David faltered and that was enough. His grip softened on Maud’s neck and she was afforded one small, lifesaving gasp. ‘What?’ He let go of Maud’s neck and she slumped to the floor, spluttering and heaving, David’s white handprints on her scarlet neck. A cut was gently seeping blood where one of his sharp fingernails had dug in to her flesh. It wasn’t clear if she had heard her mother’s admission.
Her twin had, however. Clutching her bleeding forehead, Emeline had jumped up. ‘Mother, what are you saying?’
‘Yes, I would rather like to know the same,’ said David, who had such a scowl on him Jon wondered if he would not have preferred a bullet through the heart.
Marjorie looked upon her daughter with emotionless eyes. She had retreated behind her shield once again. ‘I mean precisely what I said. He is your real father.’
‘No,’ Emeline said definitively. ‘No. That’s . . . That simply can’t be. That is not true. That . . . Oh God.’ She doubled over.
Maud was propped against the wall she had fallen against, and was there panting, but she had wide eyes. She understood too.
‘What the hell are you talking about, Margey?’ David said, going to her. ‘This can’t be real. They’re not my daughters. Look at them. I would have known . . . I would have . . . ’
Marjorie snorted. ‘I think you did know, you bloody idiot. I think everyone knew. Really. Deep down. No one wanted to see it though. Come on, David, you know what we used to get up to. Back in the time when Eric was only ever invested in his station. You know what we used to do. Have you never put two and two together? Eric could not have children. We tried and tried for so long to no avail, and then the years ticked by. Everyone was panicking – a king must have heirs. The clock was running out for me – our union came just in time. David, how have you not seen it before? Did you not want to see what was in front of your eyes?’
‘This cannot be true.’ Princess Emeline rushed over to the wastebin in the far corner of the room and proceeded to bend over and throw up the entire contents of her stomach. There was no way to fake her utter disdain for the man who was now purportedly her father. ‘Mummy, this is perverse. Even for you.’
‘Oh, shut up, Emeline. Eric was not giving me love, not giving me affection, not giving me a child. What was I to do but stray, and I thank God that I did because it gave me what I so desired, what we all so desired. And if I hadn’t strayed, you wouldn’t have had a chance to exist at all.’
‘What are you spewing now?’ Emeline spat.
‘Your father was dry, Emeline. As dry as the Sahara Desert. Useless to me. And more importantly, useless to this country.’
‘Shut up.’
‘You see, there really is no other option. Either David is your father or you choose to believe you were immaculately conceived. An altogether idiotic notion.’
Emeline faltered, seeing the options her mother was giving her. ‘I need to see official documentation of this lie before I will even hear of it again.’
Marjorie looked to Jon. ‘Well, investigator, I assume you have it.’
Jon shuffled uncomfortably on his feet. Emeline was staring at him menacingly, as though he were the guilty party. Wordlessly, he took the King’s medical notes out of his pocket and handed them to the Princess.
Emeline quickly riffled through the pages as David paced up and down. Maud was still on the floor, but her breathing was finally getting softer. Soon, Emeline had found the pertinent paragraph and let out an eternal yowl. She fell to her knees and threw the notes into the air. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’
‘It’s true?’ asked David. ‘It’s really true?’
Emeline did not respond but to pummel her fists into the carpet. ‘How could this happen? Who else knew of this travesty? Did Father know?’
David was about to combust.
Marjorie tutted. ‘Of course he knew. Just like everyone else, he stuffed it deep down. At first anyway. Like his core was shielding him from the heartbreak of it. And then his core started to crack, and the truths leaked out. He started to openly confront me about it, and then he decided to get himself looked at, checked out – a full medical analysis. He could not hide from the truth then. And he saw the only option was his brother.’
‘How could you, Mother? How could you do such a thing to Father? He loved you with all his heart! And now, he is gone. And we are left with a stinking wretch who is no father of mine. I want a full DNA test. I want to make sure this isn’t some horrible trick.’
Marjorie shrugged.
So that was it. Marjorie’s secret was out in the open. Eric’s killer revealed. Crockley’s killer revealed. There was nothing left. Done.
Wait. No. No, it wasn’t. In some ways it was too neat, but in others it was too messy. There were still things that didn’t make sense. The figure in Jon’s red coat. Who was that? Was it really Thomas Crockley? And if so, why? Why turn the power off?
Jon thought back to the Russian doll on his mother’s shelf. The Russian doll that in the end revealed itself to be her heroin stash. Jon had thought, throughout this investigation, that he was constantly getting deeper in a theoretical Russian doll. He was gradually getting a layer deeper, a layer deeper.
But now he saw that that wasn’t the case at all. It was the exact opposite. He had been in the smallest Russian doll and he was trying to get out. Maybe there was one layer left above him. Maybe there was . . .
It was odd that through all the chaos of the room, through Emeline and David and Marjorie still shouting at each other, Jon was distracted by a small tinny ringing sound to his right. He looked down towards the sound to see that Churchill the cat was up and scratching at his collar with his back leg. The tinny sound was what was irritating the cat. Jon bent down and slid his collar around.
Someone had clipped one of the metal family crests to Churchill’s collar. Why would someone do that? Jon unclipped it, and Churchill gazed up at him in thanks before collapsing belly-up in front of the fire again and purring. Jon stood and turned the family crest over and over in his hands. Curious.
Jon thought back to the figure in the red coat, and then he thought of Miss Darcy and Tony Speck. Where were they? Things were unravelling even more than usual. He could really use them. He then remembered that he could see exactly where they were.
He dropped the crest on the table and pulled out the security tablet. Red dots filled the screen – the usual ones. And . . .
‘Oh my God,’ Jon said. It was so quiet he was surprised that everyone had managed to hear, and they all fell silent. The red dots. Miss Darcy still in the tower. Tony Speck still in the Watchtower. The family and himself in the drawing room. But one more dot.
‘How is that possible?’ Jon said, realising where the red dot was.
‘What is it, Jon?’
Who had said that? Then again, who cared?
‘There’s someone in the empty study.’