Which is that we have a group of conspirators – let’s call them thieves, for that is what they are – who are taking advantage of the temporary disruptions to normal procedures caused by the renovation works currently being carried out at Buckingham Palace.

  My source has discovered they are stealing high-value items belonging to the Royal Collection, which have been housed in the Palace. These items include ornaments, sculptures, paintings, small but rare pieces of furniture, and significant jewellery. An item on the target list is a priceless diamond of great historical significance from a collection known as “Granny’s Personal Chips”. My source told me they are planning to replace it with a fake that would be undetectable to the naked eye.

  I cannot conclude for certain from this one instance that what my source tells me is correct. The “Granny’s Personal Chips” diamonds have been around for more than eighty years and the theft and switch could possibly have happened a very long time ago. So in the meantime I have continued to make my own very discreet enquiries with people in whom I have absolute trust, across the divisions of the Royal Household.

  If you are deciphering this, it can mean only one thing, which is that The Hawk is dead. Maybe from natural causes, but more likely he has been killed in order to silence him by the very people he is in the middle of trying to investigate. Which would mean they are even more dangerous than I have realized.

  And which would make The Hawk a whistle-blower from beyond the grave.’

  ‘Hawk?’ Norman Potting interrupted. ‘Who’s The Hawk? A cryptic clue?’

  ‘Sir Peregrine himself?’ Grace suggested. ‘There’s a peregrine falcon – that’s a kind of hawk, isn’t it? You’re the one who grew up on a farm, Norman! What do you think?’

  Potting nodded. ‘People often see them as the same, but falcons are smaller than hawks. In North America falcons get nicknamed “duck hawks”, so it could be cryptic, I suppose.’

  Grace picked up his phone. ‘I know the person to ask.’ He started the call and moments later the Master of the Royal Household answered.

  ‘Sir Tommy, I’m sorry to bother you.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Magellan-Lacey replied breezily. ‘How are you doing? Have you got some good news? Close to an arrest?’

  ‘We’re making progress,’ Grace replied.

  ‘Good, splendid, super!’

  ‘Just a very quick question, hopefully: is anyone in the Royal Household nicknamed The Hawk?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Yes, absolutely, poor Perry – Sir Peregrine.’

  ‘That was his nickname?’

  ‘Indeed. Peregrine falcon – often mistaken for a hawk. He picked up the moniker while on secondment in Washington, DC. It was sort of behind his back, but he knew about it and I think secretly he actually rather liked it. Even HMTK and HMQ sometimes referred to him as that, affectionately.’

  Grace thanked him and ended the call. Making sure the line was disconnected, he returned to the decoded text:

  ‘So why is this written in code, I hear you ask?

  Well, my source is an employee whom I have become fond of and with whom I have had occasional meetings in private, which I should not have agreed to. I hope that my dear wife, Margot, can be shielded from this particular detail, as she has no idea of my proclivities. My feelings for this person never meant I did not love Margot and our children as much as any husband and father could.

  Ordinarily, I would never have disclosed any of this, but this is not an ordinary situation. I’m getting close to having sufficient evidence to expose it, and I’m fully aware that in doing so it will have massive repercussions within the Royal Household, which I have faithfully served for many years.

  And, in particular, I want to expose the ringleader of this sordid little group. Someone who is high up in Royal Service, whom I have respected for very many years, and who I know is valued and trusted by both His Majesty King Charles and Her Majesty Queen Camilla.

  My source has given me this person’s name, but I’m frightened to reveal it, in case I am pointing a finger at the wrong person – and I would hate to destroy their career through a false accusation. So what I am doing is making all the discreet enquiries I can to establish beyond reasonable doubt – as a jury is required to do in a court of law – that my source has the right person.’

  Grace paused and looked around at his team. ‘Does anyone have any comments at this stage?’

  Jack Alexander spoke. ‘Boss, surely a lot of these items in the Royal Collection are extremely well known, how on earth could buyers have been found for them? I mean, it’s just not feasible?’

