A Three Dog Problem

by SJ Bennett

  ‘Middle management, ma’am,’ Sir James said, ‘but that was the clever part. He was operating well below the radar. I must admit, I wasn’t sure about his boss – a man called Mick Clements. But I’d never suspected anything of Ferguson. We might not have discovered him for months, or years.’

  ‘How did he do it?’

  ‘We’re still piecing it together,’ Sir James admitted. The thing is, ma’am,’ and here he paused, so Her Majesty could keep up with all the revelations, ‘we think this gives him a motive for being the true person behind the poison pen campaign.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Astonishing, I know. You see, one of my secretaries was convinced there was an issue with the Reservicing Programme. We now think that what she had discovered was not a mistake, but a deliberate fraud, masterminded by Ferguson. Her name is Mary van Renen and she was one of the targets of the harassment. We believe that Ferguson mounted a successful campaign to get her to leave. Fortunately for us, her work was taken over by Rozie here, who was targeted for the same reason.’

  The Queen glanced across at Rozie again, who kept her face entirely neutral. She was learning. The two of them had a lot to talk about.

  ‘I see,’ the Queen said. ‘How fascinating, and how awful. What about the other letters?’

  ‘Oh, they were pure misogyny,’ the Master said, opening his mouth for the first time. He was here because of the relevance to his staff. ‘Mrs Harris and Mrs Baxter were both highly unpopular. Ferguson may have chosen them for that reason, or he may have had his own personal motives. I imagine a psychologist would say he found strong-minded women a threat, ma’am.’

  Not as much as they found him, the Queen thought to herself. She felt for Mrs Baxter, a ‘difficult woman’ who had been chosen for harm merely to cause confusion. And so far it had worked.

  ‘Either way, it confused us for a while,’ the Master went on, ‘because of course we were focused on Mrs Harris and not Miss van Renen, who was perhaps the victim most in danger.’

  ‘Except that it was Mrs Harris who died,’ the Queen said drily.

  ‘There is that, ma’am. There is indeed that.’ He coughed and shuffled his feet. ‘We’re still looking into it.’

  ‘You mean the police are?’ the Queen asked, sharply enough to make them all swallow.

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Mike Green agreed swiftly. ‘When I say “we”, I mean all of us together. Now the police suspect Ferguson as a criminal and a murderer, they are re-examining all the evidence. Bog— I mean the chief inspector, has a large team working on it, reporting to his superintendent at the Met.’

  ‘How reassuring. But there’s still one thing I assume we don’t know – or you’d have told me.’

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘Who killed Mr Ferguson?’

  ‘Ah.’ It was Sir Simon who answered. ‘On that note, I trust we will have news for you in the morning.’ His expression was bland, but inside he was as excited as the day he got his Wings. ‘Along with a full report on what we’ve already told you. We thought you’d appreciate the headlines while they were fresh.’

  ‘I do indeed,’ the Queen said, smiling gratefully at all of them. ‘It is always such a comfort to me to know that you have everything under control.’

  Chapter 46

  W

  hen the boxes came the following morning, the Queen hoped that it would be Rozie who brought them. Sir Simon’s name was in the calendar, but it was her APS she really wanted to talk to.

  She beamed when it was indeed Rozie who was ushered in.

  ‘Well done,’ she said, without asking how the girl had done it. One came to rely on people who knew what was required and somehow made it happen. ‘That was interesting last night, wasn’t it?’

  ‘They missed a few things,’ Rozie said, placing the red boxes carefully on the Queen’s desk.

  ‘Yes, didn’t they?’

  ‘They didn’t seem to spot that I got my first note before I got involved in the Reservicing Programme stuff.’

  ‘Mmm. Or that Mrs Harris got her first one years ago. They haven’t had long though, have they? To think about it, I mean.’

  ‘No. And they have a lot on their minds. Chief Inspector Strong has been very busy. He’s not here today, by the way, ma’am. He still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.’

  ‘The killer of Mr Ferguson?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  The Queen didn’t press her. She was about to dismiss the girl and start on her papers, but saw that she was looking pensive.

