The Hawk Is Dead

19

Monday 20 November 2023

Roy Grace knew one certainty about every murder victim: the moment of death was like a starting pistol being fired, signalling the race was on between blowflies and the media to get to the victim first.

Today, from the cluster of camera lenses and strobing flashlights at the blue and white tape of the outer cordon, it looked like the media had won, hands — or perhaps proboscises — down. Sometimes, in his darker, angrier moments he struggled to differentiate the media scavengers from the blowflies.

As he strode along the track towards the ACC, who was well inside the cordon and several yards back from the scene guard, he could see familiar faces from the Argus, Sussex Express, Radio Sussex and ITV Meridian — among the fast-swelling press corps, several of whom were shouting questions at the ACC.

‘Sir, is it true The Queen has been shot?’

‘ACC Downing, has someone tried to kill The Queen?’

‘Nigel, NIGEL!’

‘Assistant Chief Constable, is it true there’s been an assassination attempt on Camilla?’

Nigel Downing, standing a few yards behind the scene guard, in his full dress uniform, replied loudly, ‘I’m sorry, I cannot comment at this stage. There will be a press conference later, probably at Haywards Heath police station.’

‘What time will that be, sir?’ someone shouted.

Downing looked extremely relieved to see Grace heading towards him and, distancing himself further from the tape, greeted him with a firm handshake, asking at the same time, ‘How’s it going?’

‘Detective Superintendent Grace!’ the reporter from the Argus shouted out. ‘Is The Queen still alive?’

‘ROY!’ another shouted. ‘Is the rumour true?’

‘Her Majesty has not been hurt,’ he called back. ‘She has been removed to a place of safety. We will be holding a press conference at Haywards Heath police station at 2 p.m. today.’

Then he ushered Downing away, and along the track towards the inner cordon a quarter of a mile away. As they walked, the ACC pointed to Grace’s oversuit. ‘Should I be putting one on here, Roy?’ he asked.

‘No, sir, you don’t need to go inside the inner cordon.’

‘I’d like to see the body.’

‘I can assure you, sir, you wouldn’t. And with respect, I want the least amount of people walking around the crime scene. It looks like the first bullet pretty much exploded when it struck Sir Peregrine’s head and there may be crucial fragments of that bullet, or the second one, that could lead us to the killer. They could easily get trodden into the ground, which is very soft from the recent rain, as you can tell.’

‘Understood, of course,’ Downing said. ‘So can you give me an update?’

‘Yes, sir, but firstly, how is The Queen?’

‘Being a right royal pain,’ he replied with the trace of a grin. ‘Can you believe she is insisting on carrying on with her plans for the day?’

‘I can believe it, yes.’

‘I just spoke to the Chief. She is already on her way to Martlets Hospice.’

‘Christ,’ Grace said. ‘With a proper escort?’

‘All police leave in the county has been cancelled for the next twenty-four hours, and all available staff have been called in. She’s in a vehicle with bulletproof windows, armed response officers in front and behind and an RAF Chinook helicopter with armed personnel on board, overhead, covering her route. She’s determined to continue with her visits and no one is going to dissuade her.’

‘I think it’s exactly what the late Queen would have done,’ Grace said. ‘Just carry on.’

‘Exactly. But I think the Chief has persuaded her to just do the two hospices, Martlets then the children’s one, Chestnut Tree House, but to cancel Chichester Theatre and return to the safety of Clarence House for the night. Going to the theatre would not be a good look.’

‘I think that’s smart, sir. Not letting patients in a hospice down is one thing. Going to the theatre on the night her Private Secretary has been murdered would not, as you say, be a good look.’

They were approaching the inner cordon and behind the scene guard, they could see several people in oversuits, all busy.

‘Right, the update, sir. Currently at the crime scene itself we have Chris Gee, Crime Scene Manager, and CSI photographer James Gartrell, whose work is always top notch, and two more CSIs who have temporarily put a cover over the Private Secretary’s body. I’m awaiting the arrival of a ballistics expert to see if they can pinpoint where the shooter was located. We have a drone operator and the machine is currently doing a low-level sweep over the area where we think the shooter may have been.’

Grace pointed at the wide expanse of Downland hills in front of them, a mixture of grass, dense shrubland and trees. ‘Whoever it was chose their location well, there’s a good 180-degree sweep and the shooter could have been anywhere within that. We’ve possibly narrowed this down a little — we had some assistance from a local dog walker who told one of the uniformed officers we’ve got out on the hills searching, that a man on a motocross bike raced past her at speed, approximately five minutes after the shots were fired, carrying a canvas bag — the type that broken-down fishing rods are carried in.’

‘Did this person get the licence plate?’ Downing asked.

‘She got one digit, sir. She sounds a good witness — she’s agreed to come in for a cognitive witness interview. But it will very likely be a cloned plate — it looks like our shooter is smart and well-prepped.’

‘Well-prepped enough to have the train derailed for him?’ Downing suggested. ‘All part of an anti-monarchist conspiracy? The Not-My-King lot?’

Grace shook his head. ‘I don’t think it is necessarily them, sir, no.’

Downing looked at him, astonished. ‘What?’

They both heard the whirr of a drone and looked up at the tiny machine with its winking red dot of a light.

‘Is that ours?’ Downing asked.

Grace frowned. ‘I’ll ask James Gartrell. But I’m sure it is.’

The ACC looked pensive. ‘So you don’t think this whole terrible thing is part of an anti-monarchy conspiracy, Roy?’

Grace shook his head. ‘The Not-My-King people are part of an anti-monarchy movement, but their issues are around the cost of living crisis in contrast to what they see as the monarchy’s opulence. There’s nothing in their history to suggest anger at a level where assassination of a monarch could be plausible. Our team have got to know some of them quite well. We will of course check the group out as a line of enquiry to either eliminate or implicate them as suspects.’

Downing nodded. ‘I hope you are right. And you are pretty sure the shooter is no longer in the area, Roy?’

‘I am, sir. The helicopter did a thorough sweep and our drone hasn’t seen anything. The motorbike roaring off five minutes after the shots — and the fact that there were only two shots fired.’

‘And the rest of the royal entourage?’

‘I initially kept them down in the tunnel, for their own safety and equally importantly to prevent them from coming up and contaminating the crime scene. A second route out of the tunnel and up the embankment has been established, and others are all being transported by minibuses to Haywards Heath police station, where I will arrange officers to interview them. To be honest, it seems the key witnesses we’ll need are Her Majesty and her Protection Officer, Jon Gilhall, who were both present on the grass knoll above the tunnel when Greaves was shot. No one else would have been in a position to see anything.’

Downing shook his head. ‘This is a terrible day for Sussex, Roy. A terrible day.’

‘Why do you say that, sir?’

Downing rounded on him. ‘I can’t believe you’ve just said that.’

Grace shrugged.

‘Someone tried to assassinate The Queen on our watch, Roy. A terrorist organization or a lone wolf? You don’t think that’s a terrible day?’

‘Sir, even at this early stage I am not yet convinced anyone tried to assassinate her,’ he replied. ‘We need to consider all the evidence. It’s possible she was not the intended target.’