A Death in Diamonds (Her Majesty the Queen Investigates #4)

by S.J. Bennett

‘That’s what my father thought. General Eisenhower too.’ ‘Did they? But—’ ‘The chain of command … It does rather require every link to be reliable, doesn’t it?’

She gets it.

She had never regretted causing his departure. So, Her Majesty appreciated irony after all.

‘You were demoted from third officer back to ordinary Wren, and as far as I’m concerned you should have been promoted.

‘I need you to find out what this pattern means. It’s a lot to ask. For obvious reasons, you’d be acting alone.

I won’t tell you who it is for now. I find if I say something, people tend to take it as gospel. I want to see if you come to the same conclusion by yourself. And anyway, he might not be acting alone.’

Gasp.

Joan also sensed that there was no one the Queen could talk to about it – no one at all.

Deborah Fairdale’s home, which she shared with her husband and daughter, was the largest and loveliest of them all, as befitted a Hollywood star who had become as much loved on the West End stage as she was in America.

New character alert.

He didn’t mind being ‘Mr Fairdale’ half the time, when really she should be ‘Mrs Locke’. It was one of the many things Deborah loved about him.

Paul had found her a rocket designer whom Prince Philip would adore, but her special guest for the Queen was horribly late, and in the meantime all anybody wanted to talk about was murder. Deborah had tried several times to shift the conversation on to more enlightening topics, but by the second martini she realised Her Majesty was as interested as anyone else.

Gregory Peck was the name of Deborah’s cockerel, who was infamous in the Boltons for his dawn alarm.

Not to be confused with the actor.

Gregory was touchy and territorial, and he’d have crowed the place down if anyone had leaped over their garden wall. But that night he’d been perfectly quiet until dawn.

‘Your chauffer lives there?’ the press baron’s wife asked. ‘Practically next door?’ ‘Five doors down.’ Deborah and Paul were among the few residents of the Boltons who could still afford to keep the original mews house on.

Never talk in the car, that’s what I’ve learned. Chauffeurs say nothing, but they hear everything.’

‘Lining up like a lamb to the slaughter. It can’t go on,’ Philip said. ‘I always feel so absurd, nodding to them all. And they look like frightened rabbits and afterwards their mothers are the cat that got the cream.’

??

Bill Astor’s given us the use of Cliveden. It’s a masked ball, and the theme’s Shakespeare. You can go incognito if you like.’

Astors are still alive at this point?

‘Ma’am, I’d like to introduce Mr Duke Ellington,’ Deborah said. ‘He was held up at the 400 Club, but we forgive him.’

Gasp.

‘I’m sorry I’m late, Your Majesty. A little matter of paid employment. I got here as fast as the audience would permit.’

Spicy.

Miles Urquhart had managed to convince Sir Hugh that there wasn’t room for her on the royal train.

Ick.

Joan saw the way Dilys pinched her lips when she said ‘Miss McGraw’. She had suggested that Dilys should continue to call her Joan, as she had in Joan’s typing pool days, but the other woman primly insisted on ‘Miss McGraw’ now. Joan felt judged and found wanting. But it didn’t do to let it show.

His detailed instructions for what Joan was to do while he was away were delivered via his personal secretary, Sarah, even though she worked down the corridor and Urquhart’s desk, by contrast, was literally opposite Joan’s. It hadn’t escaped her notice that Urquhart was also the person in charge of the royal couple’s upcoming Danish schedule, where Ingrid Kern had made her strange appearance.

That ass.

But in reality, any of the three men had access to the files and diaries in question, and were senior enough to instruct staff to do their bidding and keep quiet about it.

Now that she was experiencing his more childish and stubborn side, she saw a man who simply couldn’t hide his feelings. Dealing with him was a walk in the park compared with Brigadier Yelland.

The private secretary’s own war service wasn’t easy to investigate, meaning he had probably worked in military intelligence, and he was understated and academic in his manner. Some people mistook his politeness for weakness. They did so at their peril.

I’ve looked into it, and I understand that you travel across London each morning from Bow – a matter of six or seven miles. Is that right?’

Her Majesty has made it clear that she wants you to be on hand, and I don’t want you getting here tired and flustered. And we really can’t have the Queen’s temporary APS eating jellied eels on Brick Lane, or whatever else they do.’

That's A thing?

‘The women in the Private Office do not live in Bow. It’s in the East End of London. Too far, in every sense.