  ‘Was there something else?’

  ‘Only . . .’ Rozie sighed and shrugged. ‘I should have got it before. Eric was always very strange. Always in the background and just a little bit creepy. I suppose I put it down to an odd personality. I thought he was holding Mick Clements back that day in the cellars. He was, but only because he knew they’d get caught.’

  ‘I agree,’ the Queen said. ‘Mr Ferguson was the cunning one. It wasn’t your job to catch him, Rozie. You’ve done well as it is. Whoever chose him to run the Breakages Business certainly knew what they were doing.’

  ‘Sir Simon’s looking into that, ma’am. He’s looking into a lot of things.’

  The Queen smiled up at her from her desk.

  ‘Oh, good.’

  *

  Sir Simon’s wife, Sarah, who had cooked coq au vin for them both, listened that night as he explained the last three days’ proceedings to her over the dining table at Kensington Palace, while candlelight threw dancing shadows on his eager, intelligent face.

  She loved him when he was like this. It made up, or at least sometimes partly made up, for all those nights he worked very late, and those weeks when he was away. There were three of them in this marriage, and the third person headed the Commonwealth and always held all the cards. But, in return, there were moments like this, when Lady Holcroft (Rah to her friends) watched as her husband held all the secrets of the realm in his capable hands, and she knew they were safe with him. He was even more of a hero than she had imagined. Not just brave but brilliantly insightful and clever. It was extraordinary the way he had made the crucial connection in absolutely record time. He was constantly checking his phone for updates, but they were of national importance, so she didn’t mind.

  ‘Are you really James Bond?’ she asked, later.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t answer that question,’ he said, slightly breathless, in a gruff Scottish accent.

  ‘Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to—’

  He didn’t let her finish. The last couple of months had been dark and bloody, but now he could sense the shadows lifting. Like Robert the Bruce, he felt his strength returning. He wanted to celebrate.

  *

  The news they were waiting for failed to arrive in the following hours, but the investigations continued apace. Along with several hand-picked underlings from his unit, Chief Inspector Strong returned to his temporary incident room at the Palace, whose corridor in the North Wing was vacuum-sealed against leaks. Rozie, who knew everything, was begged and bribed for whatever snippets she could share – but, like the senior men she worked with, she was incorruptible. She wouldn’t even give any hints to her sister, who both respected and mercilessly teased her for it. More to the point, she didn’t tell the Queen – who didn’t ask.

  ‘Are they on the right lines, would you say?’ was all she wanted to know.

  ‘I think so, ma’am. They’ve made the appropriate connections.’

  ‘Splendid! Then we shall wait.’

  *

  On Friday evening, the day after her audience with the triumvirate, the Queen found out that her friend and cousin Margaret Rhodes had died. She spent the weekend at Windsor feeling very sad, and going over old photograph albums of her girlhood, accompanied by Lady Louise, Edward’s lovely girl, which helped.

  But Louise had to keep asking who everyone was. Who could she reminisce with now? All the official engagements w
ere recorded in minute detail, but what about the unofficial ones? The private moments of hilarity and grief? First her sister, then Mummy, then Cousin Margaret, and even the dogs . . .

  After dinner on Saturday, Philip spent the evening with her, instead of on his own pursuits. It was a thoughtful gesture. He presented her with the little oil painting he’d been working on in the Octagon Room in the Brunswick Tower, and then back in his study at the Palace. It was a perfect rendition of the lawn at Balmoral, seen from the castle, and in the very centre was the spot they’d picked for Holly’s grave. So that was what had been absorbing his attention. She looked up with glistening eyes.

  ‘You can hang it outside your bedroom at BP, if you like,’ he suggested gruffly. ‘In place of that ghastly Australian thing.’

  ‘If you mean the Britannia, that’s coming back soon, I hope. And I won’t replace it. But I’ll find this one a home.’

  ‘You can use it to eat your toast off,’ he said. ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘I’ll hang it in my bedroom.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  And so, with gentle bickering, he took her mind off what she was feeling and made it easier to regain her normal fortitude and look to the future, as one always tried to do.

