Death and the Princess

by Robert Barnard

  The Princess’s comments on the game were knowledgeable, but mostly of the private lives of the players, gleaned, I suppose, from the narrations of their bedtime tactics and scores purveyed by their ex-wives and mistresses to the readership of the Daily Grub. Me, I was so much on duty, and the Princess Helena was so much exposed, that I hardly noticed what went on on the field, and was even uncertain at the end who had won. The Princess shook a lot of sweaty and dirty paws with obvious interest, exchanged a very meaningful look with one of the players, and then we all drove home.

  Otherwise, as I say, I spent the day going into the journalistic career of Bill Tredgold. I picked up a whole pile of relevant stuff at the Yard, and then took it all back to the flat to go over it with Jan. It was her last day home before she and Daniel went back for Spring term at Newcastle, and we settled down by the fire with it and had a real cosy day.

  As his mother had said, the notebooks they had retrieved from Bill’s room were old — or rather they were used up. Most of the entries had been crossed through, either because they were no go, or because he had used them in one or other of his articles. I checked them against a volume of back issues of the Birmingham Standard, and it seemed that the notebooks covered a period roughly from late September to early November of the previous year. Bill had had a series of five articles called ‘Failures of the Welfare State’ printed around that time, and a lot of the entries had been used in those. Sometimes the entries were just phrases, sometimes they were stories relevant to his theme — the mistreated children that social workers had shut their eyes to, the lonely dead who remained undiscovered for months, the hospitals run down to the point of being insanitary, the schools without textbooks or equipment — the shabby, all-too-common stories which somehow seem to sum up Britain today. Some of the entries referred to news stories he had been assigned to — from allegations of police brutality to incredible talking parrots. Often there were notes suggesting plans for a later follow-up story, but there would be none of those now.

  Then there were the entries which remained uncrossed through. Some of these, I thought, could hardly have any bearing on the threat to the Princess: ‘Check on Councillor Duxbury’s connection with Midland Building Enterprises’ — that sort of thing. If I came to the conclusion that Bill Tredgold’s death had been the result of his investigations into civic corruption, then I’d hand the whole thing over to the Birmingham police and wash my hands of it.

  But there was one entry that puzzled me, and which I could not dismiss so lightly. It was nothing more than a list of places, one after the other:

  Oldham

  Nuneaton

  Cumberland

  Leamington

  Stourbridge

  There was nothing there to pull me up. For all I knew it could be Bill Tredgold’s plans for future dirty weekends (no, not Oldham, surely). But what did intrigue me was the pencilled entry in the margin: OS.

  ‘Well, it can hardly mean “outsize”,’ said Jan, and I enlightened her on Operation Seneca.

  But if it did refer to that, what on earth could be the significance of such a list? Four of the places were roughly speaking Midlands to Northern, and all within fairly easy reach of Birmingham (Oldham being farthest away). But none of them was particularly close to Knightley, where he died. And what in the world was Cumberland doing there?

  Two lines down from this list, underlined, was the word ‘Treasurer’, but I could not decide whether it had any connection, or was related to a case of civic bribery which was the entry immediately below.

  Jan and I chewed over all this as we went through it, and then again after Daniel had been despatched to bed, but beyond the fact that we both had the impression of Bill Tredgold as a bright boy and a sympathetic personality — committed, involved, yet thoroughly practical and down-to-earth — we could make little of it. On the other hand, I had that itching feeling that there was a connection there, waiting to be made, and I had no doubt that if we could lay our hands on any subsequent notebook we would probably find the vital clue to the whole business. But where was that now? Ashes, I wouldn’t mind betting. It was a pretty funny way for Jan and me to spend our last evening together, but policemen don’t lead normal lives, as a rule, and neither do policemen’s wives.

  I went over all this again the next morning in the car with Joplin as we drove to the Palace. We had met up at Scotland Yard, where I had found the message ‘Bayle, Basin Street, nine-thirty’ waiting for me. So last night the Princess had been with her Parliamentary friend. That was worth knowing. I made arrangements to have any future messages of the kind sent to me at home, and I made a mental note to get Jeremy Styles to perform a similar service. I had no illusions about the Honourable Edwin Frere co-operating, and rather doubted whether she would be so much in his company in future.

