More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
S.J. Bennett
Read between
January 21 - February 18, 2025
She noticed how talkative he was being. He normally didn’t have much to say about the secretaries.
They were all signs Joan had seen before, during her work with the captured German officers. When somebody didn’t want you to know something, they often overcompensated. The more a prisoner smiled at her and held her eye, the more he fidgeted, the more she probed with her questions.
Sus
‘I didn’t see anything,’ he muttered, turning back to his desk. ‘And I haven’t heard scrabbling recently. You have a vivid imagination.
Prick.
Only one thing stood out: a recently opened letter, beside the antique Moghul dagger he liked to use as a paper knife. The wording of the letter was suggestive. The image on its letterhead looked vaguely royal, but she hadn’t seen it before. Several people in the palace would probably be able to tell her what it was, but she didn’t dare risk sharing her question with any of them. There was only one person she could think of to ask.
‘There was a crest. Might you know it? I’m still learning.’ ‘I might.’ ‘It was quite small. A blue hexagon with a crown on top and writing round the edge. And some sort of symbol in the middle.’ ‘Hmm. Was that all?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Might the symbol have been a letter? An E, perhaps?’
‘Yes, possibly. If it was angled to fit the hexagon.’
‘That would be the Duke of Windsor. Edward – though he was only officially Edward for months, I suppose.’
Anyone who had been at Longmeadow Hall at the time of the ill-fated Brigadier Yelland had a brain as sharp as a tack, and a chess-player’s ability to see several moves ahead.
Daphne Du Maurier arrived at Balmoral in the dying days of August, along with a West Highland terrier, two large trunks of well-cut clothes and a sense of dread, the last of which she carefully hid from her hosts.
I thought Daphne was completely fictious.
Balmoral would be dire. Absolutely beautiful countryside, but Daphne’s idea of enjoying it involved personal freedom and solitary walks. The thought of changing outfits several times a day and negotiating small talk with dozens of courtiers filled her with horror.
Daphne liked the young royal couple themselves very much, but the world they lived in was undeniably stuffy.
Still, Daphne sensed something in the air: a rustle between the couple, something off-centre and wobbly, like a spinning top that had lost its centre of gravity. It didn’t really surprise her. Ten years of marriage will do it to you. God knew, her own marriage wasn’t perfect, what with Boy shuttling up and down between Cornwall and London and in danger of drinking himself into an early grave. That wasn’t all he’d been up to in London, either.
And, of course, nobody spoke about it, directly or even obliquely.
‘They don’t want a pat on the head,’ Daphne explained. ‘They want to know that you feel what they’re going through.’
If you want to connect, ma’am, you can’t be strong all the time. Sometimes, you have to admit you’re vulnerable. You’re a wife and mother, with all that entails. It may seem like a disadvantage, God knows – I certainly do. But it’s part of your charm.’
‘I’m thinking of the first Queen Elizabeth,’ Daphne explained. ‘ “I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king.”’
There are people who are very good at imagining the future, you know, and reaching for it, but I find that I … well, I lean a little bit into the past. I need tradition, and religion, you know, and old-fashioned ideals like morality and self-discipline. Peace. Love thy neighbour. Truthfulness.
Daphne had watched the highlights of the match on a newsreel and wondered what dizzy heights of fame Althea would reach one day … or whether her achievement would be consigned to a footnote in history, as women so often were.
‘I thought William, who played Althea Gibson, was shockingly bad, didn’t you?’
‘Our stories are usually told by men. I wonder how often they do us justice.’ ‘Yes. I suppose mine will be, too,’ the Queen said ruefully. Daphne had forgotten that she was talking to a historical figure. She realised that the Queen never really forgot that she was one.
I’m often told I’m an honorary man. It comes in useful sometimes. I’d ask you to do it – write about me, I mean – but your stories are so dark. I’d end up dead in the second chapter.’
The question is, what didn’t they want us to see?’
Any of the men in moustaches would run a mile at the details of waist measurements and corsetry.
Being used as an alibi in the case of the Chelsea murders was personal. If anything went wrong, it would affect her marriage … Her role as head of state, too, in consequence, but it went deeper than that.
It would be so much easier just to sit back, go for some lovely dog walks and picnics, and let Inspector Darbishire deal with this. But he wasn’t dealing with it. Or rather, he was making glacially slow progress.
There was something about the way Gina Fonteyn was lying on that bed that Darbishire hadn’t fully understood yet, she felt sure of it. She also knew that women talked to other women in ways they didn’t talk to men. If senior police officers could be female … just imagine what they might uncover. It was certainly a novel idea.
