The Cut-Out

by Jon King

  I ran the sequence again, showing how, following the moment of downpoint, the Mercedes swerved left, then right, then left again and into the thirteenth concrete pillar of the tunnel’s central reservation. “First one way, then the other way, then back again into the concrete pillar, entirely consistent with every other instance where the Boston Brakes has been deployed. And our research shows there have been many such instances.” I highlighted the Fiat Uno with my laser pen. “Whoever it is in that vehicle, ladies and gentlemen, they’re holding a remote control in their hand and they have just used it to drive the Mercedes into the concrete pillar. They are not innocent French citizens on their way home from a night out. They are not tourists caught up in a tragic set of events. They are private security operatives hired by MI6, and that’s why neither they nor their vehicle have ever been found.”

  Alma Tunnel, Paris – 12.26 AM

  The strained, ghostly sound of a continuous car horn. The hiss of gushing steam. The disconcerting groan of metal on metal, grinding and creaking as it struggled to reshape itself following head-on impact with reinforced concrete. The smell of scorched rubber.

  This was the scene inside the Alma Tunnel just seconds after Diana’s Mercedes had slammed into the thirteenth concrete pillar lining the tunnel’s central reservation. The impact had spun the vehicle a full 180 degrees, plus a little more, so that its mangled frame now faced back towards Place de la Concorde and the Ritz Hotel, where it had begun its fated journey barely five minutes earlier. Shattered glass littered the dual-lane underpass. Rivulets of oil mixed with blood spilled from somewhere beneath the wreckage and drained grimly into the nearside gulley, while bits of destroyed chassis and exhaust box lay uselessly in the road, scattered among the glass shards.

  Just a few yards back towards the tunnel entrance the white Fiat Uno sat motionless, engine running, doors flung wide, its two male occupants standing one at each of the open doors, gaping morbidly at the still-steaming wreckage of the Mercedes, barely ten yards ahead of them. Neither seemed sure whether to celebrate their success or mourn it. As though for approval they glanced over at the man who had just emerged from another Mercedes, the one that had entered the tunnel tight on Henri Paul’s tail. The man gave a curt nod of his head, then turned his attention back to the crashed Mercedes and the two leather-clad operatives checking it over, sizing up the damage, their motorbike parked up just a few yards ahead of the wreckage. One of the men reached into the driver’s seat and heaved the lifeless body of Henri Paul off the steering wheel, and the incessant tone of the car horn immediately ceased. The second operative checked the back seat, then glanced over at Mason and shook his head.

  She’s still alive.

  Mason understood, but the look in his eye told its own story: she won’t remain alive for very much longer.

  “We’ll leave her to the French emergency services,” he said with a hint of cold cynicism. “She’ll be in good hands.”

  The two operatives jumped back on their motorbike and roared off.

  Just then, as Mason was himself about to turn and climb back in his vehicle, a sudden flash of light startled him. He spun, and immediately caught sight of someone he knew only too well. On the other side of the central reservation, parked up in the contra-flow lane, James Andanson was sat audaciously astride his BMW motorbike, camera in hand and aimed in the direction of Mason: flash! The escaping motorbike: flash! Then the Uno: flash! The wrecked Mercedes: flash! flash! flash!

  Then back at Mason: flash!

  Little did Andanson know it there and then, but the set of photographs he’d just taken would cost him his life.

  Having mentally signed Andanson’s death warrant, Mason finally gave the signal to the two Fiat Uno operatives that it was time to leave.

  Two beats later the Uno and Mason’s Mercedes screamed off, nose-to-bumper, the Uno taking the lead.

  In the auditorium I was drawing the evening to a close.

  “It took the emergency services almost two hours to get Diana to a hospital less than four miles away,” I was explaining to the now subdued audience. “By which time it was too late. She was pronounced dead at four am.”

  I left a respectful pause at this point, during which JB joined me on stage. I swallowed and cleared my throat.

  “On the morning of Diana’s death,” I concluded, “Britain’s new Prime Minster, Tony Blair, made a statement in which he famously referred to Diana as the People’s Princess. As contrived and insincere as that statement undoubtedly was, it nonetheless turned out that Tony Blair was right. Diana was indeed the People’s Princess—without question the most popular British royal in modern history. True, she upset the Royal Family by her lifestyle and her public attacks on the Queen and Prince Charles. She upset the world’s arms dealers with her enormously successful campaigns against landmines and other anti-personnel weapons. She certainly upset the British establishment by her relationship with and proposed marriage to Dodi Fayed, who was of course the wrong colour, culture and creed to father half-siblings to the future King of Britain. In short, ladies and gentlemen, there were multiple reasons why the powers-that-be would have wanted her out of the way.” I paused. “But to identify the one reason above all others, I come back to her unparalleled popularity. The fact is, Diana was so dangerously popular she was able to sway public opinion against the status quo, and in favour of her own causes, something she had spent the last few years of her life doing to unprecedented effect. This, we believe, is the primary reason she was killed.”

