The Hawk Is Dead, page 10
‘Are you interested in history at all, sir?’
‘History?’ Grace frowned.
‘I like famous last words. One of my favourites is Major General Sedgwick, the highest-ranking Union officer killed during the American Civil War. Seconds before he was shot, one of his officers warned he was too close to the front line. He responded, “Nonsense, they couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist—”’
Grace grinned, then gave him a questioning look. ‘Your point being?’
‘The head you can see through the scope. Whether it’s your male or your female officer. It’s pretty big, right?’
‘It is,’ Grace agreed. ‘Both.’
‘So, imagine you are the shooter. You are highly forensically aware and you’ve taken the greatest care to ensure that you leave no trace, other than the flattened grass. You’ve come with a weapon that will deliver a catastrophic wound wherever your bullet strikes. If you want to be one hundred per cent sure of killing your target, then a bullet with a ballistic tip, straight through the forehead, is going to do the business, every time. Take another look through the scope and tell me how easy you think it would be to miss?’
Grace looked through the scope again. Then turned back to Dyson. And shook his head. ‘You couldn’t, could you?’
‘My mother couldn’t have missed from here,’ he replied. ‘And she has advanced macular degeneration.’
26
Wednesday 22 November 2023
‘Best behaviour, eh?’ Glenn Branson said. ‘Like, proper best behaviour?’
Roy Grace, in the back of the taxi with his colleague, nodded solemnly, as they glided away from London’s Victoria Station. Normally they would have driven, but time was too tight this morning.
The very pungent smell of new-car polish of the interior was adding to the faintly queasy feeling in his stomach. And he felt butterflies, which wasn’t like him. But then this case wasn’t like anything he’d ever previously experienced. He smiled at the DI, relieved to see that, for once, he was dressed discreetly in plain charcoal, rather than in one of his trademark loud suits. ‘Proper best behaviour,’ he echoed, his voice tight with anxiety, and glanced at his watch: 9.05.
He had no idea how the morning ahead was going to unfold. But then again there wasn’t any precedent for a detective interviewing The Queen of England as a witness to a murder. At least he’d gone home last night and slept in his bed, rather than in his office, but he’d been too wired to get any decent quality of sleep, waking constantly and jotting down additional notes of questions to ask today, worried he might forget them otherwise. He read through them on his phone now.
‘It’s times like this that make me wish more than anything that my mum was alive,’ Branson said.
‘Yes?’ Grace remembered that Glenn had hardly known his father: he’d once told him he’d left home months before he’d been born.
‘If she could have lived to see this, she’d have been so proud,’ he said with a wistful smile. ‘Little me, going off to interview The Queen!’
Grace smiled, glad for his friend’s happiness. ‘So don’t screw it up!’
Branson feigned an aloof look, and tapped his own chest. ‘I’m now a certified Tier 5 interviewer. That’s a higher qualification than you.’ He narrowed his eyes, but was unable to mask his grin. ‘Just remember that – boss.’
‘Don’t worry, I spent some time with Alec Butler, who is also a Tier 5, to plan today’s interview,’ Grace retorted.
Branson gave him a big smile.
They were passing Buckingham Palace to their left. The taxi rounded the Victoria Monument, then headed along The Mall, passing the handsome white stucco facade of Clarence House, before halting at lights. They turned left, along the east side of St James’s Palace, with its Tudor red-brick facade, then after a few moments, left again into Pall Mall.
‘You seem in high spirits,’ Grace said.
Branson shrugged. ‘Things are good at the moment – you know – with me and Siobhan. We think she might be . . .’ He tapped his tummy.
Grace’s face lit up. ‘Seriously?’
‘Uh-huh!’
At that moment the taxi halted at a barrier. Beyond it, to the left, was a further part of St James’s Palace, with a black Range Rover parked outside. Two heavily armed police officers stepped out of a hut beside the barrier and the cabbie lowered his window. He repeated part of the instructions Roy Grace had given him. ‘Dropping off Detective Superintendent Grace and DI Branson.’
