Murder Most Royal

‘A little,’ Rozie said. ‘The police did know rumours of occasional, low-level drug dealing from Snettisham Beach. Even though it’s on your doorstep, ma’am, they simply don’t have the resources to investigate fully or put a stop to it. It’s not that unusual. They’re focused higher up the chain.’

‘I see.’

‘Katie’s talked to her old colleagues at the Border Force. They think the bag on the beach came from a yacht travelling from Holland. They were tracking it at the time and it was heading much further up the coast. It all supports what you said Ivy told you: Judy hadn’t stumbled on something big, just something that really mattered to her.’

‘I’m not sure there’s a difference, but I know what you mean,’ the Queen said.

Rozie consulted her notes.

‘The chief constable did have one update, though, entirely unrelated. Lord Mundy’s son Valentine was seen having lunch with Mr St Cyr in the City of London in November.’

‘Is that a problem? Ned had started to talk to the family again. They told us as much at Christmas. So did Astrid Westover.’

‘It wouldn’t be a problem, except Valentine lied about it. He insisted they hadn’t met since his mother’s funeral, until the police told him they had a sworn witness statement saying he did.’

The Queen sighed. ‘Did he say what they discussed?’

‘No, ma’am. Only that they were catching up on family news. There’s nothing to link him to the disappearance, but his alibi is patchy. His flat in London is only a twenty-minute drive from Mr St Cyr’s flat in Hampstead. He was supposed to be working from home, but he could have gone out and come back again.’

‘What about his sister?’ the Queen asked. She remembered Flora from the Christmas visit as the sibling with the vim. She had been the last person in the family to see him.

Rozie consulted her notes again. ‘I checked the reports for all the family, ma’am. Flora and her father were at Ladybridge Hall all day on the fifteenth.’

‘We know one more thing, ma’am. One of Katie’s knitting friends saw Mr Cassidy at the Feathers pub a few days ago. He’d had a couple of glasses, and he was telling anyone who’d listen that he was the last person to talk to the victim, and that he’d shouted nonsense down the phone.’

‘Oh?’

‘Something about the scuffle, which Mr Cassidy said he’d already apologised for, and the promise that it would rain in hell. People were asking, and he said he had no idea what it was supposed to mean. If he was making it up, it was a strange thing to do. ‘I mentioned it to the chief constable and asked if we should be worried about him. It seemed a reasonable enough question.’

‘I agree.’

‘I didn’t tell him about the car because, as I say, Julian had already reported it. Technically, they know as much as we do.’

‘Exactly,’ the Queen said. ‘If we have something useful to add, we will, but at the moment, we seem to be going around in circles.’

Rozie looked uncomfortable. ‘And unfortunately there’s a problem.’

‘Go on.’

‘Someone in Dersingham seems to have noticed Katie’s interest in Mrs Raspberry’s hit-and-run.’

The Queen pursed her lips. ‘Oh, dear. What happened?’

‘They put a note through her letterbox late last night. It said that she’d been looking in the wrong place.’

‘Ah.’

‘Your name was never mentioned, though, ma’am. Hopefully, they’ll assume she was doing it for her own reasons.’

‘Hmm. Did they give any alternative suggestions?’

‘Well, as a matter of fact they did.’ Rozie took a plain envelope from her notebook. Inside was a handwritten note in a neat pencil script on plain letter paper, enclosing a folded piece of printed paper. The latter was a small article cut out of the East Anglian Chronicle. Rozie handed it to the Queen. It read:

TRAGIC DEATH AT BURNHAM OVERY STAITHE

On the morning of New Year’s Day, the body of an elderly man, 79, was pulled from the sea near Scolt Head Island. He was identified as Chris Wallace, the long-standing member of a wild swimming group called the Dix Dunkers. He had been trying to reach the island from the beach at Burnham Overy Staithe and succumbed to hypothermia in the freezing water.

The article went on to remind readers how exceptionally attractive the area was, and how dangerous it was to swim alone, especially in winter when the water was dangerously cold.

The Queen looked up at Rozie.

‘Do we know anything about the swimmer?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Rozie said. ‘He came from a village south of here, called Vickery.’

‘That’s on the Ladybridge Estate.’

Rozie nodded. ‘The thing is, Katie’s a wild swimmer, too. She says that if you’re very experienced, as he was, you know not to go out alone in freezing water, and not to stay out too long. She’s not convinced it was an accident, and she doesn’t think the person who gave her the article does, either.’