Murder Most Royal — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

’ Sad and somewhat disturbed, she put the phone down.

‘News from the chief constable?’ Philip asked.

‘Yes. They’ve brought a man in for questioning who calls himself Jack Lions. He’s Ned’s son from his second marriage – the one with the nanny. Rozie will have more details in the morning.’

‘So they’ve got him!’ Philip looked mildly triumphant, as if their recent conversation hadn’t happened. ‘You see? I told you. It’s always the family.’

The arrest had been sudden and violent.

As always, a full raft of papers was delivered to Sandringham in the morning and laid out in the saloon for everyone to read.

Several featured news of the arrest in a suburb west of London, accompanied by old photographs of a semi-shaven, surly, long-haired man, unmistakably a St Cyr by birth, with his tall, rangy frame and strawberry blond curls, dressed in dirty clothes and heavy boots, marching for climate change or posing with a spade in a shady allotment, looking as if he may have been planting tomatoes or burying something unspeakable in the dirt.

‘Has he actually been charged?’ Anne asked.

‘Not yet. But according to this kiss-and-tell so-called friend—’ Philip waved the paper again ‘—Lions was a magnet for trouble right back to his school days. Expelled for taking cannabis. Fell in with a crowd of drop-outs and eco-warriors. Hasn’t held down a proper job for longer than a few weeks. Unless you count teaching drumming in a tent at music festivals, which, frankly, I don’t.’

‘Why did he do it?’ the Queen wondered.

‘According to this, he was mentally unbalanced. Psychotic episode, they’re suggesting.’

‘Don’t those episodes happen quite suddenly?’ she asked. ‘I thought Ned had been invited to a meeting. It sounded rather organised.’

‘Who knows? Perhaps the boy lost his temper. If he was on drugs, he might have been capable of anything.’

‘Anyway, the whole thing’s done and dusted,’ Philip said. ‘I’m glad Bloomfield has it squared away. Good man.’

The group spent several minutes discussing what might have driven a blood relative to such an act of unspeakable violence.

The Queen, who found it all extremely unsavoury, eventually had to put her foot down and insist that they refrain from discussing murder over coffee. She had a strong suspicion that everyone resumed the subject, though, as soon as she departed, coughing and aching, for the relative peace of her office overlooking the garden.

‘The chief constable rang again just now, ma’am,’ Rozie announced.