‘Is he safe?’
‘Prince Charles?’ Sir Hugh asked. ‘Oh yes, ma’am. Right as rain. The boy has no idea anything even happened. They had this plan to send someone in dressed up as a schoolmaster and catch him on the way back from games, and tell him he had detention, or a letter, something of that sort, and lead him to a place where they could shove him in a car. MI5 had eyes on them all the time. The thing was organised by the Marquess of Suffolk, would you believe? I had no idea the man had two brain cells to rub together. Apparently, he didn’t. He entrusted it to a couple of likely lads, well known to the police, and carted himself off to Kerala, so he’d be out of the way.’
‘How close did they get?’
‘They got to the school,’ Sir Hugh admitted, ‘but only because the surveillance team let ’em. As soon as they emerged from the car, dressed up in their tweed jackets and whatnot, they pounced. It was undeniable, what they were up to. The boot of the car was full of—’
The Queen raised a hand sharply. ‘I don’t want to know what it was full of. Thank you, Hugh.’
‘Ah. Yes, of course. But as I say, the young prince is perfectly unharmed. We would never let anything happen to him. But you can see what they were trying to do.’
‘Yes, I can,’ she said heavily.
‘What?’ Urquhart asked Sir Hugh.
‘They were going to hold him for a few days in a farmhouse somewhere. Naturally, Her Majesty and Prince Philip would want to fly back to England. Even if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be able to continue with the schedule. And if they did, all the press would be about the kidnap anyway. Doesn’t bear thinking about. So then everyone starts saying, “young family, parents can’t go away, too dangerous” . . . And along comes the Duke of Windsor and his wife – childless – and off they go. That was the intention.’
‘But . . .’ Urquhart blustered, ‘but . . .’ His ruddy face clouded with incomprehension. ‘What about the Queen Mother? She’s perfectly good at doing this sort of thing. She did it in Africa just now. Or Princess Margaret? Why on earth would we ever get back that man and his monstrous . . . ?’
‘Miles!’ Sir Hugh glared at his fellow courtier, who was in danger of saying something very rude about a member of the royal family.
The Queen said nothing. Sir Hugh was full of delight at the foiling of the kidnap plot, and Urquhart was doing a good job of pointing out how utterly futile it would have been. Futile, but quite terrifying. The thought of her little boy in a farmhouse, locked away . . .
Sir Hugh rattled on. ‘It was a fantasy, the whole thing. That’s what these plotters are: sheer fantasists. They wanted someone malleable, rather than someone popular. As long as he was their man.’
If MI5 hadn’t been watching . . . the Queen trembled at the thought. If Joan hadn’t seen Radnor-Milne and Maidstone together, and helped them connect the dots . . . If she hadn’t told them about that treacherous bastard, the Marquess of Suffolk, even if they had conveniently forgotten where the information came from . . .
‘And they seemed to think the PM wouldn’t notice if the man continually went off-piste . . .’
The police and MI5 would have found Charles. They would have got him back quickly. It would have been a damp squib for the traitors. But for her little family . . . The trauma of it all . . .
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m still feeling rather faint. I need some fresh air.’
Sir Hugh looked surprised. ‘There isn’t time, ma’am. You’re opening parliament in a couple of hours. You’ll need to get changed . . .’
‘I can change quickly. Can someone please show me the way to the gardens?’
For fifteen minutes, walking among the paths and borders of Government House, she didn’t think she could do it. How could she put on her coronation dress and make a historic speech – the first monarch to do so in this place – when she could hardly stand?
It took every ounce of will to summon the spirit of her grandmother. It wasn’t about her, it was about the job. As a mother, she couldn’t do it; as monarch, she must.
By the time Philip came to find her, she was ready.
‘Are you all right, Cabbage? Somebody said you had a fainting fit.’
‘I didn’t. Perfectly all right, thank you. D’you know where to go?’
The opening of the Canadian parliament went without mishap. The Queen felt exhausted, but tried not to let it show. On their return, and before the evening banquet, Sir Hugh managed to update her with the whereabouts of the conspirators.
‘I’m afraid we let the ball drop a bit there, ma’am. It was important not to let our hand show. In the meantime, I think Tony Radnor-Milne might have got a whiff of something. He’s gone to South Africa, of all places. The second he sets foot on British soil, he’ll be arrested for treason.’
‘Let him stay there. What about the Marquess of Suffolk?’
‘In prison in India. Not quite the yoga retreat he had in mind. The others know we know, if you know what I mean. The PM doesn’t want everyone arrested, or it will look as if there was some sort of coup. It might spook the markets.’
Not as much as it spooked me, the Queen thought. She had been worried about the children in case something happened to her, but she had never seriously considered something might happen to them. However, she was feeling slightly better.
‘And Maidstone?’
‘Ah.’ Sir Hugh adjusted his spectacles. ‘He, too, seemed to have got wind of something. He was last seen on a jet to Chicago.’
‘America!’
‘Ironically, he has friends there. I doubt it’ll take long to track him down. Meanwhile, there’s the question of Jeremy, ma’am.’
‘Yes, there is,’ the Queen said.
‘We’ve been letting him work in a room without a telephone. He knows something’s up, but doesn’t know what. I thought you might like to deal with him yourself, ma’am.’
The Queen looked up. ‘That’s very kind of you, Hugh,’ she said warmly. It was a thoughtful gesture from a busy man. ‘I would.’
Jeremy Radnor-Milne could feel in his bones that the game was up.
He had suspected for a week, now, that Sir Hugh knew something. There had been conversations in the North Wing that he was no longer included in. Editors who seemed to be re-briefed after he briefed them. Little conversations with his one or two allies among the household staff that were interrupted before he could give useful instructions. Nothing obvious . . . but then, Jeremy liked to think of himself as the master of ‘nothing obvious’. So he was sensitive to it happening to him.
He had got his wife to warn his brother, using a code word they’d agreed. If he was right, they were probably tapping his phone. But all he could do was carry on, meanwhile. Where else could he go?
When the Queen asked to see him in the private sitting room she had been allocated in Government House, he knew he was right. She looked tired, and low. Usually, she was energised by visits like this; she’d display more energy than all of them put together. But today, she was deflated.
She was sitting in a chair with the light behind her, and he was forced to stoop a little to see her properly.
Looking at her pale face and the dark circles under her eyes, he suddenly realised what he had done. He’d always assumed that she’d carry on regardless, even if her uncle took on some of the trickier visits. He was really very fond of her. A huge fan. That wasn’t an act. But recent events seemed to have changed her, which wasn’t the plan at all.
‘Ma’am? You asked to see me?’