A Death in Diamonds

Chapter 51

In the privacy of the little filing room, Joan extracted the folder from the top of the second red box, where the Queen had strategically placed it, and read it in the ladies’ lavatories while most people were at lunch.

One of the advantages of Joan’s memory was that she didn’t need to take notes. She read rapidly, and could picture every word on every page if necessary. So she was able to return the folder to Sir Hugh’s office and then think about its consequences while sitting on her new bed after work, up high in one of Buckingham Palace’s attic rooms.

The timings were important. If somebody had got into number 44 Cresswell Place without being noticed by the surveillance team, they must have done so between 11.08 p.m. and 11.20. That was when the A4 team got instructions from their office at MI5 to give the codename ‘Hamlet’ to the person they had observed and maintain a watching brief.

The report didn’t make it clear what they had been doing in the meantime, but they had made at least three calls to HQ. Joan knew from her war experience that it was all too easy to make a small mistake when you were tired, confused and dealing with the unexpected. It only took one minute’s lapse in concentration, but if it happened to be the right minute . . .

She mapped those timings against what they knew about the people mentioned in Darbishire’s reports. Of these, the dean and his guests were still at the Artemis Club, getting ready to order a couple of taxis to take them to Chelsea. The notorious Billy Hill was at a theatre performance from seven thirty until ten. His whereabouts after that weren’t corroborated by anyone outside his gang, but in the last report Joan had access to, the inspector noted that the killings weren’t typical of the way he operated.

Lord Seymour was about to leave the Houses of Parliament, to walk to his home in Westminster. There was simply no way the minister could have got to Cresswell Place in that brief window of time. Either he was in the clear, or he had commissioned somebody else to commit murder for him, and that person had had the luck of the gods when they arrived at the scene.

Joan explained all this to Her Majesty the following morning.

The Queen nodded gravely. ‘I think we should add the Duke of Maidstone and Tony Radnor-Milne to the list.’

‘Should we, ma’am?’

‘It might sound fanciful, but at least one of them almost certainly tried to kill you.’

Joan was confused. ‘Yes, but that was over something entirely different.’

‘I know,’ the Queen said. ‘But I have reason to believe they might be involved in this, too. I wonder whether the duke has a stake in the Raffles escort agency.’

‘Really, ma’am?’

‘Yes. He was the first person to talk to me about it and it felt as if he was showing off. Then there’s the agency’s name itself. I know the duke’s family used to stay in the Raffles hotel in Singapore. It’s the sort of word he would use.’

‘I see.’

‘And I’ve been thinking. The police established that the same company had stakes in Raffles and the Chamberlain nightclub in Tangier. At first, I thought of Neville Chamberlain, who seemed very unlikely as an inspiration. Then I realised it must be named after Joseph Chamberlain, who was a great advocate of imperial unity. I’ve had more than one long conversation about him with Maidstone.’

‘Oh!’ Joan thought about it. ‘And if he owns the Raffles agency, or at least some of it, he might own the mews house, too. The police reports suggest they’re probably run by the same people.’

‘He might. So he should certainly be on our list.’

‘Yes, ma’am. Although, if he or Tony were going to do anything, they’d probably pay someone else and make sure they had an alibi.’

The Queen sighed briefly. ‘True.’

‘And what would their motive be?’

At this, the Queen’s eyes seemed to shine a brighter blue than usual. She picked up her pen and played with it absently.

‘I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I don’t know what they had to do with the murders, but I think I know what they have to do with me. They both seem to have stakes in companies based in Singapore and Malaya. I wonder if their profits are bound up with traditional trade routes to the Far East and the West Indies. With goods such as rubber, for example. But our days running an empire are over. We need to cooperate with our old dominions, but the prime minister equally wants us to build relationships with the rest of Europe and the United States. We need to. The USA is a superpower now. They don’t trust us and I can see why Mr Macmillan wants me to build bridges . . .’

‘But what if the duke and his friends didn’t want that to happen?’ Joan suggested, following the line of thought.

‘Exactly.’

‘And you’re very good at building bridges.’

‘I wouldn’t say that . . .’

‘You are, ma’am. That’s the point.’

‘Well, the thing is, I try. I happen to agree with the prime minister, and anyway, it’s my constitutional duty to do as he suggests. I’d do it even if I thought it was a terrible idea. But my uncle, the Duke of Windsor . . .’ The Queen paused at the very thought of her uncle.

‘He doesn’t play the game,’ Joan said.

‘No, he doesn’t. I can imagine him wanting to hark back to the past, when we didn’t need Europe and America in the same way. He could easily be persuaded that way, certainly. And he wants to be relevant, even if he can’t be king. I don’t think it would be difficult to suggest to him that if I was incapacitated in some way, he might be the best person to replace me.’

Joan looked horrified. ‘As king?’

‘No. I don’t think even he would go that far. As some sort of roving ambassador.’

‘But no one would have him! He abdicated! It’s a terrible idea!’ Joan objected.

The Queen smiled grimly. ‘I’m afraid the Duke of Maidstone is the sort of man to have ghastly ideas and think they’re wonderful. He’s been told all his life how brilliant he is, even if, as I told you, that’s not entirely true.’

‘But what about Tony?’ Joan asked. ‘He’s not an idiot.’

‘No, he isn’t. It surprises me very much. But perhaps if he thought he had even the faintest chance of succeeding . . . He too, is a man who seems very confident in his own abilities. With a little more justification.’

‘And he has a brother in the Private Office,’ Joan agreed. ‘I suppose that might help.’

‘There’s a small group called the Empire Club, or something like that,’ the Queen said. ‘I heard about it on a shooting weekend a couple of years ago. I’m going to find out more about it. I doubt the three of them would be acting alone.’

Joan frowned hard for a while. Then she threw her hands up. ‘What silly, dangerous people, if it’s true, ma’am. They’re opportunistic and incompetent. Hector . . . Major Ross . . . he thinks so too. They don’t stand a cat’s chance in hell of getting what they want. But they could do some real damage in the process.’

The Queen sighed. ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking. They could do harm, and all for nothing. Just because they’re hopeless doesn’t mean we mustn’t do everything we can to stop them.’

‘If you’re sure,’ Joan said, ‘shouldn’t you get rid of Jeremy now, before he does something worse than itching powder in your makeup?’

‘That would have been terrible, actually. But no. It’s all conjecture. We don’t have the letter from my uncle that you saw on his desk. As I said at the beginning, we still need proof. If we act without it, we’ll just drive them underground.’

‘Will you tell MI5?’

‘I think, in a way, you already have,’ the Queen said. Joan’s familiarity with “Hector” Ross had its uses. ‘Now I’m waiting for them to come and tell me.’

Chapter 52

Oblivious to the fallibilities of witnesses hidden in MI5’s Cresswell Place file, Darbishire checked the final wording of his latest report and put it in the basket for his secretary to type. The good news was that he finally had something useful for Her Majesty to read. The bad news was that Woolgar was more insufferable than ever. ‘I told you, sir! There was something between them. Not pie in the sky at all.’

The male victim at Cresswell Place turned out to be, not ‘Dino Perez’ or ‘Nico Rodriguez’ from Argentina, but a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Minot. A small-time thief from a northern suburb of Paris who became a big-time collaborator and torturer for the Gestapo during the Occupation, working at a notorious apartment in the Rue de la Pompe.

Minot had a specialism involving internal doors and ropes that Darbishire wished he hadn’t read about, and now couldn’t get out of his head. He could handle death, he was good at it. But even he had his limits.

Young Minot was very popular with his Nazi comrades, and universally loathed in the rest of Paris. When Darbishire showed ‘Rodriguez’’s picture to his friend in the Sûreté, with the suggestion he might be Gestapo, it took them only a couple of days to come up with a match. It was a shock that he was French, not German. It also meant he was hated even more by his fellow countrymen, for what he did to them.

Minot had done the best he could in South America to disguise his appearance with black hair dye and some form of surgery to his nose. He had aged by over a decade, but the likeness was still strong enough. ‘Something in the eyes’, Beryl White had said. It was no surprise that Ginette Fleury had recognised him.

Ginette herself, however, remained elusive. Woolgar had managed to track the sister down to Ravensbrück camp, just outside Berlin, the largest camp for women in the German Reich. Marianne Fleury was taken there in 1944 on one of the last such trains out of Paris, and had died there eight weeks later, already severely weakened by what she had undergone at Minot’s hands.

In Paris, there was anecdotal evidence that she had been living with a teenage girl before her arrest, but the neighbours thought they came from Normandy and the records there were patchy. After all the bombs and fires, Darbishire wasn’t surprised.

His contact in Paris was still looking for confirmation of who the letter writer said she was. But in a way, it didn’t matter. Darbishire had just reinterviewed Rita Gollanz, who corroborated the story about Ginette’s real identity. The fact was that Gina Fonteyn, known to Rita as Ginette Fleury, claimed Marianne was killed by the Gestapo, and he had proof that this was true. And the killer – as good as dammit – was indeed the man who was found beside Ginette that night. She told Rita she was fifteen at the time Marianne was captured, so that would make her twenty-eight now, which Deedar agreed was about right for the body he examined. So far, everything suggested by the letter writer fitted. It was a story of revenge.

Darbishire didn’t mention the letter in his report. He referred to ‘new information’ and smoothly progressed to the work that he and Woolgar had done to verify it. They were responsible for finding the evidence, and that’s what mattered.

It still wasn’t clear what happened after Ginette Fleury and Jean-Pierre Minot met up in Cresswell Place. Woolgar’s theory about a jealous lover was obviously pure hokum, but now that they were on the right track, getting to the truth was only a question of time. The momentum was back in the investigation, which made this tired policeman very happy.

The only fly in the ointment – apart from Woolgar’s puppyish and unjustified self-congratulation – was the look that Chief Inspector Venables gave them both this morning, when Darbishire was being congratulated on cracking the true identities of the victims. There was a gleam in his eye that Darbishire didn’t like at all. It was something he would need to keep a careful eye on.

At Windsor for the weekend, Philip was in high spirits. They’d be off on their next royal tour in a fortnight. He loved Canada and was fascinated by America. His personal library was piled high with books about both nations and he was eagerly consulting friends who knew them well. They had even eaten hot dogs for supper one night. The Queen was not convinced, but Anne, who’d had them in the nursery, pleaded for them to be on the menu daily and tried to persuade the nanny to post one to Charles at boarding school.

Philip had persuaded the BBC to lend him an old television camera, so she could practise the speech she was going to give before she opened parliament in Ottawa. He’d set the contraption up in her study there without consulting her – the dogs hated it and one had pissed all over it, which said a lot – and it dominated the room like an alien creature. However, she had to admit, the more one got used to it, the easier it was to imagine talking into it ‘like a friend’, as everyone told her to. Philip said she still looked like a plank of wood, but willow now, rather than oak.

They were taking a short break between rehearsals.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you once belong to something called the Empire Club?’

‘Hmm? D’you mean the Empire Society?’ he asked, unscrewing the camera lens and peering inside.

‘Possibly. The one run by the Duke of Maidstone.’

‘“Bonkers Bunny”. Yes. I joined for about ten minutes. Bunny invited me to shoot with them out at Enfield. The bag was good, but the guns were ghastly.’

He meant the people, not the weapons. ‘Who?’ she asked. ‘Stephen Seymour wasn’t one of them, was he?’

