Marjorie was the first to crawl out of the pit that the late King had cast them all into. ‘Can he do that? Could he have done that? Dissolved the entire Royal Family?’
‘No,’ Miss Darcy said, ‘the King of England could not have done that. But he would have tried his darnedest. And he would have created a fuss, and unrest, and somewhere, someone along the chain would have told someone else and it would have snowballed into something beyond anyone’s control. He would have sowed his seeds of doubt throughout the entire family. One by one, you would have come around to his way of thinking.’
‘Father was right,’ Maud said, ‘he was always right.’
‘There is no way I would have signed off on such stupidity,’ David said. ‘The monarchy is sacred. It is what makes Britain Britain.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t get a vote anyway, Uncle!’ Emeline snapped. ‘Criminals give up the right to vote. I say we should dissolve the monarchy. Today is a great indication of the rot festering at the core of us.’
‘Oh shut up, Emeline,’ Marjorie said, ‘we all know you don’t mean that.’
‘Grandfather,’ Matthew muttered. ‘He wasn’t going to name me. He never was. He was going to save me. He was going to save us all.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Marjorie said, ‘because he couldn’t do any of that. He was just a stupid old man, believing he had more power than he did.’
‘He was the King of England,’ Martin said.
‘King is just a title, little one. The ones who put you on the throne have all the power.’
It was the most sensible thing Marjorie had said all day, and with the power of those words, Jon finally saw everything as it was – he wished he could go back, but he could not. And there it was, the thing he had read in the King’s medical notes, under a heading marked ‘Ailments.’
No allergies.
Dear God.
He spoke slowly and clearly, as though those words emanating from his mouth were his last. They very well could have been. ‘Your Royal Highnesses, you are not seeing the great picture here. You are not seeing the centre of the puzzle box that we find ourselves in.’ Jon turned to Miss Darcy and Tony Speck. He had known that they were acting strangely. Ever since they had entered the room, with all their pomposity, he had somehow known the truth he was about to speak. Tony Speck had attacked him out of anger for ruining everything. ‘Princess Maud did not kill the King. Nobody in the family did. The King had no allergies. You killed him. The government.’
‘What a wild accusation, Jon,’ Miss Darcy said, as though she were remarking about the weather.
‘I poisoned the whiskey though, Jon,’ Maud said, her voice still hoarse. ‘I killed him. I confessed.’
‘No, Princess Maud, you didn’t. You put wasp venom in the whiskey. Wasp venom that would do nothing to anyone who wasn’t allergic to it. And he wasn’t.’
Miss Darcy said nothing, but Tony Speck betrayed her by almost looking proud. ‘Maybe everyone should move over to the far end of the room, hmm?’
‘What is Jon saying?’ Maud said as Tony advanced towards everyone, and they obeyed him, coming to join Jon on the other side of the fireplace.
Miss Darcy had to break her silence for this. ‘Do you really think the King could be taken down by a silly little wasp? The allergy was fake. Sometimes a king needs a weakness to lure danger. Danger we can act upon. So we sowed a little seed, and waited for it to sprout. We told the King he had a little allergy. It was simple enough – he never actually reads his doctor’s reports. We never knew it would spiral into this, though. It was the King himself who actually procured wasp venom – set about a plot to end himself by asking Matthew to kill him one day. We didn’t know. We also didn’t know Matthew, and subsequently Maud, was going to use this day to act.’
Maud, once believed to be unbreakable, broke a little more.
‘Excuse me, but then how did the King fall?’ David asked, shepherded to the back of the group. ‘If he is not allergic to the Polybius wasp thing, or whatever – how did he react to it? We all saw him drink the whiskey and then die.’
Tony Speck, still practically vibrating with glee, stepped forward. ‘It was never the whiskey, you imbeciles. You’ve been chasing around, looking for the wrong clues, and the wrong information, and the wrong people. Jonathan Alleyne, you are quite simply awful at this.’
‘No,’ Jon said, ‘no, I’m not. Because I think you still would have tried to cover this up if I wasn’t here. If I was doing such a bad job, why did Miss Darcy have to return to the castle to fix your mess?’ He backed up with the rest of the family.
Speck’s smile flickered. He was right. ‘Okay then, Mr Detective. If it wasn’t the whiskey, what was it then?’
