Murder Most Royal

She didn’t want to, but she was so astonished that she was trying to make sense of the woman in front of her.

Moira stopped mid-sentence as she caught the Queen’s eye.

There was a long pause. The Queen remembered a young ambassador’s wife who hosted her on a tour not long into her reign. On the first evening of that visit to a distant country, the Queen had caught her hostess’s eye in the mirror, after the smiles and chatter of a convivial evening, while the men were drinking port and the servants were busy and the two women were replenishing their lipstick together.

She wasn’t sure what she saw in those eyes, but she had asked if there was something wrong and, after a silence that seemed to last a lifetime, the woman had admitted, calmly and quietly that a senior politician had raped her in that very house two nights before.

She continued to apply her lipstick while she spoke. Her hand trembled, but she was careful. The Queen listened mutely while she described in brisk, bright tones, the attack that had happened in that very room.

The act had been over in less than five minutes, she said.

‘I was so absolutely . . . How could he . . .? I couldn’t understand it. My muscles wouldn’t move. Not to speak, protest . . . anything. And so I let it happen. I thought if I didn’t – I still think so – that I would die. Silly, isn’t it? Surely he wouldn’t have killed me here, in my house? And yet . . .’ She looked into the mirror, but neither at herself nor the Queen, who was watching her reflection ‘.

 . . I watched from far, far away, as if I wasn’t here at all. I thought, when he’d finished, I’d come back to myself, but . . .’ She took a tissue from a box, carefully blotted her lips and fixed on a smile. ‘When it was over, I adjusted my petticoat and carried on with my cocktail party, because, what else could I do?’ She had since hosted a magnificent dinner party which was the talk of the town.

‘Don’t tell anyone, will you?’ she had implored the Queen.

‘I only told you because . . . I don’t know why I told you. I’m so sorry. I just . . . I needed to . . . But I don’t want . . . Anyway, I’m much better now.’

One minute, her hostess looked as if she would crumble at a touch, and the next, when a maid knocked on the door to see if they needed anything, she was a model of brisk efficiency. ‘Keep calm and carry on!’ she’d concluded, with that brittle smile.