Murder Most Royal

‘Nothing to worry about,’ she said firmly. It was true: the recent discovery was hardly the Private Office’s business. Now she had the name right, the police could take care of it.

‘Nothing is ever nothing to worry about,’ Sir Simon countered, unhelpfully. Rozie couldn’t hear the clinking glasses in the background anymore. He had gone somewhere quiet to concentrate. She reluctantly explained about the hand and the ring.

‘Oh, Lord,’ he said. ‘How grotesque.’ He was silent for a minute, contemplating the news. ‘Was it literally just the hand? No sign of any other body parts?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Be very careful, Rozie.’ He was suddenly deadly serious. ‘Keep the Boss out of it, whatever it takes.’

‘Absolutely,’ she agreed, crossing her fingers. Rozie knew that keeping the Boss out of anything the Boss wanted to be into was very unlikely, regardless of what she did or didn’t do. Sir Simon didn’t know Her Majesty in quite the way she did. ‘She mentioned that the victim was a baron’s grandson.’

‘Not this baron,’ Sir Simon said. ‘Distant cousin, I think. However, we should probably call Ladybridge Hall; let Lord Mundy know.’

‘Why?’ Rozie asked. ‘If he’s a distant cousin?’

‘He’s a friend of the Boss. And family’s family. He won’t want to hear this on the news and then find out the identification came from someone at Sandringham and we didn’t tell him first.’

* * *

After a brief call to her contact at the Norfolk constabulary HQ to update them on the identity, Rozie called Ladybridge Hall. She had half hoped to speak to an underling such as herself who could pass on the grisly details, but it was the Right Honourable the Lord Mundy himself (she had looked it up to make sure of his title) who answered the phone. He was silent for a long time, pondering the news. Having said her piece as gently as she could, Rozie wondered if he was still on the line.

‘Are you all right, My Lord?’

‘Goodness me.’ He sounded breathless. ‘I need to sit down. Oh, my goodness.’

‘I’m sorry to be the one to—’

‘Oh, no, my dear, don’t apologise. And do call me Hugh. Thank you for calling. Very considerate of you.’ He had the cut-glass accent and almost exaggerated good manners of his class, reminding Rozie of the many earls and dukes she had encountered in this job. But they usually sounded formal and composed, whereas he seemed all at sea. ‘So you’ve informed the police?’

‘Yes, just now.’

‘Oh, dear me.’ His voice fluttered up and down. ‘Oh my goodness. A hand, you say? I saw him only recently . . . We hadn’t spoken for years, as you probably know.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Rozie admitted. Sir Simon probably did.

‘But after my wife’s funeral in the summer . . . He was very decent about it. I sensed that he wanted to extend an olive branch. Do they have any idea how . . .?’

‘It’s early days,’ Rozie explained. ‘The police don’t really know anything yet.’

‘Well, you’re very kind to inform me. I . . . Excuse me. I don’t know what to . . . How did Her Majesty find out about it?’

‘The hand was found near Sandringham. The police told us as a courtesy.’

‘Near Sandringham . . . How ghastly. Her Majesty must be . . . Do give her my sympathies. We’re supposed to be seeing her after Christmas, but if this makes things difficult, I quite understand. How did they know it was Edward, by the way?’

Rozie took a breath. ‘It was the ring, My Lord.’ She couldn’t call him Hugh. She hadn’t yet developed Sir Simon’s ease at hobnobbing with the aristocracy.

‘My goodness . . . The ring . . . I have one myself, just like it . . .’

He tailed off again and Rozie pictured him staring at his own left hand.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. There’s nothing you . . . Oh, my goodness. Thank you for calling, my dear. Please wish Her Majesty a happy Christmas on our behalf. I hope she feels better soon.’

Rozie was a bit startled by this last remark. How did he know the Queen was unwell? Then she remembered that it had been reported in The Times because of the cancelled train trip.

‘I’ll tell her,’ she assured him, but she wouldn’t. The last thing the Boss would want was people outside the family circle remarking on her ill health.

* * *

Afterwards, she went back to her laptop and typed in ‘Edward St Cyr’.

Wikipedia informed her that he was born in 1946, the only grandson of the tenth Baron Mundy. After growing up at the St Cyr family seat and brief sojourns in Greece, London and California in the 1970s, where he had managed two failed rock bands, he had joined his mother at a small estate called Abbottswood, south of King’s Lynn, where he hosted a couple of controversial rock concerts and, later, what was briefly the second-most popular literary festival in Norfolk. He had been married and divorced three times, his second wife being the nanny to the children with his first. There were links here to various newspaper articles about the scandal, which Rozie ignored. He was on the boards of various charities, two of which were anti-addiction and one that supported the welfare of refugees in Greece.