by SJ Bennett
*
Rozie’s next call was to the honey-toned bar of a bland, upmarket Mayfair hotel. She nursed a coffee in a quiet corner, behind a display of white orchids. The woman who arrived ten minutes later had attempted to disguise herself with mannish sunglasses, a baggy black hoodie and a baseball cap, but anyone who knew her would instantly recognise the trademark pout, the sculpted jaw and skinny thighs in Lululemon running gear.
Masha Peyrovskaya slid into the opposite seat and glanced back at a distant table where two bulky bodyguards were making themselves comfortable.
‘You are the woman who called me?’
Rozie nodded. ‘I am.’
The Russian took off her sunglasses and stared at Rozie for a moment, tilting her head to one side. Rozie maintained her even smile for such situations. The one that said, Yes, I am the lady from the Queen’s Private Office. Perhaps I’m younger than you expected?
‘So,’ Masha said eventually, with a tiny shrug. ‘I told them you were interviewing me for a blog about art.’ She gestured back towards the bodyguards. ‘Make this quick. I need to be home in thirty minutes.’
Rozie had wondered how you make small talk with billionaires. Perhaps you just didn’t.
‘All right. It’s about the night of the dine and sleep.’
Of all the visitors that night, Masha and her maid seemed to be the best acquainted with Maksim Brodsky. Rozie had arranged the meeting to find out if Masha or her husband could throw any light on what had happened to him. But now she knew for certain from Meredith that Masha was involved. She wanted the whole story.
‘From what I understand, you knew Mr Brodsky quite well . . .’
‘Quite well. He taught me piano.’
‘You helped him that night.’
‘I did not,’ Masha responded, with a flash of challenge in her eyes.
Rozie waited to see who blinked first. She had played this game since primary school. ‘You say you don’t have much time,’ she observed. ‘And I’m not asking if you helped Maksim, I’m saying you did. You arranged for him to see Meredith Gostelow without the castle staff and police finding out about it. And you saw him afterwards yourself.’
Masha blinked hard. She had been playing it cool so far, but now she bridled. ‘It’s not true!’ she expostulated. ‘Who tell you that?’
‘You called for him, he came.’
Rozie was fishing, hoping for a reaction, but this was not the one she had expected. Masha half stood, leaned across the table and hissed in Rozie’s face.
‘You know absolutely nothing! Did the old woman say it to you? She lies! She’s jealous! She thinks I sleep with Maks, everybody does. Even my husband. Do you understand? He could kill me!’ She slumped back down again and started to scratch the table angrily with the stone in her magnificent engagement ring, muttering as she did so. ‘And yet I take a risk for Maks, as a friend, and for that bitch. Because they wanted each other. He was laughing – he was desperate. He said, “You can get me up there, to her bedroom, I know you can. Make it happen.” And I did.’
‘How did you manage it?’ Rozie asked, more gently than before. This was a woman who needed to feel appreciated, she realised. She adapted her style to fit.
Masha’s eyes glittered. ‘I think of the plan in moments. I tell him to go back to his room and change into clothes such as Vadim might wear. Vadim is Yuri’s manservant. He wears smart suits – smarter than Maks’, but your Queen’s staff do not know that, I think. Maks must say he is Vadim, and go to the bottom of the stairs leading to the guests’ sleeping quarters, where I will meet him and say to the servants I need his help. I give him some champagne I find. We go up the stairs together. Yuri is outside with his friend Jay at this time, smoking cigars and drinking port and talking about his space trip and all the things they talk about—’
‘His space trip?’ Rozie interrupted, unable to help herself.
‘Yes. He wants to go into orbit. He has paid for a flight in two years’ time. It cost ten million dollars.’ Masha looked at Rozie as if this was the most obvious, boring part of her tale, like saying Yuri wanted to get a puppy, or a flight to New York. ‘But I did not know for how long they talk, and maybe he call Vadim for real when he come upstairs, so I said to Maks I will warn him when Yuri comes to bed. And I did. That is all.’ She practically snarled this last sentence.
‘And Maksim took this as his cue to go back to his room?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Wasn’t there a danger he might pass Vadim on the stairs? What would he have said?’
