‘Are you and Scottie well concealed?’ he asked.

  ‘We are, sir,’ he replied, then immediately regretted it. If they could have blasted the bastards to pieces, which they could have done with their combined firepower, they could have been back at base in an hour for a shit, a shower and some decent grub. And kip.

  ‘Hold station. I don’t want you to reveal your presence.’

  Jon Smoke was to reflect, as he stalked the corridors of Buckingham Palace all these years later, on the impact that brief radio comms, which he shared with Scottie, was to have on his life.

  When, fifteen minutes later, as both snipers held their breath, and the Taliban marched directly beneath them, Jon heard a loud crack. Then a yell. Followed by a yelp of pain.

  Then a lot of shouting in a language he did not understand.

  And despite the now poor light, he could see what had happened. He had a ringside view he would never want again for the rest of his life. One of the key branches Scottie had been perched on had broken and he’d plummeted to the ground. Straight into the middle of nearer fifteen – not ten – ragbag and angry enemy soldiers.

  At first they began yelling at his colleague, and that was sort of understandable, sort of fine. And grabbing poor, helpless Scottie’s weapons, that was understandable too.

  But not what happened next.

  37

  Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2007

  Smoke could not see clearly but he could hear, louder than he had ever wanted to, screams of terror and agonizing pain. Then more screaming. Then he heard his name, howled in desperation. ‘Jon! Jon!’

  Jesus Christ.

  He reached for his semi-automatic and pointed down. But between the leaves obscuring his view and the dark and the sea of people beneath him he couldn’t tell where Scottie was exactly and did not dare fire for fear of hitting him.

  Then he heard the worst, most ear-piercing scream he had ever heard in his life. It was a scream that rose from the very pit of hell.

  And a desperate cry again. ‘Jon! Jon!’ But weaker this time.

  Immediately followed by another scream that was even worse.

  Smoke felt physically sick. He just wanted to fire. To shoot every bastard, but still he did not dare and then –

  ‘Ahhh a hahhhhhhh – a hahhhhhhh! No – NO! NO! NO! PLEEEEASE. JONNNNNN!’

  A final terrible shriek.

  Then silence.

  A moment of utter silence that was even more terrible than the screams. It was followed by shouting in the same language he did not understand, but which sounded like a command. Then the ragbag platoon moved on, towards his base. And he couldn’t contain himself any more. He clamped on the night scope, set the switch to automatic and took aim.

  Squeezed the trigger.

  And mowed every one of them down before any had the chance to return fire. He kept on shooting, methodically, until every damned one of them was on the ground.

  Then he climbed down from his tree, and as soon as his boots hit the sand he sank into a crouch, pulling out his Glock. He saw several people moving, writhing, and heard moans of pain. Removing the night scope from his rifle, he raised it to his eyes, checking no one was aiming a gun at him. Then he looked for Scottie. And saw his motionless body.

  ‘Fucking bastards,’ he murmured, very deeply shocked and upset. Then, still crouching, he moved forward. He passed three dead Taliban. Then one who was still moving. He put a bullet in the back of his head and he stopped moving. Smoke had three magazines for the Glock, each holding seventeen bullets. He used thirty-six bullets. Not one of the group was moving now.

  Finally, he stood upright and walked back to Scottie’s body. And fought back the bile that rose in his throat, shaking his head, and also fighting back tears at the sight of the remains of his friend.

  They had poked his eyes out, then cut him open down his midriff and pulled out his entrails in some weird replication of the old British method of hanging, drawing and quartering traitors and other miscreants.

  His blood was boiling.

  Then he went to Scottie and, somehow, after hauling him onto his back, managed to carry this deadweight 3 miles to Camp Bastion, keeping up his own morale by shouting out, constantly, ‘Scottie, I’m bringing you home. I’m bringing you to your pregnant fiancée! Hang on in there, just hang on in there!’

  Although of course he knew his buddy was dead.

