The Windsor Knot

24

Philip had an event in town on Monday and was up and out, with his valet and his equerry, before she went for her last ride. She had hoped that the fresh air, the verdant parkland, and the comforting smell of pony would unleash a revelation, but in the end she was too nervous about the horse show, too sad to be leaving, and too busy with last-minute mental preparations for the week ahead to make any progress at all.

Rozie arrived with the boxes for her to look at before leaving. Rozie was available to travel with her, too, but the Queen wanted time to think.

“I’ll see you at the palace.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“There are a few things we need to talk about.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Come and find me after lunch.”

An hour later, the Range Rover pulled discreetly out of the castle precincts and wound its familiar way towards the M4. Today was Princess Charlotte’s birthday. The Queen put in a quick call to Anmer Hall to mark the occasion. They were busy preparing for a little party. She would see them soon, at the horse show. For now, all she got was a shy little “Hello, Gan-Gan” from Prince George. He was not a child who was normally backward in coming forward, but he was still nervous of technology. Perhaps one should be grateful. In a decade or so it would probably be impossible to prize him away from it.

She thought of the tight little Cambridge family, safe and secure and out of the spotlight in their Norfolk home. That was just as it should be. It had been like that for her, too, growing up in Mayfair with the reasonable expectation, then, of a lifetime of privacy. Now it was hard to remember what it had been like: to trust more than a close few friends, to take risks, and make mistakes in the happy certainty that it didn’t really matter. Now everything mattered. Almost everyone talked.

The car picked up speed as it joined the motorway. She saw the double takes in several cars that passed them: drivers and passengers seeing the car with its matching escort, and squinting to see if they could spot her in the back seat.

It was a miracle that grubby little murder hadn’t made the headlines by now. Only the maximum discretion by all concerned had made that possible. It couldn’t have made Chief Inspector Strong’s life very easy, keeping the investigation under the radar. Imagine if the tabloid papers had got hold of the story of the knickers and the lipstick. . . .

And then, suddenly, the piece of the puzzle containing the dressing gown and the cord fell into place. Of course. Chief Inspector Strong had done exactly what he was supposed to do.

In the miles that followed, the other pieces arranged themselves around it until everything about that night was clear, everything made sense.

It was the hair that had caused the biggest problem, but now that she understood the chain of events, the solution to the issue of DNA was obvious. In fact, it should have been the first thing she noticed.

She was clear in her mind now how the murder scene had been set up, and why. The worst of it was, she realized with desperate clarity, that she was the cause. The jokes she had made with Philip, those minor frustrations, they were not incidental detail—they were at the very heart of the poor man’s humiliation. One was responsible for the wardrobe, the purple dressing gown, all of it.

Traffic on the motorway made the journey slow. The Queen looked out of the window to see a queue of planes in the distance, lining up in the sky to land. She forced herself to breathe calmly, and think.

But then, there was the question of what happened next. How could the girl be in two places at once? Or rather, how had two girls been in one place? How had nobody noticed?

It took a while to picture it properly. When she worked out what must have happened, she gasped out loud. Her protection officer turned from his place in the front passenger seat to check she was all right and she nodded to reassure him.

But she wasn’t.

She saw what they must have done, and it was awful. Cold and calculating, and chilling, and such a dreadful waste. And even that had not been enough.

She went back over every detail, checking that it fitted with what MacLachlan had said, what Chief Inspector Strong’s team knew, and what she herself and Rozie had discovered. Yes, it all connected. MacLachlan’s latest findings gave her the courage to believe it was true.

It was patchy, but that could be fixed. If people knew what they were looking for, they would find it, and probably much more. She realized that there was one person above all who could start the process. If only she was still at Windsor! Damn and blast it! She would have to find an excuse to talk.

By the time the Range Rover sailed past Harrods in the midmorning traffic, she had worked out what was needed and how to make it happen. She felt slightly better, but contemplating so much death and treachery had made her weary. She needed very much to see little George and Charlotte, and celebrate the joy of life. Ten days seemed a long time to wait.

“Can you get me the governor of Windsor Castle on the phone? I need to ask him something.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The Queen sat at her desk in her private study in Buckingham Palace, the phone nestled among a collection of photographs and flowers. The room’s familiar furnishings and family portraits soothed her, but above all she loved its view of the plane trees planted by Victoria and Albert, whose branches now intertwined. She had taken the dogs for a long walk in the garden on arrival, which wasn’t in the schedule, but her staff had responded with admirable calm. She felt better now. She could get on.

The switchboard had Sir Peter on the line within a couple of minutes.

“Ah, Governor, I meant to ask before I left, have they sorted out where they’re going to park their monstrous television trucks? Because I simply will not have them tearing up the lawn.”

For a few minutes she and Sir Peter discussed the niceties of the final horse show arrangements. They were a little less urgent, in his view, than Her Majesty made them seem, but far be it from him to criticize what mattered to her in her own home.

“Oh, and I was just thinking,” she said in passing, “about the awful business with the girl who died in London. Yes, the cocaine girl. I suppose it was coming back to town that reminded me. I suddenly thought . . . You must have been one of the last people to see her. Yes, I know, but I wondered if she was taking drugs at the castle. It’s the last thing we need. Do you know if Chief Inspector Strong’s team next door to you looked into it? I remember meeting her. Quiet girl. Anyway, tell ITV what I said about the TV trucks. That should put the fear of God into them if nothing else will.”

Afterwards, she made a quick call to Billy MacLachlan.

“I think it’s time for you to do as you suggested. But very gently. Keep an eye on de Vekey afterwards. I’d like to think he’ll be safe. And do you think someone should tip off MI5 about the payments? Thank you, Billy.”

Rozie was standing nearby, ready to take notes. The conversations didn’t fully make sense to her. Especially the one wondering whether Rachel Stiles had taken drugs at the castle. When did that become an issue? She was desperate to ask how things were going, but there seemed to be an unspoken agreement between her and the Boss that they never talked outright about what they were up to.

“Is there anything I can do, ma’am?” she asked.

“Could you find out if Rachel Stiles wore contact lenses? And you might have a word with the director general of MI5. Tell him I’d like to see him on Wednesday. I could do with a progress report.”

Back at the castle, Sir Peter pocketed his phone thoughtfully. He was fairly certain that the director of the horse show had already addressed the issue of the TV trucks, but he would make doubly sure before reassuring Her Majesty. Meanwhile, there was that little question of the cocaine girl. Rachel something, was it? Stiller? Snipes?

He doubted she would have dared take drugs at the castle. Not during a top secret conference, surely? But it was true that while she had seemed on good form the first day he had met her, she had been less so on the second. He couldn’t see how it would affect the police investigation into Brodsky even if she had been high as a kite, but with ultra-conscientiousness, he felt he should do his bit and check. If they had discovered drug taking at the castle, and the press ever got hold of it, that was the Daily Mail headline for the next few weeks. He would need to warn the communications team.

Sir Peter had a few people to see in the offices in the Lower Ward, but when his rounds were done and he was heading back to the Norman Tower for lunch with his wife, he popped into the Round Tower next door and trudged up the stairs to the little room on the third floor. DCI Strong was away from his desk, but his sergeant, Andrew Highgate, was there.

Now that he was actually standing in the presence of the police, Sir Peter felt faintly ridiculous about his mission. His conscientiousness began to seem to him more like unnecessary interference. Surely murder was of far greater concern to them than any possible drug taking? (And given what Sir Peter knew about various visitors over the years, it wouldn’t exactly be the first time.) Nevertheless, DS Highgate, in the presence of a general, a knight of the realm, and the—to give him his full official title—constable and governor of Windsor Castle, was keen to do a thorough job.

“No, you did the right thing, sir. Thanks for popping in. Let me just pull up what we have on her. . . . Yes, this is Rachel Stiles. Expert on the Chinese economy. Not such a golden future, sadly. Um . . . yes, sir, let me check. . . . No, this is definitely the right picture. We got it from her office. The original one we had from her security application was a bit small. I don’t think we could have made a mistake. I can check again if you like. I’ll give you a call in five minutes, unless you’d rather wait while I . . .”

Somewhat alarmed by now, Sir Peter said he would wait.

In his garden in Woodbridge some hours later, Guy de Vekey sipped from a glass of chilled pinot grigio while newly arrived swifts soared high overhead, a quiver of arrows. He loved this witching hour, as day turned to dusk and the sky shifted from peach to purple while shadows gathered on the lawn. Behind him, Elgar poured, bewitching and scratchy, from thick, black vinyl into the evening air.

He had vowed to keep a secret. Already he had told it once, to that man on Saturday, and now he was being asked to tell it again. His first instinct was to be true to his word. Anita was dead; how could he let her down now? And yet, wasn’t it true that he felt . . . what was the word . . . released . . . by telling it the first time?

He had taught two generations of schoolchildren how to sing. Several had stayed in contact, some had invited him to their weddings or first concerts, but only a few had become real friends. Usually they were the ones with exceptional talent, but actually Anita hadn’t been one of those. She was good, of course, but what really marked her out was how hungry she was—for life, for success, for the best she could possibly get—and how much she was willing to give for it. That was a talent in itself, in the cutthroat classical music industry. Anyway, despite the age gap she trusted him. She valued his advice. He’d seen her once every couple of years—always bubbly and cheerful, keen to show him photos of her travels and share her news. But the way she had been that last time, three weeks ago, when she came to visit . . . He cringed to think of it even now. It was desperate. She was desperate, a sniveling, snotty wreck.

And then that family friend had come to ask about her. Mister . . . what was it? He couldn’t recall. . . . Anyway, for her parents’ sake he’d wanted to understand Anita’s state of mind before she . . . did that to herself. Who could know? Who could possibly know?

At the time Guy had thought it made sense for a young woman to have a bad day and be upset. But when the friend had asked about it, he’d been surprised by how bad it sounded. Somehow, in explaining, Guy had let it all come gushing out. Some secret keeper, he.

Talking about it on Saturday, the change in Anita seemed odd. Sudden. Unexplained. Guy saw now it hadn’t been sadness he’d felt coming off her in juddering waves—it had been abject terror. She’d even foretold her death. He’d told her, begged her, not to do anything—but perhaps she hadn’t been talking about a broken heart.

Perhaps the man was right, when he’d called again just now, concerned. Perhaps Guy should say something to the police. They might think he was a fool, but what if he wasn’t?

Looking at it in a new light, had she been trying to tell him something all along? Anita had been secretive and scared, and two days later she was dead. Guy drained his wineglass. He prayed he was wrong.

“Have you decided?”

His partner came out to join him and put a hand on his shoulder. He reached over and put his arm around her.

“I’ll call them first thing in the morning.”

25

On Tuesday morning there was a Thanksgiving Service in Westminster Abbey for Sir Geoffrey Howe, who had been very entertaining in the days of Margaret Thatcher, and was another child of ’26. The Queen didn’t go, because if she went to one, she would have to go to the lot of them, but she would have liked to have attended this time. He was a kind and decent man, an honorable politician—which, God knew, wasn’t always the case—and sound on cricket. Another loss.

At her age, and Philip’s, they were constantly getting news of death. It was almost daily these days, and always grim. In fact, Philip said last winter, “If they invite me to one more bloody memorial service I shall boil the lot of them.” But he didn’t mean it. And at least most of their dear friends had lived full lives.

She peered at herself dispassionately in the glass. During the Royal Mail visit someone had reminded her (often, people proudly told one things about oneself that were not entirely news) that hers was the most reproduced image in the history of the world. She had willingly forgotten it the first time: it was information no human being should be forced to bear. One would have thought it would be Diana. A friend in the nineties told her that he had just come back from the higher reaches of Nepal, far from all cars, phones, and even radio. There, in the foothills of Annapurna, he had seen a farmer brandishing a medieval-looking scythe for harvesting, and wearing a T-shirt with her late daughter-in-law’s face emblazoned on it. Wherever you went, there she was.

But outdoing all newspapers, magazines, and souvenir shops there were banknotes and postage stamps. So simple, when you thought about it. At home and across the Commonwealth, when in doubt, they used one’s profile on the currency or the post. Fortunately from when she was rather younger and had not so many chins. And she had lived an awfully long time. . . .

Leaning forward, she adjusted her spectacles and inspected the royal nostrils for hairs. Aging was such an undignified process. She had never thought of herself as a beauty, but looking back from a great distance, she realized now that perhaps she had been. Fortunate, if they would insist on printing one’s face a billion times on everyday objects. Now it was mainly a question of keeping advancing hair follicles at bay.

