Murder Most Royal

The Queen could name several, but chose not to. ‘They weren’t unusually distant, though?’ she asked.

Philip gazed up at the sky while he tried to remember. ‘Come to think of it, they were, I suppose. Not distant, but disconnected. I don’t remember them ever talking to each other, unless it was about one of the dogs. I put it down to Hugh being so infernally shy.’

The Queen was struck by the word ‘disconnected’. That was it, absolutely. She had wondered if Hugh was acting his indifference. The man who had removed the wolfsbane from the poison garden all those years ago was anything but. However, something had changed since then. She didn’t put it down to Valentine’s homosexuality. Ned’s uncle Patrick was homosexual, too, and the St Cyrs had treated it as just another family eccentricity – on the understanding he would go on to marry a good woman. No, there was something else. And Ned, she sensed, was at the heart of it.

Chapter 25

Was this what her world had come to?

Rozie pictured her friends in London, Lagos and New York, grabbing cappuccinos on their way into work in gleaming skyscrapers and cool workspaces, swapping stories about hot men in cocktail bars and deals they were about to do. And here she was, at the end of the world, with a group of people twice her age, about to make herself truly miserable.

It was half past seven in the morning and the sun was still rising. She stood on an old wooden jetty that stuck out into the dark green waters of the river Dix at Vickery, wearing nothing but a towel and a swimming costume, feeling the ice forming on her skin. There were four people with her, two men and two women, two string-thin and two more generously endowed, all paper-white in the unforgiving early morning light.

Katie had told her she would love it. At this moment, Katie was tucked up in bed under a nice, thick duvet. What would she know?

‘Are you ready? Don’t forget, two full minutes,’ Mary Collathorn said. ‘Thirty seconds for you, Rozie, ’cause you’re a beginner. Shoulders submerged or you don’t get the benefit. Ready, steady, go!’

Mary climbed carefully down the jetty steps, whooping with shock as she entered the freezing water. Her bright red swimming hat was swiftly joined by the green, blue and white hats of her companions. Rozie went last. As expected, the water stung her shins and ankles with icy fury and she had to force herself to keep descending into it. Every atom of her being told her to save herself. Her only thought was to get deep enough to cover her shoulders quickly, and to get back out as fast as she dared.

The others were swimming to the opposite bank and back, whooping and hollering their way through the shock of the cold. Rozie had let out a single loud gasp when she got in, but now she experimented with joining in with the hollering. It helped, and there was something joyful about them all expressing the craziness of this together. Even so, she wasn’t sure what hurt most, her stomach, chest or shoulders. Every part of her protested at the shock. Her instinct was to leap away from it and get the hell out, but she fought it.

Mary had said thirty seconds. Rozie wasn’t sure she’d last twenty – but after ten, her skin felt as if it was vibrating. It was a strange new sensation. Definitely not horrible. She remembered to breathe, and found that with each new breath the pain adjusted into something that was more of a thrill. As she slowly moved through the water, she gained new power with each stroke. The view of the bank was gorgeous from here. When Mary shouted ‘Thirty seconds!’ Rozie ignored her. After forty, Mary positively yelled at her and Rozie reluctantly got out.

Her heart was pumping hard. Every square inch of her skin tingled as she climbed back up the steps towards her towel. She felt vividly alive, and quite jealous of the other four, whose colourful hats bobbed on the water’s surface like billiard balls as they endured and enjoyed the final minute. By the time they came back out to join her, she was wrapped up in her towel (they had told her to bring an extra large one, and she was grateful), and feeling as warm, awake and alert as she had ever been.

‘What did you think?’ Mary asked, slipping into her own towel, which had sleeves and became a warm, puffy coat when she put it on.

‘Bloody brilliant,’ Rozie yelled. ‘Why doesn’t everyone do this?’

‘I know!’ Mary agreed. ‘Sometimes it takes a few more sessions but I’m glad you’re a convert. Coffee? We usually go back to my place before we go our separate ways.’

* * *

Being very cold had – to Rozie’s great surprise – been very good, but being warmly dressed in a cashmere sweater and jeans, drinking very good coffee around Mary’s pine kitchen table was fantastic.

‘Oh, yes,’ Alan said with a broad smile when Rozie pointed it out. ‘Everyone thinks we do it for the freezing sea, but we do it for the buzz on the jetty afterwards. And this. We’re not masochists.’