‘That was his problem,’ Masha shrugged. ‘He had plenty of time to think about it.’
‘Did Vadim come, in the end?’
‘Yes. Yuri was so drunk he could not undress himself.’ Masha looked matter-of-fact about her husband’s inebriation. ‘But he did not call him for a while. He try to make love to me first.’
She maintained her deadpan look, as a challenge to Rozie, who deadpanned back. ‘I see.’
‘I did not stop him. He came towards the bed and said all the usual things and quoted Russian poetry to me. Pushkin – do you know him?’
‘Not really.’
‘You should. Lermontov, also. I let him say those lines, and take down the straps of my nightdress, but then he look at me as if he is suddenly disgusted, and he turn away. That’s when he called for Vadim.’
Rozie had the odd feeling that she was somehow being used as a makeshift therapist by this hostile, angry woman. She wanted to reach out and take her hand and ask what was really wrong. Instead, she asked, ‘Do you think it was something to do with Maksim? Did he suspect something?’
Masha’s eyes blazed. ‘There was nothing! Why should he?’
‘I believe you, but—’
‘Yuri does not trust me. And yet he is surprised when I find someone who treats me like a human. But that is all I do. I play the piano with this man. Rachmaninov. Satie. Debussy. We laugh, because he is kind. There is always someone in the room with us, always. Ask those men over there. They are with me every minute. If I was unfaithful, they would know . . . I go now. I’m late.’
‘Wait!’
Masha was getting up, putting her sunglasses on. ‘What?’
‘Do you know anything about what Maksim did afterwards?’
‘Of course not, I told you.’
‘And Yuri?’
‘He fell asleep beside me. Snoring like a pig. What else could he do?’
‘Vadim – wasn’t he questioned about his trip to your room that night?’
‘I guess so. I tell him to say to them he had gone up two times. I didn’t want the police talking to Yuri about it. One good-looking young Russian look the same as another in a servant suit, yes? Vadim is gay, so at least Yuri think I am safe with him.’
And with that, Rozie realised, Masha had outfoxed the protection arrangements for the overnight guests of one of the most guarded monarchs in the world, in a thousand-year-old castle bristling with tech and layers of top security. With a swish of her ponytail Masha turned and left, threading her way back through the tables, her baggy hoodie signally failing to hide her sexy strut.
It seemed hard to imagine that Yuri was not somehow behind what happened to Brodsky later, though if Masha was telling the truth he couldn’t have done it himself. He might have ordered it beforehand. Would a man kill for a woman like Masha Peyrovskaya?
Yes, Rozie thought. A certain kind of man probably would.
Chapter 11
T
he following morning Sir Simon was due to be in charge of the Queen’s office schedule, but she asked him to liaise with the Cabinet Office about a difficult diplomatic issue regarding the Sultan of Brunei, and so it was Rozie who came in to collect the boxes.
‘I gather you were away yesterday,’ she said, looking up. ‘I was very sorry to hear about your mother.’
‘My mother’s absolutely fine, thank you, Your Majesty.’
‘Well, I’m pleased to hear that.
’
‘I had quite a busy day in London. I wondered whether you might be interested to hear about it.’
The Queen was absolutely delighted. So the sick parent had been a ruse! She had underestimated Rozie. This prompted an idea, before they got down to business. ‘I wonder whether you might perhaps like to meet one of your predecessors – Aileen Jaggard. I sense you might have a lot in common.’
‘I met her two nights ago, ma’am. Katie recommended her to me. And you’re right, we do.’
‘Ah. I see.’
The Boss’s smile lit up her face with girlish excitement. Rozie had seen it before, but never had it focused exclusively on her. She basked in it for a moment. It was difficult to be businesslike again, but Rozie knew they didn’t have much time.
‘I had a conversation with Mr Brodsky’s dance partner and discovered what he did that night.’
‘Go on.’
Rozie recounted her discussions with Meredith and Masha, skirting over the sex but noticing that the Boss wasn’t remotely phased by any of it, though surprised and at times amused.