Billy MacLachlan was lucky to catch her at her dressing table again, at this time in the morning. The conversation was very brief.

“I spoke to Mr. de Vekey, Your Majesty.”

“Did you manage to persuade him?”

“I think so.”

“Excellent. And you made the other call?”

“Yes. It was an online form, but same effect.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem, ma’am. Have a good day.”

Later, she was coming to the end of her boxes when there was an almighty commotion in the corridor. Feet stomped, doors were slammed, and voices were raised.

Sir Simon had already come in to collect the papers. He remained impassive, but the Queen looked annoyed.

“See what it is, would you?”

But before he could do anything, the door was flung open and the Duke of Edinburgh strode through it, dark pink in the face and fuming.

“Did you hear what that bastard Humphreys did yesterday?”

“Thank you, Simon.”

Sir Simon let himself out without a whisper. She turned to Philip.

“No.”

“Interviewed my valet. My bloody valet. For six hours, in the middle of the night. Without asking me, or even telling me, by God. I only found out this morning.”

“Goodness. Why?”

“Because they think he’s a bloody Soviet agent. God knows why. The man’s never been further east than Norwich. And you heard about Robertson? Discovered by his own daughter and rushed to hospital. Hounded, is what they’re being. I’ve had enough of Humphreys stomping all over our Household like some tin-pot dictator.”

“I know what you mean.”

“Do you? He’s been farting about Windsor Castle with impunity for weeks, and now he’s farting about here. You need to put a stop to it before there’s a crisis.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Would you like me to sack the head of MI5?”

“Yes, I bloody well would.”

“I’m sure that would go down well with the prime minister.”

“Stuff the prime minister.”

“I’m seeing him this evening,” she said. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

“With bells on. Look, Lilibet, I’m serious.” He was calming down a bit. Not many people would have noticed from his demeanor, but he was. He came over to her desk and rested his hand on it. “Humphreys can’t go on upsetting our people for no good reason. He doesn’t have a shred of evidence for his tin-pot theory.”

“I know. And I’m seeing him soon, actually.”

“Are you?” He stood up straight again. “And you’ll call him off?”

“I’ll do what I can,” she offered.

Though genuinely furious on behalf of his staff, the Duke knew he was asking unreasonable things from his wife. He was wrong-footed by how placid and accommodating she was being.

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“I see. That’s very good news. When?”

“I’m not sure exactly,” she said. “Sometime tomorrow, I think. If we can fit him in around”—she adjusted her bifocals and looked down—“the Commonwealth secretary general, the Bishop of Leicester, and Michael Gove.”

“Ha! You’re making that up.” He was back in good humor now. His outbursts rarely lasted long.

“No.”

“The things you do for your country.”

She twinkled at him.

“And you’ll read Humphreys the riot act when you see him?” he checked.

Her expression was enigmatic, but she smiled. “Something like that.”

26

By Wednesday, life at Buckingham Palace had slipped into its old routine. It was as if they had hardly been away. Rozie was busy liaising with the Japanese about their prime minister’s imminent visit, and the Cabinet Office with arrangements for the Queen’s official birthday in June.

Rozie had been able to report to the Boss that Rachel Stiles, the cocaine girl from Docklands, was long-sighted and had worn glasses sometimes but not contact lenses, as far as she could ascertain. The Queen had accepted the news with little more than a noncommittal “mmmm.” Rozie was burning to ask more, but didn’t. She knew the Queen still didn’t believe MI5’s theory about the Russians. From all the work Rozie herself had done, and what she knew about Billy MacLachlan’s activities, it was clear that Brodsky, Rachel Stiles, and Anita Moodie were connected somehow. She suspected that Anita had impersonated Rachel, but couldn’t see where the link was. Had Brodsky made it happen in some way? He knew Anita, after all. Was he a spy? Was that what MacLachlan needed to talk to MI5 about?

Rozie felt left out, but not abandoned. This surprised her. She thought she’d be more resentful of the Queen for not explaining herself more clearly—but that was simply how the Boss worked. She was not your friend, and you were not her confidante. For someone who was constantly entertaining, she led a very lonely life and after so many leaks and stories over so many decades, starting with her own governess, who had misunderstood what could and couldn’t be shared about the little princesses, it probably took years to earn her trust. Her dresser had it, Rozie thought—but she’d been with the Household since 1994. Rozie had been here for six months.

Gavin Humphreys was a methodical man who lived by an old adage, beloved of his military father, known as the Seven Ps: Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance. The director general of MI5 planned, he was prepared, and he never expected to underperform.

So, a call to Buckingham Palace to update the Queen on progress in the spy hunt was nothing to be unnerved about. It was only as he was leaving his office on Millbank that he felt a quick flutter of nerves. It would be nice if all the planning and preparation had actually produced an eighth P by now: Progress. These things were not to be rushed, of course; Her Majesty would understand that. She was very understanding all round, from what Singh had told him.

However, the Duke of Edinburgh had taken things badly yesterday, apparently. And the valet theory had proved to be a bit of a blind alley, which was awkward. It had looked promising to start with: the man’s ex-girlfriend had worked for not one but two hotel chains run by known Putin sympathizers in Turkey. It would have been easy for the FSB to get to him through her, but it turned out he had a new girlfriend—a clerk of some sort in the Royal Household—and he’d been in her bed the night of the dine and sleep. She was the daughter of the deputy head of GCHQ, and as witnesses went, about as unimpeachable as one could hope for, dammit. They were also not significantly further along with the royal page or the archivist. Humphreys was beginning to suspect the agent was planted even more deeply than they’d anticipated.

Vladimir Putin had played his cards brilliantly, not for the first time. He was an unprincipled twenty-first-century dictator, but you had to admire the man.

An equerry accompanied him to the door of the Queen’s Audience Room, where the meeting would be. He took a deep breath, and prayed there wouldn’t be corgis.

There weren’t. The room was surprisingly normal, after all the marble and statues leading to it. It was painted blue, with the usual art and antique mirrors, but it had a light, feminine touch. The high-heeled assistant was there, and the Queen asked if he minded her staying to listen, which he didn’t. Even better, there was no sign of a furious Prince Philip. Her Majesty was, as Singh had said, all polite encouragement and sympathy. She knew how difficult, and how essential, the job of protecting the nation was.

They sat on silk-covered chairs. He did a reasonable job, he thought, of explaining the difficulties of exposing Putin’s cunning infiltration, but asserted that with time they would most certainly get to the bottom of it. He sensed Her Majesty’s continued displeasure at the disruption to life at Windsor Castle. She was too invested in her servants. Humphreys wouldn’t know about that—he and his wife had a cleaning lady who came twice a week, and whose surname they still didn’t know. It paid not to get sentimental, but of course you couldn’t tell the sovereign that, especially at her age. He courteously assured her they were going as fast as they could.

“There’s one interesting detail,” he mentioned, by way of encouragement. “We’ve established that a visitor to the castle that night was an impostor. It was the governor who spotted it.”

“Oh?”

“She had a minor role, ma’am. No serious threat to national security, but of course we’re looking into that, too, and we’ve already had a lucky break with that investigation. It’s very unlikely that it’s connected to the Brodsky case. She wasn’t even supposed to be staying there. One of those strange coincidences.”

He smiled and shrugged. The Queen smiled, too, and it was time to wind up the visit.

“I’ll see you out,” she said, which seemed to him unusual, but it was her palace, and she said she was going that way anyway.

As they walked down the thick-carpeted corridors, with the equerry and the high-heeled assistant three paces behind them, the Queen mentioned conversationally how busy she was going to be now that the summer schedule was underway.

“Lots of visits to schools and universities, as one does.”

She mentioned a few. For someone her age, her memory was pretty sharp. One of them was the school where Brodsky told her he’d learned piano, apparently, which brought the mood down a bit. A place called Allingham. She remarked that the Russian had been an excellent pianist and she was looking forward to seeing the music department. And then they were at the stairs and the visit was over. Humphreys was grateful she hadn’t mentioned the valet. More than that, she’d been positively chatty. As he left through a side door to search for his driver, he sighed with relief.

As soon as he got back to his desk, a call from the Met commissioner came through.

“How was she?”

“Perfectly fine. Any news your end?”

“Actually, something’s happened. We’ve got some interesting CCTV footage. It’ll come through your channels anyway, but I thought you’d like to know.”

27

On Thursday, the Japanese prime minister came to visit. Standing at a podium next to David Cameron, like President Obama before him, Shinzo Abe warned of the dangers of voting for Brexit in the upcoming referendum. Even the Japanese were concerned. Rozie hated all the doom and gloom, but she wasn’t too worried. After all, the Scottish referendum had turned out well in the end. Besides, Japan wasn’t her problem today. The audience with the Queen would be a short one and Sir Simon ate that kind of diplomacy for breakfast.

It was Rozie’s day off and, as next week would be crazy busy, Sir Simon had told her to take it. So she was meeting a billionaire in a suite in Claridge’s for the afternoon. Masha Peyrovskaya had asked to talk to her again.

What surprised Rozie, walking into the gleaming, butterscotch lobby of the smartest hotel in London, was not how overwhelming all the low-key luxury was, but rather how at ease she felt. The job was rubbing off on her. This one, and the one before at the bank, where team-building weekends were routinely held in spa hotels in the country and client dinners in the private rooms of restaurants lit by Venetian chandeliers and fueled by vintage wines. She liked vintage wine now, and knew a bit about it. She liked the click of her Francesco Russo heels on the lobby’s black-and-white marble floor. She liked the momentary flash freeze on the concierge’s face when she mentioned the Peyrovski name, before she was smoothly directed to the Grand Piano Suite. Her own face did that, too, when meeting a king or president. But she was getting just as good at the smooth part afterwards.

Upstairs in the suite, Masha was seated at the piano, playing something bold and dramatic, her body swaying as her arms reached for distant keys. Rozie stood watching for a while without saying anything. The personal maid who had opened the door to her disappeared into another room.

Eventually, the piece drew to an end. Masha took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“Tchaikovsky,” she said, without turning. “It suits my mood.”

“You play really beautifully.”

“I know.” Masha glanced towards the window to her left, where the net curtains had been pulled back to reveal the Mayfair roofscape. “I should have been a professional.” She shrugged and gave Rozie a faint smile. “You came. And how is Her Majesty?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“You send her my kind regards?”

“Of course.”

“If she ever . . . want to listen to more Russian piano playing . . .” Masha looked wistful.

Rozie wondered at first if she was angling for some kind of job. Then she realized, the poor woman just wanted to see the Queen again, to be close to her. The Boss had that effect on some people. Actually, on most people, in Rozie’s experience.

“It’s a shame she can’t hear Mr. Brodsky,” Rozie said, changing the subject slightly. She was still not entirely sure why she’d been summoned.

“You like a drink?” Masha asked. She got up and walked over to a velvet sofa, throwing herself down on it at a rakish angle. Rozie sat more decorously on one of the armchairs opposite. Masha was wearing skinny jeans and no shoes, a loose T-shirt, and several necklaces. Her hair looked unwashed and unbrushed, and there was not a trace of makeup on her. She was, if anything, more beautiful than before.

Rozie was about to suggest a cup of tea when a butler emerged bearing a tray with tea, coffee, still and fizzy water, two kinds of smoothie, and a crystal bowl of fruit.

“Please, be comfortable,” Masha insisted, with a grand gesture to Rozie that dismissed the butler at the same time. He withdrew. Rozie grabbed a pink smoothie, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet underneath her. She still had no idea what was going on, but she might as well enjoy it.

“How can I help?”

What followed was a very strange hour, where Masha poured out her marital woes to Rozie in unsparing detail.

“He treats me like a snail under his shoe. He thinks all I care about is art, but how can he know what I think when he never talk to me? We have not made love since seven weeks. He used to be a wonderful lover but now . . . he do it like he hate me.” Masha stared up at the ceiling. “His last present to me was a little bichon frise. He say a bitch deserve a bitch. Can you imagine? To his wife? I give the dog to the cook. He sack the cook. And she was a good cook.” Now she played with her ring, spinning the gull’s-egg diamond around her finger, watching it catch the light. “Every day, he question me about Vadim. Is he really gay? Was it a game? Did we have threesome? He is disgusting. He deny ordering the beat-up, but I know it is true. He is mad with me for helping Maks. I said I would leave him and he said go. So I go—here—to the most expensive hotel room I can find. He have me watched but I don’t care.”

