The Windsor Knot
- Автор: Беннет Си Джей
- Серия: Her Majesty the Queen Investigates #1
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: William Morrow
- ISBN: 978-0-06-305002-0
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Windsor Knot». Краткое содержание книги:
It is the early spring of 2016 and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. But the preparations are interrupted when a guest is found dead in one of the Castle bedrooms. The scene suggests the young Russian pianist strangled himself, but a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play was involved. The Queen leaves the investigation to the professionals—until their suspicions point them in the wrong direction.
Unhappy at the mishandling of the case and concerned for her staff’s morale, the monarch decides to discreetly take matters into her own hands. With help from her Assistant Private Secretary, Rozie Oshodi, a British Nigerian and recent officer in the Royal Horse Artillery, the Queen secretly begins making inquiries. As she carries out her royal duties with her usual aplomb, no one in the Royal Household, the government, or the public knows that the resolute Elizabeth will use her keen eye, quick mind, and steady nerve to bring a murderer to justice.
SJ Bennett captures Queen Elizabeth’s voice with skill, nuance, wit, and genuine charm in this imaginative and engaging mystery that portrays Her Majesty as she’s rarely seen: kind yet worldly, decisive, shrewd, and most importantly a great judge of character.
And somebody else . . . She looked back at the list. Oh of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was another regular who could be relied upon to make the conversation go with a swing if some of the others became tongue-tied, as could unfortunately be the case. The other misfortune being if they all talked too much and one could hardly get a word in edgeways. For which there was little remedy, apart from the occasional stern look.
The Queen always liked to provide a little entertainment for her guests and Mr. Peyrovski had suggested to Charles a young protégé of his who “played Rachmaninoff like a dream.” There were also a couple of ballet dancers who would perform cut-down solos from Swan Lake in Imperial Russian style to recorded music. The whole thing was set to be refined, serious, and soulful. In fact, the Queen had been rather dreading it. The Easter Court was supposed to be jolly, but Charles’s fête à la russe sounded positively grim.
And yet. You never know what will happen.
The food was sublime. A new chef, keen to prove herself, had created wonders with produce from Windsor, Sandringham, and Charles’s kitchen gardens at Highgrove. The wine was always good. Sir David, when not prophesying the imminent death of the planet, was impishly amusing. The Russians were not nearly as dour as one had feared and Charles beamed with gratitude (though he and Camilla had departed after coffee for an event at Highgrove the following day, leaving her feeling like the mother of a university student who comes home merely so one can do his laundry).
Slightly tiddly, they had joined a few other members of the family, who had been eating together in the Octagon Room in the Brunswick Tower, and all gone to the library to be shown some of the more interesting Russian volumes in her collection, including some nice first editions of poetry and plays in translation, which she had always intended to read one day and never quite got round to. Philip, who had been up since dawn, disappeared without fuss to bed and the Oscar-winning actress, whose profile had been much admired and whose views on Hollywood had been highly entertaining, was whisked off to a hotel near Pinewood, where she was filming at dawn. And then . . . the piano and the dancers.
Thoroughly relaxed, the remaining party had gone to the Crimson Drawing Room to listen to extracts from Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto. This was one of her favorite rooms for entertaining, with its red silk walls, the portraits of Mummy and Papa looking glamorous in their coronation robes on either side of the fireplace, its vista of the park by daylight and extravagant chandelier by night, and the elegant view of the Green Drawing Room beyond. It was one of the rooms gutted by the fire in 1992—though you would never know it now. Restored to perfection, it was the ideal backdrop for evenings such as this.
The young pianist had been, as promised, quite magnificent. Did Simon say he was called Brodsky? In his early twenties, the Queen thought, but with the musical sensibility of a man much older. He seemed borne away by the passion of the piece, while she found herself reliving scenes from Brief Encounter. And he was so good-looking. All the women had been entranced.
Afterwards the ballerinas had done their solos—very nicely. Margaret would have enjoyed them. One secretly found them rather clip-cloppety, but that was probably just their shoes. And then, somehow, young Mr. Brodsky was back at the piano and playing dance tunes from the thirties. How did he know them? And she agreed the furniture could be moved back for dancing.