  Beside me, JB held up the A4 folder containing the list of names who’d already subscribed to our petition for a public inquiry. “Before you go home tonight, can I please ask you to sign our petition and help establish the people’s verdict—the People’s Verdict for the People’s Princess. We must force the government to order an investigation. We have a right to know what really happened, ladies and gentlemen. And so does Diana. Thank you.”

  For what seemed a very long moment a deathly silence gripped the hall as I concluded my talk and prepared to leave the stage. But then, slowly at first, a ripple of applause started to make its way from the back of the auditorium, steadily growing and billowing into a wave of thunderous noise as row by row the audience stood up from their seats and showed their appreciation. Within a few short seconds the wave had engulfed the entire audience, everyone in the hall on their feet now, clapping, whistling, some even cheering. I tipped my head to them in thanks, but knew their sentiment was in truth more for the memory of Princess Diana than the content of my talk. Even so, their response was heartening.

  I cast my eyes to the front row.

  And saw that Katie, too, was on her feet, the only princess that truly mattered to me beaming back up at me from the front row, her cheeks damp with tears. Without Katie – her tolerance of my obsession these past four-plus years, her unwavering support, not to mention her pep talk in the dressing room earlier – I would never even have been here. If we were to be successful in our efforts to force an inquiry, or even an investigation, it would be as much down to Katie as JB and me. No doubt about that.

  Tipping my head one more time in grateful acknowledgement of our standing ovation, I gathered up my unused folder from the rostrum in front of me and accompanied JB off stage. We’d done everything we could. It was now up to everyone else.

  Epilogue

  18 Months Later…

  To say life had got back to any real semblance of normality over the eighteen months or so since the book’s arrival in the UK – indeed, since the American had warned me to drop my campaign for a public inquiry – would be to inflate the truth, it has to be said. But things had calmed down to some favourable degree. Although still regularly called on to do interviews for TV and radio, as well as for a number of ‘Diana documentaries’, both in the UK and elsewhere, I had nonetheless been able to spend more time with Katie and the kids during this time, and I’d been truly grateful for that. Of course, for as long as I continued to petition for a
public inquiry I had to assume the threat of character assassination still loomed—that one day, as the American had threatened, I might wake up and find my name plastered over the front pages with an accompanying article demolishing my name and reputation. Or worse. But so far it hadn’t happened. I hadn’t heard from the American since his unexpected appearance at the conference hall eighteen months ago, in fact, and it seemed whatever surveillance Katie and I had been under for the several years leading up to the book’s release had now been relaxed. So far as I could tell, we were wiretap-free. What might happen in the future, of course, I couldn’t say. But for now it seemed the threat I once posed to MI6 and its clandestine operations had diminished sufficiently that I was no longer on their list of ‘wanted conspiracy theorists’. Either that, or they’d finally realized my influence on public opinion was negligible anyway—that no matter how long and how hard I banged on about the need for a public inquiry, no one was actually listening. I was simply not worth the effort.

  This, at least, was the way things had been until now. Or more precisely, the day before yesterday, when quite unexpectedly Lacey had called me up and asked to meet. It was the first time I’d heard from him in months.

  “Usual place, protocols apply,” he’d said, as he always said. But this time he’d added: “I have something I think you might want to hear. I also want to put the record straight.”

  Curious to know what he’d meant I’d agreed to meet him in the ‘usual place’—the Pump House in London’s Hyde Park, where we’d met all those years earlier, shortly after the death of Diana.

  Where we always met.

  This time, however, he was to tell me something I would never have imagined possible.

  “A dollar for your thoughts,” Lacey said, standing suddenly beside me. To appear without warning had been a habit of his for as long as I could recall. He seemed almost to revel in it. “It’s my final offer.”

  I didn’t reply, not straight away. I was gazing out from the Pump House over Hyde Park’s famed Italian Gardens, the ornamental water feature said to have been commissioned by the love-struck Prince Albert as a gift for Queen Victoria. There was a certain irony, I’d been thinking to myself as I’d waited for Lacey to show—a certain irony in that an elaborate water feature had been built here in honour of perhaps Britain’s most unpopular monarch, and that a similar water feature was being planned in memory of Britain’s best-ever-loved princess: Princess Diana. I wasn’t sure where exactly in Hyde Park the Diana memorial was to be built, I’d mused, but I was quite sure it would be as far removed from Queen Victoria’s Italian Gardens as was geographically possible. The thought had caused me to smile.

  “They’re worth far more than a dollar,” I turned and said to Lacey after a long moment. “You’ll have to do better.”

  Lacey noted my smile. “Well I can see they’re high in amusement value. I’ll double my offer, but not a cent more.”

  “Two dollars it is, then,” I agreed. “And you buy the coffee.”

  A few minutes later we were following a familiar path through the park towards Serpentine Lake and Dell Café, the Pump House and its famous water garden disappearing some way behind us. It was chilly. Overhead grouchy clouds gathered behind a freshening wind, prompting me to pull my collar up under my chin.

