by SJ Bennett
The pair were only a few steps away. She pulled the half-open door a little closer, leaving barely a six-inch gap. They would be able to see her if they looked, but surely nobody would ever search for a queen in a cupboard?
She waited anxiously. They stopped. They had opened a door into one of the nearby bedrooms, but lingered on the threshold, talking. Her knee was screaming, but there was nothing to do except wait.
They lowered their voices. Up to now, they had been chatting noisily about preparations for Scotland. There was a rustling. The mood changed, the tone was furtive.
‘There’s three here. You get her to do one in a fortnight and two after that. You know the timing?’
‘Yes. Christ! You said. I’m not stupid.’
‘Same method as before.’
‘She’s doing OK, isn’t she? No complaints so far. She effing hates it, though.’
‘D’you think I give a rat’s arse about her feelings?’
Sulky. ‘No.’
‘Then kindly do as you’re bloody told. If you mention any of this . . .’ The menacing tone was followed by a pause. ‘Come on – this place gives me the creeps.’
They headed back quickly the way they’d come. As soon as the Queen heard the door in the corridor close behind them, she staggered out of her hiding place and bent to rub her knee, which was puffing up in agony. Her eleven-year-old self would have shivered with delight at the adventure, but at ninety, she should have known better. She paused for a long time to let her aching body recover while she mused over what she’d heard.
Had they both been men? Or did one of those voices belong to a gruff older woman? What on earth were they cooking up? She would have to think about this some more.
Meanwhile, she hobbled back downstairs to the dogs with what dignity she could muster, which right now didn’t feel like very much at all.
Chapter 6
T
he Queen was surprised when, at teatime, her page asked her if she would mind having a quick word with her APS. She looked a little longingly at the slice of chocolate biscuit cake, of which she had only eaten a forkful so far. It was very moreish. ‘Do show her in,’ she said – but she hoped she wouldn’t be long.
‘I thought you might want to know, ma’am,’ Rozie said, ‘I think I know how your painting disappeared. Or at least, when.’
This was worth a teatime interruption.
‘How interesting. Tell me.’
Rozie explained about the morning’s visit to Stable Yard and the note in the ledger. ‘Looking closely, I think it says “Refurb ’86”. Does that mean anything to you?’
The Queen thought for a moment. ‘Not exactly. I’ll think about it. Go on.’
‘I spoke to the Operations team and they tell me there was a minor refurbishment of your private apartments at that time. The people I talked to weren’t there then – it was thirty years ago. But I’ll keep on it, ma’am. I’ll let you know as soon as I find something useful.’
‘Thank you, Rozie.’
After Rozie had left, the Queen had another forkful of chocolate biscuit cake and turned her mind to 1986. What had been happening then? Sometimes the years merged into each other, but surely she should remember the refurbishment of her own bedroom? It would have been highly inconvenient – so they must have done it while she was up at Balmoral. It still didn’t ring any bells. Unless . . . ah. Unless she wasn’t there at all, but far away. Back in those days she was as likely to be in Acapulco or Oslo as in Scotland. Where did she go in ’86?
She googled herself on her iPad. It was quicker than ringing anyone to ask.
Oh, of course: China. Such an important tour. It was all about preparing to hand back Hong Kong in ’97. She visited the terracotta warriors and hosted the Chinese government at a banquet on board Britannia. Then she and Philip sailed down the Pearl River from Canton to Hong Kong in the royal yacht. So beautiful and tranquil, watching the locals practise their early-morning tai chi on the riverbanks. There had been some interesting problem-solving moments in Victoria Harbour, too. Mary Pargeter, her APS in those days, had been involved, much as Rozie was now . . .
She had been very busy, not thinking of day-to-day practicalities at home. That must have been when the Works Department refurbished the rooms. They looked more or less the same when she returned: the familiar shade of pale jade, but slightly less shabby about the skirting boards and dado rails.
