Death and the Princess

by Robert Barnard

  ‘Why,’ she said, as we got out of the car, ‘don’t you have lunch with me?’

  ‘I — er — ’

  ‘Oh do. I always have lunch with my security man at some time or other. Except McPhail. I didn’t feel equal to that. But I do love policemen, you know, generally.’

  ‘You remember I have another engagement for lunch, Your Royal Highness,’ drawled Lady Dorothy, with warning and disapproval in the drawl.

  ‘Quite, Dorothy,’ said the Princess flatly. Thwarted, the lady-in-waiting trudged off towards the Palace. ‘As if,’ said the divine Helena, ‘I’d think of sharing you.’

  ‘Well, I — ’

  ‘Marvellous. Then we’ll eat about one.’

  And that’s what we did, tête-à-tête. And I might as well tell you now, that is all we did, and (though Jan will never believe this) that was the closest I got to the Princess, alone, during the entire case. So this is not going to be one of those horribly vulgar books, usually written by Americans, where the reader is allowed to fulfil his dream fantasies by vicariously sleeping with royalty in the person of his hero. Not that I’m saying I couldn’t have done, of course, if I’d gone all out.

  Lunch was elegant nothings, beautifully served. Vol-au-venty things, you know what I mean, and some rather good sorbets. But lunch wasn’t what it was all about. As I suspected, what the Princess really wanted was to pump me about James Brudenell’s death, and as we toyed with our food (and the Princess managed to put away a considerable number of those elegant nothings, proving that she did not need to think about her figure, though throughout the meal I thought about it quite a lot) she put on a dazzling display of charm and low cunning to winkle information out of me. And I, for my part, put on the sort of plodding, straight-bat performance you get from an English eleven fighting for a draw against the West Indies. I won’t burden you with that part of the conversation, because I told her nothing I haven’t told you already, and withheld from her a great deal that I have. I think she found my discretion tiresome, though discretion was something she knew all about. At the end, however, she threw her own to the winds and came out with her personal preoccupations.

  ‘Anyway, it’s all a terrible bore, from my point of view, because I got the strongest possible warning from the Palace that for the next few days I was to lie as low as I possibly could. It’s quite crushingly boring! The tedium of an evening on one’s own. Last night I positively sat in front of that set watching Esther Rantzen talking about the labelling of detergents! Too horribly depressing. I nearly went against all my principles and rang up a friend.’

  ‘Your principles, Ma’am?’

  ‘That they have to call me. But then I remembered we’d have had to go to his flat, and I’ve already been there once this week, and that’s another of my principles, so I stuck with the detergents. Have you noticed that if you say you’ll go to their flat, they always assume things?’

  ‘I can well imagine, Ma’am.’

  ‘Do you know, I’m in Private Eye this week, which is lovely, but they go on about my “having the trousers off” someone I’ve never even met. To say that one has had the trousers off someone one hasn’t had the trousers off is the worst injury one can do anyone, don’t you agree? Besides, it’s always the other way round. I’ve never had the exquisite pleasure of making love with someone reluctant.’

  ‘I think it exceedingly unlikely you ever will, Ma’am.’

  She giggled. ‘Aren’t we getting personal? Anyway, as I say, I was horribly good last night, in accordance with instructions from the Palace. Also, I’d made up my mind to be very virtuous for the next few days, because Daddy’s coming.’

  ‘Daddy? I mean, your father, Ma’am?’

  ‘Yes. I do have one, you know.’

  ‘I’m afraid I had rather assumed he was dead.’

  ‘Oh no, he’s not dead. He lives in Germany.’

  ‘Yes, I knew he was German.’

  ‘He’s the Catholic Prince and Hereditary Elector of the State of Krackenburg-Hoffmansthal. The title goes back to the Holy Roman Empire. Do you know, I’ve never been really sure what the Holy Roman Empire was!’

  ‘Nor have I, Ma’am,’ I said truthfully. ‘Except that someone said it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.’

  ‘Well, that figures. Because my father is neither Catholic, nor Prince, nor an Elector. He’s lapsed, there’s no one to elect, and German titles were abolished years ago. They’re only kept alive by the illustrated magazines. Anyway, Daddy lives in this gloomy old castle not far from Munich, and I go and see him every summer — or I say I do, and I drop in on the way to somewhere more exciting. I mean, you can’t actually stay there, because it’s all ruined towers, gaping windows, draughty corridors and bats. You expect Count Dracula to come out at you any moment.’ She giggled again. ‘Though actually Daddy would fit the bill perfectly well, because he’s tall and gaunt and gloomy, though terribly sexy too, and he’s got a voice like a creaky door. I don’t suppose he’d suck the blood of his own daughter, though, would he?’

  ‘I’m sure he would have done so before now, if he’d felt the inclination,’ I said gravely. ‘So your father is coming to England, is he?’

  ‘Yes — with this State Visit tomorrow. Of the Prince of Liechtenburg, who’s his brother-in-law. He’s been given an honorary court position and a place in the entourage, so though he’s persona not particularly grata at the Palace, due to one or two things he said during the divorce, they’re having to grit their teeth and bear it. Anyway, I’m going to be particularly good during this visit, because no doubt there’ll be a party or two to liven things up a bit. In fact, I know there will be, and one of them . . . well, you’ll see. I suppose you’ll be on duty?’