‘No, not that day. It’s men like old Robbie Suffolk and Quentin Fanshaw at the Bank of East India.’

‘Do you know why it’s called the Empire Society?’

‘Ha!’ he said. ‘I thought it was a joke, but they seem to have this idea that we still run the empire. Not sure where they’ve been the last thirty years. They like to bang on about the old days when their grandparents rode about on elephants. Might as well be back in the 1850s. They’re “frightfully grand, you know”,’ he said, mocking the upper-class accent of an older generation. One that hadn’t arrived as a family of refugees in a boat. ‘Grovellingly polite and hideously rude. They call me a Greek and you a Hun, when they think we’re not listening. Can’t abide ’em.’

‘Didn’t you say Bunny had interests in Borneo?’

Philip had been tinkering with the camera and now held two rods in his hand that looked rather important. He tried to fit them back in as he spoke. ‘Yes, huge ones. Teak and rubber. How d’you think he can afford to keep that shoot going? Why?’

‘No particular reason. I wonder what the society will do now there’s no empire. He wasn’t thinking of changing it to the Commonwealth Society, was he?’

‘God, no! He thinks we backed down. Shouldn’t be giving places like Malaya their independence.’

‘He doesn’t appreciate the peaceful handover of power?’ the Queen asked.

‘Absolutely not! Robbie Suffolk called us bloody cowards.’

‘They never said anything to me.’

‘They wouldn’t, Lilibet. You’re the Queen. They want to be invited to the next coronation. Right, are you ready? I’ve got the lens back on. Let’s try again.’

Chapter 53

When Sir Hugh told her that the foreign secretary and the new director general of MI5 were seeking an urgent audience with her, the Queen was ready.

‘This has nothing to do with the, er, events at Cresswell Place, ma’am,’ the private secretary assured her. ‘It’s another matter entirely.’

‘Is it? How interesting.’

‘I must warn you, what they have to say is rather disturbing.’

‘So, you’ve spoken to the DG about it already, Hugh?’

‘I have, ma’am. And the foreign secretary and the PM have been briefed too. We’ve needed to put certain measures in place in the Private Office. But I can assure you, we have everything under control.’

They met on the 5 October, a week before the Queen and Prince Philip were due to fly to Canada. Palace luggage rooms were filling up with bags and boxes. Last-minute telephone conversations were winging backwards and forwards across the Atlantic. The atmosphere was rather fraught. But the Queen herself was calm. She had done this before. And now she didn’t have to shoulder the burden of a conspiracy of fools all by herself.

She held the audience in her blue sitting room between a meeting with the head of the armed forces and a delegation from the Women’s Institute.

For once, she was not the only un-moustached person in the room. Both the foreign secretary and the director general of MI5 were bare-lipped. The Queen thought to herself that times were changing as she made them comfortable and deftly prevented Susan, her favourite corgi, from nipping at the foreign secretary’s ankles. When the dogs and men were settled, she asked what the news was.

The DG spoke first.

‘There’s good news and bad news, ma’am. The good news is that we’re in full control of the situation. Our director, D Branch, Major Ross, has played a bit of a blinder.’

‘How wonderful!’

‘He’s been pulling together information from various sources. It’s very troubling, and I might say, quite shocking, but I’m afraid to have to tell you . . . this is the bad news . . . that there has been a conspiracy against you at the highest level. Why exactly that might be, we’re still not sure yet, but there’s no doubt that these individuals mean you harm.’

‘Can you tell me who they are?’ the Queen asked, making sure to look suitably alarmed at the idea, rather than relieved that someone else was taking care of it.

‘The ringleader is the Duke of Maidstone, ma’am. With the support of Tony Radnor-Milne.’ The DG looked very grave. ‘His brother’s been working as a double agent in your Private Office.’

‘And how did Major Ross discover this?’ she asked.

The foreign secretary smiled and cast an eye in Sir Hugh’s direction. ‘You have a guardian angel, ma’am. Somebody who doesn’t want to be recognised, remaining in the shadows, looking after your best interests.’

‘You have no idea who it is?’

Another glance towards Sir Hugh, who remained impassive.

‘No, ma’am. But I’m afraid there’s one more thing.’ The foreign secretary looked grave too. ‘Your uncle, the Duke of Windsor, is involved. I realise that must be a particular shock.’

Not really, the Queen thought. She was silent for a while.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said eventually. ‘Or rather, it occurs to me, now you’ve told me about it, that Maidstone and Radnor-Milne both have trading interests in our Commonwealth countries. The duke runs the Empire Society – d’you know it?’

They all nodded, although she strongly suspected only Sir Hugh had heard of it.

‘It’s an antiquated celebration of our colonial past,’ she went on. ‘I suppose if we tighten our friendship with America and Europe, as the prime minister wants us to, they might feel slightly threatened.’

‘Threatened?’ the foreign secretary asked.

‘The old trading routes are changing. I don’t know how well that suits them.’

He brightened. ‘I see what you mean, ma’am.’

‘It’s quite a closed little club,’ the Queen added. ‘Not secret, but exclusive. The Marquess of Suffolk is a member, and the head of the East India Bank. I think there are about a dozen of them. My uncle may share their views more closely than I do.’

The director general smiled reassuringly. ‘I doubt we need to worry about them, ma’am. But we have eyes on Radnor-Milne, and Maidstone, and your uncle, too. As soon as we have firm proof of what they’re up to, we’ll step in. You may wonder why we haven’t done so already.’

‘Not really.’

‘It may seem unnerving,’ he breezed on, ‘but if we were to pounce now, we’d only drive them underground and the situation might become more dangerous. It’s better to let them think they’re safe.’

‘I see that.’

‘I know you must be alarmed to think of someone in your own Private Office acting against you, but rest assured that no move he makes will go unnoticed by Sir Hugh. If he tries to do anything—’

‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen,’ Sir Hugh cut in.

The Queen gave up trying to point out that this concept wasn’t new to her.

‘I’m glad you’ve thought about it so carefully,’ she said. ‘I take it you have no idea what they might be planning?’

‘Not yet, ma’am. But after yesterday’s events, your trip to America is more pressing than ever.’

‘Yesterday’s events?’

‘The Russian launch of a satellite, ma’am. Called Sputnik.’

‘Ah yes, I heard about that. My husband was very excited. They’ve successfully launched a transmitter into space. He was looking for it with his telescope.’

The foreign secretary leaned forward with an anxious look. ‘It’s all very well, ma’am. The trouble is, the Americans have realised it’s much bigger than they thought. A more impressive object all round. And their own launch isn’t for a few weeks, and will be smaller. We mustn’t let the Russians get ahead, ma’am. We must all pull together. Sometimes the Americans forget how much expertise we have to give . . . How much we’ve given them already . . .’

‘You think they need a little reminder, Foreign Secretary,’ the Queen said, raising an eyebrow.

‘If you wouldn’t mind, ma’am. Of course, Lord Seymour will try and do his bit too . . .’

‘Stephen Seymour?’ she checked. ‘That’s very surprising. Is he still going on this trip? He hasn’t been excluded from the murder investigation, has he?’

‘No, ma’am. He offered to stay behind, but he’ll be very useful to the delegation in Washington and New York. He’s been rather diligent about getting to know our leading scientists in terms of space technology and so on.’

‘Oh, I see.’

The foreign secretary threw a superior glance at the director general. ‘And we need all the help we can get with the Americans, after the catastrophe with Burgess and Maclean. They assume we simply feed all their secrets to the Russians now.’

The director general’s lips formed a thin, hard line. ‘That’s all water under the bridge, ma’am. We’re establishing new lines of communication . . .’

‘Is it, though?’ the foreign secretary asked, at which the director general gave him a filthy look. ‘What about . . . ?’

‘William Pinder’s clean as a whistle. We’re winding that operation down,’ the director general said through gritted teeth. ‘He’ll be back at his desk after a little rest cure. The file is being archived.’ He threw the Queen a brief, meaningful glance.

She felt sorry for William Pinder. The poor man had been closely observed for months, and now it seemed he was expected to carry on with life as normal. It couldn’t be easy for him. No wonder he needed a ‘rest cure’.

‘I hope it’s being buried,’ the foreign secretary said, referring to the file. ‘The last thing the Yanks need is more ammunition that we’re a breeding ground for communist spies.’

The Queen thought of Inspector Darbishire again. Would he ever be allowed access to those few, crucial pages? She would have to try and find some other way of letting him know what he didn’t know about that night in Cresswell Place. But it would have to wait. What with rogue dukes and Russian satellites, they all had enough to worry about for now.

Chapter 54

The Queen Mother moved into the royal apartments in Buckingham Palace to help look after the children while their parents were away. Except that most of the time it would only be Anne, because Charles was safely at boarding school, having – his mother assumed – heaps of fun.

‘Don’t worry about us,’ her mother assured her. ‘We’ll have a lovely time without you. I’m going to set up a little cinema in the Ball Supper Room, so that we can watch you on the news.’

Margaret insisted on a little fashion show, so she could see all the finished frocks from Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell. Both designers had surpassed themselves this time, knowing how important the visits were. And, the Queen had to admit, she had mentioned to both of them that her sister thought she should look more ‘modern’. The resulting shapes were fluid and more simple, making use of new materials and techniques. This femme de trente-et-un ans was determined not to seem too last-century. It was time to stop dressing like her mother – even if her mother looked very good in what she wore.

The results pleased even Margaret, and gave the Queen a boost of confidence she felt she really rather needed. She had never had to give a live, bilingual televised speech and counter the effects of an unwise invasion and a spy scandal before. With more riding on the next ten days than she would ideally have liked, she and Philip set off by plane for Ottawa.

Jeremy Radnor-Milne informed the waiting press that Her Majesty was ‘very excited’ about this trip.

At the Moulin de la Tuilerie, his country home just outside Paris, Edward, the Duke of Windsor, came in from a game of golf with friends and called out to his wife. There was no answer. She was probably out shopping. She shopped a lot, poor darling, because there was little else to amuse her in the countryside. He loved his little garden here, but she was more of a city girl.

Alone – apart from the servants – he wandered aimlessly through the gracious reception rooms. It struck him for the ten thousandth time that he should be somewhere important, with people, making things happen, as he was born to do.

God, he was bored. Unutterably bored. When would Wallis be home?

The sound of padding paws on a tiled floor announced the arrival of her three pugs. They were missing her too. The fourth – named Peter Townsend after the man Margaret had tried unsuccessfully to marry – they had given away. Edward loved Wallis’s wicked sense of humour. It was one of the things they had in common.

God, he was bored.

He strode on to his study and sat down to read The Times, but got distracted. Surely they should have contacted him by now? Elizabeth would be in Canada any minute. He’d originally assumed he’d be there himself, but now they were talking about next year, or possibly the year after. That couldn’t be right, surely? His talents were being wasted. Bunny Maidstone had practically promised . . .

He reached across to the letter rack on his desk and fished out a sheet of paper with his cipher. A quick note to Bunny, to find out what the hell was going on. Jeremy Radnor-Milne had said something about keeping a low profile recently, but the man was a proletarian prig and this was only a little note to an old friend. He dashed it off, addressed the envelope himself and took it to the hall, to leave on the table for someone to take to the post.

At that moment, the swish of tyres on the gravel outside announced the return of his darling wife.

‘Look what I picked up in town!’ she said. ‘They just finished framing it for me.’