  Grace took great pleasure in replying. ‘I think you’ll find your answer in a moment.’

  Alexander looked nonplussed. Grace read on:

  ‘I told my source that surely the thieves would have problems in disposing of a number of the items because they are so well known. But he informed me that many valuable works have been sold via the so-called “dark web”, making the transactions virtually untraceable, with them mostly going to unscrupulous collectors in Eastern Europe and Asia. Additionally, some pieces are melted down and sold for the value of their precious metals. And stones, such as diamonds, are re-cut to alter their identity completely. Utter sacrilege to our heritage! They must be stopped!’

  Grace looked at Jack. ‘Does that answer your question?’

  He received a nod.

  Norman Potting raised a hand. ‘Chief, do you have any sense of who this person high up in Royal Service might be?’

  ‘I don’t, Norman, no. Not yet.’

  DS Alexander raised a hand again. ‘Boss, the footman I interviewed on Thursday, Geoffrey Bailey, may fit the description of “the source” in the diary, especially if Sir Peregrine wanted to keep their relationship a secret.’

  ‘He does,’ Grace acknowledged. ‘You and Polly are interviewing him formally – has a time been arranged?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Polly Sweeney interjected. ‘Tomorrow at 3 p.m.’

  ‘Good.’ Then he addressed the entire team. ‘OK, I appreciate you all being here on a Sunday. I’m sure there’ll be a lot of vicars and priests unhappy not to see some of you in their churches today.’

  There was a ripple of laughter.

  ‘There’s something further that Denton Scroope has found and as yet has not been able to decode. Five groups of letters. He doesn’t know their meaning but he believes they are very significant. They are as follows:

  R I S K K

  E J N W

  R S Z K Y Z N K Z K S

  N X W K X Z X W K X

  And the final one: J F K Y.’

  Grace looked at each of his inner circle. ‘Any clues, anyone?’

  ‘Above my pay grade, chief,’ Norman Potting grumbled in his rural burr.

  ‘Well, there’s your homework, everyone!’

  He turned to Branson. ‘Glenn, stay on, I need a word.’

  58

  Sunday 26 November 2023

  In his office, minutes after the briefing had ended, Roy Grace sat with his back to the less-than-glorious view of the upper car park.

  ‘I can’t reiterate enough, keeping confidential what you’ve just heard. We can’t have any of this getting out,’ Roy said.

  ‘What the fuck, man?’ Branson exploded.

  ‘Glenn, we’re at work. You call me sir, or boss. Understand?’ Grace chided him, more harshly than he’d intended. Grace’s voice was so uncharacteristically imperious, it startled Branson into compliance.

  Branson shook his head.

  ‘What’s this all about?’

  Facing him across the desk, Grace said, ‘You know exactly what this is about.’

  Early in their relationship, Grace had concerns about Glenn Branson marrying the senior crime reporter of the local newspaper, the Argus. His concerns were as much for his friend’s future promotion chances within the police as they were about the risk of leaks. Since the couple had started dating, there had been far too many confidential stories appearing in the paper about cases the Major Crime Team had been working on.

  ‘She knows the importance of this case, Roy – sorry – SIR.’

  Grace smiled at Branson’s exaggerated deference. ‘Walls have ears, mate.’

  ‘Siobhan’s zipped,’ he assured him. ‘Proper zipped.’ He mimed the motion across his lips.

  Grace nodded. ‘I just know how it is. Sandy used to get mad at me for not telling her about stuff that was going on – really mad – and she’d try every trick in the book to coerce information out of me. But there’s nothing in the marriage vows – well at least in the Anglican ones – that says you have to share secrets. Worldly goods, maybe. And with Sandy it was just pure curiosity, she wasn’t after information from me to advance her career.’

  ‘And you’re saying Siobhan is? SIR?’ Branson said, tightly, still clearly mad at him.

  ‘We both know how much Siobhan’s job means to her. You know damn well in the past she’s inveigled information from you. Right?’ He stared at the DI pointedly.

