. They made him nervous. Woolgar was a fan, needless to say.

It’s progress, sir, isn’t it? Houses? Offices? We need them.

Darbishire needed open sky. He was not quite forty, but he was starting to feel old.

He sat back down and focused on a different kind of progress: his own.

The reason he was here, not at his desk at the Chelsea police station in Lucan Place, was that his reports now went all the way to Her Majesty the Queen, God help him, which meant they got vetted by every goddam senior pen-pusher in between. Every single thing about them had been altered, from the paper he used, to the secretary who typed them up, to the structure of his sentences. The only thing they couldn’t change was what he had to say.

Did Her Majesty care about escort agencies and cleaning contracts? Darbishire doubted it. However, if she wanted to know the intricacies of arranging discreet meeting places in central London, she was welcome to fill her boots.

Under further questioning, the charlady at Cresswell Place had confirmed exactly what he suspected about the mews house, which was that it was one of several posh locations used for the assignations of some Raffles VIPs who didn’t want to risk being spotted in a hotel. These locations used to be kept empty, she said, but the landlords started getting greedy and looked for tenants who might want the place on a Monday-to-Friday basis. One room would always be set aside and kept pristine for Saturdays and Sundays, without the renter’s knowledge. The rent for the rest was cheap and high-quality cleaning services were thrown in. ‘The churchman seemed just the right type,’ she’d added, ‘because he’s always busy of a weekend, isn’t he?’

Darbishire judged this a particularly stupid plan, because people don’t always do what you expect them to do, do they? When asked, the receptionist at the letting agency said that tenants were supposed to call and check if they could stay over on a weekend, because it was written into their contracts that they couldn’t, and technically they weren’t paying for it. The receptionist swore blind that this wasn’t a ruse to warn the Raffles agency in advance, but obviously it was.

The dean had in fact made such a call. But the office girl at Raffles said that it wasn’t a problem, because they had nobody booked that night. Beryl White and Perez were not supposed to go there. Which raised, once again, the question of the keys.

Darbishire had another question, too. The Raffles agency and the letting agency needed to talk to each other to make this precarious arrangement work. It followed that the greedy landlords must be intimately connected with the owners or managers of the escort agency, but Darbishire hadn’t had any luck yet establishing who they were, behind the convoluted front of Liechtenstein-based companies they’d set up. He was working on it.

Chapter 21

As the days of May sped by, the deputy private secretary huddled behind his desk in the North Wing corridor and buried himself in the preparations for Denmark.

The stress of the visit was getting to Miles Urquhart for some reason. Twice, he had broken his vow of silence to shout at Joan in front of all the typists. It was hard not to look hurt, but Joan just about managed it. She was used to the secretaries not offering her any solidarity, but she was surprised when the press secretary, of all people, invited her into his office and offered her a chair.

‘I apologise for Miles. That was unpardonable. He can be a brute sometimes, but he doesn’t mean it. He’ll come round eventually, when he sees how indispensable you are.’

‘Thank you, Jeremy.’

Radnor-Milne smiled, and his thin, chiselled face looked almost attractive. ‘HM doesn’t make mistakes about people. She’s really quite brilliant that way, like her father.’ He saw Joan frowning at this new-found friendliness. ‘I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you. Up to my eyes. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t noticed how hard you’ve worked on these trips. I’m sorry you don’t get to come to Denmark with us.’

‘It’s alright. There’s a lot to do.’

‘Minding the fort and so on, like last month. Mmm.’ He nodded. ‘But I’d hate to think of you as Cinderella, busy filing all the time, with your nose covered in ash smuts from the fire . . .’

Joan grinned. ‘I don’t think Cinderella filed.’

‘She would have, if Miles had been involved. Anyway, Fiona used to come out with us for cocktails and so on, and we had a grand time. I suddenly realised that you haven’t done anything with us socially yet, have you?’

‘No,’ Joan agreed. She had been pointedly left out of any plans.

‘It’s simply not good enough,’ Jeremy said. ‘My wife and I are going out with some people a couple of nights before we head off to Copenhagen. A little dinner at the Ritz. Will you come? I’m afraid I can’t provide you with any eligible bachelors, but my brother will look after you. It’s the least you deserve.’

‘I’d love to. Oh, what should I wear?’

‘Anything you like.’ He smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t worry, we’re all very relaxed.’

Joan did worry. There was no such thing as ‘anything you like’ in London society. She spent a couple of days anxiously scouring magazines and talking it through with her aunt and some of her old friends from the Wrens. As she had suspected, a trip to the Ritz required a proper cocktail dress, which she didn’t possess, and some form of glamorous wrap.

Auntie Eva was delighted to help, but she was a perfectionist. The dress was finally delivered to Dolphin Square two hours before Joan was due to wear it. She changed into it nervously, checking her profile for gaps or bulges. As far as she could tell, it fitted as well as her aunt promised it would.

‘Bloody hell! Excuse my language.’

Hector Ross looked up in shock from his newspaper when she emerged from her bedroom.

‘Do I look all right?’

‘You know you do.’ He seemed flustered. ‘It’s just . . .’

‘What?’

‘It’s not very you.’

‘What does that mean?’ Joan asked, exasperated. If that’s all he had to say, he might as well keep his thoughts to himself. ‘There’s more to me than serge suits, you know.’

‘I can see that.’

She resented being criticised in her own flat – so to speak – when she was trying to build her own confidence. ‘Why are you here anyway?’ she asked. ‘This is the third night this week.’

‘Building work at the club,’ he muttered. ‘Not that it’s any of your business. Where are you going?’

She explained about the Ritz, and the press secretary’s invitation.

‘Did he get that dress for you?’

‘No! Of course not! My aunt made it.’

Joan did a little twirl. The finely pleated bodice of this black silk dress was engineered to fit her like a second skin. Below the waist, its skirts fell in clever layers, fluidly outlining her every move. She had new nylons, and shoes borrowed from one of the few girls in the typing pool who was still friends with her, and had left work early for a shampoo and set at the hairdresser’s. Her normally wayward hair was now glued to her head in a complicated design, held in place by a multitude of hidden pins. She hardly recognised herself.

She was missing jewellery, but Auntie Eva assured her that her bare shoulders would ‘work their own magic’. Joan hadn’t been convinced by this, but looking at Hector’s jaw, which still hadn’t fully closed, she began to wonder. Even so, he was frowning, and his voice was gruff.

‘Who will your escort be?’

She shook her head at him. ‘No one, exactly. There’s a party of us. Jeremy said his brother will look after me, not that I need it.’

‘Tony?’

‘Is that his name?’

Hector shut his jaw. Now he seemed to prickle. ‘He’s a very rich man. I’m sure he’ll look after you very well.’

‘I don’t know what money has to do with it,’ Joan shot back at him.

‘He’s married. You do know that?’

Joan didn’t. She tossed her head as if she didn’t care. She was feeling out of her depth and determined not to let it show.

‘So you know him?’ she asked.

‘Of course. That’s how I—’

The doorbell rang. Hector went to answer it while Joan ran to her room to get the black satin opera coat that Auntie Eva had made to go with the dress.

It was Tony Radnor-Milne, not Jeremy, who stood in the hallway. Joan instantly saw the likeness, but Tony was much taller, clearly the older of the two. He was clean-shaven, with the same long face and wavy hair as Jeremy, although his was flecked with grey. His fur-collared coat suggested a very expensive tailor and there was a swagger about him, as if he was usually the most powerful person in the room. Hector stood stiffly in his shadow. Tony caught sight of Joan and his face lit up.

‘Miss McGraw, I presume. My goodness, my brother certainly didn’t do you justice.’ He glanced behind him. ‘Major Ross, what fabulous company you keep.’ Then he held out his hand to her. ‘The others are waiting. Shall we go?’

Hector watched with arms folded as she swept past him. He reminded her at that moment of her father.

Chapter 22

The evening started well. Tony Radnor-Milne had ensured they had the best table in the Ritz’s dining room, surrounded by gilt and mirrors and under crystal chandeliers – much as Joan imagined the Palace of Versailles. Other diners turned to look at their party, which consisted of the two brothers, Jeremy’s sweet but rather mousy wife, Patricia, two foreign business friends of Tony’s and their glamorous female companions.

The conversation round the table was easy and entertaining. Joan noticed that the men did most of the talking. One of the glamorous companions was French and spoke little English. The other didn’t seem to have much to say – but didn’t need to, because like the Frenchwoman, she had the lips, cheeks, height and hair of a society queen or a top model. Joan said an inner prayer of thanks for Auntie Eva’s dress. She couldn’t hope to compete on the looks front, but at least her outfit was on a par with theirs.

There was something she needed to address with Tony early on, and she did so as politely as she could.

‘I’m sorry your wife couldn’t join us.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about Topsy. She’s happily at home at the Abbey.’ He lowered his voice. ‘She doesn’t enjoy company as colourful as this, shall we say.’

‘Oh.’ Joan had expected to feel sorry for poor, absent Topsy, but suddenly didn’t.

Tony’s business friends were from Hong Kong and Singapore. Both had been educated at British public schools, but their appearance attracted covert stares from among their fellow diners. Joan was sympathetic. When her father had first come to London, he had encountered signs in bed-and-breakfast windows saying, ‘No Blacks, no Irish, no Dogs’. The thought of those signs kept a little fire of fury glowing inside her.

‘Did you say the Abbey?’ she asked Tony, to take her mind off it.

He planted his fork in a buttered spear of asparagus. ‘Yes. Wroxham Abbey. Our country place. Goes back to the twelfth century but it’s only been in the family since the sixteenth. You should come and see it. Do you ride? There are some excellent hacks in the park.’

‘No, I don’t ride,’ Joan admitted.

‘Shoot?’

‘Yes. That I can do.’

‘Excellent. We must have you down for the weekend. I’m sure Topsy would love to meet you.’

Courses came and went, along with a series of different wines. Joan could at least make sense of their French descriptions, but had never encountered them before. She noticed that the glamorous companions picked at their food, but seemed at home in the general surroundings. If anything, they looked bored. To her surprise, Tony didn’t mind her own lack of familiarity with the complicated silverware. In fact, he was kind at explaining which of the vast array of knives and forks to use when. He asked who’d designed her ‘delectable’ dress, and gave her his full attention when she told him about Auntie Eva.

‘Lucky you,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have to take you out more often so we can see what else she can do.’

After the third course, his attention turned to the man sitting on Joan’s left, and the chance of trade opening up with China. Joan had come across various Government background papers on the subject in the course of her work, and was at least as well informed on the latest developments as they were, but it was clear her opinion wasn’t wanted. She caught mousy Patricia Radnor-Milne’s eye, and shared a brief moment of solidarity. Both were used to being ignored when conversation moved to ‘serious’ things.

Joan didn’t really mind. It gave her time to study the two beauties at the table. One wasn’t speaking at all, but staring at her plate as if trying to memorise it for an exam. The other was laughing a little too loudly at her date’s jokes and occasionally just about stifling a yawn. By the fifth course, Joan had worked out that she had only very recently met her partner, whose name she mispronounced. It took until the sixth course for her to realise what they were, and why they were there. Oh my God, she thought. I’m dining with courtesans.

She instinctively caught Patricia’s eye again. The other woman’s quiet resignation seemed to make sense. Joan wondered if this was something she was going to have to adjust to if she wanted to dine in high society. Did men do this on a regular basis? Did they do it so openly? Were such gorgeous women readily available? Joan had always assumed there was something grubby about a tart. Those she knew from Bow were poor and plump and ‘obvious’, as Auntie Eva would have put it. These two could easily hold their own at a royal reception, as long as they weren’t asked to speak.

Tony turned to her and said, ‘I’m so sorry, my dear, we were talking shop. Are you having a good time?’

‘It’s . . . educational,’ she said.

‘Oh Lord! I never want to be educational! Tell me a bit more about you.’

He was full of questions about her job, and what Her Majesty was like when alone with another woman. ‘Does she kick her shoes off? I’ve always pictured her that way. Does she share tips on hair and lipstick?’ Joan sensed the Queen probably did such things with her ladies-in-waiting, but certainly not with her. And she wouldn’t have talked about it anyway. She was surprised he even asked.

Leaning back in his chair, Tony was approached by a couple of other diners, keen to press his hand with promises of meetings soon. His younger brother, by contrast, attracted only brief, distant nods, despite his key palace role. Joan realised that if the Radnor-Milnes were responsible for anything going on there, Tony, not Jeremy, would be the instigator of it. She would need to find an excuse to see him again, and soon.

Dessert came, and then coffee. Both the escorts looked bored out of their minds by now. Had life been like this for the dead woman in diamonds? Joan wondered. There was a ripple round the table and she realised that Jeremy was signalling to his wife, who nodded. He stood up and so did she.

‘You must forgive us. Very busy day tomorrow, and a babysitter to get back to. Tony, don’t give Joan the third degree. She’s here to enjoy herself.’

Tony grinned.

‘She’s the soul of discretion. In such a pretty package. I tried and tried and she wouldn’t tell me a thing.’

Without warning, Joan suddenly felt the warmth and weight of his hand on her thigh. At first, she thought it was a mistake. She moved her leg, but his hand moved with it. She felt herself go rigid, unable to speak. In theory, she knew what to do – stab him with the nearest fork – but this was the Ritz. Duchesses might be watching. Surely it would be overreacting to make a scene? For a minute, she couldn’t move. Tony smiled at his brother’s retreating back, as if nothing was going on at all.

When she couldn’t bear it any more, Joan reached out and ‘accidentally’ knocked over Tony’s glass of wine, so that several waiting staff hovered around them and both his hands were occupied in the clean-up operation. Soon, he was calling for the bill and making plans.

He addressed the table. ‘The night is young. My little brother may have to scuttle off home, but we have the town to ourselves. Joan and I will be exploring the delights of the 400 Club. Will you join us?’

Joan sat rigidly beside him. He brushed his fingers lightly across the hairs of her arm. He smiled at her, and there was no threat in it, or even a question. It was as if the evening was always going to end this way.

The almost silent French girl stood up.

