Thomas Crockley’s room was empty. His bed was unmade, as if he had just rolled out of it. His drawers were open, as though someone had rummaged through them. Maybe it had been the man himself. Nothing else was amiss, and Jon found himself comforting Maud. The woman had been beside herself all the way to the bedrooms.
‘He will have just gone outside for a smoke, you know him.’
Did he really believe that? Well, yes, he did. He took out the security tablet and showed Maud. Quite how Thomas Crockley had gotten outside Jon did not know, but there was indeed one red dot just outside the castle walls.
‘What is this?’
‘It’s the readout for Speck’s new security system that I told you about. The red dots are heat signatures – human heat signatures. And there is your husband.’ The dot darted around somewhat. Jon could just imagine Crockley falling over in the snow at that point. The red light was smaller, probably because he was freezing.
Maud put her head in her hands. ‘I’m going mad. Jumping at shadows. I’m sorry, Jon. I’m so sorry for everything. You must have felt so betrayed by all that in the drawing room. Damn Monopoly, for God’s sake. I cannot speak for everyone, but I just wanted to escape for a while and Miss Darcy offered us that, but that puzzle box brought it all back. I will do everything I can to help you keep your job.’
Jon shook his head. ‘I’m afraid I think that ship has sailed, ma’am. Miss Darcy has me in her sights. And we both know that she won’t stop until she gets what she wants.’
Maud knew. ‘Was it true what she said – that you are dying?’
‘That’s a very blunt way of putting it,’ Jon said.
‘That’s not a no.’
Jon said nothing.
‘You’ve always been so good to us, Jon. And how do we repay you? With snide remarks and lies. Even I do it.’
‘Lies, ma’am?’
‘Yes. I knew that Daddy was going to announce his abdication today. I’m betting that most of my family did too. I would also assume that they all kept their stance of knowing nothing about it – just as we all did in the drawing room. I didn’t even necessarily lie to you because it would make me more of a suspect. I just lied to you because it was easy. It’s almost second nature.’
Jon considered this. If they were all lying to him, there was no chance he could find the King’s killer. But it seemed like Maud was not lying to him now. ‘Can I please ask you a question?’ Jon said.
‘Of course, anything.’
‘I overheard your mother and Miss Darcy talking privately just before I was sent to the kitchen. Your mother appears to be holding something back from the rest of the family.’
Maud relaxed slightly at this – a very odd reaction. She sat down on her husband’s bed. Everyone at Balmoral had to sleep in separate rooms, regardless of marital status, and even sitting on the bed of someone else was forbidden. Maud did not care though, or even notice. ‘Well, of course she is holding something back. She is the great Marjorie Windsor-Nueberner.’ She sang the name in mock awe. ‘The woman collects secrets as though they were commemorative coins. She once told me that the trick was to have so many secrets that your adversary didn’t know which ones were important. I imagine a psychologist would say that’s why she drinks so much. To lighten the load on her soul.’
Jon’s legs would rather have liked to sit down too, but there was only the bed and as Maud was in her nightie, there was no way he was going to do that, even if he was further than arm’s length away. He made do propping himself up against a wall. ‘She also is rather interested in something else. Something to do with you.’
Maud froze. ‘What?’
‘She wants to know why you were late for the opening of the RSPCA cattery in Plymouth. She asked Miss Darcy if she knew anything about it.’
Maud glanced about her in disgust. ‘I knew she remembered. She has been toying with me for months, for my entire life. They both have.’
‘Princess Maud?’
‘I will tell you Jon,’ she said, crying. ‘I will tell you. Here is my motive.’ And she started. ‘When I saw that I was to go to Plymouth, I knew that I must seize a chance to follow a hunch. There was something in my past, now in Plymouth, that everyone here wished to bury. I was not supposed to know about this, but I happened upon it one day. One day far too late.’
‘Plymouth, ma’am. But what could possibly be in Plymouth?’
‘Poppy.’
‘Poppy?’ He searched back. She had said that name already today. But when? At the dinner . . . ‘Wasn’t Poppy a dog? Your mother said she was a golden retriever, or a Lab, or something?’
Maud snorted. ‘That’s my mother for you. Poppy wasn’t a Lab, or a golden retriever. She was a girl. She is a woman.’