“It sounds . . . difficult,” Rozie said, aware of the understatement. She could never stay with a man who used a dog as an insult, let alone the rest. But then, she would never have accepted the gull’s-egg ring in the first place. They tended to come with conditions, she thought.

“Do I leave him?”

“I’m no expert—”

“You work for the Queen! You give expertise at highest level, all the time.”

“Not in matters like this.”

“She has four children, all divorced!”

“Only three of them. The Earl of Wessex—”

“She understands the pain. She asks for your advice, no?”

“She really doesn’t.”

“I think she does,” Masha said with finality, spinning round on the sofa and rearranging her languid limbs so her legs were tucked underneath her, like Rozie’s. “I think she trusts you. I trust you. You have something. You are the only person I trust. That is why you are here.”

“I don’t think—”

“You don’t yap, yap, yap like all the others do, giving me advice, telling me to leave him, like my mother, or stay until I earn a billion in divorce, like my sister, or stay forever, like my baba. What should I do?”

Rozie frowned. “You’re really asking me?”

“Of course. Tell me. Now you are smiling. Why are you smiling?”

Rozie refused to be drawn in. “You said it yourself, Masha. You don’t want people telling you what to do. You know all your options. What do you want?”

“Hmmm.” Masha looked genuinely thoughtful. “Nobody ask me that before. Ha! You are clever! You see.”

“My sister’s a counselor,” Rozie admitted. “It’s her you should be talking to.”

Masha raised an eyebrow. “Oh? OK.”

“I was joking. She’s in Frankfurt.”

“That is where? In Surrey?”

“No—Frankfurt. In Germany.”

Masha gazed at the ceiling for a moment, thinking. “OK.”

“What do you mean, ‘OK’?”

“I mean, I fly her back to London for sessions. She can come here, talk to me in Claridge’s. She can tell me what to do.”

A vivid image spooled through Rozie’s head: Fliss, getting on a regular flight to Heathrow; Fliss, here, in this suite, sipping a smoothie and talking to a beautiful, sad Russian. She would absolutely love it. And she’d get the chance to catch up with family before going home.

Masha was quite serious about the offer. Pleading, even.

“I’ll ask her,” Rozie said. But she knew that, though she’d tell Fliss all about it, she’d never present it as a serious proposition. The last thing she wanted was her sister getting caught up in the world of Yuri Peyrovski. She believed Masha’s story about how Vadim got beaten up. This stunning woman in the Grand Piano Suite was more at risk, she thought, than most of the people she knew, and she knew plenty of people whose lives were precarious. Suddenly the sense of threat, which had receded as the Queen looked into the Belt and Road girl, felt very real again.

After the visit, she took the opportunity to do some shopping in nearby Oxford Street. Half an hour later her feet were hurting in their heels and she was shocked and upset by some idiot practically pushing her into the path of a bus. If it wasn’t for her quick reactions it could have been nasty. She decided to take the tube from Oxford Circus back to Green Park.

It was at the top of the escalator going down to the platform that she felt the first prickle of alarm. Perhaps the bus incident had done it. But when she got jostled hard and almost flung down the right-hand side, she could have sworn she saw a smirk on the face of the tall, blond guy on the step behind her as she flailed to catch her balance. This time, it was the man in front of her who saved her, reaching out a hand to grab her arm.

“Wear trainers next time, mate. Idiot,” he muttered.

“Yes. Thank you,” she said, too distracted by the vanishing smirk to take the other guy on.

She glanced behind her as she threaded her way through the lunchtime crowd towards the Victoria Line. She was looking for the shock of blond hair, but it was gone. All the time she wondered if it was just coincidence, if she was being paranoid. But when she reached the platform, she took care to stay well back from the edge.

A train came a minute later and she got into one of the middle carriages. It was comfortingly full of people—so busy, in fact, that she had to stand. A group of rowdy students got in behind her. Only one stop. She’d be glad to get home.

But as soon as the train moved off, she felt movement in the group of students. Her pricked senses caused her to look round and glimpse a flash of blond underneath a dark grey hood. He was three feet away, moving closer, with no expression, but when he briefly caught her eye he flashed the smirk again. The students parted to let him through. A vestige of her military training told her there was something odd about the way he was moving his arms and shoulders. She looked down to see his left hand folded into a fist, at once gripping and hiding something small and dark.

Looking up, she made sure not to catch his eye again. He was calm and steady, the smirk fixed in place. Whatever he had come to do, his body language said he was prepared and unstoppable.

He was a foot away. She guessed his height at six foot two—three inches taller than her—and his weight at about twelve stone. He was slim but muscular, with the neck of a weight lifter and the even tan of a man who exercised a lot outdoors. Some people might think him good-looking, but there was a wolfishness about his expression. She wouldn’t have liked him, even if she didn’t think he was carrying a knife.

The train was at maximum speed now, plunging noisily through the tunnel. She shifted her own weight onto the balls of her feet and looked around at the nearby passengers, assessing the risk to each one. There was more space near the farther door of the carriage so she pushed her way towards it, apologizing gently as she went. He went at a similar speed, smiling his apologies, too.

Reaching the doors, she stopped. She didn’t look round, but she could sense him behind her. Soon his reflection came into view, distorted in the glass. He wouldn’t do anything yet. He would want to wait until the train was at the station so he could do what he had come for and make a quick getaway. She guessed a jab to the body—something low and hard to spot. But maybe he wouldn’t do anything now anyway, if he thought she’d spotted him.

The train plunged through the tunnel for another thirty seconds, then juddered and began to brake. He was right up close. She took a breath and tried to relax her shoulders. Metal squealed on metal and they were both thrown sideways a little as the train slowed rapidly.

The punch came from nowhere, and the pain was blinding. He staggered back into another passenger, putting his right hand up to his nose. He still couldn’t see, and he felt cartilage where it shouldn’t be. She’d broken it. The bitch.

He lashed out at her with his other hand, the one grasping the knife, but before he could make contact the handle was knocked from his grip. Instinctively bending to get it, he felt another flash of almost paralyzing pain. She had nutted him in the face this time, knocking his jaw back with the top of her head. Ignoring the terrified shouts coming from behind him, he growled his fury and lunged at her, receiving a sharp knee to the balls. All the breath left his body.

She was just a secretary in fuck-me shoes! Fuck her! He was on his knees and as his vision started to come back fully he saw the knife on the floor, an arm’s length away, as the train pulled into Green Park station. Everyone around was drawing back. He made a lunge for the knife; she shouted at him to stop but he didn’t listen. Next thing he knew, he was lying prone with her weight on his spine and his right arm bent tight behind him.

“Make a move and I’ll break your fingers,” she grunted into his ear, so he could hear her over the panic and shouting.

He told her where to go. To his astonishment, she was as good as her word. The pain was excruciating as he felt his little finger snap, and the next two were pulled apart so hard he wondered if he’d have the use of his hand again.

He screamed and swore, and as soon as the train doors opened he threw her off with every ounce of strength in his body and hurtled through the waiting crowd on the platform.

She didn’t follow him. The adrenaline rush was already making her dizzy. She was exhausted and, now that it was over, slightly scared. She heard a sound like raindrops and realized that the people in the carriage were applauding.

“Did he hurt you, love?” a woman asked, crouching beside her.

“Shit, the knife! Watch out!”

Someone asked if they should pull the emergency cord, but Rozie said no. The fight had lasted seconds: not long enough for anyone to take a decent video. The last thing she needed was a crowd snapping pictures to paste on Twitter. While she dragged herself outside, they held the doors open, glad to get on with their journeys.

Rozie sat against the platform wall with her head between her knees, catching her breath. Soon London closed around her, and it was almost as if he had never been there at all.

28

Friday involved a trip to Berkhamsted School (not Allingham) in the state limousine. The Queen’s equerry, her lady-in-waiting, and Sir Simon were waiting for her beside the car. It should have been Rozie, who had organized the day, but she was indisposed. Which was something that never happened. Rozie was not an “indisposed” sort of person.

“Oh dear,” the Queen said. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

“She got attacked on the tube. Poor bastard who did it obviously didn’t realize he was going for a decorated war veteran. Rozie thinks he was trying to steal her handbag. But he—” Sir Simon stopped.

“What, Simon? He what?”

“He had a knife, ma’am,” he admitted. And regretted it. The Queen looked really shocked, which was rare.

“Is she all right?”

“Absolutely. Just a bit shaken. He isn’t, though. She thinks she broke three of his fingers.”

“Good girl.” The Queen had a clear idea about goodies and baddies, and what should happen to each. All her children had had self-defense training and Anne had needed it, when she was nearly kidnapped all those years ago. The papers had gleefully reported her retort, when ordered to get out of the car by a man wielding not one gun but two. “Not bloody likely!”

That was her girl. It was a tremendous relief, to know her APS was made of similar stuff.

When Rozie appeared again on Saturday, the Queen was contrite. She didn’t say so, of course, because one didn’t, but she was.

“How are you, Rozie? Better, I hope?”

“Completely well, Your Majesty.”

“I gather there was quite a fracas.”

“Nothing I couldn’t handle, ma’am.”

The Queen smiled. “So I’m told. I’m glad to see this job has softened you up.”

“Quite the opposite.” Rozie grinned. “Bring it on. I did warn the man before I took action.”

The Queen nodded. “Very considerate. Even so, I think you should be careful about going out, for a while.”

“Don’t worry—I will be.”

“I mean, very careful. I’d like you to stay on palace grounds, if you can, unless you’re on official business.”

Rozie gave a rueful shrug. “That afternoon was my own fault. I went to see Masha Peyrovskaya. I knew her husband was dangerous, but I really had no idea how bad it could get. I don’t think he’d try it twice, though, ma’am. It would be too obvious.”

The Queen sighed. “I don’t think this was down to Mr. Peyrovski. Why did you go to see Mrs. Peyrovskaya, by the way? I don’t remember suggesting it.”

“You didn’t, ma’am; she did. I wasn’t sure why, but it turned out she wanted marital advice. Things aren’t going well.”

“You didn’t give any, I hope.”

“Actually, I didn’t. I have no idea how married people stay together.”

“Practice. But good. The last thing one needs is to get caught up in another divorce. Stay well away.”

“I planned to, ma’am. But he came after me anyway. Or at least, he sent someone.” Rozie felt so relieved she hadn’t seriously considered getting Fliss caught up in all of this. While she was perfecting self-defense drills at Sandhurst, Fliss was winning the freshers’ prize for most tequila shots downed while J-Setting like Beyoncé. Fliss would win every time on the dance floor; not so much in a fight with a knife-wielding Russian heavy. But wait—hadn’t the Boss just said Mr. Peyrovski might not be behind it? “I mean, I assumed it was him. Do you think it wasn’t?”

The Queen gazed steadily from behind her bifocals. “This has nothing to do with Mrs. Peyrovskaya. Or at least, only very indirectly.”

“But I thought . . .”

“You were asking questions about Rachel Stiles. At my request, I know. But please don’t, anymore. Not for now.”

Rozie thought back. “But I only asked about her contact lenses recently, or lack of.”

“I know,” the Queen said, “and that’s what worries me.”

The London highlight of the following week was supposed to be the garden party at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, but sadly for everyone, it was a bit of a washout. Even the Queen was noticeably disappointed. She knew how special the day was for everyone who came to see her and she always wanted them to see the garden at its best, and not from under the dripping canvas of a marquee. So often, the first week in May was one of the finest, but this year it was benightedly unpredictable. Charles blamed global warming, of course, and one tended to agree with him.

The thing was, if it was raining hard in Westminster it was almost certainly raining just as hard in Windsor. The horse show was due to start on Wednesday, with a day of dressage and special access for local townspeople, who were always so accommodating about all the crowds and queues of horse boxes. It had been arranged a year ago, and hundreds of people had put in so much work. But the director was warning her that the day might have to be canceled if the ground got too wet.

And then, to cap it all, she thwacked her leg against a footstool while rushing to stop Candy from stealing a plate of biscuits from the tea table, and she had to spend an evening in bed with a cold pack on it, feeling thoroughly miserable.

It was Sir Simon who brought the next piece of news, which cheered her up tremendously and almost, but not quite, made up for the fact that the car parks at Home Park were indeed flooded, and “Windsor Wednesday” was canceled, for the first time ever, to everyone’s dismay.

