by SJ Bennett
The rain was bucketing down now. Cursing the BBC forecast, the Queen followed as fast as she dared.
Chapter 17
A
n hour later, they were back at work in the private sitting room. Rozie was aware of sore thighs after such a long time since her last hack, but it was worth it for the exhilaration of the ride. She still felt a glow, thinking about it, and especially that last bit, racing across Home Park at hyper-speed, until Temple finally agreed to submit to her commands and trot for home like a show horse at Olympia. She was very fond of him already. He was a rascal, but she had the measure of him. The Queen had told her she could ride him whenever she was free. Rozie stood in a bubble of happiness.
The Queen, in cashmere and pearls, and looking as if she had spent half a day in a salon, nursed a cup of black tea with honey. The squall had passed quickly, but had drenched them all anyway. She had gone upstairs immediately to spruce up and put her head under the hairdryer. The last thing one needed was a head cold this week.
She brought Rozie up to speed on the incident with the Elizabeth Cross.
‘So, you think she stole the jacket?’ Rozie asked.
‘Possibly.’ Or the very identity, the Queen wanted to add. But she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words out loud. ‘Can you check, please, whether the Stiles family were awarded the medal? And can I see a picture of her?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Oh, and Rozie?’
‘Ma’am?’
‘There is a gentleman called Billy MacLachlan who lives in Richmond. He was in my protection team a long time ago. You’ll find his contact details in the files. Could you ask him, very privately, to double-check with the pathologist that there was nothing unusual about Dr Stiles’s death? I think he still has good links with the police. You might get him to suggest he has a source who thinks it might not have been a simple overdose.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And I needn’t say . . .’
‘No, ma’am, of course. Now, about Thursday. The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall will be arriving from Highgrove at about midday . . .’
*
The afternoon was scheduled for a haircut and a long session with Angela, the Queen’s dresser. There were several outfit changes to finalise for the coming days, and the weather remained resolutely unpredictable. There was also jewellery to choose, laid out for inspection in a series of open, velvet-lined boxes. It was always good to spend time with someone who, in other circumstances, she would have called a close friend, but today she had a lot on her mind. The Queen tried to concentrate, but it was more difficult than usual. It took tremendous patience to wait for Rozie’s evening appearance with the next day’s schedule and an update on the morning’s activities.
The news was mixed.
‘Dr Stiles’s father, Captain James Stiles of the Royal Engineers, was killed by an IED in Kosovo in 1999,’ Rozie reported. ‘Rachel was ten. The Elizabeth Cross was presented to her mother, who subsequently died of ovarian cancer, by the Lord Lieutenant of Essex at Merville Barracks in Colchester in 2010. Rachel had a younger brother, but she seems to have taken on the right to wear the award.’
‘I see.’
‘I have a picture of Rachel here, ma’am.’
Rozie submitted a printout of the form given to the castle security team for vetting, with a passport photograph attached at the top. The image was small and unremarkable, showing a young woman with blue eyes and familiar curtains of thick, dark hair.
‘I looked for others, but they’re quite hard to get hold of,’ Rozie admitted. ‘For a millennial, she kept herself out of social media. There wasn’t a photo on LinkedIn – that’s the website for professionals, ma’am – and she wasn’t on Facebook or dating sites or anything like that.’ There had been a few group pictures of office parties at Golden Futures, but nothing particularly useful. The newsfeeds had gone with a fuzzy graduation picture when they had announced her death.
The Queen examined the photograph with a magnifying glass from her desk drawer. From a distance, without the glass, one would have said it was her. But she realised now that was largely because of the hair. The nose on this girl was different to the one she dimly remembered. This one was larger and less attractive. The chin was longer. Or was it? If someone had asked her to swear, right now, that this was a different person (luckily nobody ever did that sort of thing), she couldn’t have done it. She felt it was, but that was all.
However, Merville Barracks was most definitely not Buckingham Palace. That conversation about the medal ceremony made no sense. It was ironic that the Elizabeth Cross was one of the few decorations unlikely to have been presented at the palace. Not many people would instantly think of that, of course – but she happened to be one of the few who did.
Would that convince anyone else? Rachel had not even been the person receiving the award: that had been her mother. So easy to say a girl might not remember, or that she had been confused in the heat of the moment meeting the Queen.
But one knew. One knew. One just did, and that was the end of it.
Rozie sensed some of what she was thinking, and looked uncertain. ‘Wouldn’t the security checks have found her out if she wasn’t the right person?’
‘That is their job,’ the Queen mused.
‘And what about afterwards – after the murder, I mean, when the police interviewed everyone who’d been here? Wouldn’t they have noticed?’
‘You would think so.’ She sighed and changed the subject. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve heard back from Billy MacLachlan?’ she asked without much hope. Rozie had presumably only contacted him a few hours ago, at most. He could hardly have discovered anything by now.
‘No, ma’am. But he said he’ll let us know as soon as he hears anything useful.’
‘Good.’
The young woman hovered. She looked nervous, the Queen realised, and hesitant: not normal demeanour for her APS.
‘Was there anything else?’
‘Actually there was, ma’am. I think I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’m sorry.’
