Murder Most Royal

Lady Caroline had checked that Moira would be at home, but stressed that the conversation would be brief, private and informal. The Queen really didn’t want to sit through a very long tea, or several earwigging friends and relations. Moira had taken her at her word, it seemed. Unlike her daughter, she had made no visible effort at all.

The two-storey house, with its elegant Georgian windows, was surrounded by a garden big enough to house a swimming pool and a grass tennis court, next to paddocks where half a dozen horses grazed. This was where Astrid had grown up, the fourth and youngest child of Moira and David who, in his lifetime, was known as one of the best shots, and most prolific alcoholics, in the county. The Queen had known an alcoholic or two in her lifetime, and knew that their loved ones had to learn to be self-reliant. They were used to being lied to by people they should trust, which perhaps explained the suspicion in Moira’s eyes today. The Queen knew Moira from the Pony Club circuit, where she had ridden with Anne. As an adult, she had accompanied her husband on various Sandringham shooting parties – but it was hardly enough to explain why the reigning monarch would want to drop in on her at twenty-four hours’ notice. The Queen knew she had some explaining to do.

‘Is there something you need to tell me?’ Moira asked urgently, as they sat awkwardly opposite each other in the pristine silk-swagged sitting room. Her taut face and ramrod spine radiated tension.

‘Not exactly,’ the Queen said. ‘But I think there might be something you can tell me.’

Moira looked puzzled. ‘I’ll try.’

‘What did you think I’d come to say?’

‘It had to be something about Ned,’ Moira responded. ‘I thought that . . . After you were kind enough to talk to Astrid . . . I thought the police had told you something truly dark about Ned. What’s happened to him, I mean. And you were telling me so I could tell my daughter.’

‘Oh, thank goodness.’ Moira recovered herself. ‘What did you want to know?’

‘I was looking through some of my mother’s letters recently and they mentioned that Baroness Mundy went through a particularly difficult moment. It was when the children were quite young. Valentine had just gone to hospital, I think. And you looked after Lee.’

Moira stiffened again. ‘Yes, I did, briefly. Why?’

The Queen ignored the question. ‘Since her death, a lot has happened. But I think it all goes back to that moment. Lee was a good friend of my mother’s. Sadly, I can’t ask her about it, so I’m asking you.’

Moira pursed her lips. ‘I can’t quite believe I’m saying this, ma’am, but I can’t help you. I made a promise to Lee at that time. Her secrets were her secrets. I haven’t told a soul.’

‘I believe you,’ the Queen said. ‘I think I know what those secrets might be and I haven’t heard any talk to that effect, so she protected them well. She trusted the right people.’

‘I like to think so.’

‘It’s all very admirable, but there’s a murderer at large. I believe we should all do what we can for the sake of justice. Can I tell you what I suspect?’

Moira agreed that she could.

Moira gave the Queen a steady look and didn’t say anything. The Queen carried on.

‘I’ve always liked Hugh, and I’m sorry to think he was so unkind to the boy, but what if he suspected that the real father was his cousin, Ned? Valentine looks like a typical St Cyr – he has the height and hair, the distinctive profile. Who else could have given him those features? I wonder if Valentine himself saw it, too, at Lee’s funeral, when Ned attended. That was the first time he had met him in person, as far as I know. There is something about meeting a relative in person that’s different from seeing them in photographs. One can have an extra sense of them that can’t always be explained. I’ve often had that feeling myself.’

Moira looked down, considering what to say. ‘And Hugh suspected an affair, you mean?’ she asked eventually. ‘That Lee had been unfaithful with his cousin?’

‘It seems an obvious conclusion,’ the Queen said. ‘Lee knew Ned first. I can imagine that would be very difficult for a man to come to terms with. Very difficult indeed.’

Moira tipped her head back and regarded the Queen speculatively through half-lowered lids. ‘It would be, wouldn’t it?’ Then she got up, went to the kitchen and came back with her handbag. She took out a slim, black pen-like object and held it up. ‘D’you mind if I vape?’

The Queen had grown up in a fug of her father’s smoke. She still missed it sometimes. ‘Please do,’ she said.

Moira closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. When she opened them again, the look she gave the Queen was cool and uncompromising.

‘I’ll tell you the story because you’ve guessed half of it, and like anyone would, you’ve guessed it wrong.