A Three Dog Problem

‘Make sure we’re not disturbed, will you?’

The equerry took this as confirmation that his presence wasn’t required and remained in the corridor outside. Rozie arrived a couple of minutes later.

‘You’ll have to be quick. I only have a minute.’

‘Yes, Your Majesty. It’s about Cynthia Harris.’

‘Oh?’

Rozie rapidly explained about her brief discussion yesterday with Uncle Max.

‘I looked up Mrs Harris’s employment record,’ she went on, ‘and it turns out she was almost certainly at the Works Department, as it was called then, in 1986 when the refurbishment was done. The current team in Operations pointed me towards a man called Joe Flowers who used to work there as a superintendent. But he’s struggling with Alzheimer’s. I went to talk to him at his care home when I got back from Balmoral, but I couldn’t get any sense out of him.’

‘They may well not have known about Mrs Harris.’

‘True,’ Rozie said, trying to keep the urgency out of her voice. ‘But before that, she was assistant to the Deputy Surveyor at the Royal Collection, ma’am, and at the time, that would have been Sholto Harvie.’

‘Sholto? Gracious!’

‘If a painting had gone missing, surely she would have known about it, and she’d remember? I know it seems minor, but you said you were surprised I couldn’t find the right link in the picture’s journey, and it seems to me that Mrs Harris could have been that link. If we now think there was a racket going on . . .’

‘The Breakages Business. I see.’

‘Perhaps Cynthia knew about that. Perhaps they suspected she did. I just find it . . .’ Rozie searched for a reasonable description of her state of mind. ‘Of concern,’ she said, though the feeling was stronger, ‘that there was somebody right here all along, who was on the spot at the time, and nobody mentioned her to me. We were in separate places over the summer because I was in Scotland when she wasn’t, and vice versa. When you came back from Balmoral, I would have had the opportunity to talk to her face to face at last – if I’d only known how useful she could be. But of course, that never happened.’

‘Yes, I see,’ the Queen said.

‘Your staff tend to stay a long time. Everyone tells stories. I can’t believe Uncle Max was the only person who knew about her previous jobs. And afterwards, Mr Harvie saying nothing about her death? It just doesn’t make sense. At the time I thought he was being reserved and diplomatic, but if she worked for him directly – well, it’s just weird. He was very conversational most of the time.’

The Queen pursed her lips. She looked very grim indeed. ‘You do know what you’re suggesting, don’t you?’

Rozie said quietly, ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She swallowed.

There was the sound of snuffling and the pattering of doggy paws on the carpet as the two women stood quietly, considering the body lying in a pool of blood.

‘Well,’ the Queen said at last. ‘Do you have anyone in particular in mind?’

‘I don’t. Not that I can make any sense of, anyway.’

‘Have you talked to Chief Inspector Strong?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Let me think about it for a while.’

‘I—Of course. Yes.’ Rozie relaxed a little. ‘I didn’t think you’d believe me. I thought I was getting a bit dramatic.’

‘And yet you came to find me,’ the Queen said, ‘and kept me from lunch with the Princess Royal. You must have thought it was important.’

Rozie tried to hide her smile. Princess Anne was known for her punctuality. Even her mother might be on the receiving end of a sharply raised eyebrow. ‘I did. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. And now I really must go.’

However, after Rozie left her, the Queen remained in the calm stillness of the room, grateful for a moment of solitude.

Rozie had been on her mind yesterday while she was out riding at Windsor. She had been thinking about the notes. If Cynthia Harris had targeted herself, one had to wonder who had targeted Rozie and why. The notes seemed designed to get rid of her and the Queen had wondered if there was a specific reason why somebody wanted her out of the way.

And now this. The idea that Mrs Harris had been deliberately killed, almost the moment she got back to the Palace from Scotland, to stop Rozie from talking to her. Why? Because Rozie had been asking about a painting by a fairly unknown Australian that went missing thirty years ago. It was outlandish. It was outright ridiculous. And yet . . .

The strangest thing of all was the behaviour of Sholto Harvie, who had failed to mention that he once worked closely with a woman whose death was in the news, along with fanciful stories of young princesses and bottles of champagne. Why stay silent about that, but disclose the story of the Breakages Business?

Sholto couldn’t be the killer – if indeed there was one. What harm could he have done from the Cotswolds? And anyway, why help and hinder at the same time?