Murder Most Royal

‘May I see?’ she asked.

Rozie placed the laptop on a little writing desk in front of the window. When she opened it, the screen came to life, revealing four grisly images. The Queen put on her bifocals to examine them more closely. They had been taken in a forensic laboratory and showed what was unmistakably a male left hand and wrist with a pattern of fair hairs below the knuckles, the skin deadly white, bloated, but largely intact. It looked, absolutely, like a gruesome theatre prop, or a model for a practical joke. Her eyes rested on the final image showing the little finger in close-up. Set tight into the ghostly flesh was the gold ring Rozie had mentioned. It was indeed unusual: large for its type, featuring a reddish-black oval stone carved with a crest.

Rozie explained the situation. ‘The hand was found by a local girl, ma’am. She was out dog-walking from what I understand. They’re working on the identification now. It shouldn’t take longer than a few days, even with the Christmas holiday.

They think it may belong to a drug dealer because a holdall containing drugs washed up further down the beach. There’s a theory the victim may have been kidnapped and the hand cut off as some sort of message, or possibly for ransom. It was done with some violence, but there’s no proof the owner is actually dead. They’re casting the net widely. They—’

‘I can save them the trouble,’ the Queen said, looking up.

Rozie frowned. ‘Ma’am?’

‘Of casting the net widely. This is the hand of Edward St Cyr.’

In answer, the Queen pointed to the top left-hand photograph. ‘Do you see that flat-topped middle finger? He cut off the tip doing some carpentry when he was a teenager. But it’s the signet ring, of course . . . Bloodstone. Quite distinctive. And that carving is of a swan from the family crest.’ She peered again at the final picture. The ring was a garish thing; she had never liked it. All the men in the St Cyr family wore one like it, but none of the others had lost the tip of their middle finger.

Ned must have been about sixteen when he did it, such an eager, inventive boy. That was over half a century ago.

‘I take it he wasn’t a local drug baron, ma’am,’ Rozie ventured.

‘This will certainly speed them up, ma’am.’

The Queen’s blue eyes met Rozie’s brown ones. ‘We needn’t say exactly who recognised the ring.’

‘Not this time.’ The Queen was firm. ‘I think that will be enough.’

Terrible though the news was, she reflected with relief that Snettisham, though close, was a nature reserve run by the RSPB. This was not, to put it bluntly, her problem. And just before Christmas, after a devil of a year, nor did she want it to be.

‘Certainly, ma’am.’ Rozie closed the laptop and left the Boss to get on with her day.

The Queen accompanied Mrs Maddox on a quick tour of the house to check that everything had been set up to her satisfaction, which as always, under this housekeeper’s care, it had been.

Afterwards, she was drawn back to the saloon, with its inviting smell of woodsmoke. Most of Sandringham’s rooms were quite small and intimate by royal standards, but the saloon was designed to impress. It was double height, with a plasterwork ceiling, a minstrels’ gallery and a grand piano. The tapestries and royal portraits on the walls might have made it look like a museum, which it effectively was when she wasn’t here, but modern sofas, cream walls and soft lamplight gave it a cosy, welcoming air. The crackling fire in the hearth – the only one in the house these days – was a Christmas highlight.

Among plentiful photographs of family, the ornaments were mainly horse bronzes and silver statuettes. If it was possible to be surrounded by too many representations of the horse, the Queen hadn’t yet discovered how. Beyond the windows she caught a glimpse of the splendid new life-size statue of one of her favourite racehorses, the magnificent Estimate, which had recently been installed at the far end of the courtyard opposite the front porch and rounded out her collection rather nicely.

For now, though, she approached a baize-covered table next to the piano, where a wooden jigsaw had been set out. Jigsaws were a feature of her six-week stay at Sandringham and she studied this one carefully. It was a Constable painting, she noted – lots of open sky and feathery trees. Tomorrow it would be disassembled, ready to be made again. There was no additional picture, which added a certain piquancy to the challenge. One had to rely on memory and patience – something not all members of the family possessed in equal measure.

She had hoped to distract herself with the picture, but her mind inevitably drifted back to Ned St Cyr. He was two years older than Charles, which would make him seventy now. Three-score years and ten, she thought.