  “It’s been a hell of a ride,” I was saying, as a green 4x4 cruised slowly past us with horse box in tow. Momentarily my mind was transported back to the first time I’d spoken to Lacey about Diana’s death here in Hyde Park, how I’d felt certain we’d been watched and listened to by government agents, some concealed in green 4x4s like the one that had just cruised past us and headed off across the park in the direction of the Old Police House. No such fear now, though. I could honestly say that I no longer cared who was behind the wheel or even if they might be listening to our conversation. My book was out there, along with any secrets I might once have held. I had no reason to fret, and it felt good. “I’ve done what I’ve done and I’ll stand by it,” I said. “I’m in a good place now. But that’s not to say it hasn’t been difficult at times. I still carry the bruises.”

  “I don’t doubt it. And what about Katie? It can’t have been easy for her, either.”

  “No, poor Katie. She bore the brunt of so much. But she’s good now, as is our marriage. It’s good to have at least some measure of stability back in our lives. The investigation demanded so much of us—both of us. But I’d say we’ve come out of it stronger.”

  “I’m pleased to hear that, Jon. You both deserve at least that much—”

  We started to stroll beside the Serpentine.

  “—There aren’t many people I can think of who would have done what you’ve done and come out the other end with their sanity intact.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t feel I had any real choice in the matter. With what the American told me, and then you … I just felt I had to do something. That’s why I decided to go ahead with the investigation, and ultimately, to write the book.”

  “Ah yes, the book,” Lacey said. “How is it doing?”

  I shot him a disapproving look. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

  “Well…”

  “It’s doing as well as can be expected, is the best I can say. No thanks to MI5.”

  “You did manage to get several shipments into the country though…?”

  “Yes, but on a distribution-only basis. All licence deals were blocked, as you well know. It was your people who D-Noticed it.”

  Lacey looked a little embarrassed. “Yes, well,” he said. “National interests. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Well no, actually, I don’t understand.” I stopped and faced him up. “I’d have thought national interests would have included wanting to know who murdered the nation’s princess.”

  “Not when the nation’s government was complicit in her murder.” His gaze locked on mine. “If they had allowed your book to be published by a reputable UK publisher, even on licence, it would have been tantamount to the establishment endorsing its content. That was never going to happen, you should know that. Of course, they never believed for one minute that you would achieve as much as you have. But in any event they certainly weren’t about to give you a helping hand.”

  “So why didn’t they block distribution as well?”

  “Because it would have caused too much of a noise. They’ve long since learnt that banning a book outright is the least effective way of stopping people reading it. Allowing the book to be distributed independently, on the other hand, casts it in a different light. It makes it look like another fringe conspiracy tome available only from specialist outlets. It makes it less credible.”

  “But it’s in Waterstones,” I protested. “That’s hardly a specialist outlet.”

  “True.”

  “So?”

  “As I said, you’ve done better than they imagined you would. One reason you received so much attention from them.” He started off along the road again.

  I followed after him. “You know you can be annoyingly patronizing at times, Lacey. I’ve been meaning to tell you that for years.”

  “And you, Jon, can be frustratingly naïve. But let’s not get into personals.” He motioned to Dell Café, just along the way. “Come on, I’ll buy you that coffee.”

  A few minutes later we were inside the café, seated at a window table overlooking the Serpentine. Despite the chill weather several brave souls were out on the lake in pedal boats, doing their best to dodge the geese and the ducks. Considerably more were inside the café, though, doing their best to stay warm.

  “So why did you call?” I put to Lacey, knitting my hands around my coffee cup and sipping its warm contents. “What made you want to meet up? I can’t imagine it was to ask me about my book sales.”

  “No, quite.” A wry smile suddenly shaped his lips. “Actually I thought you might be interested to know that a decision has been made.”

  “Oh…?”

  “Abo
ut the inquest. They’ve decided to go ahead with it after all.”

  “No way.” The news took me totally by surprise, and I almost dropped my coffee cup. As it was it clunked as I set it back down a tad clumsily in its saucer. “So what changed their minds?”

  He shrugged. “You did, as much as anybody. Your book, your petition, your influence on public opinion. Although they of course will cite some or other legal obligation, in the end it was public pressure that forced their arm. It’s surprising the effect a grass-roots campaign can have. With public opinion so strongly in favour of a British investigation the media had little choice but to take up the cause, so to speak, and eventually that’s what tipped the balance.” He shrugged his eyebrows. “The Royal Coroner himself was forced to step in and ask Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens to conduct an investigation. It really is quite unprecedented.”

  “My God…” I was still taking it all in, or trying to. “That’s good news, Lacey. That really is good news.” And then this other thought struck me that immediately discoloured my mood. “I can’t help thinking it’ll be a waste of time, though, a whitewash, like so many other inquiries.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure. An inquest into Princess Diana’s death will attract intense public scrutiny. They’ll have to take that into account. They’ll need to be very careful how they play it.” He paused. “Of course, you won’t get a verdict of murder,” he ceded. “But it does look like a jury will probably be called and that opens the way to a verdict of unlawful killing. If that happens, well … I’d say that would be as close to an open admission of guilt as you’re ever likely to get.”