Your Royal Hostage

by Antonia Fraser

  'Don't worry, it will be found, people always find things like that. Besides, we are not interested in your jewels. Only in you.' Through her brown nylon-stocking mask, Pussy's voice sounded muffled and horrible. The effect on Princess Amy was to stop her new-found tears abruptly: at the same moment involuntarily she wrinkled her nose in disgust. It was actually the strong smell of Pussy's lavender water which disgusted her, reminding her of a tormenting governess in childhood.

  'You're supposed to make friends with your captors,' thought Princess Amy. 'I've read about it, and there was that cousin of Ferdel's in Italy, that boy, he did it and it worked. But I'll never be able to make friends with you. You're really cruel under that awful mask. I know it.'

  Amy, carried down the special stairs and out of the side entrance used for private visits to the Royal Box in Arab woman's clothing, had not been drugged, as the senior policeman suspected. She had been gagged, her disguise hiding the gag. Beagle, who did the gagging (as he also bound the other inhabitants of the box including the Royal Box Steward who had been serving the party) did it expertly. It was something he told the cell that he had learned from some kind of military anti-terrorist manual borrowed from a friend. Wherever he had learnt it, it seemed to work.

  'She is sick,' was Beagle's reply to a reaction of surprise from the attendant at the bottom of the stairs. 'It is the smoke,' he muttered, rather than spoke, in some vaguely foreign accent, his face stained, shrouded under his own Arab headdress, robes flowing. 'We must go to the car.'

  Both Fox and Beagle were carrying loaded pistols: but only Fox knew that they were loaded since at meetings Fox had carefully promised a couple of unloaded 9 mm. Berettas, looking absolutely for real, via theatrical contacts for supplying such, made at Leaviss. He had already successfully supplied something similar to Beagle on the occasion of the photographic foray; but Beagle's pistol had had a solid barrel. For the climactic, night of the abduction, however, Fox had obtained pistols used for firing blanks - and replaced the blanks.

  Nevertheless Fox stoutly maintained that his decision to load them with real bullets was absolutely the right one. He also defended his shooting of the Princess's detective, who had flung himself forward as the 'Arabs' produced their weapons, even in the face of Monkey's appalled reaction.

  'That was violence, Fox. We agreed that simulated weapons should be taken: that it would be enough to frighten them.'

  Yet Fox was almost blithely impenitent. He merely pointed out that the detective's precipitate action would have in fact scuppered the whole plan if Fox's weapon had not been loaded. He seemed to think the detective had been quite unreasonable in his behaviour. Fox argued this on the grounds that it had been decided in advance that the sight of a Beretta pointed at the Princess's temple would immobilize him, as indeed it had immobilized the other occupants of the box - Prince Ferdinand, Major Smylie-Porter and the flunkey; Lamb had immobilized Ione Quentin by her own method of flinging herself into her arms and hugging her as if for protection.

  Fox even regarded himself as a bit of a hero. Monkey on the other hand thought there was something positively frightening about the way that Fox, a young man apparently dedicated to a life of non-violence, shrugged off what Monkey himself considered to be a serious crime against a fellow human being: Innoright was after all specific in not condemning the whole of humanity in favour of the animal kingdom.

  At this point - in the car - they had no idea whether the man had lived or died: probably the latter, judging from what Beagle had told Monkey briefly in the getaway car.

  Monkey, dark uniform cap hiding his high forehead and receding hairline, scarf round his neck to conceal the white tie, had been satisfied that he looked the image of some rich Arab's chauffeur, at the wheel of a large, dark-blue Mercedes with elegant darkened glass windows; leaving the opera discreetly early. Monkey had brought the car up from where Chicken had parked it earlier in the evening. This chauffeur waited ready just at the side entrance for a quick, a very quick departure; it was something Monkey, with his awareness of such procedures, had arranged in advance, knowing that the police presence would be concentrated on the front entrance from which the royal party was scheduled to leave.

  Fox had hired the car from a company who leased out such things for films (although it was currently showing false number plates). In the meantime the whole operation of the getaway had needed and received immaculate timing, where possible rehearsed, where not, estimated, discussed and re-estimated.