‘Spit it out.’
The Queen watched as Rozie screwed up her courage and lifted her chin.
‘I rang Rachel’s office and asked about her next of kin. I thought you might want me to talk to them later. Anyway, I said I was calling from the Housekeeper’s Office here, and that she had left something behind and now we realised it was hers we wanted to return it. And the woman at the office said she had no idea Rachel had been to Windsor Castle. I’d forgotten the meeting was so highly secret, ma’am – or rather, I assumed her office knew, at least. But anyway, they didn’t, or not the desk manager I ended up talking to.’
‘Oh dear. You didn’t mention the nature of the meeting, I assume?’ The Queen’s voice was even. This was unfortunate, but not a disaster.
‘No, ma’am, of course not. But she said, this woman, that she was surprised Rachel had come at all. She’d been sick for several days and they hadn’t seen her. I asked for how long, and the woman said for a week before she died, which would take it back to about the time of the dine and sleep.’
‘Thank you, Rozie.’ The Queen was thoughtful.
‘Do you want me to tell anyone, ma’am?’
‘You might find out from Chief Inspector Strong, in passing, whether his team managed to interview everyone on that list of visitors after Mr Brodsky died. That was my impression, certainly. And tell the superintendent I’m concerned about security and I’d like him to look into the procedures that day and the following one – whether everyone’s clearance was double-checked. I imagine he’s done so already. He can tell me what he found.’
*
The Queen was not superstitious, but she had often noticed that bad news seemed to come in threes. The following day, after what seemed like a promising report, three setbacks arrived within an hour.
She was just preparing for another Privy Council meeting when Rozie popped in.
> ‘I’ve heard back from Billy MacLachlan, Your Majesty.’
‘Oh good. Anything interesting?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes. There was a slightly strange toxicology report on the body of Rachel Stiles. As well as the cocaine and alcohol, there were traces of a tranquilliser she hadn’t been prescribed. But they said she’d been struggling with anxiety for a long time. She lost both her parents young, as we know.’
‘I see.’
However, Rozie’s next report put paid to the Queen’s emerging theory. DCI Strong’s team had indeed interviewed everyone they wanted to in the days after the murder – including Rachel Stiles, who had been at home in her Docklands flat and happy to be interviewed by two of his detectives, despite recovering from flu. So she had been aware of events, at least.
On top of that, the castle superintendent had got the head of security to double-check the procedures, and everything had been done properly. If Stiles had got someone to impersonate her, they had done it very well.
However, the third blow was by far the worst.
Humphreys reported, with some glee, she felt, the discovery by the team in the Round Tower that Sandy Robertson had purchased a pair of lacy knickers online last year that were identical to the ones found near Brodsky’s body. They were closing in.
The deadline she had set herself was approaching, and she wondered if she had made any progress at all. She was certain she was on to something, but Strong and his team had unwittingly suggested otherwise. For now, however, it was important to focus on the days ahead, which would be busy enough to keep her fully occupied. History would be made, and the world would be watching. Poor Sandy Robertson would have to wait.
She couldn’t bear it, but there was nothing she could do.
Chapter 18
A
s a little girl, when asked who she would like to be when she grew up, Princess Elizabeth had said, ‘A lady in the country, with animals.’ For the past few weeks she had been just that, but for the next few days it was time to be Queen.
Her birthday was still a day away, but on Wednesday she and Prince Philip celebrated the five-hundredth anniversary of the Royal Mail by visiting the delivery office in Windsor. There were crowds and cheers and bunting, and the weather was kind. Angela had done a very good job with a pink coat and hat, which would photograph well in the sunshine. The delivery office was to be renamed in one’s honour, and there was an exhibition to review and the inevitable commemorative stamp.
It was all very jolly, and only exceeded in its essential Britishness by what followed straight afterwards, which was a trip to nearby Alexandra Gardens, where there was a new bandstand to open, and crowds of schoolchildren who sang, while others performed an extract from Romeo and Juliet as part of the Shakespeare Schools Festival.
Back at the castle, somewhat exhausted, she and Philip both had a nap before hosting a private dinner for the family members who had already started arriving for tomorrow. The Private Apartments were filling up with children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She hadn’t seen most of them since they had posed for family portraits after Easter, shortly before the dine and sleep.
These pictures, taken by Annie Leibovitz, would be released to the public soon. She was quite happy with them, though she preferred her private snaps, really. She liked people caught off guard, being silly and having fun, and that was hardly the Leibovitz style. But the image of her and Anne had a certain something. Another with the dogs on the castle steps was rather nice. And the public would adore the one with little Louise and James, the great-grandchildren and the handbag. Yes, all in all, although the American had arrived with her usual retinue and outrageous amounts of equipment, and taken four times as long as one really wanted to spend, it had been a success. She would show the results to the children tonight.
Rozie watched the family from a distance, with the Queen at the heart of it, her face alight with pleasure. She really did dazzle, just like Baba Samuel said. It was something about her skin, which was flawless, and also her eyes, which danced with delight whenever there was something to amuse her. The ready presence of pearls and diamonds did no harm, obviously – but Baba Samuel was right: even in her dressing gown she seemed to glitter. Now, in a silk damask evening gown and antique sparkles, she looked radiant.
