A Three Dog Problem

by SJ Bennett

  ‘My sergeant’s still researching Mrs Harris, ma’am, to see if we can get to the bottom of that side of it. Meanwhile, he’s spoken to Mary van Renen up in Shropshire. That’s of greater concern right now, assuming the notes weren’t sent by Mrs Moore. The messages to her were full of menace. We’ve followed up with Mary’s Tinder dates and, like her, we don’t think it was them. There’s usually some sort of pattern with a man like that. These men all have good ratings with their other dates, and we questioned several of them. They were willing to give up their devices if required to prove it. We’ve talked to her friends in London, but found nothing suspicious. I believe we come back to the Palace, ma’am, and someone she knew from here.’

  ‘How unsettling. To think he’s here, I mean. Or she.’

  ‘I’m sure it must be. And as for your assistant, I haven’t made much progress yet. I’m not convinced by the racist tone of the notes – nasty as it is. If it was, there are other members of your staff who might be targeted. I sense it’s more personal. But I don’t know what’s behind it. Rozie’s popular among the staff that know her.’

  ‘So I gather.’

  Strong’s eyes narrowed. He rubbed his chin. ‘In some ways, she’s the one that most concerns me.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘Someone doesn’t want her around. Mary van Renen’s home safe with her family, so that’s OK. But Rozie Oshodi – she is around. I’m going to tell her to be careful.’

  It wouldn’t be the first time, the Queen thought. She wondered about Rozie in the tunnels. With luck, the girl would be in and out in ten minutes, happy to report on a bolted door and nothing else to see. But if she hadn’t managed to go tonight, it might be better to call the whole thing off and come up with a safer plan.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. ‘I will too.’

  Chapter 31

  R

  ozie always felt that the Palace changed character as day turned to night. Sometimes, it upped its sparkle for a reception or a banquet. Sleek Mercedes and Bentleys, and sometimes even old-fashioned horse-drawn carriages, arrived to disgorge guests in designer dresses and ‘decorations’ – which meant medals for the men, usually, but could just as well describe the diamonds on their wives. Golden light glowed in the quadrangle and, for those in the know, this was the most sought-after address of the night in London.

  At other times, the change was more downbeat. The majority of staff went home, the flood of tradesmen, craftsmen and daily visitors slowed to a trickle, and the place was reclaimed by those who lived there or habitually worked late. The buildings stopped trying to impress and their occupants got on with the task of working as efficiently as they could in a rabbit warren of corridors that ceased to make sense two hundred years ago.

  The Queen had a busy schedule for the next few days, so it was after eight when Rozie finally turned off her laptop and stretched her shoulders. The assistants had gone home at six, but Sir Simon was still in his office with the light on. Under normal circumstances, she would have popped her head round the door and said, ‘Go home to your wife!’ And he’d have made some quip back about her not recognising him before ten thirty. But now, with their strained relations, she thought this might come across as too unfriendly. She merely wished him goodnight and he glanced up at her and nodded. The air between them crackled with regret. She hovered in the doorway, trying to find a way through it. He asked her to close the door behind her, and she did.

  A few hours earlier she had asked an assistant to procure a powerful torch and a pair of size nine wellingtons. Rozie guessed at the state of the electrics in the basement and was taking no chances: she wanted her feet to be encased in rubber. How the assistant found them, she didn’t ask. You used your initiative in the Private Office. If you succeeded, you took quiet satisfaction in the fact that your boss would have noticed, which they invariably did.

  Armed with the boots and torch, along with a spare jacket she borrowed from the security officers at the North Wing front door, she took the nearest flight of stairs down, feeling the air grow colder with each step. She walked under the North Wing until she reached the long, wide corridor running north to south under the West Wing, which housed the boiler room, storerooms and, as she now knew, the accountants. There were various other offices, too. The florists worked nearby, for example, resulting in a thick, earthy smell of vege-tation that might have been unpleasant if it wasn’t for a heady top note of jasmine in the air.

  From here, Rozie took the narrow staircase that led down again towards the cellars.

  To her left was an unlit corridor lined with trolleys and wooden crates. The wine collection was stored that way, along with various provisions that needed to be kept cool. To her right was a thick steel door marked, ‘OPERATIONS. HAZARDOUS. KEEP OUT’. The space beyond must extend under the kissing trees, she judged. She had never had any reason to ignore the sign. Now, armed with her heavy-duty torch, she did.

