The Windsor Knot

1

It was an almost perfect spring day.

The air was crisp and clear, the cornflower sky slashed with contrails. Ahead of her, above the tree line of Home Park, Windsor Castle glowed silver in the morning light. The Queen brought her pony to a standstill to admire the view. There is nothing as good for the soul as a sunny morning in the English countryside. After eighty-nine years, she still marveled at God’s work. Or evolution’s, to be strictly accurate. But on a day like this, it was God who came to mind.

Of all her residences, if she had to pick a favorite, it would be this one. Not Buckingham Palace, which was like living in a gilded office block on a roundabout. Not Balmoral or Sandringham, though they were in her blood. Windsor was, quite simply, home. It was the seat of her happiest days of childhood: Royal Lodge, the pantomimes, the rides. It was where one still came at weekends to recover from the endless formality in town. It was where Papa was laid to rest and darling Mummy, too, and Margaret alongside them, though that had been tricky to arrange in the snug little vault.

If the revolution ever came, she mused, this was where she would ask to retire. Not that they’d let her. Revolutionaries would probably pack her off . . . where? Out of the country? If so, she’d go to Virginia, called after her namesake, and home to Secretariat, who won the Triple Crown in ’73. Actually, if it wasn’t for the Commonwealth, and poor Charles, and William and little George so nicely lined up to follow him after all the ghastliness, that wouldn’t be such a terrible prospect at all.

But Windsor would be best. One could bear anything here.

From this distance the castle looked untroubled, idle, and half asleep. It wasn’t. Inside, five hundred people would be going about their business. It was a village, and a vastly efficient one at that. She liked to think of them all, from the master of the Household checking the accounts, to the chambermaids making the beds after last night’s little soirée. But today there was a shadow over everything.

A performer at the soirée had been found dead in his bed this morning. Apparently, he’d died in his sleep. She had met him. Briefly danced with him, in fact. A young Russian, brought in to play the piano. So gifted, so attractive. What a terrible loss for his family.

Overhead, a dull roar of engines drowned out the birdsong. From her saddle, the Queen heard a high-pitched whine and glanced up to see an Airbus A330 coming in to land. When one lives on a Heathrow flight path one becomes an expert plane spotter, though knowing all the current passenger jets by silhouette alone was a reluctant party trick. The airplane noise jogged her out of her thoughts and reminded her she needed to get back to her papers.

First, she made a mental note to ask after the young man’s mother. She wasn’t, to be frank, normally that interested in the absent relations of other people. One’s own family was bad enough. But something told her this was different. There had been a very odd look on her private secretary’s face when he gave her the news this morning. Despite her staff’s endless endeavors to protect her from anything unfortunate, she always knew when something was up. And up, she suddenly realized, something most definitely was.

“Walk on,” she instructed her pony. Beside her, the stud groom silently urged on his horse in unison.

Under the ornate Gothic ceiling of the small State Dining Room, breakfast was coming to an end. The Queen’s racing manager was sharing bacon and eggs with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the former ambassador to Moscow, and a few fellow stragglers from the night before.

“Interesting evening,” he said to the archbishop, who was seated to his left. “I didn’t know you danced the tango.”

“Neither did I,” groaned his companion. “That little ballerina rather swept me off my feet. My calves are killing me.” The archbishop lowered his voice. “Tell me, on a scale of one to ten, how ridiculous was I?”

The racing manager’s lips twitched. “To quote Nigel Tufnel, it was an eleven. I’m not entirely sure I’ve seen the Queen laugh harder.”

The archbishop frowned. “Tufnel? Was he here last night?”

“No. Spinal Tap.”

The reluctant dancer grinned sheepishly. “Oh dear.” He leaned forward to rub his lower leg under the table and caught the eye of the extremely beautiful, model-thin young woman sitting opposite him at the table. Her wide, dark irises seemed to stare into his very soul. She gave a faint smile. He blushed like a choirboy.

But Masha Peyrovskaya was looking through him, not at him. Last night had been the most intense experience of her life and she was still savoring every second of it.

“Dine,” she practiced to herself in her head, “and sleep. Dine and sleep. Last week I went to a dine and sleep at Windsor Castle. Oh yes. With Her Majesty the Queen of England. You haven’t been to one? They are so lovely.” As if it happened every week. “Yuri and I had rooms overlooking the town. Her Majesty uses the same soap as we do. She’s so funny when you get to know her. Her diamonds are to die for . . .”

Her husband, Yuri Peyrovski, was medicating an almighty hangover with a concoction of raw green vegetables and ginger made to his personal recipe. The staff was certainly efficient. Yuri had heard rumors the Queen kept her breakfast cereal in plastic containers (not that she was joining them this morning). He was expecting the old English shabby chic, which meant poorly maintained homes with inadequate heating and peeling paint. But he had been misinformed. This room, for example, had elaborate red silk curtains, two dozen matching gilt chairs around the table, and a pristine carpet of bespoke design. Every other room was equally immaculate. Even his own butler would find little to fault here. The port last night had been excellent, too. And the wine. And had there been brandy? He dimly remembered there had been.

Despite the pounding in his head, he turned to the woman on his left, who was the former ambassador’s wife, and asked how he might go about procuring the services of a personal librarian, such as the one they had met after dinner. The former ambassador’s wife, who didn’t know but had lots of impecunious, well-read friends, turned up the charm to eleven and did her best.

They were interrupted by the sight of a tall, raven-haired woman in a pleated trouser suit, who appeared in the doorway in a dramatic pose, hand on hip, carmine lips pursed in alarm.

“Oh, I’m sorry! Am I late?”

“Not at all,” the racing manager offered amicably, though she was, extremely. Many guests had already returned upstairs to oversee the packing of their overnight bags. “We’re all very relaxed here. Come and grab a seat next to me.”

Meredith Gostelow made her way to the chair being pulled back for her by a footman and nodded heartfelt assent to the suggestion of coffee.

“Did you sleep well?” asked a familiar voice to her right. It was Sir David Attenborough, as melodious and solicitous as he was on TV. It made her feel like an endangered panda.

“Mmm, yes,” she lied. She glanced around the table as she sat, caught sight of the beautiful Masha Peyrovskaya half smiling at her, and almost missed her chair.

“I didn’t sleep,” Masha muttered huskily. Several heads swiveled to look at her, except her husband, who frowned into his juice. “I was thinking all night about the beauty, the music, the . . . сказка . . . How do you say in English?”

“The fairy tale,” the ambassador murmured from across the table, with a crack in his voice.

“Yes, the fairy tale. Isn’t it? Just like being in Disney! But classy.” She paused. This had not come out as she intended. Her English held her back, but she hoped her enthusiasm carried her through. “You are lucky.” She turned to the racing manager. “You come here often, yes?”

He grinned, as if she had made a joke. “Absolutely.”

Before she could investigate the cause of his amusement, a new footman, resplendent in a red waistcoat and black tailcoat, walked up to her husband, bending to mutter something in his ear that Masha could not catch. Yuri flushed, pushed his chair back without a word, and followed him out of the room.

Looking back, Masha blamed herself for mentioning fairy tales. Somehow, this was all her fault. Because when you consider them, fairy tales always have dark forces at their heart. Evil lurks where we most desire it not to be, and evil often wins. How stupid she had been to think of Disney, when instead she should have remembered Baba Yaga in the forest.

We are never safe. No matter how many furs and diamonds we wrap ourselves in. And one day I shall be old and all alone.

2

“Simon?”

“Yes, ma’am?” The Queen’s private secretary, Sir Simon Holcroft, looked up from the paper agenda he was holding. The Queen was back from her ride and sitting at her desk, dressed in a grey tweed skirt and a favorite cashmere cardigan that brought out the blue in her eyes. Her private sitting room was a cozy space—for a Gothic castle—filled with sagging sofas and a lifetime of treasures and keepsakes. He liked it here. However, there was an edge to Her Majesty’s voice that made Sir Simon slightly nervous, though he fought not to show it.

“That young Russian. Was there something you didn’t tell me?”

