Murder Most Royal

Astrid stopped suddenly. Had her facial muscles been able to express emotion, it would have been dismay. The Queen felt slightly guilty she had underestimated the strength of the bond between Ned and his young fiancée. There was real affection there, and a sense of common purpose. She knew how that felt.

‘It must be very difficult,’ she sympathised.

Astrid nodded. ‘It helps that I have the dogs. They miss him as much as I do. Gwennie, she’s the setter – he always has one to remind him of his mother – she won’t be consoled. She just lies there, looking at me. They all know something’s wrong.’

Several pairs of royal eyes looked at Astrid sympathetically, because they completely got it about the dogs.

‘Something must have been eating him up. The way he was speeding up to London and he promised me he wouldn’t anymore because he had so many points on his licence and he couldn’t live without the car.’

‘Did he seem stressed out?’ Beatrice asked.

‘No! But I guess he must have been. Maybe he was trying to hide it from me. I mean, I know he had a lot on his mind. I assumed it was to do with the breakout of the boar because there had been the horrible business with Mrs Fisher’s cockapoo.’

‘Goodness!’ the Queen said. ‘What happened?’

‘Oh, that was awful. The boar broke out about a month ago, and they were just rummaging about in the bushes, like they do, not doing any harm to anyone, but the dog came over to investigate and wouldn’t leave them alone and in the end . . . Well, they’re wild animals, after all. They do what they do.’ Astrid shrugged. Then she noticed several pairs of royal eyes now staring at her in horror. She blushed. ‘It wasn’t their fault, is what I mean. Apparently, they still see dogs as wolves. It’s a protective instinct.’ She stuck out her chin. ‘And that awful man from Muncaster threatened to kill him, which was so unfair. Ned was devastated about the dog, naturally. He adored them.’

At which point Astrid did something none of them expected. Her eyes welled up and she cried ugly tears that dislodged her mascara, unable to help herself.

‘I . . . I’m s-sorry!’ she gasped. ‘I don’t know what I’m d-doing!’ She tried to cover her wet cheeks with the back of a clenched hand. A footman stepped forward with a napkin for her to use as a handkerchief, but she shook her head. ‘I’ll be fine.’ She took a deep breath, managed a weak, shaky smile and glanced across at the nearest large object, which was a screen of Venetian fans. ‘Those are lovely. Do you collect them? Are they eighteenth-century?’

At that moment, the Queen was reminded sharply of Astrid’s mother, Moira, who had the same disconcerting core of steel. Moira had always dealt with her late husband’s famous drinking habit by pretending it didn’t exist. She had clearly brought up her daughter in a similar vein. But the Queen could see that behind the carefully filled façade, poor Astrid was devastated. She was clearly devoted to Ned, and the life they had planned together. She would have made a good match for him, despite the age gap. Perhaps, under her influence, they might even have found their way into Sandringham life again. Another party organised by Ned St Cyr would have been quite something.

She didn’t share any of these reflections with Astrid. They would hardly have been helpful. But she offered to ask the chef to share the lavender shortbread recipe with her, and assured her that they were very much looking forward to sampling the jam.

Chapter 17

Sir Simon and Rozie were both working late. Last January, Rozie remembered, he had tended to switch off his monitor at about 5 p.m. before calling his wife in London for a chat, making the most of the winter holiday lull before everything ramped up again in February. This year, Lady Holcroft was still in Scotland, but that didn’t explain the worried look on the private secretary’s face and the large pile of reading material he was working his way through.

‘Anything interesting?’ she asked, poking her head around his door.

‘Not unless you find the supplementary information to the Government’s appeal to the Supreme Court against R. Miller versus the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union interesting,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. He looked up. ‘It’s all extremely important, but it stopped being interesting eight hours ago. I’m lost in Euro-speak. But I’ll get there.’

‘Do you need to?’

‘I do. The PM tried to invoke the royal prerogative to trigger our departure. Her whole “Brexit means Brexit” thing. We rather care how the royal prerogative works. But in this case, Brexit means . . .’ He indicated the two-foot high pile of papers on his desk. ‘I’m not sure anyone knows exactly what it means at the moment. Meanwhile, the PM’s secretary rang. She wants to talk. This is ominous.’

‘Why?’ Rozie asked.

‘Because it means she’s been thinking over Christmas.’

‘Isn’t that a good thing?’