‘To see Sir Tommy Magellan-Lacey,’ Grace added, lowering his window and holding out his warrant card.
It did not immediately impress either of the two Royal Protection guards. But moments later a door to their left opened, and out stepped an exuberant-looking man – in his early sixties, Grace guessed. He was smartly suited, with elegant wavy hair and wearing a black tie, making Roy Grace very glad he’d had the presence of mind to wear one himself, as had Branson.
The guards acknowledged the new arrival with a friendly greeting, and moments later, tension over, Grace paid the driver and they climbed out of the cab.
‘Detective Superintendent Grace? I’m Tommy!’ The Master of the Royal Household held out his hand, with a warm smile.
‘Very good to meet you, Sir Tommy. This is my colleague, Detective Inspector Glenn Branson.’
Magellan-Lacey pumped Branson’s hand, still smiling warmly, and with a very posh voice said, ‘You’ve both come up from Brighton?’
‘We have, Sir Tommy,’ Grace said.
‘It’s a wonderful city! Fiona and I went to a wedding there a few years ago, loved it. We had fish and chips on the pier. Best fish and chips ever! Come in – coffee? Tea? Probably not appropriate to suggest something stronger?’
‘Probably not!’ Grace agreed, pleasantly surprised at how down-to-earth this eminent man was. ‘A coffee would be very welcome.’
Branson nodded. ‘Same for me.’
The two detectives walked through the narrow front door into an instantly warm and friendly-feeling environment. The hallway walls were hung with photographs, paintings and cartoons, and there was a large cuckoo clock that chimed on the half-hour as they walked past. It felt more like being in a farmhouse than a palace, Grace thought, narrowly avoiding tripping over a dark brown cat.
They were ushered into a kitchen-dining room with cream walls and black marble worktops that felt even more cosy farmhouse than formal grand. There was a cream Aga oven, a dining table with a green and white polka-dot cover and wooden chairs. All around were framed family photographs, with a strong emphasis on the armed forces. There was a much younger, beaming Tommy in uniform, a round cutting board engraved with ‘Tommy & Fiona’, photographic collages of young people wearing army berets and, pinned to a door, a printed wall-hanging of a helicopter. And there were books everywhere. The whole effect was warm, disarming, homely.
‘I can’t believe we are in the middle of London!’ Glenn Branson said.
‘Is this your house, sir, or what they call grace-and-favour accommodation?’ Roy Grace asked.
The Master of the Royal Household smiled a tad wistfully at them, busily filling a kettle. ‘I’m afraid these days it is more grace than favour, we have to pay rent.’
Grace clocked the faint shadow of a frown as he said this.
‘But, hey, we get to live in the centre of London with free parking, and those chaps outside are a damned sight better than any burglar alarm!’
‘Or guard dog,’ Grace said.
‘Indeed.’ The Master looked up with a warm smile and began spooning coffee into a cafetière.
Glenn Branson peered at a silver-framed wedding photograph on a shelf. It was a dashing young Tommy Magellan-Lacey in his army uniform with a beautiful woman, with flowing brown hair, in a bridal dress, standing outside a church. ‘Lovely photograph,’ he said.
‘Thank you!’
‘Does your wife work in the Royal Household too, Sir Tommy?’
The Master shook his head. ‘No, Fiona works in the art world. She has a job with a private gallery.’ He poured boiling water into the cafetière and indicated for them to sit at the kitchen table. ‘So, gentlemen, what progress in your enquiries?’ He tipped a packet of chocolate digestive biscuits onto a plate and placed it on the table.
Grace gave a courteous smile. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have as much as I would like to report, so far,’ Grace said. ‘I’ll bring you up to speed. But, first, may I ask how Her Majesty is?’
‘She’s deeply saddened by the death of Sir Peregrine, and very shaken, of course, but she is a remarkable lady. She has so many of the qualities of resilience of the late Queen and the same sense of duty. As you know, she insisted on continuing with her tour, much to the consternation of The King, who is understandably extremely worried about her safety. He’s asked to see you while you are here – I hope you can give him some reassurance?’
‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ Grace said.
Tommy Magellan-Lacey looked at his watch. ‘We’ll head over to the Palace in twenty minutes – Her Majesty is expecting you at 10 a.m.’
‘Thank you. The other members of my team should be there now.’
The Master glanced at a printed sheet of paper. ‘Detectives Norman Potting, Velvet Wilde, Jon Exton, Alec Butler and Polly Sweeney from the Major Crime Team?’
‘Yes, sir. Polly Sweeney will be the Family Liaison Officer for Sir Peregrine Greaves’ widow. I’ll accompany her there later this morning. The others will be interviewing all members of the Household staff who had contact with the late Private Secretary.’
‘Good,’ the Master said. ‘Margot Greaves is pretty shaken up, as you might imagine.’
As he and Branson helped the Master of the Royal Household bring mugs and milk over to the table, Grace felt charmed by the man, liking the fact that no doubt he could have had some palace servant make and serve the coffee but chose to do it himself.
When they were seated at the table, Sir Tommy facing them, with just a glass of water in front of him, Grace brought him up to speed with the investigation.
‘So you’re pretty confident you’ve located the shooter’s lair?’ he said.
‘We are,’ Grace replied. ‘Yes. Something I want to ask you is whether Sir Peregrine might have had any enemies?’
The Master gave him a dubious look. ‘You are not thinking he was the target, surely?’ But there was a flicker of something in his expression.
‘It’s my job to keep an open mind.’
‘An open mind?’
‘Was Her Majesty the intended victim? That’s a very important question.’
The Master stared at him with a look of utter disbelief. ‘Of course she was. The entire world knows she was, Detective Superintendent Grace.’
Grace shook his head. ‘They don’t know she was the target. They’ve been told she was. That’s a very big difference. And, of course, that’s the story they want to believe. But they don’t have the information that I do.’
‘Which is?’
27
Wednesday 22 November 2023
She wasn’t supposed to have the key. Only a handful of people in Buckingham Palace did. They included the Master of the Royal Household, Sir Tommy Magellan-Lacey, the Head of Security, Will Treadwell, and the Director of the Royal Collection Trust, Lorraine McKnight. She wasn’t even sure if The King himself had one. Or The Queen.
It was a great big, ancient metal affair that was more like a museum piece, or something out of a dungeon, than a functioning master key that could unlock every single door in the Palace. But then, of course, this place was a museum really, in so many ways, she thought. A living, lived-in museum. There were sixty-four thousand ornaments and objets d’art in the North Wing alone, quite apart from all the paintings hung on the walls.
Every piece was valuable and some were priceless. Many were gifts to Kings and Queens down the ages, others bought or commissioned by the Royal Family. She was walking along a red-carpeted corridor, past a display cabinet crammed full of small jade ornaments; collecting these had been a passion of the late Queen Mary, who died in 1953.
So much stuff in here, she thought. The Director of the Royal Collection did have a full inventory of all four wings in this palace, along with thousands more ornaments and pieces of furniture, as well as everything in Windsor Castle, Sandringham, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, Balmoral, Birkhall and all the other royal residences. How could anyone keep track of it all, or place a value on it?
All of it was quality. If you were a monarch or at least heir to the throne, no one would be giving you a humble spice rack as a wedding present. Unlike the three grotty ones she and her now divorced husband had been gifted at their own wedding. Including one that had a tag stuck to the bottom, from someone else gifting it to the ‘friends’ who had given it to them.
How nice to be Royal. Royally rich. How nice to have so much stuff that you didn’t even know how much you had.
She glanced at her watch: 9.20 a.m. She had plenty of time to complete her assigned task this morning. Using the master key, she unlocked a magnificent wood-panelled door and slipped through into a bare, grimy white corridor that smelled of freshly sawn wood. Buckingham Palace was undergoing major renovations, one wing at a time, and this wing was now being started on.