  Monkey thought fleetingly that where violence was concerned, you could never really judge a character in advance until the pressure came. Out of Beagle and Fox, two young men who had little in common but their age, he would have backed Beagle any day over Fox to pull the trigger. Was it Beagle who had killed Tom? Monkey had always secretly dreaded that it might prove to be so. Or was perhaps Beagle's vaunted air of violence a mere carapace for a softer nature? They would soon find out. (In any case, there was a flaw in Monkey's reasoning about Beagle: it was

  Beagle who did not know that the guns were loaded whereas Fox, who had procured them, did.)

  That had been Monkey's real mistake; underestimating not only Fox's streak of viciousness but also his independence. If only people would carry out orders! ... Coolly - he prided himself on his driving - Monkey drew the Mercedes with its false number plates into the little yard at the back of Beagle's lair. The distance from the Opera House was so short that the whole journey had taken a matter of minutes even though Monkey had driven fast, but not too fast, to avoid giving the impression of escape.

  Chicken and Pussy were waiting. As Fox and Beagle, Arab costumes discarded, carried the wrapped body of the Princess through the narrow back entrance (she was surprisingly heavy for such a small person, thought Fox, panting). Monkey moved over into the passenger seat of the car. Chicken got swiftly into the driver's seat. As well as long white gloves, she was now wearing a fake tiara and diamond earrings supplied, had they known it, by Leaviss; but the opulent fur jacket which she wore was real. It had belonged to Monkey's wife Cynthia and he had given it to her long before he appreciated the cruelty and violence involved in the fur trade. He liked to think that she too would have wanted to abandon it had she lived; as it was, this last ceremonial and sacrificial use of the jacket in the cause was to Monkey's way of thinking, absolutely appropriate.

  Monkey removed his cap and scarf, to reveal his white tie and tail-coat once more. Pussy removed the false number plates. In a small street off the Law Courts, deserted at this hour. Monkey and Chicken abandoned the hired Mercedes (and the Arab robes in the boot) for Monkey's own car, an ancient but highly polished Rolls, which he had left there before the Gala. Monkey and Chicken together, he with his medals, she with her tiara, now conveyed (he felt) the perfect image of a prosperous opera-goer and his wife; the latter driving as being the more sober of the two following the necessary refreshments in the interval to make opera at least palatable to a tired businessman.

  Only a short while after the Princess's body had been taken from the Opera House, Monkey arrived back at his flat in South Eaton Place. There Carmencita, his Spanish housekeeper, had laid out a cold supper for two: she, like Monkey, entertained secret sentimental hopes of the sweet little Miss Quentin even if she was a bit young for her stately employer (and needed fattening up -but then Carmencita would do that). Composedly, Monkey sat down to eat both portions of the cold supper. There was only a slight tremble in his hands and that he cured by draining a small glass of brandy more or less at a gulp before he began to eat.

  Chicken, dressed once more in her inconspicuous clothes (Monkey would now dispose of the jacket and tiara as Pussy had disposed of the saris en route), walked to Victoria and hailed a taxi home. She left Monkey to work his way through gazpacho and cold Spanish pancakes: unlike Lamb, he needed no fattening up but Carmencita was such an excellent cook, particularly now she had been trained to vegetarianism, that it seemed a pity to waste the food. He was magisterially confident tha
t he, the master planner, knew where all the members of the cell were. It had gone right and in the morning Innoright would deliver their demands. At least, it had gone almost right: but already under the influence of the brandy and some excellent burgundy, Monkey was beginning to forget about the injuries to the detective. Sooner or later, he would fit that into the scheme of things, as he had fitted in the death of Tom: part of the means which the noble end justified.

  Momentarily however the trembling had returned: Monkey drank some more burgundy - from the other glass, forgetting in his temporary agitation that Lamb never touched alcohol. Now he was restored. He put down his glass and raised one eyebrow: for a moment he looked purely simian, a very clever ape indeed.