  He’d never expected a hero’s welcome when he finally arrived back, shattered, at Camp Bastion. His commanding officer, Jason Finch, had been very supportive on his arrival. But not so Colonel Roland Miles, who accused him of deserting his post, and threatened him with a court martial. It was Jason Finch, in overall command of the division, who had intervened and prevented any further action.

  Neither Smoke nor Finch had ever received recognition for their service during this time. Jon Smoke, thanks to Finch’s intervention, had avoided a court martial. But, he was aware, it had cost Finch to do so. He had been grateful to him since. On leaving the Army he had joined the Metropolitan Police and then a few years later he had been very pleasantly surprised to be contacted by the now knighted Sir Jason Finch, recently appointed Keeper of the Privy Purse, and offered a coveted position on Her Majesty’s Royal Protection team.

  The colonel who had wanted him court-martialled had been killed a few months later in a helicopter crash in Helmand Province – shot down by a Taliban surface-to-air missile.

  As Sun Tzu said in The Art of War: ‘If you stand by the river bank for long enough, the bodies of all your enemies will float past.’

  Jon Smoke lived by that quote. Although sometimes your enemies needed a helping hand on their way.

  38

  Wednesday 22 November 2023

  ‘And this is The King’s current pride and joy!’ Sir Tommy Magellan-Lacey announced, with a flourish.

  The Master of the Royal Household was escorting Roy Grace from his meeting with The King to Sir Peregrine Greaves’ widow. Polly Sweeney was due to meet him at the entrance to the St James’s Palace apartment the Greaveses had shared until his untimely death on Monday. But the Master, clearly devoted to his two bosses but also passionate about this royal palace he was in charge of renovating, seemed keen to take the opportunity to give Grace a little bit of a tour en route.

  They were in the garden outside the North Wing, directly beneath the royal apartments. In front of them were two majestic plane trees, which Tommy had just told him were called Albert and Victoria. They had been planted soon after Queen Victoria had acceded to the throne and had witnessed so much, Grace thought. He loved ancient trees, and sometimes wondered if they weren’t a lot more intelligent than we gave them credit for.

  Magellan-Lacey was pointing at what looked like a very large and enclosed Japanese-style gazebo adjoining the outside wall of the wing. Looking closer, Grace saw it was a very cleverly disguised dark green cylinder, ten feet tall and about the same across. It had a small side window, that was more of a porthole, a door in a rivetted panel that looked like it belonged on a submarine, and pipework running out of the side and in through the Palace wall. Just beyond it was a skip, smartly painted in a matching dark green, which was stuffed full of branches of vegetation, leaves and other plants and dead flowers.

  ‘This is part of His Majesty’s plan for a sustainable future,’ he said, continuing in his hushed voice and boyish enthusiasm. ‘An anaerobic digester!’ He walked over to it and gestured proudly.

  Grace frowned. ‘What is that?’

  ‘A bit more than it says on the tin, actually.’

  Grace followed him over to it. Through the porthole he could see a bubbling mass of glutinous gunk.

  ‘All the household waste goes into here, some piped and some by hand, where it is compressed. It is highly corrosive and alive with bacteria. This breaks down all organic material and releases methane for burning to heat up the Palace boilers. Very smart.’

  ‘Extremely,’ Grace said, looking at the gunk inside.

  The Master then explained. ‘There are five departments within the Royal Household, all based in this palace. One thousand, two hundred and fifty staff. The King hates any kind of waste, so he designed this, for food, garden, and horse waste.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Grace said. But all the time, much though he was loving this tour, he kept his focus on the job. On the grim and incredibly responsible reason that he – and many of the key members of his team – were all here.

  As Magellan-Lacey steered Grace back indoors, and again led him along the labyrinth of corridors to his office, he asked, ‘Is there anything else you can tell me, Detective Superintendent? I know you chaps always have to keep everything close to your vest, so it’s Chatham House Rules in here – anything you tell me goes no further.’

  ‘Understood,’ Grace replied. ‘Very confidentially, what we have to work on so far is that a local resident, name of Sarah, who was walking her dog, was startled by a motorbike roaring past her, at a time we’ve calculated was around ten minutes after the shooting.’

