Murder Most Royal — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

According to Ivy, the article Judy was writing – the one that had inspired Mrs Day to wonder if the hit-and-run was organised – turned out to be prompted by a boy on the beach not much older than Ivy herself. Everywhere the Queen looked for dark conspiracies, she found commonplace events. They were sad enough for the individuals concerned, but hardly motive for murder. And certainly not the sort of murder planned as cleverly as this one, where a man had been made to disappear.

Was Ned’s death entirely accidental after all? the Queen wondered.

Had he walked out of his flat and fallen into a building site? Was he in the River Thames? Had he chosen to drop out of sight? And yet there was the hand. It always came back to the hand.

The Queen and Rozie had an hour planned in the diary after lunch to go through the next few weeks’ events.

‘Do you have any news?’ she asked, without much hope.

‘A little,’ Rozie said. ‘The police did know rumours of occasional, low-level drug dealing from Snettisham Beach.

Even though it’s on your doorstep, ma’am, they simply don’t have the resources to investigate fully or put a stop to it. It’s not that unusual. They’re focused higher up the chain.’

‘Katie’s talked to her old colleagues at the Border Force. They think the bag on the beach came from a yacht travelling from Holland. They were tracking it at the time and it was heading much further up the coast. It all supports what you said Ivy told you: Judy hadn’t stumbled on something big, just something that really mattered to her.

’

‘I’m not sure there’s a difference, but I know what you mean,’ the Queen said.

Rozie consulted her notes.

‘The chief constable did have one update, though, entirely unrelated. Lord Mundy’s son Valentine was seen having lunch with Mr St Cyr in the City of London in November.’

‘Is that a problem? Ned had started to talk to the family again. They told us as much at Christmas. So did Astrid Westover.’

‘It wouldn’t be a problem, except Valentine lied about it.

He insisted they hadn’t met since his mother’s funeral, until the police told him they had a sworn witness statement saying he did.’

The Queen sighed. ‘Did he say what they discussed?’

‘No, ma’am. Only that they were catching up on family news. There’s nothing to link him to the disappearance, but his alibi is patchy. His flat in London is only a twenty-minute drive from Mr St Cyr’s flat in Hampstead.