  But Monkey did not know where all the members of the cell were. He did not for example know where Lamb herself was. He imagined that when the hue and cry at the Opera House itself was over, the immediate horror of the abduction understood if not accepted, she would be taken together with that unnervingly correct sister (now she would be an obstacle to his romantic dreams) back to their Chelsea flat.

  That was not the case.

  'What the hell are you doing here?' asked Beagle, coldly furious. 'You could have got yourself shot coming to the door like that. He's a bloody maniac, our Foxy.' Beagle hesitated; in spite of his anger his voice remained low. He pointed to the ceiling. Lamb imagined masked Fox and masked Pussy, the former still armed, holding the Princess captive under the sad gaze of the wide-eyed seals in the blown-up photographs.

  'Look at you,' he went on, taking her thin bare arm in his fingers. 'Wearing a fucking crown through the streets of London' - with his other hand he touched the tiara - 'No coat. This is the English summer, okay? Not your favourite Port-oh-feeno.' (Lamb had once unwisely revealed her predilection for the Italian resort.) 'Dress which reveals your boobs, if you had any boobs.'

  Lamb's eyes were enormous in her pale face. 'I wanted to be with you,' she began, and then altered it to: 'I wanted to be of help.'

  'Obey orders, my dear Miss Lamb, obey orders. That's the way to be of help.' Beagle mimicked Monkey. Nevertheless the anger was fading and he relaxed his grip on her arm. 'You're shivering. Better put on something else. I'll get you some jeans and a jersey from upstairs. Even though you'll swim in them. It's bad enough having our little Madam looking like something out of a bodice-ripping movie without you too.'

  'How is - she?' Lamb found her lips were too dry to pronounce Princess Amy's name and her heart was pittering very rapidly as she watched Beagle's reaction.

  'The patient is as well as can be expected. Phew! Am I glad to leave my mask off?' He made towards Lamb as if to pull the stocking down over her head. 'Do you want to go up and have a look? I'll prepare you for the operating theatre.'

  Lamb shrank back. 'No, no, I don't want to - besides it's far too dangerous.'

  'Dangerous!' Beagle gave a short low laugh. 'That's rich. Do you realize what Foxy has gone and done? He's shot a fucking policeman. That little wimp, didn't know he had it in him, did I? In short, darling, that's torn it. We're for it. They'll never let us get away with that. Oh yes, darling, kidnapping a Princess to call attention to a good cause is one thing, particularly if we treat her nice; shooting a policeman is quite another. He hasn't even chucked his gun away: mine went down a fucking drain right away.'

  He whistled. 'Oh, we're for it all right, the lot of us. Including that pompous bastard, Monkey - he's got his eye on you. by the way, hasn't he? The only question is. how we go - and who we take with us. And what we do before we go. I've a few plans meself.'

  Pussy appeared silently at the door of the barred and shuttered ground-floor room, which had the outward appearance of a small grocer's shop in disrepair. In fact, it was not in disrepair but very well prepared. Behind the dusty tins lay fresh new ones, the deep

  freeze was working and stocked with supplies Lamb had a moment to think how specially gross Pussy looked in her mask (unconsciously echoing the earlier thoughts of Princess Amy) before Pussy took it off.

  'Lamb!' she exclaimed, crossly.

  'Leave her be. Puss.' Lamb was relieved to find that Beagle now sounded protective. 'She can't go upstairs but she can stand guard down here. When she's got some proper clothes on and got rid of all this tat.' He touched the tiara again. 'What happens to this, then?'

  'I'm going to sell it and give the proceeds to Innoright,' said Lamb, with a defiant look at Pussy.

  'There's a good girl. Now Pussy, that lets you and Fox get on with the delivery of the demands: two heads being better than one. You've got to ring Monkey at the agreed lime and the telephone here has been disconnected as you know. Why don't you take Fox to your flat? You've never been connected as a pair."

  'He wants to be alone with her.' The thought flashed unbidden: Princess Amy with her bodice ripped. ...

