Even though he was well and truly dead by then, the Queen thought.
‘And the knife?’
Lucie remained impassive. ‘I planted it in his face. Then I walked into the other room. I found lilacs. Ginette always loved those flowers. I was just putting them in her arms when I heard the sound of men’s voices downstairs. I waited. They were there for ages and then one of them came upstairs. Then another, and another. I was stuck in that goddam room, but I didn’t mind. In the end, I spent the night with her. It was nice. Peaceful.’
‘I suppose so,’ the Queen said. She couldn’t begin to imagine what this must have been like, but she did know sisterly love.
‘We hadn’t spent so long together in years,’ Lucie went on softly. ‘I took the gloves off and held her hand. I lay beside her and told her stories about France, while this other man snored like a pig across the landing. I could have gone while he slept, but I didn’t want to leave her . . . I assumed I’d tell him what had happened in the morning. But I wasn’t really thinking about the morning.’
‘And when it came, what did you do?’
‘I waited until dawn. Then my training took over. I don’t really remember, but I got outside with the dress under my coat. I didn’t feel as if I was in my body. I climbed over a wall, crept through a garden and came out in the Boltons, where Deborah Fairdale lives. Do you know it, ma’am?’
The Queen half smiled. ‘I do.’
‘From there, I walked quickly to the King’s Road. I found a telephone box and called the police. I can’t remember what I said, but I assumed they would find the bodies in five minutes. Then I went home and hid the dress and gloves and boots in an old suitcase and slept for twenty-four hours. But there was no news of the bodies that day, or the next. Every minute since has been a dream. A nightmare.’
‘I assume your husband knows what you did,’ the Queen said.
‘I imagine. The diamonds . . . His gloves and boots gone too. He must have recognised my old knife in the newspaper. We haven’t talked about it.’
‘He must love you very much.’
Lucie shrugged. ‘I’m a lovely ornament. He’s a generous admirer. C’est tout.’
‘He’s allowed many people to assume he’s a killer to protect you. I doubt his political career will recover.’
Lucie shrugged. ‘Perhaps.’
The Queen saw how unmoved she was by what was surely an act of selflessness. Lady Seymour seemed unmoved by her husband altogether. She sat there, ramrod straight, her alabaster beauty unaffected by the ravages to her makeup, her slim shoulders rising from the beaded perfection of the evening gown he had paid for.
Lucie’s face had only truly come alive when she talked of Scotland, and the work she had done to train agents to work with the Resistance. The Queen knew several women who had lived extraordinary lives in the war, at all levels of society. Many of them continued to do so, in one way or another, taking what they had learned and applying it in charities, schools, hospitals and military units. It had changed their lives; they had an energy that sparkled. By contrast, she could see that the return to life as a ‘lovely ornament’ had done Lucie no good at all. Perhaps it didn’t help that her loving husband was unfaithful. Meanwhile, it must have cut her to the quick to have found out what happened to her sister Marianne. She had become hollowed out by boredom and grief.
Those wartime experiences were still inside her, though. Lucie was a woman who could escape from a murder scene without leaving a trace, and without really trying. Luck had played its part; she might so easily have been spotted going into the mews, or escaping through the Boltons later, but she wasn’t.
However, her luck was running out. If the Queen could work out her part in the murders from the tiara, perhaps Inspector Darbishire would get there one day. Lucie never had an alibi to speak of – he had simply never asked.
‘Was there any other way . . . ?’ the Queen asked.
‘To stop the man who was murdering my sister? No. If I’d hesitated for one second, he’d have killed us both.’
‘The police might understand, you know. It was self-defence, of a sort.’
‘They wouldn’t,’ Lucie said decisively. ‘It never ends well when a woman kills a man. But I understand – my time is up. Thank you.’
‘Thank you for what?’
‘For warning me.’
Was that what this was? A warning? The Queen hadn’t thought of it that way – more as a prelude to the inevitable consequences. But perhaps Lucie was right.
She stood up and Lucie did too.
‘I’m so very sorry about your sister. Both your sisters.’
They faced each other, and Lucie noted that the Queen was not calling for help. She smiled.
‘And now I really must get ready,’ the Queen said, apologetically.
‘You’ve missed your bath. Je suis désolée.’
‘I’ll manage,’ the Queen assured her.
Lucie hesitated.
‘I don’t think we’ll see each other downstairs.’
‘No, I doubt we will. Goodbye, Lucie.’
The other woman dropped into a deep curtsey, just as Bobo bustled into the room, making anxious noises about ‘The time! The dress! The hair! Your bath, Lilibet! Oh!’
‘Goodbye, ma’am.’
She let herself out.
Chapter 59
The ball seemed to go by in the blink of an eye. Everyone loved the Queen’s dress, which combined a slim, sequinned column made of cellophane lace with a wide tulle fantail that swept behind her with a reassuring swish. Many people commented. Even some of the men, which was almost unheard of.
It took a while for the Queen to get the image out of her head of what Lucie must have gone through that night in Chelsea. But the champagne helped, and so did the Queen’s sense of duty, which demanded that she pay close attention to everyone she met, and laugh whenever a joke was attempted, and laugh loudly if it was attempted by the Governor of New York.
A very good band played very good jazz, and Philip had a brief dance with her, wearing his much-admired, very British, stiff bow tie. New Yorkers certainly knew how to party. By the end, she was sorry they couldn’t stay all night. Like Cinderella, she had to leave by midnight – although this Cinderella ran to the plane with her prince beside her, the skirts of her ballgown caught by the runway’s Krieg lights as they floated in the wind.
MISSING IN NEW YORK
Page 7. After the grand banquet at the Waldorf Astoria for HM the Queen last Monday, it was discovered that one of the guests had vanished. Attractive socialite Lady Lucie Seymour, 40, wife of the UK’s Minister for Technology, has mysteriously disappeared. The NYPD has been alerted and so far there is no sign of her. Pressed for comment, Lord Seymour said his wife must have suffered a sudden health crisis, and has made an impassioned plea for her return. The minister was briefly a suspect in the Chelsea murders, as the owner of the diamond tiara found on one of the victims. The Metropolitan Police say their inquiries are still ongoing.
Norman Hartnell among British designers paying tribute after the sudden death of couturier Christian Dior at 52. France in mourning. See page 9.
More coverage of the Queen’s unforgettable fifteen hours in New York on pages 2, 3, 4, 11 and 12. Full colour pull-out in this weekend’s Sunday supplement.
‘How long had you known for?’ Joan asked.
The Queen was back at her desk, beside the bow window in her Buckingham Palace study, surrounded by paperwork.