A Three Dog Problem
- Автор: Беннет Си Джей
- Серия: Her Majesty the Queen Investigates #2
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Zaffre - Bonnier Publishing Fiction
- ISBN: 978-1-83877-485-1
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «A Three Dog Problem». Краткое содержание книги:
When a body is found in the Palace swimming pool, she finds herself once again in the middle of an investigation which has more twists and turns than she could ever have suspected. With her trusted secretary Rozie by her side, the Queen is determined to solve the case. But will she be able to do it before the murderer strikes again?
‘Yes! Goodness, how did you know?’
Lulu rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve heard all about him. Awful man.’
Rozie laughed. ‘You said that about Cynthia Harris. They can’t all be awful!’
‘Really fake, if you know what I mean. Good luck with that one.’
Rozie looked again at Lulu. How could she even know? Her curly, dark brown hair was dyed, but her barely lined face suggested a woman in her forties. She would have been a teenager when he worked here, if that. ‘Did you know him?’ she asked, sceptically.
‘Me? No. But I’ve heard all about him. He was the Surveyor, wasn’t he?’
‘The deputy.’
‘Came in after all that terrible Blunt business. A Russian spy! Maybe it’s not surprising. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Anyway, have a nice day.’
Rozie recalled the last time Lulu had told her to have a nice day. It was just after mentioning the sister-in-law’s cousin who was bludgeoned to death.
‘Thanks,’ she said, without much conviction. She realised she was truly late now, and disappeared back into her room to shower and climb into the extortionately expensive dress she had succumbed to on Net-a-Porter, when Mark, the ill-advised ex-boyfriend, was on her mind.
Mark didn’t show up with a girlfriend. He showed up with eyes only for Rozie’s extortionately expensive dress, and a look about him that suggested he’d like to know if she’d invested in equally expensive underwear. (She had.) He looked, sounded and behaved like a man who was totally lined up for incredible fish and chips on Sunday, after an equally incredible Saturday night, and Rozie had to grip the steering wheel of her Mini very hard as she remembered telling him she needed to leave at 9 p.m. to make the long drive to Wiltshire.
He’d taken a room at the wedding hotel. They could have nipped upstairs if they’d wanted to, but that would have been tacky. She was regretting not doing it now, but she’d thank herself in the morning.
And it was her own fault that she was driving through the dark at half past eleven at night, fully sober, rather than making herself comfortable with Mark at the hotel bar. When Sholto Harvie had said, ‘Come on Saturday night, as late as you like, then you’ll be all fresh for Sunday,’ she could have said no. Hadn’t she deliberately accepted his invitation precisely so that she’d be here, on the M4, not creating some doomed drunken fumble she would inevitably regret?
No. She’d accepted the invitation because she assumed Mark would be with someone else and she couldn’t bear to watch him. But he wasn’t. And Mark wasn’t a fumbler. Not even close. Drunken nights with him had been some of the best.
Damn.
The Mini trilled once, twice, three times. She shook herself and clicked a button on the steering wheel to accept a hands-free call.
‘Yes?’
‘Rozie?’
‘I’m driving.’
‘I can tell,’ her sister said. ‘You always sound cheesed off when you’re driving.’
‘Just concentrating on the road,’ Rozie assured her. ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing. I was on my way to bed. I just felt like calling. How’re you doing?’
Rozie considered this. Fliss never called on a Saturday night. Why on earth would she? Oh, Mark: Fliss was distant friends with the bride. She’d have realised he would be there.
‘I’m single and sober. Thanks for worrying about me.’
‘I wasn’t! I just . . . How’d it go?’
‘It was nice. Jojo wore Amanda Wakeley. Backless. Half the older men in the church nearly had a heart attack.’
‘She always did have a great back.’
‘Still does. Her brother made a pass at me.’
‘Again?’
‘Won’t take no for an answer. His wife was standing right there.’
‘I liked your dress. It was fly-y-y. Very Iman late nineties.’