‘Powder room,’ she explained.

Feeling dizzy, Joan stood up to join her. They wended their way through the tables into the dimly lit lobby, where a pianist was playing to couples at small tables, and down the stairs to the ladies’ cloakroom. When they emerged from their cubicles, the escort sat at one of the mirrors designed for makeup renewal and pulled out a lipstick from a little clutch bag.

‘Ça va?’ she asked Joan in the mirror. ‘You look . . .’ She shrugged, not finding the word.

‘Pale,’ Joan said in French, taking stock of her own face. ‘Yes, I am.’

‘You speak French!’ the girl said delightedly in her own language. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Not really. I think I must go home. Tell Mr Radnor-Milne I felt unwell. Blame it on the oysters. No – don’t do that. Say something disagreed with me.’

‘Of course. If you like.’ She frowned. ‘He made a move?’

‘He did,’ Joan admitted.

‘But you expected it, no?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Joan said.

And from the look the girl gave her, she realised she was the only person at the table who had been so innocent.

The concierge put Joan into one of the taxis queuing up outside the hotel. It took less than twenty minutes for her to get home to Pimlico in the night-time traffic. Joan knew somehow that Hector Ross would be waiting up for her and used the time to shed all the hot, bitter tears she could manage.

It mattered, because she prided herself on being clever and good at reading people. It mattered, because she thought that when she entered the new worlds of the Private Office and Dolphin Square, she had become a different person. One who was taken seriously. One who mattered herself.

She had braced herself for poor treatment by the Radnor-Milnes, but for three hours, she had honestly believed that Tony saw her as a senior member of the Private Office – a girl with the world at her feet, like Fiona Matherton-Smith, in a fairy-tale dress, with a shining future ahead of her. She mopped her wet cheeks with the back of her hand. What a fool. All he saw was a cheap little Irish tart who would sleep with him for her dinner and be grateful. No need to ask.

Posh girls like Fiona weren’t exempt from bastards with a sense of entitlement, Joan knew that for a stone-cold fact. During an urgent, whispered conversation in a quiet palace corridor, the last APS had explained that one of her top-drawer boyfriends had assured her after a hunt ball that ‘it didn’t really count’ if they ‘got up close and personal’ standing up. Fiona, who had never been told the facts of life, wasn’t even sure what they had done under the voluminous skirts of her designer dress. Joan had encouraged her to talk to the family doctor. ‘It’ll be all right, won’t it?’ she’d asked, too shocked to even cry. Joan reassured her that it would, but privately thought it depended on what your definition of ‘all right’ was.

Joan had thought of herself as cynical and worldly-wise. Tony saw her as a joke. An available joke. All that talk of riding at the Abbey: of course he knew a girl like her wouldn’t ride. When he asked about her family, he’d been privately amusing himself with how the other half lived. She saw herself now as Hector must have seen her: the bare shoulders, the sheer stockings, the sophisticated hair. Did he think that of her too?

‘Cheer up, love!’ She looked up to see the taxi driver watching her in the rear-view mirror. ‘It might never ’appen.’

‘It won’t, trust me,’ she muttered.

‘Give us a smile, then. Oh, all right. ’Ave it your own way.’

They reached the river and she saw that they were only five minutes away from home.

As hot shame and fury coursed through her, she thought of something else. Had tonight’s introduction been arranged deliberately? Not just to humiliate her, but to use her to get closer to the Queen? She remembered thinking that of the two brothers, if anyone was responsible for the plot it would be Tony. Sir Hugh seemed so upright, and Miles Urquhart so childish, that if she had to guess right now which of the three men in moustaches was trying to sabotage Her Majesty, she would say it was almost certainly Jeremy, in service of his brother. There was nothing she wouldn’t put past either of them. Nothing at all.

The taxi pulled up outside Dolphin Square and she extracted a note from her evening bag to pay the driver. As she got out, the cold air hit her and she realised that shame and fury had been doing a lot of her thinking for her. She loathed Tony Radnor-Milne, loathed his brother for making the introduction, and his brother’s insipid wife for assuming the worst of her. But that didn’t mean to say they were traitors.

Only that they might be.

Chapter 23

Hector Ross was in his dressing gown, waiting for her at the open door to the sitting room.

‘I’m making cocoa,’ he said. ‘Would you like some?’

She didn’t answer, slamming the door behind her and heading for the sanctuary of her bedroom. The last thing she needed was a man fussing over her. But the bedroom walls were closing in on her and it didn’t take long for her to realise she needed distraction.

She craved something sweet, and something strong. She would never be able to sleep like this. She emerged five minutes later, head held high, clad in thick pyjamas under her kimono. There was no hot water at this time of night. She would shower in the morning, as soon as she could.

Hector was still at the stove, stirring. How long did it take to make one cup of cocoa?

‘Shall I add some for you?’ he asked.

She nodded.

‘Would you like a shot of brandy in it, perhaps? As a digestif?’

There was gentleness in his studied offhandedness. She gritted her teeth and had to wipe away her budding tears with the back of her wrist, when he wasn’t looking.

When it was ready, Hector brought two mugs to the little round dining table and added brandy from a decanter. Joan cupped her mug with both hands.

After a minute, she lifted her head. ‘How did you know?’

‘I know Tony,’ he said, simply. ‘And I’d like to think I know you a little bit. I wasn’t sure you’d get on.’

‘He seemed to think we would.’

‘Ah. Well, that’s the point.’

She jutted out her chin. ‘Why didn’t you warn me?’

Hector looked aggrieved. ‘I saw the looks you were giving me. You didn’t exactly invite my opinion. So, what happened?’

‘He invited me to a jazz club.’ Hector raised an eyebrow. ‘And he spent the meal telling me all about his ancestral home and his boys at Eton and his bloody shooting weekends.’

‘Mmm, yes,’ he said. ‘He would. He was like that at Oxford. Although back then I seem to remember that it was other people’s ancestral homes that he invited one to.’

‘Does he do this to every woman he meets?’

‘Only the ones he finds attractive.’

He tipped another generous slug of brandy into her near-empty mug, and she took a good glug.

‘It’s not Tony,’ she said, dabbing at another infuriating tear. ‘It’s just . . . getting used to the new job, really. Not that I’m not good at it – I’m very good. But . . . it’s hard to know where to fit in.’ Now she’d started talking she couldn’t stop. ‘I’m not related to half of them, like Fiona. One of the men treats me like a speck of dust, another makes no secret of how much he’d love to be rid of me, even though I do half his typing, on top of my own work. I thought the third was all right . . . But, ha!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Obviously not. I’m nice as hell to the secretaries, but they cold-shoulder me too. They were lovely before I got promoted and I’d swear I haven’t changed.’ She realised how much she was gabbling and was horrified. It was the brandy talking, and the shock. ‘This is all hush-hush, do you understand?’ she said, glaring at Hector across the table.

He shrugged and said nothing.

Joan looked down at her mug, which was inexplicably empty, reached for the decanter and poured herself some more. She waited for him to tell her off for blabbing secrets, or patronise her in some way for whining like a baby, which she had undoubtedly done, or drinking too much, which she was.

Instead, he asked, ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’

She didn’t. He offered her one of his cigarettes and she took it gratefully. It reminded her of Bletchley, standing outside the huts, looking up at the sky and praying for the citizens of Coventry and the East End, the submariners in the Atlantic, the fighter pilots heading out to France. That’s where she’d learned to smoke, not that she did it often as it made her wheeze. The taste of tobacco in her mouth brought back the camaraderie and terror, the intense pressure and a never-to-be-repeated lust for life that they had shared in the midst of it all. It was strangely uplifting.

‘Well done for getting home safely,’ Hector said quietly.

She was glad he’d changed the subject from her little rant. He seemed deeply relieved.

‘Tony was never going to harm me,’ she assured him.

But he was, and he had. Not only by what he did, but by what she didn’t do. How hard was it to stab a man with a fork? Why couldn’t she?

‘He’s a very successful man,’ Hector said. ‘If I could afford to put money in one of his companies I’d probably make a fortune. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t an outright bloody blackguard.’

Perhaps he hadn’t judged her harshly as she’d left the flat this evening, after all, Joan thought. She had the impression that, sweetly, he would have liked to have ridden in on his charger and rescued her from Tony’s evil clutches. Instead, he’d made her cocoa.

Then she thought of something else.

‘You said you knew Tony at university. Was he the person who told you I was looking for somewhere to live?’

‘Yes, that’s right. I’d mentioned at the club that I was thinking of getting rid of the flat. A few days later he rang me up and told me about Sir Hugh’s predicament, and you.’

‘Mmm.’

But he hadn’t told Hector about Joan McGraw – he’d mentioned John. And ‘John’ was somebody that Hector would be happy to share a flat with, occasionally. He might have said no to a ‘Joan’, but now that she was here . . . and given the kind of low-class girl she was . . . who knew what might ensue?

Joan was either very paranoid about Tony Radnor-Milne, or she was right.

Chapter 24

Darbishire put his empty glass down on the gingham-covered table.

‘Another one?’

The inspector definitely didn’t want a top-up of whatever gloopy green liqueur he was being offered. The first had been bad enough.

‘Yeah, thanks,’ he said. ‘That’d be nice.’

‘I thought you’d like it,’ Jimmy Broad said with a grin. ‘Got a bit of an edge. Unusual.’

Darbishire couldn’t tell if the other man was teasing him or telling it straight. Either way, it didn’t matter. One of Billy Hill’s most trusted henchmen was talking to him face to face, and right now, he’d down a pint glass of that foul liquid if it helped.

Jimmy was solicitous. ‘I ’ear you’ve been ’aving some trouble,’ he said, filling his own tumbler with water from a rustic jug. ‘With this little strangling case of yours. ’Ow can I ’elp?’

‘It’s kind of you to offer.’

‘Anytime. You only ’ave to ask.’

Jimmy sat back and smiled from across the table. The besuited man sitting beside him in the dingy Notting Hill restaurant smiled too. So did the gorilla at the door, who made sure nobody else was getting in or out.

Darbishire did not only have to ask. The men of the Billy Hill gang didn’t normally try to assist the police in any way – except by providing work for them to do. Everything about this situation was unusual, including the fact that the inspector was not tucked up in bed at this very late hour. His wife would be worrying about him. He was worried about himself.

‘It’s about Dino Perez,’ he said, knowing Jimmy already knew this part. ‘Or Nico Rodriguez, as I should call him. Known to the police in Argentina. Arms dealer. Fixer. International man of mystery, you might say.’

It had taken a while to find out Perez’s real identity. He had no known friends and family either here or in Argentina, his forged papers were designed to be confusing, and the bloating and discolouration of his face when he was found hadn’t helped at all. However, Buenos Aires eventually came up with a match, and now the information was flooding in. Rodriguez was of interest to police forces in four continents.

Jimmy nodded and said nothing.

‘Quite the globe-trotter,’ Darbishire went on. ‘Contacts in the Middle East, North Africa. The man who could get you whatever you wanted. He liked to dabble in cocaine.’

At this, Jimmy raised a hand. ‘I wouldn’t know about that.’

Darbishire took this little denial on board. ‘He had a taste for the high life, let’s say. Gambling in Monaco and Morocco. Putting a packet on the horses over here. He was seen in the company of one or two of your associates, Jimmy, before he died. So, perhaps that’s what you can help me with.’ God help me, he added, privately. These encounters always looked so smooth in the movies, but he was sweating in his shoes.

‘I’m not sure I can, entirely,’ Jimmy answered. ‘Not with what Rodriguez was up to in London, at any rate. What a man does with his leisure time is up to ’im, isn’t it? It’s a free country.’

Darbishire didn’t bother to argue. ‘Then why am I here?’

‘It’s what ’e didn’t do,’ Jimmy said.

‘OK.’

‘And what ’e didn’t do, is rattle the boss. In fact, they were friends.’

‘Your boss has been known to do a bit of damage to his friends,’ Darbishire pointed out. Billy Hill was famous for it. Sudden, vicious violence. Plentiful blood and scarring. He enjoyed it, and it was the main reason he’d been the top dog in the London underworld for ten years and counting.

Jimmy assented. ‘Ah, well, that’s the thing. You know Mister ’Ill. ’Ow ’e likes to operate.’

‘I do. He likes a knife. And one was found in Rodriguez’s eye,’ Darbishire added. Jimmy clearly knew it already and had something to tell.

‘But what kind of knife?’ Jimmy asked. ‘That’s the thing. The one in the eye was a flick knife, wasn’t it? From America, or Italy?’

‘Germany, in fact.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Mister ’Ill, as ’e will ’appily tell you, prefers the ’umble chiv. Nothing like a nice little razor blade to do the job. Slice down the face, always down, and you make your mark without doing something dangerous, like nicking an artery. You don’t want to do that, because you might kill someone, see? Billy may be up for a fight – we know ’e is – but ’e doesn’t like murder. Too many consequences. It isn’t what you might call ’is “modus operandus”.’

‘So you’re trying to tell me he didn’t kill Rodriguez, or get anyone in the gang to do it?’

Jimmy leaned back, relaxed. ‘That’s the ticket. No reason to – like I said, they was friends. Plus, if ’e did ’ave a knife like that, ’e’d know what to do with it. See what I mean? Any one of us would. Not stick it in ’is side like some sort of ’andle.’

‘How’d you know about that?’ Darbishire asked.

Jimmy smiled. ‘We’ve got friends at the Yard, same as you.’

‘I see.’

Suddenly, Jimmy leaned forward until his face was right up in Darbishire’s, and the smile was replaced with a snarl. ‘I’m not sure you do see, Inspector. Mister ’Ill’s played nice all these years, looking after ’is patch in London, keeping ’is ’ead down. And what’s ’appened? The police are tapping ’is telephone! That’s ’ardly cricket, is it, Fred? Can I call you Fred? ’E’s fed up with it. Up to the back teeth. ’Is girlfriend’s in jail, for a minor altercation. Those injuries’ll ’eal without ’ardly a mark. ’E’s thinking of moving out of town, and believe me, you won’t want what’s coming next, Fred. It’ll make us look like choirboys.’

