A Three Dog Problem

‘I’ll see what I can do, ma’am.’

‘Naturally, you wouldn’t be the one starting the rumour, Rozie.’

‘Of course. I can mention to Sir Simon that I heard something in the canteen. He’s bound to tell Sir James. I can’t imagine he wouldn’t.’

‘Absolutely. They’re thick as thieves, those two.’

Rozie went back to her office and the Queen was left deep in thought. The Breakages Business issue she would deal with later. For now, there was the more immediate problem of the poison pen letter-writer.

If Rozie, too, had been targeted by vicious notes, were there still others they didn’t know about? This had worried her from the start. Meanwhile, the drawing of the knife was a huge concern: if this was the same person who had stalked Mary, then did that mean Rozie was in real danger?

The Queen tried to concentrate on the day’s agenda and the religious leaders who would soon be lining up to meet her. But her mind kept wandering.

Was he a racist, or a woman-hater, or both? Was it even a man? Or, rather, men. Ah, yes! That was one of the things that had bothered her about Rozie’s account. ‘Three days before you came back from Scotland.’ Until now, the Queen had assumed that one person was behind it all. Someone who had gone from London to Scotland with the second wave of staff who had arrived early in September and targeted Mrs Harris there. All the attacks were consistent with such an idea – except that whoever cut up all of Cynthia Harris’s beautiful, treasured clothes in Balmoral (who would do such a thing?) could not, the same day, have been targeting Rozie with a racist note at Buckingham Palace.

She distinctly remembered the chief inspector telling her about that last attack on the housekeeper’s possessions, and she remembered specifically because it coincided with the horrible afternoon they had buried Holly. If Rozie’s note had also been delivered three days before the family left Balmoral, then the note and the attack must have happened only a few hours apart, and though she herself could have managed such a task if so inclined, not everyone had ready access to a helicopter.

The Queen had watched a lot of detective programmes with her mother in her later years and knew all about copycat crime. Was that what this was? Had someone learned from what was happening to Mrs Harris, Mrs Baxter and Mary van Thingy, and adapted it for Rozie? Or had more than one person been targeting Cynthia Harris? The housekeeper was really very unpopular. The Household had been more intrigued than devastated by her death. The Queen, as a woman not in the first flush of youth herself, found the general lack of interest somewhat alarming.

At least Mary van Blank – she really must learn the girl’s name – was out of harm’s way in Shropshire now. Or one hoped she was. She wouldn’t be fully safe until this was all resolved. There was a pattern to all of the attacks, the Queen felt certain, though it eluded her every time she tried to fix on it. A hatred of women, certainly – but something more.

A memory jolted into place. Hiding in the cedar-lined wardrobe and that male/female voice saying ‘Do you think I give a rat’s arse about her feelings?’ And he, or she, was giving something that was to be distributed later. Was it notes?

If so, they were given to Spike Milligan, who was to pass them on. Spike Milligan, who had come up to Balmoral with the second wave of servants. He couldn’t have given Rozie her note – but he might know who did.

She made a mental note to let the chief inspector know – as soon as she thought of a way of doing it without explaining where she had been when she found out.