Murder Most Royal

Depiscopo looked up from the teenager, whom he’d been reassuring that help was on the way.

‘Shit.’

He hauled himself up and started to run, but Rozie was already ahead of him.

* * *

Hugh sat tall in the saddle and the Queen realised just how much he had been faking his recent infirmity. At full height, his St Cyr characteristics stood out more strongly. The nose, the eyes, the chin, the remnants of golden hair . . . With a trilby hat and a bright blue scarf, it would be easy to mistake him for Ned.

He was breathing more stertorously than his horse.

‘Why did you have to butt in?’ he bellowed. ‘I told you! Chris Wallace has nothing to do with me. He was just a tenant with mental problems. What I do with my property is my affair. If you thought you knew something, you should have come to me.’

‘Why?’ the Queen asked, astonished.

‘I could have explained. You would have understood. You say the police know Ned fathered Val, but you know me, for God’s sake. I wouldn’t have killed him for that. I could have told the police as much, if they’d asked me. Certainly, I’d have punched Ned’s lights out, with pleasure. Any man would. No man would have judged me. But I promised Lee I wouldn’t touch him.’ He was agitated. The Queen sensed that the dredging of the moat was coming home to him at last. A body with poison in the stomach was something he couldn’t talk his way out of.

‘Then she started to die and you felt released from your vow’.

Hugh glared at her. ‘You say you know what happened,’ he resumed. ‘You have no idea.’ The horse pawed the ground and Hugh took no care to calm it, or himself. He boiled with rage. ‘He held her down,’ he growled, his eyes boring into hers. ‘Lee was too frightened to struggle. He clamped his hand so hard over her throat while he was . . . doing it . . . that she thought she was going to die. Years later, if I put my hands tenderly anywhere near her neck, she would panic as if she was drowning. He did that to her.’

‘And so you cut his hand off,’ the Queen muttered, understanding at last.

Hugh glared at her. ‘She deserved no less. It was over. He was dead by then anyway. No one need have known. But now . . . D’you realise what you’ve done?’ he said. Astride his jumpy horse, he towered above her. ‘It’s all right for you. You’ve got the next three generations sewn up. What about my children? My grandchildren? The police might have dredged up a skeleton in a few generations. It would have been impossible to prove how it got there. It would have been a St Cyr family mystery, that’s all. I did everything to protect them.’

‘You killed a man and drove another to his death, Hugh.’

He ignored her. ‘Now it will be a scandal.’

‘That’s hardly my fault.’

‘Is it mine?’ He was shouting now, white with anger. ‘What will Flora do? Visit her father in some common jail? How could she survive it? What about Ladybridge? Don’t you care?’

The Queen felt she had already said more than enough. The skittish horse, sensing its rider’s nervous energy, reared up in fear. More than ever, the Queen felt very small and very alone. How stupid she had been to let her passions get the better of her. She stretched out an authoritative arm to calm the animal, but Hugh dug in his heels and backed the horse up, as if lining up for a charge.

‘You’ve had a good life, ma’am. But this is all your fault. You bloody interfering, old . . .’

He had lost all reason. The horse reared again, nose flared, eyes wide, panicking now under his unsteady guidance. In two seconds, it could mow her down. The look in Hugh’s eyes was implacable.

‘Oi!’

Ricky Depiscopo charged towards the wall that led to the field. He’d spotted the horse and rider, then the telltale headscarf that meant the Boss. They’d seemed to be chatting amicably enough at first, thank God. He’d been thinking that perhaps she wouldn’t notice how long they’d left her. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind. Except now the horse was rearing and the Boss, who was so good with them, was stepping back. Shit. She was raising her arms. He reached under his jacket, where his gun was holstered.

‘Stay back! Police!’

The rider turned to look at him, just as a figure streaked past him and headed for the wall.

‘Stop or I’ll fire!’

Depiscopo wondered if he was overreacting. He was trained for terrorists and nutters going after ministers. Nothing in his training had included a large and frightened horse in a muddy field and the Sovereign of the Realm. He aimed his weapon at the rider’s head and hesitated.

Rozie, meanwhile, had vaulted the wall and now she flew across the tussocks of grass to reach the Queen. All she could think was that the Boss had to be safe. She had no weapon to make that happen, so she placed herself bodily between the Boss and those terrifying hooves.

A shot rang out.