  ‘A reliable witness would you say, Detective Superintendent?’

  He smiled thinly. ‘It’s normally bodies that dog walkers discover – this is a rare bonus to get one who is a witness to an actual suspect.’

  ‘Could she identify him?’ the Master asked.

  ‘Well, what I know so far is she did manage to remember part of the licence number – just one digit – and she will be interviewed by an Advanced Interviewer to see if she can remember any more – and, in particular, the man’s features. We are also running a check on all the ANPR cameras in the area to see what, if anything, they have picked up.’

  ‘ANPR – Automatic Number-Plate Recognition?’ Magellan-Lacey asked.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘You have a lot of those cameras?’

  ‘They cover all main arteries, but not the back lanes. If this was a professional hit targeting Sir Peregrine Greaves, as we suspect, and it was the shooter on the motorbike, he may well have taken a country route. But at some point he may have gone on a main road and been picked up by a camera. We’ve done a plot of all the main roads he might have ended up on, and the estimated times, and are collating information from all the cameras. Another key line of enquiry we’re following at this time is the information from the ballistics expert who is advising us, as you already know. If he is correct in his hypothesis, he believes the shooter was a trained military sniper.’

  ‘Interesting – what does he base that on?’

  ‘The bullet type – from the fragments assembled so far – appears to be a .338 Lap Mag with a ballistic tip. That is standard British Army issue for the L115A3 sniper rifle, I think it is, that was in use in Afghanistan. He thinks it is possible the shooter was a veteran of the war in Afghanistan.’

  The Master of the Royal Household looked at him levelly. ‘Detective Superintendent, you have quite a reputation for solving homicides. Do you get gut feelings when you are on a case?’

  Grace shrugged. ‘Sometimes. Not always.’

  He nodded. ‘Do you have one on this case?’

  Grace thought carefully before responding. ‘As I’ve already told you, sir, I do not think Her Majesty was the target. My hypothesis is that the offender either had a grudge against Sir Peregrine Greaves, or that he wanted to send a message – some kind of very warped message – to Their Majesties.’

  ‘Can you elaborate?’

  ‘I wish I could, but at this stage, I can’t. It’s certainly not a priority.’

  Two floors and one corridor away, Jon Smoke was listening to every word.

  I wish I could, but at this stage, I can’t.

  Since his time in Afghanistan, Smoke rarely smiled. But what he heard now made him smile. For the first time in a long time. This idiot detective was in thrall to the Royal Palace and to the royals themselves. Just like everyone who came here.

  He might need eliminating. He’d be one of his team’s easier targets.

  Much easier than Sir Peregrine had been.

  39

  Wednesday 22 November 2023

  Polly Sweeney was a smartly dressed and very personable colleague in her early fifties. She was chatting to the two Royal Protection Officers by the security barrier at the entrance to the St James’s Palace complex, as Roy Grace and Sir Tommy Magellan-Lacey approached.

  After she’d shown her ID and received a pass, the three of them walked past Sir Tommy’s residence, then made a left turn through an archway and into an inner courtyard, with a green and white sign on the wall: AMBASSADORS’ COURT.

  Discreetly, continuing in his temporary role as tour guide, the Master of the Royal Household pointed out the buildings where other royals had their London residences. Walking further along the courtyard he stopped at an imposing front door in the equally imposing ancient red-brick building and rang the bell.

  There was a burst of deep barking from the other side of the door, followed by a stern but faint command to sit that instantly quietened it. The door was opened a few moments later by a tall and clearly very distressed woman in her mid-fifties, flanked by two shiny-coated black Labradors, now sitting obediently. Her tear-stained face lit up a fraction as she saw Sir Tommy but immediately turned to a frown as she clocked Grace and Sweeney.

  ‘Margot, Lady Greaves,’ Magellan-Lacey said gently. ‘May I introduce Detective Superintendent Roy Grace and Polly Sweeney, from the Surrey and Sussex Major Crime Team.’