“No, ma’am. The body is on its way to the morgue, I believe. On the twenty-second, the president intends to arrive by helicopter and we were wondering if you’d like to—”

“Don’t change the subject. You had a look on your face.”

“Ma’am?”

“When you broke the news earlier. You were trying to spare me. Don’t.”

Sir Simon swallowed. He knew exactly what he had been trying to spare his aged sovereign. But the Boss was the Boss. He coughed.

“He was naked, ma’am. When he was found.”

“Yes?” The Queen peered at him. She pictured a fit young man lying nude in bed under the covers. Why would this be unusual? Philip in his youth was known to spurn pajamas.

Sir Simon peered back. It took a while to realize she didn’t see this as odd. She needed more; he girded his loins.

“Um, naked, except for a purple dressing gown. By whose cord, most unfortunately . . .” He trailed off. He couldn’t do it. The woman would be ninety in a fortnight.

Her stare resolved sharply as she grasped his meaning.

“Do you mean to say, he was hanging by the cord?”

“Yes, ma’am. Most tragically. In a cupboard.”

“A cupboard?”

“Strictly speaking, a wardrobe.”

“Well.” There was a brief silence while they both tried to picture the scene and wished they hadn’t. “Who found him?” Her tone was brisk.

“One of the housekeepers. Someone noticed he wasn’t at breakfast and”—he paused fractionally, to remember the name—“Mrs. Cobbold went to check he was awake.”

“Is she all right?”

“No, ma’am. I believe counseling has been offered.”

“How extraordinary . . .” She was still picturing the discovery.

“Yes, ma’am. But by the look of it, accidental.”

“Oh?”

“The way he was . . . and the room.” Sir Simon coughed again.

“The way he was what, Simon? What about the room?”

He took a deep breath. “There were ladies’ . . . underwear. Lipstick.” He closed his eyes. “Tissues. It seems he was . . . experimenting. For pleasure. He probably didn’t mean to . . .”

By now he was puce. The Queen took pity. “How dreadful. And the police have been called?”

“Yes. The commissioner has promised absolute discretion.”

“Good. Have his parents been told?”

“I don’t know, ma’am,” Sir Simon said, making a note. “I’ll find out.”

“Thank you. Is that everything?”

“Almost. I’ve called a meeting this afternoon to contain publicity. Mrs. Cobbold has already been very understanding on that point. I’m quite certain we have her absolute loyalty and we’ll make it clear to the staff: no talking. We’ll need to tell the guests about the death—though obviously not the manner of it. Because Mr. Peyrovski brought Mr. Brodsky here last night, he has already been informed.”

“I see.”

Sir Simon stole another look at his agenda. “Now, there is the question of where exactly you wish to welcome the Obamas. . . .”

They returned to business as usual. It was all very unsettling, though.

To have happened here. At Windsor. In a cupboard. In a purple dressing gown.

She didn’t know if she felt more sorry for the castle or the man. It was much more tragic for the poor young pianist, obviously. But she knew the castle better. Knew it like a second skin. It was awful, awful. And after such a wonderful night.

It was the Queen’s habit to spend a month at the castle in spring, for the Easter Court. Away from the excessive formality of the palace, she could entertain in a more relaxed, informal style—which meant parties for twenty, instead of banquets for a hundred and sixty, and the chance to catch up with old friends. This particular dine and sleep, a week after Easter, had been somewhat hijacked by Charles, who wanted to use it to curry favor with some rich Russians for one of his pet projects that needed a cash injection.

Charles had requested the presence of Yuri Peyrovski and his preternaturally beautiful young wife, as well as a hedge fund manager called Jay Hax who specialized in Russian markets and was known for being crashingly dull. As a favor to her son the Queen agreed, though she had added a few suggestions of her own.

Sitting at her desk, she considered the guest list, where a copy still sat among her papers. Sir David Attenborough had been there, of course. He was always a delight, and one’s own age, which was rare these days. He had been very gloomy about the state of global warming, though. Oh dear. And her racing manager, who was staying for a few days and was never gloomy about anything much, thank goodness. They were joined by a novelist and her screenwriter husband, whose gentle, funny films were the epitome of Britishness. And there was the provost of Eton and his wife, who lived round the corner and were regular stalwarts.

For Charles’s sake she had included various people with Russian connections. The recently returned British ambassador to Moscow . . . the Oscar-winning actress of Russian descent, who was rightly famous for her embonpoint and acerbic tongue . . . Who else? Ah, yes, that star British female architect who was building a rather grand museum annex in Russia at the moment, and the professor of Russian literature and her husband (you could never assume the sex or sexuality of professors these days—as Philip had learned the hard way—but this was a woman, married to a man).

And somebody else . . . She looked back at the list. Oh of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was another regular who could be relied upon to make the conversation go with a swing if some of the others became tongue-tied, as could unfortunately be the case. The other misfortune being if they all talked too much and one could hardly get a word in edgeways. For which there was little remedy, apart from the occasional stern look.

The Queen always liked to provide a little entertainment for her guests and Mr. Peyrovski had suggested to Charles a young protégé of his who “played Rachmaninoff like a dream.” There were also a couple of ballet dancers who would perform cut-down solos from Swan Lake in Imperial Russian style to recorded music. The whole thing was set to be refined, serious, and soulful. In fact, the Queen had been rather dreading it. The Easter Court was supposed to be jolly, but Charles’s fête à la russe sounded positively grim.

And yet. You never know what will happen.

The food was sublime. A new chef, keen to prove herself, had created wonders with produce from Windsor, Sandringham, and Charles’s kitchen gardens at Highgrove. The wine was always good. Sir David, when not prophesying the imminent death of the planet, was impishly amusing. The Russians were not nearly as dour as one had feared and Charles beamed with gratitude (though he and Camilla had departed after coffee for an event at Highgrove the following day, leaving her feeling like the mother of a university student who comes home merely so one can do his laundry).

Slightly tiddly, they had joined a few other members of the family, who had been eating together in the Octagon Room in the Brunswick Tower, and all gone to the library to be shown some of the more interesting Russian volumes in her collection, including some nice first editions of poetry and plays in translation, which she had always intended to read one day and never quite got round to. Philip, who had been up since dawn, disappeared without fuss to bed and the Oscar-winning actress, whose profile had been much admired and whose views on Hollywood had been highly entertaining, was whisked off to a hotel near Pinewood, where she was filming at dawn. And then . . . the piano and the dancers.

Thoroughly relaxed, the remaining party had gone to the Crimson Drawing Room to listen to extracts from Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. This was one of her favorite rooms for entertaining, with its red silk walls, the portraits of Mummy and Papa looking glamorous in their coronation robes on either side of the fireplace, its vista of the park by daylight and extravagant chandelier by night, and the elegant view of the Green Drawing Room beyond. It was one of the rooms gutted by the fire in 1992—though you would never know it now. Restored to perfection, it was the ideal backdrop for evenings such as this.

The young pianist had been, as promised, quite magnificent. Did Simon say he was called Brodsky? In his early twenties, the Queen thought, but with the musical sensibility of a man much older. He seemed borne away by the passion of the piece, while she found herself reliving scenes from Brief Encounter. And he was so good-looking. All the women had been entranced.

Afterwards the ballerinas had done their solos—very nicely. Margaret would have enjoyed them. One secretly found them rather clip-cloppety, but that was probably just their shoes. And then, somehow, young Mr. Brodsky was back at the piano and playing dance tunes from the thirties. How did he know them? And she agreed the furniture could be moved back for dancing.

It all started out quite decorously, then someone else had sat at the piano. Who? The professor’s husband, she seemed to remember, and he was surprisingly good, too. The young Russian was freed to join the assembled company. With impeccable manners he had clicked his heels and bowed down to his hostess with a look of real supplication in his eyes.

“Your Majesty. Would you care to dance?”

Well, as a matter of fact, she would. And the next thing she knew, she was fox-trotting across the floor with no thought for sciatica. She was wearing a light silk chiffon gown that evening, with plenty of swing in the skirts. Mr. Brodsky was an expert partner, reminding her of steps she had forgotten she knew. His timing was impeccable. He managed to make one feel like Ginger Rogers.