Sir Simon, who brought that news, too, was surprised by how much of a smile the other detail brought to Her Majesty’s face that morning. He simply explained that Gavin Humphreys had asked him to inform her that the murder investigation was taking a new and unexpected direction. Sir Simon had thought the update would depress her further, because presumably it meant the whole thing would take even longer. This would give the tabloids ever more opportunities to find out about the purple dressing gown and humiliate them all.

And yet, she smiled and said “Oh, really?” and looked rather insouciant.

“I can ask him to give you more details, ma’am, if you’d like them?”

“No need. As long as he keeps us in the general picture. And tell him to let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course. Although I’m sure he has it all under control.”

29

Rozie noticed that the Boss was looking more cheerful on Thursday, but that was only to be expected because by then they were all back at Windsor, her leg was well enough to walk on, and before doing the boxes she was ready to head out in the cool but sunny air and see the horses.

The rainstorm had passed. The car parks had recovered enough to receive the queue of visitors. The forecast was fair. And best of all, Barbers Shop was fully recovered and raring to go in the Ridden Show Horse Championship and the birthday pageant.

It was a grinning Queen who drove one of the Range Rovers down to Home Park, where the crowds had already gathered to watch the show. The championship was one of the opening events in the Copper Horse Arena. Dressed in a cardigan, a padded jacket, boots, and a scarf, she mingled with riders, trainers, and other horse fans, making jokes about the weather and miming her horror at the biblical flood.

Rozie had come down as well, accompanying Sir Simon. She was still advised against trips beyond the castle confines, but here she was as safe as she would ever be. They watched the competitors from a position opposite the VIP stand, enjoying a rare moment of relaxation together.

Rozie soaked up the feeble but persistent rays of sun; the reassuring gravelly tones of the announcer on the PA system; and the smell of horseflesh, wet sand, and fly spray. It took her back to her teenage days, on borrowed rides, nervous about the biggest jumps and keen to get out there.

“D’you ride, Simon?” she asked, realizing she’d never really heard him talk about it.

“No. My mother was allergic to horses. Wouldn’t go anywhere near them. Funny, really, because she was allergic to dogs, too, and we had two terriers and a Labrador. And three cats. And a guinea pig.” He shrugged.

“Maybe she just didn’t like them?” Rozie suggested.

“I did sometimes wonder. We all wanted to ride, but my sisters were besotted. The younger one, particularly—Beaty. She knew everything there was to know, exactly how to groom a horse and braid its tail, what all the different breeds were, how to cure croup. This was just from reading stories about them. I think my mother was terrified Beaty would become irrevocably obsessed if we went anywhere near a real one. And of course we couldn’t afford it. Not with the school fees.”

Rozie nodded. For a moment, she imagined being the sort of girl who grew up having conversations with people about the day-to-day drama of choosing between owning a horse and going to boarding school. There had been a few kids like that at primary school in Notting Hill, but they had always lived in another world—the one of the pastel town houses, so close and always so firmly out of reach. She laughed, putting an affectionate hand on her boss’s shoulder.

“Poor you! What a nightmare that must have been.”

“It was!” He grinned back at her. “My troubled childhood.”

Rozie possibly didn’t know it, but her straightforwardness was what got her hired. All the candidates had been very clever, with stellar records in the Civil Service or the City, but many were brash and arrogant when you peered under the surface. Rozie was never that, and yet she had an inner confidence. You always knew where you were with her, even when she was gently teasing you. She managed to fit in because she didn’t try too hard, and Sir Simon liked that. She also looked fabulous in those ridiculous heels, combined with the heartwarming grin she gave when she got a difficult question right, but he had been far too professional to let any of that influence him in any way. Besides, the final decision had been Her Majesty’s.

Barbers Shop came into the Copper Horse Arena with a spring in his step and the look of a champion. His glossy conker coat had been groomed with mathematical precision that would no doubt have pleased Sir Simon’s little sister. He had endless legs with black socks, powerful shoulders, and a head that moved intelligently, pricking his ears at the cheers from an appreciative crowd. Rozie watched the Queen grin with delight as soon as she saw him and carry on beaming as he powered his way through the jumps, combining sheer strength with a theatrical sense of performance. He knew exactly what was demanded of him and showed off outrageously, seeming to suspend himself in midair, before landing with the precision of an acrobat every time and tossing his head with satisfaction at a job well done.

Rozie loved the horse, but she found it hard to drag her eyes away from his owner.

“She looks so happy.”

“Doesn’t she?”

“But . . . she looks like she’s always been this up, and you told me yesterday she was miserable as hell, and her leg was killing her.”

“She has a talent for happiness,” Sir Simon said. “Luckily. She was a happy child, much loved. I think that’s what got her through the next seven decades.”

“She must have been bloody happy.”

“I think she was.”

To no one’s surprise, and his owner’s absolute joy, Barbers Shop won the championship and the Queen got a fifty-pound Tesco voucher. She spent a while with the trainer and the horse afterwards, congratulating them both on another great performance and sharing a moment of glee. Then she was off to see the children on their ponies. A whole new generation of young riders were coming through. It was marvelous. How many carrots could you get with fifty pounds at Tesco? she wondered. She would have to find out.

Late that evening, after a busy round of receptions and a dinner for forty in the Waterloo Chamber, General Sir Peter Venn called Sir Simon in his apartment and asked if he could come over. His friend readily agreed, so Sir Peter was surprised to find the APS there, too, with a tumbler of whiskey on the table beside her chair and her feet tucked up comfortably underneath her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Not at all, Peter. Rozie and I are just catching up on a few things. What can I offer you? Glenmorangie? Famous Grouse? Gordon’s? Port? I’ve got some Taylor’s ninety-six that’s rather moreish.”

“Yes, please,” Sir Peter said gratefully. He made his way over to a spare armchair and sank into it. “God, what a day.”

“I saw you earlier. You looked a bit green about the gills. Are you feeling all right?”

Sir Simon handed a small, cut-crystal port glass to the governor, glowing with the tawny red of the ’96. Sir Peter took a sip, closed his eyes, and settled back into his chair.

“Better now. I had to see HM before dinner. Wasn’t looking forward to it much, actually.”

“Oh?” Sir Simon sat back, crossed his legs, and looked concerned.

Sir Peter cast a nervous glance at Rozie, then back to his host. “Pas devant?” he muttered quietly.

“Oh, Rozie knows everything. And if she doesn’t, she ought to. We’re all servants here. And she speaks French.”

Sir Peter flushed briefly, but recovered himself. “Fine, then. It turns out that I introduced a complete impostor to the castle during the dine and sleep.”

“We knew about that.”

“Well, you didn’t tell me you knew, and I wish you had, because I was having kittens imagining what the Queen would say when she found out. It was bad enough that the girl was in the castle at all, but that she stayed overnight at my personal request to the master . . .”

“You weren’t to know she wasn’t kosher, though, were you?” Sir Simon said gently.

Sir Peter took another sip of port. “I don’t see how I could have been. It wasn’t my meeting—I was just hosting it for a friend in the Foreign Office because we have such tight security here—ha!—and it’s so useful for Heathrow. I was happy to do it, but I must say I assumed MI6 and the Foreign Office and the security team here were on top of knowing who was who. It turned out this girl was fairly new to this type of input. She had a PhD on Chinese naval infrastructure, which not many people do, as you can imagine, and she’d given a couple of papers at think tanks in London, but nobody at this meeting had actually seen her in the flesh. They’d emailed quite a bit, but that was all. And she had this thick, distinctive hair. To security, she looked like her passport photograph. It never occurred to anyone to double-check.

“Anyway, I’d got a bit worried recently that she was a drug taker. That’s what the news said when she died, wasn’t it? I suddenly thought—what if she’d taken drugs here? Can you imagine if that got out? So I talked to Chief Inspector Strong’s team about it and the moment they showed me a recent picture of the girl who died, I knew it wasn’t the person I’d seen. Obviously I told them straightaway, but I thought the Queen would be incandescent. It had been my idea to postpone the meeting to the following day, you know, to wait for this boy wonder from Djibouti. So my fault the impostor slept in the castle. My fault entirely.” He sighed and drained his glass.

“Not at all,” Sir Simon insisted. He got up, reached for the port decanter, and put it by the governor’s elbow. “That meeting was extremely useful, I gather. It would have been a washout if Lo hadn’t made it. You did well to persuade them all to stay on.”

“You’re very kind. And I understand that it was a good meeting. I didn’t sit in on it myself, but it pushed our thinking on the Belt and Road strategy in some new directions. We’d always seen it as ambitious but essentially benign. And we’d focused on the Belt part—the land routes. What they’re doing in Africa, for example, is on a scale one can hardly imagine. However, Lo had some fascinating insights into the Road part—the sea routes. That’s where the Stiles girl came in. Kelvin Lo is interested in their financing of new ports in developing countries. He’s concerned about the effect it will have on their naval capacity. You don’t think about China being a naval power, do you? But more than that, he’s concerned they’re deliberately driving some of these countries into debt on these port facilities, so they’ll essentially have a string of indentured bases around the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific.”

“Rather the way we did in the nineteenth century,” Sir Simon mused.

“Yes, well . . . We don’t anymore. We haven’t even got Hong Kong. It means they can put unfortunate pressure on our trade routes. Lots for the FCO to think about. And Six. Kelvin’s information about the extent of infrastructure funding was a bit of a bombshell.”

A thought was occurring to Rozie as he spoke.

“Was it China, then, that was spying? To find out what we knew about them?”

The governor, who had been increasingly animated as he spoke, sank back in his chair again. “With my personally invited, drug-addicted overnight guest, you mean? Quite possibly. I couldn’t say.”

“I’m sorry, Sir Peter. I didn’t mean—”

“No, no, don’t worry about it. Entirely my own fault. I should have got security to double-check everyone’s credentials. But it never occurred to me the vetting wasn’t up to scratch. The bloody thing was held in the name of national security, for God’s sake!”

“Exactly,” Sir Simon soothed. “You weren’t to know. What did Strong say? He interviewed the girl, too, didn’t he, about the murder? Did he make the same mistake?”

“Damned if I know. He won’t tell me a thing because of course Humphreys thinks we’re all working for the Kremlin. Even though I wrote the defense strategy for a Russian combined-forces attack through Scandinavia when I worked in NATO. Perhaps he thinks that makes me more of a spy. God knows. I can only assume the girls were in it together, though. Otherwise why didn’t the real Rachel Stiles go to the police? They must have killed her because she knew too much.”

“You think she was killed deliberately?” Sir Simon asked.

“Don’t you?”

“I was beginning to wonder. So now that’s two dead.”

Three dead, Rozie thought.

“Anyway,” the governor went on, “I went to the Queen this evening, ready to fall on my sword, and instead she was perfectly nice about it. Said of course it wasn’t my business to go second-guessing the vetting procedure. Which I gather is being redesigned as we speak. It’ll be upgraded once we’ve got time when the horse show’s over. Don’t talk to me about stable doors and horses bolting.”

“I wouldn’t dream of saying any such thing,” Sir Simon assured him.

“You were thinking it.”

“No, no, no.”

“You’re grinning.”

“I’m just happy for you that the Boss didn’t chew you out.”

“Thank God Barbers Shop put her in a good mood.” Sir Peter put down his glass and levered himself out of the chair. “Well, thank you for the port, Simon. Good night, Rozie. Christine’s waiting for me at home. Kylie Minogue arrives in seventy-two hours and they’ve put her in one of our spare bedrooms. Honestly, Christine’s task list for the visit puts my NATO defense strategy papers to shame.”

30

As soon as the Queen heard that the investigation had taken a new direction, she had started to relax. Billy MacLachlan had dangled the bait, and Humphreys had taken it at last. At Thursday’s brief meeting with an anguished Sir Peter, she had wanted to congratulate him on playing his part so well, but it was important to be quite innocent of all discoveries until one was officially told.

On Sunday, the phone call she had been expecting finally came. She had just finished a light lunch with the family, before a last afternoon of events and prize-giving down in the park, when Sir Simon informed her that Gavin Humphreys and Ravi Singh would like to arrange a meeting.

“Once you’ve recovered, ma’am. From the festivities.”

“You know me, Simon. I’ll be up bright and early tomorrow. Is it good news?”

“They wouldn’t say, ma’am. But news, certainly. I understand there’s been at least one arrest. But they’d like to explain it all properly.”

“They don’t plan to incarcerate any more of my servants, do they?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Find a suitable time. Now, if I don’t go and see the horses, there’ll be none left to see.”

