A Three Dog Problem

by SJ Bennett

  He called for an assistant, who dutifully led Rozie down several drab corridors, up half-sets of stairs and down others, past a couple of well-lit studios, through whose open doors she saw various conservators quietly at work. Eventually they arrived at a stuffy back room a couple of buildings away, with a window that wouldn’t open and a ceiling light that constantly flickered. Three walls were lined with glass-fronted cabinets housing a motley collection of boxed paper records going back to 1952. A computer on a desk under the grimy window gave access to a database of everything that had been digitised.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ the assistant said, after she’d explained what was where. ‘You don’t need gloves or anything. We’re not that precious about the twentieth century. Just put everything back where you found it and turn out the light. Good luck.’

  Rozie thanked her, but luck was elusive. After an hour of painstaking searching among the boxes of files, all she found was a line in a yellowing ledger acknowledging receipt of ‘Oil painting: HMY at the 125th anniversary of the Hobart Regatta, 1963, gilt frame, 15” by 21”, by Vernon Hooker, received 1964’. There was no mention of it ever leaving the Palace, though she trawled through every available box and digital database up to the year 2000.

  Before leaving, she decided to pull the original box file down again and take one last look at the ledger from 1964. Had she missed something? She lined up the page to take a picture of it on her phone. At this point, she noticed the positioning of a word scrawled in pencil in the margin. She had assumed it applied to the sculpture listed below, but it might just as well have been meant for the painting. It was scribbled at an angle, and hard to make out. She peered at it.

  RUBBISH.

  Did it say ‘Rubbish’? Really? It couldn’t, surely? Although, thinking back to the photos of it that she’d seen, perhaps it did. Did record keepers write their true thoughts about acquisitions in the margins? Had they meant to rub it out?

  Rozie peered again. There was a slight gap between the first few letters and the last two. Wait – they weren’t letters, those last two, they were numbers. Eight something. Could it be ‘82’? Or ‘86’? And there was an ‘f’ or ‘g’ in the first word, so it couldn’t be ‘Rubbish’. ‘Ref’-something, perhaps? She couldn’t make it out.

  She made sure the picture she took of it was as well-lit as possible, so she could examine it properly back at her desk.

  *

  At lunch, however, she was distracted by an earlier remark Sir Simon had made in passing.

  Rozie had just loaded up her tray in the staff canteen. ‘Canteen’ was typical Royal Household understatement. Here, it consisted of a servery and two panelled dining rooms adorned with Old Masters from the Royal Collection and guarded by a statue of Burmese, one of the Queen’s favourite horses, a gift from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

  According to Sir Simon, until quite recently the staff here had eaten in different rooms according to hierarchy, but now they all mucked in together and that was the way Rozie liked it. You never knew who you were going to bump into. The atmosphere was generally relaxed and the food as good as you would expect from kitchens that catered for heads of state on a regular basis.

  Today, it was different. At tables in the outer dining room, set as always with pristine white linen cloths and silver cutlery, people sat in twos and threes, holding desultory conversations. The restaurant-quality meal on Rozie’s tray looked as appetising as ever, but the mood was tense. Was it the recent Brexit referendum that had done it? She had heard senior courtiers speculating that the vote had swirled the waters of private opinion and brought previously unspoken rivalries to the surface. Were you nationalist or European? Did you support the Commonwealth, or Germany and France? You could support all of them, Rozie thought. Until a few months ago, everybody had. Now there were sides to be taken. Whatever it was, Rozie felt the mood had shifted during her few months working in the Private Office.

  Her eye was drawn to a couple in the far corner: a younger woman and an older one, heads together. She recognised the younger woman, whose flame-red hair hung, Pre-Raphaelite style, halfway down her back. This was Mary van Renen, one of the assistants to Sir James Ellington. Rozie gave her a nod of hello and went over to join her. Only when she was nearly at the table did she notice that Mary’s eyes were red-rimmed, her expression bleak.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. D’you want me to go elsewhere?’ Rozie offered.

  ‘No, do join us.’ Mary gestured to the seat opposite. ‘Please.’

