A Three Dog Problem

by SJ Bennett

  ‘There was something else Sir Simon said that wasn’t entirely accurate,’ the Queen remarked. ‘It got me thinking.’

  ‘Oh, ma’am? What?’

  ‘Do you remember, he mentioned Ferguson referring to a video in a message to Sholto?’

  ‘I do,’ Rozie said. ‘When “things were hotting up”.’

  ‘Something struck me. It reminded me of a moment when I noticed Mr Ferguson, earlier this summer. He was monitoring a documentary team who were filming me when I sat for that bust.’

  Rozie’s gaze sharpened. ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Yes. They were videoing me with Lavinia Hawthorne-Hopwood and I remember, quite distinctly, that I happened to remark that I’d seen a painting of mine in Portsmouth. It was around the time I asked you to look into it, but long before you would have talked to him.’

  ‘I don’t see how—’

  ‘Oh come, Rozie. Ferguson was in the room at the time. It was I who alerted him to the problem, not you. It was probably then that he contacted Sholto Harvie.’

  ‘But even so, ma’am, I—’

  ‘You just did your job,’ the Queen said with finality. ‘I started this, however inadvertently, and I count myself very fortunate indeed that it ended without more bloodshed. Although, of course, I wish poor Mrs Harris hadn’t been involved.’

  ‘She wasn’t the most pleasant person,’ Rozie assured her.

  The Queen could see the girl thought she was being sentimental about her old housekeeper, as so many had thought. But she wasn’t. She let it go.

  *

  A week passed. All around them, the final preparations were being made for the Diplomatic Corps Reception. The Queen would soon be donning a white and silver evening gown and some of her sapphires, but in a quiet moment, she asked to be driven to St James’s Palace for a brief appointment.

  In the car, her thoughts were on Sholto Harvie, who had died of a self-administered overdose of pills in a squalid hotel in a Paris banlieue that didn’t ask questions. How he would have hated his surroundings in those last days, she thought. He was a man who lived for glamour.

  He had asked ‘Lisa’ for forgiveness, but he wouldn’t be getting it. Cynthia Harris had come to London as a young woman bursting with ideas and ambition, and for his own sake, Sholto had ruined her. Not only her career, but her life, by placing her in the hands of a scheming, violent man. She had soldiered on, but lost the respect of all around her. Bitter, Sir Simon had called her. Vengeful. Mrs Harris had not, in fact, been vengeful, except against herself. She had lived alone and died alone, and the Queen’s heart went out to her.

  She knew forgiveness wouldn’t be forthcoming to Sholto, because she knew who ‘Lisa’ was. When he worked as the Queen’s Deputy Surveyor of Pictures, Sholto used to call one ‘Mona Lisa’. It could be short for Elisabetta, he told her . . . this expert on Leonardo, with his courtly ways. It was bumptious, bordering on rude, when it should have been ‘Your Majesty’, but he had the charm to get away with it. He must have thought charm could excuse any bad behaviour. He was wrong.

  At the Royal Collection Trust, Neil Hudson accom-panied her to a light-filled conservation studio. Here, the newly rediscovered Gentileschis, rescued from under Sholto’s spare bed, were set up, side by side, on easels at eye level.

  ‘Two muses, ma’am. It’s a theme Artemisia addressed elsewhere. We’re not certain, but that one holding the flute looks like Euterpe, goddess of music, and the one with the garland could be the goddess of dance, Terpsichore. We’re trying to get the other two back from their current owners to join them. It may take a while. But these two would make a good centrepiece for a show we’re thinking of doing about women artists. Wouldn’t you agree?’

  The Queen stood in front of these originals for a long time, remembering how quickly she had cast her eye over them before – so sure she would see them again soon, once they’d been cleaned. The copies had turned out much flatter and duller than expected. Now she knew why. These two, by contrast, were mesmerising. They were still grimy, but the faces shone out, each head thrown back at a challenging angle above an ample bosom or a half-turned shoulder. The eyes seemed to be posing a challenge: are you watching me or am I watching you? She loved their quiet subversiveness. They might be half-clothed goddesses, but in each of them she recognised a fellow soul: a woman who has more to think about than the act of being painted.

