It was a cold, damp day with a hint of autumn in it. Joan unearthed a heavy waterproof coat she hadn’t used since May and armed herself with an umbrella, just in case. Outside, the streets still shone from an overnight downpour. Schoolchildren filed along the streets in their fresh September uniforms. Avoiding puddles, she left Dolphin Square, crossed over Lupus Street into the heart of Pimlico, and headed towards Warwick Square.
Just as she reached the corner with Denbigh Street and started to cross, a black van came careering round the square at high speed. Joan spotted it just in time and stepped back towards the pavement to get out of its way. And yet, in slow motion, still it seemed to come towards her. Suddenly it was filling her vision and she could see it was going to hit her fair and square. There was something missing . . . something she should have . . . She was shocked and still trying hopelessly to avoid it when she felt a thump in her side. It knocked her clean off her feet and her head was about to hit the cold, hard ground. She flung out her left arm to save herself, hoping that her hat might somehow cushion her skull.
Then there was an almighty crack and the world went dark.
‘Where is she now?’ the Queen asked faintly.
‘In bed, ma’am. With concussion,’ Miles Urquhart explained.
‘And Sir Hugh telephoned you just now?’
‘He did. I don’t have all the details. It was a terrible accident. Wet road . . . hard to stop. I’m not sure she looked before she tried to cross.’
‘Do they know who did it?’
The DPS saw that Her Majesty looked white as a sheet. But it wasn’t as if the girl was dead. Just a broken wrist and a sore head. Urquhart sought to be reassuring.
‘I don’t think so, ma’am. As I say, it was an accident. But a very helpful passer-by saw what happened and took her to hospital in a cab. She’s at St George’s, but she should be out tomorrow.’
‘I . . . Goodness me.’
The Queen was normally good with bad news, Urquhart reflected. She generally took it better than some men, remarkably. But not today.
‘She’ll be right as rain in no time,’ he added cheerfully. ‘And I’m sure we’ll manage without her. We did before. Fiona may be ready to come back soon . . .’
He saw Her Majesty frown. The Queen liked this new girl, for some reason. Even if she couldn’t cross a road without mucking it up.
‘Thank you, Miles. Let me know if you hear anything else, will you?’
He had done what he could. Urquhart bowed and left.
Alone in her study at Balmoral, the Queen felt a pang of guilt so sharp it was as if someone had stabbed her. She went to the window and put a hand against the cool glass, waiting while it subsided.
She had sent Joan that note. She had made it clear the job might be difficult, and she knew it might even be dangerous, but she had never imagined they would go so far – whoever they were. Now, here she was, five hundred miles away and Joan could have died, and she was powerless to do anything about it. The more Urquhart assured her it was an accident, the more she felt certain that it wasn’t.
Joan’s head hurt like hell. She felt woozy, and dizzy whenever she opened her right eye enough to see out of it. A hank of hair obscured the view from her left eye. When she tried to lift her hand to push the hair away, she found it unaccountably heavy. When she looked down, the plaster cast on her left wrist caught her by surprise. She knew it was there, but kept forgetting.
‘Nurse!’ she called croakily. ‘Nurse!’
The door opened and a head popped round. A male head, with short hair. She could hardly see him through her double vision.
‘Please could you get someone to find my painkillers, doctor? I have a god-awful headache.’
‘And you’re blind!’ he said, in a Scottish burr.
There was a hint of humour in his voice. He didn’t mean she was really blind. She knew that voice.
‘Hector!’
‘You’re not in St George’s now, remember? You came home three hours ago. Your pills are on the side table, here.’ He pointed somewhere, but she couldn’t pay attention. ‘Don’t take them all at once.’
‘No . . . I . . .’
He saw how out of it she was and took pity on her.
‘Look, here you go.’
She took two pills from his proffered hand and he passed her a glass of water.
‘Why aren’t you at work?’ she mumbled.
‘Ha! So you don’t know where you are, you can’t see through that shiner on your eye, but you’re worried about my job at the ministry.’
‘It’s not the ministry,’ she said, closing her eyes. That much she knew.
‘Yes it is,’ he insisted.
She was quiet for a while, letting her closed eyes rest, but she didn’t hear the sound of him leaving her room. He was hovering.
‘There was a van,’ she said eventually. ‘Something . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Something not . . . something missing. I—’
‘Yes? What?’
