The revelations were coming thick and fast. Bunny?
The Queen remembered the glee with which he’d told her about the girls at the Raffles agency. She’d been thinking about him in vague relation to the murders, and here he was again . . . but in the context of the plot against her.
‘You look surprised, ma’am.’
The Queen sighed. ‘Not entirely. Nothing Maidstone does will ever surprise me. He once “hid” a hundred sheep in Canterbury Cathedral for a bet. I’m quite surprised that someone like Tony Radnor-Milne would be interested in him, though. They have shooting in common, I suppose.’
‘I don’t think they were talking about shooting.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Could it be something to do with industry, or trade, or finance?’ Joan suggested. ‘I know Tony’s a big investor in rubber. And plastics and aviation.’
‘I can’t see the duke taking an interest in aviation. But rubber . . . Thank you. I’ll think about it.’ Joan had obviously had a very educational time at the Artemis. But that wasn’t why one had sent her there. Hesitantly, the Queen asked, ‘Did you find out anything else at the club?’
She hoped Joan didn’t think she had been hinting at anything more than simply oddness in her note. She felt certain the explanation would be utterly benign. Reasonably benign anyway. She just needed to hear it.
‘I did, ma’am.’ Joan shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘On the night of the murders, the um . . . the person in question . . . left with a friend after dinner and lost his security detail. His whereabouts are unclear after that. That’s all I know for sure. But I should add, quite a lot of people know about it.’
The Queen’s heart sank. She knew Philip’s alibi for that night couldn’t be perfectly legitimate, but still, every chink in it hurt a little. At least she was sure of one thing: the friend wouldn’t be Bunny. Philip couldn’t stand the man.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘And when you say, “lost his security detail” . . . ?’
‘He did it deliberately, ma’am.’
‘Ah. And you don’t know where he went?’
‘Actually, I think I do,’ Joan said.
She explained about her visit to Cresswell Place and her subsequent chat with Hector Ross. Yet again, this came out of the blue. The Queen knew of Major Ross through the papers in her boxes, the ones marked ‘Top Secret’. He was responsible for several of them. Thanks to Sir Hugh’s well-meaning interference – possibly at the suggestion of Tony Radnor-Milne – he had become Joan’s landlord. Given his solicitousness with the provisions from the palace, the Queen was alarmed to infer that they seemed to be sharing a flat. Not because of any prudishness, but because it could be extremely awkward if news of it ever leaked to the sorts of people who liked to stir up trouble.
The Queen sighed to herself. This whole business seemed to involve men and women being together in places they shouldn’t be.
‘What made you connect the duke’s private visit with Cresswell Place?’ she asked.
‘I sensed from your note that you did,’ Joan admitted. ‘And by the way, I think MI5 are still watching it.’ She explained her thought process for when they started following her. ‘Hector . . . Major Ross . . . said I’d been in “sensitive places”. It’s possible they were watching Beryl White’s flat, but I can’t see why that would be sensitive. At first, when I thought about it, I was furious with myself for going to Cresswell Place at all, but then I wondered why on earth anyone was still watching it five months after the murders. And yet it seems they are.’
The Queen nodded slowly.
‘It might explain why Inspector Darbishire hasn’t been making progress. I find that when different services accidentally collide, they tend to tread on each other’s toes.’
‘I can ask for the MI5 file on your behalf,’ Joan began. ‘If we’re right—’
‘No, don’t.’ The Queen raised a hand. ‘I don’t want you involved in this. It’s easier if you aren’t. Everything must go through Sir Hugh. Just . . .’ She caught Joan’s eye. ‘Make sure you do the filing.’
Joan nodded. ‘Do you want me to find out any more about Tony Radnor-Milne?’
‘No. Leave that to me, too. And on that subject, ask the Master of the Household if he can find you a room in the palace, just for now. We have plenty of accommodation. I’m sure there’s something you can use.’
‘I assure you, I’m perfectly all right, ma’am,’ Joan protested. ‘There’s no need—’
‘There’s every need. You’re not safe,’ the Queen pointed out. Not from potential murderers nor, it seemed, the head of D Branch at MI5, who fed her soup.
Joan didn’t look happy. She shook her head, which people rarely did when the Queen told them something in her ‘this is final’ voice.
‘I can’t stay walled up there, ma’am. I’m sorry. There’s too much to do.’
She should try being me for a few days, the Queen thought.
‘I’m not asking you to stay indoors all the time. Merely to work and sleep there. I’m sure you have errands and visits you need to make. I would say, “Be careful”, but I’m sure I don’t need to remind you.’
Joan smiled briefly. ‘No, ma’am. I’ll ask about a room. But, going back to Beryl White . . . My letter about Gina Fonteyn really being Ginette Fleury . . . Was it any help? It doesn’t explain the presence of MI5, does it?’
It didn’t, but at last the Queen could talk about what had been on her mind since she’d read Joan’s letter in August. She had almost lost sight of it, with all this talk of her uncle and MI5 surveillance.
She summarised the idea she had about the possible connection between the victims, going back to the capture of Ginette’s sister in the war.
‘So Ginette organised the whole thing for revenge?’ Joan asked.
‘That’s what seems to make sense. She had seen the man known as Perez, or Rodriguez, by chance at the agency a few days before. She could have recognised him then from Paris. She happened to have the key to the mews house, which would make a private place to confront him – or so she assumed. She would hardly have known about the dean’s dental appointment the next day. She went to great lengths to make sure she, not Beryl, was the one to meet the client, looking the way he had requested, so as not to put him on guard.’
‘Did she have any training, though? It seems a crazy thing to do.’
The Queen frowned. ‘Doesn’t it? If I’m right, she took an enormous risk. That’s why I thought of her sister. What you told me about Marianne Fleury being sent to the camps . . . It might drive a desperate young woman to do whatever it took to get justice. Or what she saw as justice. It seems a powerful motive – if he was the man she blamed.’
Joan shook her head.
‘You don’t agree?’ the Queen asked.
‘I do. But . . . I’m still adjusting. “Nico Rodriguez”. I didn’t know that about Argentina. That it’s a hideaway for old Nazis, I mean.’
‘We assumed that most of the worst offenders saw justice at the Nuremberg Trials, but I’m not sure that’s the case. My red boxes are rather useful. I do learn a lot of things.’
‘Yes, ma’am. But even if Ginette wanted to kill him,’ Joan said, ‘that doesn’t explain how she died too.’
The Queen sighed. ‘That’s the problem. They couldn’t have killed each other and cleaned up the scene. Someone must have followed them there. Someone who wanted one or other of them dead.’
‘Someone who MI5 were following? Lord Seymour?’ Joan suggested. ‘His story about the tiara theft doesn’t ring true.’