‘Ah, you must be Rozie.’
The man at the ancient Aga was rotund, with swept-back hair and an easy, soft-lipped smile. He wore a striped cook’s apron over French-blue cotton trousers and a crisp cotton shirt. Rozie was grateful for the kimono: it looked as though she’d made more of an effort than she had.
‘And you’re Sholto. Hi. Thank you for having me.’
‘Not at all. So glad you made it safely. Was it easy to find?’
‘It was, with your instructions.’
He smiled. ‘Now, what can I get you? Coffee? Orange juice, eggs, sausages? What does your heart desire? I should say, the eggs are fresh this morning, from next door’s chickens. The bread is yesterday’s, but it’s a good loaf – I pride myself on my sourdough. If you need to freshen the juice with some fizz, there’s a bottle in the fridge.’
She laughed. ‘No, really. I couldn’t. Coffee’s fine.’
He made a slight moue, but set about filling the base of a basic-looking steel pot with water from the tap. She watched as he added grounds to a middle section, screwed on an upper part and set it to heat on the stove. Meanwhile, she found she had sat herself at a stool at the kitchen island between them, where a couple of bowls of fresh berries were temptingly to hand. Sholto turned to say something, but instead murmured, ‘I thought so,’ and walked over to a fridge, from which he extracted champagne and sausages. Rozie was about to demur again, but realised she’d eaten half the strawberries and made a serious dent in the raspberries too. She was hungrier than she’d thought.
‘Oh, I’m sorry!’
‘Not at all, I bought them specially for you. Now, please don’t offer to help, because I don’t need it and I hate it. Just relax. I’ll be with you presently.’
She rested her elbows on the island and watched as he worked. Sausages were put in a pan to sizzle, bread was carved and oranges pressed to make fresh juice. He seemed to move in a little dance to the piano music coming from a speaker on a nearby worktop, his movements practised and fluid, humming as he went.
‘Who’s this?’ she asked. ‘The composer?’
‘Mmmm? Chopin. Played by Horowitz. Perfect for a Sunday morning. One, two, three . . . And!’
She thought he was counting to the music, but as soon as he said ‘And’, the little steel pot on the Aga started to bubble fiercely. Steam emerged energetically from its spout. Sholto watched it for a moment or two, conducting to the music with a wooden spoon he happened to be holding, then whisked it off and poured thick, dark coffee into a couple of waiting porcelain cups.
‘Enough for us both,’ he said. ‘I’ve already had my first, but the day doesn’t really start until the second. Chin-chin.’
He had heated some milk in a tiny copper pan and poured it into their cups. The resulting blend was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. He waved a hand. ‘It’s the only way to make it. I learned in Florence, years ago. I’ll teach you before you go.’
‘Yes please.’
Rozie was starting to realise that this was not a work weekend to endure, but a masterclass in good living. Anything Sholto Harvie wanted to teach her was something she’d be happy to learn.
While he cooked the eggs and sausages, she took the chance to look around properly. The kitchen was large and square, with stone-framed windows overlooking a courtyard garden through a curtain of honeysuckle. Old oak beams were hung with copper pots and sheaves of lavender. Cream-painted cabinets displayed mismatched china, artfully arranged, and an open door led to a neatly stocked larder. This was a cook’s kitchen, full of well-used implements, but an artist’s space too. No doubt the lustrous green platter of fresh lemons in the corner would be useful if you wanted to make lemonade, but its principal job was simply to look fantastic, which it did.
Rozie very, very much wanted all of it, just as it was, for herself. She hoped it didn’t show.
‘Here we are. Let me know if you want brown sauce or ketchup. Bon appetit.’
Sholto served her where she sat. The smell of fresh-cooked sausages was only beaten by the tingle of champagne and orange juice on her tongue. The room by now resounded with the orchestral crescendo of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, which she had loved since uni.
If he’s awful, she thought, remembering Lulu, he’s my kind of awful.
‘Now, tell me all about you,’ Sholto said. ‘You must have led a fascinating life to be working so closely with Her Majesty. I want to know every little thing.’