Darbishire took a sip of green gloop and swallowed. He tried to maintain a steady tone.

‘Even so, I’d still like to know what Rodriguez was doing over here. And how he got involved with the Raffles agency.’

‘What makes you think I’d know about that?’

Darbishire decided to show his hand a little. He and his team had been very busy recently. If Jimmy realised how much they knew, perhaps he’d be rattled enough to give some more. Billy Hill obviously wanted some sort of deal, or Darbishire wouldn’t be here at all.

‘Rodriguez was a gambler,’ he pointed out. ‘He liked to spend time in a club in Tangier called the Chamberlain, overlooking the Mediterranean. That club is partly owned by a company that has an interest in the Raffles escort agency. At least one of your associates is a regular customer of Raffles, and Rodriguez also liked to visit when he was in town. You can see the connections, Jimmy.’ He raised his hands. ‘What am I supposed to think?’

Jimmy took a sip of water, cleaned the top of his glass with a napkin, and sat back with a look of amusement.

‘Looks like you’ve got it all worked out,’ he said. ‘A man likes to make a bet, and ’e’s got an eye for the ladies, ipsus factus, ’e must be in with another man wot likes a bet and likes the ladies. I see your reasoning. Very clever, Fred. Well done.’

Darbishire tried to imagine how an actor like Dick Powell would look in this scenario: sardonic, inscrutable. He’d be hiding the fact that his adversary had never looked less rattled. That Jimmy had pointed out the holes in his best argument. That maybe there was no deal.

‘We’ll find out who owns those companies.’

‘You go ahead, Fred. But just remember . . .’ Jimmy leaned in again and patted Darbishire gently on the cheek ‘. . . the skin on their little boat races was pristine, from what I ’eard. No chiv. Wrong knife. No argument with Billy that you know of – or you’d ’ave told me. And I can assure you, there wasn’t one. Never ’eard of the blonde. Billy’s only got eyes for Gypsy, and she’s black-’aired, as you know. Raven.’ He sat straight and added, ‘I like the sound of that nightclub, though. In Tangier, you said? I’ll tell Billy. ’E’s looking for somewhere new.’ He yawned and nodded to the gorilla at the door. ‘Nice chatting to you, Fred. It’s always good to clear the air. You can see yourself out.’

With a final, defiant gulp of the green gloop in his shot glass, Darbishire did.

Chapter 25

Joan made sure it was her turn to collect the red boxes from Her Majesty in the morning. The Queen looked up from the last paper, before slipping it inside.

‘Is there any news?’

‘Not exactly, ma’am,’ Joan admitted, knowing she meant her suspicions about the plot to undermine her. ‘But I’d like to suggest a name.’

‘Go ahead.’

Joan named Jeremy, the press secretary.

The Queen nodded gravely. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘To be perfectly honest, ma’am, no one in your Private Office likes me working here, but Jeremy pretends he does. Both Sir Hugh and Miles have given me good advice, whatever they think of me. Jeremy’s brother propositioned me last night.’

The Queen’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Tony Radnor-Milne did?’

‘You know him?’

‘Not well. Poor Topsy. And I’m sorry. That can’t have been pleasant.’

‘No. But I’m afraid that’s all I have. It isn’t really proof of any kind. Is it Jeremy who you had in mind, too?’ she asked.

The Queen fiddled with her pen. ‘It is. I saw him surveying the room in Paris, where I was surrounded by excited Frenchmen and women, and he looked both disdainful and slightly furious. It’s supposed to be a good thing if we’re popular. He seemed to disagree.’

‘He could have quite easily organised the disappearance of your speech,’ Joan suggested. ‘He has the senior ladies in the typing pool wrapped around his finger.’

‘He might well have, but that’s not how it was done, supposedly.’

‘Oh?’

The Queen hadn’t told Joan this part yet. ‘Sir Hugh looked into it for himself when he got back from Paris. Apparently, the instruction had come directly from the Embassy there – and it had come from Sir Hugh himself.’

‘Oh!’

‘A junior girl swore that Sir Hugh had spoken to her personally on the telephone. If someone was doing an impression, it was a good one.’

Not Urquhart, Joan thought. His impressions were terrible. But Jeremy Radnor-Milne was good.

‘And any of the three men could have slipped a message about my food preferences to the chefs at the Hôtel de Ville,’ the Queen went on. ‘Just as they could have typed that message about Ingrid Kern. Well, I’m not entirely sure Hugh or Miles has ever typed anything, but if it was part of a conspiracy, they could find someone who can.’

Joan agreed that none of these things was hard. ‘The question is, why would they want to?’

‘Quite. And until we know that, I don’t want to interfere by starting a proper investigation. Whoever he is, he’d just stop for a while. I need him to carry on so we can find him. Ideally, before he does any real damage.’

Joan nodded. ‘I’ll do whatever I can.’

At lunchtime, she was surprised by the arrival of two dozen long-stemmed pink roses, with a note saying, ‘I hope you’re not allergic to these’.

Joan was relieved that Miles Urquhart was in conference with the other men in moustaches, so she had the office to herself. She removed the note and burned it in the fireplace with a lighter. She’d recognise the handwriting again if she saw it.

What to make of it?

She had assumed Tony Radnor-Milne would instantly see through last night’s flimsy excuse, and had been worried about his reaction. She certainly hadn’t expected roses. Was this some sort of double bluff? Or was he really so self-opinionated that he assumed she would only reject him if she was genuinely physically incapacitated?

She gave the bouquet to the secretaries.

‘The smell makes me a little nauseous. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them more than me.’

‘But they’re so heavenly! You must have made an impression, you lucky thing!’ one of the younger women said, before the others stared her down for being spontaneous and friendly.

That wasn’t the end of it.

‘Ha! I hear you have a secret admirer,’ Urquhart told her on his return to his desk. ‘Tony Radnor-Milne, no less.’

‘Not so secret, then,’ Joan said. There was clearly no point denying it. ‘How did you know?’

‘Jeremy told me. Tony was quite taken with you, apparently.’

‘I hadn’t realised he was married,’ she said, watching for his reaction. Was this part of the plot? Was Urquhart in on it after all? Why on earth was he being so friendly, suddenly?

‘Oh, that! He means no harm. His wife, Lady Jessica, is quite intimidating. I’m not surprised he enjoys little distractions.’

Joan kept her seething to herself. ‘He invited me down to the Abbey,’ she explained. ‘He wants me to go shooting.’ Since they were discussing Tony, she might as well tell him everything. She didn’t want there to be any secrets, or the suggestion of them. She felt compromised enough.

‘Ah. He does that to all the pretty girls,’ Urquhart said. ‘Harmless fun, but I wouldn’t go, if I were you. Lady Jessica – Topsy, we call her – doesn’t like it. And it’s her home, after all.’

‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Joan said, unsure why he needed to stress the point.

‘I mean, her ancestral home,’ Urquhart said. ‘Tony married into money. And nobility. Topsy’s the niece of the Marquess of Middlesex. Of course, Tony’s a millionaire in his own right now, but the Abbey is hers, strictly speaking. It’s been in her family for generations.’

‘Oh. What about Tony’s family?’ Joan asked.

‘Lawyers, I think. His grandfather worked at the Old Bailey. Why?’

‘I didn’t know, that’s all.’

Urquhart grunted. ‘He likes to give the impression he’s the Lord God Almighty, but he’s terribly bourgeois. His father had to save for him to go to Eton.’

‘I see.’

Joan resisted a sudden impulse to laugh. Urquhart’s raging snobbery put him inadvertently on her side. So, the star of the Ritz was ‘bourgeois’, was he? His father had to save up for boarding school fees? The landed gentry performance was just an act? It probably didn’t make him any less dangerous, but Tony had made her feel foolish last night, and now she knew he was.

‘He’s undoubtedly clever,’ Urquhart acknowledged. ‘He got a first in PPE, went into the City and made a fortune in rubber during the war, selling essentials to the military.’

‘What, tyres?’

‘Ah, um, yes, tyres . . . if you like.’

The penny dropped. ‘Oh,’ Joan said.

‘There was a big demand for rubber in the army. It set him up for life. Now Tony has fingers in pies all over the place. He’s very good at anticipating the next big thing. He’s expanded into oil and plastics. Something to do with aviation – jet planes, I think. They need materials that can withstand high temperatures.’

‘He told you about this? You know him well?’ Joan asked.

‘Not very well, but he was trying to get me to invest in one of his new ventures. However, I prefer the land. More reliable. Give me a decent farm and some tenancies any day.’

This was a side of the DPS that Joan hadn’t anticipated. She had no idea that he was rich enough to mull over his investments. He never normally talked about money. Or indeed much with her at all, of course.

‘And there’s another thing,’ he added. ‘While we’re on the subject.’

Subject of what? Joan wondered. ‘Yes?’

‘Major Ross. Jeremy said you’re staying at his place.’

‘Did he?’ Jeremy was being very loose-lipped this morning.

‘Yes. You know about Ross, I suppose. Damn sad story. Wife ran off with the family doctor.’

‘No, I didn’t know.’

Urquhart regarded her grimly. He was clearly trying to tell her something.

‘Happened after the war. Ross was busy clearing up a lot of difficult situations in Europe. Away a lot, as he had been during the fighting, of course. His wife volunteered at the local cottage hospital. Fell for the sawbones. Wouldn’t leave Ross, wouldn’t exactly stay. Dashed awkward for all concerned.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

‘He was a bit of a hero. Perhaps you know. Various missions one doesn’t talk about. More medals than he can easily account for. Dashed unfair. Awful for the man.’

‘It sounds it.’

‘As I say, she didn’t exactly leave him in the end. Other people’s marriages – none of our business.’

‘I so agree.’

‘Good. Yes, um. Good.’

Joan watched him go back to his papers, as if they had just had a robust conversation. She couldn’t exactly tell whether he had been encouraging her to console the poor, sad war hero, or firmly warning her against going near him. She suspected the latter, which might explain Urquhart’s decision to talk to her. It was good advice. Remaining unattached was by far the safest, most sensible thing to do.

She would have to abandon the flat at some point soon. It was such a shame. She would really miss the cocoa.

Chapter 26

On the 18th of May, the Queen and her entourage left for Hull, and from there to Denmark on the Royal Yacht Britannia, in a flurry of bags and boxes, and last-minute instructions for those left behind.

For a week, Joan had the run of the North Wing corridor to herself. The palace took on a different character when the royal couple were away. The pressure to provide perfect service to the family and hospitality for guests was replaced by a more methodical work rate, as each department used the time to take stock and prepare for more busy times ahead.

From her desk, she obsessively scanned all of the newspapers and the embassy updates for the slightest sign of anything going wrong. Ingrid Kern, she was relieved to see, had stayed in London. Joan knew how tiring the itinerary was, but in all the newsreels, the Queen looked cheerful and relaxed. The Duke of Edinburgh was busy, dutiful and happy enough to follow his wife around porcelain workshops and bottling factories.

Joan viewed these visits in an entirely different light now. Before, it had always looked easy enough to sit and wave, or stand and wave, or walk around and shake a few hands and nod at a piece of machinery. But knowing as she did that every ten-minute slot was accounted for, and each half-hour included a hundred people who could be inadvertently insulted if they weren’t smiled at or asked the right question, and twenty pressmen who would be happy to capture the moment on celluloid if it happened, Joan saw each day as an endurance test.

The Queen insisted, even in private, that she loved it. ‘People are so interesting, don’t you think?’ Joan still thought it was a strange gift, bordering on madness, to enjoy being in a goldfish bowl. No wonder the Queen enjoyed solitary dog walks when she got home.

This time, the royal yacht sailed back without incident and the men in moustaches crawled into the office a day later, somewhat grey after a choppy North Sea crossing. Not all of them enjoyed travel as much as Her Majesty.

After several cups of coffee and talk of minor triumphs, Miles Urquhart was forced to admit that Joan’s assistance in setting up this visit ‘hadn’t been as bad as I feared’.

‘Did everything go to plan?’ she asked.

‘More or less.’ He digressed for several minutes about the set-up of the bottling factory, and the difficulty of declaring all the beer they were presented with at customs.

‘There was nothing embarrassing? No slip-ups?’

‘No, of course not!’ he said. ‘What do you take us for? We manage these visits with military precision. You’ll see for yourself one day. Possibly.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Well, there was one embarrassment, I suppose,’ he admitted. ‘Poor Bobo Macdonald. She came down on the second day looking red as a tomato. Her cheeks and chin were itching like billy-o, poor creature. Coming up in hives. Her Majesty sweetly told her to go and rest, but of course Bobo was having none of it. “She needs me, and I’ll be there. There’s too much to do.” She’s made of Scottish granite, that woman. Sterling individual. She slapped on some calamine and carried on as usual with the frocks and furbelows. Reminds me of my own nanny. I think they manufacture them that way north of the border.’

‘Was she ill?’ Joan asked.

‘I did wonder,’ he said, ‘but it went away after a day or two. It nearly caused an international incident because the housekeeper was convinced it was measles. She wanted us all quarantined. But Bobo seemed to think it was Her Majesty’s makeup ointments. She’d been trying it out because it “smelled funny”, if you can believe it. Obviously, she had some sort of sensitivity, or it might have been an allergy, I suppose. Jeremy suggested wearing a yashmak for as long as it lasted. Very funny. Anyway, she’s all right now.’

‘It wasn’t an allergy, was it?’ Joan asked the Queen.

They were walking in the gardens of Windsor Castle together, while five corgis – all related – snuffled near the rose bushes.

‘No, it wasn’t,’ the Queen said grimly. ‘Bobo’s face cream ran out, so I said she could use mine. She said it wasn’t the smell that worried her, so much as the fact that it didn’t have a smell. She knows Elizabeth Arden. It wasn’t quite the right colour, either – too grey – but it was a new tube and the packaging had been intact. So she smoothed some on her face and within a matter of hours, her skin erupted.’

‘Poor woman!’