‘So I’ve arranged alternative accommodation. Something more suitable, closer to home. A decent address in Pimlico. It’s walking distance from the palace – a good twenty minutes, but think of it as exercise.’

The important thing is that you’re here when we need you, and that you get safely home.’

‘I notice you don’t really have the accent, by the way,’ he said. ‘How did you avoid it?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Cockney. Growing up in the East End …’ ‘I didn’t,’ Joan said. ‘I went to school in Cambridge. My father works there.’

Classist dingbat.

One of my godsons is up at St Anselm’s now, reading Classics. I wonder if he might know him.’ Joan gave him a wry smile. ‘I’m sure he does. My father’s the head porter.’

Suck it!

Vincent McGraw was a bit of a legend among the undergraduates, having single-handedly rescued four officers of the Coldstream Guards who were trapped under fire in their collapsing trench. He was nearly seven feet tall in his head porter’s bowler, powerful as a boxer, firm but fair, the nighttime nemesis of drunken student revellers. At home, he was soft as a pussycat, a prizewinning solver of The Times crossword, and a soppily fond single parent to his only child.

He didn’t give away whether he was pleased to be working with the daughter of a hero from the First World War or alarmed at having to make conversation with the offspring of a college servant.

Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean were British diplomats who had suddenly fled to Moscow in 1951, provoking a national scandal. Both had worked in Washington on sensitive issues while reporting to the Foreign Office and – as it turned out – the KGB.

She sensed that transatlantic political tensions hadn’t been Fiona’s strong point.

If the private secretary was working against the Crown, he was covering his tracks extremely well. It was hard to imagine sounding more dedicated to supporting it. But equally, that meant he understood what the stakes were. If he did want to undermine the Queen, he’d know exactly how to do it.

He has the motive.

Surrounded by Georgian architecture and antiques, it was hard to imagine anyone more British. But, if they wanted a spy, wasn’t that precisely the sort of person they would pick?

However, it had turned out to be quite useful in this case because he was still trying to speak to a couple of key witnesses, and they were turning out to be stubbornly difficult to get hold of, except by telephone in one case, which had thrown up more problems than it solved.

He was still working on the theory that the murdered couple were lured to their deaths because of something in Mr Perez’s murky business dealings. Darbishire and his men had interviewed all Miss White and Miss Fonteyn’s recent clients, who were a motley selection of financiers and playboys, expatriates and industrialists.

Most were acutely embarrassed to be questioned, but none looked the type to garrotte a man, or had any discernible reason to do so.

The why of the murders would surface any minute; the how they already knew. But the exact when continued to elude him – and how it was done without anyone else in the street noticing.

She had a remarkable memory for timings, and claimed it was because she was desperate to get the tot to nod off, and kept looking at the clock.

Unlike its pastel neighbours, Mrs Gregson’s house at number 23 formed part of a short row of houses in the Arts and Crafts style. The top half was hung with terracotta tiles that gave it airs and graces beyond its station, in Darbishire’s opinion, as if it thought it was a cottage in Tunbridge Wells.

A young man answered, whom Darbishire had met before. He was thin, pasty-faced and nervous. Or, not nervous so much as wary. There was a difference.

Big. Difference.

The young man was wearing a hand-knitted sweater with rather a large hole in it, Darbishire noticed. The sort of hole a wife would normally mend. But Mrs Gregson had a baby to take care of, so perhaps that explained it. His whole face was trying to form a shape of bland politeness, but the wariness seeped from every pore.

She left him.

‘They must have meant she was out with her sister’s little girl. They’re staying there too, with my parents-in-law. Linda, my wife, helps out when she can. Perhaps she took them both out.’

Sus.

‘It’s just … I’m doing something for work. I’m a photographer. It’s all very delicate. Can’t disturb it. Sorry.’

Is he using his whole house as adarkroom?

Darbishire didn’t know that much about photography but perhaps it explained the pervasive, unpleasant smell emanating from somewhere in the background.

He could be.

I asked if perhaps she had colic – like I say, I was getting my wires crossed – and your wife said she’d been sick with it for weeks, but she was getting better. She, you see. A little girl. Not a little boy, as my sergeant noted down the first time he spoke to you both. Named Francis.

Hmmm.

Oh, yes – Francis. That might explain it. The different spellings.’ ‘Mmm. But not the different pronouns.’

Oof.

and a few times we’ve mentioned the young woman with the colicky baby, and do you know what? Nobody’s seen that baby. Not a soul.’

Gasp!