Murder Most Royal

‘“This my hand will rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine”,’ he quoted.

‘Spot on, ma’am. I did it at school. I was Duncan, but I never forgot the boy who played Macbeth talking about washing his hands of blood. It was chilling, even in a sixth-form production. As you mention, Hugh must have disposed of the bag under the noses of his children. I think Flora might have suspected something.’

‘She was always keen, in interviews, to support whatever alibi her father or brother gave. She was out in the boat with them that day, so when the hand washed up she could have put two and two together and realised one of them was probably guilty.

Presumably she thought it was Valentine, who was younger and fitter, and in London.’

‘And yet, she knew both of them very well,’ the Queen said. ‘She might equally have suspected her father’s hidden depths.’

‘I’m not going to pursue it. She has enough to deal with now. She said she thinks her father was thinking of her when he headed for that high fence. He knew what we’d find.

He wanted to spare her a trial and all the scandal. That must be very difficult to live with.’

‘I wonder,’ the Queen said. Sitting on his high horse, however much he ranted and raved about his children, Hugh had still been thinking of himself. His lust for vengeance had been as strong as ever. She had always thought of him as the mature cousin of the two, but it was really Ned who was more settled in the end. Hugh was stuck in the past and Ned was thinking of the future.

Now Flora had to live with the consequences. She must see how the poor girl was getting on.

She thanked Bloomfield and his expansive team for all their work on the case.

‘We got there in the end, ma’am,’ he said happily. ‘I’m not sure we’d have looked in the moat without the help of the industrious Mr Knight. Thank goodness for the hard work of the British media, eh, ma’am?’

‘Absolutely,’ the Queen agreed. ‘What would we do without them?’

‘What will you do?’ the Queen asked.

Flora shoved her hands in her pockets and looked towards the statue of Estimate.

It was another blue winter’s day, cloudless, with a low sun that cast long shadows.

‘Carry on,’ she said. ‘I don’t really have much of a choice. And I don’t want one.’ She squinted up at the sky. ‘The girls will do brilliant things with Ladybridge one day. I can see them making something extraordinary out of it for the twenty-second century. It’s got this far – I just need to keep it going.