Murder Most Royal

I drank a dram of whisky with him on New Year’s Eve and I could see how overwrought he was.’

‘So you think he went into the sea like that deliberately?’

‘Oh, I’m sure of it. I made a promise to myself that I’d go over after lunch on New Year’s Day and check he was OK. But by then it was already much too late. He’d left his wallet in a bag on the beach. I was his emergency contact, so they called me.’ Tears spilled silently down her cheeks. ‘And I was just here, making soup.’

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Rozie said gently.

The Sunday morning service at St Mary’s in Flitcham went very well. There was a bit of a to-do beforehand when the Queen’s protection team discovered a packet of drugs hidden under one of the kneelers. But the incident was over and done with before the Queen arrived.

On Monday, the outgoing US ambassador made his formal goodbye to the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, representing Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace. She had written the man a warm personal note for him to pass on. The ambassador had been very fond of London, and London was very fond of him. His departure marked the end of an era. The PM’s formal announcement of the UK’s exit from the Single Market marked another one. They were only halfway through January and what a year of change this was already turning out to be.

The annual visit to the West Newton branch of the WI on Thursday came at just the right time. Such cyclical events, like the church calendar, conferred a comforting rhythm on life which was very much needed. The Queen wasn’t the only woman to feel it. Everyone seemed grateful to be there.

Of course, the talk was largely about Judy Raspberry, the much-missed treasurer. She was sitting up in bed in her ward at the Queen Elizabeth, already itching to be home, but she still couldn’t remember anything about her accident. She had heard that Her Majesty herself had asked after her health, and was very touched.

Sir Simon went up to London to try and placate a disgruntled group of Scottish MPs. There were rumblings that when the UK exited the Single Market, the Scots would want to rerun their independence referendum. Ultimately, it would be up to the Scots themselves to decide, but the Queen was keen on the ‘united’ part of the United Kingdom. She would prefer it, to put it mildly, to stay that way.

The circumstances were not ideal, but it made it easier for the Queen and Rozie to catch up without Rozie having to lie to the private secretary about what they had discussed. And since Rozie had described her visit to Vickery, there was a lot to talk about.

‘Katie managed to see Mrs Raspberry in hospital, ma’am,’ Rozie said. ‘She doesn’t know any of the St Cyr family apart from Ned. She also doesn’t know Mr Wallace. It’s hard to see a connection between them.’

The Queen had learned her lesson. ‘Then let’s not try and make one.’

‘There was one piece of good news. Katie worked out who gave her the newspaper article about Mr Wallace. It was a member of her own wild swimming group. They’d somehow found out about her Home Office background and thought she was interested in suspicious accidents because of that. They didn’t connect it to Ned, or me, or you.’

‘That’s very reassuring,’ the Queen agreed. Katie was eager to help, but she didn’t have Rozie’s lightness of touch when required. The Queen wasn’t sure Rozie yet realised how good, and how very dependable, she was. ‘What about Valentine St Cyr? Is there any news?’

‘Yes, ma’am. The police are interested in the fact that Roland Peng’s initials are RLP.’

‘Roland Peng, his business partner?’

‘In part, ma’am. I’ll come to that. It turns out that Valentine had more than one meeting with Ned last year. Interestingly, they hadn’t spotted them before because Ned put them in his diary as “VSC”. Usually he wrote names in full and locations as acronyms. But if VSC was a name, then perhaps RIP was one, too. And perhaps he miswrote it or it was just a feature of his handwriting, but he could have meant RLP. That’s what they’re looking into now.’

‘So Ned might have arranged to meet Roland?’

‘Apparently. Roland claims to have been in business meetings both days, but there were gaps between them. He was, supposedly, with Valentine the night of the fourteenth. They are each other’s alibi.’

‘Yes, ma’am. That’s the thing. Flora told me on New Year’s Eve that they’re secretly engaged. She swore me to secrecy, too, but she was obviously very happy for them.’

‘Valentine and Roland?’

‘Yes. Roland proposed at Christmas.’ Rozie smiled. The Queen thought she looked very pleased about it.

‘When are they announcing it, do you know?’

Rozie noticed that the Queen was truly startled. She found the Boss generally much more open-minded than most people would suspect, but not this time. Her generation’s prejudices showed through.