Murder Most Royal

‘No. He gave the impression of bumbling – that was the clever thing – but in fact there was a sharp mind and endless research and preparation. He made sure he picked a day when Abbottswood would otherwise be empty, and the fiancée was abroad. He even took a broken phone charger up to London with him, so it would look natural that St Cyr’s phone had run out of power. Otherwise, it would have looked strange that he wasn’t using it at this mysterious meeting of his the next day. In fact, Mundy must have ditched it as soon as he’d used it to text Miss Westover. After that, he raced for home. We’ve checked the train times. It was just doable. We’d always suspected someone else might have been at the flat. The issue that bothered us was how the killer got St Cyr out of it and what they did with the body. But Mundy didn’t have to worry about that. The body was already where he needed it to be.’

‘And where was that?’ the Queen asked, though having seen a flapping tarpaulin at the hall, she thought she knew.

‘In one of the medieval rooms that was undergoing building work at Ladybridge Hall, ma’am. The windows were partially open to the elements. The perfect place to store a body in winter: cool and ventilated, like birds in a game larder. Forensics suggest it was wrapped in plastic and hidden behind some building equipment. Mundy complained of a head cold on the seventeenth, so he didn’t join his family when they went to the ballet. The servants were at the other end of the house. Nobody usually enters that older part of the house. Mundy had plenty of time for what he needed to do. He wrapped it in chains so it would sink and lowered it through an open window. All the evidence adds up.’

‘Do you know if Ned died quickly?’ the Queen asked. It was possible to imagine various scenarios. She had tried hard not to picture some of them.

‘There was poison in the stomach, ma’am. But also, his neck was snapped. He may have been hit on the head as well at that time. We think he was dead before Mundy left him. Later, his skull was caved in with a blunt instrument. A cricket bat, we’re pretty certain. The divers found one of those in the moat, too.’

The Queen patted her knee and Willow the corgi came over to sit on her lap. ‘Go on,’ she said.

‘It’s the cutting off of the hand that makes no sense to me,’ Bloomfield said. ‘It was the only body part that was missing. Mundy had smashed the skull, but the right hand was intact. He hadn’t tried hard to make the body unidentifiable – and of course there was no point, given where we found it. It must have been something to do with the ring, but I doubt we’ll ever know exactly.’

‘No, I suppose not,’ the Queen agreed. She didn’t discuss her conversation with Hugh. Instead, she mentioned something else, which she suspected might also have contributed to the act. ‘I’ve been thinking. Ned was about to end up in the moat. The ring was a symbol of family belonging. I suppose Hugh had to put the body in the moat because it was the easiest place to hide it . . .’

‘But he didn’t want Ned to belong. Is that it, ma’am?’ Bloomfield nodded soberly. ‘And I suppose it would have given him an excuse to mutilate the body. It reminds me, the choice of the plastic bag . . . I always found that intriguing. Something cheap and throwaway. It was an odd thing to take on that journey to scatter his wife’s ashes, don’t you think? Perhaps he chose it subconsciously—’

‘To grant Ned the least honour,’ the Queen finished for him, nodding to herself. ‘That could well be it.’

‘“The least honour”, ma’am. Exactly.’

‘But it had the effect of preserving the hand in the storm, didn’t it? I wonder if he meant to take it out, but was almost caught in the act by one of his children. I can picture him panicking and throwing the whole thing in.’

Bloomfield nodded. ‘“This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine”,’ he quoted.

The Queen looked at him politely. ‘Shakespeare? Macbeth, I assume, if it’s about hands.’

‘Spot on, ma’am. I did it at school. I was Duncan, but I never forgot the boy who played Macbeth talking about washing his hands of blood. It was chilling, even in a sixth-form production. As you mention, Hugh must have disposed of the bag under the noses of his children. I think Flora might have suspected something.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘She was always keen, in interviews, to support whatever alibi her father or brother gave. She was out in the boat with them that day, so when the hand washed up she could have put two and two together and realised one of them was probably guilty. Presumably she thought it was Valentine, who was younger and fitter, and in London.’

‘And yet, she knew both of them very well,’ the Queen said. ‘She might equally have suspected her father’s hidden depths.’