‘She was quite indomitable about it. I assured her I could manage perfectly well without her until she felt better, but she was positively offended by the idea. And the housekeeper at the residence was rather mean to her, but of course one couldn’t say anything.’

‘If the packaging looked untouched, it must have been a professional job . . .’

‘I know,’ the Queen said. She glanced across at the youngest corgis. ‘Whisky! Sherry! Come back here this minute, you terrors. That’s better. Go over there, with your mother. What was I saying? Oh, yes, the packaging. It’s worrying, isn’t it?’

‘It’s a step up in their behaviour,’ Joan agreed. ‘It suggests they have technical support. They’re not entirely opportunistic.’

‘It still feels so scattergun, though.’ The Queen looked up at the castle, which loomed grey and solid in the background. She sighed. ‘I mean, face cream! Honestly! And itching powder – that’s what it must have been, some industrial version of it. It’s such a schoolboy prank, isn’t it? Like apple-pie beds and buckets on doors.’

‘Did they take the tube to have it tested?’ Joan asked.

The Queen gave her a sidelong look. ‘They couldn’t. By the time Bobo thought to look for it, half the residence knew about her skin reaction. Several servants had been in and out of our rooms, any one of whom might have spirited it away. I helped in the search personally, and there was nowhere we didn’t check . . . But there was no sign of it.’

‘Tony Radnor-Milne is interested in technology,’ Joan said. ‘He may well have contacts in the research world who could tamper with a new tube of cream and make it look untouched.’

‘Sir Hugh’s brother is a world-class chemist.’

‘Oh.’

‘Professor Masson has a whole Cambridge laboratory at his disposal. He’s an expert in insulin manufacture. I can’t believe he’d do anything so petty and juvenile. But if his brother asked him to, and said it was a joke . . .’

‘At least it was only face cream, ma’am,’ Joan said, in an effort to be encouraging. Her Majesty was looking very glum by now.

The Queen shook her head. ‘Ah, but I’m not Bobo. I’m not sure I could have carried on with a raging itch and skin that looked like Vesuvius, in front of all those people . . . It wouldn’t have been fair on them, as much as anything. It wasn’t a pretty sight.’

‘What would you have done, ma’am?’

The Queen didn’t answer straightaway. She called the corgis to her and bent down to stroke the closest. When she stood up again, she stared thoughtfully at the sky.

‘I don’t know, Joan. I really don’t know.’

Chapter 27

‘You’re not aware of anyone who wishes harm on me, are you?’ the Queen asked the prime minister at their meeting the following Wednesday.

It took place as usual in the pale blue sitting room in Buckingham Palace that she liked to use as an audience room. Hard to imagine here, among the porcelain and Canalettos, that she was worrying about something as mundane as the contents of a tube of Elizabeth Arden.

‘Goodness me, no!’ Harold Macmillan said, smiling at the outrageousness of the idea.

He was a confident politician who had settled quickly into the job. According to Sir Hugh, he had a note pinned to the door of the Cabinet Room in 10 Downing Street, saying ‘Quiet, calm deliberation / Disentangles every knot’. It was a quotation from The Gondoliers. Not only was it sensible advice, especially for the Cabinet, but anyone who could quote Gilbert and Sullivan as a mantra for running the country was a man she could do business with.

‘Not the Russians?’ she suggested.

‘Oh no, ma’am. They may bluster, but I believe even they’re quite fond of you, really. Why do you ask?’

‘A few odd things have happened recently.’

She didn’t elaborate, but he saw that she was serious. ‘I don’t think you need worry, ma’am. No friend wishes you ill, and if anything were to happen your popularity would only soar, and your enemies would suffer.’

‘My enemies?’

‘If you have any. Which, as I say, I doubt. For us as a country . . . That’s a different matter. These are choppy waters, ma’am, as you know. We need all the friends we can get – but you’re good at getting them.’

‘I wondered . . . Singapore and Ghana gaining their independence this year. Everyone had been quite charming to me in person, but behind the scenes . . . ?’

‘Behind the scenes, they have a lot to say about the British Empire, ma’am, not all of it favourable. But they’re complimentary about you personally. Were it not for your focus on friendship, things would have been much more difficult.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked. That focus had been her father’s legacy and she wanted it to be hers too. But was it working?

‘Quite sure,’ he said.

‘What about the Americans? Not the president – I know he’s an ally, and you worked with him in the war – but America is a big country.’

Macmillan gave her a warm, paternal smile and a look that suggested if he could have patted her on the hand, he would have.

‘I’m not sure what troubles you, but I might remind you that my mother was from that great country. I speak as half American when I say that they are in awe of you too.’

‘Surely not “in awe”, Prime Minister?’ He thought he was helping, but he wasn’t.

He shrugged. ‘You’ll see. And you know how much faith I have in you, ma’am. I hope for great things from this trip. Since the flight of Burgess and Maclean . . .’

‘I know all about Burgess and Maclean.’

‘The ripples of their treachery still reverberate across the pond. I need hardly remind you, we’re locked out of their atomic programme, we’ve lost the trust of the CIA . . .’

He did hardly need to remind her. She knew all of this. After the disaster of that flight to Moscow six years ago, and MI6’s inability to do anything about it, the Americans were convinced that Burgess and Maclean weren’t the only communist sympathisers at Cambridge to have been recruited by the KGB. It made her next state visit even more freighted with consequence. And she must do it without being able to trust the food she ate, the people she travelled with, or even the contents of her vanity case.

‘. . . But I have great hope for the future,’ he continued. ‘I enjoyed my time working with General Eisenhower. He was tough on us during Suez, but he did warn us, and we didn’t listen. Now we must. But we have a lot to offer the Americans. Our day is coming . . .’

‘Is it?’ she asked. ‘I’m glad to hear you say that, Prime Minister. When I travel round the country, of course I’m opening new buildings and celebrating great history, but I hear so much anxiety. From farmers to factory workers . . .They don’t understand our place in the world. They’re worried about inflation. They don’t know what’s coming next.’

Was it an internal plot against her? she wondered suddenly. If so, why focus on her foreign visits? Did they want the country to be taken over?

Macmillan smiled at her again. ‘I hear the same things in the party. They do like to worry there – it’s something of a religion. But as I like to point out, part of the problem is that we’re growing. We’re making things and selling them like never before. We like to grumble, ma’am, but I remind them we’re heading for a state of prosperity we’ve never seen before. Most people have never had it so good.’

For the first time, she smiled back.

‘Really?’

He nodded, clearly pleased with his response and its effect on her. ‘Take courage, ma’am. This is the new Elizabethan Age. Whatever warning signs you see, I wouldn’t worry.’

The Queen normally liked to follow her prime minister’s advice, but this time it would have been helpful if he had pointed out some nation or person in particular to worry about. Nevertheless, she found his words comforting, for the country at least. Ten years ago, the very dark days of the war had given way to the giddy optimism of peace. Perhaps that was around the corner again, though it was hard to imagine it.

Chapter 28

‘It strikes me, sir,’ DS Woolgar said, ‘that somebody needs to go to Monaco in person. Get people talking. Find out exactly what Rodriguez was doing there. What he was buying or selling. Who he hung around with.’

Since the breakthrough from Buenos Aires, there had been talk of little else in the Chelsea police station beyond the activities of the nefarious Rodriguez around the edge of the Mediterranean and the Arabian Sea.

‘And that would be you, Sergeant, would it?’ Darbishire asked, as straight-faced as he could manage.

‘I don’t see why not, sir,’ Woolgar told him, stoutly.

He was looking tanned and fit – fitter than usual – after a successful few days on the river. Woolgar had been absent with leave quite a bit in May, and the Metropolitan Police Athletic Club rowing eight had just come second in some sort of regatta challenge cup. They had stormed past the Australians and were pipped at the post – or ‘beaten by a canvas’, whatever that was – by the team from Harvard University. The young sergeant was very full of himself. And now he wanted to go to Monte Carlo on the investigation’s budget.

‘Speak French, do you?’ Darbishire asked.

‘I did it for my school certificate. Besides, they all speak English down there, don’t they, sir? The thing is, I know the case inside out. I could ask all the right questions.’

‘Do you picture yourself in a dinner jacket, by any chance?’ Darbishire asked. ‘With a gun in your pocket? And a large pile of chips and a wilting woman at the table? Are you by any chance James Bond?’

‘Who, sir?’

‘The spy. He gambles in French casinos. And why not go to Tangier, while you’re about it? Rodriguez went there, too.’

‘It has to be Monaco, sir. There was a man in the Harvard boat . . .’

‘Oh Christ! Not the Harvard bloody boat again.’

‘. . . And we were drinking together afterwards,’ Woolgar persisted. ‘They got very friendly after the third or fourth pint. He was talking about the Chelsea murders . . .’

Darbishire groaned. ‘They’re not talking about this in New York, are they?’

‘Boston, sir. And yes, they are. It’s in the papers because of the tart in the tiara. Diamonds always make the papers. So do—’

‘I don’t want to hear the theories of a Boston newspaper editor!’

Woolgar looked slightly hurt. ‘He’s not a newspaper editor. He’s the number eight in the crew.’

‘I don’t care if he’s the number fifty!’ Darbishire realised he was sounding touchy about Woolgar’s posh new friends, and about his own recent lack of progress, since the unexpected dead end with Billy Hill. ‘I’m sorry. Go on.’

‘His name’s O’Donnell and his dad owns a boatbuilding company,’ Woolgar explained. ‘They travel a lot. Fancy places. And his dad was saying that last summer he ran into Lord Seymour at a spa in Switzerland. He goes there every year for a health cure, sir. He met his wife there . . .’

‘And?’

‘Lord Seymour was putting it about that he’d recently won a million francs on blackjack in a casino in Monte Carlo. So, O’Donnell – the father, but the son agrees – thinks that maybe he wanted to relive his big night when he got back to London. Seymour asks for a girl who looks like Grace Kelly, Princess Grace, as she now is. He gives her the tiara; there’s no way it was stolen from that safe of his. He was the client, not Rodriguez – but he has some hold over the agency, so he gets them to tell us it was the victim who booked the girl, in the name of Perez, and they get Beryl White to lie about it too. I mean, it’s obvious she wasn’t telling the whole truth, sir.’

‘I know that, Woolgar. But you’re forgetting, Seymour didn’t have time for any of this. He didn’t leave the Houses of Parliament until after Rodriguez arrived in Cresswell Place.’

‘Ah. That’s what you’re supposed to think, sir. But we only have one witness’s word for it. Bear with me.’

Darbishire raised a sceptical eyebrow.

‘Anyway,’ Woolgar continued, ‘Seymour meets with Gina Fonteyn, and somehow Rodriguez gets in and it all goes pear-shaped. He was fuzzy on the details, but O’Donnell – the son, not the father – pointed out that Rodriguez gambled in Monte Carlo, too. That’s all over the papers now. He might have lost money to Seymour there, or won it off him, or maybe Seymour needed a favour, something dark and dirty, and they fell out, and that’s why Rodriguez followed them in Chelsea. And Seymour turned on him. He was a commando in the war, sir, so—’

‘Mmm, I see,’ Darbishire cut in. ‘And was he also a magician? Did he become invisible? Did he hypnotise the witnesses?’

‘Not exactly, sir,’ Woolgar said cheerfully, finding sarcasm no obstacle to his flow.

‘Oh?’

‘He shut them up, sir, didn’t he? That’s why you’re not allowed to try and talk to them again.’ He folded his arms and smiled. Point proven, he seemed to say. ‘But if I could go to Monaco and do some digging . . .’

‘Hang on, Sergeant.’ Darbishire raised a hand. ‘I’m not allowed to what?’

It turned out that his encounter with the mysterious man in the mackintosh was an open secret among the local CID. One of the keener officers on the case had gone to the deputy commissioner to try and get Darbishire thrown off for not pursuing the loose end with the Gregsons, and had been told ‘in strictest confidence’ ‘not to go there’. Most of those who knew about it assumed the prime minister was behind the threat, or the Cabinet Office at least. They were taking bets. Some had gone for the Billy Hill gang, but increasingly thought it wasn’t his style. Or ‘modus operandus’, as Jimmy would say.

Mr O’Donnell Junior of Harvard, Boston, USA, didn’t know about the witness suppression, but Woolgar had tacked it on of his own accord. It explained some of the details that the oarsman had left out.

‘So, your theory is,’ Darbishire summarised, tetchily, ‘that Seymour booked the girl, gave her the incriminating diamonds, got surprised by Rodriguez somehow, killed them both single-handed in self-defence, left the diamonds on her head, then escaped in full view of everyone and bribed or blackmailed whoever it took, to feed me lies about what happened, or not to talk to me at all?’

Woolgar paused to think. ‘Um, that’s about it, sir.’

‘And no one has cracked?’

‘Well, he’s got away with it so far, hasn’t he? If I could just go to . . .’

Darbishire shook his head. As a theory, it didn’t make sense, but it didn’t exactly not make sense either. You had to give the man top marks for trying.

‘No, you can’t,’ he said.

Chapter 29

Early June meant the Derby, and a couple of days visiting the lovely course on the Epsom Downs. The Queen had high hopes for Aureole, her late father’s horse, who had nearly won in ’53, but agonisingly, he came second. She still hadn’t won a classic race. However, she fancied her chances the following day in the Oaks, where she had two horses running, both in excellent form.

Philip didn’t accompany her, because while he was an excellent rider himself, he wasn’t interested in the endless display of other people’s horses. She sensed he might have felt differently if he’d grown up with stables of his own. Instead, he was chairing a meeting at Windsor about his new award scheme. She didn’t mind, because she had her mother and Margaret for company, and plenty of friends who were nearly as passionate about racing as she was – including Bill Astor from Cliveden, who had a horse running against hers.

Her mother, meanwhile, loved horses of all descriptions. The elder Elizabeth had a slight preference for jump racing over the flat, but was knowledgeable about it all. Margaret loved the opportunity to wear dresses that showed off her tiny waist, and hats that showed off her rich, dark hair. She had worried that wet weather wouldn’t allow her to wear the outfit she’d chosen, but in the end the sun beamed fiercely, and she was content. To start with, anyway, but Margaret’s moods rarely stayed steady for long.