By now, most of the party were joining in. The music was louder and bolder. An Argentine tango struck up. Was it still the professor’s husband at the piano? Even the Archbishop of Canterbury was tempted to cut a rug with one of the dancers, much to everyone’s amusement. A few other couples gave it a go, but nobody could begin to match the Russian and his latest partner—the other ballerina—striding majestically across the floor.

She had retired soon afterwards, leaving the guests with the reassurance that they could continue as long as they liked. In her day, the Queen could outlast half the Foreign Office, but now she tended to droop after half past ten. However, that was no reason to cut short a good party. Her dresser, who got it from one of the underbutlers, informed her it had gone on until well after midnight.

That was the last she had seen of him: dancing around the drawing room with a beautiful young ballerina in his arms. Looking magnificent, happy . . . and so intensely alive.

Philip was full of the news when he arrived to share a coffee with her after lunch.

“Lilibet, did you hear the man was nude?”

“Yes, actually, I did.”

“Strung up like a Tory MP. There’s a word for it. What is it? Auto-sex something?”

“Autoerotic asphyxiation,” the Queen said grimly. She had Googled it on her iPad.

“That’s the bugger. D’you remember Buffy?”

One did indeed recall the seventh Earl of Wandle, an old friend who had been rather partial to the practice in the fifties, by all accounts. Back then it had seemed practically de rigueur among a certain set.

“What the butler saw, eh?” Philip said. “Had to rescue the blighter on many an occasion, apparently. Buffy was hardly an oil painting, even with his clothes on.”

“What was he thinking?” she wondered.

“My dear, I try not to imagine Buffy’s sex life.”

“No. I mean the young Russian. Brodsky.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” Philip said, gesturing around him. “You know what people are like in this place. They come here, decide it’s the pinnacle of their bloody existence, and need to let off steam. The high jinks that go on when they think we’re not looking . . . Poor bastard.” He dropped his voice sympathetically. “Didn’t think it through. Last thing you want is to be discovered in a royal palace with your goolies out.”

“Philip!”

“No, I mean it. No wonder everyone’s keeping it hush-hush. That, and protecting your fragile nerves.”

The Queen threw him a look. “They forget. I’ve lived through a world war, that Ferguson girl, and you in the navy.”

“And yet, they think you’ll need smelling salts if they so much as hint at anything fruity. All they see is a little old lady in a hat.” He grinned as she frowned. That last remark was true, and very useful and rather sad. “Don’t worry, Cabbage, they love that little old lady.” He rose stiffly from his chair. “Don’t forget, I’m off to Scotland later. The salmon’s spectacular this year, Dickie says. Need anything? Fudge? Nicola Sturgeon’s head on a platter?”

“No, thank you. When will you be back?”

“A week or so—I’ll be in good time for your birthday. Dickie’s going to stuff up the atmosphere and fly me in his jet.”

The Queen nodded. Philip tended to run his own diary these days. Years ago, she had found it rather heartbreaking when he disappeared off, with who knew who, to do God knew what, leaving her in charge. A part of her was jealous, too, of the freedom, the self-determination. But he always came back, bringing with him a burst of energy that cut through the corridors of power like a brisk sea breeze. She had learned to be grateful.

“Actually,” she said, as he bent arthritically to drop a kiss on her forehead, “I wouldn’t mind some fudge.”

“Your wish is my command.” He grinned, making her heart melt with clockwork precision, and strode to the door.

3

Meredith Gostelow hobbled out of the black cab that had brought her from Windsor to West London—at an extortionate fee—and stood catching her breath while the cabbie fetched her case from the space beside him.

She looked up at the pale pink stucco of her house and felt that she would never be the same again. Something had shifted, and she was terrified, and ashamed, and something she couldn’t name. She wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but a tear made its tentative way through the powder on her right cheek. Since the menopause had hit her like a freight train, moisture of any sort was hard-won these days. She was a young woman in an old woman’s body, creaking and enfolded in a carnal carapace she could not control. Last night had made it worse.

And then, this morning . . . She would have sunk to her knees, if she hadn’t known it would be impossible to rise up again.

“That it, missus?”

She glanced round, checking for her case and her handbag, and nodded. She had already paid him by card in the cab. Two hundred pounds! What had she been thinking? But then, who orders an Uber to pick them up from Windsor Castle? She should have gone to the station, of course, and caught the train to Central London like any sensible human who didn’t drive—but at Windsor one thinks differently. Surrounded by liveried staff, one is expansive. One is there because one is successful. One did in fact spend twenty minutes last night talking to the Archbishop of Canterbury about a potential commission for a twenty-first-century church building in Southwark. And so, one orders a cab and hang the expense . . . and says goodbye to the price of a large tub of Crème de la Mer for the sake of getting stuck in terrible, utterly predictable traffic on the M4.

One was . . . She was . . . She must stop thinking as if she were a tightfisted version of the Queen. Mind you, HMQ herself was known to mind the purse strings. Anyway, she, Meredith Gostelow, was alone.

A partner would have had the train idea. A partner would have given her a moment to think. A partner would have prevented . . . whatever happened last night. A partner might have driven her here in a nice, big car. And would now be carrying her case for her up the small flight of steps to the front door.

And talking to her, and telling her what to do, and needing food cooked and beds made and attention paid, which would be a nightmare. Meredith had been through this mental rigmarole a thousand times and cursed herself for repeating it now.

But something had changed last night. Something deep inside.

Talking of which, she needed the loo, rather badly. She grabbed her case by the handle with one hand, holding her capacious bag to her chest with the other, and hauled herself up the steps. By the time she’d found her keys, opened the door, dumped the bags, and run down the hall, she made it to the loo seat with microseconds to spare.

Old ladies. No moisture when and where you need it. Gallons of it without warning when you don’t.

Masha Peyrovskaya sat in the back of the Mercedes-Maybach, listening to the musical, rhythmical sound of Italian phrases as the car inched its way home. Her hands were folded in her lap and she watched the glimmering light show created by the facets of the yellow diamond, the size of a gull’s egg, on her wedding ring finger. Across the seat, Yuri barked Russian obscenities into his phone. A muscle twitched in his neck.

It is astonishing how quickly the best day of your life can become simply another thing you did.

In her earbuds, Masha’s Italian language app said something about the pleasure of being outside. Or was it wall paintings? She tuned it out.

Yuri had been quick to tell her how crass she had been, how common. How she ruined breakfast for him by mentioning Disney. How she’d ruined it for everyone.

But wasn’t it he who had asked to bring his own chef (he couldn’t), refused to eat anything that wasn’t alkaline, and had insisted on applying his own Himalayan pink salt from a rock crystal pillbox at breakfast? The ambassador’s wife had been watching at the time and Masha had seen the look she gave him.

The problem with Windsor Castle is that it is a dream. Real people only ruin it.

Today a trade war was brewing. The markets were down. Yuri was incandescent that certain stocks hadn’t been traded yesterday, when he had given the order. Eventually he ran out of bile and ended the call with a vicious stab of his thumb.

“Five hundred thousand. You can say goodbye to your gallery.”

He glared at his wife, furious, wounded. At the word “gallery,” she finally looked him in the face. Good. It was why he had said it. The things it took to get Masha’s attention! God forbid she should support him while he was fighting to keep everything together for her, for them, for the future. All she cared about was art—collecting it, showing it off, and mixing with people who made her feel clever because she knew the word “Postimpressionism.” That and being worshipped like a goddess. Well, he’d tried that for years, since he’d found her, aged seventeen, when she was a goddess in her tiny T-shirt and dirty jeans, and it was wearing him out. And it wasn’t exactly as if he was the only one.

“By the way,” he said casually, the way he’d rehearsed. “Maksim’s dead.”

“Uh?”

He watched her face freeze.

“Died this morning. Heart attack, probably. You liked him, didn’t you?”