  *

  By Monday, Buckingham Palace was a hive of activity in preparation for the Diplomatic Corps Reception the following week. It would use every public room they had, to entertain a thousand guests from the ambassadorial elite to a buffet supper and dancing. The reception was a white-tie affair, dripping in decorations and diamonds, far more complicated to manage than a state banquet. The problem was that many guests came so regularly that their pet sport was to look for slights or mishaps. The Master’s job, with the help of Mrs Moore, was to make sure there were none to find.

  He was at full stretch, and yet he found time to join Sir Simon to compare notes on the rapid developments in the case. With the efficiency typical of senior courtiers, the triumvirate found themselves able to assist, if not positively lead, the police at every turn. Sir Simon in particular was proving quite spectacularly good at this. There were whispers in all the corridors that he had practically solved the crime single-handed.

  On the last day of November, a week after Sir Simon’s discovery of Eric Ferguson’s body, Chief Inspector Strong received the final communication he’d been waiting for. He requested an audience and asked that the Private Secretary, Sir James and his chief superintendent (who was standing at his shoulder as he typed) could be there too.

  The Queen graciously accepted. Privately, she wondered how much they really understood.

  Chapter 47

  A

  t Sir Simon’s request, the team met twice to rehearse in his office, as if they were preparing for a Commons committee. They each had roles and cue cards: it wouldn’t do if they all talked over each other. The chief superintendent could take the credit in public. But they were generous men and, between themselves, they accepted that privately the honours should be shared.

  The Queen agreed to grant them an audience in the blush and golden splendour of the 1844 Room. On the dot of twelve on December 1, an advance party of three dogs announced her arrival, as the men stood waiting within. Sir Simon, who was so often the person introducing her to others, felt his heartbeat quicken in an unaccustomed way at her approach. Rozie, walking in behind the Boss, gave him a surreptitious thumbs up. And then the Queen was smiling hellos at all of them, and it was time to explain to Her Majesty how three of her servants had ended up dead, and how he . . . with help, obviously . . . had solved the crimes.

  At her invitation, the four men sat in front of her in a little semi circle of silk-covered chairs. Sir Simon and Sir James looked elegant as usual in their pinstripe suits. DCI Strong had not tried to compete sartorially, but the Queen detected signs of a very recent haircut. The most splendiferous of all was the chief superintendent at the end of the row, who was a tall, urbane man with a sportsman’s jaw, Hollywood teeth and silver buttons on his uniform that would pass muster on Horse Guards Parade.

  Rozie sat further back, with a notepad on her lap. A footman had originally positioned himself just inside the door, but the Queen informed him she would ring if she needed anything. Her equerry, likewise, was not required for this conversation. Murder among the servants . . . It was too close to home.

  ‘So tell me,’ she said, sitting upright on a Morel and Seddon sofa, with Willow by her side and the dorgis at her feet, ‘was it indeed Mr Ferguson who killed Mrs Harris?’

  ‘It was,’ Sir Simon informed her gravely.

  ‘And you’ve found the man who killed Mr Ferguson?’

  ‘We found him yesterday, ma’am,’ the chief superintendent confirmed. ‘After quite an elaborate investigation. I’m afraid it will come as a shock.’

  The Queen blinked. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, pausing to adjust her handbag and looking up to give him a friendly smile. ‘I’m getting ahead of myself. Do tell me everything.’

  It was, by agreement, DCI Strong who began the story. His team, after all, had worked out the details of how Eric Ferguson practised his murder technique and prepared the way for Cynthia Harris to arrive at the pool.

  ‘We don’t have a record of Ferguson’s contact with Mrs Harris before the fatal meeting, ma’am,’ the chief inspector said. ‘He was too clever to leave a trail – but we do know that it was he who consistently reported the internal CCTV cameras being out of action, and he, almost certainly, who had interfered with them to render them that way.’

  ‘It won’t be so easy with the new cameras,’ Sir James assured her from the seat beside Strong. ‘The old ones are practically museum pieces. Top of the list for change.’

  ‘What a relief,’ the Queen remarked. One might as well be living in the middle of a shopping centre. Although, on reflection, that would probably be better secured.