  Branson had the good grace to lower his eyes and nod. He remembered. Two incidents when he and Siobhan had been dating, one of which got him perilously close to being investigated by Professional Standards – and it was only Roy Grace’s intervention that calmed that situation. And then another instance when a key piece of information about a crime scene had appeared in the Argus. Grace had deliberately withheld it from becoming public knowledge, to help them weed out the numerous timewasters who delighted in calling the Incident Room on any major crime investigation with their crackpot theories.

  ‘Glenn,’ Grace said, softening his tone. ‘I’m not having a go at you and I know you’ve laid the ground rules down with Siobhan – and that she is a person of integrity – but maybe I’m just being paranoid.’ He smiled. ‘OK?’

  Branson nodded. ‘OK.’

  ‘The stakes have rarely been higher. Any newspaper would kill for a scoop on this investigation, and it would blast their circulation into orbit – for a day or two anyway.’ He smiled more widely. ‘Enough said. I’ve something I want to discuss with you privately, away from the team – a thought I want to run by you.’

  ‘Is it about what I told you about Siobhan wanting to get a pet? You’re going to suggest me and her get a tortoise?’

  ‘No, you’re both too quick off the mark.’ He winked. ‘And anyhow, with the baby on the way, perhaps that’s enough to be getting on with for now?’

  ‘Yeah, it sure is,’ he said, smiling.

  Grace leaned forward, placing his elbows on his cluttered desk and interlocking his fingers. ‘If what Greaves says in his diary is correct and, acting on it, we go blundering into Buckingham Palace asking questions about missing artwork and other valuables, we are just going to drive these conspirators – thieves – underground—’ Then he stopped abruptly. ‘Shit!’

  Branson frowned.

  ‘I’ve just realized something. Last Wednesday, when The Queen was giving me a tour, en route to The King’s office—’

  Branson raised an interrupting hand. ‘Sorry, boss. “When The Queen was giving me a tour, en route to The King’s office . . .”’ He grinned. ‘I don’t imagine that’s a line many SIOs ever get to say in their careers. And it just rolled off your tongue so naturally.’

  Grace returned the grin.

  ‘Just make sure that goes into your Policy Book – for posterity.’

  ‘I’ll make sure, Glenn.’ He emphasized this by pointing his index finger upwards. ‘OK, so The Queen wanted to show me one of her favourite and most valuable paintings in the Royal Collection, a Vermeer that was hung on a wall in the Picture Gallery, I think that room was called. But the Vermeer wasn’t there, there was another – apparently much lesser – painting in its place. She seemed surprised – actually more annoyed than surprised – and she then explained that the Royal Collection team were often moving works of art about or taking them to be cleaned. So I didn’t think any more of it – until now.’

  ‘Now you’re wondering if it might have been nicked?’

  ‘Yes. I’m thinking we need to make discreet enquiries as to its whereabouts. There might be a perfectly innocent explanation – as Her Majesty . . . implied.’ He paused for a moment. ‘But what I wanted to discuss with you, privately away from the team, is an idea I’ve had for a line of enquiry that might help in avoiding alerting too many people in the Royal Household to our suspicions. If it succeeds, it might also help recover at least some of the stolen items.’

  Branson looked at him. ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘OK, if Denton Scroope has accurately deciphered Greaves’ diary – and I believe he has so far – then we have a group – ring – of trusted people in the employ of the Royal Household who are stealing from their employers, and selling the valuable items through contacts made in the dark web. Would you agree?’

  ‘If Scroope’s deciphering is correct, then yes, boss.’

  ‘He still has to decipher one more page that consists of five seemingly cryptic entries that might be connected to the group. He thinks they may give us either names, locations or a list of objects. And meantime we need to be looking hard at the dark web. My thinking is we need someone to carry out a deep dive into the dark web, firstly to see what dealers or dealings they can find for the kind of works being stolen from the Palace. Also, and I think this will prove harder, to see if they can find any evidence trail of transactions involving stolen Royal Collection works.’

  Branson nodded. ‘That makes a lot of sense.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘Are you going tell Magellan-Lacey what we’ve learned from the diary – and our next plan of action?’