She stepped around a hazard warning triangle, ignoring a notice that read, HARD HAT AREA, and climbed a narrow, steep staircase. The top few stairs were sealed off by a strip of red and yellow tape and a large sign:
EXTREME DANGER – KEEP OUT!
She checked behind her. No one, she was alone. She ducked under the tape and continued to the top, then stopped and stood on bare floorboards, getting her breath back for a moment. Ahead of her was a ten-foot high by five-foot wide jagged opening, which had been bashed through the wall that went up to the flat, grimy ceiling above her. A cold draught blew on her face, which became even colder the closer she stepped, increasingly cautiously, towards the opening.
When this wing had been constructed, during George IV’s reign, massive light shafts were put in by the architect, John Nash, to bring light into the interior of all four floors above ground, and the basement. With modern, inexpensive lighting systems, and in addition The King’s own plans for the Palace to produce much of its energy requirements by natural, sustainable means, these light shafts were redundant, and this one was in the process of being converted into a lift to provide access to the other floors in the Palace.
She stepped forward increasingly gingerly, putting out her arms and pressing her hands against the wall either side of the gap as she drew even closer. She’d never been good with unguarded heights.
Finally reaching the very edge, she peered down. Work was progressing well, she could see. At the very bottom of the shaft were six fierce-looking vertical spikes, rising several feet. The lift engineer had explained their purpose a couple of weeks ago, when they’d begun work on them. They were to form a seatingguide for the base of the lift car.
They could of course also serve a very different purpose, she thought. And that was the reason she was here. Conducting a recce of all the sites in the Palace where an accident might occur. A fatal accident.
28
Wednesday 22 November 2023
Grace told Magellan-Lacey the opinion of the ballistics expert.
‘But he could be wrong about the shooter’s lair, right?’ the Master replied. ‘Other than the flattened grass – which could have been done by a trainspotter, or a bird watcher, or a courting couple, just about anyone – you found no hard evidence that anyone had fired a gun from that spot.’
‘We didn’t, no,’ Grace said.
‘So it is possible the shooter was much further away, which could account for them hitting the wrong person?’
‘I’m not ruling anything out at this stage, Sir Tommy,’ he replied, slightly distracted – as well as cringingly embarrassed – by Branson, who had unsuccessfully dunked a biscuit in his coffee and was now trying to spoon out the soggy, broken-off mess. ‘But if we look at the situation as a whole we have two events – the derailment of the train and the shooting of the Private Secretary. In my view they are very likely linked.’
Magellan-Lacey looked alarmed. ‘You’ve had it confirmed the derailment was not an accident?’
Both detectives nodded, although Branson was still preoccupied salvaging his coffee – or his biscuit. Grace answered. ‘British Transport Police have not yet completed their investigations, but they believe the derailment was caused by a length of spare rail being placed across the path of the Royal Train.’
‘By the anti-monarchy protestors?’
Grace looked dubious. ‘There are two factors here. The first is that our intelligence on the anti-monarchist movement tells us they are non-violent. Derailing the train is a whole different league.’
‘Do you think these people were trying to assassinate Her Majesty by derailing the train?’ the Master asked.
‘I’m told we were very fortunate that the driver was able to slow down from 70mph to 40mph after receiving a warning of an obstruction on the track. Had the train derailed at the higher speed, there would likely have been multiple casualties – and by that I mean fatalities.’
The Master’s face blanched. ‘Do you think we’re dealing with a terrorist organization?’
‘It’s a possibility we can’t rule out, sir, but I don’t think so. I believe we are dealing with someone who knows about trains, because of the way this was handled. I’ve been informed that if a metal object is put across the track and touches the live rail, the signalling centre – in this case at Three Bridges – gets an immediate alert. The signaller responsible for that section of line would then warn the driver of an obstruction ahead, which is what happened in this case. Only the warning wasn’t soon enough for the driver to stop.’
‘But at least he managed to slow down a fair bit, thank heavens,’ the Master said. ‘But what makes you think whoever carried out this sabotage knows about trains?’
