Binky had not eaten properly for several days because he had been so worried about the trial. Once he had a milkshake and two hamburgers in his stomach, he was able to feel more composed and less emotional.

‘Binky,’ said Melanie. ‘Where’s Ingrid? Why isn’t she here? Wouldn’t she be able to help you with something like this?’

Binky fiddled with the ketchup bottle on the table. ‘Oh, she would, Mel. She really would . . .’ His voice drifted off. He didn’t want to finish his sentence.

‘But?’ prompted Friday.

‘But she’s not here,’ confessed Binky.

‘But surely she could have flown up to Bardufoss to help you?’ asked Melanie.

‘No, I mean she’s not in Norway,’ clarified Binky.

‘But you came to Norway and joined the army to be with her,’ said Melanie.

‘Oh yes, I know,’ agreed Binky. ‘But she is a royal princess. She’s very busy.’

‘Really?’ asked Friday. ‘Are there a lot of official duties for the next-in-line to the throne?’

‘Yes. Absolutely,’ said Binky. ‘Her father is very keen for her to get lots of experience, and to learn as much as possible, so she’s prepared to take over the big job.’

‘But isn’t her father in his early fifties?’ said Friday. ‘So that’s not likely to happen for a long time.’

‘That’s true,’ agreed Binky. ‘But she’s turning twenty-one next week. And that’s when she officially becomes “The Crown Princess”. It’s a big deal.’

‘So, if she’s not in Norway, where is she?’ asked Melanie.

‘The Galapagos Islands,’ said Binky.

‘The Galapagos Islands!’ exclaimed Melanie, which was quite something, because Melanie did not often exclaim. ‘You mean the islands with all the turtles?’

‘Tortoises,’ corrected Binky. ‘Technically they’re tortoises, because they have feet, not flippers. I think that’s where she is. She could be in Quito. Let me check.’ Binky got out his phone and opened an app. Her location came up on a map. ‘Yes, the islands. That’s where she is.’

‘So why is she there?’ asked Friday.

‘She’s spent the last few months as acting ambassador to Ecuador so she could learn about diplomacy,’ explained Binky. ‘The regular ambassador ran off with a San Juanito dancer, so they needed a temporary fill-in until they could hire a full-time replacement.’

‘But why is she on the Galapagos Islands?’ asked Melanie.

‘They’re part of Ecuador, you know,’ said Binky. ‘It doesn’t make much sense because they’re nowhere near them. But I suppose someone had to look after all the tortoises, and the Ecuadorians put their hands up for the job.’

‘And you can’t visit Ingrid because you’re stationed at Svalbard,’ said Friday.

‘Exactly. There aren’t a lot of direct flights from the Arctic to the Galapagos,’ said Binky.

‘It’s almost as if you’ve both been sent to the two most difficult places to access on the opposite sides of the planet,’ said Friday.

‘Yes!’ said Binky. ‘It really is.’

Melanie and Friday locked eyes. Binky obviously did not want to think badly of his girlfriend’s father, not least because his girlfriend’s father was king of the country he had sworn to defend with his life. But Friday and Melanie had been investigating crime for several years now, so they were more suspicious minded. Clearly something was not right here.

‘Are there a lot of problems for Ingrid to deal with at the Galapagos Islands?’ asked Friday.

‘Oh yes, loads,’ said Binky. ‘The strangest things happen there all the time.’

‘Give us an example,’ said Friday.

‘Well, Ingrid was actually meant to fly home last week,’ said Binky. ‘I’d put in for leave so I could be with her. It being her birthday. And there was supposed to be a big party. But at the last minute, this problem blew up, and she had to get a boat out to one of the smaller Galapagos Islands to deal with it.’

‘Right before she was going to fly home from her remote location on the far side of the world so she could be with her boyfriend,’ said Friday, ‘something happened that meant she had to abandon her plans and instead get on another boat to an even more remote island.’