  ‘I’ve asked him to let me have a list of everyone who could be considered high up in Royal Service and anyone – in any of the five Royal Household departments – who might have reason to be disgruntled. I’ve not yet heard back. I’ve a meeting scheduled with him tomorrow so he can update both The King and The Queen, but I’ve not decided yet what to tell him. I’m not sure I want to take the risk, however helpful he is, of us losing the advantage we currently have from what we’ve got from the diary. At the moment we have control and I want to keep it that way.’

  ‘That’s good thinking.’

  ‘But I have a further idea. What if we could have someone create a false identity, setting themselves up as a dealer who is acting for a wealthy overseas collector – an oligarch or some such – looking for highly unique items around the world that have some kind of historical provenance.’

  ‘Entrapment – is that what you are saying?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’

  ‘We can’t do that. The police setting up a sting? That wouldn’t play well in a court of law. It rarely does.’

  ‘It doesn’t – which is why we need a person who’s not connected to us in any way, and ideally someone who’s been involved in criminal activity on the dark web and would know their way around. The dark web isn’t just one layer below the normal web everyone uses for legitimate purposes – it’s multiple layers, which is why one of the networks to access it is called The Onion Router, because it’s like peeling back the layers of an onion. We can be pretty sure these thieves are smart enough to have their sales activity buried very deep down in the dark web – unlike that idiot footman Sir Tommy told us about who was nicking stuff and flogging it on eBay.’

  ‘Including one of his own medals.’

  ‘I think he was more pissed off about that than anything,’ Grace said.

  ‘Yeah.’ Glenn Branson frowned. ‘Do you have someone in mind? Someone not connected to us in any way.’

  Grace looked deadly serious. ‘I do. Someone we nicked last year. I did a pretty good job behind the scenes, talking to the CPS and the judge, in getting her the minimum sentence possible. She knows her way around the dark web like nobody does. And she owes me a big favour – although she might not see it that way.’

  ‘Are you talking about a certain Shannon Kendall?’

  A year ago, Shannon Kendall, a computer expert with a background in cybersecurity and an authority on the dark web, had been the lover of a killer for hire, for whom she ran a business selling handguns on the internet. Grace and Branson had secured her arrest and conviction for the firearms offences.

  ‘I am indeed talking about a certain Shannon Kendall. She’s currently enjoying His Majesty’s hospitality in HMP Downview – just an hour’s drive from here – so surely she’d be only too happy to reciprocate some of that hospitality in helping avoid any more theft of The King’s valuables?’

  Branson cocked his head. ‘I’m thinking, good luck with that one.’

  ‘Got a better idea?’

  ‘Nope, not right at this moment.’

  59

  Monday 27 November 2023

  One of Arthur Lambourne’s colleagues joked that an English summer consisted of three fine days followed by a thunderstorm. Not far off the mark, the elderly groundsman thought. You could apply the same to the Indian summers that used to reach into October but now seemed to extend as far as November and December. Three days and then, boom!

  He’d seen the changes in the weather pattern all right, during his fifty-five years of maintaining the Buckingham Palace lawns – his particular responsibility, and passion. Changes in pretty much everything. Who’d have thought when he entered royal service all those decades back, proud as Punch, that one day the head of the twelve-strong gardening team would be female – and a darned knowledgeable woman at that.

  A few years back when he’d first told his daughter, Nel, about the appointment of his new boss, she had responded, only partly in jest, Girl Power! Then again, of course, up until a year ago, the boss of not just the entire Palace but the entire nation had been a female too.

  He had been deeply saddened by the death of Queen Elizabeth, and had fond memories of the many times they had conversed when she was out walking across the lawn, her corgis running free. But he was enjoying very much just how keen a gardener King Charles was – his wife also. Lots of new ideas, new plans. You had to move with the times, Arthur knew, even though it often felt in the sanctuary here, behind the walls that kept the outside world at bay, that in many ways time stood still. He just wished the weather would stay still sometimes, too.