Murder Most Royal

Rozie checked her notes. ‘The police certainly thought that Ned was the first one to try and end the feud.’

‘Mmm, but I disagree,’ the Queen said. ‘Astrid suggested that he was pleased to rebuild his relationships with his family. But, under the circumstances, I doubt very much that he would have made that offer unprompted. I think he was drawn back into Ladybridge’s orbit. Somebody wanted him there. My husband was right.’

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘He said from the very beginning, it’s always the family.’

‘So it is one of the St Cyrs, ma’am?’

‘Of course it is. The trouble with Mr Bloomfield is that he and his investigating team have access to endless modern technology. It’s all terribly impressive, but this is an old-fashioned crime of passion. It’s the human element they needed to focus on. And the canine element, one might say. As I say, I have no proof, and everyone has alibis, but once you think about the dogs, it’s obvious how it was done.’

It wasn’t obvious to Rozie. ‘You mentioned the dogs, ma’am?’

The Queen looked slightly irritated. ‘I’m surprised more people haven’t noticed. They caused havoc at Abbottswood, because they weren’t looked after properly.’

‘I did wonder about the damage,’ Rozie said. ‘So did the police.’

‘That’s not what I mean. The chief constable sought to reassure me that it was all above board. I assume he meant it really was the dogs who ripped up the sitting room, not some sort of intruder. I don’t disagree about that. If you leave an unhappy dog for long enough, there’s no end to the damage he can do. The thing is, they hadn’t been fed or exercised since the day before. That’s what’s so interesting. Ned hadn’t checked the cleaning lady would be there to do it. Nobody leaves their precious dogs for such a long time without being certain they’re being cared for.’

‘I’m sure some people do, ma’am.’

‘Not if you love them. Ned was a dog person, like Georgina. He always adored my dogs. He’d have played with them more than Charles if he’d been allowed. No, he wouldn’t leave home without being confident that they would be let out and fed in the morning. If the cleaning lady wasn’t coming in, he would have found someone else. I simply couldn’t imagine Ned being so inconsiderate. And once you can’t imagine that . . .’

Rozie began to enjoy this idea of disagreeing with the Boss. She could easily imagine it. ‘He was under a lot of pressure, ma’am. That might have caused the lapse in concentration.’

‘We don’t know for certain that he was,’ the Queen insisted. ‘According to Astrid, Ned was very “Zen”, or something of that nature. The police have assumed he was under pressure because he was acting oddly. I think the oddness of his activity is the interesting part. Take the speeding car. He conveniently broke the speed limit twice in his Maserati. It meant the speed cameras caught him. This was despite the fact that Astrid said he couldn’t afford to lose his licence. It was all very theatrical. Then there was the “RIP” written in the desk diary at Abbottswood. I’m sure it was “RIP”, not “RLP”, by the way. It was a joke, another flourish. All it did was highlight that Ned was at home in Norfolk when he wrote it in.’

Rozie seriously wondered if the Queen was having a senior moment. ‘But surely the plan was to draw attention to London, ma’am, not Norfolk?’

‘Later, yes. First, there was the phone call. Julian Cassidy told you that what Ned said to him didn’t make sense.’

‘That’s right. Something about raining in hell.’

‘It’s not “raining in hell”, it’s “reigning in hell”. My sort of reigning. “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.” It’s from Paradise Lost. I had to study it as a girl. Anyway, here was a man calling someone he didn’t know very well, talking about a fall from grace, for no obvious reason.’

Here was something Rozie could connect to. There was a lot of talk about falling from grace at church when she was growing up. With a mother called Grace, she had both taken it personally and never quite made sense of it.

‘Ned doesn’t strike me as the sort of man who would worry about the state of his soul,’ she suggested.

The Queen nodded. ‘Indeed not. I think he worried about the state of his estate. But it wasn’t Ned who abandoned his dogs or drove to London, or quoted Milton at Mr Cassidy. The call was made simply to show that he was at Abbottswood, when he was not. He was already dead by then.’

‘Ma’am?’

The Queen put down her glasses.

‘At least, I hope he was.’

Chapter 30

Rozie rapidly reviewed what she thought she knew about Ned’s last hours.

‘But he was seen by witnesses in London, ma’am.’

‘A tall man in a distinctive hat and scarf was seen,’ The Queen corrected her. ‘Haven’t you noticed how the St Cyr men look alike?’

Rozie had. ‘But what about the texts he sent to Astrid? She’d have known if it wasn’t her fiancé sending them.’

The Queen gave her a gimlet stare.

‘Would she?’