  When she found the switch inside the door, industrial strip lights buzzed into life. The room ahead was large – about the size of the swimming pool, in fact – and square. Suspended by chains from the ceiling, the lights illuminated a series of metal racks containing crates, pallets, rolled-up rugs, books, boxes of vintage toys, kitchen gadgets from the fifties, a washing mangle, and several pieces of old furniture whose purpose Rozie didn’t even begin to understand.

  There was a little room in the far left-hand corner: a small cube carved out by breeze blocks in the larger space. Rozie walked over to it, calling out, ‘Is anyone there?’ She realised her voice was sharper than usual. But there was no reply. The door opened at the push of the handle. Inside was a desk and shelving, stacked with miscellaneous boxes, battered tins of paint and neatly organised containers for screws and nails. It smelled faintly of sandalwood and musk. She searched the desk, where an old mug housed various biros, pencils and rulers. There was a pad of lined yellow paper next to it. Rozie tried out a couple of the pens, which were useless and dry. A rusty wastepaper bin contained a couple of screwed-up sheets of yellow paper. Rozie put them on the desk and smoothed them out. They were written on in pencil – numbers and letters jotted in neat little rows that made no obvious sense. She got out her phone and took pictures, then she re-crumpled the papers and put them back where she’d found them. Notebooks containing similar markings were scattered inside a drawer.

  A nearby metal door led to another storage room. This one was long and thin, with an arched, low ceiling and walls lined with glazed tiles, like an old-fashioned Underground station. Rozie sensed that it marked the start of the tunnels. Its shelves held, among other things, at least two dozen hatboxes, several coils of thick rope, three child-size racing cars and four lifesaver rings. When she looked more closely, she saw the rings were marked HMY Britannia. There was another metal door at the end, partly obscured by two old-fashioned Harry Potter-style trunks and a tea chest. Rozie shifted the tea chest to one side and the trunks to the other. One of these was heavier than the other and, out of curiosity, she lifted the lid to find three magnificent blue and white Chinese vases, each half a metre high, nestled neatly among straw.

  The metal door behind them opened with a shove. If there had once been a sign on it to warn against going further, there wasn’t now. Beyond was a red-brick tunnel about five metres long and, at the end, yet another door. This one was different: lower, much older, set into a heavy frame. By now she must be under Constitution Hill, Rozie judged, turning on her torch. This was presumably where Prince Philip had required the staff to shut off the tunnels. The air was unusually still, resulting in a quiet that heightened her senses. She was aware of every buzz and flicker in the lights behind her, and the woody, masculine scent that lingered alongside the smell of damp and dirt.

  The door itself was worthy of a museum: thick timber, mottled with age and studded with hefty metal bars to hold its hinges. There was a keyhole in an ancient plate below a rusty handle, but no sign of a key. Instead, the door was locked with a more mo
dern hasp, hinged at the wall and held in place with a heavy padlock that fed through a staple attached to a steel plate. Rozie thought she might as well take a photo to show the Boss. She put down the torch, retrieved her phone from a jacket pocket and held it in place with the flash switched on, ready to press the button. But as she pulled the padlock towards her to get a decent picture, she found the lock swinging towards her, almost causing her to lose her balance.

  The steel plate that held the staple was not attached to the door at all. Left flat, the mechanism looked sturdy, but if pulled it simply came away at the hinge, padlock and all, leaving the door unlocked. All Rozie had to do was tug on the rusty handle and the whole door swung aside.

  The Queen’s instructions had been clear and so was Rozie’s army training: you took instruction from senior officers and did exactly what you were told.

  But she was a battle-hardened veteran and every muscle and sinew in her body strained to go forward, into the dark. If you went forward, you made progress. Stop now, and you could only report a problem. The big question was always, ‘Who else do you put at risk?’ But there was no one else to worry about. And Rozie was perfectly capable of looking after herself.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am,’ she muttered, picking up the torch and moving on.

  The walls around her were brick-lined, wide and low. The ground was laid with uneven stone, patched with planks of wood over bare earth left by missing slabs. The duckboards were marked with irregular dark lines, which she judged to be tyre marks – from a wheelbarrow, perhaps? They looked freshly swept: free from the mud and grime she would have expected after sixty years.