As if by chance, Jon’s foot hit on something as he backed up, and he glanced down as the familiar soft tinkle of ‘God Save the King’ filled the room. Jon knew what it was, even before Speck bent down and retrieved it. The puzzle box – Interregnum making its presence known once again.
Could it be . . .
‘Garlic,’ Jon said.
‘The wheels are turning,’ Speck said.
Oh no. It was that simple. He had devoted his day to the wrong weapon. It was in front of his face the entire time. ‘The King said he smelled roast potatoes and garlic. Martin gave the King the present, but who procured it for Martin?’
‘That’s far enough,’ Speck said to the family. They had all shifted to the back of the room, by the fire. Emeline, Maud, Martin, Matthew, Marjorie, and David. Jon was ahead of them, confronting Speck.
‘You see,’ Miss Darcy said, ‘opportunities like this one don’t come around very often. The King announced all by himself that he wanted all staff to leave him alone this Christmas. I suggested Balmoral after a quick look at the long-term forecast. Totally remote. We could not have the King announce what he was going to announce. So I got to work. I suggested to Martin that he give the King a puzzle box for Christmas – I even offered to get it myself. It had the rather unique attraction that it sprayed a smell when one of the stages of the puzzle was completed. It was easy to drain the liquid out and replace it with a scent of our own. Arsine, the gas version of arsenic. Or at least, our special version of it. You get someone to breathe it in, and well, it isn’t pretty. It has the rather unique property of smelling exactly like garlic. I gave him a very slight dose – it would not have killed him quickly, but it would have made him feel so unwell he would have had to instantly retire to his room. His speech unspoken. He would have died a few hours later. To all outward perception, it would have been quite peaceful. And most importantly, it would seem natural.
‘But there was an unforeseen development. The whiskey was laced with a perfectly harmless venom, except for the fact that when it is mixed with our particular strain of arsine it acts as an accelerant. The King died as soon as he drank the whiskey. Speck saw it on the cameras, at the security station in the Watchtower, and instantly called me back to fix the mess you’d all made.’
‘So you see, in a roundabout way, the old codger killed himself,’ Speck said. ‘Silly bastard.’
‘You watch your mouth, security man!’ David spat.
‘No,’ Tony Speck snarled, ‘I think we have now progressed to the point where you should watch yours.’
‘But Thomas showed signs of being poisoned too,’ Maud said.
‘Close contact with the King would have produced nothing but a minor headache and some sniffles,’ Speck barked. ‘I think your husband may have been a little soft.’
Miss Darcy ignored them. ‘We had to course-correct somewhat, in an effort to regain some control of the narrative. It didn’t work quite as well as we’d hoped. Jon was an awful pain, darting around the place all the time. At one point, the camera in this room malfunctioned, so we had to get manual eyes on this room from outside. Martin just had to go and spot that someone outside, and we had to shut the power off to cause a distraction. A couple of falling dominoes later, that led to me having to go outside and reveal myself to Jon. I thought maybe it was for the best anyway – I was absolved from killing the King due to timing, and I could try and pass it off as a natural death.
‘I could not have foreseen that young Matthew would go and do something so stupid as killing Thomas Crockley. Speck had to go and clean up after him, make it look like Crockley had killed himself. Of course, then, murder was back in play.
‘So here we are. Who would have thought that killing a king would be so much of a faff?’
‘But why?’ Matthew asked. ‘Grandfather was right, he was fundamentally and categorically right. The world has left us behind. Why is it such a bad thing to watch the monarchy wither and die like a forgotten houseplant? I don’t understand.’
‘Boy,’ Speck said with a chuckle, ‘do you know how much money the Royal Family makes the British government a year? It’s insane. Tourism, national pride, a real sense of history. That all evaporates if you aren’t around, filling your bellies in grand castles.’
‘That’s all this is about – money?’
Miss Darcy decided to take this one. ‘To an extent. It is also about the unity that royalism brings. Europe hates us, the rest of the world is going the same way after we fumbled with the pandemic – if we turn on each other, we will have nothing left. But yes, mainly, the money.’
‘You’re sick,’ Matthew seethed, ‘this is sick. Now your secret is out, what makes you think we will not revolt, tell everyone of what the King intended, start telling people ourselves. You allowed Jon to read the speech – are you not concerned you just unleashed the jar of whispers yourselves?’