For a moment, she couldn’t speak. When she did, her voice was barely there. “A little.”

“All those piano lessons. So many. You must play me some of those pieces you learned.”

He observed the way she stared at him, as if he was being shocking. As if he was doing something outrageous. The way she so often looked at him, saying nothing, from her high goddess pedestal, up in the stratosphere somewhere. When all he wanted was for her to step down and reach out to him. He wanted her to burn with shame and come to him, soft and humble, and hold him. Why couldn’t she understand? She was the villain here. Why did she always make it all his fault? His head was still pounding. Why had she let him drink so much? Had she known what would happen next?

She took out her earbuds. The silence enfolded them like a shroud as she worked out what to say.

“I will play you something,” she mumbled at last. “When we get home.” Tears threatened to spill from those heavenly, glistening eyes, but she held them in.

She was made of ice, he thought. But one day he would melt her.

At the castle, the Queen tried vainly to distract herself from thoughts of the poor misguided young man in the cupboard. She had spent the afternoon with her racing manager, going through her upcoming entries at Ascot. With the public safely shooed off the premises, she was on her way to inspect one of the tapestries in the Grand Reception Room, which was due for minor restoration, when a warder intercepted her to say Sir Simon needed to see her urgently.

“Did he say why?”

The warder tapped his two-way radio. “He said to tell you there’s been a development, ma’am,” he said impassively. She approved of his lack of curiosity. The last thing one needed was staff who practically nodded and winked as they passed on news. Such people never lasted long.

With a sigh she turned on her heel and headed back to her office. If Sir Simon was tracking her down this way it must be important. She retraced her steps through the Semi-State Rooms, where she had entertained the guests at the dine and sleep, heading back towards the Grand Corridor, where her private apartments were. As she reached the Lantern Lobby, she bumped into a small group of people coming the other way. This was where the fire had started and although it looked splendid these days with its new ceiling, the timbers spreading out like fans, she still felt the occasional shiver walking through it. The group, meanwhile, seemed quite astonished to see her here.

They were headed by a distinguished, square-jawed middle-aged man in a broad-breasted pinstripe suit and tie.

“Governor!”

“Your Majesty.” General Sir Peter Venn clicked his heels and bowed at the neck briefly. He alone didn’t look surprised, because he wasn’t. As the current governor of Windsor Castle, he lived in a grace-and-favor apartment in the Norman Tower at the gate to the Upper Ward, and she knew him well. In fact, she could have named, in order, all his postings around the world and quoted from his commendations in half of them. She had known his uncle, too, whom she’d first met as a slip of a lieutenant at a party in Hong Kong aboard Britannia, and to whom she had awarded various medals for operations too secret to name. The Venns were a strong military family. If there ever was a revolution, she would want Peter at her back. Or, ideally, just a few paces out in front.

“You look busy,” she said, as they drew close.

“Actually we’re just finishing up, ma’am. Very useful meeting. I was about to give a quick tour.”

She smiled with vague approval at the group, most of whom she had briefly met yesterday. She was about to go on her way, but Sir Peter had a look about him. If he wasn’t a die-hard general, built to withstand all eventualities, she might almost have called it excitement. She paused a fraction and, seizing his chance, he said, “May I introduce you to Kelvin Lo? He’s doing some interesting work for us in Djibouti.”

“Interesting work” meant foreign intelligence. Sir Peter had been hosting a meeting on behalf of MI6 and the Foreign Office. A young man with Asian features, wearing some sort of dark hoodie over—Were they? Yes! Tracksuit trousers!—stepped forward and bowed shyly. He looked utterly overwhelmed by the honor of meeting her. She wished one didn’t have this effect. It was really quite trying, although obviously chatterboxes and oversharers (Harry had taught her the term—a very useful modern description for bores) were worse.

“Were you here last night?” she asked.

“No, Your Maj— er . . . madam.”

“Oh?”

He looked up from his trainers long enough to see that she was still staring at him.

“My plane was late,” he managed to mumble.

She gave up. There was only so much time one could devote to the inarticulate youth of today, however brilliant. The other members of the group hadn’t been much better last night, and nor were they today. One of the men trembled like an aspen in the Berkshire breeze and the young woman next to him looked positively unwell. She bade them goodbye. She wanted to know what Sir Simon had to say and hurried on to her office, where he was waiting.

Outside the lamps were coming on, casting an opalescent glow across the lawns and paths leading down to the Long Walk. She was glad they hadn’t closed the curtains yet. Inside it was warm and bright, and time for gin.

But first, work.

“Yes, Simon—what is it?”

Sir Simon waited until she had sat down at her desk.

“It’s the young Russian, ma’am. Mr. Brodsky.”

“I rather assumed as much.”

“It wasn’t an accident.”

She frowned. “Oh dear. Poor man. How could they tell?”

“The knot, ma’am. The pathologist felt something wasn’t right. The hyoid bone was broken. That’s a bone in the neck, ma’am—”

“I know about hyoid bones.” She’d read a lot of Dick Francis novels. Hyoid bones were breaking all the time. Never a good sign.

“Ah. The fracture doesn’t necessarily prove anything because it can happen anyway, with hangings. But also the mark of the ligature round the neck was unusual. Even that wasn’t conclusive. The pathologist has been working on the case all afternoon, because we wanted some reassurance. Anyway, she had a look at the photographs from the scene and . . . well, they’re not very reassuring. There’s a problem with the knot.”

“Did he tie it incorrectly?” The Queen was alarmed. She imagined the poor pianist grasping at the cord with those elegant hands. Perhaps he meant to save himself and then couldn’t. How awful.

Sir Simon shook his head. “It wasn’t the slipknot around the neck that was the problem. It was the other end.”

“What end?”

“Um, do stop me if . . . you don’t want . . .”

“Oh, get on with it, Simon.”

“Yes, ma’am. If you’re intending to . . . tighten . . . for pleasure, or indeed otherwise, you have to attach the cord to something solid that won’t give. It looked as though Brodsky chose the handle of the cupboard door and passed the cord over the rail above his head.”

Now she was properly picturing the poor man inside this cupboard, the Queen struggled to make sense of it. “Surely there was no drop?”

“Apparently you don’t need one.” Sir Simon looked thoroughly miserable at his newfound expertise. “With a slipknot, you just need to bend your knees. A lot of people who . . . do it for pleasure . . . like to do it that way, I understand, because when they’ve had enough they think they can just stand up and loosen the noose, but it doesn’t always work because they lose consciousness, or they can’t loosen it after all and then . . .”

She nodded. It was what she had been imagining. Poor, poor man.

Sir Simon continued. “But none of that matters, ma’am, because that’s not how he died.”

There was a tiny pause.

“What do you mean, ‘not how he died’?”

“If Brodsky had died that way, intentionally or otherwise, his body weight would have pulled against the knot attaching the dressing gown cord to the door. But that knot was still fairly loose: it hadn’t been tautened by a falling weight. The pathologist has re-created the circumstances with a similar cord and it was fairly conclusive. The cord around Brodsky must have been attached to the doorknob after . . .”

A longer pause.

“Oh.”

For a full thirty seconds the only sound in the room was the ticking of an ormolu clock.

First, she had thought it was accidental death, which was bad enough. Then deliberate suicide, which was dreadful . . . Now the Queen forced herself to entertain a new, unthinkable possibility.

“Do they know who . . . ?”

“No, ma’am. Not at all. Obviously, I wanted to tell you as soon as possible. There’s a team setting up in the Round Tower. They’re just getting to work on it.”

She had her gin and Dubonnet, and they made it a strong one. She missed Philip. He’d have said something rude and made her laugh, and known underneath how very upset she was and cared.

Not that the staff didn’t care, or Lady Caroline Cadwallader, who was her current lady-in-waiting and who listened sympathetically as she relayed the whole story. The few who knew the truth had that terrible look of pity in their eyes that she simply couldn’t bear. She wasn’t unhappy for herself—that would be ridiculous: she felt for the castle, the community, and the young man who had had his life taken so brutally, so ignominiously. She was also slightly unnerved.