‘How did you . . .? Ah.’ Rozie realised. Her private Instagram account. She’d put up a selfie and a couple of pictures with friends. She’d forgotten her sister stalked her online.
‘And Nick?’
Fliss meant Mark. Rozie didn’t correct her. ‘Nothing. He was there. Look, I’m driving up to the Cotswolds and I’ve still got a way to go. Can we talk tomorrow, or something? It’s dark and I need to concentrate.’
‘Sure,’ Fliss said, but she didn’t say goodbye. Instead, after a pause she asked, ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes. Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘No reason. How’s Sir Simon?’
‘He’s fine. Look, I can talk about him tomorrow, if you like.’ There was silence. Rozie felt annoyed at her sister’s prying. Her chest grew tight. It was as if a whole cauldron of annoyance was bubbling inside. Mark. This stupid journey. The note. A casual remark at the swimming pool. Maybe Lulu Arantes was right – maybe Sholto Harvie would turn out to be a sex pest. And what would Sir Simon think, with Rozie suddenly disappearing for three days? It was all very well for the Queen to ask her to do it, but Sir Simon liked to think he was in charge, even though he wasn’t.
‘He’s being a pain, OK?’ she snapped. ‘I can understand it. He found a dead body a week ago.’
‘I heard about that. So Sir Simon found the body, huh? Didn’t they bash their head or something?’
‘Yeah. It was just an accident. But he’s being a bit shitty. I said something and he’s not taking it well.’
‘You said the whole atmosphere was a bit shit this summer.’
‘It was. It is. You just feel like you have to watch your step. It wasn’t like that before. It’s like everyone’s watching everyone else and judging. And you don’t know what anyone’s thinking, about Brexit, or this Trump thing. You start to say something, and people just stare at you. And . . . Oh hell. Forget I said that. It’s late. I’m tired.’
In the silence that followed, she realised that had been quite a speech. She couldn’t usually get a word in edgeways when her sister called. It had always struck Rozie as funny that Fliss, the chattiest, loudest, most-likely-to-interrupt-you woman in the world, had a career as a psychotherapist and counsellor. It was only when she was in work mode that she—Damn.
‘Are you listening to me?’ Rozie challenged her angrily.
‘Of course I am.’
‘I mean actively listening. Like work. Are you working on me?’
‘No! Not at all. I would never—’
‘Ah-ah! Don’t you dare work on me!’
She always knew when her little sister was lying. Rozie was the most on-top-of-things person in the family. Always had been. If she could survive a foxhole in Helmand Province, she didn’t need her sister’s bloody therapy.
‘I’m fine,’ she said forcefully. ‘Thank you for asking. Just missing a little late-night action with Mark. It’s not a problem.’
‘I never said it was.’
‘Give Viktor my love. See you. Bye.’
Rozie ended the call with a jab, flicked on the radio, cycled through several stations and ended up with some late-night jazz that calmed her mood a little. She sped down the motorway at eighty-five, nudging ninety, until she imagined the news reports of her being arrested splashed all over the tabloids:
QUEEN’S FIRST BLACK ASSISTANT SPEEDING SHAME
Grudgingly, she slowed down to just over the limit, which in the sporty Mini felt almost stationary. The motorway was straight and endlessly dull, and the darkness hid whatever delights the countryside might have had to offer. It gave her time to think back to how angrily she’d responded to her sister’s check-in. That wasn’t like her at all. She was usually grateful for a call.
What had prompted that cauldron of fury? Mark was a part of it, yes – but he was just a guy she used to know. It was thinking back to Sir Simon and the Palace that had done it. There was crackling tension in the air, not just with him, but with everyone. True, the Reservicing Programme was putting people under pressure, but normally they pulled together as a team. There was the housekeeper’s death, of course, but things had been wrong before that. They were wrong when Rozie first encountered Cynthia Harris. She remembered feeling it in the canteen. At the time, she’d felt like an observer, but now she realised she was caught up in it too. The note tucked into her folded clothes. Everything had changed with the note. She tried to pretend it hadn’t happened, but she’d been on edge ever since.