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?
Was it Rozie he wanted to help, or the Boss? He couldn’t really decide. One had charmed him thirty years ago, and one was doing it now. He felt guilty that she had come all the way here to talk about a painting that was obviously very dear to Her Majesty, and which must have disappeared while he was working at St James’s Palace, but he couldn’t give her the information she needed. He wasn’t sure what help he could provide – very little probably – but he’d do as much as he was able, to make amends.
After breakfast, she asked him again about a refurbishment in the summer of 1986. He knew he’d been vague last night. It was all a very long time ago.
‘I’m racking my brains,’ he said, rubbing vigorously at a pot with his drying-up cloth, ‘but I didn’t have much to do with BP – beyond the objects inside it. I don’t think I even knew there was a refurbishment.’
‘Ah, well. It was a long shot.’ Rozie was disappointed. The Queen had seemed so optimistic.
‘I’m so sorry. I hate to let Her Majesty down. Absolutely hate it. I’ll keep thinking.’
Rozie thought he’d forgotten, but after lunch he suggested a walk in the woods behind the house and, as they tramped up the path, he said, ‘There’s something the Boss perhaps ought to know.’
‘Yes?’
‘Watch out for roots and rabbit holes. They’re a terrible hazard. Oh, I forgot – you’ve done obstacle courses in the army. What was I . . .? Oh, yes. Things going missing back in the eighties. I wonder if she’s aware of the Breakages Business. I think probably not.’
‘The Breakages Business?’
‘Yes.’ He gave a little laugh. ‘Up to the left here and over the stile. There’s the most marvellous view coming up. Where was I?’
Rozie reminded him.
‘Aha! Sorry. I just love it out here, don’t you? Especially on a day like this. Turn right along the path. We’re nearly there. You see, if you lived round here you could keep horses. I don’t ride, but I suppose you must, if you were in the Royal Horse Artillery. You do? Oh yes, sorry, sorry, the Breakages Business. I s’pose they got the name from insurance fraud. You know . . . “breakages”. There were a few of them in the gang, not more than three or four, I should say, but their racket was to offload things that weren’t needed any more. Or sometimes suppliers would be told a delivery wasn’t up to scratch and it would be replaced, without letting the finance people know. That sort of thing. Ah, here we are. If you stop right there and look through the gap in the hedge, isn’t that marvellous? I like to think you can see halfway to Bath. Just glorious, rolling countryside. It makes you glad to be in England, doesn’t it?’
Sholto stood beside her in his battered shooting coat and country boots, puffing and grinning. His cheeks were red from exertion and he steadied himself with a hefty walking stick. Rozie dutifully admired the graded greens of hills and hedges, but she had suddenly lost interest in where they were going.
‘Insurance fraud?’
He shrugged. ‘Not exactly, but that’s what it was like,’ he conceded. ‘I never got the full gist of it. Just the odd mention in the staff club, in the days when we were allowed to drink. I should have said something – and I did – but it wasn’t really my job. I was just a painting filer.’
‘So what exactly were they doing? As far as you knew?’
He sighed. ‘I think it worked like this. Things were catalogued across all the royal palaces in London. If it counted as art or antique furniture, it was done by the Royal Collection. If it was standard furniture and fittings, it was done by the Works Department, I think it was. That probably doesn’t even exist now – there have been so many reorganisations.’
‘I know,’ Rozie agreed. ‘I found that out the hard way.’
He looked sympathetic. ‘Anyway, some of it’s on display, but a lot is in storage. If you want to find something, you consult the catalogue. If it’s not in the catalogue, it kind of doesn’t exist. The Breakages Business was all about spiriting things away that wouldn’t be missed. Small things, weird presents that were given a hundred years ago and never seen since, slightly worn-out things. There’s an art to working out when something’s beyond repair. The Queen has always run a tight ship and they were supposed to pass things on to Balmoral or Sandringham, but it wasn’t always appropriate, or possible. And they worked out a way of – at least, this is what I think they did, from conversations in the bar, just the odd passing reference, you know – they worked out how to siphon them off. Sell them on and keep the profits. Nice little earner. Not Gainsboroughs, or Crown Jewels or anything. Plates. Rugs. Unwanted gifts. I mean, the Queen gets hundreds of gifts a year. Did you know she was given hundreds of pairs of nylon stockings for her wedding? Literally hundreds. And five hundred tins of pineapple. It mounts up. You can’t give them all to charity. Where d’you put them? The clever part was having someone who worked in the archives, who could adapt the catalogue to fit. As I say, they didn’t do it with paintings, as far as I know, or I’d have put a stop to it myself. But maybe there was one. It would make sense, if they’d been refurbishing the Queen’s bedroom. Anyway, it was decades ago and it probably won’t help you now.’
‘It might,’ Rozie said.
He smiled and turned to lead the way back downhill towards the house. ‘I hope so. If it does, tell the Boss you got it from me.’
That night it was cold enough to justify a log fire. The woodsmoke reminded Rozie of the gorgeous scent in her bedroom.
‘What is that?’ she asked.
‘My dear, you can’t afford it. A candle called “Ernesto”. It’s supposed to remind one of the cigar smoke of revolutionaries. I’ve always adored it.’
He played Nina Simone and a French rap artist called MC Solaar – his musical tastes were broad – and they got talking about Paris, where she had spent one idyllic summer before joining the bank, and he’d spent two years studying Leonardo at the Louvre. She introduced him to Fela Kuti and some of her favourite Afrobeat stars. He was instantly into it. It was as if they’d known each other for years.
‘You can come here any time, you know,’ he said. ‘Just call. If I’m on a cruise, I’ll arrange for someone to give you the key. Think of it as your second home. I know you’d look after it. And the herbs could always do with cutting.’
She could tell he meant it. Rozie wondered what it was about her that had fired this connection. She sensed they shared something that neither found very often in other people. A love of art and music and beautiful things, yes, but she knew loads of friends who had that too. It was something about this art, this music, these things. And it wasn’t in any way sexual or crude, as Lulu Arantes had suggested. She felt perfectly safe with him.
Sholto made it easy. He understood the difficulties that normally came with her job. Most new people she met wanted the low-down on the Queen, Kate (always Kate) and the politics. Sholto asked about none of it, which was refreshing. Even the body by the pool. She’d mentioned it, but when he saw the look on her face he said, ‘I know. It must be very hard,’ and didn’t push it. He didn’t want the Queen’s inner thoughts on Brexit. ‘Let us never talk of it.’ Amen to that. She should really be driving back this evening, to be fresh for work in the morning, but he had offered another night and she couldn’t resist. She’d rise at dawn and burn up the motorway in the Mini.
And as soon as she got to London, she’d buy that expensive candle he said she couldn’t afford.