Branson nodded, a tad dubiously.

  They were interrupted by Grace’s phone ringing. ‘Sir Tommy!’ he answered.

  The Master sounded distraught. ‘Roy, I was so worried after our call I went straight from my office down to the vault. The miniature isn’t there. I checked with Rose Cadoret, the Deputy Director of the Royal Collection. She is one of the few people who could authorize any item being moved somewhere different.’

  ‘She doesn’t know where it is? Is there anyone else who would have access to the store – apart from Lorraine McKnight of course?’ Roy quizzed.

  ‘There’s Sir Jason Finch and also there’s the Surveyor of The King’s Pictures, Robert Randall – but they are both away on annual leave at the moment.’

  ‘Conveniently?’

  ‘Yes, could be these thieves have taken the opportunity of them being absent. I’ll see if I can contact Robert Randall, but I very much doubt he would have moved it without notifying Rose. This is terrible, Roy.’ The Master sounded near distraught. ‘And I’ll inform Sir Jason Finch right away even though I believe he’s in Amsterdam with his wife. He’s back next Monday, but I know he would want to be kept updated.’

  ‘The Keeper of the Privy Purse?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Exactly. He will need to notify the Palace insurers right away. And he won’t be at all happy about this.’

  ‘Let me know if you hear anything more.’

  ‘You’re on my speed-dial.’

  82

  Tuesday 28 November 2023

  Roy Grace remained silent until they drove past the barrier at HQ. Then, suddenly animated, he turned to Branson.

  ‘OK! I have another possible hypothesis. So, Sir Peregrine Greaves, who has considerable internet skills from his background in Naval Intelligence, is the leader of a small group of Royal Household staff who are making a fortune, or planning to make a fortune, by stealing items from the Royal Collection that they think won’t be missed until all the renovations have been completed. Let’s say he’s had a falling-out with Geoffrey Bailey, who has a crush on him. Bailey, bitter at not receiving a medal from Sir Peregrine, knows what he is up to and is threatening to expose him, which would blow apart the entire scam – with dire consequences for his co-conspirators. With me so far?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘For reasons as yet unknown, Sir Peregrine is suddenly murdered by a person or persons unknown. Geoffrey Bailey is now left without the person who could have got him his medal and his deserved status. There are others in senior positions in the Royal Household who could put him forward for that coveted medal, and maybe Bailey thinks by naming the conspirators and preventing the theft of millions of pounds’ worth of items, he will be awarded the medal. The conspirators as a group, worried about this loose cannon, decide the only way to guarantee his silence is to kill him.’

  ‘But why the medal down his throat?’ Branson asked.

  ‘To humiliate him?’ Grace posited. ‘Perhaps sending a message to anyone else he might have told who might try to blackmail them? And putting him in the digester – perhaps they hoped it would decompose most of his body – which it would have done in time. Or perhaps it was symbolic? That he was just a piece of compost?’

  ‘You might be overthinking it,’ Branson said as they drove uphill across the HQ campus towards the detectives’ parking area. ‘It might have just been a convenient place to dump his body.’

  Grace smiled. ‘You could well be right. The simplest solution, and all that. I’ll leave this hypothesis off tomorrow’s press briefing.’

  ‘I think that would be smart, boss.’

  As they pulled into a space a short distance behind his office, Grace asked, ‘So, what do you make of Shannon’s work so far?’

  Branson nodded. ‘Yeah, she’s smart and she knows her way around the internet for sure. She’s worked for some pretty big internet players, including Elon Musk, as well as a company funded by MI6. Sure, she wants to please us, to justify what we’ve done to get her out of jail, but I feel she does really know what she’s doing. Evidenced by what Sir Tommy said a short while ago.’

  Grace signalled he agreed, but his expression was uneasy.

  83

  Tuesday 28 November 2023

  Moments later, Polly Sweeney rang. Grace switched to loudspeaker, and both of them listened.

  ‘Roy, I’m sitting with Lady Greaves, and I just put the question to her that you asked: whether Sir Peregrine had recently taken any refresher course in computer coding. Lady Greaves just told me that he did an intense course quite recently, which finished a few months ago. But he wouldn’t tell her why he was doing it.’

  ‘Did he give a reason he wouldn’t tell her?’ Grace and Branson frowned at each other.

  ‘Well – apparently, when she pressed him, all he would say was it was at the personal request of The King. That his boss was concerned about cyber-security and thought Sir Peregrine’s military intelligence background might be helpful in establishing a firewall layer for the Royal Household network . . . Hang on a sec, Roy, Lady Greaves is saying something.’

  They waited for a moment then heard her voice again. ‘Lady Greaves has just told me that The King had asked him how up to speed with current internet technology he was, and when he told him that he didn’t feel he was that much up to speed, The King suggested a fairly elaborate course he should enrol in – which he duly did. He had obviously researched it.’

  ‘And that was a few months ago.’

  ‘Hold on a second, sir.’ There was another pause, then Polly Sweeney came back on the line. ‘Lady Greaves says he finished the course in July.’

  ‘Please thank her,’ Grace said. ‘This is very helpful.’

  When the call ended, he turned to Branson and gave him a quizzical look.

