The Hawk Is Dead, page 34
‘By whom, Shannon?’
‘So far we’ve identified one depositor, but not the second. We’re working on that. But the first is our friend, Rose Cadoret.’
‘Their Majesties pay big bonuses to people working in the Royal Household, do they?’ Grace said.
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Good work. What else can you tell me? Any thoughts on who the third person might be?’
‘Not yet. But Emily Denyer has identified a recent very substantial deposit into Sir Jason Finch’s personal bank account – almost three quarters of a million pounds.’
‘Three quarters of a million pounds?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you know the source?’
‘I’m working on it.’
Ending the call, Grace sat reflecting on what he had just heard. Jon Smoke and Rose Cadoret both receiving huge, identical amounts of cash. He was thinking about Sir Peregrine’s coded diary entries.
Was Sir Jason Finch the third conspirator? Smoke and Cadoret had deposits to date totalling over a million pounds each. And Shannon reckoned these were just the latest in a series of deposits. Did these three all have their snouts in the royal trough?
In his experience there were people who killed business partners, loved ones and total strangers for a lot smaller amounts of money than this.
He called Glenn Branson. ‘Polish your shoes, put on your least offensive suit and quietest tie – and bring your best handcuffs with you. We’re going to Buck House in the morning.’
‘Awwww, not the Palace again, you social gadfly, you. Living it up with your royal buddies?’
‘If you’re defrosting your fridge tomorrow, don’t worry, I’ll take Norman Potting.’
‘The fridge can wait until Friday.’
95
Wednesday 29 November 2023
After his call with Glenn Branson, Roy Grace sat thinking the latest information through carefully.
Constable Jon Smoke of the Royal Protection team. A former army sniper. With his name on the duty roster for Monday 20 November looking like it might have been tampered with. Hopefully the original copy of the roster, which Rose Cadoret would have for him tomorrow, would provide the answer. But it was bothering him a lot.
He would interview Sir Jason Finch when he was back at work on Monday, and in the meantime his full focus was on Jon Smoke and Rose Cadoret. And the recent identical sums of £343,000 deposited into both of their individual cybercurrency accounts.
Huge amounts. And identical. That was what interested and concerned him the most. He knew that with the rise in property prices in recent years, some people inherited unexpectedly large sums, or made a killing selling properties. But £343,000, exactly. Deposited into both their accounts. And a third amount of exactly the same, deposited into another cybercurrency account. A third account. But not Sir Jason Finch’s. Well, so far not that they knew.
So whose was it?
All those three identical transactions made on 15 July 2023.
Was there any significance in that date?
He used his latest research tool, which he was only just starting to get familiar with, ChatGPT-4, to ask if any significant national events had happened on that date. But the only thing it came up with was that a fire broke out and destroyed the Royal Albion hotel on Brighton seafront. It was of no relevance.
Then he began thinking who that third person could possibly be. Of the thousand plus employees of the Royal Household he had only, so far, met a handful. Sir Tommy. His Deputy, Matthew Corbin. Her Majesty’s Private Secretary, Jayne Bennett. Sir Peregrine’s widow, Lady Greaves. He had not yet met Sir Jason Finch, nor the Lord Chamberlain.
If Shannon was right – and he believed she was – she had just corroborated what Sir Peregrine had said in code in his diary. That theft from the Royal Collection was taking place on a major scale. Everything he had learned from Shannon so far made Rose Cadoret and Jon Smoke prime suspects. Rose Cadoret, Deputy Director of the Royal Collection Trust, in the perfect position to remove items. Smoke, a member of the Royal Protection team, operating inside Buckingham Palace – was his value to the conspirators the killing of Greaves?
And Sir Jason Finch, in charge of all the Palace finances. How very convenient. How very tidy.
The finger at the moment certainly pointed to him. It made sense that the co-conspirators were three former military people from the same regiment, who had served out in Afghanistan together. Smoke, Cadoret and their saviour, Finch. Could that have been where they’d hatched their plot?
But was he overlooking anyone else who fitted that description of high up in Royal Service? Sir Tommy Magellan-Lacey, for instance?
But despite a few anomalies in the Master’s behaviour in recent days, he struggled to believe Sir Tommy could be involved. He typed an email to him:
Sir Tommy, I would like to speak to Sir Jason Finch urgently on his return, and to Constable Jon Smoke when I come to the Palace tomorrow. Best regards, Roy.
A few minutes after sending it, his phone rang. A now familiar number appeared.
Grace answered. ‘Sir Tommy, good morning.’
