There was a quick low knock at the door and a dark-haired girl who looked to be some years older than Amy, poked her head round the door. The Princess dropped the paper and gave a shriek.
'Ione, don't tell me you're here already - what on earth's the time?'
'Good morning, Ma'am. No, it's early, honestly it is, I thought I'd get on with all those letters, and then something came up — '
Amy interrupted her with a groan. She had just looked at the pink enamel and gold clock by her bed. 'Oh God, Ione, I know I promised to be down. We were going to plough through them together, I know we were. For God's sake, don't tell Mama when she wakes up, please, please, please -'
'The Duchess has gone to Plymouth, Ma'am, to the naval base.'
'Goodness gracious: she actually went! No headache?' The Duchess of Cumberland's inability - through sudden 'illness* - to carry out public engagements was celebrated in her family.
'Well, what would you do if you were a royal widow with nothing to do?' charitable Princess Harriet had once asked of her more critical younger sister.
'I'd take a lot of lovers,' replied Princess Amy bracingly. 'It's so wet of Mama to be boringly faithful to Papa's memory. With the aid of the bottle.'
'Her Royal Highness went by helicopter at six o'clock this morning,' confirmed Ione, to whom all these facts were well known; she spoke without expression. 'From the lawn. I'm surprised you didn't hear it.'
'Of course I didn't hear it, Ione, you coot. A helicopter would have to land on my bed at six a.m. to wake me, as you perfectly well know.' Amy stretched so that her breasts half fell out of the open nightshirt; she did not bother to button it up.
'Ione, my angel, my good angel, listen, I've got to telephone
Ferdel. Then I promise I'll be right with you. All morning.'
'No problem,' said Ione Quentin easily, 'I'll be downstairs.' She turned and stopped. 'There is just one thing, Ma'am -'
But Princess Amy had already turned to the telephone.
'It can wait,' said Ione after a moment, seeing that the Princess was already chattering away.
'royal wedding sensation', she was reading from the headline of the Daily Exclusive. 'And then nothing about one at all. Que! drag, Ferdel, yes?'
Her fiancé, corralled for the pre-wedding season in the Eaton Square flat of an absent aunt - an aged foreign Royal who had played some discreet part in the promotion of the marriage -laughed in what he hoped was a sympathetic manner and did not pursue the subject. He was wondering whether Amy had noticed the latest instalment about his previous relationship with Mirabella Prey in the gossip column of the same newspaper.
'Don't forget - amy means i love you,' Amy was saying now as a light farewell, quoting the familiar text of the buttons (although she had quite failed to make Ferdel himself wear one).
'Nothing about one at all.' Prince Ferdinand sighed. That Amy should be so fortunate It was all very well for Amy, cast as the public's favourite virgin (although that certainly wasn't true in private as Ferdel had every reason to know, Amy having admitted to one lover, with Ferdel suspecting at least one other). But Ferdel, aged thirty-three, was somehow expected to exhibit the man-of-the-world allure derived from an exciting past, without actually having lived this past with any specific individuals. These kinds of ridiculously unreal expectations could only be harboured by the British public, he reflected mournfully.
Ferdel sighed again and thought of Mirabella Prey. Hilas. He would miss her. That is to say, he would miss the nights, all of them. He certainly would not miss the days, hardly any of them. No one could possibly want to spend their days with Mirabella Prey, except as a prelude to the nights: Mirabella, with her well-publicized passion for wild animals, Mirabella who was inclined to stock her house with pets some of whose mating habits were even more savagely exotic than those of Mirabella herself.
That confounded cheetah, for example. It was the cheetah which was the peg for this morning's story in the Daily Exclusive (generally, but not always accurately, known as the Clueless). trouble royal it read, will ferdy cheet-her? ran the second headline. The writer then went on to enquire with pseudo-innocence whether foreign Prince Ferdinand intended to bestow a second cheetah on his young English bride Princess Amy, following that first cheetah so generously bestowed upon the foreign film star Mirabella Prey, she of the noble passion for the animal kingdom. For most people, however, the headline with its nasty implication of post-marital betrayal on the part of sophisticated Europeans, would be the point of the story. Ferdel hoped that his young English bride had failed to notice the item.