She reached into her capacious shopping bag and pulled out a package, which she unwrapped in front of him. It was a little sign that read ‘I may not be a miller, but I’ve been through the mill’.

‘From “Le Moulin” – “the mill”, remember?’

‘Oh, yes, very funny,’ he said. And felt dreadful about this deadly dull life he was giving her at the moment, and hoped a reply from Bunny would bring him better news soon.

His letter was picked up by one of the white-gloved servants, a man who hadn’t been with them long, and spoke much better English than some of the rest.

‘Take care of that, would you?’ the duke asked.

The man promised he would.

On a friend’s grouse moor in Scotland, the Duke of Maidstone was having a miserable time. Tony Radnor-Milne had come up for the weekend and, for reasons Bunny couldn’t fully comprehend, he was furious about something and held Bunny responsible. Bunny wasn’t used to being glowered at by the lower classes, and he didn’t appreciate it. Tony could get above himself, sometimes. He thought he was better than everyone, and that was a dangerous trait, in Bunny’s view.

‘Out with it, man,’ he said, when they were alone, having hung back from the other guns between drives. ‘What’s got you so hot under the collar?’

Tony stared at the horizon for a minute as they walked along. When he spoke, it was through gritted teeth. ‘I heard about what happened to the trollop at the palace.’

‘Oh, her. I thought you were rather keen on her?’

‘A van, heading for her at speed?’ Tony spat. ‘Are you insane?’

‘What makes you think I had anything to do with it?’

‘She sees us together; I tell you who she is; three days later she’s hospitalised. I’m not stupid.’

‘Nor am I!’ Bunny protested.

‘Oh, really? And nor are MI5. D’you know she shared digs – and God knows what else – with the head of D Branch?’

‘No, I didn’t know that,’ Bunny admitted. He didn’t know much about the girl at all. She was a friend of Tony’s, for God’s sake. That was the whole problem.

‘And they’ve got her living at the palace now, instead of with him, so they obviously suspect something.’ Tony stopped and turned to Bunny with spittle coming out of his mouth. It was quite disgusting. The man needed to get a grip. ‘You stupid, stupid man.’

‘I resent that! And I don’t like your attitude. I’m warning you, Tony . . .’

‘You’re warning me? They had nothing. The girl saw the two of us together at the Artemis, so what? I admit, I was alarmed at the time. What the bloody hell was she doing there? I think I can guess.’ His lips curled into a brief, lurid smile. ‘But that needn’t involve you and me.’

‘Except that it does, though, doesn’t it?’ Bunny said.

Tony scowled. ‘Nobody knows about that.’

‘And that’s how I intend it to stay.’

‘But they’ll work it out. That bloody van was a big, black sign saying, “Look at me!” What were you thinking?’

Bunny had had enough of this. If Tony hadn’t befriended the palace tart in the first place, none of this would have happened. He, Bunny, was merely taking care of things. Or, rather, getting a couple of his ‘associates’ from the casino business to do it at arm’s length. They were better at that sort of thing, and they wouldn’t talk. True, they hadn’t actually managed to kill the girl, but in a way that was a good thing, wasn’t it? With luck, they’d scared her off.

Bunny didn’t want to think about what Tony had just told him about the man from MI5. He’d had no clue about that, or he’d have factored it in.

‘I’m pulling out of Raffles,’ Tony said abruptly. ‘And the club in Tangier. Thought I’d let you know. The less we have to do with each other, the better.’

At this moment, Bunny agreed. ‘Fine. Do it. We have a queue of investors.’

‘And that business next week. Call it off. We can’t do it with MI5 breathing down our necks.’

Bunny was haughty. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘See what you can do?’ Tony jeered. ‘Call it off, man. That’s an order.’

‘It’s not that simple. I put Robbie Suffolk in charge. He has contacts who can do that sort of business and, frankly, I didn’t want to get my hands dirty.’

‘So? Call Suffolk off.’

‘He’s in India. With some sort of yoga wallah.’

‘What the hell? Contact him in India then! They have the telegraph.’

‘I’m not exactly sure which state. Don’t worry! I’ll look into it. I’ll talk to him when I—’

They were interrupted by one of the ghillies, who had somehow walked up behind them without either of them noticing.

‘Can I help, Your Grace?’ he asked. ‘I saw you’d fallen back a bit. I think you’re needed at the next drive.’

‘I can manage perfectly well,’ Bunny said stiffly. ‘Take my guns. I can walk faster without them.’

‘And mine,’ Tony said, handing over the eye-wateringly expensive pair of shotguns he had been showing off last night.

Bunny was quite glad to see him stride off without them. Given the look in Tony’s eye, he wasn’t sure he’d have trained them on the grouse.

Lord Seymour paced up and down the deck of the Queen Mary. The weather over the Atlantic was dire, and this was a brief break in the rolling seas. Another three days of this. Government ministers didn’t usually have time to potter across the ocean when a fleet of jet planes was available, but his wife had insisted. She liked the luxury of the liner and it was actually easier to travel this way than to transport her inordinate amount of luggage by air.

He didn’t know how much longer this life would last. Already, he was being treated as a pariah in the party, by men who had done everything he had done, and much worse. There were meetings he wasn’t invited to, statements that were made without his approval. Once this trip was over, he wasn’t sure what would happen next.

What would his wife make of Scotland? he wondered. She used to love it, once.

Lady Seymour was several yards ahead of him, standing stock-still at a railing, looking out impassively over the endless waves. Even now, he couldn’t help but admire her profile, and the couture cut of the slacks she wore. His wife was the best-dressed woman on the ship, he was pleased to note. She usually was, wherever she went, but the competition on the Queen Mary was fierce.

He strode up to her. ‘You look lovely, darling.’

She didn’t turn to him or say a word. She had hardly spoken to him for days.

In fact, she had hardly spoken to him since April. It was as if a veil had descended over her – and not the bridal sort. She fulfilled her duties, she remained as exquisite to look at as the day he met her, but there was something robotic about her now. He didn’t know what he could do to get her back.

They hadn’t spoken about the tiara. Not exchanged a single word. He’d got it back from the police now, but she wouldn’t wear it. She’d arranged to borrow something from Bentley’s for the ball in New York. Her dress was by Givenchy and had cost him an arm and a leg. As he’d told that police inspector, she would look magnificent. But he doubted she would talk to him that night, either.

Seymour went back below deck to change for dinner. Last night, he had got hammered and that had felt a little better. Tonight, he intended to get hammered again.

Chapter 55

The good thing about a royal tour, if one was worried about something, was that there was almost no time to think about it at all. The Queen’s first day in Canada was typical of her schedule: meeting, travelling, paying respects to the war dead, endless waving . . . And then there was her live speech to the nation, which she only managed because Philip got her to laugh a minute before, and relaxed her enough to be able to speak.

The following morning, the men in moustaches were lined up as usual, to tell her how well it had gone yesterday, and how pleased everybody was. Sir Hugh was fulsome in his praise, but nobody was more enthusiastic about applauding her than Jeremy Radnor-Milne.

‘What a historic day, ma’am. You’ve mastered the new medium as if to the manner born. And in French! Tellement impressionant, madame. Épouvantable!’

The Queen was about to cut him off herself when they were interrupted by a footman announcing that the private secretary was needed on the phone.

‘Can’t it wait?’ Sir Hugh asked irritably. ‘Can’t you see we’re in the middle of—?’

‘It’s the Assistant Private Secretary from London, sir. She says there’s news.’

‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I’ll be five minutes.’

In fact, it was more like ten. Her Majesty and the remaining men stood together, making stilted conversation. When Sir Hugh returned, he was smiling broadly.

‘Jeremy,’ he said, ‘can you go and wait in our office? I’m expecting another call.’

The press secretary had no alternative but to leave them. As soon as he’d gone, Sir Hugh announced, ‘We’ve got ’em! Absolute proof, and links between them all. Traitors, the lot of ’em.’

‘Who?’ Urquhart asked.

‘This group called the Empire Society. I don’t know if you remember it, ma’am. The DG of MI5 was telling us about them. They’ve been keeping below the radar, but they flew too high this time. Tried to kidnap Prince Charles from his prep school! Utterly outrageous. The idea was . . . Are you all right, ma’am? Do you need a glass of water?’

The Queen had sunk into the nearest chair, her knees having given way. For a moment or two, she couldn’t see. When her vision returned, the men were leaning over her, solicitously. A glass of water was provided.

‘Is he safe?’

‘Prince Charles?’ Sir Hugh asked. ‘Oh yes, ma’am. Right as rain. The boy has no idea anything even happened. They had this plan to send someone in dressed up as a schoolmaster and catch him on the way back from games, and tell him he had detention, or a letter, something of that sort, and lead him to a place where they could shove him in a car. MI5 had eyes on them all the time. The thing was organised by the Marquess of Suffolk, would you believe? I had no idea the man had two brain cells to rub together. Apparently, he didn’t. He entrusted it to a couple of likely lads, well known to the police, and carted himself off to Kerala, so he’d be out of the way.’

‘How close did they get?’

‘They got to the school,’ Sir Hugh admitted, ‘but only because the surveillance team let ’em. As soon as they emerged from the car, dressed up in their tweed jackets and whatnot, they pounced. It was undeniable, what they were up to. The boot of the car was full of—’

The Queen raised a hand sharply. ‘I don’t want to know what it was full of. Thank you, Hugh.’

‘Ah. Yes, of course. But as I say, the young prince is perfectly unharmed. We would never let anything happen to him. But you can see what they were trying to do.’

‘Yes, I can,’ she said heavily.

‘What?’ Urquhart asked Sir Hugh.

‘They were going to hold him for a few days in a farmhouse somewhere. Naturally, Her Majesty and Prince Philip would want to fly back to England. Even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to continue with the schedule. And if they did, all the press would be about the kidnap anyway. Doesn’t bear thinking about. So then everyone starts saying, “young family, parents can’t go away, too dangerous” . . . And along comes the Duke of Windsor and his wife – childless – and off they go. That was the intention.’

‘But . . .’ Urquhart blustered, ‘but . . .’ His ruddy face clouded with incomprehension. ‘What about the Queen Mother? She’s perfectly good at doing this sort of thing. She did it in Africa just now. Or Princess Margaret? Why on earth would we ever get back that man and his monstrous . . . ?’

‘Miles!’ Sir Hugh glared at his fellow courtier, who was in danger of saying something very rude about a member of the royal family.

The Queen said nothing. Sir Hugh was full of delight at the foiling of the kidnap plot, and Urquhart was doing a good job of pointing out how utterly futile it would have been. Futile, but quite terrifying. The thought of her little boy in a farmhouse, locked away . . .

Sir Hugh rattled on. ‘It was a fantasy, the whole thing. That’s what these plotters are: sheer fantasists. They wanted someone malleable, rather than someone popular. As long as he was their man.’

If MI5 hadn’t been watching . . . the Queen trembled at the thought. If Joan hadn’t seen Radnor-Milne and Maidstone together, and helped them connect the dots . . . If she hadn’t told them about that treacherous bastard, the Marquess of Suffolk, even if they had conveniently forgotten where the information came from . . .

‘And they seemed to think the PM wouldn’t notice if the man continually went off-piste . . .’

The police and MI5 would have found Charles. They would have got him back quickly. It would have been a damp squib for the traitors. But for her little family . . . The trauma of it all . . .

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m still feeling rather faint. I need some fresh air.’