‘I’m sorry. Please continue,’ Jon said.
‘Poppy was my age. We went to the same school when we were thirteen or fourteen – you had just started a few years earlier and were training a lot of the time, that’s why you don’t know her. Poppy even came to Windsor Castle a few times, stayed for sleepovers, we got close. Too close. Daddy walked in on us once. Nothing sordid, you understand. Just a kiss.
‘The next day, Poppy was gone. Not just from the castle, but from the school, and from her home. From the face of the earth. Daddy told me that her father worked for a very important law firm and they had to move away. I never saw her again. A year later, it got back to me that they’d been in a car accident. The whole family had died.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,’ Jon said. He was surprised he had not heard of Poppy before. Maud seemed very distressed by the situation. It very much sounded like the King had sent this girl away – that, or it was extremely bad timing.
‘Poppy faded from my memory. How could she? I don’t mind telling you, Jon, but I loved her. And what hurts even more is that I think she loved me. But being royal is to live a mile a minute, especially when one is young. I almost forgot her.
‘That was until a note was slipped under my door when I was staying with Mummy and Daddy in Windsor Castle. I found it very odd and almost thought it some kind of mistake, to be tossed away without looking at it. Luckily, I didn’t. It was an address in Plymouth. With one name at the top. “Poppy.” ’
Maud stood up and strode over to the window, looking out into the white. She couldn’t possibly see anything through the darkness and the whipping snow, but it seemed to be enough for her to be doing something. She was silent for a minute.
‘The stars aligned. The order came that I was to travel to Plymouth the next week. I knew I must go to this address and see what this note wanted me to see.
‘So I did, and I’m almost ashamed to say there was something thrilling about it at first. The security detail checked me into the hotel across from the cattery to get ready for my public appearance, as it had been a long journey. We were also early. I told them I wanted to catch forty winks before the appearance. They left me alone in my room.
‘I quickly dressed in plain clothes and snuck out. Almost forty and feeling like a naughty little schoolgirl. Thrilling. Rather the same feeling as getting to make my own breakfast this morning. What an odd emotion.’ Maud smiled at memories of trivial things.
‘It took me longer than it would an average person to find the address. Maps on your phone are very strange, aren’t they? Eventually, after walking through the whole town and thinking I’d be recognised at every step, I came across a side street that was lined with quaint little brick terraced houses all in a row. They were probably hundreds of years old. I remember thinking – who was on the throne when all these were built?
‘I came to the address. One of those identical houses. There was a small concrete front yard with a dead hanging basket hanging next to a purple door. I had never experienced such surety before. I thought maybe I’d arrive to an address that was a cemetery. But she was alive. This was her house.
‘This was her exile.’
Jon listened quietly to the tale, with shock. This did not sound like the King he knew – sending an innocent girl away, making his own daughter think someone she loved was dead. Maybe there was some other explanation.
‘I half-wanted to run away as fast as I could. But after all I had done, I knew I had to see. So I knocked. Do you know who answered the door? A little girl. Maybe six or seven. Wearing a tiara. I said I was in the wrong place, but she saw who I was and screamed out my name, “It’s the Princess.” So excited.
‘And then her mother came to the door. It was her. Poppy Stilwell. Older, but still no less beautiful. Perhaps even more so. Funny how age can do that to some people, isn’t it?
‘She wasn’t as shocked as me. She said she knew this day would come. There was a coldness in her voice I didn’t expect, had never heard before. She asked me what I wanted. I just burst into tears – I didn’t know what I wanted. Once upon a time, I’d wanted her. I’d wanted to spend my life with her. We were young and maybe it wouldn’t have happened, but isn’t it human to mourn all the lives we do not live?
‘I told her what happened. That they said she was dead. She laughed and she said, “They? They said that?” And then she said, “Talk to your father about what they said.” I brushed that off at the time. I was just so confused, so happy to see her, so sad at the life I’d lost.
‘And then it all just came flooding out. I said I would renounce everything. I said I would divorce Thomas. I said I would change my name and move to Plymouth. I said I’d do anything to be back in her life. I said I still loved her.
‘And you know what she said?’
Jon shook his head.
‘She told me to piss off.’