  Pussy frowned. Latterly her original dislike of Beagle had faded in favour of an irrational dislike of Lamb: it was irrational, for Lamb, unlike Beagle, had humbly sought to placate the sombre older woman. Lamb was not to know that Pussy's unstable loves and hates, all springing from her daughter's death, had now veered round and focused on young upper-class women who played with the cause, leaving Caro-Otter to die for it. (For that was how Pussy had now come to view Otter's death in the car crash.) Young upper-class women such as Lamb.

  Another thing that Lamb did not know about Pussy was that, with the intuition of another obsessive character, she had easily caught a whiff of Lamb's jealous fears concerning Beagle.

  'Just as you say, dear,' replied Pussy to Beagle with something like a smile. (Pussy's smile, thought Lamb, always had something unpleasant about it, even at the best of times.) 'You take over upstairs, throw down the clothes for our little Lamb here, or send them down with that naughty Mr Fox. After what happened, he probably shouldn't be here anyway, I'm sure I don't know what Monkey will say about him. That'll leave the lovebirds together,' she added.

  What lovebirds? asked the now awakened monster in Lamb's breast. What lovebirds does she mean? Pussy's smile was by now positively malevolent. 'No more violence, mind. Protect the innocent. Don't forget.'

  When Fox came down bearing a pair of Beagle's jeans and a khaki jersey, it came quite naturally to Lamb to say to him: 'Look, Fox, give me your gun. You shouldn't be found carrying that thing. I'll look after it.'

  'Careful how you handle it, it's still loaded. I'm not sure how many I've fired.' Fox still sounded almost blithe on the subject.

  'I'll get rid of it, I mean,' said Lamb. 'It's nice to think that for once I can do something really helpful.'

  Once she was alone, Lamb sat with the pistol listening for the sounds which might come from the room upstairs, the room where Beagle and Princess Amy were now also alone - alone with each other.

  'What are you going to do with me?' Then: 'This won't work, you know. You won't get away with it.' Finally: 'I think you had just better let me go.'

  To her surprise. Princess Amy managed quite a creditably imperious tone: which was what she intended. The tears which the loss of the sapphire earring had temporarily evoked were gone. She had no intention of giving anyone the satisfaction of seeing her crying again - if she could help it. Was it acting pure and simple, or an imitation of her revered if notoriously tetchy father? Not acting: I was never any good at acting at school.' she thought, 'and as for imitating Daddy, well, I can't even begin to imagine Daddy in this situation. He'd have exploded long ago.' Even in her present dire situation, the idea of the late Duke of Cumberland captured by terrorists after an Opera Gala had a certain grim humour about it.

  ‘I suppose I'm behaving like their idea of a Princess,' thought Princess Amy. ‘I only hope I can keep it up. Goodness knows, I'm not being treated like one.'

  ‘I'm going to let you sleep.' Beagle spoke in a voice which was both reasonable and distinct, so that unlike Pussy he did not sound, as well as look, menacing.

  'Sleep! Where?'

  Beagle pointed to the large low
bed in the corner of the room.

  ‘I assure you I have no intention of sleeping. Not with you in the room. As a matter of fact' - and as Princess Amy spoke she decided it was true - 'as a matter of fact, I'm hungry.'

  'You can have food. We have food. You can even have a drink if you like. Wine, and I believe there's some whisky. The vintage may not be what you're used to -'

  ‘I never drink,' interrupted Amy coldly. 'My mouth hurts. I would like a drink of water.'

  Beagle went to the basin and poured out some water into a china mug with the Innoright logo on it. Princess Amy made a grimace.

  'I assure you it's quite clean,' he said.

  'How do you expect me to drink it like this? Please undo my hands. I shan't try to escape. I'll give you - my parole, I think it's called.'

  Beagle considered. Amy's ankles were bound as were her hands: she was also bound to the white chair in which she sat, the single chair in the room. Shouting would get her nowhere above the deserted shop. It seemed safe enough to comply (despite Monkey's explicit instructions to the contrary); besides which, he had his own reasons for wishing to do so. He undid the ropes round Princess Amy's wrists and handed her the cup of water which she gulped down.