Three short and light knocks at the door signalled that Princess Maud had arrived.
Maud started as Jon opened the door for her, even though she must have known it was inevitable. She smiled warmly to Jon and came inside. Anyone who did not know the Princess well might have thought her sunny disposition to be an odd moniker to adopt in a time such as this, but Jon knew better. Maud often used her outer warmth to mask her heart, and right at this moment, her smile was a little too perfect, her eyes a little too bright. In actuality, she was barely holding the facade together.
‘Your Royal Highness.’
‘I told you – you should stop all that, Jon. Nothing is gained from treating us any differently to yourself at this moment. Your Royal Highness this and ma’am and sir that, it’s nothing but wasted words. Maybe that’s all it has ever been.’
He gestured for her to sit at the desk, and she did – obeying his order. A princess bowing to a chef. ‘It is a hard habit to break, ma’am.’ He sat too.
‘We have to get him, Jon. The one who killed my father. We really do not have time for chats, although I see the value I suppose. I’m torn by all this. How do we know which course of action is the best, which avenue is the best to take? This will only happen once – what if we’ve already scuppered it?’ The words fell out of her in a heap so fast that he almost had to search around her and piece a sentence together, not unlike fishing for meaning in a can of that awful alphabet spaghetti.
‘We can only forge ahead with the path we’ve chosen, ma’am, and hope against hope that we’ve picked the right one.’ He sounded far more composed than he had expected.
‘Daddy – he must have been so scared. His eyes . . . ’
In a dark corner of his mind a voice whispered to him that Maud would be no good to anyone in this state. She must be taken back to the well-trodden path she had mentioned. ‘I would like to begin with asking you about this morning. Emeline has said that you retrieved some cereal from the pantry.’
Maud returned with a vengeance. ‘Well, yes, and I suppose the whiskey was there too, but it was still sealed so you can’t think . . . ’
‘I do not think anything, ma’am. I just need to see the full picture.’
‘Oh. Yes, we got cereal from the pantry. We ate in the sunroom, and then we crossed your path in the drawing room. After that, we walked upstairs together, and I left Emeline to go back to my room, where the family and I were watching The Monarch for a time. You can see our movements on the timetable I drew up. Thomas went first for a smoke, and found his way to the drawing room, it seems.’
‘Yes,’ Jon said, ‘he also found his way down to my kitchen.’
Maud was not listening though. A hand was raised to her mouth. ‘Oh no. The Monarch. They’ll do this bit. This will be part of it. Who do you think will play you, Jon?’
Her train of thought was so hard to follow that Jon almost missed exactly what she was saying. The Monarch would indeed be dramatising these moments. He personally did not like the sound of the series, but hadn’t had the time to sit down and watch it at any rate.
As far as he knew, The Monarch was still in the early years of the Princesses’ lives, but yes, they would inevitably arrive at this very moment. This was pure television gold, he imagined. He could see this as a series finale. Television producers would grasp this event with both hands, not letting any of the drama fall through their fingertips.
‘What did the King think of The Monarch?’ Jon asked, less for the investigation and more out of genuine curiosity. He had never heard the King talk about it, outside of the small snippets of opinion he’d gleaned from dinner earlier.
‘Daddy? He didn’t often talk about it – well, no, actually I tell a lie, he had been recently. For some reason, he had started thinking that someone from the palace was leaking information. You know that The Monarch is an independent production, yes – so it is not supported or affiliated with the actual monarchy in any way. Therefore, all research, of which there must be mountains, is done entirely externally and unofficially. Daddy started watching it when I told him about a particular scene – my twenty-sixth birthday, in fact. Do you remember it?’
Jon did, of course. ‘The birthday where the Russian cellist performed?’ He had served a buffet lunch that day in the gardens of Windsor Castle. He remembered that he hadn’t gotten the pastry on the sausage rolls quite right and that would irk him to his dying day.
