No joy?’ was the question greeting Jon as he made his way back to Matthew and David. He had never really noticed before what an odd expression ‘No joy?’ was. No joy indeed. He felt like he might never feel joy again, and he expected that everyone in the room would express the same sentiment.
‘Speck must be out there in the snow. Either he can’t hear me or the connection isn’t getting through at all.’
‘Well, he’s deserted us, hasn’t he?’ David was watching Marjorie and the Princesses grieve with a morose stare. They were hugging in a ball on the floor, their expensive dresses rubbing on the carpet. ‘I never did like the look of him. Who’s to say that he isn’t the cause of this?’
‘Then we cannot rely on him.’ This from Matthew, who seemed to be talking about one thing and thinking about another. It was easy to forget the young man was only eighteen. The way he carried himself, it was astoundingly mature – even in such grave circumstances. ‘Well, when he appears he will very quickly disappear again. He won’t have a job come tomorrow, Christmas spirit be damned.’
Jon was glad that Matthew realised the importance of Speck’s absence. He wasn’t necessarily happy about a man losing his job, but it was the man’s own fault. There was nothing to say that, if Speck were here, events wouldn’t have transpired exactly as they had. But he simply should have been here. Unless there was a very good reason.
‘Damn Speck,’ David muttered.
‘There are other issues with Speck’s disappearance, besides safety.’ Matthew was looking grave. He stared directly at Jon as he said this as if communicating silently to him. Unfortunately, Jon did indeed get the message. The young prince was right – it was hard to believe he had just come of age, and now was having to deal with this. Jon stifled an expletive as the Prince continued, ‘Speck collected all of our phones, as per the King’s instructions.’
‘Oh,’ was all David could manage, who didn’t seem to care for what his great-nephew had to say. Somehow, a glass of wine had materialised in his hand and he was drinking it freely.
There was something else – another roadblock Speck had, hopefully, unintentionally erected, something that only another member of staff would know. ‘Speck has the keys as well.’
‘The keys?’ Matthew asked.
‘Speck has the only set of keys on-site for the lockbox at the front gates. Inside the lockbox is a number pad to open them. I know the code, but without the keys, that doesn’t matter. We couldn’t get in there. We could trudge out into the blizzard, to the gates, but nothing is getting past that box. The other way is the trek across the highlands to the property lines – the fence there is not as high, and we might get over it, but then what? There is nothing that way for miles, and the jeeps won’t drive in this weather.’
‘So call someone with the keys,’ David snapped. ‘It isn’t a difficult predicament.’
‘My mobile is with Speck, just as yours is. And . . . the landlines went down last night in the blizzard. As did the wireless Internet.’
A ripple of discomfort and distrust passed through the men. Matthew voiced it – ‘Why were we not informed of this?’
Jon felt ashamed to say it but – ‘Speck said it was better that you weren’t aware. He said it was better not to disrupt your Christmas with worry.’
‘But Grandfather would have been calling the prime minister to wish him a Happy Christmas after his speech.’
‘I’m assuming that Speck would have quietly mentioned the phone lines to the King then.’ He felt as though he were making excuses for the absent man – a back foot he had no intention of staying on.
‘So let me just summarise for myself,’ David said. ‘We have no phones, a raging blizzard outside, no way out of the gates if we even reached them, and lastly no way to call for help. We are well and truly stuck at the ’Moral, with the dead body of a king here. Not to mention that the poisoner could still be lurking.’ His voice rose for that last crescendo – the first time he seemed not completely in control of his emotions, apart from that one true tear. One might think he was feeling some genuine sorrow – Jon did think that. He failed to recognise that David might indeed be in a state of mourning, but rather a state of mourning for himself – imprisoned like a wasp in an unturned wineglass. Was David all that he appeared?
‘The question remains – what do we do now?’ Matthew said.
Matthew looked to Jon, as did David. They were like children, revelling in independence and then looking to an adult the moment something went wrong. ‘There isn’t any protocol for this kind of situation. And if there is, I don’t know about it. I am just the head chef – I am not included in everything.’
‘Well, that doesn’t help much now, does it?’
‘No, sir,’ Jon said, entirely without sarcasm. David was correct.
‘Granduncle! Please. We need to realise that we are no different. Being royal means little here and now.’
‘Don’t “granduncle” me, boy. And being royal is everything. That is what you new-wave Royals fail to understand. Even in times such as these . . . No! Especially in times such as these, we must remain steadfast in our morals and demeanour.’
Matthew opened his mouth to respond, but Jon cut in before he could start – a disciplinary offence in any ordinary circumstance. Never interrupt a member of the Royal Family. ‘We mustn’t get off track.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Matthew said. ‘The question still remains: What are we going to do?’
A fresh wail from the direction of the Princesses gave them no answer, but a fresh voice did. A new participant had entered the conversation radius without their knowledge. The debate had been so heated that even his fumbling feebleness had not been noted. ‘Someone should move him.’
The three men turned to see Thomas Crockley standing there, hunched over the sideboard, holding a handkerchief to his mouth. He was pale, but his voice rang true. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t feel quite myself.’
‘No. You’re right, Father,’ Matthew said. ‘Protocol. A monarch should be laid to rest. We need to take the King to his bed.’
‘What?’ This from David.
Jon knew Crockley was right. King Eric deserved to be at rest, quiet in his slumber, and that was not possible in this room. There was also no way that the Princesses, or the others for that matter, would be able to focus on the tasks at hand while the King still had a presence here.
‘Need I remind everyone that this is a crime scene?’ David barked.
‘We are the crime scene, Granduncle. The King has already been moved twice now. If the police were to come, which we know is impossible, I doubt anything would be gleaned from him being here. Isn’t it better to give him some rest? And give them some rest?’ Matthew nodded to the three women balled up on the floor, intertwined in a tangle of bereft misery.
Jon would have quite happily joined them – fallen apart himself. The noise the table made when Eric had collapsed echoed back into Jon’s mind. It was hard to think that Eric would ever be at peace – at least until this day was resolved.
‘Yes,’ Jon said. ‘But how do we move him?’
David was shaking his head in dismay at the idea, and Matthew and Crockley did not have any answers. They didn’t seem to understand the quandary, but Jon, having walked these halls thousands of times, saw it plainly.
The King’s bedroom was down five corridors, up a flight of stairs, and through countless doors. They could not carry him all that way while giving him the respect he deserved. Jon thought back to his journey with the dinner, hard to believe that it had happened mere hours ago, and how difficult that was.
Jon let out a disgruntled sigh, without warning – even to himself. He knew how they were to do it, but that didn’t mean he approved. The other men looked to him expectantly. ‘We move him using the food trolley.’