The Hawk Is Dead

66

Monday 27 November 2023

I would also like to interview her at some point this week, as well as Sir Jason Finch.

That fleeting frown across Sir Tommy’s face, when he’d said this, was what had been bugging Roy Grace most of all since they’d left the Palace. It was bugging him even more than Detective Superintendent Mosse’s refusal to engage or cooperate.

‘You’re very quiet,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Are you still alive?’

They were in south London, crawling in heavy traffic through the urban sprawl of Streatham, but Grace had been so submerged in thought he’d barely noticed where they were. Part of it was unpacking the meeting they’d just had with the Master of the Royal Household. But it wasn’t just that, he had a very bad feeling deep inside him. When he tried to analyse it he realized it wasn’t just because the shooting of Sir Peregrine had happened on his manor, on his watch. Or now the murder of the footman.

It was because the world had changed in so many ways in these past few years. And not in a way he liked. It kept him awake at night worrying. Worrying about so much. About the future his kids, Noah and Molly, had in front of them. A weird, crazy world, where every day when you opened the newspaper you’d read of more violence, more of man’s inhumanity to man, and of yet another new war in a country you’d never heard of, full of deprived and starving people and atrocities perpetrated on them.

‘Tell me something — are you an optimist or a pessimist?’ he asked Branson.

‘You know the definition of a pessimist?’ Branson replied after some moments.

Grace shook his head. ‘Go on?’

‘A pessimist is an optimist with experience.’

Grace, smiling thinly, reflected for a moment. Then he retorted, ‘You could say the same about a defeatist. Is that you?’

‘Never!’ Branson replied, halting at traffic lights.

Grace nodded. ‘That’s what I saw in you when we first met. An optimist. I saw a bit of me in you. That you were someone who not only genuinely cared but had the passion in your heart. The belief that as a copper you could make things better for people. We have right now the highest profile case of our careers so far — maybe the highest we will ever face. And all we have to go on, so far, is a description of a motorbike — which fits thousands of machines — a list of Royal Protection Officers with motorbike licences, a list of Household staff, including RaSPs, who had last Monday off, a rope ladder in a tunnel air vent and forensic analysis of gunpowder residue, which we’re waiting on and might confirm a bullet type — but that probably won’t take us anywhere — plus a part-decoded diary. And you know the biggest irony of all? That our best hope lies with a convicted criminal who you and I put behind bars. Ain’t life grand?’

Branson smiled. ‘That witness, Sarah Stratten, might remember more in time?’

‘Maybe, but I’m not sure she has more to give that will take us anywhere. The telephone analysis shows the call was made from a burner that could have been bought in a million shops or online.’ He shook his head and looked down at his lap, as if he was expecting to find some answers printed in the creases in his charcoal suit trousers. ‘We have, as I’ve said before, a dinosaur running the enquiry into the footman’s death. A dinosaur angry he didn’t get to be SIO on Sir Peregrine’s investigation, who’s made it clear he’s not interested in cooperating with us. Which is just plain nuts.’

‘The two deaths might not be connected,’ Branson said, trying to be placatory.

‘They are connected,’ Grace retorted emphatically. ‘One hundred per cent. We just have to figure out how.’

‘Where do we start?’

Grace frowned. ‘Everything comes back to Sir Peregrine’s cryptic — and coded — message, Someone high up in Royal Service, and the entries that we believe now relate to five potential leads. What do we always do when investigating a financial crime?’

Branson gave him a long, thoughtful look. ‘Follow the money?’

‘Exactly,’ Grace replied. ‘We start by looking more closely at Sir Jason Finch, Keeper of the Privy Purse — the financial comptroller — and if and where he might fit into all of this. I get the impression Sir Tommy may be protecting someone — to avoid a scandal. I can’t forget that look. It would be good to eliminate Finch.’