She went back down to Home Park, and it was delightful. From the Pony Club to the puissance champions, she was surrounded by passionate equestrians, ready for the ring in spotless breeches and gleaming boots, or grinning and spattered in mud from the driving course. Parents to whom she had granted rosettes many years ago now brought their little ones in their first tweed coats, balanced precariously on their rides. At the other end of the scale, there was a healthy turnout of stars who would be going to Rio soon, to compete for Olympic gold. If one could not follow them there, how nice that they could perform in one’s own garden, on a sunny day, with the castle as a benevolent backdrop. And then it was time for the musical ride of the Household Cavalry, and who could fail to be thrilled by that?

But everything paled into insignificance beside the pageant that night. Anne and Edward had participated in the earlier versions on previous days. They had tried to tell her what to expect—one thought one knew—but nothing, nothing could quite prepare her for how special it turned out to be. So unlike some of those disastrous jubilee affairs. (The river barge in the rain four years ago had practically finished Philip off.)

She arrived at the Castle Arena at dusk, in the glass-roofed Scottish State Coach, with Philip beside her. There was an audience of six thousand waiting in the grandstands and five thousand more along the Long Walk outside, watching on giant TV screens. But it was the horses one had come for.

It took a great choreographer to make this sort of event go with a swing and get nine hundred horses to perform with split-second timing. Dougie Squires had utterly excelled himself. There was the Omani cavalry, of course, who had been rehearsing on-site for weeks; the Azerbaijani dancers; the truly exceptional horse whisperer, who was like a magician with those animals; and Shirley Bassey, Katherine Jenkins, and Miss Minogue in rhinestones and sequins, looking so graceful and filling the stadium with sound. But what made it so very moving was the way Dougie had based it around one’s love of horses, and how very personal it was. If she was a weeper—which luckily she wasn’t—it would have been easy to shed a tear. Especially when Anne and Edward entered the arena with little Louise, riding her own pony, just as she used to do at that age, and so composed.

On the way back, Philip asked, “Has that Humphreys johnnie been in touch about his idiotic witch hunt?”

“He has.”

“I hope you put him right.”

“In a way.”

“Good. And I hope he was suitably contrite.”

The Queen’s head had been full of horses, but she brought it back to the matter in hand.

“I’m not quite sure yet. I’ll have a better idea tomorrow.”

“Tell me if you’re not happy. According to the papers, I know people who could have him erased from this earth.”

“I think he is those people,” she observed mildly.

“Bugger,” he said, and looked up at the floodlit castle.

She laughed.

This time, Gavin Humphreys was more ready than ever. He had planned. He had prepared. He had made excellent progress. He was certain, this time, that he would perform.

He wasn’t entirely sure Her Majesty would be able to follow his thinking, that was the only thing. He would probably have to slow down in some places and go over certain things. He had asked Ravi Singh to look out for moments of confusion and give him the nod, just in case he got carried away with explaining and failed to notice when he lost her. It was complicated. Lots of intertwining strands. He might even need to draw it out for her. He would normally use his touch-screen notebook for that sort of thing, but it was a bit newfangled for Windsor Castle. Paper. Plain paper—that was another couple of Ps. He got his secretary to find some to put in his briefcase before he left for Windsor in the official Jag.

At ten thirty on Monday morning the Queen’s equerry showed him and the Met commissioner to the Oak Room, where their hostess greeted them before taking her usual seat near the window. The Queen seemed perky and relaxed, in a heather-hued twinset and pearls. Two of the dogs lay safely half asleep at her feet and a third jumped up to sit beside her. Her assistant, the girl with the high-heeled shoes, lurked in one corner, while the equerry, all starch and gold braid, stood to attention in the other.

Her Majesty looked in very good condition for a woman who’d been up until all hours, listening to Shirley Bassey and watching horses do tricks. Humphreys hadn’t seen last night’s pageant himself, but his wife had had the TV on in the background. The royals had all seemed very cheerful on-screen, and there were a lot of horses. He’d missed most of it because he had been busy practicing what he was going to say.

Now here he was, and Her Majesty was offering him and the Met commissioner tea or coffee. He asked for the latter, white with no sugar, and they indulged in a little polite small talk about the pageant, but soon she was asking the inevitable question.

“So tell me, Director General—who killed Mr. Brodsky? Do we know?”

Humphreys sat up straight, legs slightly apart without manspreading, the way he had been taught in media training.

“Yes, ma’am, we do,” he said gravely—not entirely answering the question because he intended to build up to it. “And, I might add, dark forces have been at work.”

“You told me.” She nodded. “Putin’s forces.”

“Not actually those,” he admitted. “At first we assumed Brodsky’s murder was a brazen message. In fact, it was the opposite: something intended to be wildly misunderstood. For a long time, we were looking in the wrong direction.”

“Oh dear. Were we?”

He nodded earnestly.

“How unfortunate.”

For the briefest of moments, Humphreys was reminded of the time his ten-year-old self had had to explain to his grandfather that, in taking apart his gold hunter pocket watch to see how it worked, he had accidentally broken it beyond repair. But this time, everything was fixed! And he was fifty-four. He shrugged off the memory and went back to his story.

“Those forces might have stayed hidden a while longer,” he went on, “if there hadn’t been a storm over the Arab Peninsula, and if a young woman hadn’t dropped her contact lens.” He had practiced this part, and he liked it. The Queen’s eyes lit up. Encouraged, he relaxed a little and said, “It’s a bit like chaos theory, ma’am. A butterfly flaps its wings in . . .” Damn. It never paid to extemporize. Where did the butterfly flap its wings? Then there was a storm somewhere. But in this case a storm was a butterfly. He moved on swiftly. “The, er, Amazon. And as a result, three people are dead.” He paused, dramatically.

“Three people? Goodness.”

The Queen was suitably impressed.

“I must say at this point, there is one person who made the whole discovery possible,” Humphreys added generously. “Without them I think we might still be trying to pull the threads together.”

“Oh?”

“Sir Peter Venn. One of his visitors was not who she said she was. You see, in this case the person we were looking for was a woman. Cherchez la femme, ma’am.”

The Queen cocked her head slightly to one side. “Ah. La femme. Yes. Quite.”

“It pays to maintain an open mind. Thanks to Sir Peter, we began to focus on an entirely different group from that of your dine and sleepover.”

“Sleep,” the Met commissioner interrupted.

“What?”

“Dine and sleep.”

God, the last thing he needed was Singh correcting his vocabulary. With a deep breath, Humphreys kept calm and carried on. “They were here for a meeting that had been due to take place the day before Brodsky was found dead. It was all about a project called the Belt and Road. That’s a Chinese strategy to—”

“I know about the Belt and Road,” Her Majesty assured him.

“Oh. Ah. Good. Anyway, it was organized by MI6 and the Foreign Office, and kindly hosted by the governor. It might not seem connected to your little soirée, but bear with me. We’re actually looking at three interconnected cases.”

Thank goodness he’d brought the plain paper. He delved into his briefcase, took a few pages out, and stacked them on the coffee table in front of him in landscape format. On the uppermost page he wrote “Brodsky” in the middle near the top with a box around the name, then drew another box near the bottom right-hand corner and circled it with a swish of the pen.

Beside him, Mr. Singh couldn’t contain himself. “The link to Mr. Brodsky was extraordinary, ma’am. I’m still not sure how the director general did it. A real leap of the imagination—”

“Thank you, Ravi. I’ll get to that. The purpose of the meeting, ma’am, was to share classified information on China’s thinking and make high-level recommendations on the UK’s response. The visitor in question—the one who was supposed to be here—was a young lady called Rachel Stiles.” He wrote “Stiles” in the empty box. “She was an expert on the Chinese economy. In this case, ma’am, it was China that was of interest. Not Russia at all.”

“Goodness,” the Queen remarked levelly. “How fascinating.”

“Isn’t it?” He wrote “Belt and Road” in the bottom center of the paper. It was simplistic, but he could see the diagram was going to turn out quite useful. An image flashed into his mind of it framed, above his desk at home one day, and recounting to dinner guests how he’d used it to explain the Brodsky case to Her Majesty.

“The meeting drew together experts from various fields. All carefully vetted, of course—but they were forming a new group. It turned out that nobody at the meeting had met Rachel Stiles in person before. Dr. Stiles was in her twenties and had blue eyes and heavy, dark hair. So did the woman who arrived at the castle. She seemed to match the identity photo supplied on the vetting form. It wasn’t until Sir Peter’s subsequent revelation that we noticed some facial discrepancies, but these were quite small.”

He paused, to see if the Queen was still following. She seemed to be.

“Dr. Stiles was unfortunately dead by the time we uncovered the deception. However, when we showed other participants a decent-sized photograph of her, they agreed: it was not Rachel Stiles they’d met. So the question was, who was she?”

“I do hope you found out.” The Queen raised an eyebrow.

“Not to start with.” Humphreys leaned forward and drew a third box in the bottom left-hand corner of his diagram. He considered writing a question mark inside it, but that would only mess the thing up later. He left it as it was—unfilled, glaring with possibility. Then turned the paper to face Her Majesty, and tapped it thoughtfully.

“For now, let us just call her the agent of a rogue state.”

The Queen’s voice rang with bell-like clarity. “Oh? Which one?”

Humphreys had been going to build up to this, too, but she obviously wanted the information, so he gave in. “This might come as a surprise, ma’am.”

“Not Russia, then?”

“In fact, no.”

“Or China?”

“Not China either. It was an ally of ours, would you believe?” He named it.

“Really?” She leaned forward, frowning. “And why were they spying on us?”

“There’s a problem with the state in question, and actually, I believe it started with me.” Humphreys thought he detected the faintest trace of a smile flit across the APS’s face. But perhaps he imagined it. The Queen merely looked intent and curious. “Last year, as I believe you were briefed, King Zeid chose to make one of his young nephews the head of his country’s police and intelligence services. We think he’s testing the boy—young man, I should say—to see if he has leadership potential. I gather you know Prince Fazal quite well.”

The Queen nodded. “Quite well.”

“I understand he occasionally visited you here at Windsor and at Sandringham on holidays from boarding school and Sandhurst.” She glowered. From what Humphreys had heard, she had treated the young man like a member of the family. “They spotted his lack of ideal leadership potential at the Royal Military Academy,” he went on. “An excellent shot and tough as old boots, but constantly getting into fights in the town and sneaking off to London to gamble in the casinos. I gather he only lasted two terms. He was young. Our top brass put it down to hormones. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t have been our first choice for head of his country’s police service, or the intelligence side.”

“Nor mine,” the Queen agreed. From the tone of her voice, Humphreys suspected the lad had been nasty to the dogs, or possibly one of the horses.

“As you know, we considered his first few months in the job to be . . . unsatisfactory. There has been an increase in state-sanctioned torture in the prisons. Certain activists have gone missing, believed dead. There are rumors—nothing confirmed—that he likes to have people brought to his house so he can deliver the coup de grâce himself. He regularly argues for war in the region. When I took over as DG, I took the decision to limit intelligence sharing with his agency. I didn’t think he could be trusted to protect our sources. Needless to say, he was outraged.”

“I see.”

“I thought his uncle the king might complain to you about it.”

“He didn’t.”

“That in itself is interesting, ma’am. It suggests either the young man’s power is quickly fading, or the older man’s is. Anyway, it seems the prince decided to take matters into his own hands. If we wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to know, he’d find out for himself. Since we’ve looked into it, it transpires that for several months he’s been trying to target our intelligence on a whole range of topics. Including the Belt and Road.”

“How?” the Queen asked.

“How what, ma’am?”

“Has he been trying to target it?”

“Ah. It turns out he had a source in the FCO.”

“Oh,” the Queen observed blandly. “So there was an insider.”

“Yes, ma’am, and we’ve—”

“But not in my castle.”

“Well, ma’am, I was going to get to—”

“I’m so sorry. Do continue.”

Humphreys wrote “Fazal” on his diagram, near the empty box, and underlined it.

“Thanks to this person’s information, the agent was able to insert herself into the intelligence group at the castle. She was quiet, but by no means the only one to appear somewhat shy at first.” Humphreys had a thought. “Not that you would remember, ma’am, but you might even have met her that evening, at a reception in the governor’s drawing room . . .” He broke off, to consider that extraordinary, unknowable possibility.

“I suppose I might,” the Queen said meekly. “More coffee?”

