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?
There was a gentle knock at the door. ‘Ma’am?’
Damn. The soup would be cold, or boiled, and Anne, Charles and Philip would be livid. She called out that she was coming and followed the dogs as briskly as she could.
Chapter 21
That afternoon, Anne put her head around the study door.
‘Not disturbing you, am I?’
She was. The Queen was catching up on some private correspondence. But it didn’t matter. Anne, who was in town for various work commitments, sat on the comfy armchair she generally used if she came to visit and accepted the eager, nuzzling curiosity of Vulcan and Candy as they came to settle at her feet. Willow remained by her mistress, but cocked an ear in acknowledgement.
‘It’s not the same, is it?’ Anne said. Her tone was matter-of-fact, but her eyes were full of sympathy. ‘D’you miss her badly?’
She meant the dog. It was only four weeks and a bit since the vet had performed his final, inevitable task on Holly, and several times a day the Queen felt a sudden tug at her consciousness: the different sound made by three sets of paws, not four; wondering what treats one might persuade the elderly dog to eat, and remembering that there was no need; the sight of the corgi’s eager body waddling and waggling ahead of her down the corridors, snaking round her ankles as she tried to sit down and lying in all the most unfortunate places – a ghostly memory now.
In fact, the Queen had been responding to a couple of old friends who’d been offering their condolences. Dog-lovers, they understood.
‘Yes, I miss her very much,’ she said. ‘But life goes on, doesn’t it?’
‘I know, Mummy, but you can talk to me. I bawled my eyes out when Mabel died.’
‘You did,’ the Queen remembered.
That was the thing about Anne: tough as old boots, which meant she hadn’t cared a jot if the family saw her blubbing at the death of a precious pet. Mind you, one of her bull terriers had caused a corgi to be put down once. Not a happy memory.
Who, the Queen thought, could kill their own guinea pig? Her mind was back with Peggy Thornicroft, and from there to Cynthia Harris again.
‘You seem very distracted,’ Anne said. ‘I thought so over lunch. Anything I can do?’
She reflexively declined the offer. ‘No. It’s not Holly.’
‘Oh, God – it’s not the President of Colombia, is it? He hasn’t asked for anything outrageous in the Belgian Suite? D’you remember that prince who wanted an open fire?’
She did. He wanted it so his chef could cook appropriate meals the traditional way, but it had been agreed that such a fire in the kitchens might be a safer option.
‘I do. Not that.’
‘Oh, not the housekeeper in the pool? That was bloody bad luck. I haven’t told the little ones about it. They’d go apeshit.’
‘Not that either,’ the Queen lied. ‘But I do have a problem. I sense I should alert the authorities about something, but if I do, it will go from something very small to something very big very quickly, and I won’t have the power to stop it. And I might be wrong.’
‘Can’t you get Sir Simon to fix it?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Really? There’s not much he can’t do. Except find meaningful jobs for Beatrice and Eugenie, I s’pose.’
‘Not this.’
‘Can you wait? See if it sorts itself out?’
The Queen smiled fondly at her daughter. She loved Anne’s practicality and instinctive desire to help, combined with the tact born of a lifetime of knowing that Mummy had to deal with secret things on a regular basis, and if she didn’t want to tell you, you didn’t ask.
‘I don’t think it will,’ she answered. ‘I wish it could.’
Anne stood up. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it. But when I had a problem setting up the horse trials at Gatcombe, I remember I was calling up all and sundry, making my presence felt and being a bloody nuisance, and you said to attack it one piece at a time, and do nothing until I was sure of my facts.’ She walked over to give her mother an affectionate kiss. ‘I’m off to get changed. Black-tie dinner in the City to raise wodges of dosh for the Royal Voluntary Service. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Alone again, the Queen pushed aside the letter she’d been writing and considered her daughter’s advice. Her duty told her to raise her concerns about Mrs Harris with Chief Inspector Strong as soon as possible. If Cynthia had died to stop her from talking to Rozie about what happened in the nineteen eighties, then murder had been committed within the precincts of the Palace and of course the police must know.
But had it?
Despite the Queen’s misgivings from the start, the police were still content that Mrs Harris’s fall was a tragic accident. Had someone really masterminded that trick with the tumbler? (The Queen couldn’t help seeing it as a trick.) All Rozie had done over the summer was ask around about the long-ago disappearance of a minor oil painting. Would someone plot and kill to stop her making progress? Really?
If one did talk to the chief inspector, he couldn’t possibly keep it quiet while he made a few discreet enquiries. He wasn’t like Billy MacLachlan, her old protection officer who occasionally helped out in his retirement. Strong would be duty-bound to report his findings up the line. Even if his bosses tried to keep it quiet, it was a murder at Buckingham Palace. She could imagine the headlines and endless updates in the news.
The Queen gazed out of the window. The gas lamps were on in the grounds – relics from a Victorian age, though her great-great-grandmother had found them too newfangled for her taste. Beyond the walls, London went about its business, oblivious. She could feel a headache coming on. To talk or not to talk? All she had was a hunch, although when Rozie had spoken to her in the 1844 Room, their joint conclusion had felt much more than that.
Anne’s advice, though given without much context, seemed sound. If she were a minister, preparing to present to herself, she would endeavour to put a decent case together and be sure of her facts. She must do the same for the chief inspector.
Yes, that was the answer. She sat back in her chair with relief. She knew where to start. But she couldn’t do it yet.
Chapter 22
The State Visit of the President of Colombia began on Tuesday. This was a highlight of the calendar that the Queen cared about tremendously, and she wanted London and the Palace to be at their best. Over the years, there had been some leaders of Latin American countries one had found more congenial than others. Mr Santos, who was on the brink of achieving a historic peace agreement at home, was a man she was pleased to welcome with all the pageantry State and Crown could command. He had once been a student here, and now he was the most recent recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, due to give a speech at the London School of Economics about the role of young people in the peace process. He would visit Northern Ireland, hot on the heels of her own recent trip, and see the tremendous progress that a community could make when it actively turned away from conflict. She was grateful to Rozie for finding a suitable quotation from a Colombian writer for her own speech of welcome. Which is harder to fight: war or indifference?
That night, she gave the speech in the gilded Ballroom, at a banquet for a hundred and seventy. The tables, positioned in a U shape, were so wide that footmen had had to walk across them in stockinged feet to smooth out the cloths and position the silver gilt dessert stands and branching candelabras from the Grand Service, dating back to the early nineteenth century. Each place was set with six cut-crystal glasses. The flowers included choice varieties from Colombia alongside home-grown blooms. The Master had checked – with a ruler – that the knives and forks were set the correct distance from the edge of the table. She herself had closely inspected the settings beforehand, to ensure everything was right.