‘I do not think anyone in this room will say a word for the rest of their lives. We have the security tapes from today – taped and sealed and ready to send away to wherever is worst for you. At some point in time, every single one of you has incriminated themselves in some way. We have the ammunition to take everyone down. If anyone speaks up, we will use the correct information to frame them for the murder of Eric Windsor.’
‘What about the death of Thomas?’ Maud piped up.
Miss Darcy did not even miss a beat. ‘I will tell you a little secret now that I have been biting my tongue on for years, Your Royal Highness. No one gives a shit about Thomas Crockley.’
Speck laughed. ‘There is one issue here, and as always, it is Mr Jonathan Alleyne. What do we do with this little cretin? Such a bloody nuisance. Someone seize him.’
Now the murmur was one of confusion. ‘What?’ Matthew asked.
Tony Speck looked to Miss Darcy and back, as though the Royals were missing something incredibly obvious. ‘Can someone please seize Jon Alleyne?’
Jon stepped forward. ‘Nobody needs to seize me. I am not going anywhere.’
Speck scratched his moustache. ‘I will never understand that stupid loyalty you have.’ Speck picked up one of the high-backed bony chairs and placed it in front of the fire. ‘Sit down.’
‘Why?’
‘Sit down or I make you sit down.’
‘Now, look here . . . ’ Surprisingly this came from David.
‘Martin, what are you doing?’ Maud asked.
Martin flew at Speck again, much as he had in the corridor, but this time he was not aiming for his back. He was aiming at his outstretched hand with the gun in it. Speck realised a little too late, pointing the gun at Martin but not able to pull the trigger. Martin collided with the gun and scrabbled for it. Both of them went sprawling on the floor. Martin was lighter and up on his feet again in no time. Jon was in utter relief as he saw Martin had the gun in his hand.
Speck was up too then, but Martin pointed the gun at him. ‘I’ll shoot.’
Speck howled with laughter. ‘Okay, little man. I believe you. Trillions wouldn’t.’
‘If I kill you, then it is all over,’ Martin said shakily. He did not seem convinced of what he was doing, but he was doing it nonetheless. ‘One way or the other.’
Speck made his way over to Miss Darcy, so that Jon and Martin were now the only ones in the centre of the room, as if they were the battle line. On one side, the establishment – and on the other, the Royal Family. Martin made the gun follow Speck, but with every inch, it seemed as though he was finding it harder to move, his resolve shaken.
‘I suppose that is a solution,’ Miss Darcy said softly. ‘Kill us and chaos reigns. Or you may choose the right option, the quintessentially British choice. You can choose inaction. You can live your lives out as they have always been – royal. Matthew will inherit the Crown as his grandfather once intended. The rest of you will be doted upon. Emeline, you will be the new king’s most trusted aunt, an icon. Anton can be by your side. We will allow that. Maud, any previous infractions will be forgotten. Marjorie, you will be given all the wine and cheese you like. And, David, you will not be exiled, and we will make all these little frivolous accusations simply disappear – thoughts of prison or New Zealand just a bad dream. Or you can go to New Zealand with a massive payout. We really don’t care. Doesn’t it sound like heaven?’
‘It sounds like hell,’ Matthew responded. ‘I am a murderer, and I want to pay for it. I want to be locked away, put in shackles.’
‘You never wanted to be king, young Matthew. Isn’t the Crown shackle enough for you?’
Matthew went silent.
From Jon’s vantage, he slowly saw the Royals change. They fully understood their situation for the first time in a long time, maybe more than any Royal ever had. They were stuck – well and truly. The only person who was not stuck was Martin, because he still held some kind of power.
Jon saw them all in turn. Emeline would not look at him – she saw the power of the establishment. Maud apologised to Jon through glassy eyes – she knew that the only way to save her family was to bend the knee to those who decided the king. Matthew opened his mouth and closed it again, words failing. David was looking mightily confused, but also had a hint of opportunity in his eyes. Marjorie seemed the soberest she’d been in years, not taking her gaze off Miss Darcy. It was clear that she had lost and her younger opponent had won. Marjorie had tried, however misguidedly, to protect the family. It had not worked.
Martin saw his family too. And their resignation.
‘No,’ Martin said. ‘No, we are not going to bow to you. We are the Royal Family.’
‘You are the Royal Family because we, the commoners, said you were, child,’ Miss Darcy spat, before signalling to Speck. ‘It is time. I’m growing tired of this.’