And one less picture on the wall opposite her bedroom door. Yes, of course, that’s when it had disappeared – half a decade earlier than she had assumed. She had temporarily replaced it with a sketch of the garden by Terence Cuneo, signed with his signature mouse. It was very nice, but not the same.
The sketch was still there. And that was thirty years ago. Time flew. It crawled. Sometimes, you didn’t know how you would endure until teatime. Sometimes, half a decade was gone in the blink of an eye.
*
Rozie, meanwhile, had been very unsettled by her meeting with Mary van Renen and the housekeeper at lunchtime. She needed to find out more and thought she knew a good place to start.
When she had started as APS eight months ago, she’d been given temporary accommodation at the Palace while she looked for a decent flat nearby. The rooms she’d been assigned were in the West Wing, on the top floor, above the dressmaking suite. There were three of them: all very small, hot and stuffy in summer, freezing cold in winter, surrounded by pipes that chuntered and gurgled incessantly through the night. Rozie had enjoyed a bigger bathroom as a cadet at Sandhurst – which was saying something – but here the windows overlooked the gardens, with the lake among the trees, and the view was never less than magical. She had grown up in a busy, full-on household with her mum, dad and sister, and her cousins popping in and out all the time. She liked the constant bustle of this place, and the rent was low. She still hadn’t moved out.
At seven forty-five that evening there was a tentative knock at the door. Rozie had carefully timed the quick visit to her rooms. Housekeeping usually came round at about this time to check who was in and might need fresh towels or bed linen. The regular housemaid for her corridor was a woman called Lulu Arantes, who was far more au fait with the backstairs gossip than poor Sir Simon.
Rozie shouted, ‘Come in!’ and Lulu popped her head round the door.
‘Evening, Captain Oshodi.’
‘How are you, Lulu? How’s the shoulder?’
Lulu rubbed at her right sleeve with her left hand. ‘It aches like you wouldn’t believe. I’m still taking the painkillers. I can’t lift it above here – look.’ She raised her bent right arm until it was level with her collarbone, winced and let it fall. ‘The ankle’s better, though, you’ll be pleased to hear. I just get the odd twinge now.’
For a woman who did such a physical job, it amazed Rozie that Lulu managed to be permanently injured in some way. A human dynamo, she didn’t ever use it as an excuse not to work, but winced and limped gamely from one task to the next.
‘I’m glad about the ankle,’ Rozie said. ‘I was wondering, actually . . . I met one of the housekeepers today and I thought you might know her. I was just a bit curious because she seemed very old to be doing the job and I—’
‘Oh, you mean Cynthia Harris. Poor you.’
Lulu glanced into the corridor behind her and came inside, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against it, nursing her right arm in her left. Rozie had prepared a series of gentle questions to tease out whatever gossip Lulu might know, but they proved unnecessary.
‘I’m surprised you haven’t encountered her before,’ Lulu said. ‘That cow! She’s been here since the year dot. She started off doing the Queen’s bedroom and wormed her way in. Then she got all the plum jobs. She was supposed to retire three years ago, and we all thanked God and chipped in for a present. Except, guess what? The lady who was hired to take over from her, who we all liked, very nice woman, calm and efficient, you know . . .? She had to leave. Apparently she just cou
ldn’t do it right.’
‘Do what right?’
‘Prepare the Belgian Suite for heads of state, mostly. You must know how fussy the Queen is that everything should be just so, which is right and proper, no problem with that . . . Well, apparently only Cynthia Harris could do it to her standards. So anyway, the new woman was sacked and they promoted Solange Simpson. She’s been here for donkey’s years. Very capable, professional woman. D’you know her? So, she was in charge when the President of Mexico came to stay the following year, and still it wasn’t right. She said she’d done everything in the handover notes, and I’m sure she had – but who says the notes were the right ones? That’s what I want to know. Long story short, the poor man in HR who’d been trying to replace her gets given his marching orders and Cynthia comes back. Special request from the Master. Just for an “interim period”, they told us. They knew how much we all hated her.’
‘Ouch.’