There was a murderer on the loose at Windsor Castle. Or at least, there had been last night.

The Queen readied herself for dinner—a small affair for friends and family this evening—and put on a brave face. The best brains in the police and any relevant government agencies would be hard at work on the case tonight and all one could do was trust they would solve it as soon as possible. Meanwhile, she might just sneak a second gin.

4

Down in the servants’ quarters, maids and housekeepers and butlers watched the police comings and goings with a mixture of curiosity and frustration.

“What’re they still here at night for?” a deputy sergeant footman muttered to a passing kitchen pastry chef, who was a friend.

Mr. Brodsky, as a performer and not a guest, had been housed high up in overcrowded attics near the Augusta Tower, above the Visitors’ Apartments, in the south side of the Upper Ward overlooking the town. That attic corridor was now cordoned off, causing great annoyance to all concerned, as there were hardly enough bedrooms to accommodate everyone who needed one as it was. Instead, it was occupied by various people in hooded white overalls and gloves, who carried bulky bags and didn’t talk to anyone. News had spread, as it was inevitably going to do, about the way the body had been found. However, the additional information about the second knot had not.

“They’re treating it like a bloody crime scene,” the chef complained. “I mean, everybody has kinky secrets. The guy’s dead. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, know what I mean? They should just stay out of it.”

“Kinky how?” an underbutler asked, pausing in the corridor to listen. She had just come back from holiday and was still catching up with the gossip.

“Well, I got it from a security guy who’s mates with one of the laundry maids who swore him to secrecy that he was wearing ladies’ knickers and lipstick, and had a tie wrapped around his—”

They heard fast steps, saw a senior member of the Household staff approaching, and tried to look busy.

“How would he do that under the knickers?” the underbutler muttered, genuinely confused. The chef shrugged. This didn’t do it for the underbutler, who was a stickler for precision. “Nah, I think he was winding you up.”

“No, I swear!”

“But even if it’s true,” the footman persisted, “why are they prowling around the place at”—he slipped his phone out of his pocket and checked the time—“nine thirty p.m.? It’s hardly going to bring him back to life, is it?”

“Maybe they think he was involved in a sex game with somebody else?” the underbutler suggested. She had a quick mind and a ready imagination.

“For God’s sake, who?” the footman protested. “He’d just got here! He was only staying the one night. Have you seen those rooms? They’re like little cells.”

“That never stopped anyone,” the chef observed. “He could’ve been getting it on with one of those girls who came. Did you see them? The dancers? Those legs?”

The off-duty ballerinas, confident of their physique, had worn the skinniest of skinny jeans and cropped-est of cropped tops. It was not typical Windsor attire and had been much admired by half the staff at breakfast.

“What—and they decided to go all-out kinky here, at Windsor?” the footman scoffed. He paused to think. “It would have to be both of them,” he added, still skeptical.

“Oh, why?”

“Because the girls were sharing a room. We had a rush on. I had to help Marion work out the plan to cram everyone in, and we put them in a twin. Well, two single beds shoved in a room hardly big enough for one. If one of them was out doing the do and snuck back in, the other one would’ve known about it.”

“Maybe it was the maid of a banker’s wife,” the underbutler speculated. “Or a bloke.”

“What are you three doing huddled here?”

Three heads spun round to see the night shift head housekeeper standing six feet away, looking like thunder. She was known for her spectacular tongue-lashings and her ability to materialize from nowhere, like the TARDIS but without the warning sounds.

They pleaded their innocence, which she didn’t believe, and she sent them on their way with dire warnings about what happened to staff who gossiped and speculated and didn’t get on with what they were paid for.

Another member of staff arrived back from holiday that evening. Rozie Oshodi had been in Nigeria for her cousin’s wedding, and was taking a moment to readjust. After the bright colors and funky Afrobeat of Lagos, the stones and silences of nighttime Windsor seemed surreal. In the Middle Ward of the castle, not far from the rooms where Chaucer once lived, Rozie looked through the mullioned window of her bedroom at the moonlight glistening on the River Thames far below and felt like a princess in a tower. A black princess, whose childhood braids would never have been long enough to let a prince climb up and rescue her. But then, Rozie had worked hard to get her job as the Queen’s assistant private secretary; she didn’t need rescuing.

Instead, she needed to find out what on earth was going on. Sir Simon had sent five messages for her to call him. Rozie had tried to as soon as her much-delayed flight had landed, but now his phone was going to voice mail. Super-smooth Sir Simon was not the sort of person to panic. And this week was supposed to have been extra quiet. It was why she’d been given the time off for cousin Fran’s wedding. (To be strictly accurate, the wedding had been organized around this potential gap in Rozie’s schedule—a fact she was too embarrassed about to linger on for long. The Royal Family always came first and if Fran wanted Rozie there, fresh from her star new appointment at the palace, this was the week it had to happen.)

For the tenth time, Rozie checked the news on her phone. Nothing unusual. She shivered in the cold. For a brief moment she flirted with the idea of climbing into her pajamas and collapsing into bed, knowing she would be up early tomorrow with a full day of work ahead of her and several days of partying to recover from. Sir Simon could update her in the morning, when she was fresh.

But that was the jet lag talking. Rozie knew things didn’t work that way in the Royal Household and that’s what you signed up for when you joined: you were always prepared, always informed.

So she unpacked, humming one of the tunes they had played in every Lagos nightclub. She smiled at the plastic key ring with the bride’s and groom’s faces grinning at her, to which she now attached her most precious possession: the key to her Mini Cooper. Then she sat on her narrow bedstead, fully dressed and still in her coat, scrolling through her phone to favorite the best photographs of Fran and Femi from the hundreds she had taken, waiting for Sir Simon’s call.

It finally came at one in the morning, when his working day was over. Rozie made her way over to Sir Simon’s quarters in the castle. He had a suite of rooms in the east side of the Upper Ward, not far from the Private Apartments. They were crowded with pictures and antique furniture, yet somehow immaculately tidy. Like Sir Simon’s mind, Rozie thought.

He stared up at her for a moment, having opened the door to her. She stared back.

“Is there a problem?”

“Your hair. You’ve changed it.”

She ran a nervous hand over the new cut, which she’d agreed to on a whim in Lagos. Since the army, Rozie had always kept it short and crisp, but the new look was sharper still, with asymmetric angles. She wasn’t sure how her middle-aged, Home Counties colleagues would respond.

“Is it OK?”

“It’s . . . different. I . . . Gosh. It’s fine. Sorry, do come in.”

Sir Simon could be awkward with her sometimes, but at least it was friendly-awkward. Rozie made him feel old, she thought, and short (in heels she was a good two inches taller than him), while he made her feel underinformed—about the royals, the constitution, pretty much everything. They made it work. However, tonight, they were both tired. As they sat facing each other on chintz-covered chairs, Sir Simon sipped from a cut-crystal tumbler of single malt to keep himself awake. Rozie, fearful that whiskey would have the opposite effect on her, stuck to sparkling mineral water. She made notes on her laptop as he brought her up to speed on the new police investigation.

“Bloody mess.” He sighed. “Total nightmare. About fifty suspects and no motive. God, I pity those detectives. You can imagine the headlines when the Mail gets hold of it.”

He had outlined the basics of the case, and Rozie could indeed imagine.

RUSSIAN IN DEATH SEX ROMP AT QUEEN’S PARTY

Or words to that effect. The headline writers would slaver at the chance to create the greatest clickbait of all time.

“Who was he, exactly?” Rozie asked.

Sir Simon ran through his most recent update from the investigating team.

“Maksim Brodsky. Twenty-four years old. Musician, based in London. Not a full-time professional—he was scraping a living playing in bars and hotels, teaching, doing the odd concert gig for friends in the business. It’s not completely obvious how he paid his rent, because he shared a decent flat in Covent Garden. The police are looking into that. She wants to know about his parents.”

“Who does?”

“The Queen. Wake up, Rozie! The Boss does. She wants to send her condolences. We’re waiting for the embassy to give us the details.”

Rozie looked sheepish. “Right.”