  ‘Excuse me, Ma’am,’ I said, with a mental shudder of anticipation, ‘but you’re not planning anything, are you?’

  She gazed at me, wide-eyed.

  ‘Good heavens, no. I don’t plan things. And yet, all sorts of things seem to happen to me, I don’t know why!’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better, Ma’am, to settle down to a quiet life for a little?’

  ‘Oh, much better,’ she said, giggling. ‘Only I just seem to attract danger, don’t I? Actually, you’re an awful hypocrite. Nobody goes into the Police for a quiet life. I bet you live terribly dangerously, and have millions of girl-friends, and have a real fizzing time when you’re out of uniform.’

  ‘Actually, Ma’am, I’m a particularly safe married man.’

  ‘Oh — you’re not married?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, Ma’am. I am of age, you know.’

  ‘Oh, I can see that. But what a waste. I’m always very careful about married men. I mean, the Press calls one marriage-breaker, and vamp, and things like that.’

  ‘Mr Harry Bayle is a married man,’ I said, greatly daring. ‘And yet you go to his flat, Ma’am.’

  ‘Oh, you know!’ she said, still wide-eyed and giggly. ‘That’s who I was talking about earlier. Have you been trailing us, or something? In a trench-coat and trilby hat? I shall look out for you next time, and embarrass you in public. Actually, you know, Harry is as careful as if he was planning D-day or something, and with me being careful too, and the flat being terribly discreet, I really think we should be all right. I mean, I should hate to destroy his political career.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s unlikely to let anything come in the way of that, Ma’am.’

  ‘Oh, do you think he’s a go-getter? An opp — opp — ’

  ‘Opportunist? Well, that’s hardly for me to say, Ma’am.’

  ‘I think he may be, you know. Because last time I was there in his flat, I found on the desk this speech of his, and it was all about mon — monetarism, and it was terribly in favour of the government’s policies. I was ever so surprised. I think he must be going over. I do hope so, because it’s so much easier with Tories, isn’t it? I mean, people seem to expect it of them really, don’t they?’

  I neither asked her what ‘it’ was
that was so much easier with Tories nor disillusioned her about the monetarist speech she had picked up. It was obvious somebody was not exercising the sort of care needed in the running of a cross-bench love-nest. One thing I could not see Mr Harry Bayle doing was changing his party: he must have been much too aware of the political fate of floor-crossers to do any such thing.

  Anyway, I had to make my excuses now, because I had my appointment at Buckingham Palace. I didn’t tell her that, though, and felt a bit of a louse going straight from lunching with her to a meeting designed to tie the silken chains more firmly around her. But I made my adieux with reasonable grace, and she opened those enormous grey 21-inch eyes, and said we must do it more often, and she wanted to know me so much better, and lots of things like that. I told myself that was the sort of thing she said to everybody — Birmingham Mayors, Comprehensive School Headmasters, Elders of the Church of Scotland. Still, the old heart missed a beat.

  I don’t think I’ll tell you much about Buckingham Palace. It might contravene the Official Secrets Act, or something. It was all white and gold leaf, with pictures on the wall one had only read about, and it certainly didn’t look as if the owner was having any trouble with the upkeep. Still, for all I know the back bedrooms may have been frightfully tatty. What I would like to have done was dawdle through gaping, like any old tourist, but in fact I was hurried along by a rather grander flunkey than Young Woodley (too old to be learning to be a gentleman, too self-assured to be anything other than what he so magnificently was), and finally I was closeted in a study the size of a provincial assembly hall in Jane Austen’s time with the Secretarial Personage who had consented to the interview. He was probably only fourth or fifth in the secretarial pecking order, but he seemed pretty grand to me — lofty, languid and capable, like some nineteenth-century Foreign Secretary, someone who now and then condescended to come in off the grouse moors and solve the problems of Europe.

  The Palace had been tactfully and briefly informed of the position vis-à-vis the Princess a couple of days before, when the Brudenell ‘suicide’ had come up. Naturally it (should that be ‘It’?) was worried, and I took the opportunity to fill it in on all the details. It was clearly no good any longer holding back on them. The Secretarial Personage listened intelligently, but he stretched out his lean, epicene length as if he were listening to a fag excusing himself for burning the crumpets. At the end of the recital he sighed.

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear. She does seem to have got herself involved with something, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Not necessarily she herself,’ I pointed out loyally. ‘She may be threatened, or else someone or other may have involved her.’

  ‘You don’t think,’ said the Secretary wistfully, ‘that it could have been Brudenell stepping out of line, and then committing suicide rather than face disgrace? We always wondered whether he was up to the job. And of course he was never quite the thing.’

  Poor Brudenell. All that fussy snobbery, and then to be judged not quite the thing.

  ‘The team investigating the death is pretty convinced it was not suicide,’ I pointed out. ‘No, as I see it, the possibilities are these. On the one hand, there may be some threat to the life of the Princess herself. This may have been what Snobby Driscoll intended to warn us about, and it may be the point of the Knightley episode — purely a case of mistaken identity. On the other hand, the Princess is by now pretty well known. Pictures of her all the time in the papers and the illustrated glossies.’

