Murder Most Royal

And a cruel disregard for her life that caused her to be left there. I’ve spoken to Mr Cassidy about it.’

‘We’ll see what he does. It’s quite obvious that he’s been suffering ever since. Not enough to pay the proper price, however. Not yet, at least.’ The Queen fiddled absently with the arm of her bifocals again. ‘But that was an accident. Nothing surrounding Ned’s death was entirely accidental, by contrast. In fact, it was all meticulously planned. The third victim I’m referring to was Mr Wallace. His death was awful and avoidable.

He was only supposed to be distracted, but to drive a man to such despair . . .’

Rozie was losing track. ‘Then who is the second victim, ma’am? I thought he was.’

‘No. The second victim is Ned himself.’

Rozie frowned. ‘Then who’s the first?’

‘Lady Mundy, who died in the summer. But I’m referring to long ago. You might say, Valentine, too. His life was always going to be extremely complicated, through no fault of his own. And I’m sorry to say my friend Georgina was partly responsible.

She bred a terrible sense of entitlement into her son. Ned took it out on Lee. I won’t go into details, but Ned used Lee to try and sneak his bloodline back into the barons of Ladybridge. It was a deliberate act. The odds of it working were incredibly slim, and yet, it did. The secret was very well kept until Lee died. Then Ned met the family again and it all started to go wrong.

‘And here we come to the first inconsistency. The St Cyrs told me quite clearly that Ned had offered to go to the funeral.

Hugh was very gracious about it. And yet, Astrid Westover and her mother both said how surprised Ned had been to be invited. Did he offer, or was he asked?’

Rozie checked her notes. ‘The police certainly thought that Ned was the first one to try and end the feud.’

‘Mmm, but I disagree,’ the Queen said. ‘Astrid suggested that he was pleased to rebuild his relationships with his family. But, under the circumstances, I doubt very much that he would have made that offer unprompted.

I think he was drawn back into Ladybridge’s orbit. Somebody wanted him there. My husband was right.’

‘He said from the very beginning, it’s always the family.’

‘Of course it is. The trouble with Mr Bloomfield is that he and his investigating team have access to endless modern technology. It’s all terribly impressive, but this is an old-fashioned crime of passion. It’s the human element they needed to focus on. And the canine element, one might say.