‘If the Duke of Maidstone paws me again, I swear I’ll hit him with my handbag,’ she announced, joining her sister in the royal box as they got ready for the first race.

‘Paws you?’ the Queen asked.

‘Don’t worry. I gave him a look to shrivel him to the size of a cherry stone. He’s trying to set me up with his horrible son, who’s having affairs with at least two women I know of. All he ever talks about is how much he’s looking forward to the grouse season. What they see in him, I have no idea.’

‘Probably ten thousand acres in Kent. Where’s Mummy?’

‘Oh, I left her downstairs, talking to the Dean of Bath. Clement Moreton – d’you remember? He’s the one with the tart in the tiara.’

The Queen was horrified. ‘The man’s a suspect in a murder case!’

‘I know! That’s why she went over. According to his cousin Cecily, he’s really not doing very well. Mummy was pleased to see him out and about. Looking very dapper, I must say, with a white rosebud in his buttonhole. He didn’t seem that under the weather.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s good.’

‘Unlike the Minister for Technology. You know, the one who bought the tiara. He looks absolutely dire.’

‘Lord Seymour?’

‘Is that his name?’

‘Where was he?’

‘Chatting to Mummy and the dean. And a very attractive woman in the strangest hat. His wife, I assume. I imagine the men were sympathising with each other. It must be awful to have the whole country assuming you committed a horrific murder. Even if one of them probably did. May I borrow your race card? I’ve lost mine.’

The Queen was dumbfounded. Her mother always thought that people worried too much about newspaper pictures, and that what mattered was to be kind to the people who deserved it, but the thought of her on the cover of the Daily Mirror in conversation with not one but two suspected murderers was too much. She called her racing manager over and sent him off to the rescue as quickly as possible. Then a thought occurred to her.

‘Was my press secretary there, by any chance?’

‘Jeremy?’ Margaret asked. ‘I’ve seen him around today. He has the tallest top hat you can imagine. It’s as if he’s wearing a chimney pot.’

‘But was he with Mummy?’

‘No. His brother Tony was, earlier. He rescued me from the duke.’

‘Hmm.’

The Queen wondered whether her mother had been led into some sort of trap. Was a press photographer waiting, ready to take a compromising picture? It seemed the sort of thing the plotters might do, although, as ever, why they would bother remained a mystery.

‘Ah, Lilibet! What a lovely atmosphere out there.’ Her mother appeared at the door to the royal box, looking bright and cheerful. ‘Everyone’s so excited about the Oaks. I really think this could be your day, darling. I know all the money’s on Mulberry Harbour, but I thought Carrozza was looking marvellous in the collecting ring. Someone said you wanted me?’

‘I just wondered where you were,’ the Queen said, evenly.

‘I was talking about the Highlands with Clement Moreton and Stephen Seymour, and then your press secretary popped up and collared a man with a very large camera, and persuaded him not to take any pictures. Very understanding, I thought. The last thing those two men want is to be on the front pages again.’

‘Oh.’ The Queen felt wrong-footed. She forcefully suspected Jeremy and his brother of being behind the plot, and yet here her press secretary was, doing the job he was paid for. It was hard to read anything into it but helpfulness. ‘Why the Highlands?’ she asked.

‘Clement goes there every summer, to contemplate the world, you know. I assumed he meant some sort of religious retreat, but actually, he’s a fly fisherman, like me. So, I invited him to Balmoral.’

‘Mummy!’

‘And Stephen Seymour is thinking of buying a castle on the west coast, so I was recommending a few I know of whose owners would be thrilled with the cash.’

‘Why does he want to live in Scotland?’

Her mother looked surprised. ‘I didn’t ask. Why wouldn’t he?’

The Queen smiled at this. As a daughter of the Earl of Strathmore, growing up in Glamis Castle, home to Macbeth, her mother found Scotland perfect in every way. She couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to cut themselves off in a draughty, windswept medieval building overlooking nothing but moor and sea, and the foothills of rain-clad mountains.

‘Does Lord Seymour need to retreat from London?’ she asked.

‘Darling, I have no idea. He had a very romantic look in his eye, though. He and his wife know the Arisaig estate quite well. I think he was stationed there in the war. Lucy had a Scottish look about her today. She was wearing the most beautiful silk tartan two-piece and a clever little thistle hat that was quite the thing. Quite the best-dressed woman at the Oaks. Her husband must spend an absolute fortune on her.’

Margaret looked annoyed. ‘I was told I was the best-dressed woman at the Oaks.’

‘Well, yes, they would say that, wouldn’t they?’ her mother said, adding just in time, ‘And you look perfectly enchanting, darling.’ Then she returned to her theme. ‘Lucy really is very attractive. I can quite see why he bought it for her.’

‘What?’

‘The Zellendorf. It would have looked lovely in her hair. Lucy’s perhaps a little old for something so summery. Personally, I’d have recommended a bandeau, but taste in tiaras is very personal, isn’t it?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Margaret muttered.

‘It would have looked far better on you,’ her mother said gamely. ‘But it will be locked away now, won’t it? Or else it will be notorious and sell for a fortune, which would be dreadful. I must say, they seemed a devoted couple, if rather sad, but that’s understandable, in the circumstances. I wonder where he got his penchant for tarts and other men’s wives.’

‘Mummy!’

‘Everyone knows, Lilibet. He’s famously unfaithful. Men are so very complicated, aren’t they?’

‘I always thought they were rather simple,’ the Queen said.

‘Don’t underestimate them, darling. What would the world be without them? Oh, look, they’re lining up for the first race. Can somebody pass me my binoculars?’

Chapter 30

Carrozza won the Oaks, with a brilliant young jockey called Lester Piggott edging her over the finish line, and the rest of June rather paled by comparison, until Ascot brought more successes on the turf. July went by in a flurry of visits, from the Wirral in the north-west to Jersey in the Channel Islands, and all of them went off without a hitch.

There were times, especially when the Queen was reminded of her victories by the Racing Post, when she began to wonder whether she had imagined treachery and sabotage after all. Was the suspect face cream in Denmark just a faulty batch? Had she read too much into what happened in Paris? Until she remembered Ingrid Kern. That brief addition to Philip’s Danish schedule had been no accident. Somebody wished her, and her marriage, harm.

The start of August was marked by Philip heading south to the Isle of Wight to join Britannia again and participate in the sailing festival at Cowes. He was joined by Charles for the first time, as a special treat before he went away to school. The Queen and Anne meanwhile would travel north by train, spend a few days at Balmoral and meet up with the princes later.

The royal diaries had been full since Philip’s arrival in Portugal in February, and they were busy again from October. So the Queen was looking forward to high summer in Scotland, with islands to visit, grouse moors to walk on and rivers to fish in, and only the mizzle and midges to worry about.

But as she was preparing to leave for King’s Cross to board the royal train for the overnight journey, Sir Hugh appeared at her study door with the same sort of expression he’d had when her speech went missing in Paris. Only, this time it was worse.

‘There’s been an article about you in a magazine,’ he said.

This wasn’t at all unusual. In fact, it seemed rare for magazines to publish without including an article about her these days. The Queen frowned at him. ‘Which one?’

‘The National and English Review.’

‘Do we know it?’

‘I read it occasionally, ma’am. It’s generally quite sound. But I’m afraid this time the editor has had some sort of psychological episode. He’s written things that are . . . Well, I won’t bore you with them now, ma’am, but suffice it to say they are rude to the point of treachery, not just about you, but about the whole fabric of the court and . . .’

Pink with outrage, he struggled to finish the sentence. This was very unusual for her unflappable private secretary. The Queen was more curious than alarmed, though.

‘Does it matter? Does anyone read what’s in the National and English Review?’

‘Not normally, ma’am. But the problem is that the Daily Express has got hold of it and Lord Beaverbrook has published an article roundly defending your interests. And so now of course everyone will read it. By the time you get to Scotland, I’m afraid there will be talk of little else.’

‘Put a copy in my boxes. I’ll read it on the way up. I’m sure we’ll manage, Hugh. Who wrote it, by the way?’

‘John Grigg – Lord Altrincham – the editor. He’s a historian; an Oxford man, who should know better.’

‘I’ll read it with interest,’ the Queen promised, still amused at Sir Hugh’s pink-faced reaction.

She read it twice that evening, between Stevenage and Peterborough, and had to wait until morning, when she finally got to Balmoral, before she could commandeer a telephone to talk to Philip in Cowes. By that stage, he’d already been briefed by his private secretary. His rage reverberated down the line.

‘The treacherous bastard! He should be hung, drawn and quartered! Who is this weasel?’

The Queen agreed up to a point. The article in question was much worse than she had imagined. It contained some very personal attacks that were quite upsetting. Her style of speaking was ‘a pain in the neck’. The words ‘priggish schoolgirl’ lingered in her mind. Was she really like that? She’d always considered herself rather approachable and open-minded.

The author claimed to be on her side. She was a good person, he surmised, but surrounded herself with ‘tweedy sorts’ (no wonder Sir Hugh was apoplectic) and failed to connect with her people. The Daily Express, in coming to her defence with loyal outrage, had made a small problem infinitely worse. The trouble was, in August there was little real news to fill the front pages.

‘It’ll be all over the world by next week,’ Philip shouted. ‘It’s already in the New York Times. How dare he? Six thousand people came to wave flags for you in the Forest of Dean. Six thousand! Did they think you were priggish?’

She really wished he wouldn’t go on about that word. It smarted.

‘They seemed happy enough,’ she said.

‘Bloody Altrincham had better watch out. Mind you, he’s got a point about the men in moustaches. Tweedy sorts, was it? Ha! Spot on. You know my thoughts on Hugh and Miles. But . . . hire trade unionists and socialists to take over from them? What in damnation?’

‘I’m not sure he thinks I should really hire them.’

‘Then he makes you the butt of his joke!’ Philip’s outrage reasserted itself. ‘And he has no right to attack you, by God. None.’

She felt sorry for whichever shipmates were accompanying him that morning. However, his temper was squally, and would probably blow itself out by lunchtime. The Queen on the other hand, more quiet and reserved, was still smarting when she went to bed. The line about her losing her ‘bloom of youth’ one day lingered in a particularly sour fashion.

She didn’t only mind for herself. She didn’t entirely agree with Philip about the men in moustaches. What was she supposed to do? Trade unionists and socialists were out of the question, but should she try to replace Sir Hugh and his ilk with thrusting young ‘executives’ who had no experience of monarchy or tradition, or any of the myriad unique aspects of her job?

However, at least one of the men in moustaches was not the man she thought he was, and she had to admit that she didn’t feel safe. It wasn’t only Altrincham’s article she worried about, but whether it fitted into the larger pattern of disturbances. Was this what the saboteurs had been building up to? For now, all she could do was put a brave face on it and wait.

Chapter 31

Back in London, Darbishire sat late at the desk he had been assigned in Scotland Yard, reading over the typescript of his latest report and knowing that it would go to the palace, for reasons that had still never been fully explained.

Twice, this one had come back to him with question marks about his grammar. His assigned secretary had even been given a better typewriter, but he’d managed to get a smudge of newsprint on the second immaculately rendered page. No doubt it would come back again.

The problem for Darbishire wasn’t his use of subordinate clauses, or grubby thumbprints from ten minutes spent catching up with the Evening Standard, but the fact that his report essentially said nothing. After all his high hopes, it was an elegantly worded temporary admission of defeat. His fears about this job, given that the mighty George Venables didn’t want it, had been fully realised. And the one person in the world who seemed not to be trying to stop him was . . . Lord Stephen Seymour.

Darbishire had received another visit. He was beginning to feel like a puppet with too many strings. The same bland gentleman in a mackintosh had accosted him outside Sloane Square tube station and they had ‘gone for a walk together’ down the road to Orange Square.

‘It’s come to our attention, forgive me for saying so, that you’ve been asking some rather aggressive questions about a member of the Government,’ he’d begun.

Darbishire had pointed out that that was his job. It was then explained to him, in no uncertain terms, that Lord Seymour was not being protected, had not intimidated witnesses, but was already experiencing huge damage to his reputation and deserved not to suffer additional slurs.

The inspector couldn’t believe they would take him for such an idiot. They would say that, wouldn’t they?

The man in the mackintosh had said, ‘You’re probably thinking, we would say that, wouldn’t we? I can see exactly why you would come to that conclusion. All I can say is, it’s an interesting theory, but not the right one. I’m not suggesting Lord Seymour didn’t commit the murders; it’s your job to prove or disprove that point. Only that he didn’t speak to the Gregsons. I mean, it was rather a far-fetched scenario, wasn’t it? Haha. I’d hate you to get lost down that blind alley, Inspector. I’m sure you have better things to do.’

So now, assuming the man in the mackintosh wasn’t lying, which of course he might be, Darbishire felt a fool for listening to Woolgar’s half-baked fantasies. And if Seymour didn’t do it (and if he did, how did he get away with it?), and Billy Hill didn’t do it, who did? And who was protecting whoever it was? Darbishire was still inclined to think it was somebody in the Cabinet – or maybe MI5, for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom.

Darbishire wasn’t happy, whoever it was. Two people had been horribly murdered, and he was being deliberately hobbled in bringing the murderers to justice. That did public confidence no good, so if it was someone in the Government or MI5, they’d better be thinking about that, too. And if a gang did have a stranglehold on the privates of the high-ups in the Met, then God help them all.

At least he’d had reasonable success tracing Nico Rodriguez’s movements in the months before the murders. As well as his stints in Egypt, Oman and the watering holes of Morocco and Monaco, he had come in and out of London three times in that period, under the guise of delivering trade samples of some kind of industrial plastic. Darbishire suspected that almost certainly, he was smuggling small quantities of drugs or arms, or working out how to do it.