  ‘They’re delightful,’ she said. ‘Splendid. Didn’t everyone do a marvellous job? It’s good to have them back.’

  Chapter 49

  A

  nother week went by. Rozie and her sister Fliss were up in Rozie’s set of rooms in the attics, getting ready for the staff Christmas party. Not the formal one the royal family would soon attend, but the fancy-dress shindig, where plus-ones were invited, wine flowed faster than gossip, and the bacchanalian vibe was designed to match the Caravaggios on the walls.

  The bedroom smelled of tobacco, rum and rebellion. Fliss, dressed in a purple jacket and tight paisley trousers, was putting the finishing touches to her eyeliner using a magnifying mirror on the bedside table. Rozie sat cross-legged in front of the wardrobe mirror, adding a blue edge to the glittery red flash that covered half her face.

  ‘I wonder which hero Sir Simon will be going as,’ Fliss mused.

  ‘Guess,’ Rozie said.

  ‘Seriously, d’you think so? Which one?’

  ‘Sean Connery, I imagine. Or Pierce Brosnan. He’ll go for suave.’

  ‘Is he totally up himself these days?’

  ‘Actually, he’s fairly subdued,’ Rozie said. ‘He’s Mr Modest. They teach you that kind of thing at public school. But everyone’s wondering what kind of honour she’s going to give him.’

  ‘Ooh! Where do you go from “Sir”?’ Fliss asked. ‘Lord?’

  ‘She’s got loads of family medals up her sleeve that nobody’s heard of. He’ll probably go from KCVO to GCVO. It’s a big deal.’

  ‘OK, if you say so.’

  ‘She’s also given him and his wife the use of a cottage at Balmoral at Christmas so they can chillax.’

  ‘Nice. By the way . . .’ Fliss looked up from her finished make-up. ‘You seem a lot better. You OK now?’

  ‘Yeah, I am,’ Rozie admitted. ‘There are a few idiots here, but on the whole they’re a good bunch. They work as hard as we did at the bank for a fraction of the money. They’re proud of what they do. That whole . . . Gothic atmosphere seems to have vanished.’

  ‘Amazing what a difference just one or two people can make,’ Fliss said. ‘You think something’s endemic, but you get rid of a couple of sociopaths and . . . ewey!’’

  Rozie agreed. Those little folded notes had lit a flame of fury that still flared inside her from time to time. But they had been written to scare her off because she was good at her job, as much as because of the colour of her skin. She could go back to viewing the unthinking racism of men like Neil Hudson with pity. He would be mortified if he knew that his ‘Nubian queen’ compliment came with centuries of problematic objectification. He was an academic, though. He ought to know better. It often amazed her who did and who didn’t. Sir Simon, despite his posh, white, public school, Establishment vibe, was always the perfect gentleman.

  Fliss’s thoughts were elsewhere by now. ‘To think, you were heading to the house of a murderer when I called you in the car that night.’

  ‘Yeah. And I was about to sleep on two stolen paintings.’

  ‘And be given another one. By a murderer. I hope you’re not keeping it. At least you escaped the dreaded Mark.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Rozie asked, looking round sharply.

  ‘Whaaaat? I thought you knew. Jojo told me. It was the talk of the wedding.’

  ‘What talk?’

  ‘Mark was sleeping with Claire, no. You, know? Jojo’s sister, whose boyfriend was on a business trip?’

  ‘Um, no he wasn’t.’

  ‘He wa-as,’ Fliss assured her. ‘They got ca
ught in flagrante by a guest who got the wrong room. He’d spent the evening chatting up one of the bridesmaids to throw everyone off the scent. It might have been you, but luckily you’d already gone.’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ Rozie said, shaking her head a little. Suddenly, she saw that stressful journey in the Mini in a totally new light. Sometimes bad decisions turned out to be very good ones. She studied her make-up in the mirror. The bolt of lightning was in perfect position. All she needed were her red boots. ‘Huh. Lucky for me.’