“But so far no luck. His father’s dead. He was killed in Moscow in 1996, when Maksim was five.” Rozie’s face flickered with surprise. “You were hardly born then,” Sir Simon murmured. He gave her a lopsided smile.

“I was ten.”

“Lord.” He sighed. “Anyway, back in the nineties, murder on the Moscow streets was a daily occurrence. It was the time of Yeltsin, the Soviet Union had collapsed, capitalism was running amok. It was like Chicago in the twenties—gangs and thugs and corruption. Anyone with any money lived in fear of being bumped off by one side or another. I had friends in the City with family back in Moscow who lived in constant terror.”

“What happened to Brodsky’s dad?”

“Knifed outside his flat. He was a lawyer, working for a venture capital fund at the time. The authorities said it was a street gang that did it, but ten years later, when young Maksim was fifteen, he won a music scholarship to an English boarding school. The rest of the fees were paid by a company based in Bermuda. So was his holiday accommodation, according to what the police have unearthed. He spent Christmases and summers at an upmarket B and B in South Kensington.”

“At fifteen?”

“Apparently so. A couple of Easter holidays were spent with a school friend who had a house in Mustique, but I’m more interested in Bermuda. The current hypothesis is that whoever had Brodsky’s father killed made a mint, had an attack of conscience years later, and tried to save his Russian soul by giving the boy a break in the UK using money that couldn’t be traced. Maybe one of the oligarchs who came over here to avoid getting on the wrong side of Putin.”

“Peyrovski?”

“He made his billions at the turn of the millennium. He wasn’t one of the tough guys in the Yeltsin years.”

Rozie thought of the Queen’s potential question tomorrow morning.

“What about Maksim’s mother?”

Sir Simon gave a snort of a sigh. “The embassy claims they can’t find her. She had mental health issues. Maksim was brought up by a series of relatives and neighbors until he came to England. Last they heard, she was in some sort of hospital in the Moscow suburbs, but she isn’t now.”

“So he was effectively an orphan?”

“Apparently.”

Sir Simon eyed his whiskey tumbler ruminatively, and Rozie thought how much Maksim Brodsky’s early life resembled a classic spy biography. Did real spies actually grow up like that? She decided not to show her ignorance by asking a stupid question.

“Possibly,” Sir Simon said.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re wondering if he’s FSB. It’s possible. He’s not on our list.”

Rozie simply nodded and tried to keep her expression neutral. But she was new to this job and she was thinking how incredible it was that a year ago she ran a small strategy team at a bank and now here she was, casually discussing whether or not somebody was a Russian spy with someone who knew. Or at least, was supposed to know. The Official Secrets Act was a scary thing, but she had sworn to obey it and now the secrets just seemed to tumble out on a daily basis. She was still getting used to it.

“And what about the other killer? The one last night, I mean.”

Sir Simon took another sip of Glenmorangie. “That’s where the bloody nightmare begins. A team of top detectives; one nude Russian found dead in a castle surrounded by armed guards. After sundown nobody gets in or out without security verification, not even you or me. Everything is monitored and recorded. Everyone’s vetted and new visitors have to show their passport on arrival, which they all did. They thought they’d have it sorted by teatime, and yet . . .” He shrugged. He looked very tired. Rozie knew how relentless his job was.

“Brodsky was brought down here by Peyrovski,” he continued. “So it seems most likely it was someone in his entourage. There’s the valet, who had the room next to Brodsky. He went up to the Peyrovskis’ room after the party at their request, which isn’t unheard of. He hardly knew Brodsky, from what the police have ascertained. There’s certainly no rumor of any relationship or quarrel. Mrs. Peyrovskaya brought her lady’s maid, who did know him quite well, but the woman is tiny, apparently. Doesn’t look as if she’d have the strength to wring out a hankie, never mind subdue and strangle a fit young man. And from the shape of the ligature it looks as though he was strangled first, lying down, then strung up afterwards. I’m sorry. Not a nice way to say it. It’s been a long day.”

Rozie looked up from her laptop. “Not a problem. There are other suspects, then?”

“Well, two ballet dancers performed after the dinner. Strong as oxen I should guess, but they claim to have only met him in the car on the way down from London. The girls were sharing a room and one of them was FaceTiming her boyfriend half the night and all of them swear neither of the girls left the room except to go to the loo or have a quick shower—neither of which would have given them enough time to have a sex romp with a stranger, kill him, and stage an accidental suicide.”

He rubbed his eyes and went on. “At a pinch any of them could have done it, but it’s not obvious. A couple of dozen other people were sleeping in the visitors’ quarters that night, scattered about the castle. There were conferences and meetings and all sorts going on. It was Piccadilly bloody Circus. I mean, is there a visitors’ Tinder I know nothing about? And did I mention the two o’clock cigarette?”

Rozie looked up from her laptop, frowning. She shook her head.

Sir Simon lifted his glass to the lamplight and stared into the amber glow.

“One of the policemen on duty found Brodsky smoking a fag on the East Terrace, practically under Her Majesty’s bedroom. He said he went out to enjoy the night air and got lost. How do you get lost at Windsor Castle with the Queen in residence? Oh, and don’t forget the hair.”

Rozie looked up again. “The hair?”

Sir Simon’s expression was very thoughtful. “They found a single, dark hair, trapped between the dressing gown cord and Brodsky’s neck. About six inches long. Doesn’t obviously match any of the Peyrovskis’ entourage. Obviously a DNA gold mine. Tell her about the hair. That might cheer her up.”

“Will she need cheering?” Rozie asked. The idea of an unhappy Queen made her edgy.

“Yep,” Sir Simon said, before glugging back the last of the whiskey. “I think she probably will.”

5

The Queen was not cheered by the news of the hair. She wasn’t cheered by any of it. A young man had died—died horribly—in an ancient castle that was supposed to be a modern fortress. Yet over twenty-four hours had gone by and nobody seemed any the wiser as to who had done it or how. It did not make one feel entirely safe. However, it did not do to give the impression that she was nervous and upset, so she carried on as normal as the week wore on, nodding grimly as Rozie or Sir Simon passed on the persistent lack of developments.

Sir Simon and the communications team had done a good job with the press, at least. The story that “leaked out” was bland and unremarkable: a visitor to the castle, not one of the Queen’s guests, had died unexpectedly at night. The thoughts of Her Majesty were with his family. Initial rumors that he had had a heart attack in his sleep were not contradicted. A few sordid web-based news rags carried unsubstantiated gossip that the dead man had been found in a sexually compromising position with a member of the Household Cavalry—but these seemed so outlandish and, frankly, predictable for the online sites in question that no respectable news agency picked up on them.

Meanwhile, four detectives and two officers from MI5, the Security Service, beavered away under glowering skies, high up in the Round Tower. In the opinion of King George IV, the medieval version of that great tower was not impressive enough, so he had added a couple of extra stories and some Gothic battlements. The internal space thus created was normally reserved for the royal archivists, but they had been moved downstairs temporarily to create an incident room. Whiteboards had been erected in front of floor-to-ceiling glazed cabinets containing boxes of royal files. Computers were set up with high levels of security. A request for a kettle was politely denied because the steam could do untold damage to ancient documents, but a hotline to the kitchens was installed, and endless rounds of sandwiches readily supplied to the detectives and their new colleagues from MI5.

Increasingly senior people came and went across the drizzle-soaked paths. Gossip around the castle was rife. According to the Queen’s dresser, most bets were on Mr. Peyrovski’s valet and a secret gay love affair gone wrong. Her racing manager, however, who got it from the grooms, informed her that unofficial sources were giving odds of seven to four that it was accidental suicide all along and the police were simply being cautious.

They didn’t know about the second knot, the Queen thought to herself. It was always dangerous to give generous odds if you weren’t up to speed with the stables. It was all in extremely poor taste, but one had to acknowledge that betting was in Windsor’s blood. It was only seven miles to Ascot, down a road created for the purpose, and the races were not far off.