‘Yes,’ said Binky.

‘Okay,’ said Friday. ‘What happened?’

‘Someone painted a great big Norwegian flag on one of the giant tortoises,’ said Binky.

‘No way!’ said Melanie.

‘That’s just bizarre,’ said Friday.

‘Yes, the people at the Galapagos National Park were furious,’ said Binky. ‘It was all over the news on the mainland – they’re very proud of their tortoises over there. They did not like it one bit. It whipped up a lot of anti-Norwegian sentiment.’

‘Are there many Norwegians in Ecuador?’ asked Melanie.

‘Weirdly, there are on the Galapagos Islands!’ said Binky.

‘The islands used to be uninhabited,’ Friday explained. ‘So, when Ecuador claimed them, they needed to get someone to live there, so they offered free land to anyone who was interested. The first settlers to take them up were from Norway. A lot of their descendants are still there today.’

‘It’s starting to get nasty over there,’ said Binky. ‘The jail term for people who mistreat giant tortoises is very steep. That’s if the local people don’t get hold of you first. Ingrid needs to get to the bottom of it.’

‘Let’s get her on the phone,’ said Friday. ‘I might be able to help.’

Melanie smiled. Even Friday was forgetting to maintain the pretence that she had given up detective work. They watched Binky call Ingrid’s number and listened to it ring.

‘How were you able to locate Ingrid with your phone like that?’ asked Friday.

‘iTag,’ said Binky. ‘I kept losing her when we went shopping, so she carries one in her pocket. It’s really helpful.’

Ingrid picked up.

‘Binky?’ she asked. She sounded sleepy and not in a terribly good mood.

‘Hello, sweetheart, yes, it’s me,’ said Binky.

‘Do you know what time it is?’ asked Ingrid.

‘Um, no,’ admitted Binky.

Ingrid sighed. They could practically hear her trying to will herself awake. She was really a very kind person. If she wasn’t, she would have started yelling at Binky for ringing at an awkward time. ‘What’s happening?’

‘I’ve got Friday and Melanie here with me,’ said Binky. ‘You’re on speaker phone.’

‘They’ve come to visit?’ said Ingrid, perking up. ‘That’s lovely!’

‘It wasn’t really a visit as such,’ admitted Binky. ‘They came to help me out. I got in a spot of bother out at Svalbard. I thought I’d been attacked by a polar bear. But Friday sorted it all out with the colonel at the court martial so everything is fine now.’

‘You were court-martialled?’ asked Ingrid. She started muttering angrily in Norwegian. ‘For pokker! Jeg forlater landet i noen måneder, og alle tror de kan komme unna med ting bak ryggen min.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Friday. ‘It was just a misunderstanding.’

‘One of the other soldiers misunderstood something Sir Eirik said,’ explained Binky.

Ingrid groaned. ‘I will have to talk to Father about this when I get home.’

‘Please don’t, I don’t want to cause a fuss,’ said Binky.

‘If you’ve been court-martialled, it has already gone far beyond a “fuss”,’ said Ingrid. ‘It is officially a “brouhaha” and I intend to escalate it to a “stink”.’

Binky’s eyes started to water again. ‘I miss you so much,’ he said. ‘I just want you to come home. But I don’t want you to come home and be angry.’

Ingrid sighed. ‘I want to come home too. I was looking forward to my birthday party, but I think we will have to cancel. The Ecuadorians are getting very upset.’

Friday leaned in towards the phone lying in the middle of the table. ‘Binky was telling us about your problem with the giant tortoise. I was wondering if we could help you?’

‘And by “we”, she means “she”,’ said Melanie. ‘Although I will do my best to be emotionally supportive.’

‘That would be fantastic,’ said Ingrid. ‘But it would take you two days to get to the islands. I was hoping to get back to Norway in time for my birthday.’

‘Just talk us through the facts,’ said Friday. ‘I might be able to figure it out over the phone.’