Naturally Princess Amy had noticed it: this was because she read the gossip column of the Clueless (as well as those of the Mail and Express) sedulously each morning. She had done so since her early teens, relying on this method of keeping up with the doings of her friends, much as a stockbroker might turn to the Financial Times for the movements of the market. But Ferdel would have been interested to discover that Amy, far from being shocked, was actually in a curious way rather turned on by the Mirabella Prey saga.
That is to say, it was the actress's amorous connection with Ferdel which excited Amy (after all, she had been watching Mirabella Prey's films since she was so high, as she put it with a little bubble of malice to Ione, never dreaming that one day ...). Amy found the actress's public posturings and declared warm love for the animal kingdom, on the contrary, slightly irritating. Where animals were concerned, Amy thought there should be lots of nice ones about, preferably dogs, just as she thought there should be a lot of nice servants about, preferably of dog-like devotion. Towards both dogs and servants, Amy was demonstratively and genuinely affectionate - in private. She just did not think this a proper subject for boasting about in the newspapers.
Here then was Mirabella Prey on the subject of her famous cheetah: 'I'd die for him,' she was quoted as saying, 'I'll never give him up.'
'How fatuous,' thought Amy. (For Amy, unlike most readers of the Daily Exclusive, assumed Mirabella Prey was actually talking about the cheetah.)
'I'd certainly never give you up, you silly old dogs. I just don't need to tell the whole world about it.' Princess Amy patted the grizzled snout of one of the two middle-aged cocker spaniels lying huddled beside her bed. 'You darling, darling old doggies.' Happy stirred and snuffled; Boobie did not move. Year ago they had been enthusiastically christened Hapsburg and Bourbon by Amy's historically minded governess, a woman much moved by the thought of Amy's grand European ancestry. In view of Amy's future grand European marriage, it was perhaps just as well that the dogs' original names, like the dynasties themselves, had receded effectively into history.
Sitting, still at breakfast, in the gloomy dining-room of the Eaton Square flat, Prince Ferdinand read to the end of the cheetah story and gave yet another sigh, the third of the morning; where Mirabella was concerned, he had a feeling there might be more sighs to come. Unlike Amy, he picked up the message of the piece - from 'cheet-her' to 'I'll never give him up' — perfectly well. It was bad news, not so much that Mirabella was talking to the Press, something she had never been averse to doing, her career in a manner of speaking demanding it, but that she was now condescending to gossip columnists. Unlike Amy again, Ferdel had never heard of Little Mary, she of the Daily Exclusive who was alleged to double as Miss Mouse of the Mousehole column in Jolly Joke; but he recognized trouble when he read it.
Trouble. Royal Trouble, to adapt the words of the gossip column's headline. There was more than one kind of royal trouble this morning. Ferdel took a letter from the pocket of his silk dressing-grown and then put it back. Where women were concerned, he decided that he was inclined to suffer from a sense of guilt first thing in the morning, a kind of emotional hangover; it might therefore be better to ponder this particular missive a little later on, say after the first Bloody Mary of the day at noon. Besides, threats were so tiresome, especially threats from women, when Ferdel was precluded from stifling them - the threats, that is - by a well-esta
blished method. This consisted of a quick immediate telephone call, a short passionate declaration, a more prolonged passionate embrace at a date to suit both parties, followed by a handsome gift bestowed by Ferdel. By the time this ritual was completed, the subject of the threat was quite forgotten; so that the threatener seldom noticed that Ferdel had not actually succumbed to it.