People were people, she considered. They did what they did. In Tudor times, attending public executions used to be a regular cause for celebration. The odd wager was tame by comparison.

It wasn’t until Friday, three days since the discovery of the body, that the Round Tower team finally emerged from their stuffy, windowless room. They met with their bosses’ bosses, who would in turn report to Her Majesty. An hour before lunch, the Queen was getting ready to walk the dogs when her equerry told her a delegation would like a word.

“Tell them to put some wellies on,” the Queen said. “It’s muddy.”

It was a sorry band who arrived at the East Terrace ten minutes later, in borrowed raincoats and boots. There were three of them and the most junior, who was introduced to her as Detective Chief Inspector David Strong, looked as if he hadn’t slept for days. He was the man who’d been leading the police team in the Round Tower. There were blue-grey bags under his eyes and cuts to his sallow skin where a recent shave had been too hasty. He needed daylight and exercise, the Queen judged. The walk would do him good.

The other two were on better form and needed no introduction. Ravi Singh was an experienced and competent commissioner of the Metropolitan Police who had come in for a lot of stick recently for various incidents that were outside his control. The Queen had the urge to put a hand on his and commiserate, but obviously she didn’t.

The third man was Gavin Humphreys, appointed last year as the new director general of the Security Service, known generally as MI5 and in government circles as Box. There had been two excellent, highly qualified candidates for the job, whose keen supporters had lobbied hard on their behalf. In the way of these things, bitter infighting had allowed a third, uncontroversial candidate to emerge from the shadows, and that was Humphreys.

Uncontroversial, because no one had taken a deep enough interest in his personality or leadership credentials to care. Humphreys was one of the new breed: a managerial technocrat. The Queen had met a few technical experts who were spellbinding when they discussed the ins and outs of cyberspace—but Humphreys, whom she had met various times in his anodyne rise to power, was not among them. He was grey of hair, suit, and mind. He was also convinced that, at eighty-nine, one had no possible means of understanding the complexities of the modern world. He didn’t seem to grasp that she had lived through all the decades that had created it, and she had perhaps a more nuanced understanding of it than he did.

In short, she didn’t like him. Thank God for the dogs.

“Willow! Holly! Come on, come on.”

The last remaining corgis, as well as two friendly dorgis, scurried around her ankles and the group set off.

“I’m sorry it’s taken so long,” Humphreys said, as they headed downhill towards the gardens. “This case has turned out to be much more complicated than you would think. We’ve been up all night putting the pieces together.”

The Queen stole a glance at DCI Strong, whose pallor suggested late sessions in front of a computer screen. Humphreys’s dewy glow did not.

“And I’m afraid it’s bad news.”

The Queen turned to look at him. “Oh? Who’s responsible?”

“We don’t know that yet, exactly,” Ravi Singh admitted. “But we know at least who ordered it.”

“Ordered it?”

“Yes,” Humphreys confirmed. “It was a government hit. An assassination.”

She stopped in her tracks, calling briefly to the dogs, who were keen to keep going. “Assassination?” she repeated. “That seems unlikely.”

“Oh, not at all,” Humphreys said, with an indulgent smile. “You underestimate President Putin.”

The Queen considered that she did not underestimate President Putin, thank you very much, and resented being told she did. “Do explain.”

They headed off again, Humphreys walking slightly too fast for Holly and Willow, two nonagenarians in dog years, with the commissioner right beside him and poor, exhausted DCI Strong lagging slightly behind. The drizzle formed a fine mist against the horizon through which the tall trees loomed from the park below. Their footsteps crunched on gravel, then sank into the damp grass as they followed the younger dogs down the slope. The Queen usually loved these walks—but she wasn’t loving this one.

“Brodsky was apparently a very good pianist,” Humphreys began.

“I know. I heard him.”

“Oh, right, of course. But that was just a front. We discovered he was the brains behind an anonymous blog attacking Putin’s Russia. A blog is a kind of website. It’s short for ‘weblog.’ . . .”

The Queen frowned. She was certain she reminded him of his doddery granny. It was tempting to remind him that she had signed several state papers this morning and could recite all the countries in Africa in alphabetical order, and the kings and queens of England from Ethelred up to herself. But she didn’t. She set her face grimly to the drizzle and prepared to be patronized.

“Brodsky ran it under an avatar—a fake Internet name, if you will—so we didn’t spot it straightaway, but analysis of his laptop quickly confirmed that he was a big Putin-basher. He kept a record of every journalist who’s died in suspicious circumstances in the ex–Soviet Union since Putin came to power. The most famous is Anna Politkovskaya, of course, who was killed ten years ago, but it’s a long, long list. Brodsky had done some quite intelligent research, for an amateur. He thought of himself as one of them, highlighting their cause. But it’s a very dangerous thing to do, even from London. Putin isn’t averse to killing Russian nationals on foreign soil. They made it legitimate ten years ago. He’s done it here before.”

“Not in one of my palaces.”

“It looks like he’s upping his game, ma’am. Perhaps he wanted to send us a message,” Humphreys persisted. “‘Look, I can get them anywhere, anytime.’ It’s just like him. Brazen. Brutal.”

“Even here?”

“Especially here. Right in the heart of the British Establishment. It’s classic Putin.”

The Queen turned to Mr. Singh. “Do you agree, Commissioner?”

“I admit I took some convincing. But the motive is strong. And Putin is unpredictable.”

“Candy! Stop that!”

The elder dorgi looked up sheepishly from the muddy puddle she had been wallowing in and padded back to their side. She shook herself energetically all over Humphreys’s trousers. The Queen hid her approval with sangfroid.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Think nothing of it, ma’am.” He bent down and brushed off a few filthy drops of water with his fingers. He really was rather soaked around the knees. “And, of course, you know what that means,” he added, straightening.

“Do I?”

“The thing is, we’ve been through the lives of Peyrovski’s staff and those ballet dancers with a fine-tooth comb and there’s no indication they’re agents, never mind of the caliber you’d need to pull this off. No—it’s more likely, I’m afraid, that the killer has been here for a while.”

“Before anyone knew Brodsky was coming?” The Queen threw a questioning glance across at Mr. Singh. But the commissioner got no chance to reply as Humphreys warmed to his theme.

“They wanted to be ready for anything. It’s how these people work, ma’am. They’re planted years in advance. Sleeper spies, just waiting for instructions when the right moment comes. Imagine it.” He gestured around them. “A killing here at Windsor Castle, right under your nose, so to speak. ‘Nobody’s safe now.’ The message has gone out.”

“A sleeper spy,” she echoed, unconvinced.

“Yes, ma’am. An insider. Here among your staff. At least one, but maybe more. It’s possible the killer was another visitor, of course, but to pick this venue it seems more likely they’d have tasked someone who knew it well.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s likely.”

Standing under the shelter of one of her favorite beech trees, he gave her a pitying look.

“I’m afraid it is, ma’am. We need to face facts. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

The Queen pursed her lips and turned for home. The sodden little group of men followed, while the dogs appeared from the undergrowth and ran ahead.

“What are you going to do?” she asked eventually.

“Track him down. It won’t be easy. We’ll be discreet, of course.”

Singh added a detail that his colleague, in his Putin mania, had omitted.

“We think Brodsky arranged to meet up with his killer after the party, ma’am. At about two a.m. a man of his description was spotted smoking outside and escorted back to the visitors’ quarters. It must have been some sort of rendezvous. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such bad news.”

Singh did indeed seem genuinely sorry. Unlike Humphreys, he did not give the impression of treating this place like the location for an exciting game of spies, but as a home, where a lot of people would now be living under suspicion, and that never did anyone any good.

“Thank you, Mr. Singh.”

“And we’ll keep you informed.”

“Please do.” She would have liked to invite him to stay to lunch, but that would have meant inviting Humphreys, too, and she couldn’t do it.

What hurt most were those six little words: “It wouldn’t be the first time.” They were quite correct, but the Queen found them unforgivable.

6

That evening, Sir Simon needed to consult the Queen about some of the finer details of the Obama visit. The White House team kept finding new security issues to worry about. He found Her Majesty unusually downcast. He might have blamed it on the weather if he didn’t know she was impervious to wind and cold.

