A Three Dog Problem

by S. J. Bennett

  ‘Are you all right, ma’am?’

  MacLachlan was looking at her with some concern. She realised she had been staring at a spot in the distance without speaking for some time.

  ‘Perfectly fine, thank you.’ She felt close, but not quite there yet. She had a murderer in mind, and a victim. But they refused to meet. ‘It’s all deeply frustrating,’ she admitted.

  ‘We’ll work it out, ma’am. There’s the pensioners’ party in a couple of days. I don’t normally go, but I’ll pitch up this time and see what I can winkle out of the old-timers.’

  ‘Thank you, Billy. Of course, there’s always the possibility there was never a murder at all.’

  ‘I think we agree that’s unlikely,’ MacLachlan said, somewhat unreassuringly, as they tramped back to the boot room.

  The Queen went off to get ready for her weekly audience with the Prime Minister. She gave herself seven days to prove to her own satisfaction that someone from Billy’s list could have, and indeed would have, wanted to silence Cynthia Harris enough to kill her that night. If she hadn’t worked it out by then, she would hand the whole thing over to Chief Inspector Strong, just as she had admonished the Master for not doing with his poison pen investigation.

  The whole panoply of the press would descend upon them like a marauding horde. They would be besieged and no doubt accused of a cover-up. She sighed. Sometimes the punishment for doing the right thing could be daunting. But some things were too important to be left to amateurs, regardless of the consequences. She had indulged herself enough.

  Part 4

  Pentimenti

  ‘You will find the spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman.’

  Artemisia Gentileschi, 1593–c.1654

  Chapter 39

  H

  elen Fisher sat at the kitchen window of her basement Chelsea flat, reading and rereading the letter with the red royal crest. She still couldn’t quite believe that it started with the phrase, ‘The Queen has asked me to write to you . . .’ and that the ‘you’ in that sentence was she, Helen, now linked to Queen Elizabeth II by a string of six short words.

  Not many people had written to express their condolences when Cynthia died. In fact, Helen could count them on the fingers of one hand. Two by email, two by text (one with a thumbs-up emoji, which she assumed had been an unfortunate mistake) and this one, on good old-fashioned thick cream paper, typed up and signed in neat blue ink, above the words ‘Lady-in-Waiting’. Helen had always assumed, when she thought about them at all, that such ladies held long trains and ran the monarch’s bath and – actually, she had no idea what they did, but apparently one of the things was to write letters for the Queen, elegantly expressing her sympathy for Helen’s loss of a long-standing friend, and remembering what a stalwart and dedicated member of the Household Cynthia had been.

  Long-standing friend . . . How did the Queen even know? She couldn’t have been getting all the police reports, surely? Helen had only talked to that one detective sergeant who’d come round. The ‘copper-headed copper’, as she liked to think of him. Nice man. Gentle. Not above sitting down for a cup of tea and letting Helen rabbit on about Cynthia’s unhappy childhood and their days as uni students in the late seventies.

  He was investigating those awful letters Cynthia had got – although why he was still bothering after she was dead, Helen wasn’t sure. She’d asked, but he’d just said it was private Household business and he was sure she’d understand. Which Helen did, better than most, because Cynthia had always been a stickler for the royal family’s privacy. She never let out a peep about what went on in those grand rooms behind the gates of Buckingham Palace. Only that the Queen was a ‘darling’ and Prince Philip ‘not as bad as you’d think’, and Prince Charles likewise, and Camilla was ‘hysterical’ – in a good way.

  As for the rest, well, she rarely talked about her work, and nor did Helen, who’d been a translator for most of her life after her art career fell through, as most of them do, unless you’re lucky enough or savvy enough to marry someone who’ll bankroll you. They met once every couple of months on one of Cynthia’s days off and went to galleries or concert halls together and talked about art and music, mostly. London was marvellous for culture. Worth, absolutely worth, living in a dingy one-bed basement flat, always lightly dusted in diesel particles from the passing buses on Battersea Bridge Road, instead of somewhere light and airy with a garden. Who needed a garden when you could have Tate Britain practically on your doorstep? And the V & A, and the Royal Opera House?

  They had talked about that hideous campaign against Cynthia at the Palace, and Helen had spent many a Sunday afternoon in cafés at different cultural attractions offering tea and sympathy. She’d told the policeman all about this, and about Cynthia’s strange, unsettled career, from art curator for the Royal Collection at St James’s, to the Works Department that dealt with all the London palaces, to her eventual role at Buckingham Palace, where she seemed so settled, and Helen had tried to be happy for her. Though it was hard.