Sir Hugh looked surprised. ‘There isn’t time, ma’am. You’re opening parliament in a couple of hours. You’ll need to get changed . . .’

‘I can change quickly. Can someone please show me the way to the gardens?’

For fifteen minutes, walking among the paths and borders of Government House, she didn’t think she could do it. How could she put on her coronation dress and make a historic speech – the first monarch to do so in this place – when she could hardly stand?

It took every ounce of will to summon the spirit of her grandmother. It wasn’t about her, it was about the job. As a mother, she couldn’t do it; as monarch, she must.

By the time Philip came to find her, she was ready.

‘Are you all right, Cabbage? Somebody said you had a fainting fit.’

‘I didn’t. Perfectly all right, thank you. D’you know where to go?’

The opening of the Canadian parliament went without mishap. The Queen felt exhausted, but tried not to let it show. On their return, and before the evening banquet, Sir Hugh managed to update her with the whereabouts of the conspirators.

‘I’m afraid we let the ball drop a bit there, ma’am. It was important not to let our hand show. In the meantime, I think Tony Radnor-Milne might have got a whiff of something. He’s gone to South Africa, of all places. The second he sets foot on British soil, he’ll be arrested for treason.’

‘Let him stay there. What about the Marquess of Suffolk?’

‘In prison in India. Not quite the yoga retreat he had in mind. The others know we know, if you know what I mean. The PM doesn’t want everyone arrested, or it will look as if there was some sort of coup. It might spook the markets.’

Not as much as it spooked me, the Queen thought. She had been worried about the children in case something happened to her, but she had never seriously considered something might happen to them. However, she was feeling slightly better.

‘And Maidstone?’

‘Ah.’ Sir Hugh adjusted his spectacles. ‘He, too, seemed to have got wind of something. He was last seen on a jet to Chicago.’

‘America!’

‘Ironically, he has friends there. I doubt it’ll take long to track him down. Meanwhile, there’s the question of Jeremy, ma’am.’

‘Yes, there is,’ the Queen said.

‘We’ve been letting him work in a room without a telephone. He knows something’s up, but doesn’t know what. I thought you might like to deal with him yourself, ma’am.’

The Queen looked up. ‘That’s very kind of you, Hugh,’ she said warmly. It was a thoughtful gesture from a busy man. ‘I would.’

Jeremy Radnor-Milne could feel in his bones that the game was up.

He had suspected for a week, now, that Sir Hugh knew something. There had been conversations in the North Wing that he was no longer included in. Editors who seemed to be re-briefed after he briefed them. Little conversations with his one or two allies among the household staff that were interrupted before he could give useful instructions. Nothing obvious . . . but then, Jeremy liked to think of himself as the master of ‘nothing obvious’. So he was sensitive to it happening to him.

He had got his wife to warn his brother, using a code word they’d agreed. If he was right, they were probably tapping his phone. But all he could do was carry on, meanwhile. Where else could he go?

When the Queen asked to see him in the private sitting room she had been allocated in Government House, he knew he was right. She looked tired, and low. Usually, she was energised by visits like this; she’d display more energy than all of them put together. But today, she was deflated.

She was sitting in a chair with the light behind her, and he was forced to stoop a little to see her properly.

Looking at her pale face and the dark circles under her eyes, he suddenly realised what he had done. He’d always assumed that she’d carry on regardless, even if her uncle took on some of the trickier visits. He was really very fond of her. A huge fan. That wasn’t an act. But recent events seemed to have changed her, which wasn’t the plan at all.

‘Ma’am? You asked to see me?’

Her voice had an unaccustomed edge.

‘Sir Hugh and I have agreed that you’ve served us enough in your present capacity.’

‘I . . . I thought so, ma’am. I realise that I . . . If I can just explain.’

‘I think you’ve earned a very particular next assignment. Sir Hugh has arranged for you to act as our liaison with the local authorities on Ascension Island. It’s a one-year posting, but we’ve extended it to three.’

‘Ascension Island, ma’am?’ Jeremy tried to sound polite and conversational. ‘I don’t think I . . .’

‘It’s a refuelling post in the middle of the Atlantic. There’s a small RAF squadron and the navy come and go. It has plentiful sea life, I understand. The birdwatching is also excellent.’

‘Did you say the Atlantic? Not the Pacific?’

‘No. And if that works out well, there’s a position in the Falkland Islands that might suit you.’

‘Where are they, ma’am?’

‘Near Antarctica.’

‘I have to say, I’m not a birdwatcher,’ he said, with a nervous chuckle.

‘You will be.’

He had always thought of Her Majesty as soft and feminine. There was that impressive bust, that smooth, clear skin. But today she was implacable. She reminded him a bit of Queen Elizabeth I, as he imagined her. Queen Elizabeth I, dealing with one of the traitors against her, he realised. Except, that Queen would have sent him to his end at the Tower.

Perhaps Ascension Island was better. Presumably they had women on Ascension Island? Would his wife be able to come with him?

Would she want to?

‘I’m . . . I’m very sorry, ma’am. It was nothing personal,’ he said with feeling. ‘I think of you as—’

‘I think of you as gone,’ she said. ‘Goodbye, Jeremy.’

‘Can I just say—’

‘No, you can’t.’

‘But if I just—’

The military equerry at the door, whose presence Jeremy hadn’t even been aware of, stepped forward, gripped him by the arm and dragged him unceremoniously from the room.

Within twelve hours, he was on his way to the mid-Atlantic in a cold and noisy military plane. At least it wasn’t jail, or the Tower – but then Sir Hugh would have had to explain why to the press, which Jeremy knew he would strain every sinew not to do. His luggage would be sent on, he was told, but his wife and children wouldn’t. All he had was the clothes he was standing up in, and a box that Miles Urquhart had handed to him as he was led from Government House. Opening it on the flight, he discovered that it contained a pair of binoculars and a doodle of a seabird. He shivered.

Chapter 56

Ironically, the Radnor-Milnes and their co-conspirators hadn’t targeted the Canada trip at all, and yet it was still difficult. The Queen never quite recovered her equilibrium. The crowds were large and happy, but Sir Hugh couldn’t hide from her that there were voices that loudly questioned whether Canada should have a queen at all, especially if she cost the country so much money.

The Canadians were still hurting, like the British, after the war. But they felt they were hurting more. Knowing this, Sir Hugh and his team had done everything they could to make the visit as low-key as a historic opening of parliament could be. The Queen worked hard, but wasn’t sure she was quite connecting the way the people wanted. She thought of Joan’s aunt again. She didn’t try to be distant, but sometimes it just happened.

Everyone, however, loved her frocks. So at least there was that. And they were dazzled by her diamonds. So there was that too.

After four days, which felt more like fourteen, they flew to Virginia. She was very nervous now. She could hardly forget that a huge amount depended on this visit. But also, she was a mere guest in a country that had definitively and triumphantly got rid of her great-great-great-grandfather.

The Queen was good at history, because often it was personal. She knew she was only the second British monarch to visit the USA. The first was her father in 1939, but that was in the build-up to the war, when diplomacy was all about defeating Hitler. And it was impossible not to fall in love with her mother, which naturally, the Americans had. Since then, there had been the Suez crisis and all the rest.

Would they use the trip as an opportunity to belittle the United Kingdom? She knew the president wouldn’t, because he was a friend. But what about the press? Could she live up to her mother’s success? You could never underestimate the American news machine, or be entirely sure what it would do.

Philip tried to calm her down. He was good at it, making jokes on the flight and laughing at his own very terrible impersonation of an American accent. He knew about Charles, and assured her that ‘what the boy doesn’t know won’t hurt him’. And then suddenly the plane was landing, and Sir Hugh was reminding her of her schedule. And there was really nothing more she could do.

In a life that largely consisted of travels and tours and being seen in public, this became a visit she would never forget. It started with a visit to Jamestown, which was celebrating 350 years since its foundation – just like Romsey in England, whose charter she had presented the day before she left for France in April. This was ‘old America’, and forty thousand people came out to see her that day, followed by thousands more wherever they went.

By the third day, her fears about this trip had become one of Philip’s standing jokes.

‘D’you remember how jittery you were before we got here? Look at ’em!’

They had been practically mobbed in Virginia and now they were staying in the executive wing of the White House, where Washington had rolled out the red carpet as only the Americans could.

In short, she needn’t have been nervous. It was going well. The Eisenhowers had been tickled when she told them the story of hiding under the tablecloth at Windsor Castle during the war. Bonhomie reigned and the prime minister was ‘ecstatic’. In fact, if she could stay a little bit longer, and if she wasn’t missing the children, she would.

They were getting ready for their final banquet in Washington. The Queen knew it was ungrateful to long for a nursery tea in front of the fire, and tried to put the thought from her mind as Bobo helped her climb into the sequinned net dress that Mr Hartnell had designed for her. Philip came in, looking divine and adjusting his cufflinks, and told Bobo to ‘buzz off’ so that he could ‘appreciate Her Majesty privately for a moment’.

Bobo complied.

‘Not everybody gets to kiss the Queen of England,’ he said, before doing so. Then he stood back to admire her dress. He was learning.

‘Just heard a terribly funny thing,’ he said. ‘My valet told me. There was an actress who tried to get into my room last night. Absolute bombshell, apparently, all glitter and zips. Not like you, Lilibet, you know, very racy.’

The Queen didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended. ‘And?’

‘And she insisted I’d told her to wait for me upstairs, because there was something I needed to give her. Can you imagine? Swore blind we’d met. Even produced a note with my handwriting on it, except it wasn’t, obviously. Ha! Poor girl. Obviously, I was in here with you so it would have been a wasted evening.’

‘For you or for her?’

‘For her, Cabbage! Don’t be ridiculous!’ He frowned. ‘You’re not finding this funny.’

‘You know about Charles,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think this might be part of the same plot?’

‘Well, good luck to ’em. I think I can spot when a gold-digging blonde tries to worm her way into my affections. You’re right, it sounds just like the tomfool, half-cocked sort of thing they’d try and do. Presumably they couldn’t call her off. Anyway, she got ejected PDQ, poor thing.’

Philip chuckled as he fiddled with his cufflinks again. The right one always took a little more work, left-handed. His valet could do it for him, of course, but cufflinks were one of the areas where her husband liked to maintain a modicum of autonomy.

She was thrown back to the ambassador’s residence in Paris. The broken chain at the mention of Cresswell Place.

She realised that she was tired, and hadn’t had enough to eat today, and it probably wasn’t Philip’s fault that she felt suddenly dreadful, but something in her cracked. She went over to her dressing table and sat down. She was tearful, which was rare and dreadful, so she turned her head away so he wouldn’t see.

‘What is it, Lilibet?’ He’d stopped laughing. He sounded confused.

‘It’s . . . been a busy day, that’s all.’

‘Do you want me to get Bobo?’

‘No.’

She grabbed a handkerchief and wiped her eyes quickly. Philip rushed over and knelt in front of her, which was the last thing she wanted. She wanted him to go.

‘What’s happened? What can I do?’

‘There’s nothing you can do.’

He smiled nervously. ‘This sounds serious. It’s not like you. Is someone hounding you? More of that bloody plot? I can protect you, you know. It’s what I’m here for.’

He reached out to hug her, but she pulled back.

‘I’m not a frigate, in need of a flotilla.’

His expression clouded. ‘Of course you aren’t. What are you talking about?’

‘I’m your wife.’