Maybe the murder’s got to her at last, he thought. She was tough as old boots, but there were limits. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told her those gory details. She had asked, but it was his job to protect her as much as to serve her. At least Box was on the case. He gently reminded her about Gavin Humphreys’s progress, but she didn’t seem as reassured as he hoped.

“Is Rozie here?” she asked.

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Can you send her in? There’s something I’d like to talk to her about.”

“Ma’am . . . if there’s anything Rozie’s done . . .” Sir Simon was aghast. He’d thought Rozie was coping rather well, for someone so new to the job. He certainly hadn’t noticed any issues and instantly blamed himself, whatever they were. “If I can help in—”

“No, no. It’s a small thing. Nothing to worry about.”

Rozie arrived ten minutes later, looking puzzled.

“Your Majesty? You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, I did,” the Queen said. She fiddled with her pen for a moment, deep in thought. “I was wondering if you could do something for me.”

“Anything . . .” Rozie offered, with more passion in her voice than she’d intended. It was true, though. Whatever the Boss wanted, she would do. Rozie knew most people in the Household felt this way. Not because of what she was, but because of who she was. She was a special human being who had been given an almost impossible job, and had taken it on and never complained, and done it brilliantly for longer than most people in the country had been alive. They adored her. They were all terrified of her, obviously, but they adored her more. Rozie felt lucky she was still going.

“Can you get someone for me?”

Rozie was snapped out of her reverie. The look accompanying the Queen’s request was an odd one, as if this time the answer might be no. Usually, they were simply polite instructions. This one seemed more philosophical.

“Of course, ma’am,” Rozie said brightly. “Who?”

“I’m not sure, exactly. There’s a man I’ve met before—an academic from Sandhurst or Staff College, I think. An expert on post-Soviet Russia. He has scruffy hair and a ginger beard and his first name is Henry. Or William. I’d like to invite him to tea. Privately. Actually, I think he’d like to meet my friend Fiona, Lady Hepburn. She lives in Henley and I’m sure she’d be happy to host. She can invite me to tea, and him, too, and we can talk.”

Rozie stood in front of the desk, trying to decode what was happening. She wasn’t sure exactly what she’d been asked, but that was a detail: she’d work out how to do it later.

“When would you like?”

“As soon as possible. You know my schedule.” There was a pause. “And, Rozie—”

“Ma’am?”

The Queen gave her another odd look. This one was different from the last. That had been uncertain; this one was challenging. “A private conversation.”

Back at her desk, Rozie went over the whole encounter in her head.

What did “private” mean? Of course tea at Lady Hepburn’s house would be private. Was the expert—and Rozie thought she knew the man the Queen was referring to—supposed to keep quiet about meeting Her Majesty? Rozie would make sure he did, but why not just say so? Her relationship with the Boss had been pretty straightforward until now: she simply did whatever the Queen told her, and if there was any doubt, she checked with Sir Simon, who had nearly twenty years’ experience and knew everything, and . . .

And suddenly Rozie knew what the Queen meant. And why it had been impossible to say it out loud. And why this was a test, though one she sensed the Queen didn’t want to give her.

It was all rather frightening and just a little bit exciting.

She logged on to a government database of experts and set about finding a particular man to invite to tea.

The Queen sat up in bed, writing her diary entry for the day. She never wrote much, and certainly not what she was thinking now. Many historians would be itching at the opportunity to get their hands on the pages she dutifully composed in longhand each night, which one day would be deposited in the Royal Archives in the Round Tower, alongside those of Queen Victoria. But such historians would almost certainly be disappointed. Whoever read this document in the twenty-second century would find it a detailed source of racing information, observations on the dullness of certain prime ministers, and minor family anecdotes. Her deepest thoughts she kept between herself and God.

And God knew, Vladimir Putin was an infuriating individual, definitely a cruel one, but not stupid. You didn’t become the richest man in the world, as rumor had it, by making lazy mistakes. Nor was he the sort of person to ignore the unspoken accord among the ruling classes, among whom he was so proud to count himself these days: princes simply did not tread directly on the patch of other princes. One might spy, certainly, if one could. One might seek to undermine one’s enemies in negotiations or elections. But you did not commit lèse-majesté and cause havoc in their palaces. If you did—who knew?—perhaps one day they might do the same in yours. Even dictators understood this.

Technocratic heads of MI5, it seemed, did not.

The Queen had not bothered to try to correct Mr. Humphreys. He seemed so certain of himself and so little interested in her opinion, even though she had met Putin and ruled alongside him, temporally speaking, for decades.

Dogs. They knew. Like Candy this morning. The corgis had hated Mr. Putin on sight and tried to nip his ankles during a state visit. Even a minister’s guide dog had barked, she remembered. Dogs have such natural instincts. Putin used them to his advantage. He knew that Angela Merkel was afraid of them. Was that because she was brought up in East Germany, the Queen wondered, where they were more likely to be trained as guard dogs rather than pets? Armed with this information, he had ensured the German chancellor was met by two aggressive German shepherds when she came to visit him in the Kremlin. The poor woman. It was a mark of the smallness of the man. The Queen did not always agree with Mrs. Merkel’s politics, but she was fond of her. Merkel had managed to stay at the helm of a great democracy for a decade. She was a woman in a man’s world—as it most certainly had been when she started. As it still was, if one went by the photographs at meetings of heads of state: Merkel’s, the only trouser suit in a sea of trousers. The Queen knew very much how that felt—although of course she did not share Merkel’s rather Teutonic sense of fashion.

She realized she hadn’t written anything in her diary for about ten minutes and tried to get back to the sentence she had left half finished, but her mind continued on its train of thought.

Putin was absolutely the sort of man who would seek to make a woman like Merkel uncomfortable. He was a bully, an ex–KGB officer with an unhealthy fondness for control. His attitude to canines, and theirs to him, said it all. Yet this did not mean he would have a very junior young expat killed on one’s own turf. When such a thing was so unnecessary.

According to Humphreys, this cold and calculating man had established a spy in her Household just in case one of his enemies should come to visit—a very junior enemy indeed—so that he could show off the extent of his power. And when that moment had come, this “sleeper”—who had presumably been in place for years, simply waiting—had set up an elaborate attempt to suggest suicide and had failed to check the simplest of knots. Why suggest suicide at all if you wanted to make a statement about yourself? Was the idea that the police would realize it was murder after all? If so, surely there were more subtle ways of doing so than to make the whole sordid affair look so ham-fistedly botched. She liked to think that if one did have a traitor in one’s midst, he would at least be half competent. Oh, the whole thing was unutterably ridiculous.

And yet, “It wouldn’t be the first time. . . .”

Well, no, it wouldn’t. And that had seemed impossible, too.

Anthony Blunt was her first surveyor of pictures, having worked for her father before her. What an erudite, cultured man, so at home among the courtiers. A Cambridge don, he was an art historian, an expert on Poussin and the Sicilian Baroque, and a member of MI5 himself. He had saved her uncle Edward from embarrassment by rescuing some of his letters during the closing stages of the war.

He was also, as he later confessed, a long-term committed Communist and a Soviet agent. He and his friends had caused untold damage to the people she held most dear. He had remained at work at the palace for years after she was told, to spare the shame and embarrassment of admitting how far he had come—until Margaret Thatcher let the cat out of the bag and Blunt had to go. He seemed repentant for some of it, but one could never be sure.

She couldn’t pretend that all her servants were above reproach. There had even been a play by Alan Bennett, and the BBC had made a film of it, with a comic actress who portrayed her as a prig and a frump. Not the Crown’s finest hour in any sense.

Gavin Humphreys’s words brought back unpleasant memories and made her doubt herself, which was not something she particularly liked to do. Nor did she enjoy having to rely on Rozie Oshodi when the girl was so new and so young. But one did what one had to. And hoped to be pleasantly surprised.

She wrote another paragraph about something else entirely and drifted off, with difficulty, to sleep.