Murder Most Royal

Whatever makeup she was wearing, it seemed to smooth her face into doll-like simplicity. Her forehead was unnaturally unlined and her lips had the fish-like appearance that the Queen was increasingly noticing among her younger female acquaintances. Sophie Wessex had told her this was a ‘trout pout’, and the Queen had yet to be convinced that the exaggerated contours were preferable to one’s natural flesh and bone. She wondered what Astrid looked like underneath. However, the girl had great poise and, taking in the roomful of waiting royals, she sank into a deep curtsey.

‘Your Majesty,’ she murmured, in a deep, contralto voice that the Queen had not expected. ‘Thank you so much for the invitation. I brought you jam.’

Astrid dug around in the basket-like handbag she had brought with her and handed two jars of something rather gloopy and disconcertingly violet to the nearest footman. Like many before her, she must have read that Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, had won over the family with her first Christmas present of home-made jam. Many was the jar the Queen had received since. She was rather wary of them. The thing was, Catherine was really rather good at making jam, and that was a key feature.

The Queen saw Philip’s eyebrows rise by about a millimetre. She hoped her family would behave themselves.

Astrid continued to drink in the room, squealing slightly when her eyes lighted on the grand piano.

‘There’s the jigsaw! You still have one! Ned told me all about it. He adored Sandringham. It was such a special part of his childhood.’

‘Wasn’t he?’ Astrid looked surprised. ‘I’m sure he was. He talked about you a lot. He said you were brilliant farmers. Very forward-thinking especially for people of your generation. He said sometimes the older farmers are the best, because you’ve seen everything.’

Philip and the Queen exchanged a look that Astrid didn’t catch.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ the Queen asked. ‘I think it’s ready in the drawing room.’

It was, along with a selection of freshly made biscuits and pastries, and the remaining guests, who were as keen and curious to see Astrid as she was to see them. Soon, she was sitting at one of the card tables, nibbling at some lavender shortbread biscuits and effectively holding court.

‘Ned said you’re doing interesting things with the estate,’ she said to Prince Philip. ‘To make farming more sustainable, I mean.’

‘Oh, yes. He was very curious. He grew up with the farm at Ladybridge, of course. But Abbottswood wasn’t the same at all. The land is all wood and wetland, and Ned couldn’t bear to chop the trees down. Some of them have been there for four hundred years.’

Philip nodded. ‘I’ve been saying as much. So he had this rewilding idea.’

There were general non-committal noises round the room.

‘He wanted something for his children to be proud of. That’s why I was so certain the police had the wrong person when they arrested his son. I met Jack at Abbottswood when he came down to talk to Ned about the project. He was the sweetest guy, so supportive of what we were trying to do. It was really beautiful. I was hoping he might come and work with us.’

‘I don’t understand. I thought he hated his father?’ the Queen said.

‘They had a strained relationship,’ Astrid admitted, ‘but Ned was working hard to build bridges. We did a lot of therapy together at this fabulous retreat in Kerala last year. He wanted to reach out to all his children, and grandchildren, too. When he knew Jack’s girlfriend was pregnant it changed everything. It’s all about what you hand on, isn’t it? We wanted it to be a place of growth. Nature was in charge. Ned was very Zen. You should have seen him do the lotus position.’

‘I’m profoundly glad I didn’t,’ Philip said, with feeling.

‘I heard he was mellowing,’ the Queen suggested. ‘So Lord Mundy’s daughter told me.’

‘Oh, yes, he was! That was lovely. So sweet of them to invite him to Lady Mundy’s funeral. His mother’s buried at Ladybridge and it meant he could go and visit her, which was more important to him than he let on, I think. He tried to reach out to everyone, really. And he wanted rewilding to put north Norfolk on the map.’

‘I rather thought Sandringham did that,’ Philip observed.

‘I bet they were,’ Philip muttered.

‘Did he really just disappear?’ Eugenie asked.

Astrid nodded. ‘I wasn’t worried at first. I kept thinking I was about to see him any second. I rang his mobile from the airport. He’d warned me it might be out of power, which it was, so I rang Abbottswood . . . the same. There isn’t a landline at the flat. I was kind of pissed off with him then. Which is just so . . . kind of . . . tragic now.’

‘No, it’s understandable,’ Beatrice agreed. ‘So what happened?’

This was ‘being helpful’, the Queen assumed.