So Rozie decided that she wouldn’t spoil the moment, today or tomorrow, by mentioning Vadim Borovik, Yuri Peyrovski’s valet, who had been discovered, badly beaten, in an alleyway in Soho. Masha Peyrovskaya had called Rozie this afternoon in a paroxysm of panic and despair.
‘Yuri know he helped me! He order it! He punish him and it is me soon!’
It had taken some time and all Rozie’s skill to calm her down a little. Masha refused to believe the police ‘story’ that it was a typical homophobic attack. ‘Of course they say that! Because he is gay, everything is possible!’
‘Will he be all right?’ Rozie had asked.
‘Who knows? Perhaps he die in the night.’
Russians really were very melodramatic, Rozie thought. But she decided to check on the valet’s health tomorrow, to be on the safe side. If she could find a spare moment.
Tomorrow should have been her day off, but the birthday meant that all free time was cancelled. Various royals were arriving from around Europe to attend the Queen’s birthday party at the castle. And meanwhile the President of the United States would be arriving at Stansted airport, before meeting the Queen the following day. She and Sir Simon would be on their feet from dawn to dusk, liaising, troubleshooting and overseeing. The whole world would be looking in, to check that everything was done to the highest standard known to man, every second of the day. Queen Victoria had lived to be eighty-one. Ninety was new territory for the monarchy. It was important for the Queen to start the next decade as she meant to go on.
*
The next day, there was still no news from the Round Tower. But it was 21st April, and it seemed as if the whole of Windsor was out on the streets. They crowded against the barriers and stood on balconies and at windows, waving a sea of union flags. The bells from the chapel rang, and there were bugles and the band of the Coldstream Guards.
The Queen put her thoughts about the investigation to one side and focused on the job, which was to be herself in public, and which it took a lifetime to learn. During the walkabout below the castle, it seemed as if everyone had a bouquet to give. There were giant pink balloons, and fellow nonagenarians to meet, an official walk to open (she was very good with velvet curtains and little cords), and a giant purple cake made by the lady who won the baking show on the BBC, featuring an unusual array of flavours, which she did not get the opportunity to try.
Last year the people at Land Rover had created a sort of Popemobile out of an open-top Range Rover, and she stood in the back of it with Philip at her side, waving to all the flag-flapping well-wishers. The sun had consented to shine again, appearing decorously through silver clouds. It was chilly, but not unduly cold. She was warmed, anyway, by the cheerful mood of the people, who burst into snatches of ‘Happy Birthday’ along the route.
She thought of her namesake, and her royal progresses round the country. What would the first Queen Elizabeth have made of the Queenmobile, as Philip inevitably called it? She would have been pleased with the crowds, no doubt. One tried not to think of the snipers on rooftops, keeping an eye out for trouble, and to be grateful one could still do this. These days, it was usually all bulletproof glass and safety vehicles. But that was for the Prime Minister. If the monarch could not be seen, what was the point of her? Hence today’s outfit in spring-grass green, in honour of the season, and gratitude for clement weather, and the iron constitution that meant she could still stand up in an open car.
Later, the setting sun tinged the silver sky with oyster pink. Charles made a short and heartfelt speech and invited her to light a beacon. It would be the first of over a thousand around the UK and as far as Gibraltar, starting with a rather splendid chain of flaming t
orches down the Long Walk, burning bright against the darkening sky. It reminded her very much of the celebrations after the war, and the way the kingdom had spread news since the Armada. Meanwhile, Sir Simon informed her that over a quarter of a million people had sent birthday wishes via Twitter. Thank God they hadn’t sent cards.
She had asked for as little fuss as possible today, and this was as little fuss as it was possible for the country to make. It had been tiring, but joyful. So very special to spend the day at Windsor. She felt as if she had shared it with the whole town, and they with her. Now it was time for dinner at the castle – done Charles-style, which meant a table for seventy in the Waterloo Chamber, an abundance of flowers and lots of funny speeches. And, one hoped, everybody still alive by morning.
If Putin had wanted to send a message, she thought, he should have chosen tonight.
She went upstairs to change. On her pillow was a packet of handmade Scottish fudge from Philip, with a note. He hadn’t forgotten. She ate a piece, to keep her going for the night ahead.
Chapter 19
F
riday morning dawned clear and grey, after a night of rain. President Obama was in London and due to visit Mr Cameron in Downing Street, which took the news away from Windsor for a few hours – for which she was grateful.
He and the First Lady were due for lunch, and although – thankfully – no one had come to inform her that another visitor had been murdered, the first was still very much under investigation. As the hours ticked by, she had hoped for a nod from Sir Simon, or a request for a meeting from Gavin Humphreys, to tell her about a stunning breakthrough, but there had been nothing.
Later that morning, Sir Simon did arrive with news of a sort, but it only muddied the waters further. Given the similarity in hair type, and the unexpected subsequent death, the police had tested DNA from the hair found on Brodsky’s body with that of Rachel Stiles and found it to be a match.