“I—uh . . .” Humphreys realized he was parched. His original cup had gone cold, but was replaced by the silent footman. He drained the new one and felt a momentary wave of confusion.

“Where was I?”

“In the governor’s drawing room,” the Queen prompted. “With the spy.”

Humphreys smiled gratefully. She was sharper than she looked. Which was useful, under the circumstances.

“Yes, of course. And that should have been it. They were all due to go home that night, but a key analyst at the meeting had been held up by a storm on his way here from Djibouti. This was the storm I mentioned at the beginning, ma’am. The one like the butterfly in the— Anyway, his connecting flight from Dubai was delayed by several hours, and the main meeting was postponed, so the governor arranged for the others to stay here overnight, unplanned.”

“Yes, he told me about that.”

“A generous decision. He wasn’t to know the consequences. The group stayed up for a while, talking and drinking, including the so-called Dr. Stiles. The others said that by this point she was quite animated, joining in and making jokes. They liked her. Looking back, it’s rather impressive, ma’am, in its way.”

“Is it?” the Queen asked, somewhat briskly.

Humphreys backtracked a little. “Well, obviously everything she did was reprehensible. But you have to admire the enemy sometimes. Courage in the face of adversity and all that . . .”

“I prefer not to think of my hospitality as adversity, Director General.”

“No, no, of course not.” He took another sip of coffee. “Anyway, they all went up to their allotted rooms sometime before midnight. They were scattered around in various attic locations. Stiles, or rather, the agent, happened to be above the Visitors’ Apartments.”

Humphreys could see those apartments now, from where he was sitting, through the wide expanse of glass overlooking the quad—row upon row of Gothic windows set into heavy stone, with turrets and crenellations and thick-set towers. And he could imagine the panic of the unprepared young woman, trapped in the oldest inhabited castle in the world, surrounded by police and armed members of the Foot Guards. The Queen might not think the agent was brave, but he did. He had known of young women in similar situations, in other places, serving their country in difficult circumstances. He didn’t underestimate what it took.

“At around half past midnight, one of the housekeepers saw her on her way back to her room from the shower. She was wearing a towel, with another around her hair. She was crouched down, looking for something. The housekeeper asked what it was, and she said it was a contact lens. This information seemed irrelevant at first, but then we realized it was essential. The lenses are important, ma’am, because as we subsequently discovered, the agent had brown eyes, and Rachel Stiles’s were blue. So we now know these were blue contact lenses that she badly needed for the next day.

“The housekeeper offered to help her look, but she declined. Then, by sheer chance—and that’s the thing about this whole sorry affair—it was just pure chance, ma’am—Maksim Brodsky came out of his own room, a few doors away. Yes, finally, we arrive at Mr. Brodsky. I was getting there, ha ha.” He picked up his pen and tapped the “Brodsky” box on the diagram.

“He was on his way somewhere else. But the key point is, he saw this girl, saw her with her hair up, scrabbling around for something on the floor—and he bent down to help her. And that, ma’am . . . is where he made his terrible mistake.”

This time, Humphreys’s dramatic pause was positively Pinteresque. It was like waiting to announce the winner of the Great British Bake Off. Everyone held their breath.

Eventually, Mr. Singh couldn’t take it any longer. He leaped in. “This is where Mr. Humphreys had his revelation, ma’am. It was a real leap of inspiration. I’m still not sure how he did it.”

“Thank you, Ravi.” Humphreys gave a self-deprecating shake of his head. “I couldn’t have done it without you and your men. And women, of course. It was an absolute team effort.”

“But to connect three totally separate investigations. It was a stroke of brilliance.”

Humphreys had the grace to blush. Looking down at his thighs, he picked an imaginary piece of fluff off the knee of his trousers, then took up his pen and scored a line along the bottom of the paper, between the empty box and “Stiles.”

“Not brilliance,” he demurred. “Just luck. And teamwork, as I say. And—”

“And what was it?” the Queen interrupted. “This stroke of brilliance?”

Humphreys was too modest to look her in the eye. He found himself telling the story to Willow, or possibly Holly. One of the corgis, anyway, curled up on the seat beside Her Majesty.

“Mr. Singh mentioned three investigations. Six days ago, while we were already looking into the Stiles case, we received an anonymous tip-off through our website about a potential spy. The source was right—we quickly found a pattern of payments to an offshore bank account. Significantly, both abroad and at home this person associated with certain contacts who were already on our radar. Contacts who work for Prince Fazal, in fact. The desk officer flagged it to Director K Div, who immediately put a note on my desk with the file. I believe I was talking to you at the time, Commissioner, wasn’t I?”

“Yes, indeed. We were discussing the Duke of Edinburgh’s val—”

“It’s not important. What matters is, in the Stiles case we were looking for someone who might have passed herself off as an expert on Chinese finance—an, er, a female, obviously. And here was a woman called Anita Moodie, who was born in Hong Kong and educated in England, spoke Cantonese and Mandarin fluently, and was about the right age and size. . . . Surely, I said to myself, we’ve found her. But there was something else.

“It was when I was looking at Moodie’s case file, not long after you left, Commissioner, thinking about Stiles, that it all came together. It wasn’t the money trail or the associates or the places she’d been. It was a simple detail—so small I’m surprised I noticed it. It was the name of Moodie’s boarding school. Oh.”

He looked up. The assistant in the corner had been taking a drink and was choking on some water that had gone the wrong way. She raised a hand apologetically. He carried on.

“Moodie went to this place called Allingham. The name rang a bell and I remembered—it was in the police files of course—Maksim Brodsky went there, too. As soon as I realized, it hit me in a flash. This was our visitor. Moodie was here. And, quite simply—Brodsky recognized her from school, as he bent down to help with the lens. There she was, without the heavy wig and with at least one eye its natural color. He would have seen straightaway that it was her.

“I checked the dates: Moodie was in the year above Maksim Brodsky at Allingham. You know how you tend to remember the people in the year above you? Well, perhaps you don’t, ma’am—you were tutored here, of course—but people do. More to the point, it turns out they had played music together. He accompanied her at various concerts. There was no question of her pretending he had got it wrong. He knew her as Anita, but here she was Rachel. He knew her as a musician, but here she was a City analyst. She had to fix this by morning, before he started talking about this schoolmate he’d met.”

Humphreys stopped. The room was silent again. He realized he had been talking rather fast, and perhaps a little too enthusiastically, but he still remembered his epiphany as if it were five minutes ago. He often relived it, and always with a shiver of . . . one could hardly call it pleasure in the circumstances, but satisfaction, certainly.

“Gracious,” the Queen said at last. “You’re a very instinctive investigator, aren’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he agreed, with more than a little pride.

She smiled, and in that moment, he thought she looked really quite attractive, for an old lady.

Glancing modestly down again, to avoid her sapphire gaze, Humphreys scribbled “Moodie” in the last, empty box on his diagram and drew a line between that and the “Brodsky” box at the top of the triangle, connecting them all at last.

“There it is, ma’am. The international influence of the British boarding school system. One unfortunate encounter and . . . there we are.”

The Queen’s gaze was still intense. “And are you sure it was she who killed him?”

“Absolutely, ma’am. Once we identified her, we immediately matched her DNA to that found in Brodsky’s room. Even her fingerprints were there. But perhaps the commissioner can talk to that part better than me.”

The man beside him looked reticent. “If you like.”

“Go ahead, Ravi,” Humphreys said expansively. He sat back at last, crossed his legs, and wondered if it would be rude to take the diagram with him when he left.

The commissioner addressed himself to the Queen.

“Miss Moodie didn’t try to solve the problem straightaway, ma’am. In fact, she couldn’t. Perhaps it was Mr. Brodsky’s absence that gave her the chance to consider her plan. Because, you see . . .” He wasn’t sure how to say this, until he remembered that it was the Queen herself who had alerted him to this side of things. “He had an assignation. With one of your guests.” He checked her reaction and, to his relief, she didn’t look like a woman who needed smelling salts. Even so, talking to Queen Elizabeth II about this sort of thing, he felt slightly light-headed himself.

“Mr. Brodsky joined this, er, person, downstairs in her suite and it all . . . went quite well.” He felt his cheeks go warm. “And afterwards he went outside for a cigarette.” He coughed. He was not making this easy for himself. “By the time he got back, Miss Moodie must have found an excuse to join him in his room. She was an old friend, after all. It’s possible that she went in with the hope of seducing him, but he wouldn’t have been very . . . He was probably quite . . . you know . . . tired. Anyway, at some point in the early morning, she overpowered him. Given the broken bones in his neck, we believe she strangled him manually before applying the ligature. He would have been relaxed in her company, so it would have been easy for her to surprise him. She was small, but strong. Trained, we assume, and desperate.”

“How dreadful,” the Queen said, in such a way that Singh felt for the first time that he was not recounting a case to a royal, but talking about an ugly death to a person who really cared. It took him back to his early days as an officer on the beat.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said quietly. He noticed that she nudged her ankle against the nearest dog on the floor beside her. He wanted to reach across the coffee table and squeeze her hand. But he didn’t, and the moment passed.

“And so now there was a body. There would be questions in the morning. She had to make it look like an accident. But, more than that, she must have been panicking that if there was an investigation, a public one anyway, we would quickly discover the real Rachel Stiles hadn’t been here. She needed to make it as hard for us as possible. The question was, how?”

Singh had asked the question rhetorically. He was about to answer it, but the Queen did first.

“By bringing me into it,” she said grimly. “By making it all so sordid that my reputation must be protected.”

She was absolutely right. He was impressed by how fast she got it. It was almost as if she knew. “Exactly, ma’am.” He nodded. “Miss Moodie staged a scene. She stripped Mr. Brodsky of his clothes and put him in the dressing gown provided by the castle. She put the cord round his neck and tightened it, then arranged him in the wardrobe with the other end of the cord tied to the handle. But she didn’t pull it tight enough to—”

“I know about the second knot,” the Queen reminded him.

“Yes, ma’am. Of course. At first, we were confused because there was a hair on the body, between the neck and the cord, that we identified as belonging to Dr. Stiles. I admit that derailed the investigation a little for a while. However, it must have come from Dr. Stiles’s clothes, which Miss Moodie was wearing.”

“Ah. Was she?”

“Almost certainly, ma’am. We know that she was using Dr. Stiles’s bag.”

“Oh, really?”

This surprised Singh a bit. Of all the things to pick, the bag seemed the least likely detail. But the Queen appeared genuinely interested.

“A cabin bag was taken from Dr. Stiles’s flat that morning. It matched exactly the one Miss Moodie arrived with here at the castle. Judging from the shape and size, we believe it would have contained Dr. Stiles’s papers for the meeting and her outfit for the evening drinks reception. It went missing afterwards, so we can’t be sure.”

“Yes.” The Queen nodded. “Yes. I see.”

She had an odd look about her. Sharp. Thoughtful. He tried to be helpful. “The bag doesn’t play a very big part in the investigation, ma’am.”

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t. Do please go on.”

“Returning to the hair, I don’t think she put it there deliberately. She was careful to scrape Dr. Stiles’s lipstick to remove the DNA. Then she covered it in Mr. Brodsky’s fingerprints and left it near the body.”

“As well as some pants, I seem to remember,” the Queen added. “Where did those come from?”

Another unusual detail to pick up on, but Singh remembered how adamant Gavin Humphreys had been about them belonging to her page. She must have been rather cross about that.

“We think—” Singh’s voice wavered slightly. “Um, from what was found in Dr. Stiles’s bathroom at home . . . er, that she had been . . . um, menstruating, ma’am. And I understand ladies like to pack spare—”

“Thank you, Commissioner. I see.”

“And so Miss Moodie used them to try to make it look as if Mr. Brodsky had died mid- . . .”

“Ye-es.” The word had several syllables, and the Queen’s voice was weighed with melancholy. “Her old school friend . . . A rather special young man. I danced with him.”

“I’m sorry,” Singh said.

“Well, yes. So am I.”

He wanted to lighten the mood, but he knew what was to come. “You might perhaps be wondering, ma’am, what Dr. Stiles herself was doing all that time, while Miss Moodie was busy taking her place?”

“Something like that,” the Queen said, inscrutably.

“We can discuss it another time if you like.”

The Queen sighed deeply. “No. Tell me now.”

