Sir Tommy looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘Ten years!’ He beamed.
‘And you enjoy it?’ Branson chipped in. He sipped his coffee but ignored the plate of chocolate digestive biscuits in front of him, still smarting from Sir Tommy’s remark about his dunking capabilities last time he was here.
‘Best job in the world — absolutely. Apart from—’ he shrugged — ‘you know — the terrible events of last Monday and now today. And of course the late Queen’s passing. That was an immensely sad time for me — and everyone.’
‘It was,’ Grace said. Through the window he saw two sentries, rifles shouldered, march in step across the courtyard.
Narrowing his eyes and addressing Grace, Magellan-Lacey asked, ‘When do you think you might have the deciphered pages from Sir Peregrine’s diary?’
‘I would hope within a few days, at most,’ he replied, shooting a wary glance at Branson.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Excellent. Hopefully that will reveal something significant.’
‘You told us before, that you knew Sir Peregrine pretty well? Friends as well as work colleagues? That the four of you — with his wife and yours — would have dinner together quite often.’
‘Yes, Roy, we got on pretty well, poor chap.’
Grace nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Did you notice anything different about him — about his demeanour — in the days — weeks — before his death? Did he seem worried about anything?’
Magellan-Lacey shook his head. ‘To be honest he was always a bit of a closed book — you know — one of those people who never really lets you get near the real them. But having said that he could be great company — great fun when he did let his hair down. He was a brilliant mimic — he could do a wonderfully irreverent impression of both The King and The Queen — and quite a few other members of the Royal Household.’ He smiled. ‘The King’s actually a damned good mimic himself, when he chooses to be. He could have had a very successful career on the stage, had circumstances been different. But in answer to your question, no, I didn’t see any change in Peregrine — I last saw him on the Friday before he died and he was very much his usual self, but I can ask around and see if others noticed anything.’
‘Have you managed to think of any reason someone might have wanted him dead?’ Branson asked.
The Master took some moments before responding. ‘I can’t.’ Then he shrugged. ‘But who knows? Doing his job is not always easy — the same with mine. People jokingly nickname the Royal Family “The Firm”, but in many ways that’s what it is. One thousand, two hundred and fifty employees just here in the Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, St James’s Palace complex is more than many medium-size firms employ.’ He raised his eyebrows before continuing. ‘There is always going to be the odd disgruntled employee.’
‘Angry or bitter enough to kill someone over their grievance?’ Branson pushed.
The Master hesitated. ‘Well, I think I said to you chaps before, many of our Household staff have military backgrounds — perhaps that makes for more likelihood of outbursts of violence than with people from civilian backgrounds.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m purely speculating.’
‘Speculate away!’ Grace encouraged. ‘We need ideas. And actually there is something I wanted to ask you about — your own military service background. You were in Kabul, I believe.’
‘I was — not the best place in the world.’
‘You were out there at the same time as a current Household staff employee, Rosemary Cadoret — then a corporal, I believe?’
‘Yes — well, Rose is technically employed by the Royal Collection Trust — an excellent person, tremendously wide know-ledge of art.’
‘There’s also a member of the Royal Protection team — Jon Smoke — who was in Afghanistan, too?’
‘Jon Smoke, yes, indeed.’
‘From what we have found out about Smoke and Cadoret’s records, they came close to being court-martialled over the shooting of a group of Afghan terrorist prisoners of war? It was only the intervention of Sir Jason Finch that prevented that court-martial from happening — is that correct?’
Magellan-Lacey looked around furtively, as if to ensure no one was eavesdropping. Again he spoke quietly. ‘To be honest, their commanding officer, a colonel, was a complete buffoon. About on the same level as that detective from the Met, Greg Mosse.’ He grinned like a naughty schoolboy. ‘Of course I shouldn’t really say that!’
‘Feel free,’ Grace said, grinning back.
‘He put Jon Smoke and another soldier, an excellent fellow called Stuart Macdonald, who was a good friend of both Smoke and Cadoret, into a highly dangerous position behind enemy lines — completely against advice. There was no tactical advantage to be gained from putting them at risk like that. Yes, they did shoot some Taliban insurgents dead, and here on a fine November morning in the middle of London, sixteen years later, it does sound a terrible thing. But being on stage in the theatre of war is a very different place — different world.’ He paused.
‘In what sense?’ Branson asked.
‘It’s something civilians simply don’t understand. In war, the normal rules of moral conduct become suspended. Dehumanization of the enemy becomes part of the psychology — enemy soldiers become targets rather than human beings. It’s something you have to try to instil in your troops. I’ll tell you an interesting statistic: analysis of battles fought in wars around the world throughout the past century reveals that on average only twenty per cent of soldiers ever fire their weapons. And some of those who do just shoot in the air, over the heads of the enemy.’
‘Twenty per cent?’ Grace said, astonished. ‘You’re saying that eighty per cent of soldiers in battles never fire their guns at all — or don’t shoot to kill?’
‘It’s a fact,’ Magellan-Lacey said calmly. ‘Most people don’t want to kill anyone — and when the chips are down they can’t — even when their own life might depend on it. So part of the job of a commanding officer was to make damned sure as many of your troops use their guns as possible. Dehumanizing and ramping up hatred of the enemy is one of the ways. But that’s not a tap you can just turn on and off at will, if you understand what I’m saying?’
They nodded, they understood. Grace studied the man’s face closely. He was shocked by what the Master had just said, but he admired his humanity. ‘Sir Tommy, are you aware of any particular issue between Sir Peregrine and Geoffrey Bailey?’
He frowned. ‘Issue? What do you mean, exactly?’
‘Was there any animosity?’ Grace responded. ‘Under questioning on Wednesday, Geoffrey Bailey gave one of my detectives, DS Alexander, the opinion that he had a grievance over not being granted a medal. DS Alexander was due to interview Bailey for a second time, this afternoon.’
‘I know, I arranged a room for them.’ He grimaced. ‘I’m afraid Geoffrey Bailey was one of those employees — you get them in every organization — who constantly finds grievances in everything he has to do.’
Grace smiled thinly. ‘Tell me about it.’
Magellan-Lacey looked at his watch. ‘I’m going to have to shoot to a meeting in a minute, I’ve got an appointment with HMTK, he wants an update on everything. There is just one other thing I’ve thought of — it may be nothing.’ He turned and pointed out of the rear window. ‘See that room, that’s Sir Peregrine’s office.’
‘The one he didn’t want to leave?’ Branson said.
‘Exactly. My wife noticed something strange a while ago, a good year or so back and it happened more than once, always late at night — around 11 p.m. or so. She’d see what appeared to be a torch flashing in the window.’
‘Like a signal?’ Grace said.
‘Exactly. Like a signal. Just a few seconds then gone. The first time she said nothing as she thought she’d imagined it — that maybe it was a reflection of a vehicle’s headlights or something, or one of the RaSPs checking around with a flashlight. But when it happened again she told me.’