Murder Most Royal

The Queen wondered if she had heard him right. Hugh seemed to be in an excellent mood, and more concerned about a drag hunt than a murder hunt on his own property. Once again, she had been so confident of her ideas . . . and now she was doubting them. Had she made a huge mistake? She had been so certain that by now it would all be over.

‘I hope you find the others soon. I need to get back to the car,’ she said, nodding and smiling at him, backing gently away, resisting the urge to run.

Hugh nodded and smiled back. But he and his horse were standing between her and the stile, and he didn’t get out of the way.

‘How did you know, ma’am?’ he asked politely. ‘That the police would be at Ladybridge?’

‘They keep me informed of everything,’ she said evenly. ‘It was a courtesy. You and I are friends, Hugh, after all.’

He nodded at that, but he was giving her a very unnerving, piercing stare. This was not the grim, grey baron, knocked sideways by grief. A keen intelligence danced behind those blue eyes. She decided she had not underestimated him.

‘Informed of everything . . .’ he said thoughtfully.

‘I hope Flora’s all right. Is she dealing with the police alone? I gather they had Valentine in custody earlier. That must be—’

The baron’s smile stayed fixed. ‘Flora can look after herself. Valentine has done nothing wrong. Therefore, the police will find nothing. It’s not my job to interfere.’

‘Hugh! Really!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘If anything happened, it was warranted. It’s water under the bridge.’

There was a strange serenity to him, as if what was going on had nothing to do with him. The Queen was offended by it.

‘I know what happened fifty years ago. Chris Wallace died because he knew, too. That is not water under the bridge, Hugh.’

Hugh stiffened. ‘Chris Wallace took his own life, poor bastard. That wasn’t my fault. Leave him out of this.’

‘But he is in it,’ the Queen said with some passion. ‘He’s at the heart of it. You thought he knew what Ned had done to Lee, so you tried to upset him so much he wouldn’t think straight to accuse you of revenge when Ned disappeared. But what makes it so tragic is that the police won’t care about what Ned did to Lee. They’ll assume his death was simple revenge for Valentine’s paternity.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The police have done the DNA test. They know, Hugh.’

He looked dismissive. ‘If they find a body at Ladybridge, so what? They can’t prove who put it there. For God’s sake, ma’am. Ned’s been missing for weeks.’

The Queen was exasperated by his stubborn refusal to face the truth. ‘As soon as they start looking for evidence, they’ll find it. His stomach will still contain the poison you used to knock him out. It was hemlock, wasn’t it? In honour of the ghost. Lee’s gardening books would have told you where to find it on the estate. It grows wild near our riverbanks. It probably does near yours. You could have saved it from the summer.’

Hugh hesitated. He seemed to appreciate her acknowledgement of that little touch.

‘If you disposed of his clothes on the estate, they’ll find traces of those, too,’ she persisted. ‘Your alibi for the fourteenth, when you were supposed to be seeing Mrs Capelton, won’t hold. It can’t, because you were busy pretending to be your cousin.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘I can understand your reasons,’ she said, warming to her theme. ‘I abhor it, but I can see your biblical sense of justice. What I really can’t forgive is that you had a duty of care to Mr Wallace, and instead of protecting him you hounded him to his death, so you could get away with what you did to Ned.’

She spoke with more heat than she intended to. When she finished, a light went on in the baron’s eyes. She realised she had said too much and took a step backwards. He moved towards her, still holding the reins of his horse. She glanced over the wall to her left in the fervent hope of seeing the cavalry riding up the track, but there was only a solitary hare, who looked as nervous as she was.

‘You told them all of this?’

‘I did not,’ she said, which was strictly true, if not entirely accurate.

‘I often wondered if Lee had spoken to your mother.’

‘I have no idea what—’

Hugh took another step towards her. He was taller than she remembered. Or rather, taller than he seemed at Christmas. The grief was real, but the stoop was gone. He used his height to intimidate her, and she was very aware of the riding crop in his left hand. Then he seemed to change his mind and hauled himself back onto his hunter.

* * *

Rozie had finally found both horses further up the road and brought them under control. There was still no sign of police or ambulance, but both riders were breathing, the bleeding of the older woman had been staunched with a tourniquet on her leg, and a small queue of traffic at either end of the accident had been prevented from running them over. The Queen’s driver was managing the flow of cars while her protection officer attended to the injured. Rozie counted them.

‘Who’s looking after the Boss?’