  That day the Princess was free, at any rate of official duties. On the other hand, if she should decide to go anywhere privately, it would be best if she could be persuaded to take somebody with her. On the way in Joplin and I had a word with the cop on duty at the barrier which shielded the residential part of Kensington Palace from the gazes of the vulgar. He had seen nothing suspicious, beyond an amiable crackpot who had been in love with Princess Margaret since 1956; he had been loitering there to watch her drive past on her way to visit the Royal Ballet School. He had been checked out scores of times over the years, without result. I thought it rather to his credit that he hadn’t transferred his hopeless affections to any of the younger royal ladies.

  I drove through into the courtyard, and Joplin and I separated, he to take over some of the security jobs at the Palace door, I to go through and check whether the Princess had any personal plans for the day. Once more (I was getting used to it) I was taken through the dark wooden corridors by the fair young footman I’d seen on the first day. He replied in monosyllables to my attempt at relaxed conversation. Well, it wasn’t much of an attempt: relaxed conversation did not flow easily in that rather overcast environment.

  Eventually we arrived at the chilly antechamber which had become familiar if hardly welcoming since we had talked to the Princess’s private secretary there on our first visit to the Palace. Once again the typist was busy in the corner — Miss Trimble her name was, I had found out, and a tight-lipped scrap of gentility she was to be sure. I seldom got more out of her than I had done that first day, but I assumed my most ingratiating manner as I went over to her rickety little desk.

  ‘Ah, Miss Trimble, a cold sort of morning, isn’t it? The Princess is free today, I believe, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘Do you happen to know whether she plans to go out anywhere informally?’

  ‘She would be unlikely to tell me.’ Lips pursed: and I would be the last to expect it, she seemed to say. ‘Perhaps Mr Brudenell knows, but he has not yet arrived — ’

  But at that moment the Princess herself danced in, and you could see she had no engagements: jeans, no less, and a tight-fitting silk blouse that emphasized everything that her official dresses only gave tantalizing hints of. I say jeans, but these jeans were to work denims what a Fabergé Easter egg is to the kids’ chocolate variety. They were svelte, I tell you: they hugged her all the way, and she looked like a Sunday Supplement fashion plate.

  ‘Oh — hello, Superintendent. How awful we’re not going out together today. Perhaps I could think of something for after lunch. We’ve both been so busy I’ve hardly begun to get to know you. Miss Trimble, tell Mr Brudenell I’m ready to go through the correspondence, will you?’

  ‘I’m afraid Mr Brudenell hasn’t arrived yet, Your Royal Highness.’

  She looked at the desiccated little secretary with arrogant incomprehension.

  ‘Hasn’t arrived? But I said I’d see him at eleven.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Ma’am — ’

  ‘Hasn’t he sent a message?’ I asked.

  ‘I haven’t received one. I’ll check again with the Household and see if one has come in
.’

  ‘This is awfully inconvenient,’ pouted the Princess, turning to me. ‘I suppose there’s some silly demonstration or other holding up the traffic.’

  ‘The traffic was running perfectly normally a few minutes ago, Ma’am. Does Mr Brudenell have far to drive?’

  ‘Oh no. I’ve been there. South Kensington somewhere. No distance.’ She drummed her fingers on the table as Miss Trimble spoke into the ’phone. She looked like a spoiled debutante whose Delight has stood her up.

  ‘They’ve had no word through, Ma’am. I’ll ring his flat, shall I?’

  But as the ringing went on and on, I began to get more and more uneasy.

  ‘Has this ever happened before, Ma’am?’

  ‘Never,’ she said emphatically.

  ‘I’m going round,’ I said. ‘Miss Trimble, what’s his address?’

  ‘Whitehaven Mansions, Lichfield Street.’

  ‘Will there be some kind of caretaker?’

  ‘Oh yes, it’s a very — ’

  ‘Ring him and tell him we’re coming. Tell him we may need the key to Brudenell’s flat.’

