As he ran on up the hill, feeling increasingly exhilarated, he smiled. For the first time since the start of this investigation, he felt really positive. And he’d really hit the jackpot with the weather this morning. It was going to be a glorious autumn day and he was damn well going to take Glenn’s advice and enjoy a few hours of it at least.
He and Cleo had planned to take Noah and Molly for a walk along Noah’s favourite beach, behind Hove Lagoon. Although he suspected the only reason it was Noah’s favourite was because of the range of ice creams served even out of season in the Big Beach Cafe, owned by superstar DJ and Brighton legend Fatboy Slim.
Still smiling, he ran on up to the top of the hill and along the ridge, through a huge field of sheep, with Humphrey trained to ignore them and obediently doing so, staying close to his heels. Kyla, kept on a tight leash, tugged away, as if wondering why she couldn’t meet all these new playmates. They were running along part of the South Downs National Park, which stretched 100 miles from Eastbourne to Winchester. Just a few miles from the village of Plumpton, where Camilla’s family home had been and where she had spent much of her childhood. And as a bonus, the village had always boasted a particularly good pub, he thought.
The sun was tracking its way into a cloudless sky and he was starting to sweat. God, he needed this, he thought. For the past few days, his brains had felt as though they were being steamed inside a pressure cooker, or rather — what were those new things called? — a Thermomix? No... Then he remembered. Air fryers!
Arriving back home, with Kyla off the lead now that they were out of the field of sheep, he collected five eggs from the hen coop, warding off Billy, with his exotic plumage and razor-sharp spurs, who was particularly aggressive to anyone who came near his girls, and carried his booty triumphantly into the kitchen, placing them in the rack along with the other nine eggs that Cleo had collected in the past few days.
‘Eggs for breakfast!’ he announced. ‘I am the Eggman!’
‘Yayyy, Eggman!’ Noah responded.
Molly raised her hands and squealed in solidarity with her brother, even if she didn’t quite get it.
He showered and then changed ready for a few hours on the beach this morning before returning to work. As he went back down into the kitchen, Cleo was sitting at the breakfast bar, leafing through the pages of the Argus, with Molly on her chair beside her, eating scrambled egg from a bowl. Noah lay on the floor, with Kyla beside him, his arms wrapped around her neck. Radio 4 news was on in the background.
‘Who else is still hungry?’ Roy Grace asked.
Noah and Cleo announced they both were.
Grace felt a sudden, almost overwhelming burst of happiness. Everyone he loved in the world, really and truly loved, including the two dogs, was here in this room right now with him — this beautiful kitchen with its view across to the rolling hills of the South Downs and the tiny white pieces of cotton-ball fluff that populated them.
‘OK!’ he said, removing a tub of butter from the fridge. He placed a frying pan on the hob, turned the heat up and shook in several drops of avocado oil. Next he took a plastic container of maple syrup from one of the cupboards, and a loaf of sliced sourdough bread. ‘Who’d like French toast and who’d like an omelette, or—’
His work phone rang, interrupting him.
He hesitated for a moment, so very tempted to ignore it. But that wasn’t an option.
‘Roy Grace,’ he answered.
Instantly, he recognized the intensely serious, earnest voice of Denton Scroope. ‘Roy, I believe I’m making progress deciphering the code. It’s a slow process — whoever wrote this knew what they were doing.’
Feeling a beat of excitement, Grace said, ‘Tell me? What have you learned so far?’
‘This document is real, and not just an exercise, Roy?’
‘It’s real,’ Grace assured him.
‘And the author of it is dead?’
‘Correct.’
‘Then I do not think it would be wise to tell you over the phone what I have deciphered so far, Roy. I really do not. I need to do it in person. If you want to make the best use of time and allow me to keep working on the pages, perhaps you could come over here?’
Yet again, Roy Grace was faced with a horribly familiar choice. Work or family? In his former life with his wife Sandy, he’d destroyed his marriage by choosing work too many times — not that he had any option. And he had no option now. A morning on a beach in Hove with his wife and kids, or protecting the lives of his King and Queen?
At least in this marriage, second time around, he had a wife who understood.
53
Saturday 25 November 2023
It seemed to Rose Cadoret that it was a rite of passage for every tourist in London to pose for a selfie somewhere in front of Buckingham Palace. They descended in their masses, individuals or in groups with guides holding up coloured sticks, sometimes in cagoules and rain hats, sometimes in baseball caps and T-shirts. Why did some tourists think it was OK to stand in The Mall, one of the world’s most beautiful avenues, wearing the most ludicrously shapeless and gaudy outfits?
The magnificent edifice of the East Wing, three storeys high and topped with a tall flagpole from which the Royal Standard flies whenever the monarch is in residence, is iconic. To many its presence is a serene constant and a reassurance of order that rises above whatever troubles currently ail the world.
But what Joe Public never saw, Rose Cadoret thought, was the dingy labyrinth of corridors and rooms one floor below. It could have been the basement of any institution in the world — a grand hotel, a hospital, a residential skyscraper. Down here was a never-ending, artificially lit warren of low ceilings filled with pipework, some wrapped in insulation, hazard warning signs, green baize notice boards screwed to the cream-painted walls, with the usual institutional posters pinned on them: CATCH IT! BIN IT! KILL IT! or, GERMY PLACES IN YOUR OFFICE YOU SHOULD CLEAN! along with diagrams showing hand-cleaning techniques.
With all the Palace renovations going on, the basement smelled variously of recently sawn wood or fresh paint. There were hoardings everywhere, plastic gates and building materials, as well as huge gaps in the walls and floors where exploratory drilling had taken place. As a result, there were so many places where an object — even quite a large object — could be concealed.
Conveniently.
Rose Cadoret passed a door due for updating, on which a sign read, QUEEN’S LUGGAGE LIFT STAIRS. It was next to another that read, BASEMENT FLOOR RED ROUTE — with a large red arrow pointing to a sign. YOU ARE HERE.
I am indeed! Rose thought, seating herself at the Formica table in the Cleaning Staff Office. I am very much here.
And she was, happily, very much alone.
Few members of the Household staff worked weekends, other than those guarding the Palace, and she knew she wasn’t going to be bothered down here late on a Saturday morning.
Opening her Waitrose carrier bag, she took out the five exquisite miniature jade figurines she had removed from a cabinet up on the first floor — part of a collection that had been one of Queen Mary’s passions — and for which there was already a keen buyer waiting. Then she began encasing them in bubble wrap, for their protection. When she had done that, she would take them home. In her plastic Waitrose bag of course. None of the Palace guards would raise an eyebrow at a senior member of the Royal Collection walking around with a painting under their arm, let alone carrying a bag of groceries. Which was how she had smuggled out many dozens of objects over the past months.