The Hawk Is Dead

111

Sunday 17 December 2023

‘Get you, tea with your new besties!’ Cleo, lounging back on the sofa, teased. ‘Cucumber sarnies with the crusts cut off? Scones and cream? Victoria sponge?’

‘Just Earl Grey tea, that was all.’

‘Served in the finest china tea set, by the butler of course?’

He smiled. ‘Of course.’

‘You know that bone china is made from real bones, don’t you?’

‘Seriously? I’ve never thought about that before. You mean animal bones, I hope?’

‘Rather than human ones?’

They were squashed together, book-ended by Humphrey leaning against Grace and Kyla against Cleo. The kids were settled and Grace was enjoying his first proper drink in a month. He was holding a very stiff and cold vodka Martini, and Cleo a large glass of wine.

‘I’m sure there are plenty of unscrupulous cemetery operators,’ she said. ‘Half the components of fine bone china is ground-up cremated bone. It’s what gives it the translucency.’

‘Hmm, thanks, that might come under too much information! Think I’ll stick to a plastic mug in future.’ He put down his glass and stroked Humphrey on the nape of his neck. ‘So, how come you know so much about fine china? You got a side-hustle on the go — supplying the potteries with bone ash?’

Cleo grinned. ‘Hang around a mortuary for long enough and you’ll learn everything you never needed to know!’

Grace picked up his glass and clinked hers. ‘I’ll drink to that,’ he said.

‘Your first vodka Martini in a long time. Another influence from your royal buddies?’

‘Influence?’

‘I read that His Maj is rather partial to a Martini, too. But he has it made with gin, rather than vodka.’ She gave him a cheeky glance. ‘Clearly that’s the posh way to do it.’

‘So I’m a pleb, having it with vodka?’

‘Just saying...’

They had spent a happy weekend with the children, decorating the house and the Christmas tree. Noah had proudly displayed the angel on top of the tree that he had made at school. Molly had brought home a cardboard snowman from pre-school. Earlier they had both sat at the kitchen table, with Noah at one end constructing his Lego models and Molly, at the other, putting together a Duplo unicorn figure, loving seeing how focused both children were on their tasks.

‘Did you ever solve the last of the five cryptic ciphers you were given?’ Cleo asked, suddenly. ‘The one about the Horseman? Song of the Horseman or Son of the Horseman?’

Grace nodded. ‘Sorry, I should have told you. Have you still been trying to work it out?’

‘It’s been keeping me awake night after night.’

He looked at her and saw the teasing smile on her face.

‘But I have been mulling on it,’ she added.

‘Denton Scroope finally figured it out. Each of the five clues was someone who had easy access to the Royal Collection — but not necessarily a suspect. It’s Lorraine McKnight, Director of the Royal Collection. McKnight is of Irish origin. In Gaelic it means, son of the horseman.’

‘Sir Peregrine sounds like he had quite an intellect,’ Cleo said.

Grace nodded. ‘You don’t get to be high up in the Royal Household by being a dimwit. Sir Tommy was pretty smart, also.’

‘Just not smart enough?’ she quizzed.

‘Or maybe too smart,’ he replied. ‘He nearly got away with it, so very nearly.’

On the coffee table in front of them, next to a pile of Christmas cards they had opened and read, was a tall stack of pages from newspapers, over the past month, which Cleo had carefully cut out and kept in place with a glass paperweight. It was for posterity, she’d said. A big scrapbook for their children, and one day their grandchildren, to see how famous their dad or grandad — or maybe even great-grandad — had been. The most recent one, from the Telegraph, lay on the top.

The headline read: MURDER IN THE ROYAL HOUSEHOLD — THREE DENIED BAIL.

Cleo shot a glance at the stack. ‘So are your royal besties going to be called on to give evidence at the trial?’

‘I hope not. Rose is going to plead guilty as part of her bargaining, and I would hope Sir Tommy and Fiona, villains though they may be, will have the decency not to expose Their Majesties to that. I mean, they are totally bang to rights and it would only involve The Queen — but I very much doubt that will happen. The evidence against them is strong and three of their five suitcases we pulled off the plane to Dubai were full of pretty much priceless items from the Royal Collection. Including the missing Vermeer, Holbein’s miniature portrait of Anne of Cleves and the entire rest of Granny’s Personal Chips.’

‘Minus the one fake?’

He nodded. ‘Yep. Minus the one that got away and one that didn’t.’

‘People do pack things by mistake, don’t they, my love?’

He shrugged. ‘It happens.’

‘Like the fleece gilet you packed last year when we went to Corfu in August?’

‘Exactly! We also struck lucky with the information that Rose Cadoret gave us about a storage unit in a warehouse near Heathrow Airport. There were two packing cases full of items from the Royal Collection, including pictures, jade ornaments, sculptures and small items of furniture. They were due to be shipped to the Magellan-Laceys’ new address in Dubai, labelled as “personal items”.’

They looked at each other and both burst out laughing. ‘It’s surreal,’ she said. ‘This whole thing.’

‘It is.’

‘But what is brilliant is how much stuff you’ve recovered.’

‘Much of that was thanks to Rose Cadoret singing.’

‘And you recovered most of the money they received from what they had sold and delivered?’