‘Ah, Roy, yes.’ As before, the Master sounded uncharacteristically downbeat, and a little guarded. ‘Thought it would be easier to speak – rather than pinging emails back and forth.’
‘Sure, of course.’
‘No problem at all about Sir Jason – he’s definitely back on Monday and I’ve booked you in for 10 a.m. What is it you need to speak to Constable Smoke specifically about? Just so I can inform his Commander. Are you concerned about an irregularity of some kind?’
Grace hesitated for a moment. One of the key elements in interviewing any suspect was throwing something at them that caught them off-guard. ‘It’s just his name has popped up a couple of times on the list of people we’re hoping to eliminate from our enquiries.’
‘Ah, good.’ The Master sounded genuinely relieved. ‘I’ll find out when he’s on duty tomorrow and let you know soonest. I’ll email you his shift rota.’
Grace thanked him, but as he ended the call, he felt again a slight shadow of doubt about Sir Tommy, but he wasn’t sure exactly why. The Master was glib, he always had answers – and so far he had always delivered. Up to a point. Hopefully he would deliver everything he had requested Rose Cadoret to show him – the box of Granny’s Personal Chips, and the original copy of the Royal Protection Officers’ roster for Monday 20 November. And additionally, now, the shift rota for Jon Smoke?
As he considered this an email came in from Sir Tommy.
Roy, looks like Constable Smoke is on a rest day tomorrow and for the next two days.
Grace emailed him back.
Thanks. Could you let me have his home address and we will interview him there.
Of course – bear with me and I’ll ping you it in a few minutes.
Good to his word, the Master sent Grace Jon Smoke’s home address, in Clapham, ten minutes later.
Grace hesitated for a moment. Smoke was now definitely a person of interest and the potential sniper. He still needed more information before sending Sussex police officers to his address. So, since Greg Mosse had suggested they should work together, and mindful also that – please not – he might end up as his boss, Grace dialled his number.
96
Wednesday 29 November 2023
‘Roy, good afternoon! What can I do for you? I hope you’re calling in our new spirit of cooperation, perhaps?’
‘Exactly that, Greg,’ he replied. ‘I have a Person of Interest who may shortly be elevated to a suspect. I need to know more about him, urgently.’
‘A suspect? That would be extremely good optics for the media, Roy. And I think Their Majesties would like that, too. Can you tell me more?’
God, Grace shuddered, Mosse was using one of Cassian Pewe’s favourite buzz words. Optics.
‘I can’t give you too much at this stage as we are still information gathering. But what I can tell you is that he’s a constable in the Royal Protection team at Buckingham Palace. He’s exmilitary where he trained as a sniper, and there are – as yet unconfirmed – question marks over his whereabouts on Monday November the twentieth. His name is Jon Smoke.’
‘Christ, Roy, sounds like he needs to be arrested right now. Bring him in for questioning – you’ve got more than enough to justify doing that. You do know the Treason act of 1351 is still in force, don’t you?’
Grace did not, but wasn’t going to admit it. ‘Yes.’
‘Well the shooter committed a prima facie act of treason. We should arrest this man, Smoke, immediately. Is that what you’re calling to ask me to do?’
‘No, Greg. It’s possible he’s the man who pulled the trigger, but if I’m right, from the intel I have so far, he’s part of a major conspiracy. I want to make sure we nail the whole gang and don’t send his colleagues running for the hills.’
‘Seriously? A conspiracy? To do what?’
‘I’ll explain everything to you. Just trust me for now.’
‘This Smoke might vamoose at any point.’
‘I don’t think so. We know who he is and he doesn’t know that, which means he’s not going anywhere soon – so far as we know.’
‘So what is it you want from me?’
‘I want surveillance put on him twenty-four-seven and his phones tapped.’
‘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?’
‘Oh no, Detective Superintendent. They’re not there for decoration. They are purely functional – elegant, but functional.’
‘And their function is?’ he asked, tilting the blade. The pearls went clack-clack again.
She smiled and again he saw that look in her eyes that increasingly unsettled him. ‘Evisceration!’
In answer to his and Branson’s frowns she said, ‘It’s one thing to simply stab an enemy. In and out with a normal dagger will leave a nasty wound but not necessarily fatal. But these pearls, as the stabber withdraws the dagger from the victim, will rip out anything in their way. And should the stabber twist the dagger after it has entered the human torso, the pearls will add enormously to the internal damage. If you can rip through part of the bowel – not difficult – then without instant surgery, the victim will die of what we now know as sepsis. And it’s a slow, agonizing death.’