  The smile appeared again, but it was watery and forced. She had hardly touched the roast chicken on her plate, while her companion, prim and sharp-faced, had nearly finished hers.

  ‘You can help me,’ the older woman said, as Rozie sat down. She seemed quite unruffled by Mary’s distress. ‘I was just trying to tell this young lady what a silly girl she’s being.’

  Rozie threw her friend a questioning look. ‘This is Cynthia Harris,’ Mary said, dully. ‘Cynthia, this is Captain Oshodi, the Queen’s APS.’

  ‘It’s Rozie,’ Rozie said, holding out her hand.

  ‘I thought that’s who you were,’ Cynthia Harris said, flashing a set of dull, uneven teeth, busily loading her fork with carrot and potato. Rozie withdrew her hand. ‘I’ve seen you around,’ Cynthia went on. ‘How exciting, Mary, having one of the bigwigs sitting with us.’

  ‘Not that much of a bigwig,’ Rozie insisted.

  ‘Oh, but you are. You’re Private Office. Top of the tree. We’re honoured by your presence, aren’t we, Mary?’

  Rozie couldn’t tell if she was being serious or not. Mary, whom she knew fairly well because she was always popping over on various errands for Sir James, was staring miserably at her plate. Then Rozie remembered what Sir Simon had said about one of the secretaries.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re leaving? Is it you who handed in your notice?’

  Mary nodded without looking up. A pair of tears fell on the untouched mashed potato.

  ‘She says she will,’ Cynthia Harris said from the seat beside her. ‘Thoughtless child. Overreacting.’

  Rozie, whose instinct was to like people unless proved otherwise, gave the older woman a penetrating look. Cynthia Harris was whip-thin, with straight, almost-white hair cut in a sharp bob and dark, beady eyes that reminded Rozie of an inquisitive bird. Her uniform was that of a housekeeper: a spotless white cleaning dress worn with a dark blue cardigan. She looked fit and wiry, but older than average for such a job. She couldn’t be under sixty-five, Rozie thought, though she wondered if her face made her seem older than she was. Her cheeks were gaunt. Deep lines were etched around thin lips and between the eyes. Her beaky nose had a small pink bloom of broken veins. Rozie tried to interpret her expression as the housekeeper calmly forked the remaining carrots into her mouth. Was she calm? Triumphant? Disapproving? Suddenly those beady eyes were looking straight into hers. Rozie realised she was staring and shifted her gaze to Mary.

  ‘Are you really leaving?’ she asked.

  The younger woman nodded. ‘I have to. I can’t go on.’

  ‘Such theatrics!’ Cynthia Harris said with a little laugh.

  ‘I don’t feel safe.’

  ‘You should feel flattered, if anything.’

  ‘Not safe? Why?’ Rozie asked.

  Mary looked up at last. ‘I’ve had . . . Someone’s watching me. A man. Sending things to me.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ the other woman scoffed.

  ‘I’ve seen him outside my flat.’

  ‘Do you know who he is?’ Rozie asked.

  ‘I’ve had messages, from a name I don’t recognise. He says we met via Tinder and I brushed him off.’

  ‘And did you? Meet, I mean.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve gone over and over the guys I’ve met and there have been some weirdos, sure, but I don’t think any of them would’ve . . .’ Mary trailed off.

  Rozie silently absorbed the fact that her friend was on Tinder. Mary v
an Renen – shy, methodical, old-fashioned – had always struck her as the sort of girl who would be happily single, or loved-up with a gentle boyfriend she’d known for years. At least she was looking for love – Rozie rarely had time even for that.

  ‘What did he write?’ she asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Mary said, looking so upset Rozie didn’t want to pursue it.

  ‘And you don’t know it was him outside your flat, do you?’ the housekeeper added. ‘It could have been someone just pausing to have a conversation on his mobile phone.’

  ‘He wasn’t holding a phone.’

  ‘People have earphones these days, you know,’ Cynthia Harris countered. ‘Or buds, or whatever they call them. Or he could have been waiting for someone.’

  ‘He was there three times, at least.’ Mary closed her eyes.