‘They were very generous with their time,’ the Queen observed. ‘Do you believe what they told you?’
‘I do, ma’am. I’m no expert, but they didn’t need to tell me anything. I think they wanted you to know the truth. Meredith swore me to secrecy. She wanted me to tell only you.’
‘And you promised?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
The Queen frowned. ‘This makes things a little difficult.’
‘Oh, does it? I’m sorry. I—’
‘We’ll deal with that later. Go on.’
‘I met up with the ballerinas after rehearsal. They didn’t really add anything to what they’d already told the police. One of them had met Brodsky before, socially, but didn’t know him well. Again, I’m no expert, but I didn’t get the sense they were lying. They were both very upset at his death, understandably.’
‘And the young man himself?’ the Queen asked. ‘Apart from his penchant for tango, did you learn anything more about him?’
Rozie had tried. Late in the afternoon she had visited his flat in Covent Garden and talked to his flatmate, whom she had managed to contact on the burner phone. The flat was on the top floor of a building above a restaurant not far from the piazza. It was a brilliant location, with windows looking out onto the buzzing streets below and the sounds of buskers and theatregoers wafting in on the breeze. The interior was basic, though, painted white and furnished with second-hand finds and badly made pieces from Ikea, untidily strewn with clothes and pizza boxes, smelling of musky men. It did not reek of offshore money and hidden bank accounts, as she had half expected it to.
Rozie had said she was from the Russian Embassy (warming to her role by now), keen to understand if Mr Brodsky had any debts, such as rent, to pay, with a view to helping, if possible, in such difficult times. But the flatmate, Vijay Kulandaiswamy, assured her the rent was in his name, paid for by his job in the City. In fact, he was looking for someone to replace Brodsky to cover the extra costs, though he’d often paid those himself too. Maksim had been hard up as long as he’d lived with him.
Rozie was surprised. ‘According to our records he went to an expensive public school.’
Vijay had laughed. ‘So did I. Same school – it’s how we met. But it doesn’t necessarily tell you much. He had the fees paid for him, I think. But that all stopped once he left. And whoever paid them didn’t hang around. Some boss or mate of his dad’s, I think. He didn’t talk about it much. I got the impression he was kind of grateful, kind of furious. He liked his life here and he loved the music, but he felt dislocated, like he didn’t really belong anywhere. It made him kind of restless.’
Maksim thought maybe one day he’d become a writer, Vijay said, but meanwhile he was trying to make it as a professional musician, supplementing his income with piano lessons and tutoring rich teens in maths and computing. He spent a lot of time on the internet, as they all did.
No, Vijay hadn’t known he ran a blog until the police told him about it. Maksim wasn’t a hacker, or super tech-savvy either. You didn’t need to be to teach GCSE Computer Science: the syllabus was still in the Dark Ages. Vijay had friends at work who were big tech guys, and they said he wasn’t remotely in their league.
Maksim hadn’t talked about Russia much, except in the context of Putin and his cronies. He was definitely political. Even at school, where he was a couple of years below Vijay, he was known for his rants about the suppression of opposition politicians in Moscow and the deaths of dozens of journalists. He was compiling a spreadsheet. Truth was a dangerous game in Russia, he’d said. ‘If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? And if a journalist falls from a window . . . does anybody care?’ He used to get pretty depressed about it.
At this point in their conversation, Vijay had remembered that he was talking to a member of the embassy and clammed up. Rozie, too, had been jolted back to her cover story.
‘Listen,’ she had asked, ‘is there anyone else we should get in touch with? A girlfriend, for example? Did he have anyone special? Someone we should talk to about this unfortunate incident?’
Vijay had shrugged. There were various girls, but nobody who stood out. Maksim was a popular guy, but he had split up from a long-term girlfriend a couple of months before and he was too broken-hearted, and too damn nice, to get deeply involved again so soon.
