Murder Most Royal

Ivy looked surprised. ‘Of course I do. I help walk them sometimes. That footman who usually does it likes to have a crafty cigarette. He doesn’t think they need much exercise, but I do. I give them an extra ten minutes for him.’

‘I had no idea,’ the Queen said, nonplussed.

‘Look, don’t tell him I told you. Anyway, that wasn’t why I wanted to talk to you. I know what you think about my brother.’

‘I’m not sure you—’

‘He’s a diamond. You probably think he’s a bit iffy because of me. I was rude to you at Christmas and I didn’t mean it and I’m sorry. I just go off a bit at times. Arthur really loves his job. He’s good at it. He needs it. He doesn’t do drugs, ma’am, seriously.’

‘How did you think I—?’

‘I heard him telling the chickens at home. Don’t ask. You and me talk to the horses. He talks to the chickens, OK?’

‘What did he tell them?’

‘You think he stole those drugs from the beach and he took them, but he had to, ma’am. He was with this stupid boy called Josh who was in his year at school. I’m telling you ’cause you don’t tell anyone, right?’

‘It depends,’ the Queen said cautiously.

‘Well, you can’t tell them this because if you did, Josh would kill me.’

‘Really?’

‘OK, so not literally kill me,’ Ivy amended. ‘He’s just a dopehead who thinks he’s Jay-Z. But I can trust you. You know about the packet and you could’ve . . . Well, Arthur could be in jail now or something. Josh literally told him to look after it for a bit, till the heat died down. You saw what it did to Arthur. He can’t even sleep. He’s terrified of drugs.’

‘That was rather my impression. Did Arthur tell the chickens all this?’

‘No, not about Josh. I saw them on the beach together with the bag, after I found the hand. When I was on my way to tell them about it and give Josh’s puppy back to him, before it ate something stupid and killed itself.’

‘Is he a friend of yours?’ the Queen asked. There was a heat to Ivy’s tone that suggested something more than mere acquaintance.

‘No way! He’s a creep. Auntie Judy caught him dealing on the beach. She was writing a piece about it ’cause the police weren’t doing anything. She told me to stay away from him last year. Should’ve listened. Josh is fit, but he’s useless,’ she added finally. ‘I liked him once. He took me to the hides and said he wanted to show me the birds . . .’

Her voice tailed off and she stared up at the turrets and chimneys of the house in the distance ahead of them. The Queen sensed she wasn’t really looking. A pall of sadness hung over her. The Queen had seen it many times before and it bore all the hallmarks of young love gone wrong. Josh was a love rat. So that was what went on in the hides – or at least part of it.

‘I should’ve expected it, I s’pose,’ Ivy went on, moodily. ‘He takes after his dad. Maybe it’s the dad Mum’s worried about. It makes sense.’ She grimaced. ‘Him being a mass murderer.’

‘What?’ The Queen wondered if she’d misheard. ‘I don’t think you mean that, surely?’

‘I totally do. He works on the turkey farm on the road to King’s Lynn. They slaughter them in their thousands before Christmas. Josh laughed at me about it. He knows how I feel.’

This, too, was not quite what the Queen had been expecting. Though perhaps it should have been. Local Lotharios and turkey farmers. They were hardly the drug barons and people traffickers she had been anticipating.

‘I hope you don’t apply your “mass murderer” label to all livestock farmers,’ the Queen said lightly, mindful that she was one herself.

Ivy missed the connection, or didn’t care. ‘I do. That’s why I’m vegan. That, and because it’s better for you. Mum kept saying I’d grow up stunted. I’m the fittest in the family.’ The Queen was slightly piqued about the mass murderer suggestion. Vegans could be very aggressive in their views.

‘Not everyone wants to eat that way or knows how to,’ she said.

‘Ignorance is no excuse,’ Ivy said dismissively. ‘They should educate themselves on what happens in abattoirs.’

‘Abattoirs are a lot kinder than a fox in a chicken coop,’ the Queen countered. ‘Or would you have foxes turn vegetarian, too?’

‘It’s in their nature,’ Ivy protested.

‘And not ours?’

‘We grew up. We evolved,’ Ivy said, with the passion of youth. ‘Our brains are a hundred times bigger than a fox’s. We know enough to recognise cruelty when we see it. Or some of us do. We’re not all Neanderthals anymore, though you look at the way we’re destroying our own planet, you wonder.’

‘It’s obviously something you feel strongly about.’

‘Don’t you?’ Ivy asked.

‘Actually, I do,’ the Queen said, somewhat relieved to have moved from veganism on to safer ground. ‘So does my husband. We have great hope for your generation. You understand the issues better than anyone.’

Ivy tossed her head. ‘That’s what they tell us at school. I hate it when people say that. Like climate change and deforestation and all of it’s our generation’s problem to solve, when we had nothing to do with it. Your generation created the mess; you should be the ones to fix it.’ She glared. ‘Ma’am.’