  It was something Helen had never told anyone, because, frankly, nobody had ever asked, but she’d always felt the light had gone out of Cynthia that summer when she lost her job at the Royal Collection and set herself up with that hideous, awful man who belittled her in public (Helen had seen it with her own eyes) and ignored her at work (Cynthia said so), and quite possibly hit her. Cynthia had never admitted to it, but Helen had seen the way she shrank into herself near any man of roughly his size and weight for years. Why do it? She’d been such a confident, free-spirited girl at art school: like Helen herself. But it was the year her very good friend Daniel had died in that horrific bike smash, and she was grieving and unbalanced. That must have been part of it. Helen had tried to make her apply for other jobs in the art world. She was so good at it, and the Baroque was her passion. But Cynthia just said she was ‘done for’. Her ‘name was mud’. ‘Nobody would look at her.’ It was never clear exactly what she’d done, but overnight she’d gone from being the department’s darling to persona non grata. It was almost as if they’d caught her stealing a work of art.

  Cynthia was crushed after that. She’d already lost her friend Daniel, and she spent the rest of that year, and the next, pushing most of her other friends away. Of course, Helen hadn’t told the copper-coloured copper all of this, because he just wanted to know about the poison pen campaign, but Helen always felt that summer was the start of it: the grief and loss and the inevitable shift in Cynthia’s identity. Even as her best friend, Helen couldn’t help but notice how sharp and judgemental Cynthia had become. She knew it came from a place of pain and so she’d found it easy to forgive, but others probably weren’t as generous. Helen had no idea who might have sent the letters and cut up her beautiful clothes, but she found the copper’s suggestion that Cynthia might have done it to herself offensive and bizarre. Nice though he was, this very idea had left a bitter taste in her mouth. But the lovely letter from the Queen was so wonderfully soothing.

  She must write back, she decided. It would be impolite not to reply, and Her Majesty had been incredibly kind. Helen got up and went over to a wide pine dresser against the far kitchen wall, and pulled open its centre drawer. Here she kept many of the mementos of her trips with Cynthia: cards, mostly, from the gallery shops. They had beautiful pictures and she was sure she could find something appropriate.

  Ah! This one. Perfect.

  She sat back at the table, hovered her pen over the card’s pristine white interior for a few moments, and began to write.

  Chapter 40

  ‘S

  hall we hit the road?’

  It was Friday, November 18. Sir James Ellington took his coat, elegantly draped over one arm, and started to put it on. Mike Green, standing next to him in Sir Simon’s office, did likewise. Sir Simon glanced at his computer screen and was about to shut it down when an alert popped up.

  ‘In a moment. You two go on. I’ll meet you at the door. I’ll see if I can track down
Rozie, too. She was just finishing up herself. You don’t mind if she joins us, do you?’

  Sir James hesitated fractionally.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘No, no,’ Sir James replied. ‘The more the merrier. It’s just, if we’re with a woman we can’t use the bar at the Rag. But we’ve still got the Ladies Drawing Room and the dining room.’

  ‘I am not,’ Mike said, quite loudly (he’d been celebrating already), ‘drinking to a bloody fantastic result in a Ladies Drawing Room. For God’s sake!’

  ‘The dining room will be fine,’ Sir Simon assured him, clicking on the message on his computer screen. ‘I’ve often been there. They do a reasonable house champagne, don’t they, James?’

  ‘They do indeed. I’ve got them to put a couple of bottles on ice. Tell Rozie to get her skates on. See you at the door.’

  Sir Simon raised a hand in acknowledgement. ‘Two minutes.’

  A new email had come in. Someone in the Hong Kong legislature wanted to know the Queen’s thoughts on right of public protest. At nine thirty on a Friday night, when anyone who’d studied the Queen for thirty seconds would know she didn’t make her thoughts public, whatever they were, if they might result in a war with China. But the Boss had enormous affection for Hong Kong. He’d write something conciliatory on Monday morning and, meanwhile, a holding reply would have to do. He was just finishing typing it up when there was a light tap on his office door.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The door opened enough to admit a portly gentleman with rumpled hair, definitely two sheets to the wind, if not all three. He was wearing dinner dress, but his bow tie was askew and his extravagant, jazzy cummerbund was hanging low. ‘Dunno,’ he said, then smiled a soft-lipped, charming smile. ‘I hope so. Have you seen Rozie Oshodi?’

  ‘I was about to look for her myself, actually,’ Sir Simon said. ‘Can I give her a message?’

  ‘No. It’s . . . No. I’ll wait.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t,’ Sir Simon pointed out. ‘Not here. It’s the Private Office, and we’re extremely keen on security. I’m surprised you got in.’

  ‘I have an invitation,’ the man said, digging around unsuccessfully in his dinner jacket pockets. ‘To the party.’

  He must be one of the pensioners, Sir Simon realised. They were having their reunion tonight. A big, pre-Christmas do for ex-staff, organised by the dining club they had. Sir Simon himself would be entitled to join it one day, but he probably wouldn’t. Top brass tended to put a dampener on raucous celebrations. They had their own, more exclusive, club anyway, which no one talked about. It didn’t do to make the others feel left out.

  ‘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 special: 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

  O

  n 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.