‘I miss him, you know?’ Vijay had said. ‘I just . . . he was good to have around. I miss the sound of the piano. I miss the peanut butter running out just when I needed it. I miss girls calling and having to tell them he’s busy because he isn’t interested. He owed me, like, a few hundred pounds in utility bills and stuff, and I just don’t care. He’d have paid me eventually. It didn’t matter anyway. He was . . .’ Vijay sighed deeply, looking a bit lost. ‘Like I say – he was a good guy. No one deserves to go like that. He looked after himself; he seemed so healthy. I had no idea about his heart.’
It came home to Rozie, then, that a real human being had gone that night, not just a ‘case’. She didn’t know if envoys from the Russian Embassy gave people consoling hugs, but she decided that in this case they did.
Rozie reported the basics of this conversation back to the Queen.
‘I was trying to find out who in Brodsky’s past, or his home life, might have wanted him dead,’ she said. ‘Apart from maybe Mr Peyrovski. But I didn’t find anything, ma’am. Unless you think I missed something?’
‘No,’ the Queen agreed. ‘From that point of view, I fear Humphreys is right, and the motive is here somewhere.’
‘Sir Simon told me this morning that Mr Robertson and Mr Dorsey-Jones have been sent on leave and put under a sort of house arrest. That must be difficult for them.’ Rozie remembered the Queen’s conversation with Henry Evans, and what she obviously felt about Humphreys’ theory.
The Queen merely nodded. ‘I imagine it is. I have another job for you, Rozie. Do you mind? I do understand this is not in your job description. It might mean working on your day off.’
‘Whatever you want, ma’am.’
The Queen gave her swift instructions. The new girl was working out even better than she had hoped. She couldn’t be another Mary, surely? Mary Pargeter had been in a class of her own when it came to these little mysteries. But Rozie Oshodi – who was a good ten years younger than Mary had been when she started – promised very well.
Chapter 12
L
ater, there was an investiture in the Waterloo Chamber. The Queen always enjoyed holding them at Windsor. Though the chamber was vast, dominated by portraits of the kings and statesmen who came together to defeat Napoleon, it was more informal than the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace. Anything was more informal than the palace. Nevertheless, there was the appropriate pomp as she awarded honours to the great and good under the loving eyes of their families, attended by her Gurkha orderly officers and
the Yeomen of the Guard.
After it was over, she was grateful for tea and a slice of chocolate biscuit cake in her private sitting room, while catching up with the racing results on Channel 4. Sometimes she liked to take a little nap before the evening’s activities, but today she had other things in mind. She asked the footman to warn the housekeeper of her plan. One could do what one liked in one’s own castle, but staff did not appreciate surprises in areas they considered their own. She gave them a few minutes to spruce things up.
It had been a while since she had last set foot in the attic corridors above the Visitors’ Apartments. She took the younger dogs, who were keen to have the exercise and padded along ahead of her, sniffing at doorways. The journey down the Grand Corridor, from the Private Apartments to the Visitors’ Apartments on the south side of the Quadrangle, took a good ten minutes, going at dorgi speed.
She knew the main guest rooms well, popping in quite often to check on the state of the furnishings, or to ensure everything was in place for a particularly honoured visitor. But the attics were another matter. They had once housed sparrows and a family of jackdaws, along with abandoned furniture and assorted Victorian fancy-dress costumes. Philip had been instrumental in getting them cleaned out fifty years ago, when it became clear the family would be spending most of their weekends here. When one is the Queen, and one’s home is one’s castle, it comes with an awful lot of servants, and they need space. Servants, and guests’ servants too, and other visitors who are not servants at all, but are important to the running of the castle and can’t be housed in any of the other properties on the estate. The more rooms they made available, the more people it seemed they needed to make room for. And somewhere, they had found a room for Maksim Brodsky.
The time had come: she wanted to see it for herself.
The top-floor corridor was whitewashed and hung with various Edwardian etchings deemed unsuitable for the downstairs rooms. Bedrooms were spartan and functional, recently decorated in greens and creams, with the odd touch of purple in a blanket or a seat cover. Philip, when he popped in to see the refurbishment, had said they looked like something out of a motorway hotel (how would he know?) or Gordonstoun, or – given the colour scheme – Wimbledon. She wasn’t sure there was a problem with any of these analogies, though they had not been given as a compliment. Either way, visitors wouldn’t mind.