When in London, he stayed at the Marlborough, which wasn’t a bad hotel, even if it wasn’t quite the Dorchester. He won big on the horses and treated himself to cigars and champagne. He had visited the Raffles agency in person, at their little office just off Shepherd Market in Mayfair, to look through their books and find girls to his liking. Was he disappointed when he got Gina Fonteyn instead of Beryl White? If so, he overreacted a bit, didn’t he? And that still didn’t explain what happened to him.

Darbishire had interviewed Miss White once more since their last encounter – or rather, got DS Willis to do it, since he realised he personally had put the wind up her too much when he brought her in, and Woolgar seemed to scare the bejesus out of her with his mere presence. But Willis didn’t come up trumps either. Gina Fonteyn’s fellow tart either really did know nothing about the reasons for luring Rodriguez to Cresswell Place that night, or she was too terrified of the consequences of telling. Willis was known for getting results out of these women, so if he couldn’t do it, no one could.

Darbishire’s reports had neglected to include his clandestine conversation with Jimmy Broad of the Billy Hill gang. As with the man in the mackintosh, Darbishire was hardly going to take the word of a violent, hardened criminal like Jimmy effectively saying, ‘my boss didn’t do it’. But the trouble was that Jimmy’s argument was, if not compelling, then at least plausible. The killers of Cresswell Place might have got away with it so far, but those murders were messy. They had the police crawling all over the place and, as Jimmy said, that wasn’t Billy’s style. He liked to keep them at arm’s length if he could.

Darbishire had continued to investigate him anyway, and this was in this report. But in the updates he was forced to admit that there was no suggestion among the gang’s known fences that they had been asked to offload the contents of Lord Seymour’s safe, where the stolen diamond tiara was supposed to have been residing. No hint of a need for revenge against Rodriguez – a deal gone wrong, money missing, goods not delivered. And they still hadn’t made any progress on those damned companies that owned the escort and letting agencies and the nightclub in Tangier where Rodriguez liked to gamble. Whoever owned them had excellent lawyers and accountants. Darbishire tipped his hat to them.

The typescript in his hands stressed that the investigation was still highly active. He had men out everywhere, carrying out interviews in their thousands. Privately, though, he was stuck.

And so, his report was full of travel itineraries and casino anecdotes and speculation about Lord Seymour’s holiday haunts and the contents of Rodriguez’s luggage. The text was correctly spelled, contained several subtle but telling instances of the subjunctive and was beautifully typed on the latest Corona. The next draft would be free of thumbprints by tomorrow afternoon. But it was also free of real progress.

In practical terms, Darbishire was no closer to discovering who placed the tiara on Gina Fonteyn’s pretty head, or how two men, at least, came into the house unnoticed – or why they would want to – than he had been in April when he started. Her Majesty might admire his grammar, but she wasn’t going to admire that.

Chapter 32

For several days, they didn’t openly talk about Lord Altrincham’s article.

The royal family were reunited on Britannia for a gentle cruise of the Western Isles. It was the one time of the year when they were truly alone (apart from two hundred very diplomatic sailors, who left them to it) and the Queen could just be Lilibet.

Philip was keen to pick up the outrage where he had left off, but she said, just once, ‘Not now, if you don’t mind. We’re on holiday,’ and he talked instead, with equal passion, about the new yacht race he had just launched in Cowes.

The scenery was mesmerically beautiful – purple islands on the horizon and silver sand beaches for family picnics. Charles and Anne competed to spot seals and basking sharks, but the Queen trumped them both when she caught a playful pod of dolphins in her binoculars. She was reminded of her mother’s comments at the races: the west coast of Scotland was very close to heaven. She knew various Englishmen and Canadians who’d fallen in love with Arisaig and Mallaig. It wasn’t so very difficult to imagine someone wanting to retire here after all.

Meanwhile, the members of the royal household muttered the name of the National and English Review in low, indignant voices. Everyone who’d travelled to Scotland consulted friends and developed their own thoughts, while back in London, Miles Urquhart visited the editors of all the major newspapers to assure them that the palace was both taking the article seriously, and not bothered by it at all.

The Queen waited until she got back to Balmoral, after a soul-restoring week at sea. The children were delighted to be reunited with their favourite cows and ponies. Philip went walking in the hills to view the work done on the estate since last year. She spent one day riding by the river and standing under the stars at midnight, tracing the constellations in the sky, the way her father had taught her. But she couldn’t put it off any longer. She called a meeting in her study with Sir Hugh, Jeremy Radnor-Milne and Joan. It was time to decide what to do.

‘What’s the verdict, Hugh?’ she asked.

‘Mixed, ma’am,’ he told her. ‘There are columnists in Australia who think Altrincham should be sent to the Tower, and hacks in Canada who say he has a point. Down in London, as you may have seen in the papers, the editors are united against him. I pity the man if he dares show his face on the streets right now. They’re enjoying this little opportunity to rally the nation. On the whole, the public is on your side. But not mine, I fear. I’m a “tweedy courtier” who makes you sound “prissy” against your better nature.’

‘It’s very easy to criticise the people who work hard in the background,’ the Queen said, sympathetically.

‘We’re only here to serve you, ma’am,’ her press secretary interjected. His upper lip wiggled with affronted loyalty. ‘We’re men of steel, we can take it.’

‘Ah, but it’s fair to say that my Scottish wardrobe is tweedier than yours,’ the Queen pointed out. ‘And I approve the speeches. Surely I’m responsible for what I say too?’

‘Mmm. In a way, ma’am, but on the other hand . . . I think what one should properly consider . . .’

Radnor-Milne was caught between the disloyalty of agreeing that she should share the blame, and the rudeness of suggesting she was their puppet. He couldn’t find a way around it.

‘What do you think, Joan?’ the Queen asked, while he fumbled for a reply.

‘I don’t always trust the papers,’ Joan said, as the private and press secretaries turned in alarm at the sound of ‘the typist’ expressing an opinion. ‘I think the public reaction’s a bit more complicated than that.’

‘Oh, and what might that be?’ Sir Hugh asked, sceptically. ‘The man on the Clapham Omnibus – your father, for example – what does he think?’

Joan was not impressed that the private secretary seemed to think of her father as a spokesman for the working classes. And anyway, his opinion wouldn’t help.

‘He’s a little bit in love with you, ma’am,’ she admitted. ‘In his eyes, you can do no wrong. But my aunt . . .’

‘Your aunt!’ Radnor-Milne said, with a curl of his lip. ‘I really don’t think we all need to know what Joan’s aunt in Bow thinks about Her Majesty.’

‘No, I very much want to know,’ the Queen said with a frown.

Joan wasn’t sure Auntie Eva would want to be a spokeswoman for the working classes either, but she did have strong opinions, which she had been happy to share in a letter that Joan had received just yesterday.

‘She agreed that the article was incredibly rude, but it made her wistful.’

Radnor-Milne was dismissive. ‘Wistful, I tell you!’

‘In what way?’ the Queen asked.

‘She said you’re a working woman, and a mother,’ Joan said. ‘She works, and she’s got three children herself. But she doesn’t feel the same connection with you. Not like she did when . . .’ Joan hesitated.

‘When what?’

‘When you were a young bride, ma’am.’

‘One can’t be a young bride forever,’ the Queen muttered.

‘Nobody could age more gracefully than . . .’

‘Oh, do be quiet, Jeremy.’

Joan carried on. ‘She said everyone was very low last winter, with fuel rationing and everything so expensive, and a new prime minister . . . but your speech was all about the Commonwealth. Which was all well and good, but . . .’

‘It wasn’t about home,’ the Queen said thoughtfully.

‘Not really. She wants peace between nations, obviously but . . .’

‘I see,’ the Queen said. I was missing my husband, who was far away in the South Atlantic, and I ignored what was happening at home because . . .

She wasn’t sure exactly why she’d ignored what was happening at home. But she knew she had intended to inspire women such as Joan’s aunt in Bow, and if that hadn’t happened, she should do something about it.

From then, the conversation took an interesting turn. They all contemplated the possibility of presenting her as someone of flesh and blood, like her subjects, thinking and feeling with them – which she did – and not simply trying to pat them on the head with pleasant generalities and noble aspirations. The press secretary thought it was a dreadful idea: her noble aspirations were what made her so . . . (‘Not now, Jeremy’). Sir Hugh sensed the new direction had possibilities, but had no practical solutions to suggest, beyond perhaps lending her name to a new cake.

‘What about the “Elizabeth sponge”, ma’am? A variation on the Victoria variety, but with a different jam, perhaps? We could hold a competition. It would highlight your interest in the domestic sphere. The curried chicken recipe at your coronation was a great success.’

The Queen bit her lip. Thinking back to the article, she had a vision of Margaret, aged eleven, standing hands on hips, yelling, ‘You’re such a prig, Lilibet.’ At the time, she’d lifted her chin and walked off with great dignity. But she had been a bit of a prig, looking back. Perhaps her sister wasn’t the only one to notice.

‘I’m not sure a cake is the answer, Hugh.’

After their meeting, she asked Joan to stay behind.

‘I assume I’m right. Your aunt wouldn’t be appeased by cake?’

‘I think she’d be pretty insulted, ma’am. She can make her own cakes.’

‘Mmm.’

‘Although lots of her friends would be delighted.’

The Queen turned to the bigger question. ‘What did you think about this article? Could it be part of the campaign against me?’

‘I’ve been wondering about it, of course,’ Joan said. ‘It seemed so obvious to start with. I assumed it was the start of something more overt. But, when I got my aunt’s letter yesterday, I started to think . . .’

‘That in fact he’s being helpful?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Or trying to be. The article itself was very polite. It wasn’t a criticism of you, but more what my aunt said: that the monarchy needs to be less distant.’

Flattery shouldn’t always be laid on with a trowel, the Queen thought to herself. Sometimes, hard truths were what one needed.

‘So you don’t think Altrincham’s involved? I must say, neither do I.’

‘More the opposite, actually,’ Joan agreed.

‘And what about Sir Hugh? You saw him just now.’

‘He was trying, ma’am. Keen to do the right thing. He has been all week. I’m not convinced the answer’s a new cake, but . . .’

‘He seems to be acting in my best interests, as well as he can. And then there’s Jeremy . . .’

Joan nodded. ‘He wants you to do nothing, ma’am. And so does Miles Urquhart, by the way.’

‘When it seems that “nothing” might be a dangerous course of action. But it’s hard to tell excessive loyalty from a hidden wish to do harm.’

‘I’ll keep my eyes open,’ Joan promised. ‘If Sir Hugh is part of the plot it will be very hard to prove, but if it’s either of the others I’m sure I’ll get proof soon enough.’

‘I admire your confidence,’ the Queen said. ‘The prime minister has made it painfully clear how important my visit to America is. If they follow the pattern, they’ll do their damnedest to cause trouble in October. It only gives us a few weeks to stop them.’ She sighed. ‘And we still have to work out why.’

‘We will, ma’am,’ Joan assured her. ‘Thank goodness for their incompetence.’

The Queen pursed her lips. ‘But the face cream was too close for comfort. I can’t always rely on Bobo to save me. I hope you find what you need.’

Chapter 33

Taking advantage of a quiet afternoon, the Queen joined Philip on a ride into the hills. It was lovely to be out among the purple heather and rain wasn’t threatened for several hours.

‘What’s happening with Altrincham? Is he in the Tower yet?’ he asked.

‘Actually, we’ve been thinking quite a lot about everything he wrote,’ she said. ‘Joan’s going to have a quiet word.’

‘A warning?’

‘No. A thank you.’

‘A thank you? For all that rot about you?’

‘It wasn’t all rot,’ she admitted. ‘Apparently some members of the public agree.’ She didn’t mention Joan’s aunt. Sir Hugh had taken soundings and discovered, to his disappointment, that she wasn’t alone. ‘It’s lovely that so many people have leaped to my defence of course, but . . . one does have to learn. And change. A little.’

‘Oh?’

Philip was thoughtful for quite a while. They rode on in companionable silence. Below them, the River Dee glistened in a patch of sunlight. An eagle soared lazily overhead. There was nowhere she would rather be. Nobody she would rather be beside than this man, who was eager to help and already thinking of solutions, she could feel it. His brain was never at rest. Part of Philip’s rudeness – she knew he could be rude, even to her sometimes, though he fiercely berated anyone else who was – came from the fact that he was often two steps ahead of whoever he was talking to. He was a man who lived in the future, while she clung, a little too tightly sometimes, to the past.

‘Look!’

She pointed at the sky. The eagle had been joined by another. They swirled in graceful, complicated patterns. The couple rested in their saddles and watched.

Eventually, the birds flew out of sight behind the hilltops.

‘You’re right, Lilibet,’ Philip said firmly.

She had forgotten what they were talking about.

‘Oh? Good.’

‘An opportunity for change. This has come at the perfect time. Altrincham mentioned television. We should use it.’

Oh, gosh. Live television. Nothing more frightening. Her husband would pick on that. ‘He said you were very good on it,’ the Queen said tartly.

‘Did he? Well . . . You were a fuzzy figure during the coronation. But you’ve got your Christmas message coming up.’

‘Don’t remind me.’

‘You could practise when we’re in Canada. You’ve got that thing in front of their cameras too.’

‘I know! In French and English!’ To several million people. She was terrified at the thought.

Philip carried on. ‘There you are. It won’t be in French at Christmas. It’s the perfect opportunity. The technology’s come on in leaps and bounds since ’fifty-three. It’s much sharper now.’

‘Is that a good thing?’

‘Of course it is. You know how mad they go for you whenever they see you in the flesh. You could show off your new speaking prowess.’

‘If I have any by then.’

‘You will.’

‘I’m hardly Robin Day,’ she protested.

‘It’s not an interview – just a speech. But a decent speech – not one of those tweedy ones of Hugh’s. Something modern, for the modern man. And his modern wife,’ he added.

So, Philip did agree with Altrincham after all.

‘But if Hugh can’t help me write it, who can?’

‘I can,’ he offered, with a broad smile, before turning his horse to lead them both back towards Balmoral.

‘Yes, of course you can,’ she called after him quickly. ‘But . . . um, I’d need a proper professional, don’t you think?’

He turned round in the saddle. ‘What about if we get Daphne in?’

‘Daphne?’