  Strong returned to his theme. It was also Ferguson, they discovered, who had postponed delivery of the new carpet to the leak-damaged rooms in the East Wing, so their refurbishment ran over and there was a mad dash to get them ready in time for the family’s return from Balmoral. This meant that he had a reason to request an emergency room at the Palace for a couple of nights, to oversee the results.

  ‘This behaviour, along with the tumblers at his flat, leaves us in no doubt that he was the killer,’ Strong concluded. ‘We assume he lured Mrs Harris to the pool on some housekeeping pretext. Tumblers had been found there before and we think this was his doing too. She would have been tired after her journey down from Scotland, and unsuspecting. My thinking is that Ferguson had already arranged the broken glass in place. She bent down to look, he hit her over the head with something hard he’d brought with him for the purpose, and used the jagged tumbler base to cut the artery at exactly the right point on her ankle. We know from his reading material that collaborators in the Far East were killed this way in the Second World War. The blood loss would have been rapid. It’s possible she never came round again before . . .’

  ‘She died?’ the Queen finished for him.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘That certainly explains how he did it,’ the Queen agreed. ‘Might I ask why?’

  ‘Initially, as you know, we assumed it was pure misogyny connected to the poison pen campaign,’ Strong said, ‘while he targeted Mary van Renen because of a fraud he was operating here, called the Breakages Business. You’re aware of that, I understand.’

  ‘I am,’ the Queen agreed. In his seat, Sir James blushed faintly.

  ‘However, we then discovered that Mrs Harris was connected to the Breakages Business too,’ Strong went on. ‘We’ve traced the operation back to a man called Smirke in the nineteen eighties. Harris worked for him briefly at the time and they had a bit of a relationship. There were rumours of dodgy dealings, but everyone assumed they went away when he retired. In fact, he handed the business down to his successor, a man called Vesty, who handed it down to his. They
kept it in the family, ma’am. It turns out they were all related. Eric Ferguson was Sidney Smirke’s second cousin once removed. Not immediately obvious, but we got there with a bit of probing. No doubt that’s how he was anointed as the new head, in his junior position, at the grand old age of thirty-two.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ The Queen’s tone was dry. Her courtiers swallowed. They were not enjoying this bit.

  ‘However,’ Strong continued, ‘we shifted our focus slightly, thanks to a suggestion by your Private Secretary. He gave us an invaluable insight.’

  Strong nodded to Sir Simon, who smiled and did his self-effacing hand flap.

  ‘I must admit, I had a huge piece of luck.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’ The Queen was all polite curiosity.

  ‘It was your mention of Neil Hudson that started things off,’ Sir Simon informed her – pleased to share credit when he could, however small. ‘I can absolutely assure you there was no relationship of any sort between him and Mrs Harris. But in looking at her file I noticed that she had worked at the Royal Collection before working for Smirke. We were . . .’ He corrected himself. ‘The police were in the process of establishing the modus operandi of the Breakages Business. They had another look at the tunnels last week and found all sorts of evidence of activity between the palaces. We knew that they must have a man on the inside at SJP. If Mrs Harris was at the Royal Collection, she would have worked at Stable Yard. Was she the inside man, I wondered? Or woman, rather. I couldn’t quite make sense of it all, but I spotted another name in that file. Sholto Harvie, ma’am – your old Deputy Surveyor. According to the file, Mrs Harris worked directly for him. Was he the link?’

  ‘Oh, surely not Mr Harvie?’ the Queen said. ‘But he was so charming!’

  ‘It pays never to be blinded by charm, ma’am,’ the Private Secretary said wisely, crossing one pinstripe-trousered leg over the other and giving her a sad little shake of the head. ‘I asked an old-timer if Smirke and Harvie had been friends, and he remembered that they were very pally. The thing is, I happened to see Harvie outside my office a few days before I found Ferguson’s body. He was actually looking for Rozie. She told me later who he was, and that it was something to do with your old painting, which they’d discussed, I gather. Young Rozie had nothing to do with all of this, I hasten to say.’