Murder Most Royal

She waited for a while, listening to the sound of a dog enthusiastically barking, until eventually the door was opened.

‘Hello!’ the occupant said.

‘Hello, Katie.’ Rozie grinned.

The other woman’s cropped auburn hair framed a wide, freckled face and clear, clever eyes behind stylish glasses. She was a few years older than Rozie and dressed for leisure in yoga pants and a red jumper featuring white sheep that looked like something Princess Diana might have worn. The dog leaping up behind her was a young dachshund, glossy and keen.

‘So it’s happened,’ she said, standing aside to let Rozie in.

‘Yeah.’ Rozie nodded and walked inside.

The last time they met, Katie had been handing over the role of assistant private secretary to Rozie. After that, she had dropped off the radar. This was unusual for the Royal household, where people tended to stay in touch unless there had been some sort of scandal. There had been mutterings about Katie ‘dropping the ball’ among some members of the household, but nothing major.

According to Sir Simon she had had ‘a few mental health problems’, but he hadn’t gone into detail and Rozie had had too many other things going on to pay much attention. Until this morning, when the Boss had mentioned her out of the blue.

‘So, Boss thinks the killer’s in Dersingham?’

By now they were standing in the cottage’s little kitchen. Katie was pouring boiling water onto a fragrant selection of oriental leaves in a glass teapot while Rozie finished outlining the Queen’s concerns.

It was Katie’s predecessor, Aileen Jaggard, who had initiated Rozie into the secret club that all APSs, past and present, belonged to. It transpired that they were the only people the Queen trusted to help her with her little sideline in ‘problem-solving’, as she liked to put it – or successfully investigating crimes, as Rozie had subsequently discovered.

‘And it’s to do with pigeons?’

‘Or drugs, or both,’ Rozie said. ‘She’s keeping all options open at the moment.

It may be nothing.’

‘It’s not usually nothing,’ Katie muttered.

‘Did you help her a lot?’ Rozie asked. ‘This way, I mean.’

Katie reached into a cupboard and took a couple of delicate, handmade porcelain teacups from a shelf, arranging them carefully on the tray beside the pot. ‘Once or twice,’ she acknowledged. ‘But never murder. How about you?’

‘A couple of times last year. Not that you’d know the Boss did anything. One man got knighted. Another got a medal.