‘You know, Roy, that’s never an easy request. It requires the Home Secretary’s approval.’
Grace resented Mosse’s patronizing tone, speaking to him as if he was a fledgling cadet. ‘Yes, I am aware of that. But given we are potentially talking treason the Home Secretary might be minded to look upon your request favourably.’
‘Yes, of course, absolutely.’
‘Wouldn’t be good optics if it got out that she’d turned down your request and Smoke later took another pot shot at Her Majesty, would it?’
‘No, indeed, you are right. Not good optics at all. Leave it with me.’
As soon as he ended the call, Grace dialled Shannon Kendall. He asked her to now focus all her attention on four specific names. To find out everything she could about them, by any means.
Grace then called Glenn Branson into his office. And briefed him for the morning.
97
Thursday 30 November 2023
Glenn Branson brought the unmarked Ford to a halt at the right-hand front gates of Buckingham Palace. A guard in red tunic and bearskin hat stood rigidly in his sentry box to his left.
‘You know, I could get used to this,’ Branson said.
Grace smiled. At this moment he wished so much his parents were still alive. How thrilled they would have been when he told them how he’d driven in through the front right-entrance gates of Buckingham Palace. How he had met The King and The Queen. And not just once.
How their little boy was running, as the Daily Mail had put it, THE MURDER ENQUIRY OF THE CENTURY!
If only he were here under less grim circumstances.
Grace and Branson showed their warrant cards to the Royal Protection Officers, who opened the gates. They waited while one of them phoned the Deputy Master. Then they were directed to drive through an archway.
Moments later, he recognized the tall figure of Matthew Corbin striding out of the side door to their right, with a broad smile. He stopped some distance away and like an aircraft marshal — but without illuminated batons — began a series of hand-signals to guide them over towards him and into a space amid a row of cars.
As they climbed out he said, with a welcoming smile, ‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent Grace and DI Branson. Matthew Corbin, Deputy Master — we have met before.’ Grace could still not pin down his accent.
‘We have indeed,’ Grace replied, and Branson nodded.
‘Sir Tommy sends his very deepest apologies — I believe he told you he has to accompany his wife to a medical clinic for a procedure, but he does hope to be back in time to catch you before you leave.’
Grace thanked him, but as he did so he frowned and shot a glance at Branson. This wasn’t what Sir Tommy had told him yesterday. He’d said he would be in meetings all day but would try to find time to say hello. Perhaps his wife had suddenly become unwell? Although taking her for a ‘procedure’ sounded like something that had been booked for some while.
‘You gentlemen have just driven up from Sussex?’
‘We have,’ Branson said.
‘I’ll take you up to Rose Cadoret, she’s in the Indian Room. If you’d like any refreshments, tea or coffee, I can arrange that for you.’
‘Coffee would be good, thank you,’ Grace said and Branson nodded.
‘I’ll get that in hand.’
They followed him inside, into a rarefied smell of polish and antique furniture and up a short, well-kept staircase. Then along the now familiar corridor with a patterned red carpet and arched ceiling. On both sides of them were paintings, mirrors, vases, ornaments and clocks, most of them on shelves or plinths. It felt, as it had on his previous visits here, like walking through an utterly stunning museum. He clocked a bronze sculpture of a rider on a handsome horse.
They went up another flight of stairs, these longer, and came out into a corridor as equally plush as the one below. Corbin stopped outside a magnificent panelled wooden door. ‘The Indian Room,’ he said with an almost reverent tone. Then he knocked on it.
A female voice on the other side called, ‘Come in!’
He opened the door with a theatrical flourish, and ushered them through. ‘Rose, these are the gentlemen I believe you are expecting?’
The room, with its low, vaulted ceiling, felt to Grace almost as if he had entered a secret inner sanctum. The walls were lined with exquisite walnut display cabinets, some empty, some partially filled with bejewelled swords and daggers. It smelled different in here, of fresh paint and a metallic polish.
A woman of around forty, with thick, wavy fair hair, smartly dressed in black trousers, a woven waistcoat over a white blouse and flat shoes was kneeling on the lush carpet, close to a tiger skin, unpacking what looked like carefully wrapped daggers from a wooden crate.
She turned her head, still kneeling. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace and Detective Inspector Branson?’
‘Yes,’ Grace said.
‘Sir Tommy said you would be coming.’ She stood up, holding her midriff. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I fell off my bike and bruised my ribs. Painful. Especially if you cough, sneeze or laugh.’
‘It is,’ Grace said. ‘I’ve been there. Very unfortunate for you.’
‘Please excuse the state of this room, I’m slowly putting it all back together. We had to empty it completely for the renovations.’ Her voice was less overtly posh-sounding than the other Royal Household staff he’d met so far. She was confident and radiated a tomboyish charm, Grace thought, and he could see the former soldier in her. She looked like someone who’d be more at home in jeans and a T-shirt or even in fatigues.
‘It’s magnificent,’ Branson said.
‘There are some quite fancy weapons,’ Grace added, looking around with great interest.
She smiled, seizing on this. ‘Back in the days of the Raj they knew how to kill people efficiently, in hand-to-hand combat. That was proper fighting.’
‘Are all these proper weapons?’ Branson asked.
‘Oh yes, don’t be fooled by their beauty. These were — no pun intended — the absolute cutting edge of hand-to-hand combat of their time. You wouldn’t want to mess with someone holding any of the blades in this room.’
There was something about the way she said it, and a look that came into her dark brown eyes, that disturbed Grace. There’s something of the night about her, Sir Tommy had said. He felt he could see that now.
‘Do you have a favourite?’ Glenn Branson asked.
She smiled and Grace saw that look in her eyes again. ‘Oh yes, if I could take one home with me it would be this.’ She reached up to a cabinet, wincing in pain again as she did so. The glass door was open and inside was a display of daggers in their scabbards, in a criss-cross pattern. There were several empty spaces. She stretched up, letting out a small breath and removed a dagger with a very finely jewelled handle.
She pulled the dagger out of its scabbard and held it up. It made a clack-clacking sound as she did so. Almost with the pride of a zealot she announced, ‘The Ibrahim dagger!’
Branson let out a gasp. ‘Wow, it’s so sleek. It’s like the shape of Concorde.’
‘It is,’ she agreed. ‘So modern. But it’s actually over a hundred and fifty years old.’
‘May I feel it?’ Grace asked.
She held the blade and passed it to him. He took it by the handle and peered at the dagger closely. In particular at the rows of pearls down the centre of the glinting blade, which all rolled, clacking again as he moved the heavy, stunningly beautiful weapon. ‘These are real pearls?’
‘Of course.’
‘For decoration?’