‘And guess what? Suddenly it’s all fine again. The President of China comes to stay – big deal, obviously – and the Queen’s happy and Cynthia gets a pat on the back and a year goes by and she’s still here, and who knows how much longer she’ll be around for? She’s a right piece of work, that one.’
‘What is it about her, exactly? What do people hate so much?’
‘Well, you met her. What did you think?’ Lulu folded her arms, winced, unfolded them and put her hands on her hips.
Rozie sighed. ‘She was being unpleasant to someone,’ she admitted.
‘She always is. Was it Mary, from the Keeper’s office?’
‘I couldn’t say.’
‘I bet it was. Cynthia’s always sucking up to the people at the top. The “bigwigs”, she calls them. She made friends with Mary because she thought it would give her some kind of aura, knowing someone who works for Sir James Ellington. She was probably nice at first. She can be. But once she’s got you in her net, she likes to watch you squirm. Poor Mary – and those messages!’
‘What kind of messages?’ Rozie hadn’t wanted to press Mary in the canteen, but she was keen to discover more.
‘Oh, didn’t you know? It’s amazing what the Private Office doesn’t know, if you don’t mind me saying. Where was I? Oh yes. First off, he left her messages on Facebook, so she blocked him, whoever he was. Then she started to find little folded-up letters in her clothes. You know, like her coat pocket. Creepy. She thought he must be putting them on her on the bus, which was how she came in, so she took to riding a bike and he still did it.’
‘What did they say? The ones in her clothes?’
Lulu made a face and shrugged. ‘Calling her a you-know-what. A slag and a slut. The usual stuff guys do, you know?’ Rozie didn’t, from personal experience, but Lulu seemed to assume she would. ‘Saying what he wanted to do to her. Saying she deserved it. Saying he was following her.’
‘How d’you know all of this? Are you friends with Mary?’
‘Who? Me? Never met her,’ Lulu admitted. ‘But it’s all over WhatsApp. Everyone knows everything around here. Well, everyone except the Keeper and the Private Secretary, obviously. You wouldn’t want them finding out, or who knows what’d happen?’
She gave Rozie a friendly smile. Just two women, having a chat. It didn’t seem to occur to her that Rozie might mention any of this to Sir Simon, and Rozie was glad it didn’t, because it meant she didn’t have to make any promises she couldn’t keep.
Lulu heard a clock in the corridor chime and realised she’d better be going.
‘The police didn’t take Mary seriously.’ The housemaid paused at the door before returning to her trolley, screwing up her mouth at the memory.
‘She didn’t seem very happy about the way they treated her,’ Rozie agreed.
‘They don’t get it. Happened to my sister-in-law’s cousin. He drove her mad for six years, then he killed her.’
‘Oh my God!’
‘Oh, yes. With a hammer. Just a few feet from her front door. Said she drove him to it. She hadn’t said a word to the man in five years, had a restraining order against him. It meant nothing, of course. Right, I’ll just get your towels for you. Have a good evening.’
*
‘I think you should know,’ Rozie announced to Sir Simon the next morning, ‘that secretary of Sir James’s . . . Mary, the one who’s leaving . . . she’s being stalked by a man who’s sending her foul messages and, on top of that, there’s an elderly housekeeper who’s being a real bitch to her. No wonder she wants to resign.’
Sir Simon frowned. ‘D’you mean Mrs Harris?’
‘So you do know.’
‘Yes. Horrible woman, by all accounts. She should have retired years ago.’
‘She did, but came back at the Master’s request, I gather,’ Rozie said, unimpressed. ‘Shouldn’t we tell him about this?’
The Master of the Household was Mike Green. He formed a triumvirate of senior courtiers with Sir James and Sir Simon. His office was near Sir James’s, in the South Wing, where he held ‘stand up, no coffee’ meetings with servants who had erred in their duties, known among the cognoscenti as the ‘rollicking bollockings’.