She glared at him through tear-filled eyes, feeling that she knew how to say what she didn’t want, but not to ask for what she needed. Wife said it all to her. The vows they’d made, the life they were trying to build. The children.

‘It hadn’t escaped my notice.’

He was gritting his teeth now, clearly offended at being pushed away. The Queen could feel it all falling apart, this tour, herself, them both, everything that was personal to her. She could do the job. She would do it always. But what would it be like if the soul had gone out of it? If she were entirely alone?

‘Lilibet! You’re really crying. You never cry. Has somebody hurt you? I’ll bash the bastard’s head in. I’ll kill him, God help me. Who did this?’

‘You did this!’ she shouted, exhausted and too furious to hold it back. ‘You did this! You lied to me!’

‘When?’

‘You told everyone you were at the palace the night of those murders. You were with a woman. MI5 know all the sordid details . . .’

‘A woman? What woman?’

‘Abigail Pinder. William Pinder’s sister.’

There. She’d said it.

‘What? Abigail isn’t a woman,’ he said, frowning. ‘I mean, she’s a woman. But, you know what I mean. She’s a friend.’

‘Oh, Philip.’

‘I never lied to you,’ he said more gently. He looked hurt and confused.

‘You said you were at the palace,’ she repeated.

‘Yes, well . . . that’s what I told the busybodies who were asking about my whereabouts. It was none of their business. You might have overheard me . . .’

‘You used me as your alibi!’

He frowned and looked less certain. ‘It stopped them prying. You didn’t mind, did you?’

‘Of course I minded!’

‘You should have said so!’

She turned to the mirror and started fixing her tiara in place, to give her hands something to do.

‘I asked you about it at Balmoral,’ she told him, as calmly as she could, looking at his reflection, ‘and you lied again.’

‘Did I? I didn’t think it mattered. It was only to protect a friend. I was doing it out of decency.’

‘Decency? Protecting Abigail Pinder?’

‘Not Abigail,’ he said, frowning. ‘William.’

‘What?’

‘Her brother.’

The Queen turned round to face him properly again.

‘How does he come into it?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake! All right.’ Philip threw his hands up. ‘If you must know, I met up with Roly Hill at the Artemis. He was called to the phone because Abigail was trying to get hold of him. She said she was with her brother and she was desperate. She wanted Roly to go over and talk to Pinder about the state he was in, but Roly couldn’t. His wife had a new baby and she’d have divorced him if he didn’t get home by midnight. Then he pointed out I knew Pinder pretty well, too.’

‘Did you?’

‘We served together in HMS Valiant during Matapan. Brave man. Exceptional sailor. That’s how I met Abigail. According to what she told Roly on the phone, Pinder’s wife Marion had effectively left him. Abigail was on her own with him and he wouldn’t talk to her. He was threatening to . . . Well, as I said, he was in a bad way. Roly was stuck, so I said I’d go over. It involved a certain amount of subterfuge, of course. Nothing in this life is bloody simple. Obviously, it wouldn’t do for anyone to know I was going to a house at night with a very pretty blonde in it. I took precautions not to be caught in the act. I’m not stupid.’

Oh, if only you knew, the Queen thought. She said nothing.

‘So I gave my security the slip and we hightailed it to the mews in Roly’s Aston Martin. The street was dark and quiet, nobody about. He dropped me off right outside and headed home. Abigail let me in and explained about Pinder.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’d locked himself in the back bedroom with a bottle of whisky and a gun.’

‘What?’

‘Quite. Abigail caught sight of the barrel just before he locked the door on her. An old service pistol. He was being hounded by MI5, did you know that?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’d been working for them for ten years, and they’d got it into their heads, because he knew a couple of Russians socially, that he was the Third Man.’

‘I’d heard.’

‘Preposterous, of course, but they wouldn’t let it go. The poor sod was suicidal. It took me a good hour to talk myself into the room, and three more to talk him into handing over the gun. I took the magazine out, but it wouldn’t clear so I fired into a pillow, just to be sure. The thing went off and practically deafened us. I’m amazed no one else heard it. Anyway, by then it was the early hours. Abigail joined us and we finished the bottle, the three of us, sitting up against the bedroom wall, listening to Grieg on Pinder’s gramophone. Very soothing, Grieg, if you’re in a certain mood. Then I called my equerry, who called his brother in the Grenadiers, reliable chap, who came to pick me up in his car.’ He shrugged. ‘And that’s it. The whole story. Hardly a night of unbridled passion, or whatever you were thinking.’

‘I didn’t know what to think.’

‘No need to think anything.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Philip raised his arms again in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Not my story to tell. Pinder was in a very bad way. He doesn’t want half the country knowing his business.’

‘I’m not half the country!’ she pointed out, raising her voice again.

He looked grumpy, and only slightly apologetic. ‘Officers’ code. I assumed you’d understand.’

‘Well, I didn’t.’

There was a pause. Philip had said that was the whole story, but of course it wasn’t.

‘And what about Abigail?’ the Queen added quietly. ‘You say she’s a friend.’

‘Exactly!’

She looked at him very steadily. ‘What sort of friend?’

‘The best sort! For God’s sake, Lilibet. The sort who’s interested in Jung and Heidegger. Don’t tell me you are too, because unless Heidegger was running in the four thirty at Newmarket, you wouldn’t give a damn. Abigail’s studying psychoanalysis. She’s very interesting on the subject.’ He reached out a hand and laid it on her arm. His voice was softer. ‘I don’t bore you with Jung, Lilibet, and you don’t, thank God, bore me with your breeding programme for the Derby. But I’m yours, you know that. Body and soul.’

He didn’t say such things to her often, but every time he did, they sung through her like electricity down a wire. Nobody could be as serious about love as Philip could. Or as serious about anything. Or as funny. Or as damned complicated. Her mother was right.

He brushed a tear away from her face. ‘Now, stop fretting. It doesn’t suit you.’

After an argument like that, and all those weeks of tension, and the sudden clearing of the air, there was only one thing to do – but it would have to wait. Bobo was knocking at the door and there was more than a hint of urgency in her voice as she pointed out the time.

Much later, in the middle of the night, Philip had gone back to his room and the Queen lay wide awake. Jet lag, she supposed. It reminded her a little of the night Anne had had toothache, but that had been fraught, and now she felt more relaxed than she had in months.

She thought about poor William Pinder, who turned out to be a loyal servant of the Crown, but had been hounded by his own organisation. How awful that he had felt so desperate he had armed himself with a service pistol.

And then there was Boy Browning, back home in Menabilly. Philip had blithely said his head of household was taking the summer off for a bit of a health cure, but Daphne du Maurier had told her at Balmoral that the general was very unwell, mentally and physically, and she wasn’t sure if he would return to work.

It occurred to the Queen, not for the first time, that women were treated like delicate flowers, cosseted and protected at every turn. Men were always leaping forward to throw their cloaks over metaphorical puddles. But she was quite as strong as them, if not stronger. Men were like oak trees: they fell hard when things went wrong. She thought of herself more as a willow, bending in the wind and weather.

Willows reminded her of the river near Windsor, and of the lake at Buckingham Palace. What would Anne be doing? she wondered. It was morning already in England. Would she be at her schoolwork, or outside in the fresh autumn air? And what about Charles? Would she ever tell him about the plot that never happened? Probably not.

Thinking about her children, she finally fell asleep.

Chapter 57

The Americans made it plain at every turn: they didn’t want a monarch of their own again, but they were absolutely delighted to welcome this one for a while.

They weren’t enthusiastic in the same way that English people were. Everything was bigger, bolder, louder. They pressed against barriers, requiring police officers to restrain them. They shouted and hollered. They thronged the streets for miles, wherever the royal couple went.

After three days in Washington, it was time for the final leg of the journey. This time, they took the train up the East Coast to New York.

The Queen had been quite specific about the way she wanted to see this city for the first time, because she had envisaged it so clearly. The train took her all the way to Staten Island, from where she and Philip could take the governor’s launch past the Statue of Liberty to the tip of Manhattan.

The view of the looming skyscrapers was everything she had imagined – as long as one ignored the helicopters circling overhead, taking pictures. She was as excited as any tourist. It was only a shame that they could carve out a single day for her to visit.

She and Philip would have to make the most of the hours ahead, because their plane left tonight.

To call those next few hours a whirlwind would be an understatement. If Washington had rolled out the red carpet, New York flung it far and wide across the city.

Sir Hugh told her the television channels were proclaiming that there were a million people on the streets. Fifth Avenue was packed with faces and flags at every window of its multi-storeyed buildings, which were almost obscured by the blizzard of ticker tape. An elevator swept them up to the top of the Empire State Building, from where Manhattan lay spread out at their feet, as wonderful and extraordinary as she had imagined. This was ‘new America’, and to her own surprise she thought it the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

The royal couple’s base was to be at the Waldorf Astoria. They were supposed to have the Presidential Suite, but King Farouk, who was there before them, had been taken ill and couldn’t be moved. Instead, she and Philip were given a thousand unnecessary apologies and Suite 42, which had undergone a very rapid makeover in their honour.

Looking down from one of the highest windows in New York as she changed for lunch, she saw the city fall back into its normal rhythm, as traffic began to clog the roads that had been cleared for her parade.

‘I could stay here all day!’ she called across to Philip, who was getting changed in the bedroom across the suite’s hallway.

‘Well, don’t! They’ve laid on a banquet.’

They had, and after that expansive lunch they whisked her – as much as anyone could be ‘whisked’ in this city – down wide avenues to the United Nations, where she made a speech in praise of the ideals of peace and cooperation that drove the new Commonwealth.

Now, evening was approaching. Their only evening in the city. The Queen retired to her bedroom in Suite 42 to rest, but couldn’t, and found herself looking out of the window at the little lines of tiny yellow taxis, far below.

Knowing she would want to capture the moment, Bobo had set her camera on the dressing table, so she could take pictures of the scene to show the children later. The day had been astonishing from start to finish. The train, the Statue of Liberty, the United Nations, the ticker-tape parade . . . And now here she was, in the world’s tallest hotel, and it was about to be full of fun and dancing.

She remembered a Cole Porter song that she and Philip had danced to in the moonlight at Cliveden: ‘I Happen to Like New York’. It made perfect sense now.

Her evening gown was hung out, ready for her to change into. In a minute, she would get Bobo to draw her a bath. They had allowed ninety minutes in her schedule to get ready. She would need less than half that time, which left a few precious minutes for relaxation and reflection.

The parade! All those happy, excited people, so keen to see her they had to be held back by the police. The ticker tape rising so high on the wind they could still see it whipping around at the top of the Empire State Building. What a view that had been! She hummed to herself.

I happen to like New York.

Feeling almost guilty with self-indulgent enjoyment of this private moment, she sat at the dressing table, where Bobo had laid out everything she would need. There were the earrings, the necklace, the diamond tiara, her lipstick from Helena Rubinstein, her scent, her powder . . . She pictured all the other ladies in the hotel, and in other hotels and apartments in New York, getting ready for this evening too. They probably took longer over it than she would. She was so used to it by now. With experience, she could adjust her hair and put on her tiara in under two minutes.

Regarding herself in the mirror, she lifted the tiara and positioned it on her head, for effect. All her pieces of jewellery had titles, and this was Queen Alexandra’s Kokoshnik tiara – a great wall of diamonds commissioned by her great-grandmother when she was Princess of Wales. The Queen had already worn it in Canada and knew exactly how she would fit it into her hairstyle later. It took practice. Only one way was truly reliable in the end.