*
They spent the day in conversation, doing some light gardening in the courtyard and cooking together in the evening, where Sholto allowed Rozie to prepare a salad while he put the finishing touches to a casserole.
Sholto had been surprised when she called, out of the blue, and a little nervous about entertaining her, but it was really very pleasant to remember his time working for the Boss. It was a privilege that few get to experience – a bit like going into space. They had formed a connection back then, he thought, he and the Queen. He was touched to think she must have thought so too. Rozie, he could tell, had also fallen under the Boss’s spell. It was easily done. He was a little jealous of the girl right now, if he was being honest with himself.
She had been fascinating on the subject of her childhood in Notting Hill, and her rather brilliant – though she was reluctant to share details – army career. All very impressive. Now it was her turn to ask about his time in as Deputy Surveyor. She’d asked about the summer of a particular year, but he wasn’t sure what he’d be able to tell her. However, he could give her a flavour.
‘London in the eighties. I can’t tell you how glamorous it was. Were you born then, Rozie?’
‘In 1986.’
‘Oh, just the time we’re talking about! Where?’
‘In Kensington.’
‘That’s where I lived, in Kensington Palace. Don’t laugh at me – lots of us did. I had a little flat at the back. It was fantastic. It was the days of Charles and Di, when it was all starting to go pear-shaped, of course, but hardly anybody knew. He used to weekend round here; Highgrove’s just up the road. She’d stay in town with the boys. I used to see Diana at KP all the time. Cigarette pants and fluffy jumpers, great ankles, great hair. She had the dirtiest, sweetest smile from under that blonde mop. “How are you doing, Sholto?” She always gave the impression she thought – hoped, even – you were up to no good. I only wish I was.’ He sounded wistful.
‘What was your job, exactly?’
‘I didn’t have a job exactly.’ He took a swig of wine and poured some into the casserole. ‘I mean, I had a job, but it wasn’t exact. The Surveyor’s department was terribly old-fashioned then. It was all very serious art history, don’t you know, like it was some sort of Oxford college, or the Courtauld. But we had this fabulous collection, and people needed to know about it and see it. The people, I mean. Everyone, not just us courtiers. It needed cleaning and cataloguing properly and . . . Oh, we were very busy. We made it up as we went along, but we were very good.’
‘I don’t think they do that now. Make it up, I mean.’
‘Oh no, they don’t!’ He laughed. ‘There’s an army of them now at the RCT – it’s a Trust now, of course – hundreds of ’em. You lose track. All those job titles! We were only a dozen or so. We had more of a free hand . . .’ He paused and Rozie looked up. She must have seen the bittersweet look on his face. ‘I helped to set up the conservation department. Probably the most important thing I did.’
They ate at a round table draped in a vintage tapestry. He explained that the ‘cottage’ was in fact an old haberdashery, converted from a shop a hundred years ago. Sholto watched Rozie drinking in what he’d done with the place, seeing what she could learn. In this room, an antique Venetian mirror above the mantel was flanked by symmetrical collections of modern porcelain and vintage glass. Elsewhere, he was more abandoned in his taste. There were paintings wherever the bookshelves allowed: oils and watercolours, old and new, in a wide variety of f
rames, hung from floor to ceiling in unpredictable patterns. He was convinced that in a few years’ time, when she could afford it, she’d do the same.
Once they’d finished their casserole, and the claret, and the cheese she’d so kindly brought from Fortnum’s, they took their drinks into the sitting room. Rozie curled her feet under her on one of the sofas. He asked what she was thinking about.
‘I was thinking how comfortable this room is. And wondering who painted that picture of trees on the stairs near my room, whose signature looks like Cézanne. And why you left London, if you loved it so much.’
He drummed his fingers against his glass for a while, reflecting.
‘Well, it took me twenty years to get this room right, but thank you for noticing. The rug was lugged back from Kathmandu, for example. My wife had some rather nice furniture.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Rozie said. She must have picked up on the past tense. ‘Did your wife pass away?’