‘You know Daphne. We’d have to get her up from Menabilly. But I’m sure she’d love it here.’

Daphne? It was certainly a thought. The Queen hadn’t considered working with a woman on something so important. But after all, why not?

Daphne was the wife of Philip’s much-loved head of household, General Sir Frederick Arthur Montague Browning – ‘Boy’ to friends and family – who was a hero of the First World War. In the second, he had helped found the First Airborne Division and led his men through the horrors at Arnhem in ’forty-four. He was sociable, organised, military to his core . . . perhaps the last person one would expect to be married to a sensitive novelist like Daphne. Nevertheless, they made an entertaining couple, both in London, where Boy worked with Philip at the palace, and in Cornwall, where Daphne had her domain.

‘We owe her the hospitality,’ Philip said. ‘We had such a day sailing with them on the Helford, do you remember? You almost fell in, but Daphne rescued you just in time.’

‘I was perfectly safe. Just surprised when you tacked too hard.’

‘I never tack too hard. Anyway, she’s a bloody good writer. Not my sort of thing, but the general public seem to approve. She’s probably deathly bored down in Cornwall. She’d appreciate the company, and do a damned good job.’

She probably would, the Queen agreed. Daphne was sharp, observant, quick-witted – another doer. She would certainly understand the problem, and be honest about what it would take to fix it.

‘Yes, all right. Let’s ask her.’

One had to be brave. If one didn’t take on difficult challenges, and overcome them, how could one possibly ask one’s people to do the same?

The Queen put to one side the rumours she had heard that Daphne was the woman Philip had gone to before proposing. His love was never in doubt, but nobody could deny the sacrifices it would take for a proud, successful young naval officer to marry a future sovereign and play second fiddle to her for the rest of his life. If he had spoken to Daphne at Menabilly, she had presumably advised him to go ahead with the marriage, because he had committed himself ardently and fully, as had Elizabeth herself. Doubts didn’t matter, as long as you stuck to your decision. Marriage was a daily act of faith, she realised.

Chapter 34

Balmoral was built for entertaining, and quickly filled with family and friends. The fifteenth of August was Princess Anne’s seventh birthday and one of those glorious, sunny days that the Scottish Highlands do better than anywhere on earth. They marked the day with a picnic in Balmoral’s grounds organised by Philip, and games organised by the Queen Mother, who also participated with great gusto.

She was full of tales about her recent visit to Africa, representing her daughter in Rhodesia and Nyasaland. The Queen had been deeply worried about this trip, given what had happened on her own. She had implored her mother’s officials to take the greatest care of her. And they had done. Nothing had gone wrong.

‘Everyone was absolutely delightful,’ her mother insisted gaily. People usually were, in her company. It was hard not to be, when she was obviously having fun herself.

Had a sabotage plan been tried, and failed? Was it luck that spared the older Elizabeth, or was it only the Queen and Philip who were at threat? The Queen didn’t know.

She was distracted watching her children race around the grounds on a treasure hunt. They were giddy on attention and chocolate cake. Philip tried to calm them down a bit, but they didn’t listen. He came to stand beside her, laughing.

‘We’ll pay for this tomorrow. They’ll be impossible to get to bed, and then irritable in the morning. Charles especially. Anne’s indestructible. Look at her!’

This reminded the Queen of something. It had been nagging at her for a long time, and the latest report from Inspector Darbishire had made it worse. She took advantage of her husband’s good humour.

‘That night in March,’ she said. ‘When you came home late . . .’

‘What night?’ He turned to her sharply.

‘You know the one.’

‘No idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I think you do. I’d find it very difficult to explain . . .’

His jaw was clenching. ‘What’s that got to with anything? Has anyone asked you?’

‘Well, no, but—’

‘A man’s entitled to enter his own home whenever it suits him. And I wasn’t late. It might have been a shade after midnight. If anyone asks you, send ’em to me. Hey! Charles! Wait for your sister, you little monster!’

He stalked off, leaving the Queen standing.

She bit the inside of her lip, hard, and smiled gamely for her mother when she turned to see if anything was wrong.

That night, lying awake in bed, the Queen felt very alone.

She worried for her family. The thing was . . . The Queen normally tried not to follow dark thoughts to their conclusion, because honestly how could one keep going if one did? But, the thing was, if somebody was trying to sabotage her and Philip, if they didn’t want her as queen for whatever reason they might have, then where would it end?

If they somehow got rid of her, then what about Charles, what about Anne? What about Margaret, if her own little family was gone? It was awful to contemplate, but the Queen regularly had to review the secret official plans for just such contingencies. Royal families had been wiped out before. Her cousins in Russia had been obliterated forty years ago; other thrones had been lost this century in Germany, Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania, Italy; Philip’s own family was sent into exile from Greece when he was a baby. She pictured him, a refugee on a boat, tucked up in a simple crate of oranges, reliant on the kindness of strangers. The dangers were real and recent.

She didn’t just have herself to think of. She worried about Charles, who was a sensitive child, already becoming aware of the duties that awaited him and the sacrifices he’d be asked to make. Brave little Anne did seem indestructible, as Philip said, but even she had her vulnerabilities. Which brought one back to Inspector Darbishire’s report.

The Queen propped herself against her pillows, contemplating her precious daughter. Back in the spring, Anne had suddenly come down with a terrible earache, an awful thing that she had probably picked up in the palace swimming pool. It had floored her with pain. Anne never cried usually, unless something happened to one of the animals, but that evening there had been floods of tears, and ‘Make it stop, Mummy!’ after bath time, which was heartrending.

The Queen had spent an extra half-hour with her, singing and reading from the Golden Treasury of Verse, before leaving her in the capable hands of Nanny. But afterwards, she had heard tears wafting downstairs from the direction of the nursery, and it had been impossible to sleep that night, too.

It was the last day of March, she remembered: the Sunday before she drove to Broadlands, where Philip would join her later, and from where they would ultimately leave together for Paris.

On that Sunday night, she had watched the clock tick down the hours, thinking of poor Anne’s misery, until she had given up even trying to nod off again. She had picked up her Bible to read some verses from Psalms and the Song of Solomon, which she usually found soothing.

When she next looked up from the text, it was four thirty in the morning. Something had disturbed her: a noise in the passage outside her bedroom. She had listened keenly, wondering if Anne needed her, but in fact it was Philip, coming in. She had heard him muttering something to the footman at his bedroom door, down the corridor from hers. Then, finally, she had slept.

The next day she was extremely busy, and in the evening everyone had been distracted by a Panorama programme on the BBC about the spaghetti harvest in Italy. Apparently, the pasta grew on trees. Several people in the palace believed it implicitly – it was the BBC, after all – until it was announced to be an elaborate April’s fool joke. Philip didn’t interrupt the lively conversation afterwards to mention where he’d been the night before until almost dawn, and she didn’t ask him: one didn’t want to be a nag.

She had honestly forgotten about it, until the date of the thirty-first of March was mentioned in Paris, in the context of the Chelsea murders. After the brief, unexpected jerk of his hand with the delicate cufflink, Philip had smoothly used her as his alibi for the night. I was in tucked up safe in bed by eleven. I only have my security detail and Her Majesty to plead my case. His security detail were famously discreet. And who would question a queen?

But the footmen in the corridor knew better. And so must the guard at the palace gate that night, and the three or four other servants he would have encountered on his way in. One could rely on loyalty and discretion up to a point. It was dangerous to rely on it forever.

The mention of Cresswell Place had also clearly meant something to him. The Queen had half expected to see something in the police reports that might explain it, which was really why she’d asked for them. But there was nothing. What were they not telling her? The inspector had noted in the first report that the witnesses’ evidence didn’t entirely make sense, but he hadn’t followed up on it in any subsequent update. Why?

Their little family felt assailed from outside and within. The Queen had shared this with no one, of course, because even her darling mother couldn’t entirely be relied on to keep an absolute secret. She had hoped Darbishire would solve the case for her, but his latest report was thin, containing only minor updates about the male victim.

Rodriguez, as she now knew him, gambled at the Chamberlain in Tangier, which was interesting because it was a club favoured by the Duke of Maidstone, who had told her about the specialities of the girls at the Raffles agency. There was something about the names of the club and the agency that sparked a hint of a connection at the back of the Queen’s brain. But she couldn’t think of men more different than Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, a wealthy collector who worked for the East India Company, or even A.J. Raffles, the fictional and rather wonderful gentleman thief, and Neville Chamberlain, the unfortunate former prime minister.

Meanwhile, the report didn’t say anything about unusual visitors to Cresswell Place, or the gunshot – which the police seemed to have dismissed as a motorbike backfiring – or any of the aspects of the case she was most worried about.

She sat up late, in silence, thinking about it all, and the following morning, to Philip’s surprise, it was she, not the children, who was irritable.

Chapter 35

Joan returned to England after three weeks north of the border. Sir Hugh – who took his only holiday at Christmas – would remain at Balmoral for the full summer break, apart from occasional weekends when he stayed with friends who owned nearby estates. The other members of the Private Office took it in turns to be by the Queen’s side, alternating it with rare time with their families.

Relieved to have some freedom back again, Joan spent a happy few days with her father in Cambridge, racing him each morning to complete The Times crossword and punting to Grantchester with some of the graduate students, where they settled on the banks of the Cam with a bottle of squash and a box of buns from Fitzbillies on Trumpington Street.

She loved the timeless certainty of the old stone colleges. Often, first thing in the morning, before most people were about, it was possible to imagine she was living in the sixteenth century. In the evenings it wasn’t much different, the college fellows insisted on inviting her into the candlelit Senior Common Room for sherry, so they could try unsuccessfully to extract details about her new job.

Arriving in Buckingham Palace’s North Corridor on her first day back, she heard the sound of laughter coming from the secretaries’ shared office. It was Dilys Entwistle’s birthday and one of the others had brought in a cake. Joan noticed how they lowered the noise and looked guarded the moment she walked in.

‘Would you mind getting the press secretary, Miss McGraw?’ Dilys asked politely. ‘He never turns down a slice of Victoria sponge.’

Jeremy Radnor-Milne had come down from Scotland with her, when he had spent the long journey raging against Lord Altrincham and painting Her Majesty, like Mary Poppins, as practically perfect in every way. He thought any changes to her proposed speeches praising the Commonwealth were ‘doomed to failure’, but was grudgingly supportive of Sir Hugh’s idea of an ‘Elizabeth sponge’ competition, as long as it was done in such a way that it wasn’t disrespectful to her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.

Joan knocked on his office door and opened it in one smooth movement – a manoeuvre she had perfected over the last few months, hoping to catch him in the act of doing something underhand. He hated her for it, but was too polite to say so. She was happy to take advantage of his good manners.

‘Dilys is cutting her cake,’ she explained. ‘Why she’s doing it at this time in the morning, I don’t know, but she wants to know if you’d like a slice.’

Jeremy looked up from his desk with a rigid smile.

‘Oh, is she? How nice. I remember signing a card last week. She’s turning forty-five, I think . . . not that one should ever ask a woman her age. I suppose she’ll be retiring soon. I’ll meet you outside.’

He stood up without taking his eyes off Joan, made to close the file in front of him and changed his mind, leaving it open. She noticed how talkative he was being. He normally didn’t have much to say about the secretaries.

The rapid speech and the eye contact, the fixed expression . . . They were all signs Joan had seen before, during her work with the captured German officers. When somebody didn’t want you to know something, they often overcompensated. The more a prisoner smiled at her and held her eye, the more he fidgeted, the more she probed with her questions.

This time, Jeremy was clearly anxious for her not to look at his desk. He’d resisted looking at it himself, even when it would have been natural to.

At last – the door-opening ploy had finally worked. Joan just needed to know what she wasn’t supposed to see.

‘Oh my God! Was that a rat?’ she shrieked, staring at the wall behind him and pointing at the skirting under the window with a trembling finger.

Jeremy swivelled to look ‘Where?’

‘Gone behind the bookcase. It was enormous!’

‘I’m sure it’s a mouse, Joan. You must be used to them by now. Surely they had them in Bow?’

‘They did, but that was a monster!’

‘I didn’t see anything,’ he muttered, turning back to his desk. ‘And I haven’t heard scrabbling recently. You have a vivid imagination. Now, shall we go and say happy birthday? Only a small slice, I think. I need to watch my waistline.’

He accompanied her out of his room, pushing her gently into the corridor by the small of her back, locking the door behind him as he usually did, and pocketing the key.

In the few seconds while his back was turned, Joan had made a mental inventory of everything on his desktop. Only one thing stood out: a recently opened letter, beside the antique Moghul dagger he liked to use as a paper knife. The wording of the letter was suggestive. The image on its letterhead looked vaguely royal, but she hadn’t seen it before. Several people in the palace would probably be able to tell her what it was, but she didn’t dare risk sharing her question with any of them. There was only one person she could think of to ask.

Hector Ross had been away from the flat in Dolphin Square for a couple of days. Joan was relieved to see him back at the stove the evening of the sixteenth, doing something with eggs and butter.

‘I’m making an omelette. Would you like one?’ he asked.

‘Will there be enough?’ she asked.

‘Plenty. I brought half a dozen eggs back from the country. And I picked some herbs in the garden over the weekend. It’s an Italian recipe, to go with this wine.’

Joan looked at the bottle he indicated on the counter, which had Italian writing and a picture of a black cockerel on it. The wine itself was dark red in the glass Hector had poured for himself beside it. It looked inviting. She wondered if he had spent some of his war fighting up through Italy.

‘Thank you.’

She let him pour a glass for her and watched him at work. The timing of what she was about to say was good. It was always easier when you didn’t have to stare someone in the face.

‘By the way.’ She was as casual as could be. ‘I saw one of the secretaries in a flap about a letter recently. I only saw it from a distance, but I wondered who it might be from. She was terribly flustered by it.’

‘Oh?’ Hector paused to check the omelette he was finishing. It looked rich and golden. The sizzle and the smell were surprisingly good from such simple ingredients. ‘What did you see?’

‘There was a crest. Might you know it? I’m still learning.’