And suddenly it all came together. Who committed murder in Chelsea that night in March, and how, and almost certainly why. When you thought about it, it was obvious.

‘Ma’am?’

She looked round to find Bobo hovering in the inner doorway.

‘Shall I draw that bath for you now?’

The Queen shook her head. ‘I need to talk to someone first.’

She gave her instructions. It was time to come face to face with a murderer.

Chapter 58

Lady Lucie Seymour followed Bobo into the bedroom. She was already dressed for the dinner and ball in ice-blue silk trimmed with tiny glass beads and looked, as her husband had anticipated, magnificent.

She dropped into a curtsey and murmured ‘Your Majesty.’ Then she glanced up, puzzled. ‘You wanted to see me?’

‘I did,’ the Queen said. ‘Please sit down.’

Her name was Lucie, not Lucy, as the Queen had originally assumed. She had seen it written on the list of guests for this evening. She hadn’t realised the full impact of that spelling at the time, but now she knew.

She indicated two armchairs placed conveniently by the window, and chose one of them while her guest sat opposite her in the other. Bobo left them to it. The distant traffic honked and hooted far below.

‘Your dresser said it was about my sister,’ Lucie said. She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have one.’

The Queen sighed deeply. ‘I’m very sorry. But I think you did.’

Daphne had been wrong in Balmoral, though she was on the right lines. The layout of the bodies hadn’t been misdirection: it was love.

She had anticipated that Lucie might lie about her family, and she wasn’t entirely sure what she would do at that point. Instead, she watched as a single tear appeared in the inner corner of her visitor’s right eye and made its way very slowly down her powdered face. At that moment, she seemed to turn from marble into something as fragile as an eggshell. Her voice was almost inaudible.

‘How did you know?’

The Queen held out a hand in a gesture of reassurance. One needed dogs at a moment like this, she thought. Even a horse would do, or in extremis a cat, though she was allergic to them. But the Waldorf Astoria didn’t have them on tap. She clasped Lucie’s cold fingers briefly with the warmth of her own.

‘I realised as I was trying on my tiara,’ she said. ‘Of course, you’d have tried yours on too. It’s impossible to get it right unless you’ve worked out how to wear your hair. You were going to wear it on your birthday, so Stephen gave it to you early so you could practise.’

Lucie nodded slightly. ‘Yes, he did.’

‘You had it out of the safe. But Ginette took it.’

Lucie just looked at her. Another tear followed the first.

‘You were very close to her,’ the Queen said quietly. ‘It suddenly occurred to me that if Ginette had an older sister in Marianne, there was nothing to say Marianne didn’t have an older sister too. One who helped Ginette out when she came to London.’

Lucie nodded, staring down at her skirts.

‘One she didn’t talk about.’ The Queen’s voice was gentle. ‘Perhaps because she didn’t want to embarrass her relative in high society.’

But this time Lucie shook her head. She stuck out her chin as she looked the Queen in the eye.

‘Because of what she did for a living, you mean? You don’t understand, ma’am. How do you think I met my husband?’

‘Ah,’ said the Queen, after a tiny pause. ‘I see.’

‘Stephen always likes to say we met in Geneva, but it was in Paris. And not at a diplomatic dinner party. That’s what gave Ginette the idea, la pauvre. Before the war, she wanted to be a milliner, like Marianne, not like me. Marianne was the talented one. She was friends with young Monsieur Dior, they wanted to work together, they both had such plans. She made hats for the Nazi wives during the Occupation and carried messages for the Resistance as she delivered them. And then . . .’

‘And then along came Jean-Pierre Minot.’

‘Yes.’ Lucie swallowed, but her gaze didn’t waver. ‘He was a star of the Gestapo by then. Marianne was taken to the Rue de la Pompe. They say he worked on her hands first. As soon as the war was over, I hurried home for news. I was hoping to find her alive, but of course I did not. I found out exactly what Jean-Pierre Minot had done – what Ginette already knew. He was famous in those days. Any woman in Paris would have killed him, but he’d vanished. After that, Ginette could never look at a hat. But she had such life, ma’am, despite it all. She wanted success. She saw my life in Westminster. She wanted to follow me and marry a rich man who wanted her. I told her that was only in fairy tales but . . .’ Lucie waved a gloved hand.

‘She had your example,’ the Queen suggested.

‘Not only mine. There are others. More than you might think.’

‘I’m learning fast.’

Lucie cracked a smile. ‘Not every duchess was a debutante. And so yes, I tried to help her whenever I could. I didn’t see her much, usually when she needed money. But she came to me that night to tell me she’d seen the man who tortured Marianne in the Rue de la Pompe. She was dressed in white, her hair had changed. She looked quite different – in her face, too. Her eyes, you know?’

The Queen listened quietly.

‘She said she knew him instantly,’ Lucie went on, ‘and she was going to watch him die. I told her not to be ridiculous. To my shame, I didn’t believe her. Not at all. We were talking in my bedroom so the servants wouldn’t hear us. I went to order a tisane from the kitchen to calm her down and talk sense into her, but when I came back, she wasn’t there.’

‘And nor was the tiara.’

Lucie gave a hollow laugh. ‘That was the first thing I saw. I was furious! Imagine! For half a minute, I cared about the diamonds she’d taken for her hair. I didn’t understand her plan. By the time I realised what she’d done, she was halfway there. I was frantic!’

The Queen gave her a freshly laundered handkerchief from her handbag.

‘Ginette was only a girl in the war,’ she suggested. ‘But you were not. You were in your mid-twenties at the time, yes?’

Lucie nodded.

‘My mother mentioned to me that you and your husband knew the Arisaig estate,’ the Queen explained. ‘That’s where SOE agents who went to France were trained in combat. I assumed your husband had been stationed there, but I now realise it was you, wasn’t it?’

Lucie nodded dumbly.

‘You spoke French as your mother tongue. Were you training to be an agent yourself? No?’

‘I helped to train them,’ Lucie said. ‘They needed women as well as men to practise combat with. I was a driver, but I did everything. I learned quickly.’

The Queen nodded to herself. ‘So you knew how to kill a man, but your sister didn’t.’

‘How did you guess Ginette was my sister?’ Lucie asked. ‘Even Stephen didn’t know for a long time. I’m certain he didn’t tell anyone.’

‘That’s why she wouldn’t see him,’ the Queen murmured, as much to herself as to Lucie. He presumably didn’t know of her relationship to his wife at the time he asked for her, but Ginette would have done. The Queen went on, ‘When I realised Minot’s killer was a woman, I doubted anyone but a mother or a sister would have done what you did, and you’re not old enough to be Ginette’s mother. You found out her plans for him, that she wanted to kill him that night. You couldn’t let that happen.’

Lucie’s eyes were wide. ‘She was mad! He was Gestapo! He was good at it! Ginette thought she was grown up, but she was still a child. It’s why I truly didn’t believe her craziness until it was too late.’

‘How did you know where to follow her?’ the Queen asked.

‘She left a note under my pillow. It gave the address, so I’d know where to find her if she didn’t contact me in the morning. For some strange reason she thought I wouldn’t look for her until then. She was dingue, dingue . . . I wasn’t supposed to see the note until I went to bed, but she’d left my pillow crooked.’ Lucie smiled again, fondly, her face blotchy under her makeup, her lipstick smudged, mascara running. ‘Ginette always, how do you say it, faisait à la va-vite.’

‘She was slapdash? I think that’s it.’

‘Yes!’ Lucie nodded. ‘Except about her appearance. So I noticed the pillow straightaway. As soon as I read the note, I realised why she had really come to see me.’

‘Oh? It wasn’t the diamonds, was it? They just happened to be there.’

Lucie nodded. ‘It was in part to say goodbye, just in case. And she knew I kept a flick knife in a jewellery roll in my dressing table. A memento from Arisaig. One of the trainers gave it to me – a trophy he’d picked up from a German soldier in the desert. It was quite small and easy to hide, but well made. Deadly – in the right hands. I looked. It was gone.’

‘But your sister’s weren’t the right hands,’ the Queen said, pursuing the thought she’d originally had. ‘You no longer had the knife, so you armed yourself with cheese wire.’

‘I know how to kill a man. Ginette thought she did, but it’s different when he’s fighting for his life. It wasn’t cheese wire, ma’am, it was flower arranging wire. I used bamboo struts for the handles.’

‘Does that work?’

‘It did,’ Lucie said, flatly.

‘And so you disguised yourself and went after her, to Cresswell Place.’

Lucie’s face was taut with pain. ‘You make it sound easy. It seemed to take forever. I pulled a pair of Stephen’s trousers over my dress and took his boots and driving gloves, and a spare mackintosh and hat. I thought I’d save Ginette and we’d get away looking like a couple, a man and a woman. Nobody would guess it was us. I just wanted her to be alive and free, that’s all I was thinking. But I’d need to get into the house, so I had to find something to pick the lock. And I needed a cosh to knock him out.’

‘Did you have one of those at home?’

‘In a way. I stole one of Stephen’s shooting socks and put a paperweight in the toe. Once I’d stuffed the coat pockets with what I needed, I caught a cab to the Old Brompton Road and ran from there.’ Lucie winced with frustration. ‘I laced up the boots as tight as I could, but they still slowed me down.’

‘How did you know how to find the address?’

She looked surprised. ‘I looked it up in the A to Z.’

‘Oh,’ said the Queen. This was not something she had ever needed to do, though she knew of the book of London maps that Lucie was referring to. She quietly decided to get Joan to show her how one worked.

‘And you happened to get there at eleven fifteen, or thereabouts – half an hour after Ginette, and ten minutes after Minot joined her.’

‘Did I? I lost track of time.’

At this point, the bedroom door opened without ceremony.

‘Darling, what do you think of this . . . Oh!’

Philip stood in the doorway in a white dress shirt with a wing collar, evening trousers and white braces, staring at the two women in their armchairs by the window.

‘Having a chat? I hardly think we have time. Hello, have we met?’

Lucie stood up and curtseyed.

‘Your Royal Highness,’ she said with a smile that seemed polite, but, from close to, had a touch of hysteria about it.

‘This is Lady Seymour,’ the Queen told him.

‘Bloody hell. Your husband’s been in hot water, hasn’t he? Is he here tonight?’

‘He is,’ Lucie said.

‘Brave man. I’ll look out for him. Don’t keep Her Majesty too long,’ he added cheerfully. ‘She’s got a ballroom full of people waiting for her downstairs in . . .’ He checked his watch. ‘Twenty-seven minutes.’

‘I won’t, sir.’

‘Anyway, Lilibet, what d’you think of this bow tie? Chap gave it to me in Washington. Says it’s the new American style – much softer, see? But my valet hates it. Shall I go Yankee this evening?’

The Queen peered critically at his neckwear. ‘I think we should look as British as we can,’ she said. ‘That’s what they’ve come to see.’

‘Oh, all right then, dammit. If you think so. Aren’t you going to have a bath? Shall I call for Bobo?’

‘I’m just sorting something out with Lucie.’

‘Can I help?’

‘I don’t think so.’ She gave a little grimace to put him off. ‘Women’s business.’

‘Oh God! Count me out. See you later. Cheerio.’

He went out, banging the door behind him.