  Beside them, the torchlight picked out a steady stream of litter. There was an abandoned beanie, a mouldy leather glove, a snack wrapper from a brand she didn’t recognise. What were Taz bars? Regardless, she was fairly sure they didn’t have them in the fifties, or whenever Prince Philip had made his visit. Fairly sure none of this was supposed to be here at all.

  By now she thought she must be under Green Park. The tunnel snaked along with occasional bends, making it impossible to see very far, but St James’s Palace must be ahead and slightly to the right. It was one of the few times in her life Rozie wished she wasn’t just shy of six foot tall. These Tudor guys must have been really short, or maybe they used children. Either way, Prince Philip’s plan would never have worked. She couldn’t see Prince William or Prince Harry crouching down like this to visit secret girlfriends. They’d need decent physio if they did. And the idea of an old-fashioned royal like Princess Margaret being down here in the cold and dark, for a quarter of a mile, to see her sister? No.

  The torchlight caught something bright and golden, glimmering on the ground a few feet further on. Rozie was stepping forward to inspect it just as a distant thud made the air reverberate behind her. Jerking up in shock, she banged her head, hard, on the tunnel roof. Dazed, she tried to catch her balance as her mouth filled with the ferrous taste of blood.

  Chapter 32

  B

  illy MacLachlan had had worse jobs. Sitting in a pub in Tetbury, pint of ale on the table in front of him, he looked approvingly at the logs that crackled gently in an open fire, the decent list of beers, the decent-looking barmaid and the chalked-up menus of posh pub grub. Once upon a time he and the lads had been pretty scathing about ‘triple-cooked chips’ and half-baked steaks, everything resting on rocket leaves and costing a week’s wages. But you got used to it. The food these days was good. He was very fond of a triple-cooked chip, especially if somebody else was buying. Today he was on expenses from Her Majesty.

  ‘Now, the pictures. I’m keen to know what happened afterwards.’

  The man coming back from the Gents had the look of someone who knew his way around beer and chips, posh or otherwise. His hacking jacket and smart jeans were carefully tailored to accommodate his waistline. He reminded MacLachlan a bit of Humpty Dumpty. The rosy face and receding hairline added to the impression. MacLachlan made a mental note to stick at one pint tonight, even if Her Maj was paying.

  ‘Have you decided what to order?’ the man asked. His name was Stephen Rochester and he was a Tetbury local and a regular at the pub. He ran a gallery-cum-antique shop in the high street. He’d come highly recommended and, so far, he wasn’t proving a disappointment.

  ‘Cod and chips and mushy peas,’ MacLachlan said, glancing at the nearest menu. ‘If it’s on, that’s what I’ll have.’

  ‘Not the duck? It’s very good,’ Rochester suggested.

  ‘Not the duck.’

  ‘Or the lamb shank?’

  ‘You have the lamb shank, Stephen.’ They were on first-name terms by now, although in this case MacLachlan’s name was Charlie. ‘And let me get you some wine. What do we think? The Merlot or the Cabernet Sauvignon?’

  They chose a bottle, one of the more expensive on the list, and MacLachlan neglected to mention that he didn’t drink wine any more. It didn’t agree with him – gave him a headache. But if he was entertaining, for whatever reason, he liked to keep his interlocutors loquacious, expansive and well oiled. A good Cabernet could do that. Stephen was on his second glass before he noticed that ‘Charlie’ had stuck to his pale ale.

  They were talking about Stephen’s business. ‘Charlie’ had wandered into the shop not long before closing and explained he’d come into some money and he’d need some paintings and the odd stick of furniture to go in his new country home, once he found the right one. ‘To make it look lived-in. You know.’

  Stephen Rochester did indeed know and was very happy to oblige. Unlike the rich city-dwellers who were flooding into the Cotswolds – with money to burn, but no love for ‘brown furniture’, such as the Regency mahogany tallboy that ‘Charlie’ had admired as soon as he walked into Stephen’s shop – ‘Charlie’ turned out to be a man who knew his Georgian from his Victorian and asked so many questions about the local area that they’d ended up agreeing to go out for dinner at the pub.