  And I made my way to the door with a near total lack of ceremony. As I went through it, I heard the Princess say: ‘Really, it’s not that important.’

  The thought flashed through my mind: does she really think I’m just worried about the inconvenience to her of her secretary missing his appointment? Is she really so dim? But the thought went from me as I raced through the corridors, flinging off the fair iceberg of a flunkey, and out into the courtyard.

  ‘Joplin!’ I shouted. ‘The car.’

  And we slid in and sped out into Kensington Palace Gardens and negotiated the stream of traffic in Kensington High Street, going in the direction of Lichfield Street.

  In the car I had to explain to Joplin what was up, and when I began to do so, it began to sound lame. Someone being late for work, it wasn’t more than that.

  ‘Call it a hunch,’ I said finally. ‘But there is some basis for it. He’s a precise, pernickety little piece of nothing very much — well, you saw what he’s like: formal, meticulous, devoted to doing the right thing. If he was just sick he’d ring up with apologies, special messages of regret to the Princess, the lot. Helena says it’s never happened before, and I can believe it. Of course, there could have been a traffic accident — ’

  We drew up outside the Mansions: luxury pads for private incomes, built in the ’thirties, I would guess, anonymously smooth in style, but with a sort of decaying smugness. Once, I suppose, they would have had a uniformed attendant looking impressive in the main entrance. Now there was just a caretaker, grey and not too clean, who stood at the door waiting for us.

  ‘Mr Brudenell, is it? It’s the third floor, number two. Here’s the key.’

  ‘Have you seen him today?’

  ‘Not today, no. But I’ve been busy out the back, and I didn’t think twice. Usually he’s very regular. Sails by at ten, with never a pleasant word for a body. But you can set your watch by him, as a rule.’

  We took the lift up, and ran through the thickly carpeted corridor to number two. The air was heavy with frigid gentility and money from dividends. The bell produced no result, and we opened up. The door led into a hallway, papered in Regency stripe, with little round embroidered pictures and prints of a tasteful sort. I called out, into the plushy silence. No reply. I pushed open what seemed to be the main door, and found myself in a sitting-room — large, velvety, lacking in personality, but with capacious armchairs and sofa. Pictures by Paul Nash. I glanced around, then walked across the room and pushed open a door to the right. The study. All the walls lined with books — red-bound autobiographies, middlebrow novels in hardback, an encyclopaedia, Burke’s Peerage. They dominated the room. So much so that you could almost overlook the natty little desk towards the far corner, with the typewriter neatly in place in the centre. Except that now it had a body, sprawling grotesquely sideways across it.

  It was Brudenell, of course. Still looking a bit like a pouter pigeon, shot by some maniac for fouling Nelson’s Column perhaps, his fat little belly still poked under the desk, his bottom pushed through the back of the chair. He had been shot, that much was clear. Though he was still sitting at his desk he had fallen to the right, his right arm under him, his face resting on the green leather desktop. A small enamelled pistol, almost a toy, had fallen to the floor, apparently from his left hand. There was a neat little hole in the left side of his head.

  ‘Almost like a stage-set, isn’t it?’ said Joplin. ‘What’s the betting it isn’t suicide?’

  I wasn’t taking him on. I sent him down to the caretaker, so that he could call to the Yard from there. Fingerprints are a forlorn hope these days, but you have to make ritual bows in the direction of that possibility. He scooted off, and meanwhile I tiptoed round the study, getting my bearings.

  The first thing that I saw was the top drawer of the desk on the left-hand side — it was left open, while all the others were neatly closed, as one would expect of Mr Brudenell. The scenario was obvious: Mr James Brudenell, sitting at his typewriter, takes a gun from the drawer and shoots himself on an impulse. That was what we were meant to think, and I may say I found it a thoroughly unlikely scenario. Brudenell as a possible suicide I could accept, but not on an impulse: I doubt whether he did anything without fussy preliminaries. He was the sort who would write a letter to the Coroner, and worry about the correct form of address.

