Murder Most Royal

He looked at her slightly mournfully. ‘I wanted to let you know, I understand how bad you must be feeling.’

‘Don’t worry. It’s just a cold. I’ll feel better tomorrow.’

‘No, I meant about the hand.’

‘Oh.’

‘On the beach.’

‘Mmm.’

‘I’ve been thinking about it all day.’

‘Ah.’

‘But I promise we won’t talk about it.’

‘Good.’

‘Did you know,’ he added, after a minuscule pause, ‘that the police were searching Ned’s place in London? I saw it on the news while I was getting changed.’

‘Oh, are they?’ the Queen asked, adding firmly, ‘Isn’t Harry looking well?’

‘Is he? Yes, I suppose he is. They were wearing hazmat suits. You know, those white ones like beekeepers’ outfits.’

‘Who?’

‘The police. In Ned’s flat in Hampstead. Goodness knows why, given the hand turned up in Norfolk. I was wondering if it might be a kidnap attempt gone wrong. Do you remember that Getty boy’s ear? Horrendous business. Got lost in the post. You could hardly make it up.’

‘No, you couldn’t. Ah! Sophie!’ The Queen rather desperately hailed the Countess of Wessex, Edward’s wife, who was halfway across the room. ‘Are the children all right? Did they enjoy the day?’

‘Oh, absolutely.’ Sophie joined them, wearing a slub silk evening gown that the Queen was pleased to note she had seen before; she didn’t approve of clothes horses and waste. ‘Did you hear the news about the missing man?’ Sophie asked. ‘He lived near here, didn’t he? I was just talking to Mrs Maddox about it and she said her daughter used to work at the Fen-Time Festival on his estate a few years ago. She met Stephen Fry there. D’you know, I think she had a bit of a thing for him?’

‘For Stephen Fry?’

‘No, Edward St Cyr. I don’t think I ever met him. Did you know him well?’

Mercifully, the gong went, which meant dinner. The royal couple led the other adults into the dining room. Its pistachio wall colour, known as Braemar green, had been chosen by the Queen Mother to remind her of a favourite Scottish castle. It gave the room a jolly, feminine air that summoned up Mummy’s spirit and sense of fun. The Queen had once overheard a guest suggesting it looked like an ice-cream parlour at Harrods, but surely that wasn’t a bad thing? As always, the room was lit by candles alone, whose flickering glow, she hoped, could make even the most ravaged of cold-ridden faces look reasonably attractive. An artificial silver Christmas tree twinkled near the window. The wine was excellent and the venison was cooked to perfection. But every time the conversation veered away from the St Cyrs, it somehow veered back.

‘Of course, it’s a raging husband the police should be looking for,’ Andrew suggested. ‘Ned St Cyr famously had an eye for a posh girl in jodhpurs.’ He grinned at his sister, who told him to shut up.

‘Was he an artist?’ Camilla asked. ‘They said on the news his London place was an artist’s studio.’

Anne started to explain, digging back in her memory to her teenage years. ‘Ned’s father was the artist. Simon Longbourn? Or Paul? I don’t remember. Mummy, what was Georgina’s husband called?’

But nobody could remember, or rather, they couldn’t agree. Simon, or possibly Paul, had given Georgina the surname Longbourn on her marriage during the war. They had all lived at Ladybridge Hall together, along with Georgina’s younger sisters and her dashing little brother, Patrick, and Ned had been Ned Longbourn until the age of eight when Paul, or possibly Simon, divorced Georgina and fled to Greece, where he painted and drank until the drink finally killed him and young Ned inherited the studio flat in Hampstead and the captain’s house on Corfu. It was questionable whether Georgina noticed. She was always more interested in her horses and helping her father look after the estate. After the divorce, she reverted to her maiden name and Ned took it too. He’d inherited his mother’s red-gold hair and Roman nose, her charisma, her love of fast cars, her occasional temper, her charm . . . The two properties were the only things his father ever gave him, as far as they knew.

‘After her father died, Georgina bought Abbottswood,’ Philip explained, ‘Nice Regency villa. Not on the scale of Ladybridge, obviously. The Yanks had had the place during the war and the house was a wreck, but the grounds were good. Designed by Repton, apparently.’ Philip’s knowledge of the house and its surroundings surprised no one at the table. If he was interested in something he tended to know everything about it, and local architecture was one of his hobbies. ‘Georgina retired there like something out of Dickens, though she was only in her forties. Only rode to hounds and hardly spoke to anyone. She never forgave her cousin Ralph for casting her out of Ladybridge when her brother died and he inherited instead. Though what else he was supposed to do, God knows.’

‘Couldn’t she have lived on the estate somewhere?’ one of the younger princesses asked.