Murder Most Royal

Chapter 35

On Sunday, Rozie watched the Queen hand out prizes to local schoolchildren after church at West Newton. Back at Sandringham House, the maids and dressers were busy packing for tomorrow’s return to London. Massed clumps of snowdrops fringed the paths through the tree canopy on the estate. Spring was, if not quite here, then certainly announcing its intentions.

Tomorrow was the 6th of February, when the Queen would mark her sapphire jubilee: the sixty-fifth anniversary of her accession. Her ministers and the press always seemed to find it a cause for congratulations, but to the Boss, Rozie knew, it was, more than anything, the day her father died. She would mark it privately here, before travelling by train to London and a crowded calendar in another busy year.

After the visit, the Queen was, as usual, hosting a lunch. Rozie wasn’t needed, so she called at Katie Briggs’s cottage and drove north-east with her to Burnham Overy Staithe beach, for one last blitz of sea air, sweeping views and vast Norfolk skies. They walked the mile from the car park, along the track that skirted the salt marshes to the gap at Gun Hill, and sat on the sand near the grassy dunes, wrapped in their coats, while Daphne ran joyful rings around them. Ahead, the sea stretched north to Greenland, with little in between. Low waves crashed onto the shore with seductive regularity. Rozie savoured the moment to hold on to when she was back in town, between the frenetic politics of Whitehall and the traffic din of Hyde Park Corner.

‘OK, so tell me,’ Katie said, having checked that there were no dog walkers within listening distance. ‘Truthfully. Did he nearly kill her? That’s the gossip I heard.’

Rozie pictured the scene on the way to Newmarket: the rearing horse, the running police officer, herself running faster, how terrified she had been.

‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly. ‘I thought so at the time. But the way the Boss was looking at that horse – I don’t think it would have dared.’

‘I assume Depiscopo’s on guard duty at some depot in the Outer Hebrides.’

‘I don’t think he’s going to be on royal duty in a hurry,’ Rozie agreed.

‘What was he thinking?’

‘He wasn’t. He was focused on the women in the road. He assumed the Boss would do what she was told. He hadn’t worked for her long, unlike Rick Jackson, who’d known her for fifteen years.’

‘It worries me,’ Katie said, ‘this new policy of sharing the protection officers around.’

‘It worries everyone. But the Boss can look after herself. I’ve seen her do it.’

There was something else, though Rozie didn’t say it. She would look after the Boss. She had been there when it mattered. She had put herself in harm’s way – of course she had – and it had felt entirely natural. The Boss needed her, and she was up to the challenge. This business about feeling on the edge of things was all in her head. Edges were good, anyway. Edges were sharp.

That moment facing down the stallion had given her the same sort of buzz she got from swimming in open water. You couldn’t rescue a queen from a murderous madman every day, but you could swim. The water reconnected her with her sense of self and purpose. If she had brought her kit, she’d be in it now.

Along to their left was the low, grassy mass of Scolt Head Island, from where they could hear the hoots and honks of nesting birds. This was where Chris Wallace had walked into the sea. How could he have said goodbye to the world in such a lovely place? Rozie wrapped her arms around herself, resting her chin against her knees and gazing out across the water.

Katie put an arm on Rozie’s shoulder.

‘I know what you mean.’

‘What?’ Rozie asked, surprised. But Katie’s expression showed she understood.

They sat in silence for a while, until the puppy’s need to play roused Rozie from her funk and got her running along the beach, filling her lungs with air, grateful to have this moment.

It wasn’t St Barts, and she’d never imagined that somewhere so biting cold and far from a cocktail bar could become one of her happy places, but between this sea and sky, north Norfolk took a lot of beating.

* * *

The Queen had a very pleasant tea with Judy Raspberry, who was convalescing at home. Half the contents of the Sandringham shop seemed to have been put in a hamper for her. As well as a mug about pigeons. Judy was delighted with the mug most of all.

Supper that night was not in the candlelit dining room, but at Wood Farm, where Philip was already making himself at home, in anticipation of his retirement. He cooked them both steak, supplemented by a selection of vegetables prepared by one of the chefs. The wine was, as always, excellent. Dessert was chocolate mousse, which he avoided and she devoured. Afterwards they washed up together, before settling down in front of the television to watch a comedy show.

‘What would your father have made of this?’ Philip wondered aloud, looking round the rather ordinary room with a fond, proprietorial eye.

‘I think he’d have found it very comfortable.’