Murder Most Royal

‘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.

‘But it was so difficult. People just don’t understand. Every project has teething troubles. I mean, there were incidents with the boar and beavers and the deer, but they were accidents. Ned didn’t mean them to escape. If you knew how many thousands he spent trying to keep them in! Matt Fisher and his wife did everything in their power to shut the project down. I don’t think they forgave Ned for the boar digging their lawns up just before their daughter’s birthday party. They just didn’t get it, Ned treasured the land. The boar are transforming the landscape at Abbottswood. Or at least, they were, until we lost them.’

‘I bet they were,’ Philip muttered.

‘The beavers were a bit of a mistake because it’s astonishing how easily they get past any enclosure, but they created this beautiful sort of wetland area before they escaped. You should come and visit. Except—’ Astrid broke off. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to it now. I had this whole brand set up to market the project on social media. To get a fan base going, you know? We were even in early talks with Channel 4. Ned was supposed to pick me up from the airport and drive me to Abbottswood so we could shoot some videos to show them. We texted about it the night before. He said he couldn’t wait to see me . . .’

‘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.

‘I got a taxi to the house and I was so sure he’d be in the kitchen, making supper and sorry for forgetting. But he wasn’t there. The dogs were howling. The sitting room was completely trashed and I assumed there must have been burglars . . . I had the most awful, awful visions, but it was just the dogs. Ned must have forgotten to shut the kitchen door properly and he hadn’t put their toys out for them. Gwennie goes absolutely crazy without her bunny. And they were starving, poor things.’

‘Had he just left them for all that time?’ Eugenie asked. She, too, was a dog person.

The Queen had been wondering about this. She knew it was absolutely not the most important thing, but surely he hadn’t just abandoned them?

‘No! They’re used to being alone at night sometimes. The cleaner normally feeds them and lets them out in the mornings if we’re not there. Ned had left a note on the table, but it wasn’t her day. He wasn’t thinking straight. Anyway, I went outside, thinking he might have gone to check on the deer or something and fallen over or . . . I don’t know. It was pitch black. I couldn’t see anything. I called and called. The next day I waited, but nothing, so in the afternoon I called the police. They told me not to worry, but of course I did worry. I took his spare key to the flat and drove up that night, but there was no sign of him, just breakfast things in the sink, as if he expected to come back and wash them up. Those texts on my phone . . . They’re the last thing I have. I keep reading them over and over.’