He nodded briskly. ‘Yes. Heart attack. A long time ago. Sorry, what else? Ah – the artist on the stairs. That is indeed, well done you, Cézanne.’
‘What?’ She stared at him. ‘Really?’
‘Very small. Very pretty. I do adore his trees.’
‘Was it your wife’s?’
‘No, but good guess. I admired it when I was working for a wealthy widow in Hampshire. I advise on art collections, you see, and hers was outstanding. It helped that her husband had been a Scandinavian billionaire, but she had a good eye. Anyway, when she died . . .’ He waved a hand.
‘Lucky you.’
‘Lucky me, as you say.’
‘Why put it up the stairs?’
‘Because it’s funny,’ he explained. ‘Of course, it’s the most valuable thing I own. Like keeping your Oscar in the downstairs loo. What was the other thing? Oh yes, leaving London. I had to move out. I lost a friend there and it was too painful. But I still miss it. The palace, particularly.’
‘I can imagine,’ she said. ‘I have a room there, overlooking the lake. It’s—’
‘I don’t mean Buckingham Palace – I mean St James’s.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s much more interesting than Buckingham Palace. Did you know it’s still the official residence of the monarch?’
Rozie shook her head. ‘So that’s why the ambassadors are appointed to it.’
‘Exactly. Henry VIII had it built on the site of a leper hospital.’ Sholto warmed to his theme. ‘And Buckingham Palace was built on the site of a failed mulberry orchard. The Boss once told me that James I wanted to produce silk, but got black mulberry trees instead of white ones, so the silkworms weren’t interested. She loves it when things go wrong in history. I find Buckingham Palace so ugly, don’t you? That awful façade. They should get rid of it.’
Rozie stared. ‘No façade? But what about the balcony?’
‘Oh, they’d cope.’ Sholto waved a hand dismissively. ‘They could build another one. The whole East Front has only looked that way since 1913. We think of it as ancient, but honestly, it’s nothing, in royal terms. Now, I really think we need a little whisky, don’t you? I’ll find us a decent bottle.’
*
In her bedroom in the North Wing, the Queen reflected on how she used to be able to see the Palace from her parents’ house on Piccadilly and wave to ‘Grandpa England’. It had seemed magical then. Today, it was grimmer than she’d known it for a long time.
The servants’ hall, she knew, was still rife with speculation about the body in the pool. The press and various magazines were offering huge bounties for recent pictures of the inside of the north-west pavilion, and so far they hadn’t got any. The staff were behaving with admirable decorum on that front, though it helped that there was a permanent guard at the door these days.
The media were far more obsessed with the fact that Buckingham Palace had a pool. Philip’s alarm had been well founded: there were screeds of articles speculating on the royals’ ‘luxury spa’ lifestyle and complaining about the ‘extortionate’ Sovereign Grant paid by the Treasury each year to fund it.
She was waiting for them to pick up the story of the poison pen campaign. They called that sort of thing ‘trolling’ these days, apparently. At least if they did, one could point to an ongoing police investigation into the matter. It made it look as though one was actually doing something – which of course one was, though she suspected it was not enough.
Was it possible that, in the midst of a cruel campaign against various female staff members, the violent death of one of them could be an accident? The Queen longed for reassurance that it was, but she was equally certain, deep down, that she wouldn’t believe it if she got it. The chief inspector was due to make his first report tomorrow. She looked forward very much to hearing what he had to say.
*
David Strong, for his part, was not particularly looking forward to reporting to Her Majesty. He found her faintly terrifying, for reasons he couldn’t quite pinpoint. She was hardly known for her towering intellect, but he had found, on his first case working for her at Windsor, that she was a hell of a lot sharper than she looked. Mistakes were picked up on. Dry comments were made. Eyes were rolled. He didn’t want the Queen of England rolling her eyes at him tomorrow afternoon. Seriously not.