  Comfortably installed at a little table by the fire, they chatted about the different Cotswolds towns and villages: which ones were dominated by yoga bunnies in designer leggings, which ones were mostly Airbnbs by now, and which were just about holding onto their character. Stephen was happy to share his expertise. They talked about art, too. ‘Charlie’ was interested – ‘very much as an amateur, you understand. I don’t really know anything. My aunt was keen, mind you. The one I inherited from, God rest her. She had this Renaissance painting – at least, she said it was. She was convinced it was by Caravaggio. Is that how you say it?’

  ‘It is,’ Stephen acknowledged. ‘That would be very exciting, but unlikely. Caravaggio isn’t Renaissance, by the way.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No, he’s the height of Baroque, but don’t let me bore you.’

  ‘You’re not boring me at all, Stephen,’ ‘Charlie’ assured him. ‘Not at all.’

  They finished their dinner and ordered dessert, although MacLachlan picked at his Madagascan Vanilla Panna Cotta with Chocolate Soil and Fresh Basil like a bird. ‘So, if it wasn’t a Caravaggio, how would I know?’

  Stephen Rochester happened to be a bit of an expert on the period, which was no surprise because MacLachlan had done his research. Stephen had worked in the local auction houses for years before he set up the gallery, and the Baroque was his specialist subject. He explained about Caravaggio and MacLachlan, who didn’t really care, was impressed with his scholarship.

  ‘Amazing. You could write a book about it,’ he said, grinning appreciatively.

  ‘Perhaps I will.’ Stephen was enjoying himself.

  MacLachlan topped up Stephen’s glass. ‘What was the most interesting painting you’ve come across, then?’

  ‘Well, there was one . . .’

  Stephen launched into the story of a Peter Lely miniature, followed, when pressed, by another about a Mary Beale portrait of a young girl that had caused quite a stir when it was discovered behind badly installed panelling in a Victorian rectory
near Stroud.

  At last, MacLachlan felt one step closer to his quarry. ‘Mary Beale, you say? I didn’t know women painted back then. I didn’t think they were allowed to.’

  ‘Not many did. But Mary was prolific. Her husband was her studio assistant, you know. She was quite the portrait factory.’

  ‘A woman painter, eh? Back in the – what? Seventeenth century?’

  ‘Oh, you remind me,’ Stephen said, leaning back in his seat, happy in a well-fed, well-watered haze, ‘about the Gentileschis. I’d almost forgotten.’

  ‘Oh?’ Bingo. MacLachlan looked politely intrigued.

  ‘Honestly, tell me to stop if I’m boring on about art, Charlie. All this was twenty years ago. No – thirty!’

  ‘Not boring at all,’ MacLachlan assured him. ‘Tell me about the gentle-what-was-its.’

  Stephen had to pause for a bit to marshal his facts. He explained how there had been a potentially huge discovery of works by a highly respected artist called Artemisia Gentileschi, who was a few years older than Mary Beale, but the same sort of period. Unlike Mary, she was a Continental artist, an Italian. A bit of a genius.

  ‘There were four paintings. Oils. Dirty and badly varnished but otherwise OK. They’d been hanging in rooms used by one of the old ladies who lived at Hampton Court Palace at the time. Anyway, one of the Royal Collection people finally got permission to see around the place and discovered these priceless pieces dotted about. Well, not priceless, exactly, but Gentileschi is one of the greats and the paintings were possibly the only surviving portraits of her daughter Prudentia, posing as various classical muses. I am boring you.’

  ‘You’re not, I promise.’

  ‘It’s not as if the world went mad,’ Stephen admitted, ‘like they’d found a Leonardo or something. Although I wouldn’t put it past them. Artemisia Gentileschi hasn’t got the recognition she deserves, but still, those of us who were working in London at the time, who heard about this on the grapevine, we were agog, you know? Given the time frame, it was possible that the paintings were a royal commission for Queen Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I. It would fit with the way the queen’s private apartments in Greenwich were supposed to be decorated. All those interiors are lost. It’s a big gap in the art history of the times, but apparently they were designed on classical themes of art and desire, like these paintings of the muses. It was perfect. If someone could prove the link, once they were cleaned up, it would have been . . . extraordinary.’