  ‘Interesting,’ Branson said.

  ‘Very. I guess there’s one person who can verify whether Sir Peregrine was telling his wife the truth or not.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  Grace smiled.

  84

  Tuesday 28 November 2023

  Precisely 4.40 p.m. That was the time Sir Tommy had given him, suggesting he dial in a couple of minutes before, as His Majesty was somewhat a stickler for punctuality and had a particularly rammed afternoon.

  Despite all his professionalism kicking in, Roy Grace felt butterflies in his stomach, and his finger on the keypad wasn’t as steady as usual. Although King Charles had been very friendly on their last meeting, he was nervous now all the same. He’d never actually phoned The King of England before.

  The phone began ringing and a moment later he heard a female voice. ‘Good afternoon, Buckingham Palace.’

  Grace’s voice came out sounding very small, he thought. ‘Good afternoon, may I please speak to The King.’

  ‘Your name, sir?’

  ‘My name is Detective Superintendent Grace.’

  ‘Roy Grace?’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘He is expecting you. One moment please, Detective Superintendent, I’m putting you through.’

  Grace took three deep breaths. A moment later he heard The King’s now familiar voice. ‘Detective Superintendent Grace, good afternoon, I gather you wanted to speak to me. How are you?’

  ‘I’m – I’m fine, thank you, Your Majesty.’

  ‘Good. Do you have some news? Good news, I hope?’

  His voice was warm but understandably tinged with anxiety, Grace thought. The King was not only Head of State and Head of the Commonwealth, but he also carried the normal burdens of any human being. Grace remembered a former Chief of the Met Police once saying that wearing a uniform does not protect you from trauma. The same could apply to The King – he might be head of the Royal Family and have all the privileges that went with it, but he was also just a human being, extremely worried about the safety of the woman he loved.

  ‘We are making good progress, Your Majesty.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it – I hope you can make sense of this terrible tragedy – well, two terrible tragedies now.’

  ‘If I can give you any reassurance, Your Majesty, the further we get with our enquiries, the more certain I am that Her Majesty was not the intended target in this tragic shooting, and that her life is not under threat.’

  ‘I would so much like to share your optimism, Detective Superintendent. I really would.’

  There was such warmth and passion – and sadness – in those last words that Grace felt extremely moved. He wished desperately at this moment that he could say something that would put The King’s mind completely at rest. All he could do was deliver what he knew was a rather lame-sounding platitude. ‘I’m sure we will be able to give you something positive very soon, sir.’

  ‘I do hope so.’

  ‘I believe Sir Tommy has been keeping you up to speed, sir.’

  ‘Yes, he has. So, what was it you wanted to ask me?’

  ‘I know you are very busy, sir, it was just one quick question – regarding Sir Peregrine.’

  ‘Yes, of course, fire away.’

  ‘Can I ask, did you and Sir Peregrine have a conversation earlier this year or late last year about how up to speed he was with current internet technology?’

  ‘Well, we talked daily about all matters.’ There was a brief silence before he spoke again. ‘How up to speed with internet technology, you said?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Hmm. No, I don’t recall talking about that specifically, no. But we may have discussed it at some point – we had issues with the Palace Wi-Fi a while back and Peregrine was fairly tech savvy, but it was Tommy who really knew the right people to bring in, not Peregrine.’

  ‘What I need to know, Sir, is did you ever suggest to Sir Peregrine that he should enrol in a specialist course on internet technology?’

  The King came back without hesitation. ‘No. Never. Absolutely not. I’d remember that.’

  ‘That’s very helpful, Your Majesty. I won’t take any more of your time.’

  ‘You’ll keep me updated, won’t you, Detective Superintendent? Through Tommy is fine, but if there’s anything really significant, always feel free to come through to me directly.’

  Grace thanked him and ended the call.

  Then he sat thinking hard for several minutes, before lifting his phone and asking Glenn Branson if he could come to his office.

  Then, as he ended the call, his phone rang. He heard the dry, slightly smug voice of Denton Scroope. ‘Roy, is this a convenient moment?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘I’ve deciphered another.’

  ‘Excellent, what do you have, Denton?’

  ‘Well, you gave me the letters R S Z K Y Z N K Z K S. Your man was using a numbers code with the code for each letter having to be deciphered separately. What I have for you is A B I T H I W T I T B.’

  ‘A B I T H I W T I T B?’ Grace repeated.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m any the wiser.’

  ‘Could it be A Bird In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Bush? Would that mean anything to you, Roy?’

  Grace was silent for a moment, thinking. A Bird In The Hand?

  What bird? Was any member of the Royal Household birdlike in some way? Or named after a bird?

  Then he realized exactly who.

  85

  Tuesday 28 November 2023

  Unfinished business. Rose Cadoret was losing her nerve. They all were. Since Smoke’s botched shooting of Sir Peregrine and his insane killing of Geoffrey Bailey, things were unravelling. That astute Sussex detective, Roy Grace, was a real worry, and was making very dangerous assumptions.

  Dangerous to them.

  But she still had one piece of unfinished business. Actually, two pieces.