  The body had fallen clear of the typewriter, and I walked carefully over and looked at the sheet of paper still sticking out of the machine. It was headed typing paper, with the Whitehaven Mansions address at the top, and what was being written was a letter:

  Dear John,

  I must tell you, with great regret, that I can no longer continue giving way to the monstrous financial demands you

  There was no address for the recipient. Presumably, therefore, an intimate, if not a friend. I continued cautiously circling the room. On the far side of the desk the bullet had singed a track, finally lodging in the floor under the bookshelves. I stood considering the desk and shook my head, dissatisfied. It didn’t add up, I felt sure. Or rather, what it added up to was a strong smell of fish. Someone had been too clever by half.

  ‘They’re on their way,’ said Joplin, coming back into the flat.

  ‘Good,’ I shouted. ‘Come through, Garry. Have a look here. It’s obvious what the set-up is, as we’re meant to understand it. Brudenell is typing. Reply to a blackmail demand. He takes the gun from the drawer, and shoots himself. The bullet singes the edge of the desk, and lodges — over here, right? Into the floor. Now, before the other boys arrive, look around. Anything else you notice in this room that I haven’t spotted?’

  As I said before, Joplin has marvellous, sharp little eyes. He stalked cautiously round the room, darting them about. He shook his head over the letter in the typewriter, noticed the bullet mark, and then finally came to rest by a good-sized side table in the opposite corner of the room. It was empty, and had a large easy chair beside it. I followed his eyes.

  ‘Yes, I see,’ I said. ‘Good lad.’

  Most of the furniture in the room was covered by a light film of dust. I guessed that Brudenell employed a char a couple of days a week, and no doubt tut-tutted impotently at the inefficiency of her operations, and regretted the time when chars could be made to work their fingers to the bone for a pittance. This round table, however, had that film of dust only on the very edges: there was a large, square area in the centre that was hardly dusty at all. We stood looking at it.

  ‘Now what,’ I pondered aloud, ‘was lying there, and lying there until recently? A newspaper? One doesn’t lay a newspaper down on a table to read it. A book? The area’s much too big — unless it was something like an atlas. An atlas . . .’

  I suddenly remembered Bill Tredgold’s list of places, and wondered if by some chance or process of reasoning Brudenell had come by the same knowledge, or was conjecturing along th
e same lines. I would have gone to the bookshelves, but I wanted to leave the room to the fingerprint men, and there were other things to do first. As I was thinking, they all arrived — the technicians of death, and a posse of regular men from the Yard. McPhail, the Princess’s erstwhile and dour security man, had been put on the case, which was a sensible enough decision. Capable, if hardly exciting. He looked round the room as if it sunk him into a profound gloom, and then started getting on with the job in the careful, efficient way I knew so well.

  I left him to it: I thought that the less the present protector of the Princess had to do with the investigation the better, at least as far as the newspapers were concerned. But I had a word with him before I went, and pointed out the dustless shape on the table. I wanted it measured and marked. Then Joplin and I hot-footed it back to the Palace.

  I immediately asked to see the lady-in-waiting, and in that cold, bare antechamber told her (and incidentally and inevitably Miss Trimble as well) the essentials of the matter. Lady Dorothy blinked her concern, and gave little strangulated expressions of shock in the course of my narrative.

  ‘As far as we can see at the moment,’ I ended, ‘he committed suicide. But that is only a preliminary judgement, of course.’

  ‘How absolutely frightful,’ she drawled. ‘Quite appalling. I had no idea . . . Was he ill, or something?’

  ‘That we shall hope to find out,’ I said.

  ‘You’ll tell the Princess, of course,’ she said.

  That I had rather hoped to get her to do, but she said it in so definitive a way that it almost seemed that some rigid point of etiquette might be involved (a Royal Personage shall always be informed by her Security Officer in the event of her Private Secretary putting a bullet in himself — that kind of thing). So I didn’t argue the toss, but meekly assented, and after a hushed telephone conversation I gathered the Princess would receive me. I was taken straight through to her sitting-room, and there she was, stretched out in those glorious jeans along her sofa, reading a glossy magazine and listening to Rod Stewart in loud stereo. She did not turn him down, but as soon as her lady-in-waiting withdrew she turned and smiled at me invitingly.