The Queen caught Lucie’s eye. The blonde woman’s perfectly sculpted lips wobbled. Then her shoulders shook. She laughed raggedly for about ten seconds as the hysteria found its way to the surface, after which the shaking turned to sobbing. This was, all round, a difficult evening.

‘I’m so sorry,’ the Queen said. ‘Awful timing. You were about to go to the mews house. But you got there too late, I think.’

Lucie glanced out of the window, where the lights were coming on and New York was turning from day to night. She sighed.

‘All that time I had spent looking for something to pick the lock, and I didn’t need it after all. My sister must have left the door on the latch for that . . . monster. All I had to do was push, but I made sure the door locked behind me. I couldn’t hear anything, so I thought perhaps everything was fine. That she’d changed her mind. I tiptoed upstairs so that if she was . . . doing what he came for . . . then I wouldn’t disturb them. But . . .’

‘She hadn’t changed her mind,’ the Queen prompted gently.

‘No. Ginette was lying face up on the bed and he was bent over her, with his back to me. I could see she’d tried to surprise him with my knife. It was still sticking out of his side. He was strangling her with one of her own stockings and he didn’t hear me come up behind him. When he started to turn round, I swung the cosh.’

The Queen turned pale, but gestured to Lucie to carry on.

‘With practice, you can do a lot of damage,’ Lucie said, ‘but I hadn’t practised for years. He collapsed on top of Ginette, but I didn’t trust him. Men like that get up again and again, so I rolled him onto the floor. I got out the garrotte and did what I had to do. Then I went to Ginette. The nylon stocking was still there because he’d pulled it so tight around her neck. I took it off but it took time. I kept hoping . . . I tried to save her, but it was too late . . .’ Lucie shut her eyes. ‘She squeezed my hand. I kissed her. She breathed her last breath.’

‘You didn’t call a doctor.’

‘She was dead within a minute. What was the point? They would have put her in a bag and taken her away.’

Lucie gave the Queen a look that was both devastated and cold. This was a woman who knew how to kill a man with an improvised weapon, and didn’t hesitate to do it. She was tough and unsentimental, grief-stricken and worn out.

‘You washed your sister as an act of love,’ the Queen said.

‘Oui. I didn’t want that bastard’s blood on her. It was on the silk jarretière – what’s that word?’

‘Garter?’

‘Garter, yes, that I think she used to hide the knife under her dress, so I took it. The dress was torn and dirty, so I took that off her too. Then I used the other stocking on him, because I wanted him to know how it felt.’

Even though he was well and truly dead by then, the Queen thought.

‘And the knife?’

Lucie remained impassive. ‘I planted it in his face. Then I walked into the other room. I found lilacs. Ginette always loved those flowers. I was just putting them in her arms when I heard the sound of men’s voices downstairs. I waited. They were there for ages and then one of them came upstairs. Then another, and another. I was stuck in that goddam room, but I didn’t mind. In the end, I spent the night with her. It was nice. Peaceful.’

‘I suppose so,’ the Queen said. She couldn’t begin to imagine what this must have been like, but she did know sisterly love.

‘We hadn’t spent so long together in years,’ Lucie went on softly. ‘I took the gloves off and held her hand. I lay beside her and told her stories about France, while this other man snored like a pig across the landing. I could have gone while he slept, but I didn’t want to leave her . . . I assumed I’d tell him what had happened in the morning. But I wasn’t really thinking about the morning.’

‘And when it came, what did you do?’

‘I waited until dawn. Then my training took over. I don’t really remember, but I got outside with the dress under my coat. I didn’t feel as if I was in my body. I climbed over a wall, crept through a garden and came out in the Boltons, where Deborah Fairdale lives. Do you know it, ma’am?’

The Queen half smiled. ‘I do.’

‘From there, I walked quickly to the King’s Road. I found a telephone box and called the police. I can’t remember what I said, but I assumed they would find the bodies in five minutes. Then I went home and hid the dress and gloves and boots in an old suitcase and slept for twenty-four hours. But there was no news of the bodies that day, or the next. Every minute since has been a dream. A nightmare.’

‘I assume your husband knows what you did,’ the Queen said.

‘I imagine. The diamonds . . . His gloves and boots gone too. He must have recognised my old knife in the newspaper. We haven’t talked about it.’

‘He must love you very much.’

Lucie shrugged. ‘I’m a lovely ornament. He’s a generous admirer. C’est tout.’

‘He’s allowed many people to assume he’s a killer to protect you. I doubt his political career will recover.’

Lucie shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’

The Queen saw how unmoved she was by what was surely an act of selflessness. Lady Seymour seemed unmoved by her husband altogether. She sat there, ramrod straight, her alabaster beauty unaffected by the ravages to her makeup, her slim shoulders rising from the beaded perfection of the evening gown he had paid for.

Lucie’s face had only truly come alive when she talked of Scotland, and the work she had done to train agents to work with the Resistance. The Queen knew several women who had lived extraordinary lives in the war, at all levels of society. Many of them continued to do so, in one way or another, taking what they had learned and applying it in charities, schools, hospitals and military units. It had changed their lives; they had an energy that sparkled. By contrast, she could see that the return to life as a ‘lovely ornament’ had done Lucie no good at all. Perhaps it didn’t help that her loving husband was unfaithful. Meanwhile, it must have cut her to the quick to have found out what happened to her sister Marianne. She had become hollowed out by boredom and grief.

Those wartime experiences were still inside her, though. Lucie was a woman who could escape from a murder scene without leaving a trace, and without really trying. Luck had played its part; she might so easily have been spotted going into the mews, or escaping through the Boltons later, but she wasn’t.

However, her luck was running out. If the Queen could work out her part in the murders from the tiara, perhaps Inspector Darbishire would get there one day. Lucie never had an alibi to speak of – he had simply never asked.

‘Was there any other way . . . ?’ the Queen asked.

‘To stop the man who was murdering my sister? No. If I’d hesitated for one second, he’d have killed us both.’

‘The police might understand, you know. It was self-defence, of a sort.’

‘They wouldn’t,’ Lucie said decisively. ‘It never ends well when a woman kills a man. But I understand – my time is up. Thank you.’

‘Thank you for what?’

‘For warning me.’

Was that what this was? A warning? The Queen hadn’t thought of it that way – more as a prelude to the inevitable consequences. But perhaps Lucie was right.

She stood up and Lucie did too.

‘I’m so very sorry about your sister. Both your sisters.’

They faced each other, and Lucie noted that the Queen was not calling for help. She smiled.

‘And now I really must get ready,’ the Queen said, apologetically.

‘You’ve missed your bath. Je suis désolée.’

‘I’ll manage,’ the Queen assured her.

Lucie hesitated.

‘I don’t think we’ll see each other downstairs.’

‘No, I doubt we will. Goodbye, Lucie.’

The other woman dropped into a deep curtsey, just as Bobo bustled into the room, making anxious noises about ‘The time! The dress! The hair! Your bath, Lilibet! Oh!’

‘Goodbye, ma’am.’

She let herself out.

Chapter 59

The ball seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. Everyone loved the Queen’s dress, which combined a slim, sequinned column made of cellophane lace with a wide tulle fantail that swept behind her with a reassuring swish. Many people commented. Even some of the men, which was almost unheard of.

It took a while for the Queen to get the image out of her head of what Lucie must have gone through that night in Chelsea. But the champagne helped, and so did the Queen’s sense of duty, which demanded that she pay close attention to everyone she met, and laugh whenever a joke was attempted, and laugh loudly if it was attempted by the Governor of New York.

A very good band played very good jazz, and Philip had a brief dance with her, wearing his much-admired, very British, stiff bow tie. New Yorkers certainly knew how to party. By the end, she was sorry they couldn’t stay all night. Like Cinderella, she had to leave by midnight – although this Cinderella ran to the plane with her prince beside her, the skirts of her ballgown caught by the runway’s Krieg lights as they floated in the wind.

‘How long had you known for?’ Joan asked.

The Queen was back at her desk, beside the bow window in her Buckingham Palace study, surrounded by paperwork.

‘Oh, minutes before she appeared in my suite. For ages I thought Tony Radnor-Milne must be connected, and I still think he knew Rodriguez through the casinos and the agency, but I realised he wasn’t connected with who Rodriguez really was. Whereas Ginette . . . I quite accept I hadn’t thought it through properly. I’d just realised that Lucie had access to the diamonds and she might possibly know how to garrotte a man at short notice. But I thought she must have done it to try and save her sister. It was suddenly clear to me that they were sisters. I was sure Lucie hadn’t done it to save herself.’

Joan raised an eyebrow and the Queen sighed.

‘I got caught up in the moment,’ she admitted. ‘I just needed to know that I was right.’

‘Did Lady Seymour regret it?’ Joan asked. ‘It must have been terrible, that night . . .’

‘Oh, it was,’ the Queen agreed. ‘Lying beside her sister’s body. But she didn’t seem to regret what she’d done for a moment. Only that she was too late. I don’t think she realised quite how lucky she was that she wasn’t caught at the time.’

Joan didn’t point out that she was equally lucky not to be caught afterwards, in New York. She only knew that if she had been put in the same position, that night in Chelsea, she’d have done exactly what Lady Seymour did. Now it was up to the police to find her, if they could.

The Queen swiftly changed the subject. ‘Do you see much of Major Ross?’ she asked. ‘You’re back in Dolphin Square, I understand.’

Joan tried to keep her face neutral. She could, if she wanted, tell Her Majesty that Hector Ross no longer stayed at his club; that he was teaching her about whisky; that he was very fond of her kimono, and when he was tired, he liked to run his fingers along the silk. But these topics didn’t seem appropriate for the royal study. Instead she said, ‘Not much, ma’am. He spends every evening out now, being feted for uncovering the kidnapping plot.’ This much was true.

Fortunately, the Queen focused on what was said, not what wasn’t.

‘I didn’t think many people knew about it.’

‘Oh, enough do in his circles, ma’am. I hear rumours that you’re going to give him a medal. Are you?’

The Queen gave a little shrug. ‘It’s not entirely up to me. But I think he deserves one, don’t you? He didn’t have a huge amount to work with, but he put it together very fast.’

‘He did,’ Joan agreed. ‘With help.’

‘Does he have any idea where that help came from?’ the Queen asked anxiously.

Joan knew Her Majesty liked remaining in the background. She didn’t want the DG of MI5 worrying that she was trying to do his job for him.

‘He does, actually,’ Joan said with a smile.

‘Oh?’ The Queen looked alarmed.

‘Major Ross knows I answer to someone important. He was absolutely sure it was Sir Hugh, so he collared him at the club one day and asked him outright, and Sir Hugh categorically denied it. I wouldn’t say anything, of course, so then he decided it must be Sir Hugh’s deputy, and when he asked the DPS . . .’

The Queen grinned. ‘Miles didn’t categorically deny it.’

‘Not categorically, no. And I share an office with him, so it all makes sense.’

‘How perfect.’

‘Now everybody’s buying Miles drinks at his club – even people who have no idea what it’s all supposed to be about – and he comes in slightly hungover each morning, but very happy.’

‘I don’t suppose he has any idea who . . . ?’

‘I don’t think so, ma’am,’ Joan said confidently. ‘I’m just an ex-typist, and you’re the monarch. He might suspect the Master of the Household, but he’s not saying.’

The Queen nodded happily. ‘Well done.’

Chapter 60

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, Woolgar?’

