Murder Most Royal

Moira Westover stood at the doorway to her home just outside the Pensthorpe Natural Park and watched the Queen’s cars draw up through narrowed eyes. This was not the reception the Queen was used to. Normally, her hosts were in their Sunday best and their faces were tight with excessive smiling. Moira wore a padded gilet over narrow jeans tucked into well-worn Dubarry boots. Her mouth was a set line, her expression wary.

But then, this visit was an unusual one. Lady Caroline had checked that Moira would be at home, but stressed that the conversation would be brief, private and informal.

The Queen really didn’t want to sit through a very long tea, or several earwigging friends and relations. Moira had taken her at her word, it seemed. Unlike her daughter, she had made no visible effort at all.

The two-storey house, with its elegant Georgian windows, was surrounded by a garden big enough to house a swimming pool and a grass tennis court, next to paddocks where half a dozen horses grazed. This was where Astrid had grown up, the fourth and youngest child of Moira and David who, in his lifetime, was known as one of the best shots, and most prolific alcoholics, in the county.

The Queen had known an alcoholic or two in her lifetime, and knew that their loved ones had to learn to be self-reliant. They were used to being lied to by people they should trust, which perhaps explained the suspicion in Moira’s eyes today. The Queen knew Moira from the Pony Club circuit, where she had ridden with Anne. As an adult, she had accompanied her husband on various Sandringham shooting parties – but it was hardly enough to explain why the reigning monarch would want to drop in on her at twenty-four hours’ notice. The Queen knew she had some explaining to do.

‘Is there something you need to tell me?’ Moira asked urgently, as they sat awkwardly opposite each other in the pristine silk-swagged sitting room. Her taut face and ramrod spine radiated tension.

‘Not exactly,’ the Queen said.

‘But I think there might be something you can tell me.’

Moira looked puzzled. ‘I’ll try.’

‘What did you think I’d come to say?’

‘It had to be something about Ned,’ Moira responded. ‘I thought that . . . After you were kind enough to talk to Astrid . . . I thought the police had told you something truly dark about Ned. What’s happened to him, I mean. And you were telling me so I could tell my daughter.’

‘Oh, thank goodness.’ Moira recovered herself.