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?
‘Whatever you’ve got, it doesn’t extend to this corridor,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll escort you out.’
The rumpled man looked slightly desperate for a moment, but he got a grip of himself and accepted the offer with good grace. Sir Simon had used the brisk end of his voice and the man knew he had no choice.
‘Just tell ’er,’ he said – and Sir Simon sensed a wave of drunken emotion that the reveller found hard to contain – ‘tell ’er I meant what I said. About visiting. She’s always welcome. I think . . . I think she might wonder. But tell her I meant it.’
They had reached the door at the far end of the corridor that led towards the Great Hall. It was manned by a footman to whom Sir Simon gave a filthy look for letting the pensioner in in the first place. The man’s minuscule nod was a promise he wouldn’t let it happen again.
‘What was your name?’
‘Just tell ’er. She’ll know.’
Sir Simon shrugged to himself and hurried back towards his office, just in time to see Rozie emerging from the ladies’ loos, looking a million dollars and giving off waves of expensive scent. She was obviously going somewhere, but it was at least worth asking.
‘We’re off to the Army and Navy Club,’ he said. ‘Want to join us?’
‘Celebrating?’ she asked. The Reservicing Programme had been passed by the Prime Minister that day, having got the nod from the Public Accounts Committee.
‘Celebrating hard,’ he assured her. ‘And for a long time. Come on, you’ve earned it as much as the rest of us.’
She grinned. ‘So I get to join the triumvirate?’
‘You do, my dear. What’s the Latin for triumvirate when it’s four people and one is a woman? Quadrangle? Tetragentes? Tetra’s Greek, isn’t it?’
‘It wasn’t a thing,’ Rozie pointed out. ‘Let’s call it a quartet.’
‘Will your friends mind? You look as if you were going somewhere lovely.’
‘They’ll deal with it.’
Only later did he think to tell her about the drunken pensioner. She was thoughtful for a moment, but didn’t seem unduly sorry to have missed him. And by the end of the night they were not necessarily any more sober than he had been themselves.
The card was at the top of the basket of hand-picked, private correspondence on Saturday morning. Nursing a sore head, but giving no sign of it, Sir Simon brought the boxes to the Queen in her study, with the basket balanced on top of them. He saw the Boss do a double take when she saw the illustration and asked if it was anything interesting. She opened it, briefly read the contents, and wondered aloud if Rozie had put it on the pile.
‘She did, ma’am. She said she thought you’d like to see it.’
‘Mmm,’ the Queen said. ‘Do you think you could ask her to ask . . .’ she peered inside the card again, ‘ . . . Miss Fisher why she chose this card particularly? I’m curious to know.’
‘Of course.’ Sir Simon smiled a courtier’s reassuring smile and made one mental note to give Rozie the message, as requested, and another to have a closer look at the card itself when he had time. It hadn’t struck him as anything particularly speciaclass="underline" a woman playing a lute, early Baroque, by the look of it. The card was slightly nicer than average: thicker paper, nice matt finish – from the National Gallery, probably. It was the sort of thing he sent to his own siblings. Hardly the sort of thing to make the Boss excited. She normally went for horses, funny cartoons and dogs.
‘The Queen wants to know,’ he said later, in Rozie’s office, ‘why the sender chose this particular card.’ He waved it at her. ‘Can you ask?’
‘No problem.’
‘And can you tell me too? I’m curious that she’s curious.’
Rozie narrowed her eyes a bit, but agreed. When she did so, a few hours later, the answer was nothing exceptional. The featured painting was by an artist called Artemisia Gentileschi, who had worked in the seventeenth century. The Queen might have noticed because, according to Rozie, there was a painting by the same artist in the Queen’s Gallery at the moment. (Was there, by God? And how astonishing of her to remember. But the Boss really did know her own paintings.)
‘And why did the sender choose it?’ he asked.
It turned out, Rozie explained, that Miss Fisher had sent it in honour of her friend Mrs Harris, who was an expert on Artemisia Gentileschi in her day. At his slight incredulity that an elderly housekeeper could be an ‘expert’ on Baroque painting (very snobbish of him, he knew), Rozie said Miss Fisher had just explained that, as a history of art student, Cynthia Harris had done her Masters on the artist. She had hoped to write a book on Artemisia one day.
Which just showed, you should never underestimate the members of the Royal Household. He was proud of this little ship. Everyone was exceptional in their own special way, even the difficult ones like Mrs Harris. So, the woman had an artistic streak? Perhaps that explained why she had been so good at getting the best out of the Belgian Suite.
Chapter 41
On Monday, taking advantage of a rare free afternoon, the Queen found time to do something that had been on her mind for the last few days. She paid another visit to the top rooms in the East Wing, which had been fully redecorated after their late-spring drenching, when the antiquated water tank had sprung a leak.
She was attended by several people from the Operations and Property Departments and – somewhat to their surprise – accompanied them back to their offices in the South Wing to have a congratulatory word with their teams about the Reservicing Programme. ‘Lots of work for you to do, finally getting this place in a fit state for us all to live in. I’m sure you’ll do a marvellous job.’ She popped in on as many of the sub-teams as she could, catching up on their latest tasks and making encouraging noises. She even managed to make it to the property accounting unit in the windowless basement corridor.
All in all, the impromptu visit was considered a great success. The Master, who had rushed to her side as soon as he heard what she was up to, basked in her reflected glory. He let it be known this was something they’d actually been planning for a little while, in gratitude for all the hard work everyone had put in recently. By the end of the day, it was his idea. The following morning, he humbly accepted the congratulations of Sir Simon and Sir James. It had been quite a coup. He was really rather proud of himself.
Six agenda-filled days had passed since the Queen’s walk in the garden with Rozie and Billy MacLachlan. She was beginning to lose track of how many ambassadors and high commissioners she had received this busy season. With Great Britain now cast somewhat adrift in the Atlantic, keen to build on old ties to the Commonwealth, each audience mattered more and she was acutely aware of how important it was to say the right thing. The engagements were closely packed and she was already starting to think wistfully about Christmas, and the peace and calm of Sandringham.
Today, Philip was in Greenwich, visiting the National Maritime Museum, then attending a boozy lunch, no doubt, at Stationers’ Hall in the City, with the colonels commandant of various regiments. Anne would be among them, which was always nice. Like her father, she wouldn’t be drinking, because, like him, she had other engagements later on. The Queen had a brief gap to gather her forces and sort out her hair before an evening with the Royal Life Saving Society, where Philip would join her. They were celebrating 125 years, and she had been a member since she was thirteen, so for a dauntingly large chunk of its history.