A Three Dog Problem

They moved on, running through the messages received by the lady in the catering office, Leonie Baxter, who’d been up in Scotland in the second wave of servants, but had come back early to help prepare the Palace. Her harassment had started in July and included misogynist Twitter trolling as well as notes. Cynthia Harris didn’t have a social media account, which might explain the difference. The paper notes, all in stencilled capital letters, were left in similar places: bag, coat pocket, desk drawer. Mrs Baxter, too, was unpopular in certain quarters, with a reputation for being ‘difficult’. She was a junior manager on the team that dealt with the entertainment budget – but most of her time was spent advocating for women’s rights within the Household: more comfortable uniforms, more women’s toilets, better career structures. She regularly pointed out that all the senior positions were occupied by men.

‘Except at the very top, ha ha,’ Highgate noted.

‘She sounds like a bit of a pain,’ Strong muttered.

‘You can’t say that these days, boss,’ Highgate warned him. ‘Women’s rights are human rights. Or equal rights, same difference.’

‘Yep, no problem, but there’s ways and ways of asking for them.’

‘Politely, you mean?’ his junior suggested.

‘In a friendly sort of way, yes. What’s the matter with that?’

‘Thin ice, boss,’ Highgate said with a shrug. ‘That’s all I’m saying. Thin ice.’ He scrolled through his notes. ‘Anyway, she’s disliked, but no obvious enemies. If anything, she was quite friendly with Arabella Moore. And then there’s the van Renen girl, and everyone likes her. No enemies at all.’

‘Or someone who’s keeping himself well hidden.’

‘If he’s even a part of this. He could be what he says he is: a Tinder date from outside the Palace.’

‘Except van Renen says he isn’t,’ Strong pointed out. ‘When are you seeing her?’

‘Next week,’ Highgate said. ‘She wasn’t happy about it, but when I told her the Queen had personally asked us to sort it out, she said OK.’

‘Good. And when do we get the handwriting analysis back on the stencils, by the way? I’m expecting a full character analysis from how much pressure he uses to dot the i’s.’

Highgate threw him a look. ‘God knows. Two to three weeks, they say, and I’ve pulled the whole royal thing, honestly. It’s austerity cuts. Everything has a waiting list. Same story with the tech guys looking into the social media stuff. They’re knee-deep in kiddie porn. It’s a long queue.’

Strong grunted. ‘’Twas ever thus,’ he said. ‘Believe me, it wasn’t all exactly a bed of roses ten years ago.’

‘I was in sixth form then,’ Highgate said cheerfully. ‘I wouldn’t know. Of course, if Mrs Harris was murdered . . .’

‘We’d be at the front of the queue. Trust me, I’ve thought of that,’ Strong assured him. ‘Not that I’d wish it on her. But it would make our lives a hell of a lot easier.’

They wound it up for the night.

Despite his experience at Windsor Castle, Strong had somehow assumed that solving a crime at Buckingham Palace would be easier than normal. In fact, it was harder. He’d liked to have seen evidence of how Cynthia Harris was feeling the night she died. It was a shame there was no CCTV of her. The one interior camera on the ground floor of the North Wing had been on the blink for weeks. You’d think the place would be bristling with them, but apparently Prince Philip didn’t approve of ‘bloody spycams everywhere’, despite the Queen once being hassled in her own bedroom by a man who literally wandered in. She’d kept the man talking until a servant arrived, as you do with a total stranger in your bedroom. That woman was made of steel – another reason he was nervous about tomorrow. There was a plan to upgrade the security system, about thirty years too late, but it was waiting for some sort of parliamentary approval. Who’d be a royal, eh?