He could not carry out any of these steps now. Could he not? No, he really could not. Not even the first one? Not even the third one, followed discreetly by the fourth one? No, he really could not. Under the circumstances it might be better to throw the letter away, after the others, and forget about it. Probably Amy was too busy chatting on the telephone to her innumerable English girlfriends to read this diatribe from the so-called Little Mary. Ferdel took the letter out of his pocket and threw it, barely crumpled, into the wastepaper basket. He gave no thought as to what might become of the letter; that would have been as uncharacteristic as wondering who washed up his breakfast things, still standing on the heavily polished table before him.
'Trouble,' said Taplow, the English butler/chauffeur of Ferdel's absent aunt, when he later retrieved the letter from its resting place and flattened it again without difficulty. (It was Taplow who had cleared the Prince's breakfast table and re-polished the heavy table.) 'She's still writing to him. That's the third this week. Horrible, the things she says. I told you there'd be trouble.'
'She's foreign,' commented Mrs Taplow without looking at him. She was polishing the silver, a task which traditionally fell to the butler; but in the case of the Taplows, it had sometimes been commented upon by employers that Mrs Taplow was really the more masculine of the two. Although she referred on occasion briefly to 'Jossie', most people assumed unthinkingly that the Taplows were childless. Certainly Taplow, a big, soft, stately man, had something of the feminine about him; there was thus an impression, only a vague one, but vaguely disquieting, that there was some kind of sex reversal in their relationship.
'A foreign spitfire,' added Mrs Taplow after a pause.
'Spitfires aren't —'
'I was quoting the paper, Kenneth,' Mrs Taplow narrowed her eyes and inspected her handiwork. 'She loves him, that's all. She has a foreign way of putting it.'
'She loves him, does she? God knows why.'
'He's got what it takes. I'm quoting the papers again, Kenneth.' There was something disagreeably coy about her expression. 'Did you read the Sunday Exclusive? What she said, Mirabella. "All night passion"; that was the story.' Mrs Taplow picked up another fork and jabbed it gently but firmly into the green baize cloth. 'Again and again and again. That's what she said.' Mrs Taplow jabbed the fork in time with her words. Taplow looked away.
'I'm thinking of the security angle, Lizzie, you do appreciate that,' he said after a while, fingering the letter. 'Gossip has never interested me, I can say that with my hand on my heart. You should know that, Lizzie: gossip writers and sneak photographers, I've no time for them.' He paused. 'But security, yes. We have a responsibility here. I've been asked, we've been asked, to report anything odd. They're jittery about this wedding, it's obvious. So we have to report anything odd.'
'Is it odd for a woman scorned to write that kind of letter?'
'Well, what do you think, Lizzie?' Taplow abandoned the letter and looked directly at his wife.
'I've never been a woman scorned, Kenneth,' replied Mrs Taplow equably, 'so I wouldn't have the least idea.'
'Well then, look at this now - all this about blood for example. Isn't that odd? If it's not odd, I tell you I certainly find it quite disgusting.'
Mrs Taplow put down her cloth and took the letter. She adjusted the small spectacles on her nose, which had hung round her neck on a cord, low enough to give the impression of a chatelaine's keys.
'This blood to which you're referring is the blood of animals,' she said at last; she sounded very patient. 'Not his blood, Kenneth, but the blood of innocent animals. Innocent animals which have already been slaughtered. She, Mirabella, is not threatening to shed our Prince's blood. It's a matter of fact, Kenneth, that she is not.'
'It is a matter of fact, Lizzie, as you put it, that she is threatening to come and daub him, and anybody near him, including HRH. with buckets of animals' blood, innocent animals' blood or not, that is disgusting, Lizzie, which-we have discussed before — in a certain connection -' He stopped.
'It hasn't happened yet.' Ignoring his last remark, Mrs Taplow spoke with an air of unshaken patience.
'I'm telling the police. Before it happens. Yes, I know what that will mean, Lizzie. Believe me, I do. Detectives all over the place. It's bad enough when HRH pays us one of her little visits. I am well aware of all that, Lizzie. And when I drive him, that detective always sitting in the front, making small talk as if it was normal him sitting there!' Taplow snorted. 'But then again, they might move him. Have you thought of that?'