  ‘Yes, ah, yes, you told me about them coming.’ A handsome woman, her grey hair coiffed in a conservative but understated style, she was wearing a dark dress with a white ruff collar and black suede pumps. ‘Good morning, officers,’ she said in a voice that might, under other circumstances, have been commanding, but now sounded broken, and as bewildered as she looked.

  Grace felt for her. On Monday morning her husband had set off for work, as normal. A few hours later he was on a mortuary table, with his head blown to smithereens, awaiting a post-mortem. It didn’t matter whether you led a gilded life in a palace or struggled to make ends meet in a council dwelling, grief was a leveller. It stripped away all the trappings you’d ever surrounded yourself with.

  ‘Do please come in,’ she said, holding the door with one hand and signalling to the dogs to stay still with the other.

  The apartment, Grace noticed immediately, was very different in feel to the warm family farmhouse atmosphere of Sir Tommy’s residence. This was more formal, more structured. Grand paintings were hung on the walls. The bust of a man he recognized as the late Sir Peregrine stood on a columned plinth. She led them through into a grand drawing room, clearly designed and decorated to impress. It was hung with fine paintings, several of them Venetian scenes. In one corner was an antique roll-top desk, the lid shut, with a matching chair. ‘May I offer you tea or coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘We are fine, thank you, Lady Greaves,’ Grace said as the two dogs now sniffed at his trousers, no doubt picking up on his own dogs’ scent, he thought. ‘And may I say how very sorry I am for your loss.’

  ‘You may,’ she said glumly. ‘But probably not as sorry as I am. I trust you are going to tell me who murdered my husband and what you are doing to catch them?’

  Grace and Sweeney sat on one large sofa, facing Lady Greaves and Sir Tommy across a glass-topped coffee table that doubled as a display cabinet, filled with what looked like regimental badges.

  ‘If I can take one crumb of comfort from this nightmare,’ Lady Greaves continued, ‘it’s the knowledge that my husband at least saved the life of our Queen.’ She looked down, her voice cracking now, tears rolling down her face. The two dogs sat either side of her, as if sensing her distress. She stroked both of them, light sparkling off the stones on a large ring on her finger, and said, ‘What’s that thing they say about “taking one for the team”?’ She looked at Grace then Sweeney, shaking her head slightly. ‘That’s the only thing getting me through this right now. The knowledge that my husband saved The Queen’s life. Thanks to a gunman who didn’t have a bloody clue how to shoot.’

  Grace exchanged an awkward glance with his colleague. Then he caught the Master’s eye, before speaking. ‘Lady Greaves, firstly may I offer you my very deepest sympathy. My colleagues and I can only begin to imagine what you and your family must be going through,’ he said. Phrases he had used on far too many tragic occasions in the past. Sometimes the simple words helped break the ice, but not today.

  ‘Really?’ she retorted. ‘In which case, you must all have very vivid imaginations.’

  Grace thought carefully for some moments, then asked, as gently as he could, ‘This is a difficult question, Lady Greaves, but is it possible your husband might have had any enemies?’

  She jerked upright, as if she had just been plugged into an electrical socket and switched on. ‘Enemies? He was very much liked by both The King and The Queen. Everyone who met him adored him and held him in high esteem. He wouldn’t have held such an elevated position in the Royal Household if he had enemies.’ She sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a tiny handkerchief she pulled from her sleeve.

  Grace opened his arms in a pacifying gesture. ‘Lady Greaves, at this stage we have a completely open mind on the circumstances around your husband’s death. But we have to eliminate everything we can from our enquiries. One possibility is that it was your husband who was the target and not The Queen.’

  ‘How ridiculous!’ she replied, her face suddenly reddening. ‘How do you come to such a conclusion?’

  ‘It’s a hypothesis, ma’am. As I said, we need to rule out all possible alternatives. This may be hard for you to accept, but from the evidence we have to date, there is a good possibility that your husband may have been the intended target and not Her Majesty.’

  She was silent, gathering her thoughts, then burst out, ‘This is nonsense, surely, Tommy?’ She gazed across at the Master, looking really upset.