Singh sensed a certain reluctance. She was probably tired, after last night. But it was almost as if she knew what was coming. “Well, by the time Sir Peter discovered the impersonation, Dr. Stiles was already dead. We had assumed she must have been bribed or blackmailed into going along with the original deception, because, after all, she never reported it. However, it turns out that nobody had seen her alive since the day before she officially came to Windsor. DCI Strong thought he had, when he went to her flat to interview her as a witness, but after Sir Peter’s revelation he realized it was Miss Moodie he had spoken to, not Dr. Stiles.

“So we looked at the CCTV footage outside her flat. The evening before the first meeting at the castle, it shows a tall, hooded man arriving. None of the other residents saw him in the building. We believe he entered Dr. Stiles’s flat without her knowledge and slipped a knockout drug into something she was drinking.”

“In my day, we used to call that a Mickey Finn,” the Queen observed.

“Yes, I think I’ve heard of those. In this case, it was almost certainly a tranquilizer called Rohypnol, sadly used in date . . . ahem . . . assault, ma’am. It lowers anxiety but can also cause the person taking it to forget what has happened. It can also make them feel pretty nauseous the next day. We think Dr. Stiles was out of it that night, and in the morning she thought she’d caught a bug. She emailed her contact at the Belt and Road meeting saying as much, but there was another thing—GCHQ discovered that her emails had been hacked. You know about hacking, ma’am? I see you do. She sent it, but he never received it.

“According to the CCTV, the hooded man was still inside. We think the plan had been to keep an eye on her while Miss Moodie was playing her part at the castle, but afterwards to let her recover from her woozy symptoms and go back to her normal life. The body soon metabolizes Rohypnol from the bloodstream. Dr. Stiles would have had confused memories, but otherwise have been OK, physically, at least. However, after Mr. Brodsky’s death they changed their minds. It’s ironic, really. Miss Moodie did what she did to the body to stop Rachel Stiles hearing about the murder and telling someone she hadn’t been here that night. But that was never going to happen. Are you all right, ma’am?”

“Quite all right, Commissioner. I might just have another cup of tea. Thank you very much.” The Queen nodded to the footman as he poured it.

Singh was worried. She was looking a bit grey suddenly, and he hadn’t even got to the really nasty part. “So . . . and stop me if this is too much . . .”

“No, please go on.”

“Ma’am.” He waited while she took a sip. “The intruder left Dr. Stiles briefly, but soon returned. As they feared, we quickly suspected murder at the castle. We believe he kept her tranquilized in her bedroom until Anita Moodie could do her bit in the living room when the police visited. But by now they were stuck. Strong’s team could come back at any time and ask more questions. They couldn’t keep Dr. Stiles out of it indefinitely. Besides, it had already been three days. When she came to her senses, she would know it was more than a bug. She might remember at least some of what he’d done to her. So he waited. For three more days. We think he kept her drugged up while they used her email and social media to tell friends and work that she was under the weather. They wanted to leave a long enough gap that what happened next wouldn’t ever be connected to the castle. GCHQ pointed out that the hackers didn’t bother to divert the messages anymore. They knew Dr. Stiles would never read or check them.”

The Queen pressed her ankle more firmly against the warm body of the sleeping dog. “How did she die, in the end?”

“Vodka, ma’am,” Singh said baldly. “Mixed with more Rohypnol. The bottle was still in her apartment. She would have been too out of it to refuse. He also rubbed cocaine into her gums. Enough to give her a heart attack.”

The ormolu clock ticked. The dogs snuffled. The Queen looked bleak.

“One must . . . I would like to . . .” She coughed and recovered herself. When she spoke again, she was sitting ramrod straight and the bell-like clarity was back. “Dr. Stiles was killed in public service. My service, really. I hope that when I contact her family to offer my condolences, I can assure them that we’ve done everything we can to get justice done.”

Humphreys had been quiet for longer than he intended. He decided that now it was time to cheer Her Majesty up.

“The cocaine was their mistake, ma’am,” he interjected. “A bit like Anita Moodie, they were too theatrical. If they’d just plied Stiles with alcohol and tranquilizers, the death would have gone unremarked. But City workers use cocaine, they thought, so that would look more natural. Instead, it made the news. It meant that Sir Peter Venn heard about it and was thinking about her when he talked to DS Highgate, and . . . Well, it brought us to where we are now.”

“And where is that, exactly?” the Queen asked.

Humphreys gestured towards his diagram.

“We mentioned three cases. Anita Moodie, too, is dead, ma’am. She died before she was brought to our attention. Her body was found two days after that of Rachel Stiles. It was supposed to look like suicide, but we happen to know she was in fear for her life.”

“Oh?”

“An old friend rang the police to say so. The same man, presumably, who gave us the anonymous tip-off about the spying.”

“Mmmm.”

“And Moodie was right. She had messed up. She knew she might be punished, and she was. CCTV footage outside her flat shows a tall, blond male entering her building the day she died, and leaving it thirty minutes later. There was no sign of forced entry into the flat, no useful DNA, no absolute proof that it wasn’t suicide, but we’re certain she was killed. She had caused a lot of trouble for her handlers and in the end, they took care of her, ma’am. I think they had an idea of poetic justice. She’d hanged Brodsky incompetently. They hanged her, too, but more professionally.”

The Queen’s look suggested she didn’t see this as justice of any sort. “How ghastly.”

“Yes. But there was one critical development. The CCTV proves that it was the same man who was with both women at the time they died.”

“Ah, I see.” At last, Her Majesty seemed slightly brighter.

“And the footage from outside Moodie’s flat is much clearer. He wasn’t wearing his hood up then. We identified him as Jonnie Haugen: a small-time hardman hired by Fazal’s intelligence office to take care of things in London without putting them in the frame. Except, we know they use him, so it does put them in the frame. We’ve got Haugen down at New Scotland Yard, charged with Stiles’s murder. We found his DNA at her flat. He’d tried to clear up, but it’s hard to be somewhere that long and leave no trace, without making it look as if you’ve steam cleaned the place. I’m not sure we’ll get him for Moodie’s death, but the police are working on it.”

Singh nodded his assent.

“And the person who came to collect the bag from Stiles’s flat and give it to Moodie is a driver at the embassy,” Humphreys went on. “Because the prince is much more amateur at this than he thinks he is. The driver’s being deported tomorrow. Having spoken to you, I’ll inform the prime minister. The prince is back at home, and of course we couldn’t touch him anyway, but it’ll be made very clear to the king that his nephew is a dangerous fool who has brought his country into disrepute. If you might reinforce the message, ma’am. He might listen to it, coming from you.”

“He might. One can try. And what happened to the insider, may I ask? The one in the Foreign Office?”

“Caught yesterday, trying to get a flight out of Heathrow,” Humphreys said. “By a nice irony, his flight was delayed by several hours because of a storm over southern France. We were already on our way to get him. It saved us a trip and some paperwork.”

“Good. And now, I think I must rather get on.”

The Queen smoothed her skirt and stood up. Humphreys and Singh leaped to their feet. She adjusted her handbag strap over one arm and smiled at them both. “Well done. Three murders . . . how very clever of you to solve them. Please thank your teams, too, for all their hard work. We’ve all been rather unsettled by this. It’s nice to think one can sleep easily again.”

“It was an honor, ma’am,” Singh said, with a little bow.

“An honor,” Humphreys agreed.

Talking of honors . . . Sir Gavin Humphreys . . . The words repeated freely in his head as he bent down and picked up his little diagram. He’d thought the honor would come, but not for another five years or so. Sir Gavin Humphreys. His wife would be thrilled to the core. He had found a spy and single-handedly solved three murders in the process. What else, quite honestly, could Her Majesty do?

She walked out, with her equerry behind her and the dogs at her heels.

31

The Queen was in her private chapel, sitting quietly, when she heard a noise at the door and Philip came in, pausing just inside.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Please do.”

He walked slowly towards her and sat down in his favorite chair nearby.

“Tom told me you had your meeting with the idiot from Box.” He paused and she said nothing, so he went on. “He said they sorted everything out. Found out who did it and so on. Not a sleeper.”

“Not a sleeper, no. There was a mole.”

“It’s like living in a le Carré. That or a stuffed-up lawn.”

He grinned at his little joke, but she didn’t. He didn’t take it personally, though. He knew this would be a hard conversation.

“He said there were three of ’em, Tom did. All in their twenties. All died rather unpleasantly.”

“Yes, they did.”

He looked towards the altar, where a Renaissance painting showed the Madonna with her baby. “You’d think they’d still have three score years and ten ahead of ’em.”

“I’m sure they thought that. But . . .” She trailed off. She didn’t do that in front of most people. She always found her backbone from somewhere and carried on. But she didn’t mind so much when Philip saw her struggling. One wasn’t made of stone; he knew that.

“Tom said Humphreys solved the whole thing,” he said. “Wouldn’t have thought he had it in him.”

“Yes, it was rather surprising.”

“Bloody shocking, I’d say. D’you know, I think he had someone feeding him information.”

“Do you?” She frowned at her husband sharply.

“God, yes,” he said, with an emphatic nod. “Some underling, no doubt. Brainy as hell but quite passed over. Doing all the work and giving him all the kudos. Don’t you think?”

She relaxed a little. “Something like that.”

“He’ll still get a gong, though, won’t he?” Philip made a face.

“I think he rather must.”

“It’ll make him even more insufferable, of course.”

She merely smiled at this. It was probably true, but if anyone was trained to suffer the insufferable, she was.

Philip reached across and put a hand over hers. His skin was cool and soft. He squeezed her knuckles, briefly. “Well, at least they found the truth. Have they got the men who did it?”

“Not all were men. But, yes.”

“Glad to hear it.” He squeezed her hand again.

She didn’t tell him about Prince Fazal. Not yet. She was still too furious to say his name, both at what he’d done and at the thought of him escaping proper justice—though the humiliation of having been caught out would cause him significant anguish. At least, she hoped it would.

“I’m off. Having dinner in town tonight. Few things to do before I go,” Philip said, rising.

“Wait. I’ll come with you.”

He offered her his arm and they walked down the aisle together, towards the window. His window. It showed timelessness, and recovery and hope. It didn’t stop her feeling terribly for the young man in the attic room and the innocent girl in her flat, and even the other one, who suffered such terrors before she died, but it gave her the strength to walk calmly and capably back into the busy castle, where she was the center of its turning world.

In two days she and half the Household would head back to London to prepare for the State Opening of Parliament. Life very much went on. One did what one could. Right now, it was absolutely time for a little gin.

“Did you find out if the hardman was the same one who tried to kill you?”

Aileen Jaggard was visiting the castle at Rozie’s invitation. They stood at the top of the Round Tower, away from prying eyes.

Rozie’s mouth twisted into a smile. “Billy MacLachlan found out for me. The guy in the cells had a broken nose and a damaged hand. Three broken fingers. Giving him a lot of pain.”

Aileen met her eye. “Poor thing.”

“What I don’t get,” Rozie said, changing the subject, “was why Gavin Humphreys? Of all the people. I thought the Boss hated him.”

“She doesn’t hate anyone. She might have been a bit infuriated.”

“But when you think of the misery he caused,” Rozie persisted. “Everyone could feel it. She knew he was wrong about the Putin thing, right from the start.”

“She must have decided he was the right man for the job. She wouldn’t let personal feelings come into it.”

“How could she not?”

“Practice. Loads and loads of it. She’s a brilliant politician—how d’you think she’s coped all these years? She thinks long term. Was Humphreys the best man for the job?”

Rozie looked out at the horizon. In the far distance you could see all the way east to the Shard. Without meaning to, it marked twenty miles from here to the Tower of London, from fortress to fortress, as William the Conqueror had planned it, with London in between. She considered the question. “Perhaps,” she conceded. “I mean, the Boss worked out who did the killings, but I don’t think she could ever prove who was behind it. Once she’d worked out that it was a question of spying after all, MI5 were the best people to deal with it, I suppose.”

“There you are.”

“But why not tell him how far she’d got? I saw her in practice. She just, kind of . . . seeded these little ideas. He didn’t even know she was doing it. She told him about Allingham. She got MacLachlan to make the anonymous tip-off about Anita Moodie. She let Humphreys take all the credit, even to himself.”

Aileen grinned. She pulled a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “Yup, that sounds like her. Gave me a bit of a shock the first time, but the more I saw her do it, the more it made sense. She doesn’t want to be seen as interfering.”

“But it’s her own castle!”

“She’s not head of the investigation, though. Imagine if she’d said what she’d found, and you’d found. It would prove she was basically second-guessing him all along, which of course she was. That would hardly puff up his self-esteem.”