‘I might.’

‘It was quite small. A blue hexagon with a crown on top and writing round the edge. And some sort of symbol in the middle.’

‘Hmm. Was that all?’

‘Yes.’

‘Might the symbol have been a letter? An E, perhaps?’ he asked.

Joan thought about it. ‘Yes, possibly. If it was angled to fit the hexagon.’

He nodded, lifting the frying pan and sliding the cooked omelette onto a waiting plate. He placed another plate over it to keep it warm, while he melted a fresh pat of butter in the pan. ‘That would be the Duke of Windsor. Edward – though he was only officially Edward for months, I suppose.’

‘Yes,’ Joan mused. ‘He’s David, really, isn’t he?’

‘Hard to know what he is now. Except persona non grata. He must have been writing from Paris. I wonder what he wanted. I didn’t think they were speaking to him.’

‘Mmm.’

Hector whisked two more eggs in a mug with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. He poured the mixture into the sizzling pan.

‘Of course, Wallis had a similar cypher made to match. It didn’t have the writing round the edge, I believe. The central letter couldn’t have been a W, could it?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Joan said airily. ‘Shall I lay the table?’

‘Go ahead.’

She retrieved knives and forks from one of the drawers, and water glasses from a cupboard.

She did know which letter it was: definitely the ‘E’, not the ‘W’.

It worried her a little that Hector hadn’t even glanced round to face her as he spoke to her, despite being so helpful. It was as if he could tell she was trying to avoid making too much of the question, and therefore was mirroring her.

Anyone who had been at Longmeadow Hall at the time of the ill-fated Brigadier Yelland had a brain as sharp as a tack, and a chess-player’s ability to see several moves ahead. She had a lot to hide, and sensed Hector had just seen through most of it. Her only hope was that he didn’t care, or wasn’t in a position to do much about it.

Chapter 36

Daphne Du Maurier arrived at Balmoral in the dying days of August, along with a West Highland terrier, two large trunks of well-cut clothes and a sense of dread, the last of which she carefully hid from her hosts. Her beloved husband, Boy, wasn’t at all well – his busy life had been taking its toll. She was very worried about him, but had left him at home in Menabilly along with the children, the nanny and a team of, she hoped, reasonably competent nurses, and travelled the length of the British Isles because you do, don’t you, when your sovereign asks?

Balmoral would be dire. Absolutely beautiful countryside, but Daphne’s idea of enjoying it involved personal freedom and solitary walks. The thought of changing outfits several times a day and negotiating small talk with dozens of courtiers filled her with horror. Lord Altrincham had captured the Queen’s life perfectly. Daphne liked the young royal couple themselves very much, but the world they lived in was undeniably stuffy. However, it seemed they had asked her to help out with precisely this problem, so there was a glimmer of hope.

They greeted her enthusiastically. The Queen said gleefully that she had reread Rebecca in honour of Daphne’s coming and had forgotten how chilling it was, and wasn’t she clever? It made one think about housekeepers in an entirely different way.

In the first forty-eight hours alone, they laid on a picnic and a barbecue (outdoor clothes) a ride with the children (riding clothes), two jolly evening meals (smart clothes) and a dance (party clothes). Still, Daphne sensed something in the air: a rustle between the couple, something off-centre and wobbly, like a spinning top that had lost its centre of gravity.

It didn’t really surprise her. Ten years of marriage will do it to you. God knew, her own marriage wasn’t perfect, what with Boy shuttling up and down between Cornwall and London and in danger of drinking himself into an early grave. That wasn’t all he’d been up to in London, either. Had Philip really done all those things the papers accused him of in the South Pacific? Whatever it was, he and Elizabeth both seemed uncertain how to put it right. And, of course, nobody spoke about it, directly or even obliquely. Instead, they talked about facing the cameras at Christmas and in Canada, and what the Queen was going to say, and how not to make her sound like the well-meaning captain of the netball team.

‘I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong,’ the Queen said, more bewildered than upset. ‘I know how difficult things are for everyone, especially after Suez. I try to be encouraging.’

‘They don’t want a pat on the head,’ Daphne explained. ‘They want to know that you feel what they’re going through.’

‘But I do! Of course I do.’

‘Do you, really, ma’am?’

Daphne said it gently, but the Queen looked shocked to have her empathy questioned. She went very quiet, not sulking, but thinking. She was a good listener, Daphne thought.

‘I mean, look at Marilyn Monroe,’ Daphne suggested. ‘Did you see The Prince and the Showgirl this summer?’

‘Yes, actually, we did.’

‘What’s lovable about her are the moments when she’s unsure. If you want to connect, ma’am, you can’t be strong all the time. Sometimes, you have to admit you’re vulnerable. You’re a wife and mother, with all that entails. It may seem like a disadvantage, God knows – I certainly do. But it’s part of your charm.’

‘But I . . .’

The Queen fell silent again. Yes, it seemed wrong-headed to suggest that a monarch couldn’t be strong all the time, but Daphne knew what made a character connect with the reader, and they’d asked her opinion, after all.

‘I’m thinking of the first Queen Elizabeth,’ Daphne explained. ‘“I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.”’

‘Well, exactly,’ the Queen said. “The heart and stomach of a king.”’

‘What you’re missing, ma’am, is the first part. The “weak and feeble woman”. That’s what drags you in, as a listener. That’s what makes you sit up and take notice, and believe her, and take her seriously. She builds from there.’

‘Oh.’

‘What frightens you?’ Daphne asked. ‘Honestly.’

‘Honestly? The television cameras themselves. All this new technology. The idea of being seen by two million people when I can only see two.’

‘That’s understandable,’ Daphne agreed.

‘And . . . and I suppose . . .’

The Queen gave Daphne an anguished look, followed by a sweet, shy smile, and was quite adorable in that moment. If only that could be captured on television . . .

‘Yes?’ Daphne prompted.

‘I suppose . . . There are people who are very good at imagining the future, you know, and reaching for it, but I find that I . . . well, I lean a little bit into the past. I need tradition, and religion, you know, and old-fashioned ideals like morality and self-discipline. Peace. Love thy neighbour. Truthfulness. They get me through . . . That’s not too boring, is it?’

‘Not at all,’ Daphne said. ‘Perhaps we can work it in. Start with home and hearth – there you are, welcoming people into your home, but you’re doing it through the modern medium of television, and the new technologies can be rather frightening, but to deal with them, people can draw on . . . oh, I don’t know exactly, but something to do with what you said. Traditional values.’

‘Oh, all right. The old and the new. I can see that.’

‘The question is, can you feel it, ma’am?’

The Queen thought about it and her face lit up at last. ‘Yes! I really can. I think you have something, Daphne. I know people who feel as I do. Slightly frightened, I mean. Not wanting to let go of everything that’s got us this far. But we must look forwards, mustn’t we? We must.’

‘Wonderful, ma’am. That’s the first six minutes practically in the can. Let’s work on it tomorrow. Right now, I could do with some gin. Couldn’t you?’

Chapter 37

They had two gin and tonics, followed by quite a lot of champagne, a glass of wine with dinner (Daphne had three), and a little whisky to round off the evening. There was no more talk of speeches, or television, and Daphne thought the Queen looked infinitely more relaxed.

They had been joined for dinner by a couple of local landowners, an artist friend of Philip’s and the Queen’s racing manager. By the time they got to charades in front of an unseasonal fire, the party was raucous. Hair was let down; jokes were blue; even Daphne relaxed, and Philip was in his element.

After a few rounds of charades, someone suggested Nebuchadnezzar. It was explained to one of the younger equerries that this was like charades, but involved whole scenes, with each team dressing up to present them. They raced around the house gathering tablecloths and coal scuttles, performing silly skits and getting gradually drunker.

‘The Ascot Races’ was a popular one, with one of the ladies-in-waiting holding up two coffee cups as binoculars and miming agony, ecstasy and then agony again as a viscount, Sir Hugh and Daphne herself galloped by on all fours.

‘Oh, it’s me!’ the Queen shouted with delight. ‘Winning the New Stakes and then losing the Gold Cup! Atlas was pipped at the post. It was ghastly! You are clever. Hugh, were you Lester Piggott or Zarathustra?’

‘The horse, I think,’ Sir Hugh said, straightening up with difficulty.

It was the Queen’s turn next, and Daphne was the one to get it. Her Majesty stood to face the audience and waved her arms around. She held her fist to her chest. Her diamonds glittered in the lamplight. Was it champagne, or something more fervent behind her eyes? Her cousins and Philip’s artist friend, sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her, looked on, pretending to be mesmerised.

‘Billy Graham! Launching his crusade at Madison Square Garden!’ Daphne called out.

‘Oh, really?’ Philip said from beside her. ‘Well done. I thought it was Joan of Arc.’

Two equerries were next. At first, they pretended to play tennis in a dainty, ladylike way, and then one put on a big straw hat and presented the other with one of the dinner plates.

‘Me again!’ shouted the Queen. ‘At Wimbledon.’

Daphne, who had grown up in the theatre, felt that the equerry playing the Queen had made a decent fist of presenting the Rosewater trophy, but the one playing Althea Gibson, the winner, had been disappointingly unimaginative. He had played tennis like a ten-year-old schoolgirl, whereas Althea was a true athlete, better than any man in the room right now. A black woman, too – a real record-breaker. Daphne had watched the highlights of the match on a newsreel and wondered what dizzy heights of fame Althea would reach one day . . . or whether her achievement would be consigned to a footnote in history, as women so often were. Then it was her team’s go again.

‘The news, is it?’ one of the cousins muttered, slurring his s’s, as they gathered in a huddle to decide what to do. He made a suggestion that Daphne found in equal parts distasteful and fascinating, but the others agreed to it. All except Sir Hugh who, she noticed, made his excuses and disappeared. Was he horrified by the idea, she wondered, or did he simply need the lavatory? Roles were assigned among the others, and they did a quick prop hunt and rehearsal in the hall.

When they were ready, a sheet was held up by the equerries as a screen, facing the audience. The racing manager and the viscount arrived arm in arm, the latter being dressed in a tablecloth (the airing cupboard must be practically bare by now, Daphne thought) with a headband with cutlery stuffed into it, and clutching one of the flower arrangements from the dining table. They went behind the sheet, then Daphne and the lady-in-waiting sat down to play cards at the front. Each got up to disappear briefly behind the sheet. Then they moved to one side and the screen was lowered, to reveal the viscount lying supine on a velvet chaise longue, in a vest and white tennis shorts, the flowers clutched tightly to his chest, while the racing manager lay sprawled on the floor beside him with a hideous expression on his face and a red scarf wrapped around his neck. His acting was terrible – he would keep blinking and his grimace tended towards a smirk – but the effect was still startling.

There was a collective gasp from the audience.

Looking out, Daphne happened to catch the Queen jerk her head sharply towards her husband, so she glanced over to see why. It wasn’t obvious. Philip was frowning, but then, so were several other people.

‘Bad show!’ Philip called out.

‘Is it Hamlet?’ one of the cousins asked. ‘Or Othello? I always get those two confused.’

Someone shouted, ‘Chelsea murders!’ There was a smattering of applause, more for form’s sake than anything, and the viscount got up to take a bow.

‘Oh, forks in his hair!’ the cousin said. ‘The tart in the tiara! I get it now.’

The next five minutes were rather awkward as the murder scene seemed to have sobered a lot of people up and nobody felt like Nebuchadnezzar any more. Daphne saw that, under her powder, the young Queen was still pale. She went to sit beside her.

‘Is everything all right, ma’am?’

‘Absolutely, thank you, Daphne. Are you having fun?’

‘Absolutely,’ Daphne said, with the same level of truthfulness.

The Queen put on a sociable smile. ‘I thought William, who played Althea Gibson, was shockingly bad, didn’t you?’

Daphne relayed what she’d been thinking earlier about women being consigned to footnotes in history. ‘Our stories are usually told by men. I wonder how often they do us justice.’

‘Yes. I suppose mine will be, too,’ the Queen said ruefully.

Daphne had forgotten that she was talking to a historical figure. She realised that the Queen never really forgot that she was one.

‘They make an exception for queens,’ she suggested.

‘Perhaps they do. I’m often told I’m an honorary man. It comes in useful sometimes. I’d ask you to do it – write about me, I mean – but your stories are so dark. I’d end up dead in the second chapter.’

‘I’m not a historian,’ Daphne said. ‘I could never write that dark.’

The Queen smiled, but it was clear she wasn’t really listening again. She was looking at the chaise longue, where the viscount had been lying. Daphne was curious about that.

‘I’m sorry our scene upset you,’ she said.

The Queen looked at her sharply. ‘Oh, it didn’t at all.’

Daphne realised she had made a faux pas, to talk to the sovereign about her feelings. She tried quickly to make up for it.

‘It was just so theatrical, wasn’t it? Much too theatrical, if you ask me.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘A classic case of misdirection. My father used to do it all the time when he wanted to divert attention. There’s the girl, the beautiful innocent, clutching her flowers, and the man at her feet, the victim of a hideous crime. They set it up like something out of Victorian music hall. I do it in my novels sometimes, when I’m trying to slip something past the reader. The question is, what didn’t they want us to see?’

‘I’m sure the police are working on that.’

A footman approached them, offering to replenish their drinks.

The Queen lifted her glass reflexively, but she was still looking at the chaise longue, and frowning now.

Daphne glanced over towards Philip, standing in a group of men all raucously laughing. Whatever the Queen was worried about, he either didn’t know or hid it well.

‘But William was really shockingly bad,’ the Queen muttered to herself.

‘I’m sorry, ma’am?’

The Queen turned to Daphne and gave her the full force of her open smile. ‘I’m repeating myself. Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Mis— what did you call it?’

‘Misdirection.’

‘What do you think really happened, Daphne?’

Daphne, whose own ideas had covered orgies, psychopaths, satanists and devotees of the Marquis de Sade, decided to share none of these with Her Majesty. She was trying to come up with something suitably anodyne when she realised the Queen wasn’t listening anyway. She was looking back at the chaise longue again, in a world of her own.