‘We got all their Bitcoin wallets, where the money was hidden, off their phones. Sir Tommy’s code was cracked by one of our brainboxes in Digital Forensics — Charlotte Mckee. The code was a combination of his and his wife’s initials and the date they joined the Palace.’

‘And Rose Cadoret gave you hers?’

‘And Jon Smoke’s. So all the cash they made has been returned to the Keeper of the Privy Purse.’

‘Sir Jason Finch?’

‘Yes. One of my prime suspects, originally. Even more so when we heard he was away with his wife in Amsterdam. We thought they might be selling diamonds, but it turns out one of their daughters has opened a restaurant there with her partner, and they’d gone to the launch to support the couple. Then our suspicions deepened when our Financial Investigator discovered a cash deposit of three quarters of a million pounds into his bank account. But that turned out to be legitimate. They were in the process of selling a number of paintings Sir Jason had inherited. One of them was by Landseer — he had a picture by him that was very similar to one in the Royal Collection.’

Humphrey turned his head and licked Grace’s hand. The dog’s tongue felt like wet sandpaper.

‘Humphrey loves you!’ Cleo said. ‘He loved you from the moment he first saw you, remember?’

‘Just like you did!’

Cleo punched him. ‘Don’t get too big-headed or you’ll need a larger hat. Tell me more about the diamond you’ve just said was missing and the fake.’

‘Good old technology again,’ he said, a tad smugly. ‘Triangulation on Fiona Magellan-Lacey’s phone put her in Hatton Garden. A building where there are five major players in the diamond industry. Thanks to the woman I got released from prison on licence, we know who she has been doing business with.’

‘The woman released from prison — you mean Shannon Kendall?’

He nodded. ‘She’s delivered everything we could have wanted — and more.’ He gave his wife a big smile. ‘It didn’t take long for Nick and EJ to work out from that triangulation, that Fiona had met one of the diamond dealers in that location on several occasions. She made the mistake of having lunch at a nearby restaurant with him on one of those visits, enabling the team to identify him. His name is Gary van Damm. When he was arrested, about to board a flight to Mumbai, he had one of the diamonds from the famous collection of Granny’s Personal Chips in his jacket pocket.’

Cleo leaned forward and picked up her glass of Rioja. ‘I read in the Daily Mail that in addition to Charles liking his Martini, Camilla likes red wine — Pomerol is her favourite. So we don’t quite match Their Majesties.’

‘We’re a little less regal?’ Roy Grace suggested.

She nodded in agreement. ‘But no less charming! You are my Prince Charming, and that’s as regal as you need to be!’ She hesitated. ‘God that sounds cheesy!’

‘Cheesy is good!’

She grinned. ‘Did Sir Tommy — and all of them — seriously think they would get away with it?’

Humphrey licked his hand again. ‘You know, I actually think they were big-headed enough to think they would. And the Magellan-Laceys very nearly did.’

‘But they hadn’t reckoned with my very smart husband.’

‘Those are kind words, my darling. I don’t know how much is down to me, and how much is down to the mistakes they made.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know who said it, but it’s very apt: The walls of a prison aren’t just made of concrete and steel, they are also built from the lost hopes and the silenced dreams of those within.’

‘But we get a behind-the-scenes tour of Buckingham Palace, by Her Majesty The Queen out of it? That’s not rubbish, is it?’

‘Not complete rubbish, no.’

‘I do actually think, on rare occasions, this is one, that being married to a homicide detective isn’t all bad.’

Grace raised his glass. ‘Nor is being married to someone who spends her days with dead people!’

They clinked glasses again. Grace ate the last of the four olives in his Martini and sipped from the glass. ‘This is a seriously good one,’ he announced, with a big, contented smile.

‘Dead for a ducat,’ Cleo said.

‘Dead for a what?’ Grace responded.

‘Hamlet.’ She blew him a kiss. ‘I know Shakespeare’s not your thing.’

‘Dead for a what? Tell me?’

‘It’s a line by Hamlet. No one is quite sure of the meaning. A ducat was a gold coin — worth a fortune at the time. It could mean that killing Polonius was worth it. Maybe the modern equivalent would be, dead for a diamond.’

‘Three people dead — for a diamond? Or a bit more besides just a diamond or two...’ Grace added.

‘A bit more, yes.’

‘But never enough.’

‘Can you ever have enough diamonds?’

‘You know what Gandhi said?’

Cleo frowned: ‘About what?’

‘It was something along the lines of the world can provide enough for everyone’s needs, but not for everyone’s greed. I think that deserves another drink,’ Roy Grace added.

Cleo smiled. ‘I’m with you. And I really don’t think that’s being greedy.’

‘Not at all!’

She looked at him for some moments, with a big smile, ‘I think that’s why I love you.’

‘So it’s not my good looks, my charm, my skills as a detective?’

Cleo shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not, my love. It’s because sometimes, just sometimes, you like being naughty too!’

He raised his Martini. ‘I’ll drink to that!’

The moment they clinked glasses, there was a cry from Molly on the baby monitor. Cleo jumped up. ‘I’ll check on her.’

As she walked out of the room, Grace noticed an unopened envelope on the floor. He put his glass on the table, leaned down and picked it up, then tore it open and removed the card inside.

It was a cheap Christmas card, Santa and his reindeer. Inside, above the message of goodwill, was a handwritten one. It read:

‘You might not remember me. But I remember you. Enjoy your last Christmas.’