“So it’s all about his ego?”

“Think about it, if she’d proved him wrong and made him feel small, what would happen the next time there was a problem? He’d constantly be worrying she’d do it again. He’d stop trusting her. Trust is everything to Her Majesty. Much more than petty point scoring. He’d stop telling her things. What good would that do?”

“So he gets a knighthood, and he goes on thinking she’s a dim old lady who lives in a nice castle?”

“A dim old lady he works his guts out for, right or wrong.”

Rozie shook her head. “I still can’t get my head around it. I mean, who has that much . . .”

“Self-discipline?”

“Yeah.”

“One person in the world, I’d say. Enjoy it while you can.”

They took a last look at the panoramic view, from the Long Walk to the southeast, to the town to the west and the river behind it, slow and stately, heading from Oxfordshire to the sea. Above them, the sky was sapphire, flecked with cirrus. It was nearly June and soon the castle would be gearing up for Ascot.

“I assume she thanked you, by the way,” Aileen added on the stairs on the way back down. “Did you get the box?”

Rozie grinned. “Yep. I did.”

A week ago, the Queen had asked her to come and see her in the Oak Room. This was more formal than their usual private meetings. When she got there, the Boss was freshly coiffured, in her favorite skirt and cardigan, and beaming with that delighted smile that went straight to Rozie’s heart.

“I owe you money,” she’d said.

It was true, but Rozie was still shocked to hear her say it. “Oh, Your Majesty, don’t—”

“You thought I’d forgotten, but here it is. Lady Caroline told me how much.”

This must be repayment for the Fortnum’s hampers. They had cost a fortune back in April and Rozie had paid out of her own pocket because she didn’t know what else to do. She wasn’t going to say anything.

And yet the Queen wasn’t proffering an envelope. Instead, she handed Rozie a slim, blue cardboard box from the table in front of her. It was surprisingly heavy.

“Open it.”

Inside was a smaller box made of silver and blue enamel, about the size of a narrow clutch bag, with the royal cipher engraved below the clasp. Rozie opened it to find a Coutts check for the correct amount inside. But it was the box itself that held her attention. Rozie had noticed one just like this one on a side table in Aileen’s flat in Kingsclere. Hers now sat on her bedside table, at whichever royal residence she happened to be working. She imagined she was the first person to use such a thing for storing spare shea butter for her skin.

“She doesn’t give you one for every case, does she?” she asked.

Aileen laughed. “No. But she always thinks of something. Now, didn’t you say you were going to take me for a hack in the park? I brought my riding togs. Let’s go and enjoy this weather.”

32

A year went by. Another Easter Court, another birthday. In the New Year’s honors list, Sir Gavin Humphreys had indeed received the good news he didn’t dare (but nevertheless did) hope for. So, somewhat to his surprise, did Sir Ravi Singh. DCI Strong was pleased with his OBE. Now the horse show approached again.

Before all the festivities began, the Queen had a couple of visitors she wanted to see in private. First was a young man Rozie had taken a while to track down. She had eventually located him at a hostel in Southend, where he was doing occasional work as a laborer. He had been in and out of rehab, unable to hold down a job. His mother’s death when he was in his teens had hit him hard, Rozie had established. His father had died when he was only seven. His older sister had done what she could to stop him going off the rails too badly, but now she was dead, too.

When Rozie told him about the invitation, his first concern was that he had nothing appropriate to wear.

“Don’t worry about that,” she’d assured him. “She doesn’t mind. Just make sure you borrow a jacket of some kind. It’ll make things easier.”

He was terrified approaching the castle. Scared of the police in the road outside the gates, scared of the troops he knew were inside. He was used to being scared of authority in all its forms by now, and this was like all of it, concentrated in one spot, in a bloody castle. But when he showed his invitation, he was escorted past the general public in the queue like some sort of VIP. The lady who had written to him (who was hot, and tall, and black, and not what he’d expected at all) came to meet him near the gate and took him a special way up the hill, avoiding all the public places, until they came to the bit where the Queen actually lived. He could hardly believe it.

The tall lady took him along one side of a massive rectangle of grass in the middle of all these grey stone buildings, into a corner one they called the Brunswick Tower. Then she accompanied him upstairs and he thought he’d be waiting for ages in some kind of holding area—whatever, he didn’t know—but instead, she knocked on a door and someone said, “Come in,” so they did, and inside was . . . the Queen.

The real Queen. Right there. In person. Like, on her own, or nearly, with just, like, some dogs and this guy in gloves standing near a table with drinks on it. And the room was not big, and quite dark, and full of the kind of furniture you would expect the Queen to have—like, old and very, very expensive looking, like she’d got it all from a museum—and through the window he could see a long row of trees in the distance and people walking between them, ordinary people, just kind of doing their ordinary thing, not knowing that he, Ben, was standing in a room with Her Actual Majesty.

It was an out-of-body experience. He was really, really glad he’d let the manager of the hostel lend him some leather shoes. Trainers just wouldn’t cut it on this carpet.

“Good morning, Mr. Stiles. Thank you so much for coming. I hope your journey wasn’t too difficult?”

“No, Your Majesty,” he said. The tall lady, who was standing there, too, had told him to say “Your Majesty” the first time, and “ma’am,” to rhyme with “ham,” not “marm” to rhyme with “farm,” after that, and to bow—which he hadn’t done. Bloody hell! So he did, too late, but whatever. And Her Majesty smiled. She looked really nice when she smiled. She was tiny, though. She looked bigger on TV. But she kind of glowed. He didn’t know how she did that, but it was awesome.

“Rozie, could you ask Major Simpson to join us in five minutes?” she said.

The tall lady disappeared and the Queen sat down and pointed at this other seat, so he did, too, and then the guy in gloves came over and asked him what he’d like to drink. He had this soft, Scottish accent and he looked really kindly, and Ben liked him straightaway. He had no idea what to say, though, so he just blurted out “Whatever,” and the guy came back with a glass of cold, fresh water with a slice of lemon in it, which was OK.

And they talked—he and the Queen did, the guy in the gloves didn’t say anything else, just kind of hovered in the background—for what could have been a minute or half an hour, Ben had no idea. Nor could he remember afterwards a single thing they’d said, exactly. Except that she was really nice, and they’d talked a little bit about his sister and his dad, and she’d said how hard it must have been growing up without his dad, which it bloody was, and how brave he’d been, and how sorry she was about his sister. And he felt it was true. She really meant it. And at some point he stopped being terrified and he just felt kind of . . . at home. Like, this is just what you do on a Tuesday morning. And it was OK.

Then the tall lady came back with this other guy in the most outrageous uniform you’ve ever seen in your life—all red and black, with gold braid everywhere and medals and shiny shoes, like a costume drama, and the Queen stood up, so Ben did, too, and she walked over to this table with a cushion on it, and uniform guy picked up the cushion and handed it to her, and on it was a small, black box, lined with black velvet, with two silver crosses inside, one medium-sized and one small.

The Queen looked at Ben and said, “You stand here,” pointing to a spot just in front of her. She sounded kind of strict, but not mean with it, and Ben did as he was told, and she said, “Mr. Stiles, I know the version of this award that was given to your mother went missing last year. I was sorry to hear that. Your sister, too, died serving her country, and I would like to say how very grateful I am for her service, and your father’s sacrifice. And how sorry I am about your mother.” She reached out to shake his hand, then turned and took the box from its cushion and gave it to him.

He looked down, and in the process two of his tears landed on her thumb, which was embarrassing. Ben hadn’t been able to hold it in since his mum died. One of those things. But the Queen didn’t seem to mind. She just made sure he was holding the box securely. And when it was done she took a step back, and smiled at him in a friendly way, and Ben didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Thank you. Er, ma’am. Appreciate it.”

And he realized that what she’d given him wasn’t really the replacement cross and its miniature so much as the time spent in this room, with her, which could have been ten minutes or two days for all he knew—it was like being in a time warp. But he was properly crying now so it was probably best just to go. She said something else that he didn’t really hear and then the tall lady was showing him out, and as soon as they were out of the room he just turned to the tall lady and hugged her tight—which you’re totally not allowed to do and he knew that, but sometimes you just kind of have to go with it—and she hugged him back for a moment, and asked if he was OK. Which he said he was, because there was the long version and the short version and the short version was always easier. But she squeezed his arm as if he’d given the long version, and held on to it as they walked down the corridor, saying something about a scroll he’d get, too, but he’d worry about that later.

And that’s how he got the Elizabeth Cross back and the whole thing was weird. He’d vowed he’d never wear it after his mum died. Rachel was happy to, but she was more into that sort of thing; Ben was sure he’d just lose it. He knew he wouldn’t lose this one, though. Not ever.

The other visitor was Meredith Gostelow, whom the Queen invited to see the headstone she had designed, at the Queen’s personal request, for a very unusual grave.

They met at the castle and the Queen drove the architect down through Home Park, towards Frogmore House and its grounds. It was here that many members of the Royal Family were buried, including Victoria and Albert, who had chosen the spot specially, and the Queen’s uncle Edward VIII, whom the family could hardly put anywhere else.

The royal graves were neatly tended, in the shadow of Queen Victoria’s mausoleum, but the spot the Queen took Meredith Gostelow to was somewhere a little distant, half hidden by trees, just to the north of Frogmore lake. If you weren’t looking for it, you would hardly know it was there. A patch of grass among the flowering bluebells was marked by an asymmetrical slab of white marble, set with brass lettering that simply read maksim brodsky. musician. 1991–2016.

The architect looked at her work with a critical eye. This was the first time she had seen the finished piece in situ. It was extremely simple, and far from her usual style, but a tremendous amount of work had gone into its simplicity: choosing the exact shade of white, the perfect block of marble, the most pleasing asymmetry, the right style and size of lettering with the most attractive spacing, and the best sculptor to achieve it. It had taken days of work on the design, and weeks of thinking.

“Do you approve?” she asked.

“I think it does very well,” the Queen said. “Don’t you?”

“Oh, there are always things I’d change.” Meredith sensed this wasn’t the answer the Queen was looking for, so amended it. “But overall, it does what I wanted. I think it does him justice. I hope so.”

“I hope you didn’t mind me asking you to do it,” the Queen said.

“I must admit, I was rather surprised.”

“We admire your work. It’s why we invited you that night, of course. And you knew Mr. Brodsky.”

Meredith felt a hot flush coming on. “You might say that.”

They both stared at the headstone. “You danced with him, too,” the Queen said, to take the heat out of the other woman’s cheeks. She didn’t mean to embarrass her.

It seemed to work. Meredith smiled. “Didn’t I just? And wasn’t he a dream?”

“Yes, he rather was.”

“I was kind of told, on the low-down, that they found the man who did it,” Meredith offered.

“Ye-es,” the Queen agreed. “I gather your name was brought into the investigation. That wasn’t my intention.”

“Please, don’t apologize.” Was it an apology? It had sounded like one. “As long as justice was done.”

“Up to a point.”

They stood in silence for a while. “I like the bluebells,” Meredith said. “The whole place. It has a real sense of peace.”

At that moment, a 737 roared overhead, causing them both to look and Her Majesty to hoot with laughter, but it was true—planes aside, it was the most tranquil, private spot in this patch of woodland. The Queen had taken her time to find the best location.

“How come he’s here?” Meredith asked. It was the question she’d been asking since she first received the commission for the headstone and nobody would tell her. It was as if they were as mystified as she was. This kind of thing wasn’t done. It didn’t happen. There was no precedent.

“There was nowhere else for him to go,” the Queen said, with a wave of her hand.

Nobody had come to claim the body from the morgue. The embassy would have collected it eventually, of course, but she wasn’t sure what would happen to it then. He had no one at home to mourn him. She thought he deserved better, after all that Rachmaninoff.

“I think he’ll be happy here,” Meredith announced. She crouched down—with some strain—and leaned forward to pat the stone, under which Maksim’s ashes were buried. “Or maybe unhappy-happy, in the Russian style. I mean, wow, I’d love to be here. Who wouldn’t? It feels . . . safe, doesn’t it?”

Birds chirruped from the trees. There was a dull, insect hum and a distant sound of horses. They stayed there for a while, soaking up rays of sun that interspersed the dappled shade. But for the white marble, and one contrail in the sky, it seemed as though this spot among the trees could have looked and sounded and felt this way at any time over the last millennium.

The Queen turned down the path eventually. “Shall we go?”

Together, they headed back towards the castle.