'Move him?' For the first time Mrs Taplow sounded a little surprised.
'Move him to cp. There's masses of room at the Palace since the old Duke died. Self-contained flat, etc., etc. No suggestion of impropriety, naturally. The detective who spoke to me was in two minds about the whole thing anyway; thought our Prince might well be better off all along at cp.'
'And how will you explain the fact that you read his letters?'
'I'm going to tell the truth,' replied Taplow loftily. 'Find me that number, Lizzie. I don't trust these professional animal lovers, I don't trust them one inch. A violent lot. Are you going to disagree?'
'And what is that supposed to mean, Kenneth?' enquired Mrs Taplow, her composure restored.
'I was thinking of the Trooping the Colour. And the Opening of Parliament last year. Was that or was it not violent? Talk about blood - there was enough blood about then, the horses' blood, innocent horses, Lizzie.'
'If you're referring to Innoright, Kenneth, as I believe you arc, Innoright had nothing whatsoever to do with the Opening of Parliament incident. You know perfectly well that Innoright is non-violent.' Mrs Taplow, with deliberation, drew out a small poster from the drawer beneath the table, on which the word
'innoright' in red was clearly visible. A variety of animals' faces peered out of the letters, amongst which a tiger and a monkey could be distinguished.
'"Innoright abhors all violence." Do you hear that, Kenneth? And here it is again: "Innoright specifically docs not seek to correct the violence which humanity shows towards innocent animals by violent means towards humanity itself, in so far as humanity itself is innocent." '
'Whatever that means, which to me, frankly, is somewhat obscure, give me the number. I'm ringing the police. We are here to serve, Lizzie.'
'We have paid the price for that,' murmured his wife.
But before Taplow could touch the receiver, the telephone began to ring. In spite of the perturbation of moments before, Taplow's voice was automatically grave and gentle as he answered it. 'Yes, Ma'am, I'll put you through to His Highness straight away.' Taplow turned to his wife with a raised eyebrow.
'Trouble?*
'HRH sounded quite hysterical. Unlike her. Maybe she got a letter.'
What Princess Amy was in the process of repeating frenziedly to Prince Ferdinand on the telephone was not however on the subject of letters.
'It's disgusting,' she was saying over and over again. 'Disgusting, Ferdel, I can't tell you how disgusting it is.'
'My poor little darling,' began Fcrdel once or twice. 'Poor little Amy.'
'No, but it's disgusting. Blood everywhere. Animals' blood! Ugh! It stinks. It's like living in a slaughterhouse.'
'But your guards, my darling, the police, all those detectives -'
'They did it at night from the park side. It wasn't found till Mama set off in her helicopter this morning. They managed to stop her seeing it, thank heaven. They're whitewashing it now.'
'Amy, what does it say?"
'What does it matter what it says?' Amy almost shrieked down the telephone. 'It's just so disgusting. Oh, it
's that thing for animals. No, not the usual one, this is another one, INNO-some-
thing or other.'
'Ah,' Ferdel breathed a long sigh, which might almost sound like relief.
'Anyway what's it to do with me? I love animals,' Amy went on. She added quite sharply: 'She's not the only one who loves animals you know.' It was the only reference made by either of them to the entry in the morning's gossip column.
It was left to a Chief Superintendent from the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Department (generally known as the rdpd) to inform Prince Ferdinand later in the day that Innoright's bloody message on the Palace wall had actually read, in a grim parody of the amy means i love you button: amy means trouble - and so do we.
CHAPTER FOUR
Underground Plan
The heavy-set man - perhaps something in the City? - who got on the Tube at Hampstead, waited for several stops before he took the evening paper from beneath his arm and glanced casually at the headline. The letters were black and enormous: palace outrage, and then princess in danger?
Your Royal Hostage Page 3