‘Okay, that would be good, because it’s baffling me,’ said Ingrid. ‘There are not a lot of people on this island. Only three of them are Norwegian. There’s a retired school teacher, a veterinary assistant and a backpacker.’

‘And you,’ said Friday.

‘What?’ said Ingrid.

‘You,’ said Friday. ‘You’re Norwegian as well.’

‘You’re not saying Ingrid did it, are you?’ asked Binky.

‘Just because it’s improbable doesn’t mean it’s impossible,’ said Friday.

‘I wasn’t on the island when it happened,’ said Ingrid. ‘I was at a cocktail party in Quito.’

‘There you go,’ said Friday. ‘Now we know it is improbable and impossible.’

‘Unless she has an identical twin,’ said Melanie. ‘So someone with her exact appearance could be in two different places at the same time.’

‘But Ingrid doesn’t have an identical twin,’ said Binky. ‘You don’t, do you? I’d still love you if you did. But I’d be very confused.’

‘It’s okay, Binky,’ said Ingrid. ‘I am an only child.’

‘Phew,’ said Binky. ‘Because I’m muddled enough already.

‘So who do the police suspect?’ asked Friday.

‘The backpacker,’ said Ingrid. ‘He was really, really drunk on the night of the crime. He says he didn’t do it, but he was so drunk, he could have done it and just not remembered.’

‘What about the other two?’ asked Friday.

‘Well, the retired biology teacher doesn’t look the type,’ said Ingrid. ‘She’s quite old – seventy-nine. But tortoises don’t move very fast, so even a seventy-nine-year-old could catch up with one. And she’s very eccentric. She keeps all these copious notes about every iguana she sees. She’s obsessed with iguanas.’

‘And what about the veterinary assistant?’ asked Friday.

‘She was my first suspect,’ said Ingrid. ‘She’s been working on the island for a year as a volunteer and she was upset that they hadn’t offered her a proper paid job yet. The Galapagos National Park is terribly underfunded and there is so much work needed to protect the wildlife. She’s been working hard with long hours. But the head vet actually offered her a paid job just the day before the tortoise attack, so she didn’t have a motive either.’

‘Tell me,’ said Friday, ‘what sort of paint was used?’

‘Blue paint,’ replied Ingrid. ‘And red and white for the stripes. It was the Norwegian flag.’

‘Yes, sorry,’ said Friday. ‘That’s not quite what I meant. What type of paint – was it oil paint, indoor paint, watercolour?’

‘Oh, acrylic paint, apparently,’ said Ingrid. ‘The police found the paint tubes in a plastic bag in a bin nearby. They were the type of non-toxic paint children use in preschools, thank goodness. If the tortoises had been poisoned by toxic paint, that would have made the whole situation a thousand times worse.’

‘Did the police find fingerprints on the paint tubes?’ asked Friday.

‘No,’ said Ingrid.

‘That rules out the backpacker,’ said Friday. ‘If he was too drunk to remember, he would have been too drunk to wear gloves, pack up the paint tubes neatly and put them in a bin.’

‘Oh good,’ said Ingrid. ‘I like him. He knows some very funny drinking songs.’

‘But why did the attacker put the paint tubes in the bin at all?’ wondered Friday.

‘To hide the evidence,’ suggested Melanie.

‘The nearest rubbish bin is a terrible place to hide evidence,’ said Friday. ‘If the attacker wore gloves, then there were no fingerprints and there would be no need to hide the paint tubes at all. No, I think the reason he put them in the bin was because he didn’t want the giant tortoise to eat them.’

‘Who would worry about that?’ asked Melanie.

‘The biology teacher!’ exclaimed Binky. ‘She likes animals.’

‘The biology teacher has no motive,’ said Friday. ‘Being odd isn’t a motive. Besides, if she was interested in iguanas, why not paint an iguana?’

‘So it was the veterinary assistant?’ said Ingrid.