Which was why, at half past eleven at night, he was still up with his sergeant, in their makeshift office at the Palace, going over what they knew – which wasn’t as much as he’d have liked. It had taken time to set up and get to grips with the environment. Far from a bank of computers in the Ballroom, he and Detective Sergeant Highgate had a padlocked cubbyhole in the South Wing on the floor above the Master’s office for conducting interviews, two secure office laptops, some notepads and a couple of wonky chairs that had seen better days. The air vice-marshal didn’t want them to get too comfortable, he assumed. No problem. Strong always worked better when he was uncomfortable.
To start with, there was just the language. He and DS Highgate were working their way through acronyms and nicknames as fast as they could. They were almost as bad as the Met. SJP was St James’s Palace, KP was Kensington Palace, the APS was that lovely, capable Nigerian girl, Rozie. Could you call her Nigerian when she came from London? He wasn’t sure. Nigerian heritage, that was probably it. The D of E was the Duke of Edinburgh (he knew that). Welly B was Wellington Barracks, where the soldiers who guarded the Palace were housed. The current lot were the Welsh Guards, who were known as the Foreign Legion for some reason. Strong’s mother was Welsh and he felt slightly offended, but hadn’t said so. For professional purposes, he greeted everything he was told with a smile, a nod and silence, which was generally interpreted as approval – whether it was or not.
He didn’t smile about the poolside accident, though. The woman sounded like an old bat, but still . . .
‘First off, the cause of death,’ he said to his sergeant. ‘Nothing new on HOLMES?’
DS Highgate, who had been tasked with checking up on the Met’s incident room database, shook his head. ‘No updates to speak of. The pathologist didn’t find any signs of violence, other than what can be explained by the dropping of the glass and the fall. “Laceration of the posterior tibial artery”. Looks like nothing, but you can easily bleed out if you don’t get to A & E in time.’
‘What d’you think of my suicide idea?’ Strong said. ‘She was under pressure, and the harassment was escalating in the days before she died?’
‘Nah.’ Highgate was unconvinced. ‘Too nasty.’
‘People cut their wrists. Why not an ankle?’
‘Why do it there? She had access to a bathroom with a bit of privacy. Everyone says she was a massive Queen fan. Person, not band. Why subject Her Maj to the publicity?’
‘Fair point,’ Strong acknowledged. The good thing about Andrew Highgate was that they tended to disagree about things. It kept Strong on his toes and lessened the risk of confirmation bias. He’d done the same for his boss in times past. ‘ABC, though,
’ he added.
‘I’ll keep it in mind,’ Highgate promised. Strong had re-inforced the mantra from day one: Assume nothing; believe no one; check everything. Or as Strong generally preferred: Arrest everyone; believe no one. Except you couldn’t really do that here.
There was nothing suspicious in Cynthia Harris’s phone records, but they were still looking into that. They ran over the poison pen letters she had received. There had been eleven of them, all told, including a couple the year before her so-called ‘retirement’. All handwritten on cheap paper, some in pencil, some in biro, done with stencil sets to disguise the handwriting. No prints, beyond those of the woman herself, the Master, and the four people in HR who’d handled them. All correctly spelled and punctuated, which was unusual for this sort of thing. Three found in coat pockets, four in her locker, two in a handbag, one in a tote bag, one in a room she was about to clean. All containing personal information referring to private moments in her past.
‘The fake marriage,’ Strong noted. ‘She was accused of making it up just so’s she could change her name. I’m inclined to believe that’s true. The various demotions in her early days. We have a list of those, don’t we?’
‘We d-o-o,’ Highgate said, hesitating on the second word. ‘It’s a bit vague. HR are going to try and get us a better one.’
‘See if you can get it first thing. And then the abortion in 1987. She claims no one at the Palace could have known about that. Yet someone did.’
‘We also have a list of the physical attacks on her property,’ Highgate went on. ‘All fairly recent. Twice, in June and September, clothes marked with an indelible marker. Once, in early July, her locker emptied and contents scattered about. A make-up case “of sentimental value” was reported missing at that point.’
A Three Dog Problem Page 9