  ‘So you say.’ The housekeeper rolled her eyes and shrugged at Rozie. ‘And even if he was, the police said it doesn’t prove anything.’

  ‘You went to the police?’

  Mary nodded. ‘But they said I need more evidence before they can do anything. They seemed to think I was imagining it. But – but afterwards there was my bicycle.’

  Rozie saw how her arms trembled as she twisted her hands in her lap. Mary was deeply upset – traumatised, even – and Rozie simply couldn’t understand why Cynthia Harris kept belittling her feelings, without a shred of sympathy.

  ‘What about your bicycle?’ Rozie asked.

  Mary had to take a deep breath before she could get the words out. Her eyes were closed, her words spoken in a low rush.

  ‘He left a note taped to the seat. Said he liked this was where my . . .’ She looked as if she was going to be sick, and carried on. ‘I can’t say it. Where a part of me rested against the saddle. Where I sat. Said he liked to watch me.’ She opened her eyes. ‘I cycle here every day to work. I can’t do it any more. Mummy says to come home and that’s where I’m going, as soon as I can.’

  ‘Oh, Mary, I’m sorry. Did you tell the police about that too?’

  Mary shook her head. ‘I couldn’t.’ More tears raced down her cheeks. ‘Each time you say it you live it again. I just . . .’

  Rozie reached out across the table and Mary tentatively placed a hand in hers. Rozie squeezed it in sympathy.

  Cynthia Harris gave a hiss of disapproval. She was looking indignantly at Mary.

  ‘It’s you who’ll be sorry. For a note on a bicycle! Go on, then! You just head home to mummy and leave Sir James in the lurch. You girls are all the same. One date gone wrong and look at you, you’re a snivelling wreck. When you think what the Queen’s been through in her life. Call yourself loyal?’

  ‘I just . . . I can’t . . . Excuse me.’

  Mary scrabbled for her handbag, which hung on the back of her chair, and got up to make her way unsteadily for the door.

  ‘Well.’

  Rozie looked at the older woman, who had an odd smile on her face. The housekeeper gave Rozie an apologetic shrug. ‘Like I say – no backbone. These look nice.’

  She took a grape from a bowl beside her plate and popped it into her mouth.

  Chapter 5

  I

  t was mid-July, the height of summer. Parliament was about to rise and the usual business of state was winding down. This gave the Queen the odd precious hour of unstructured time. After lunch, her next appointment was a dress fitting for a couple of evening gowns, but that wasn’t for a while. And the racing wasn’t on yet. What to do with this gift of freedom?

  In the East Wing at the front of the Palace, overlooking the Birthday Cake and the Mall, there had recently been a leak in one of the attics. A half-century-old water tank had developed hidden cracks and deluged a couple of bedrooms in the corridor below. She had seen the damage the day it was discovered: drenched carpets and sodden furniture. The tank had since been taken away, to be replaced with something more suitable. According to the Master of the Household the bedrooms would be all right after an airing and a new coat of plaster.

  Still, one liked to be certain. She thought about taking one or two of the dogs with her, but they’d had a long walk at lunchtime and seemed content to keep snoozing. She told her page where she was going and headed up on her own, happy to be alone with her thoughts for a while.

  She was picturing the Highlands. The next two weeks would be dominated by the upcoming move to Balmoral for the rest of the summer, and the Palace already felt as if it was in a state of flux. Philip, who loathed all the fuss, was taking himself off to Cowes to watch the racing for a few days. For herself, she simply couldn’t wait to go north. There, one could breathe good, clean, Scottish air, and be ‘Lilibet’ a bit more, and ‘ma’am’ a bit less. The great-grandchildren and the dogs could romp about without fear of breaking much. She was looking forward to watching George tear around, and getting to know baby Charlotte better.

  Reaching the second floor, in the corridor leading to the damaged rooms, she felt a tingle up her spine and could have sworn she got a sudden ghostly whiff of cedar. How very odd; she had been expecting damp. Instead, she was instantly transported eighty years into the past. Was it thinking about George and Charlotte that had done it? Why this sudden, powerful feeling of being a little girl herself, and slightly naughty, and the sense that Margaret should be beside her, urging her on to be naughtier still?

