The mention of Cresswell Place had also clearly meant something to him. The Queen had half expected to see something in the police reports that might explain it, which was really why she’d asked for them. But there was nothing. What were they not telling her? The inspector had noted in the first report that the witnesses’ evidence didn’t entirely make sense, but he hadn’t followed up on it in any subsequent update. Why?
Their little family felt assailed from outside and within. The Queen had shared this with no one, of course, because even her darling mother couldn’t entirely be relied on to keep an absolute secret. She had hoped Darbishire would solve the case for her, but his latest report was thin, containing only minor updates about the male victim.
Rodriguez, as she now knew him, gambled at the Chamberlain in Tangier, which was interesting because it was a club favoured by the Duke of Maidstone, who had told her about the specialities of the girls at the Raffles agency. There was something about the names of the club and the agency that sparked a hint of a connection at the back of the Queen’s brain. But she couldn’t think of men more different than Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, a wealthy collector who worked for the East India Company, or even A.J. Raffles, the fictional and rather wonderful gentleman thief, and Neville Chamberlain, the unfortunate former prime minister.
Meanwhile, the report didn’t say anything about unusual visitors to Cresswell Place, or the gunshot – which the police seemed to have dismissed as a motorbike backfiring – or any of the aspects of the case she was most worried about.
She sat up late, in silence, thinking about it all, and the following morning, to Philip’s surprise, it was she, not the children, who was irritable.
Joan returned to England after three weeks north of the border. Sir Hugh – who took his only holiday at Christmas – would remain at Balmoral for the full summer break, apart from occasional weekends when he stayed with friends who owned nearby estates. The other members of the Private Office took it in turns to be by the Queen’s side, alternating it with rare time with their families.
Relieved to have some freedom back again, Joan spent a happy few days with her father in Cambridge, racing him each morning to complete
She loved the timeless certainty of the old stone colleges. Often, first thing in the morning, before most people were about, it was possible to imagine she was living in the sixteenth century. In the evenings it wasn’t much different, the college fellows insisted on inviting her into the candlelit Senior Common Room for sherry, so they could try unsuccessfully to extract details about her new job.
Arriving in Buckingham Palace’s North Corridor on her first day back, she heard the sound of laughter coming from the secretaries’ shared office. It was Dilys Entwistle’s birthday and one of the others had brought in a cake. Joan noticed how they lowered the noise and looked guarded the moment she walked in.
‘Would you mind getting the press secretary, Miss McGraw?’ Dilys asked politely. ‘He never turns down a slice of Victoria sponge.’
Jeremy Radnor-Milne had come down from Scotland with her, when he had spent the long journey raging against Lord Altrincham and painting Her Majesty, like Mary Poppins, as practically perfect in every way. He thought any changes to her proposed speeches praising the Commonwealth were ‘doomed to failure’, but was grudgingly supportive of Sir Hugh’s idea of an ‘Elizabeth sponge’ competition, as long as it was done in such a way that it wasn’t disrespectful to her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria.
Joan knocked on his office door and opened it in one smooth movement – a manoeuvre she had perfected over the last few months, hoping to catch him in the act of doing something underhand. He hated her for it, but was too polite to say so. She was happy to take advantage of his good manners.
‘Dilys is cutting her cake,’ she explained. ‘Why she’s doing it at this time in the morning, I don’t know, but she wants to know if you’d like a slice.’
Jeremy looked up from his desk with a rigid smile.
‘Oh, is she? How nice. I remember signing a card last week. She’s turning forty-five, I think . . . not that one should ever ask a woman her age. I suppose she’ll be retiring soon. I’ll meet you outside.’
He stood up without taking his eyes off Joan, made to close the file in front of him and changed his mind, leaving it open. She noticed how talkative he was being. He normally didn’t have much to say about the secretaries.