Mike Green was responsible for the domestic staff at all the Queen’s residences, from chefs, pages and laundrymaids to the yeoman of the cellars, the florists and French polishers. During his career in the RAF, where he had risen to Air Vice-Marshal, he had gained a reputation for knowing how to throw a good party. This was useful, because, including garden party guests, the royal family entertained nearly a hundred thousand people at the Palace each year. On top of that, the Master was required to help deliver the fateful Reservicing Programme proposal in the autumn, so it didn’t surprise Rozie that Cynthia Harris might have slipped under his radar.
But she hadn’t.
‘Believe me, Mike knows,’ Sir Simon said, stretching his arms and putting them behind his head. ‘The woman is a pest. But the Queen has always had a soft spot for Mrs Harris. She never sees her mean side, of course.’
‘Why doesn’t somebody say?’
Sir Simon straightened and looked at Rozie sharply. ‘We don’t worry the Boss with this stuff. She pays us to deal with it. Well, the Master, in this case. And he is dealing with it, but it’s tricky.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, the HR procedures are Byzantine, to say the least. And – I emphasise, this mustn’t go any further – Mrs Harris been on the receiving end of some rather vicious letters herself. If we got rid of her, she might get the lawyers in. She’s the type.’
‘But she was the one victimising Mary van Renen!’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. However, the attacks Mrs Harris got were particularly awful. She and Mary are not the only victims, actually. There’s been a spate of poison pen stuff recently. Mike’s livid about it.’
‘Has he told the Queen?’ Rozie was horrified.
‘Absolutely not.’
Sir Simon stood up to his full height, which didn’t quite meet her six-foot-two-in-heels, and gave her a firm look. ‘It’s our job to protect Her Majesty from unpleasantness like this, not expose her to it. Mike’s launched an investigation, and no doubt he’ll find the perpetrator soon and deal with it. As you know, Rozie, our job is to come up with solutions.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘No buts. And you categorically mustn’t mention this to the Boss. I know you and she get on, but this is important, and highly confidential. I’m slightly regretting telling you now. Promise me.’
Rozie wasn’t often on the receiving end of Formal Sir Simon and it unnerved her a little. Staff who knew dogs said his normal demeanour reminded them of a friendly beagle. Their working relationship was smooth, but if the situation demanded, he was also a man who could quell an ambassador with a look, or bring a recalcitrant minister into line with a two-minute phone call. Right now, he was radiating the same ruthless authority as the sergeant major from her officer training days at Sandhurst.
‘I promise,’ she said reluct
antly.
‘Thank you. And don’t think I won’t know, just because you’re at the other end of the country.’
Rozie would soon be travelling to Balmoral with the Queen and the first wave of staff. Sir Simon was heading for Tuscany for a couple of weeks, after which he intended to keep an ear to the ground in Whitehall and Westminster as the new Prime Minister set about building a Cabinet and creating a response to the Brexit vote. Everything seemed quiet on the surface, but all hell would be being let loose behind the scenes. His job was to interpret what he could from the screams.
Chapter 7
A
month passed happily in the Highlands. Here, the Queen felt, one could surround oneself with sensible people – the Scots were so much more down to earth than the Sassenachs – and participate fully in the life of the place. The castle might look imposing, with its granite walls and Gothic turrets, but it was surrounded by gardens and made for enjoying nature, for relaxation and for fun.
At Buckingham Palace one necessarily had to rely on servants for everything because it took a cast of thousands to make it all work. At Balmoral, she could tack up a horse or take a Land Rover for a spin. The family could all go for a picnic at a moment’s notice, if the weather was good. This August, particularly, she could sit glued to the Olympics in her tartan-carpeted study, with whoever wanted to keep her company, cheering on Nick Skelton in the show jumping and Charlotte Dujardin in the dressage from her armchair until her voice was husky from the effort. It was all very jolly. The only cause for concern was Holly, a very elderly corgi in dog years, who was increasingly uninterested in food and walks. The Queen kept her close eye on her faithful companion, fed her the choicest titbits and hoped, against reason and experience, that she would recover some of her old vitality.
With September fast approaching, it wouldn’t be long before the traditional visit of the Prime Minister. She had been thinking about this.