‘Somebody rang from the shorty while you were out. Said to tell you that someone’s been in touch about that missing woman in New York. Lady Seymour, sir.’

Darbishire took off his coat and sat at his desk. ‘What’s the shorty, Sergeant?’

‘You know, sir. You’ve been in touch. In Paris. The Frog police.’

‘The Sûreté?’

‘That’s what I said.’

Darbishire sighed. ‘Go on.’

‘This chap rang them a couple of days ago and said he’d seen a newsreel about the Queen. They’re showing them in Paris too. And it had this bit at the end about Lady Seymour, saying she was missing and everything. And this chap said the police had been in touch with him recently, asking about Marianne Fleury and what happened to her in the war, because, you know, we were asking . . .’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘And he realised that this woman had been around years ago – ten years ago, in fact – to ask the same thing. Because she was . . . and you’re never going to believe this, sir . . . Guess.’

‘I’d rather not, Woolgar. Not a spurned lover, I presume?’

‘Ooh, saucy, sir! No. Her sister!’

‘But surely . . . ?’

Darbishire stopped and thought about it. He had assumed Lucie was Swiss, but he hadn’t paid it much attention; he just pitied her as the cuckolded wife. She would be about six years older than Marianne, which would make her a dozen years older than Ginette. He had cousin siblings who were a dozen years apart.

‘How on earth did this man remember her after a decade? Surely he could be mistaken?’

‘He said he’d never forget a face that beautiful. He was very French about it.’

‘Was he? And did he have any idea where she might have disappeared to?’

‘No, sir. At least, the man I spoke to didn’t say. I said you’d call him back.’

Darbishire would.

He was rapidly reconsidering the alibis. He had never trusted Lady Seymour’s assurance about her husband’s whereabouts, but nobody had thought (he hadn’t thought) that her husband and the butler might equally be lying about hers.

If Darbishire’s chap was right, did Seymour kill Minot in revenge for what happened to his wife’s sister?

Possibly, but Seymour wasn’t missing.

Would Seymour protect a murderess?

If his wife had killed a monster to try and save her sister he would, if he was any kind of man at all. How she might have killed Minot, Darbishire had no idea, but he knew that murder wasn’t always a man’s prerogative. Darbishire’s job was to bring killers to justice, but privately, he thought some acts were fully justified. He would try and find her, of course, but if any of this new information turned out to be true, he rather hoped he wouldn’t.

But he didn’t get the chance to look.

A couple of hours later, the chief superintendent stopped by Darbishire’s office – something he never normally did – and announced that George Venables was finally free to take on the Cresswell Place case.

‘He’s been snowed under with this and that. We’re grateful for everything you’ve done, Fred. Good, diligent police work. It’s a shame you didn’t make more progress early on, but I think with George on board we can really crack this case. I’m sure we can rely on you to give him the full support you’re famous for. Anyway, well done, as far as you got.’

‘No hard feelings, I hope,’ Venables said later, giving him a manly pat on the back. ‘I know it’s been a bastard of a case. Unreliable witnesses . . . no leads . . . You’re probably glad to see the back of it!’

This week, Darbishire had noticed they’d added another storey to the eyesore across the river from the Yard. He was glad he wouldn’t have to keep going into that office to smarten up his royal reports. When Woolgar tried to commiserate about Venables, Darbishire talked instead about the new building, and the skyline he was starting not to recognise any more.

‘D’you want to come for a beer, sir?’ Woolgar asked. ‘A few of us are going to the pub.’

The inspector declined gracefully. He wouldn’t be the best company. He shrugged his coat on and went home to his wife and girls.

In the sunny morning room at Clarence House, the Queen Mother was not happy as news emerged of Chief Inspector Venables’s fascinating new discoveries.

‘But, darling! They’re saying Lady Seymour might be the murderer! She was the victim’s sister! And Philip tells me you were alone with her for half an hour!’

‘I was perfectly safe,’ the Queen assured her. ‘Philip was next door, and Bobo was just around the corner.’

Her mother was slightly mollified. ‘Bobo would never let anything happen to you. But did you have any idea?’

‘None at all. Why would I?’

‘What were you talking about?’

This was tricky. Philip could easily be put off by the notion of ‘women’s business’, but her mother would only be more intrigued.

‘Lady Seymour heard rumours about a spy ring,’ the Queen improvised. ‘Nothing concrete, but she didn’t trust anyone and she was desperate for me to know. I said I’d sort it out with MI5. The poor woman . . .’

‘A spy ring? How exciting!’

‘But it was all in her head,’ the Queen insisted.

‘And did this have anything to do with the murders?’

‘Did what?’ Margaret asked, walking in with a couple of frisky little dachshunds at her feet.

‘A spy ring, darling!’ the Queen Mother said.

‘No, it absolutely didn’t,’ the Queen said firmly.

‘I told you it wasn’t Clement,’ her mother remarked happily, changing the subject.

‘Who’s Clement?’ Margaret asked.

‘The Dean of Bath – you remember, darling. He saw some terrible things in the war, but we talked about it once and we agreed you can’t keep fighting on forever. You only end up wounding yourself. That poor woman, the one on the bed, I mean. She wanted revenge, I gather. I can see that, but murder is never the way. Especially if you’re not very good at it. How did she end up with the diamonds again?’

The Queen hesitated and Margaret sighed audibly as she inserted a cigarette into her holder. This obviously wasn’t the first time since the news broke that she had been called upon to explain.

‘Lord Seymour gave them to his wife, Mummy. She gave them to her sister. Then, she must have realised her sister was in danger and followed her to Clement’s house.’

The Queen didn’t correct her about the gift of the tiara. Without Lucie around to explain what really happened, nobody had the full story. What they knew was close enough.

‘Such a nice tiara,’ the Queen Mother said sadly. ‘Nobody will want to wear it now.’

‘I certainly don’t,’ Margaret assured her.

‘I’ll buy one for you one day, darling.’

‘D’you know what?’ Margaret said, through a plume of cigarette smoke. ‘It’s the twentieth century, for God’s sake. I think I might just buy one for myself.’

Chapter 61

The deputy private secretary had become very grand. Now that Joan no longer did secretarial duties, she had been moved to a much smaller office of her own, so Urquhart could share his with Sarah, the typist, who could help him out properly. He also had a dog: a black Labrador puppy called Nelson, who ate everything in sight and was adored by everyone in the office. He had given up on the hope of Fiona’s return, so this was the best replacement he could find.

Sarah was good, but she often came to Joan for advice. One day she brought in a large, square box that had come all the way from America, marked ‘FRAGILE’.

‘It says, “For the Queen’s eyes only”, but it can’t really mean that, can it? I mean, it’s not from the CIA or anything. That’s not how they write things.’

‘I’ll take a look, if you like,’ Joan offered.

‘Would you? Thanks ever so.’

Inside, buried in excessive layers of packaging, was a single vinyl record in a cellophane-covered presentation box. Its label read ‘The Queen’s Suite’. There was a note with it, which Joan read with growing amazement. She took it to Her Majesty that afternoon.

‘It’s from Duke Ellington, ma’am. He said he met you in the spring, and he wanted to write something for you.’

The Queen smiled brightly. ‘Yes, he did.’

‘Well, he wrote this piece, and he got his orchestra to record it. But they only made one pressing, ma’am.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘This is the only record. And he’s paid Columbia Records for the copyright so no one else can make one. He wanted it to be a gift for you, personally.’

At this, the Queen’s face lit up in a whole new way. ‘Did he really? May I see the note?’ She stood up. ‘Let’s go to the Ball Supper Room. There’s a gramophone there.’

The music was quite beautiful. The Queen announced it was one of the nicest pieces of jazz she’d ever heard. So did Philip, when he wondered what all the fuss was about and came in to listen.

‘Dance with me!’ he instructed.

‘What? Here?’

‘Where else!’

He took her in his arms and the staff left them to it as they twirled around the room.

November gave way to December. The Duke of Maidstone came home, miserably, from his short exile in Chicago. He had been stripped without warning or explanation of almost all his family’s ancient roles in the pageantry of the monarchy. The best he could do was ask, tremulously, if his son might be able to resume them again when he inherited. But the jury was out. His shooting invitations were rescinded. The duchess started to worry about his heart.

In Johannesburg, Tony Radnor-Milne tried to give the impression that he had always wanted a life of wine-making and investment, five thousand miles away from his businesses, his soon-to-be-ex-wife’s abbey, and two mistresses he was very fond of. He had asked them to join him, but each had politely declined. There was no explicit reason why he couldn’t return to England, but nor did it seem wise to try. Treason was still treason, and his brother seemed to think his arrival at Heathrow wouldn’t be looked on kindly.

It was the not exactly knowing that cut deep. It made him feel as if he was doing this to himself, and he sensed that was intentional. He had no idea Her Majesty could be so calculatedly cruel. He didn’t think she had it in her.

As Christmas approached, it was traditional for people who were going to receive medals in the New Year’s Honours List to be told privately a few weeks before, so they could prepare for the congratulations that would follow.

To his astonishment, Fred Darbishire was on that list. He was being given an MBE, ‘for services to the Metropolitan Police’. He had no idea what services those were, specifically, but he liked to imagine the look George Venables – who had no such ribbons on his dress uniform – would give him. His wife was thrilled and that was what really mattered. She would get to watch him receive his medal at Buckingham Palace. They would make a day of it.

Meanwhile, the royal household decamped to Sandringham in Norfolk, to spend the festive period by the sea. On Christmas Eve, a postcard arrived addressed to Her Majesty, with a postmark from Cuba. It read simply, ‘Am nursing now, at last. Feliz Navidad.’

‘I guess that’s where she went,’ Joan said, having made sure it was at the top of the basket containing the Queen’s private correspondence.

‘Nursing,’ the Queen observed. ‘Good.’

She was feeling nervous, because in forty-eight hours she would be addressing millions across the nation and the Commonwealth, live on television, and she knew she had to connect with them. She would welcome them into her home, the first time they would see her there, and talk about being frightened – of the future, of technology, of rapid change – and about the deeply held values that got her through. She hoped Daphne was right about it, but regardless of what Daphne thought, it was what the Queen wanted to say.

She had had moments of feeling enormously frightened this year, but she had worked through them and done the right thing, or at least, she hoped she had. Promising a life of public service made everything straightforward in the end: you knew what you were supposed to do. Nursing, in that context, sounded like an excellent choice for Lucie Seymour.

‘I have something for you,’ the Queen said to Joan. She opened her desk drawer and took out a narrow, wrapped box.

‘Shall I open it now?’ Joan asked.

‘Why not save it until you’re at home with your father?’

Joan travelled to Cambridge by train that evening, and unwrapped the box on Christmas morning, in her father’s rooms at St Anselm’s. It was a blue cardboard affair, bearing the name of one of the royal jewellers. Inside, was a smaller box made of silver and blue enamel, with the royal cipher engraved below the clasp.

‘That’s very nice,’ Vincent McGraw said approvingly. ‘What’s it for?’

Joan smiled at her father. ‘I think it’s for keeping secrets.’

‘No doubt. I mean, what are you actually going to keep in it?’

Joan thought about it. Hector Ross had given her a single string of iridescent, perfectly matched, absolutely illicit pearls before she left for Sandringham. ‘You need these,’ he’d explained briskly, sweeping her hair aside to attach them around her neck. ‘Office uniform.’ She was wearing them now.

‘More secrets,’ she said.