  Detectives from the Met were crawling all over the Household staff following Bailey’s death. If Smoke’s misguided intention had been to silence the footman, it had catastrophically backfired. Dead men might not talk, as the saying went, but Geoffrey Bailey certainly had talked his head off in the days – hours even – before his death. He’d poured out his anger over the medal to anyone who would listen, but worse, Rose had heard, he had dropped very large hints that he knew about items that had been stolen.

  If Smoke had simply put the frighteners on him, as he’d been instructed, it would have silenced the footman. Now, as the Met detectives interviewed his former work colleagues and were gathering disturbing information from them, it felt like Geoffrey Bailey was still shouting his head off from the grave.

  Further, thanks to Detective Grace’s meddling, unless the missing items from the Royal Collection were found, and quickly, Lorraine McKnight was poised to bring in the police to investigate their disappearance. And the items wouldn’t be found, because they were no longer here.

  The group had always known that the day would come when they would have to do a fast exit. They were rich beyond their wildest dreams from the items they’d already sold, and they had even greater riches stored in the unit conveniently near to London’s Heathrow Airport. Their loot was in Bitcoins, shared out equally, into accounts each of them held, and they’d made two rules.

  The first was never to cash in any of their Bitcoins until they were safely out of the country. It was drummed into them that the fastest way for a criminal to get caught was to start splashing unexplained cash around.

  It was a rule she had broken. Not badly, she hadn’t gone out and splurged on a Ferrari or anything daft like that. But even so she felt a little guilty, because she’d taken a risk. It was a tiny one – stupid, she knew. But it was something that as an only child she’d needed to do, while she was still here in England and able to.

  She’d only cashed in a tiny fraction of the millions of pounds’ worth of Bitcoins she had. It was to get her elderly, wheelchair-bound mother out of her damp council flat and into the beautiful care home in Bexhill, with a glorious sea-view room. It was expensive, costing £1,800 a week for her small suite, and a further £1,700 a week for her round-the-clock carers, and Rose had paid a year in advance.

  It was just worth it for peace of mind. She was very aware that once she had left England she was unlikely ever to return or see her mother again. At least she now knew she was in good hands and in a place where she could live out her last years in a level of luxury she’d never before experienced. And probably could never have imagined.

  Any guilt Rose might have had about stealing from the Royal Collection was more than assuaged by the knowledge that, at least, one under-privileged pensioner would benefit from the nation’s treasures. Besides, how many of those treasures had been stolen or blagged in the first place?

  And as for the rules, hey, soon they would be safely offshore. With different names, untouchable in a country with no extradition treaty with the UK. Each of them carrying on their phones and laptops a carefully backed-up string of thirty-five numbers and letters, some in uppercase, some lowercase, in electronic Bitcoin wallets. Untraceable funds she and the others could draw from, anywhere in the world, any time. Millions. She loved the sound of that word.

  Millions!

  And just the tiniest drop in the ocean for the Royal Collection.

  The second rule they had made was for none of them to be too greedy. They had unanimously agreed that the moment the balloon looked like it was going up, they would be gone, accepting they would all be happy with what they already had. And they had a lot. A very great deal. They all had IDs, credit cards and passports in assumed names, ready for when Exeat, the code for Exit Day, came.

  And before that they had work to do, covering their tracks as best they could. Tying up loose ends. She had two loose ends and she needed to move fast. The button had been pressed.

  Exeat was in three days’ time.

  86

  Tuesday 28 November 2023

  ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’ Glenn Branson sat in front of Grace’s desk the way he always did, spinning the chair round and straddling it as if it were a horse. He rested his arms on the back and leaned forward. ‘Very smart. But Sir Jason Finch is away until next Monday, right?’

  ‘In Amsterdam.’

  ‘Is that significant? Like, Amsterdam?’

  ‘I looked it up. It used to be one of the main hubs of the world diamond trade. Less so now, but still significant.’

  ‘Confirming your original suspicions about him?’

  ‘Not suspicions – let’s just say interest. All the more so since Denton Scroope’s deciphering. I’ll look forward to interviewing him next week.’

  Branson grinned. ‘And in the meantime, get you! Detective Superintendent Roy Grace all cosied up to The King and Queen. How soon before it’s Sir Roy? I’ll have to start wearing a cap so I can doff it.’

  ‘Very funny. Can we be serious?’

  ‘Sorry, boss.’

  ‘I’d hate to have to send you to the Tower.’

  Branson grinned. ‘So?’

  ‘So you heard my conversation with Polly Sweeney, earlier, when she was with Lady Greaves. Lady Greaves was very definite that her husband – late husband – had enrolled in an advanced course on computer coding at the specific request of The King, right?’

  ‘No question.’

  ‘So I just had a conversation with The King.’

  ‘As you do.’

  Grace stifled a smile. ‘He said he could not recall any such conversation.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My thoughts exactly.’

  ‘Hang on, this isn’t making sense. Lady Greaves very distinctly said that His Maj was concerned about cyber-security and thought Sir Peregrine, with his intelligence background, might enrol in a course on computer coding, which could be helpful in establishing a secure network for the Royal Household. She said he’d mentioned about establishing a firewall.’