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?
‘I did not!’
‘You did. And you said she played catch with Prince George at Easter, and lent Kate her shoes when there was a crisis.’
‘Mu-ummy!’
But Grace ignored her daughter’s protest. ‘Well, you seemed interested enough at the time, my dear. You were all, “Oh, I remember that picture. I saw it on What Kate Wore”. You stalk that poor girl online.’
‘I do not!’
And so the conversation degenerated into speculation about the Duchess of Cambridge, whom Rozie now thought of as ‘Catherine’ – not that she said as much here – and how great she looked in Canada, when she would get pregnant again, and whether she was feuding with some of her inner circle, and why she never seemed to have any ‘best friends’. And Rozie, who knew the answers to some of these questions, and thought the others absurd, and all of them uncomfortable for the woman in question, was grateful to be left out of the chat. Instead, she silently helped Mikey and Ralph clear the table, carefully stacking the dishes on the minimal counter space in the kitchen, as she’d done since childhood.
Mikey turned to her as she finished balancing a pile of plates on the still-warm cooker. There was a look in his eye that made her wary.
‘You went to St Barts?’
She nodded.
‘You never said.’
‘No need.’
He grinned. ‘Yass, queen. Classy. I like your style.’
She smiled back, breathing a bit more deeply, enjoying the relative peace.
‘What’s it like, though? The island?’ Mikey asked.
‘Incredible. French. Laid-back. Good food. So expensive that it makes your eyes water. It’s how very, very rich people imagine what it’s like to relax.’
‘Did you relax?’
‘Actually, I did,’ she laughed. ‘They did this dish with fresh fish that was . . .’ She gave a chef’s kiss. ‘Yeah, I kinda liked it.’
He shook his head with mock seriousness. ‘We’re losing you, Captain Oshodi.’
She moved in for a cousin hug. Her voice was low and she was suddenly very serious. ‘You’ll never lose me, Mikey.’
He sensed something inside her and hugged her back. ‘It’s OK,’ he murmured. ‘I was joking. We got you.’
He didn’t understand why his cousin, officially the toughest woman he knew, was holding him tight. ‘Hey, let it out, girl,’ he said gently, patting the back of her head with gentle hands. Her shoulders heaved a couple of times. ‘It’s OK,’ he repeated. ‘I got you.’
She took a breath and stood back. He hadn’t seen streaks of tears on that beautiful face since she was about fourteen and Patrick Stryker, the Year 10 football captain, broke her heart in assembly.
Taking his hands in hers, she asked him, ‘What do you see, Mikey?’
He didn’t know what he was supposed to answer. He shook his head. But she was firm.
‘What do you see?’
In confusion, he said, ‘I see you, Zee. What else am I supposed to see?’
She squeezed him close again and murmured, ‘Nothing,’ just as Ralph came through the door, armed with a dangerously tall pile of serving bowls and said, ‘Hey? Wassup, guys? Spill the tea.’
Rozie needed a moment to herself, and Mikey steered his brother back out of the little kitchen and shut the door behind them. Staring out of the narrow window, at kids playing ball in the communal yard, Rozie thought of the notes and the drawing of the knife, and promised herself she would not let the bastard do this to her.
He was trying to take her apart. He had chosen the wrong target and he would live to regret it. Meanwhile, she wrapped the love of her family around her like a force field. Mum arguing with Auntie Bea, Dad not quite getting what she did, Ralph eternally teasing, Fliss listening from Frankfurt, all of it. She had better things to do than let him into her head. He wanted her out of the Palace? She would insert herself ever more closely into it. She would find him and get under his skin. Let’s see how he likes it.
Chapter 19
It was dark early. Tomorrow would be Hallowe’en. The bus back to the Palace passed little shops selling masks and tridents. Rozie noticed how many rubber masks were of politicians’ faces these days. If you wanted to scare your friends, you went as a prime minister, or a European bureaucrat, or a would-be president.
She showed her security pass to the guard at the forecourt and made her way straight to her office. One of her jobs was to keep the file of all Chief Inspector Strong’s reports to the Boss. This included copies of the notes that Cynthia Harris had been sent – or sent herself – and a biographical note that his sergeant, DS Highgate, had put together after talking to HR.
Rozie checked through the notes first. Two of them mentioned Mrs Harris’s early demotions. ‘YOU USED TO BE SO HIGH AND MIGHTY NOW YOU’RE JUST A DIRTY LITTLE SCRUBBER’; ‘THEY DIDN’T WANT YOU AT SJP AND THEY DON’T WANT YOU HERE YOU VICIOUS SHREW. NOBODY WANTS YOU. **** OFF AND KILL YOURSELF’
Following these up, DS Highgate had traced her career in a stark, printed note.
BIO
Cynthia Harris, née Butterfield
b.1953, Brighton, E. Sussex
MA Art Hist, Uni of Edinburgh
Joined 1982, age 29. Asst curator, R. Collection. SJP.
Promoted Asst to D Surveyor QP 1983
Moved Works Department 1986
Moved Housekeeping 1987. Housemaid?
Promoted senior hk 1992
Promoted Head of N Shift 1996
Windsor C 1998–2002
Senior hk BP 2002–2016
Rozie stared at the notes for some time, standing at her desk with her coat still on. Just as Lulu’s Uncle Max had said, Cynthia had joined the Household as an assistant curator of the Royal Collection. And she’d gone from that to a housemaid? Really? It was Cinderella in reverse. What DS Highgate didn’t seem to have learned, but Uncle Max had remembered, was that when she moved to the Works Department she got engaged to its head. That had obviously gone sour: if a ‘Mr Harris’ had been head of the department, somebody would have said. Then promotion, promotion . . . then moved away to Windsor Castle. Was she already making waves by then?
But all that was incidental. What mattered were the dates, and they were exactly what had caused the bugs under Rozie’s skin. Cynthia Harris had been working for the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures in the early to mid-eighties. She had been assistant to the Deputy Surveyor himself, for goodness’ sake. She must have moved from the Royal Collection to the Works Department around the time the Queen’s oil painting went missing. She was, it turned out, the person who could, quite possibly, have shed more light than anyone else on Rozie’s enquiries over the summer.
Except nobody Rozie spoke to had ever mentioned her.
Of course, even if she’d known, Rozie couldn’t have talked to the housekeeper directly in the summer months, because she’d been in London while Rozie was in Balmoral and vice versa. Rozie would have had to wait until Cynthia came back to work at the Palace in October, but by that time . . .
This is what the bugs were all about. She pictured Cynthia on her first night back, losing her balance and the crystal tumbler dropping, the glass smashing, the jagged edge fatally piercing the skin as she fell, then the artery. She im-agined her lying stretched out on the green tiles, as the reports had described her (Sir Simon would never discuss his discovery in detail), and the blood pouring from the wound.