‘No,’ said Friday. ‘She has no motive either. She’s just spent twelve months selflessly working to protect the giant tortoises. She wouldn’t lash out and attack one with brightly coloured paint.’

‘That only leaves one suspect,’ said Melanie. ‘Princess Ingrid. She was the only other Norwegian.’

‘You do have an identical twin sister!’ said Binky.

‘No, although you’re on the right track,’ said Friday.

‘No, you’re not!’ protested Ingrid.

‘You are at the heart of the motive for this crime,’ said Friday.

‘I am?’ said Ingrid. ‘How?’

‘We need to look at this backwards,’ said Friday. ‘Crime is usually solved by following clues to work out a motive, and thereby isolate a suspect. But this is such a strange and random crime – it is very hard to follow that usual process of deductive reasoning. So let’s look at it backwards. What is gained from this crime?’

‘Norway is made to look very bad on Ecuadorian television,’ said Ingrid.

‘But nobody gains from that,’ said Friday. ‘No one in Norway would really care. They might care for the poor tortoise, but they’re not going to lose sleep about it. And yet, in practical terms, this crime has caused two things to happen. Number one – Ingrid has not been able to return home to go to her own birthday party.’

‘What’s the other thing?’ asked Melanie.

‘Number two – the veterinary assistant has finally been given a paid job,’ said Friday.

‘But that wasn’t caused by the tortoise painting,’ said Melanie.

‘Wasn’t it?’ asked Friday. ‘It happened just one day before. What if it was?’

‘I don’t follow any of this,’ said Binky.

‘Neither do I,’ said Ingrid. ‘But English is my second language and maybe I’m missing something.’

‘English is my first language and I’m sure I’m missing lots,’ said Binky.

‘If we start with the idea that preventing Ingrid from returning home was the motive for the crime . . .’ began Friday.

‘But who would want that?’ interrupted Binky.

‘My father,’ said Ingrid.

‘But he loves you,’ said Binky.

‘Yes, but he’s not so keen on you,’ said Ingrid.

‘We get on all right,’ said Binky.

‘You are very kind and generous, Binky,’ said Ingrid. ‘I love that you actually believe that, but he is very grumpy and rude to you.’

‘Oh, a lot of people are like that with me,’ said Binky. ‘I irritate. I know that. I don’t take it personally.’

‘The next thing we need to ask ourselves is – where did the money come from for the veterinary assistant’s sudden paid job?’ asked Friday.

‘The Galapagos National Park gets donations from philanthropists all around the world,’ said Ingrid.

‘What if a specific philanthropist gave the park a large donation that day?’ said Friday. ‘In exchange for something simple and harmless?’

‘Urgh,’ groaned Ingrid. ‘You think it was my father. He bribed the head vet at the conservation park to stage this paint fiasco to delay me.’

‘I’m sure it wasn’t your father,’ said Friday. ‘But his personal secretary, Sir Eirik, has certainly been busy dropping very specific hints to keep you two apart.’

‘I’m going to murder him when I get home,’ said Ingrid.

‘You shouldn’t say that in front of Friday,’ said Melanie. ‘She might take it down and use it against you in a court of law.’

‘You do know I’m not actually a law-enforcement officer?’ said Friday.

‘No,’ said Melanie. ‘You’re more effective than most of them, so Ingrid should still be careful what she says.’

‘You never are,’ said Friday.

‘I never say anything that makes any sense,’ said Melanie. ‘So I don’t need to worry about it.’

‘Hey, did you just solve the case?’ asked Binky. His forehead was scrunched up in confusion.

‘Yes,’ said Friday. ‘It was the head vet.’

‘Gosh,’ said Binky, suddenly looking relieved. ‘Well done. I know you just explained it all, but I still have no idea how you worked it out.’

‘That’s okay, Binky,’ said Melanie. ‘There won’t be a test.’