‘Yes. Well, that day ended in a particularly nasty argument with Daddy, Mummy, and myself. The programme portrayed it more or less perfectly, and it is rather odd, but no one could have known about that argument. It was never noted down anywhere, no one was in the vicinity – but the programme got it spot-on. I put it down to coincidence – an extreme case of art imitating life, but Daddy thought something more sinister was afoot.’
‘I have not seen the episode, ma’am, but if it is on national television, I’m sure you won’t mind my next question. What was the argument about?’
‘Oh, what almost every conversation with my parents has been about since the event, of course. They don’t approve of my marriage. Or no! That is not quite accurate – they don’t like my choice of mate one bit.’
‘They approve of union, but not of Mr Crockley?’
‘Exactly so. They hate Thomas, to put it plainly. It is not often my parents are in agreement, but when the topic of my husband rears its head, it is hard to tell Mummy and Daddy apart in their viciousness.’ Jon found it hard to believe that Eric could match the tyranny of Marjorie, but there it was. ‘Daddy called him a “pigheaded businessman” on more than one occasion. I refuse to even see that – I think he’s a proper English gentleman. Don’t you?’
It was almost as if she were asking Jon’s approval, looking at him expectantly. ‘He has always seemed very agreeable, ma’am,’ he said, although inwardly he was far closer to the King’s assessment. Putting his personal feelings aside, however, he wanted to get back on track, and see if this newfound wrinkle related to the day. ‘You mentioned that every conversation you had with the King was about Crockley. Does this mean that you talked about your husband in your private audience with the King this morning?’
Maud had something like admiration at the corner of her eyes. ‘Yes. It does. Daddy was very odd this morning. He was decidedly unlike himself – very un-Christmassy, and very shouty. He said that enough was enough and that I should open my eyes to who Thomas Crockley really was. I must have called his bluff though, as he would not actually tell me who my husband really was. He kept saying, “I must give Thomas a chance to explain himself.” That was my father for you, gracious even when he was angry.’
‘So you have no idea what your father could be referring to?’
‘Not one bit. And what was worse was I had to take Thomas to him afterwards. I felt much like an executioner taking my husband to the axe. When he came out, Thomas was a shade of white I’d never seen on anyone and wouldn’t say a word. You are to talk to my husband, Jon. Could you get to the bottom of this?’
A mystery inside another mystery. Jon recalled a set of Russian dolls that his mother used to have on the shelf in her room in Barbados. Little Jon used to always wonder what was inside, until one day he climbed up a chair to look. He marvelled as he took the lid off the doll to see a smaller one concealed inside, and it kept going – smaller and smaller. Until – Well, it was his mother, after all. The smallest doll had a baggie of heroin lodged in it. He wondered if this mystery was similar – composed of smaller and smaller ones until finally he’d get to the smallest and reveal its dark heart. ‘I am sure everything will have its time in the light. These things often do. Thank you, ma’am, for your cooperation. I have just one question to ask before we part. Who do you think killed your father?’
Maud didn’t have to think for even a second. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? My disgusting uncle.’
‘Prince David?’
‘Of course. He blames Daddy for his exile, he blames Daddy for his diminished title, he blames Daddy for everything. Uncle killed Daddy – I would stake my life on it. He’s a slippery criminal – we all know this already, and it made me sick to my stomach that I had to share a dinner table with him.’
Maud was correct, of course – David was a notorious character. Something about David killing Eric didn’t sit quite right though. There was something in it, and Jon could absolutely understand Maud making the leap, but there were pieces of the puzzle that were missing for him to get there – pieces that might yet reveal themselves.
For now, however, Jon had to resist the urge to jump ahead. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’
Maud took this as a dismissal – yet another sign of this new dynamic – and rose. ‘Should I tell someone else that you would like to speak to them?’
‘Well, I suppose I should talk to your proper English gentleman next.’
Maud smiled – an act that didn’t fail to still inspire some warmth in his heart – and went to retrieve her husband.
Jon thought on the wrongs being levelled at Crockley and what exactly they were. It was lucky, then, that he would not have to wonder for very long.