  ‘Too true,’ murmured the Secretarial Personage. ‘It causes jealousy, I can tell you, among the older ladies.’

  ‘I can imagine. Well, it’s for that reason that I’m not altogether happy with the idea of the murderer (if one was involved there) making some kind of mistake. And if the Knightley business was mistaken identity, it’s not easy to account for the death of Brudenell.’

  ‘No. I can see that. And the other possibility?’

  ‘That in some way or other the Princess Helena is involved in some kind of criminal conspiracy. Quite unwittingly, of course — against her will, without her knowledge.’

  ‘Quite,’ breathed the Personage.

  ‘The fact that Snobby Driscoll knew of it suggests the involvement of some crook of the usual type at some stage of the conspiracy. In other words, not the type of person that the Princess would normally associate with.’

  ‘But she associates with such assorted types,’ put in the Secretary plaintively.

  ‘Quite,’ I breathed, in imitation. ‘But as far as I know, no one hitherto of the criminal classes. In any case, whichever of the explanations is the true one, one is worried for the Princess. Either her life or her reputation is at risk. Which is why we have tried to be quiet and tactful about the whole business.’

  ‘Greatly appreciated — ’ drawled the Secretary.

  ‘And in fact we have said nothing to the Princess herself. Since we feel, on the whole — ’

  ‘That she is not to be trusted,’ supplied the Personage coolly.

  ‘In this particular matter,’ I insisted. ‘Not to keep quiet about it. She seems to court excitement. If we had told her, she might well have told one of her . . . well, boyfriends. Who might, in turn, have been involved. The problem is, we have no desire to restrict Her Royal Highness’s private life. She’s young, she does an awful lot of very dreary jobs — ’

  ‘We don’t admit that here,’ breathed the Secretary. ‘She does her public duties, you know.’

  ‘Still, all those old people’s homes and geriatric units,’ I persisted. ‘It can’t be much fun for a bright young thing like her to specialize in the old.’

  ‘We don’t specialize,’ rebuked the Secretary. ‘You make it sound like some kind of character actor. I’ll have a word with Brudenell’s successor if she’s been overdoing it in that direction.’

  ‘Ah yes, Brudenell’s successor. Now, I wanted to say something about that. It seems to me — and no doubt it’s occurred to you too — that some very definite qualities are required in him.’

  The Secretarial Personage sighed.

  ‘We know, we know. We’ve talked about it, up to the Very Highest Level. She’s an artful little minx, strictly off the record. And she enjoys her — what shall we say? — conquests. We knew this all along, of course. Impregnability to her charms seemed the first requirement when we appointed Brudenell.’

  ‘Possibly you went a little too far in that direction,’ I murmured.

  ‘Quite . . . Quite . . . And of course, he was terribly well-meaning, and loyal, and discretion itself, which is vital . . . but perhaps not really strong enough.’

  ‘Quite,’ I murmured. ‘I suppose there is no question of her father, at times, providing the restraining influence required?’

  The Secretary, literally, and with more energy than he had displayed hitherto, shuddered.

  ‘No. No. Dreadful heredity there, you know. He’s got a mixture of German melancholy with quite obsessively rampant sexuality. His mother was a Bourbon Parma. No, he most definitely would not provide the restraining influence you are talking about.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, sticking to my guns, ‘you will need someone, in my opinion, who will take a firm line with her, and stick to it. Who won’t stand any nonsense. Someone willing to wield the big stick if necessary.’

  ‘Ye-e-es,’ said the Secretarial Personage. ‘Strong-minded, determined, impervious to feminine charms. There is such a person.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Only she happens at the moment to be Prime Minister,’ he said, with a wistful sigh.

  CHAPTER 12

  Acting Styles

  When I got back to Scotland Yard after my glimpse of life at the top, I found myself in the middle of a conference about security during the State Visit, due to start next day. Not the routine safety on the streets during the drive through London and the various public festivities, but security during the rather more private events, including a gala performance at Covent Garden and a dinner given
for the Queen at the Savoy by the Prince of Liechtenburg. All this sort of stuff was vital but dull, and I won’t bore you with the details. This is not one of those police procedural books, where you get so much detail about all the routine slog involved in crime that you wear out the soles of your shoes just reading them.

  After the conference was over I could go to my office and catch up with the details of the Brudenell murder, as they were emerging from the painstaking investigations of the dour McPhail. The report on the gun was the first thing I looked at. It had almost certainly been bought in the States. Of course (granted their laws) there was no record of where it had been obtained, or who by, but from the number it seemed likely that it had been sold in the first half of the previous year. The Princess had paid a visit to the United States that March, where she had received an honorary degree from a little-known New England university, and attended the opening night of the Royal Ballet season in Philadelphia. Mr James Brudenell had accompanied her. It seemed, therefore, as if he was indeed shot with his own gun, probably bought to protect himself against the murderous marauding muggers and crackpots who (in British mythology) make up fifty per cent of the American population.