  ‘I never liked him,’ Fliss went on. ‘Sex on legs but . . . a total Backpfeifengesicht. Hey! Those boots look good on you. You should wear them more often.’

  As they walked towards the Ballroom, among endless Wellingtons and Nelsons, Iron Men and Wonder Women heading in the same direction, they encountered Sir Simon in the Picture Gallery, accompanied by his wife. He sported a powdered wig, a cutaway red frock coat over parchment-coloured breeches and a white cravat. Lady Holcroft wore a wide silk court dress. James and one of his Bond girls they were not.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Rozie admitted. ‘You’ll have to tell me.’

  ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel,’ he grinned. ‘It was my favourite book at prep school. I never miss a chance to dress up as Sir Percy. Rah is Marguerite St Just, my clever wife.’

  ‘She was always one of my heroines,’ Lady Holcroft said. ‘Lucky we found each other, really.’

  ‘And who’s your hero?’ Sir Simon asked, taking in Rozie’s tinted red hair, catsuit and boots. ‘Oh! Bowie! Of course. Aladdin Sane. Well done. And . . .?’ He looked enquiringly at Fliss.

  ‘Prince, dude. I’d have thought it was obvious.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure it is. Sorry. I’m more into rock than pop.’

  ‘Funk, but OK. He just died, like Bowie, you know?’ Fliss said with a sigh. ‘April 21. It’s been a tough year.’

  ‘The Queen’s birthday,’ Sir Simon observed. ‘It was a wonderful day for us in Windsor. But how tragic for funk. Well, I must say you do him justice. Shall we go in?’

  The four of them linked arms and walked past the serried ranks of Rubens and Vermeer, Van Dyke and Canaletto. Looking around, Rozie hugged the knowledge to herself that she was now the proud owner of her own Cézanne. She wouldn’t tell Fliss, but she had decided to keep her bequest. True, its last owner was a murderer and a thief, but he had come by this painting honestly at least. If Rozie didn’t take it, it would only go to auction and be bought by someone who didn’t love it as much as she did. She’d put it on her bedroom wall and take it down whenever her self-appointed moral compass came to visit. She still looked back fondly at that weekend in the Cotswolds. She shouldn’t, but she did.

  As they reached the raucous laughter and thudding bass of the Ballroom, the DJ announced the Stones and the room began to rock to ‘Jumping Jack Flash’. She followed Sir Simon’s bobbing wig towards the dance floor.

  Chapter 50

  T

  he maids and dressers had already started packing for Sandringham. Everyone was looking forward to a quiet Christmas. They all felt they needed it after the year they’d had.

  With a couple of days to go, the Private Office received a package with an MOD stamp on it, addressed to the Queen. Rozie was the one to open it. It contained an over-bright painting of the royal yacht Britannia surrounded by little sailing ships, and a very apologetic note from the Second Sea Lord, asking forgiveness for the delay.

  She took it straight to the Queen in her study.

  ‘I thought you might like to see this as soon as it arrived, ma’am.’

  ‘Oh, goodness. Thank you, Rozie.’

  Rozie, sensing herself dismissed, left the Boss to it.

  The Queen stood at her desk, staring at the little painting for a while. Rozie would probably want to share this moment, after everything they had been through, but the Queen wanted to be alone.

  They had changed the frame. It was no longer the original gilt one, but a plain wooden border, presumably applied by that bastard mandarin in Whitehall who had stolen it from her, to disguise its provenance. Resting her fingertips either side of it she bent down carefully, almost gingerly, and examined the canvas through her bifocals, starting at the top. The Second Sea Lord had mentioned ‘restoration’. Indeed, the painting looked even brighter than she remembered it.

  Would they be there? She hardly dared look.

  She dragged her gaze first to the pennants waving between the masts, and then to the main deck. Her heart beat a little faster . . . But they were there. Those precious little flecks of oil paint, that had survived a theft and over fifty years.

  What were they called? There was a name for them. She looked back at the handwritten message from the Second Sea Lord, which came attached to a typed note from the conservator. ‘. . . Relatively good condition. Unvarnished. Some light overpainting, assumed contemporary pentimenti by the artist . . .’