‘Now that’s resolved, where are you two staying?’ asked Ingrid. ‘You are not going to Svalbard with Binky, are you?’

‘Oh no,’ said Binky. ‘I don’t think the sergeant would be happy with me if I turned up with two girls.’

‘Actually, I’m supposed to be in Bilbao,’ said Friday.

‘Bilbao!’ said Ingrid. ‘In Spain?’

‘Yes,’ said Friday.

‘She’s finally admitted her feelings for Ian,’ said Melanie. ‘And he’s asked her to move to Spain with him.’

‘Oh wow,’ said Ingrid.

‘I’m not moving in with Ian,’ said Friday. ‘I’m moving in with Uncle Bernie.’

‘They live in the same house,’ Melanie pointed out.

This fact had not occurred to Friday in such a bald way. Suddenly going to Bilbao seemed more terrifying that ever.

‘But you won’t go until after my party, will you?’ asked Ingrid.

‘What party?’ asked Friday.

‘Haven’t you received your invitation?’ asked Ingrid. ‘To my twenty-first birthday party. It’s on Saturday next week.’

‘Um . . . no,’ said Friday.

‘But, Melanie and Binky, you have received yours, right?’ asked Ingrid.

Melanie shook her head.

‘She can’t hear you shaking your head,’ Friday reminded her.

‘Sorry, that’s a “no” from me,’ said Melanie.

‘Binky?’ asked Ingrid.

‘No, sorry,’ said Binky. ‘But I haven’t been at my base. I’ll check the mail when I get back. I don’t want anyone to get in trouble.’

‘Really, this is outrageous!’ said Ingrid. She started muttering in Norwegian again. Friday couldn’t follow what she was saying, because she was not using the type of vocabulary fit to print in a phrase book.

‘It’s probably just a delay in the mail,’ said Melanie.

‘It’s a royal white-tie ball!’ said Ingrid. ‘They don’t just stick postage stamps on the envelopes and put them in the mail. A herald personally makes sure that the invitations are delivered to the recipients.’

‘Oh,’ said Binky.

‘I’m sure the royal mail service could have got an invitation to my boyfriend, the man I love, if they’d wanted to,’ snapped Ingrid.

Binky smiled. ‘I love you too.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Ingrid. ‘I’m sorry. I am very cross. Someone has been duplicitous. I will not stand for it. You are all invited. I insist you come. I should be allowed to have some of my own friends at my party. You will come and stay at our home. It will be no trouble.’

Ingrid was sounding more like a royal princess and less like the shy schoolgirl Friday had first met four years earlier.

‘That’s very kind, but I think Uncle Bernie wants me to join them in Bilbao,’ said Friday. ‘I think he could use a hand with work.’

‘It can wait, surely?’ said Ingrid. ‘How bad can his problems be? You have just been invited to a royal ball. You will create an international incident if you refuse to come. This is more important.’

‘Are you blackmailing me?’ asked Friday.

‘Yes,’ said Ingrid happily. ‘One of the things I have had to learn, as I ready myself to become the crown princess, is that I must assert myself more.’

‘You’re doing very well at it,’ said Melanie.

‘Thank you,’ said Ingrid, reverting to her more normal self. ‘It is exhausting. But I do get better service in restaurants when I put it on.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be able to get leave so soon after I’ve been court-martialled,’ worried Binky.

‘I will see to that too,’ said Ingrid. ‘Father will owe me many big favours when I’ve confronted him with all this. He can arrange that.’

‘Well then, we’ll fly back to Oslo,’ said Melanie. ‘I’m sure Daddy must own a hotel nearby.’

‘There will be no hotels for my special guests. Just go to our house when you arrive in Oslo,’ said Ingrid. ‘I will tell them to expect you. I will get there as soon as I can. Make yourself at home until then.’

‘What’s the address?’ asked Friday.

‘It’s the royal palace,’ said Binky. ‘It’s on the top of the hill. You can’t miss it.’