  She walked along further, peering into rooms either side of her and sniffing for that elusive scent. Gradually, her attention fixed on a large mahogany wardrobe half hidden in the corridor behind a pillar. One of its doors was slightly open and as she approached, she noticed the dull gold tassel hanging from its key. Ah, yes!

  Memories floated through the fog of time, sharpening with each step. This was the piece of furniture that had sat outside the nursery, adopted by Mummy’s chief dresser as an overflow for grown-up clothes. It was wide and solid, polished to a rich, red patina over time. She laid her hand flat against the nearest door, like greeting an old friend.

  The half-open door revealed a barren space, marked with battens along each side that must have been used to hold wide shelves – to store linen, she assumed, in more recent times. But the wardrobe had been stripped of everything, shelves and all, ready to be moved, and now it was almost back to the way she remembered it.

  When Uncle David abdicated as Edward VIII in the dying days of 1936, the family hadn’t wanted to locate to the large, cold, shabby Palace from their comfortable home in Piccadilly, but this was where Papa worked now and Mummy said they needed to ‘live above the shop’. Mostly, it was a series of endless corridors lined with tall footmen in red coats, and the feeling of being watched and needing to be a proper princess, and not being sure quite how. But it had its compensations. It was simply marvellous for hide-and-seek.

  Mummy’s long furs had hung on the right-hand side of the wardrobe, covered in cloth bags, and her cashmere shawls had been carefully rolled and stored in a hanging rack on the left. In the middle had been mink jackets and opera coats, and if you stepped up onto the solid floor, you could disappear among them. She remembered Margaret Rose hissing, ‘Lilibet! Quick!’ as she secreted herself among the protective cotton bags. And not being able to resist joining her. Her sandals were clean (she checked), their small, slim bodies both fitting neatly inside without ruining the clothes. It was lovely to be surrounded by Mummy’s evening things and to catch a faint wisp of her scent mixed up with the powerful smell of the cedar lining, to keep the moths away.

  She must have been about eleven and Margaret six or seven. They were hiding from Crawfie, their governess, who didn’t know she was playing a game. It was terribly, terribly wrong, and that’s what made their hearts pound faster. Poor Crawfie. She called and called, and Margaret’s body shook with laughter.

  They hid there several times and only got caught and punished once. She couldn’t remember what the punishment had been – probably something to do with missed treats at teatime – but Margaret had declared it
was worth it and she was right. Now that the wardrobe was empty of clothes one could probably still fit inside, even at this great age. Even with a dodgy knee.

  The Queen grinned at the thought and then, to her own astonishment, found herself stepping up, just to see. She braced a hand against the closed door on the right. The wardrobe floor was only six inches above the ground. Her right knee complained, but as she brought the left one up to join it, she could feel Margaret’s presence, and Mummy’s too, though the velvety scent of L’Heure Bleue was gone, along with the cedar smell. She must have imagined it.

  It was warm and dark inside, and peaceful. In the fifties, Anne used to hide here in her turn – just as scornful of the punishment – and she said it reminded her of Narnia. Yes, you could imagine Narnia behind the wall, a hidden world of magic, accessible only to children. The Queen half closed the door behind her and paused to breathe in that air again. She only had to stoop very slightly. The wardrobe was capacious and there were occasional – very occasional – advantages to being a shrinking five-foot-three. She said a silent hello to her sister, who would have laughed like a drain to see her here.

  Then, without warning, the image came back to her of the poor young Russian who had been found dead in a wardrobe not long ago. She suddenly needed to get out fast, but just as she was turning round to step out backwards, safely, she heard voices at the top of the distant stairs, and the footsteps of two people rapidly approaching.

  What to do?

  Of course, the obvious thing was to keep calm, carry on with her exit and pretend nothing out of the ordinary was happening. It wouldn’t be that easy, though. Climbing down would be harder than climbing up. Could one bear the staff to have the sight of their monarch appearing clumsily from inside a piece of furniture, bottom first? No, of course not.