Murder Most Royal

I think he was drawn back into Ladybridge’s orbit. Somebody wanted him there. My husband was right.’

‘He said from the very beginning, it’s always the family.’

‘Of course it is. The trouble with Mr Bloomfield is that he and his investigating team have access to endless modern technology. It’s all terribly impressive, but this is an old-fashioned crime of passion. It’s the human element they needed to focus on. And the canine element, one might say. As I say, I have no proof, and everyone has alibis, but once you think about the dogs, it’s obvious how it was done.’

It wasn’t obvious to Rozie. ‘You mentioned the dogs, ma’am?’

The Queen looked slightly irritated. ‘I’m surprised more people haven’t noticed. They caused havoc at Abbottswood, because they weren’t looked after properly.’

‘I did wonder about the damage,’ Rozie said. ‘So did the police.’

‘I’m sure some people do, ma’am.’

Rozie began to enjoy this idea of disagreeing with the Boss. She could easily imagine it. ‘He was under a lot of pressure, ma’am. That might have caused the lapse in concentration.’

‘We don’t know for certain that he was,’ the Queen insisted. ‘According to Astrid, Ned was very “Zen”, or something of that nature. The police have assumed he was under pressure because he was acting oddly. I think the oddness of his activity is the interesting part. Take the speeding car. He conveniently broke the speed limit twice in his Maserati. It meant the speed cameras caught him. This was despite the fact that Astrid said he couldn’t afford to lose his licence. It was all very theatrical. Then there was the “RIP” written in the desk diary at Abbottswood. I’m sure it was “RIP”, not “RLP”, by the way. It was a joke, another flourish. All it did was highlight that Ned was at home in Norfolk when he wrote it in.’

Rozie seriously wondered if the Queen was having a senior moment. ‘But surely the plan was to draw attention to London, ma’am, not Norfolk?’

‘Later, yes. First, there was the phone call. Julian Cassidy told you that what Ned said to him didn’t make sense.’

‘That’s right. Something about raining in hell.’

Here was something Rozie could connect to. There was a lot of talk about falling from grace at church when she was growing up. With a mother called Grace, she had both taken it personally and never quite made sense of it.

‘Ned doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who would worry about the state of his soul,’ she suggested.

The Queen nodded. ‘Indeed not. I think he worried about the state of his estate. But it wasn’t Ned who abandoned his dogs or drove to London, or quoted Milton at Mr Cassidy. The call was made simply to show that he was at Abbottswood, when he was not. He was already dead by then.’

The Queen put down her glasses.

‘At least, I hope he was.’

Rozie rapidly reviewed what she thought she knew about Ned’s last hours.

‘But he was seen by witnesses in London, ma’am.’

‘A tall man in a distinctive hat and scarf was seen,’ The Queen corrected her. ‘Haven’t you noticed how the St Cyr men look alike?’

Rozie had. ‘But what about the texts he sent to Astrid? She’d have known if it wasn’t her fiancé sending them.’

The Queen gave her a gimlet stare.

It sounded like a rhetorical question, but Rozie stood her ground. ‘If it was someone else using his phone, they did a very good job, ma’am. Astrid mentioned that the texts were quite intimate.’ She didn’t want to embarrass the Boss, but modern sexting between couples could be pretty explicit. It was if it was any good, anyway. Although . . .

‘Mmm?’ the Queen murmured, seeing Rozie hesitate.

‘I suppose if you had access to the text history, you could recreate the style. You’d just have to scroll up.’ It might not be so hard after all. Not for one conversation, at least. Creepy, but not difficult.

‘So we can’t be certain it was Ned who texted Astrid that evening.’

But someone did. And they did it from Ned’s phone, in his studio. Rozie consulted her notes.

‘I don’t see who. According to Valentine, both he and Roland Peng were in his studio at the time. Lord Mundy, Flora and her daughters were at the hall. They’re all witnesses for each other. Then Lord Mundy had the late-night meeting with Mr Wallace. Flora saw him arrive.’

The Queen nodded to herself. ‘Mr Wallace is not here either to confirm or deny that story. A car arrived at the hall, certainly. It might have been a taxi from the station, however. I think where the St Cyrs are concerned, we must assume that everyone is prepared to lie for the sake of protecting the family, really. The thing is, who saw or spoke to Ned after they did?’

Rozie thought it through. It seemed unlikely, but it made sense. The problem had always been how Ned managed to disappear in London.