Glenn Branson peered at a silver-framed wedding photograph on a shelf. It was a dashing young Tommy Magellan-Lacey in his army uniform with a beautiful woman, with flowing brown hair, in a bridal dress, standing outside a church. ‘Lovely photograph,’ he said.
‘Thank you!’
‘Does your wife work in the Royal Household too, Sir Tommy?’
The Master shook his head. ‘No, Fiona works in the art world. She has a job with a private gallery.’ He poured boiling water into the cafetière and indicated for them to sit at the kitchen table. ‘So, gentlemen, what progress in your enquiries?’ He tipped a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits onto a plate and placed it on the table.
Grace gave a courteous smile. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have as much as I would like to report, so far,’ Grace said. ‘I’ll bring you up to speed. But, first, may I ask how Her Majesty is?’
‘She’s deeply saddened by the death of Sir Peregrine, and very shaken, of course, but she is a remarkable lady. She has so many of the qualities of resilience of the late Queen and the same sense of duty. As you know, she insisted on continuing with her tour, much to the consternation of The King, who is understandably extremely worried about her safety. He’s asked to see you while you are here — I hope you can give him some reassurance?’
‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ Grace said.
Tommy Magellan-Lacey looked at his watch. ‘We’ll head over to the Palace in twenty minutes — Her Majesty is expecting you at 10 a.m.’
‘Thank you. The other members of my team should be there now.’
The Master glanced at a printed sheet of paper. ‘Detectives Norman Potting, Velvet Wilde, Jon Exton, Alec Butler and Polly Sweeney from the Major Crime Team?’
‘Yes, sir. Polly Sweeney will be the Family Liaison Officer for Sir Peregrine Greaves’ widow. I’ll accompany her there later this morning. The others will be interviewing all members of the Household staff who had contact with the late Private Secretary.’
‘Good,’ the Master said. ‘Margot Greaves is pretty shaken up, as you might imagine.’
As he and Branson helped the Master of the Royal Household bring mugs and milk over to the table, Grace felt charmed by the man, liking the fact that no doubt he could have had some palace servant make and serve the coffee but chose to do it himself.
When they were seated at the table, Sir Tommy facing them, with just a glass of water in front of him, Grace brought him up to speed with the investigation.
‘So you’re pretty confident you’ve located the shooter’s lair?’ he said.
‘We are,’ Grace replied. ‘Yes. Something I want to ask you is whether Sir Peregrine might have had any enemies?’
The Master gave him a dubious look. ‘You are not thinking he was the target, surely?’ But there was a flicker of something in his expression.
‘It’s my job to keep an open mind.’
‘An open mind?’
‘Was Her Majesty the intended victim? That’s a very important question.’
The Master stared at him with a look of utter disbelief. ‘Of course she was. The entire world knows she was, Detective Superintendent Grace.’
Grace shook his head. ‘They don’t know she was the target. They’ve been told she was. That’s a very big difference. And, of course, that’s the story they want to believe. But they don’t have the information that I do.’
‘Which is?’
27
Wednesday 22 November 2023
She wasn’t supposed to have the key. Only a handful of people in Buckingham Palace did. They included the Master of the Royal Household, Sir Tommy Magellan-Lacey, the Head of Security, Will Treadwell, and the Director of the Royal Collection Trust, Lorraine McKnight. She wasn’t even sure if The King himself had one. Or The Queen.
It was a great big, ancient metal affair that was more like a museum piece, or something out of a dungeon, than a functioning master key that could unlock every single door in the Palace. But then, of course, this place was a museum really, in so many ways, she thought. A living, lived-in museum. There were sixty-four thousand ornaments and objets d’art in the North Wing alone, quite apart from all the paintings hung on the walls.
Every piece was valuable and some were priceless. Many were gifts to Kings and Queens down the ages, others bought or commissioned by the Royal Family. She was walking along a red-carpeted corridor, past a display cabinet crammed full of small jade ornaments; collecting these had been a passion of the late Queen Mary, who died in 1953.
So much stuff in here, she thought. The Director of the Royal Collection did have a full inventory of all four wings in this palace, along with thousands more ornaments and pieces of furniture, as well as everything in Windsor Castle, Sandringham, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Balmoral, Birkhall and all the other royal residences. How could anyone keep track of it all, or place a value on it?
All of it was quality. If you were a monarch or at least heir to the throne, no one would be giving you a humble spice rack as a wedding present. Unlike the three grotty ones she and her now divorced husband had been gifted at their own wedding. Including one that had a tag stuck to the bottom, from someone else gifting it to the ‘friends’ who had given it to them.
How nice to be Royal. Royally rich. How nice to have so much stuff that you didn’t even know how much you had.
She glanced at her watch: 9.20 a.m. She had plenty of time to complete her assigned task this morning. Using the master key, she unlocked a magnificent wood-panelled door and slipped through into a bare, grimy white corridor that smelled of freshly sawn wood. Buckingham Palace was undergoing major renovations, one wing at a time, and this wing was now being started on.
She stepped around a hazard warning triangle, ignoring a notice that read, HARD HAT AREA, and climbed a narrow, steep staircase. The top few stairs were sealed off by a strip of red and yellow tape and a large sign:
She checked behind her. No one, she was alone. She ducked under the tape and continued to the top, then stopped and stood on bare floorboards, getting her breath back for a moment. Ahead of her was a ten-foot high by five-foot wide jagged opening, which had been bashed through the wall that went up to the flat, grimy ceiling above her. A cold draught blew on her face, which became even colder the closer she stepped, increasingly cautiously, towards the opening.
When this wing had been constructed, during George IV’s reign, massive light shafts were put in by the architect, John Nash, to bring light into the interior of all four floors above ground, and the basement. With modern, inexpensive lighting systems, and in addition The King’s own plans for the Palace to produce much of its energy requirements by natural, sustainable means, these light shafts were redundant, and this one was in the process of being converted into a lift to provide access to the other floors in the Palace.
She stepped forward increasingly gingerly, putting out her arms and pressing her hands against the wall either side of the gap as she drew even closer. She’d never been good with unguarded heights.
Finally reaching the very edge, she peered down. Work was progressing well, she could see. At the very bottom of the shaft were six fierce-looking vertical spikes, rising several feet. The lift engineer had explained their purpose a couple of weeks ago, when they’d begun work on them. They were to form a seatingguide for the base of the lift car.
They could of course also serve a very different purpose, she thought. And that was the reason she was here. Conducting a recce of all the sites in the Palace where an accident might occur. A fatal accident.