Speck faltered for a second, then seemed to realise he did not really care and put two fingers in his mouth and wolf whistled. For a moment, nothing happened. Then a great thundering of footsteps came down the hallway and the drawing room door opened. Two security men rushed in and took their places on either side of Miss Darcy and Speck. They both had guns raised, but that was not the most notable thing about them. One of them was dressed in Jon’s red coat. The other was dressed in a kilt.
‘What the hell is this?’ Marjorie squealed.
Martin was looking around with panic in his eyes, but to his credit he did not lower his gun.
‘Do you honestly think,’ Miss Darcy said, ‘that we would leave you all alone up here at Balmoral on Christmas Day? Jon, meet your spectres.’
‘Thanks for the coat,’ the one nearest Jon chipped in.
The other seemed intent on justifying the kilt to everyone. ‘It was supposed to be my day off.’
Jon’s two ghosts.
‘You see, you never really had a choice. Any of you,’ Tony Speck continued, as if nothing had ever happened, still under the sight of the barrel of his own gun. ‘But we will permit you one, Martin. You see, you don’t have a motive either. We have nothing on you. And we have a problem, there next to you. Jonathan Alleyne. Kill him.’
Jon could not believe what he was hearing. They really wanted Martin to kill him. He forced himself to look the boy in the eye – exude a united front between bone, muscle, and brain. Inwardly, however, he was panicking – he did not think the boy would do it, but it would not be the first time he was wrong that day.
‘Martin is not going to kill Jon,’ Maud said to the establishment.
Martin, however, faltered. His eyes scanned the perimeter of silent armed foes – with all the power in his hands to turn them into allies.
‘Do it, Martin,’ Marjorie said. She didn’t sound like she enjoyed the proposition as much as Jon thought she would have.
‘Mummy, no!’ Maud screamed.
‘What – we are royal, we can’t survive in the world, we can barely survive in here. My vote is do it, kill him. I’m not happy about it, but there it is. You want me to be the bad person, well I’ve had plenty of years’ experience.’ She sniffed and reached for a glass of wine that wasn’t there. To counteract the failed gesture, she just repeated, ‘Shoot him.’
‘Shoot him, field mouse.’ Of course, it was David.
‘No, this is not what we will become,’ Maud said.
‘I’m afraid it is,’ Miss Darcy said. ‘Martin, kill the chef or we kill your family. We’ll start with your mother, then go to your brother, then you can choose, I suppose. Who cares? But you’ll be last. Then the Crown goes to your extended family. Those in the wings. I bet some of them are gagging for a chance at the Crown. It’ll be bad – the Balmoral massacre, someone broke in on Christmas Day and killed the whole family – but we endure. Maybe we can call it a terrorist attack or something, further some other cause.
‘But you kill Jon here, and we continue as if nothing happened. King Eric died peacefully in his bed. Thomas Crockley’s body goes away – no one’ll miss that bore anyway. You get to live your life in luxury. There is really no choice to be made here. We are offering you death or a life of adoration. Just kill the chef.’
Jon knew that the tide had turned at this, but he did not falter. He did not stand up; he did not run. Where would he run to? Martin seemed convinced, and Jon’s fate was sealed. Who would not do anything to protect their mother? This was not Martin’s fault – being put in this position. Jon did not hold it against him. Jon started to cry, but it wasn’t for himself. He shifted to Miss Darcy. ‘You were meant to protect him. You were specifically tasked with protecting the King.’ The tears were streaming down his face – it was all catching up to him.
‘No, Jon, you never understood. You always say, “For the King and for the Crown,” don’t you? You fail to understand that sometimes it is “For the King or for the Crown.” ’
Martin turned the gun on Jon. He whispered something to him then. ‘I am so sorry. It’ll be alright. I hope.’ And Martin’s jacket opened slightly to reveal something in the waistband of his trousers. A yellow book that Jon had last seen in the pantry. 101 Fun Facts.
Something Martin had said throughout the course of the day threatened to be remembered but did not reveal itself. Jon ignored the thought; he didn’t have time. He did not begrudge the boy’s choice, but that did not mean he had to look at him when he did the deed. ‘I did used to say, “For the King and for the Crown.” But I got it wrong. How about this: “For Eric Windsor.” ’
‘Do it.’
‘But . . . ’
Jon nodded to Martin – It’s alright.
‘Do it.’
The gun erupted and everything went black.