‘Does he need to be discreet?’ she asked.
‘Always,’ he said, without further explanation. The Queen was about to press the point, but her private secretary moved on smoothly.
‘You’ll be pleased to know the Dean of Bath has been all but ruled out, although he’s still on the suspect list.’
‘Oh good. Does he have an alibi?’
‘Far from it, ma’am. But, without going into detail, it was a crime requiring two people to, um, subdue the victims. There’s no evidence he had an accomplice, or indeed a motive. It has since been established that the house was used entirely without his knowledge for illicit assignations.’
‘Ah. I knew about that.’
‘Did you, ma’am?’ Sir Hugh was too polite to express surprise verbally, but his bushy eyebrows shot up, leaving his spectacles behind.
‘Deborah Fairdale told me.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Sir Hugh retrieved a page of notes from the file tucked under his arm. He quickly consulted them. ‘However, there remain some unanswered questions. If the murders happened when the police think they did, then the dean either just missed the killers, or slept through the whole thing. Why didn’t he notice that the flowers he had bought for his bedside the day before were missing? Or that the back door was unbolted? Or – most importantly – that the door to the second bedroom, opposite his own, had been left partially open, as the charlady found it the following week? He would have to be very unobservant indeed.’
‘Did he give a reason?’ the Queen asked. The Clement Moreton she remembered was a sharp, quick-witted man, as you had to be if you were going to beat her mother at canasta, which he had done more than once.
‘He put it down to toothache, ma’am. He was in London in the first place so he could see his dentist in Harley Street on the Monday morning. He drank a little too much the night before, he says, to dull the pain. A hangover didn’t help.’
‘I see.’ This seemed plausible. The Queen knew how painful toothache could be. Earaches too . . .
‘Anyway, Inspector Darbishire strongly suspects a link with a London gang. He’s already found out that Perez was consorting with some dubious characters. He was from Argentina, ma’am. The inspector’s in touch with Buenos Aires.’
‘You say he knows how the murders were done?’
‘Yes. As I say, it’s best if I don’t go into details, but Perez was attacked first, almost certainly, and Fonteyn killed as a witness. Perez was taken by surprise in the, um, bedroom and left where he fell. The knife was applied afterwards, in some sort of vengeful act. Or possibly as a message. All very sordid.’
‘Was there anything about a gunshot?’ she asked.
‘A gunshot?’ The eyebrows shot up again. ‘Miss Fairdale, ma’am?’
‘Actually, yes.’
Sir Hugh glanced through his notes. ‘Um . . . here we are. Two witnesses in the mews reported something of that sort, at about three in the morning. But one of them heard a motorbike roaring off at about the same time, so it was almost certainly a backfire. There’s no sign of any bullet, casings or damage that might have been caused by one.’ He glanced up from the file. ‘There are some witness statements that don’t quite make sense. That’s often the case early in an investigation, I believe . . .’
‘But they’ve had six weeks, Hugh!’
‘Five, from when the bodies were discovered. These things take time.’
The Queen tried not to sound personally invested in any way. ‘And there was nothing else in the street that night? To explain the gunshot, I mean?’ She didn’t mean that exactly, but it would do.
Sir Hugh gave her that odd look again. ‘I can’t imagine what that might be, ma’am,’ he said evenly. He held out the file. ‘You can read it for yourself if you like.’
‘Perhaps later. Leave it with me. Thank you.’
‘There was an anonymous phone call, later on that Monday morning. It came from a public call box on the King’s Road. A muffled voice, telling the operator that there had been a terrible accident in the mews. But the operator didn’t catch the full address, and the police went round and found nothing. They’ve only recently realised it might be important. In the meantime, the focus has turned to Lord Seymour, the Minister for Technology. You heard about the tiara?’
‘I did, last night. He bought it at auction. Have they spoken to him yet?’
‘Not in person. He’s been taken up with Government business, you know. He’s given a statement explaining that the diamonds were stolen from the safe at his home.’
‘Has he?’ the Queen said, raising an eyebrow.
‘Quite, ma’am. Inspector Darbishire is hoping to interview him imminently. Fortunately, he has the prime minister and half the Cabinet as his alibi. He was with them at a dinner in the House until after ten thirty on the night of the thirty-first. He went straight home, where the servants and Lady Seymour can vouch for him. As alibis go, it’s a pretty good one.’
‘That’s a relief,’ the Queen said. ‘I’d like to think my ministers are . . . not cold-blooded killers, at least.’
‘No, ma’am. Seymour’s well regarded. Mr Macmillan himself has said he’s destined for high office. This discovery of the tiara has caused an obvious strain. The police have yet to confirm that there was a robbery. And if a gang had stolen the diamonds, it’s very hard to understand why they’d let them be used out in public, so to speak. But I suppose the tar— woman in question was wearing them to a private encounter, so perhaps that explains it. If Seymour was involved, then why he’d use his own diamonds to dress her is even more beyond comprehension. But Darbishire’s pursuing every avenue.’
‘And are there any others? Avenues, I mean?’
‘The initial theory about a gangland execution is the main one for now. It’s quite possible that a fellow escort was involved. She was supposed to be with Perez that night, but she somehow managed to swap with Miss Fonteyn. Darbishire isn’t convinced by her excuses. It’s all very lurid and unfortunate, but nothing remotely related to the family.’
‘Whose?’
‘Yours. I hope that reassures you, ma’am.’
The Queen wasn’t reassured, but didn’t say so.
‘Thank you very much for updating me, Hugh.’
‘My pleasure, ma’am. If I hear anything else of interest from the CID, I’ll let you know.’
The Queen smiled, but her tone was firm. ‘A weekly report would more than suffice,’ she said, sensing that otherwise she would probably get nothing. ‘And I can read it personally, to save you the time.’
‘I assure you, ma’am, it’s no—’
‘I’m quite happy to read it myself.’
Nonplussed, Sir Hugh nodded obediently. ‘Absolutely, ma’am. I’ll see it’s done.’
Chapter 18
Darbishire took his secret warning seriously. He fundamentally refused to give in to whichever dark forces had approached him, but he was a pragmatic man. They knew who he worked with. No doubt they knew where he lived. They would know he had a wife and two precious little daughters, whom he’d lay down his life for. He wasn’t going to make any dangerous moves until he understood exactly what he was up against.
Meanwhile they didn’t want him to stop the investigation, which he had no intention of doing anyway. He had plenty to do that didn’t involve lifting up stones and seeing if the inconsistent Gregsons crawled out from under them. For now, he was busy. In fact, he was about to interview a Government minister concerning the matter of some inconveniently located diamonds.
He had put on his best suit today – of the two that he possessed – and his favourite tie. It was navy blue and slightly narrower than was traditional. He liked to think it gave him a certain air. Woolgar, needless to say, had traces of egg on his lapel which he tried to brush off with one hand when they were pointed out to him.