  Pentimenti. That was it. It sounded like regret. A change of mind. The artist having a second go.

  In fact, it had been Philip in a fury, about six months after the painting arrived.

  ‘You know that ghastly thing by the Australian that we haven’t worked out where to hang?’

  ‘The Britannia?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I rather like it.’

  ‘I can’t stand the bloody thing. Did you see, he has no understanding of wind? All the sails on the little craft go that way, see? So the wind must be coming in hard from the other side or it makes no sense. But the pennants on Britannia are drooping as if there’s no wind at all. I don’t know how you bear it.’

  ‘I’m not a sailor. Or an artist. But you’re both. Why don’t you change them, if they bother you so much?’

  ‘I think I just might.’

  And so he had. A happy afternoon spent at his study desk, with oil paints spread around him and brushes in a variety of pots. He had worked on the pennants until he was happy with them at last. She noticed little difference, but she had picked up that while he was at it, he had also added three tiny splodges of white on the deck that somehow, from a distance, very cleverly looked as if they were someone waving.

  ‘Is that me?’

  ‘Of course it’s you. Who else would it be?’

  ‘How lovely.’

  His face had softened entirely. ‘You know, sometimes I go off fishing for the day, or whatever it is, and you’re waiting for me on deck when I get back, with your sunglasses on and your camera out, waving frantically.’

  ‘Hardly frantically.’

  ‘You are. You look so pleased to see me then. I rather look forward to that sight of your arm windmilling at me.’

  And she had dipped her head to meet his, which was still smeared with blue and white, and the kiss had been full of recent happy memories on tour.

  She always thought of that moment, and the other moments it brought back, whenever she saw the ‘ghastly little painting’, with its little added flecks, which she would know at a hundred paces anywhere.

  It didn’t belong in Portsmouth – it belonged outside her bedroom, where she had arranged for it to be hung that day over fifty years ago. No doubt Philip would pass by and say, ‘I never did understand what you see in that thing,’ as he so often had in the years before it disappeared. He had forgotten, but he had put it there.

  She saw herself. And the image of her sun-bronzed husband heading for her across the water, beaming. These were the memories that made the rest of it possible. What could be more precious than that?

  Acknowledgements

  T

  hank you, once again, to Queen Elizabeth II for remaining a constant source of inspiration, both literary and otherwise. And to the late Duke of Edinburgh for providing the Queen with a lifetime of support and encouragement, and these books with a favourite character.

  Charlie Campbell continues to be the best agent in the business. I’m eternally grateful to Grainne Fox and the team at Fletcher & Company, Nicki Kennedy, Sam E
denborough and the team at ILA. I’m extremely lucky to have Ben Willis in the UK and David Highfill in the US as my editors. Their teams at Zaffre Books, William Morrow and HarperCollins have worked tirelessly to perfect and promote the series in the most challenging of times, so huge thanks to everyone who has pulled out all the stops.

  For their generous friendship and help, thanks to Alice Young, Lucy Van Hove, Annie Maw, Michael Hallowes, Rupert Featherstone, Fran Lana, Oyinda Bamgbose, Lili Danniell, Abimbola Fashola, and those who prefer to remain anonymous. Any mistakes or deliberate deviations from fact in this story are entirely my own.

  Thanks to the girls: the Place, the Sisterhood, the Masterminds and the Book Club, who are about so much more than reading good books together.

  Thank you to my parents for a lifetime of stories, and to Emily, Sophie, Freddie and Tom, who still aren’t really sure which royal family member is which, but make our family my favourite place to be. And to Alex, my strength and stay, for everything.

  About the Author

  S. J. Bennett wrote several award-winning books for teenagers before turning to adult mysteries. She lives in London and has been a royal-watcher for years, but is keen to stress that these are works of fiction: the Queen, to the best of her knowledge, does not secretly solve crimes.

  You can find her at SJBennettBooks.com for all things crime and royal, on Instagram @sophiabennett_writer and on Twitter @sophiabennett.

  To receive Royal Correspondence about the Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series – including royal family trivia and more – sign up at bit.ly/SJBennett