It all started out quite decorously, then someone else had sat at the piano. Who? The professor’s husband, she seemed to remember, and he was surprisingly good, too. The young Russian was freed to join the assembled company. With impeccable manners he had clicked his heels and bowed down to his hostess with a look of real supplication in his eyes.
“Your Majesty. Would you care to dance?”
Well, as a matter of fact, she would. And the next thing she knew, she was fox-trotting across the floor with no thought for sciatica. She was wearing a light silk chiffon gown that evening, with plenty of swing in the skirts. Mr. Brodsky was an expert partner, reminding her of steps she had forgotten she knew. His timing was impeccable. He managed to make one feel like Ginger Rogers.
By now, most of the party were joining in. The music was louder and bolder. An Argentine tango struck up. Was it still the professor’s husband at the piano? Even the Archbishop of Canterbury was tempted to cut a rug with one of the dancers, much to everyone’s amusement. A few other couples gave it a go, but nobody could begin to match the Russian and his latest partner—the other ballerina—striding majestically across the floor.
She had retired soon afterwards, leaving the guests with the reassurance that they could continue as long as they liked. In her day, the Queen could outlast half the Foreign Office, but now she tended to droop after half past ten. However, that was no reason to cut short a good party. Her dresser, who got it from one of the underbutlers, informed her it had gone on until well after midnight.
That was the last she had seen of him: dancing around the drawing room with a beautiful young ballerina in his arms. Looking magnificent, happy . . . and so intensely alive.
Philip was full of the news when he arrived to share a coffee with her after lunch.
“Lilibet, did you hear the man was nude?”
“Yes, actually, I did.”
“Strung up like a Tory MP. There’s a word for it. What is it? Auto-sex something?”
“Autoerotic asphyxiation,” the Queen said grimly. She had Googled it on her iPad.
“That’s the bugger. D’you remember Buffy?”
One did indeed recall the seventh Earl of Wandle, an old friend who had been rather partial to the practice in the fifties, by all accounts. Back then it had seemed practically de rigueur among a certain set.
“What the butler saw, eh?” Philip said. “Had to rescue the blighter on many an occasion, apparently. Buffy was hardly an oil painting, even with his clothes on.”
“What was he thinking?” she wondered.
“My dear, I try not to imagine Buffy’s sex life.”
“No. I mean the young Russian. Brodsky.”
“Well, that’s obvious,” Philip said, gesturing around him. “You know what people are like in this place. They come here, decide it’s the pinnacle of their bloody existence, and need to let off steam. The high jinks that go on when they think we’re not looking . . . Poor bastard.” He dropped his voice sympathetically. “Didn’t think it through. Last thing you want is to be discovered in a royal palace with your goolies out.”
“Philip!”
“No, I mean it. No wonder everyone’s keeping it hush-hush. That, and protecting your fragile nerves.”
The Queen threw him a look. “They forget. I’ve lived through a world war, that Ferguson girl, and you in the navy.”
“And yet, they think you’ll need smelling salts if they so much as hint at anything fruity. All they see is a little old lady in a hat.” He grinned as she frowned. That last remark was true, and very useful and rather sad. “Don’t worry, Cabbage, they love that little old lady.” He rose stiffly from his chair. “Don’t forget, I’m off to Scotland later. The salmon’s spectacular this year, Dickie says. Need anything? Fudge? Nicola Sturgeon’s head on a platter?”
“No, thank you. When will you be back?”
“A week or so—I’ll be in good time for your birthday. Dickie’s going to stuff up the atmosphere and fly me in his jet.”
The Queen nodded. Philip tended to run his own diary these days. Years ago, she had found it rather heartbreaking when he disappeared off, with who knew who, to do God knew what, leaving her in charge. A part of her was jealous, too, of the freedom, the self-determination. But he always came back, bringing with him a burst of energy that cut through the corridors of power like a brisk sea breeze. She had learned to be grateful.