Malice at the Palace (The Royal Spyness Series Book 9)

 

Sir Jeremy leaned toward me. “Lady Georgiana, I do hope that Major Beauchamp-Chough has impressed upon you the sticky situation in which we find ourselves. We are weeks away from a royal wedding. The eyes of the world are already on London. Photographers are crawling out of the woodwork. And now this young woman—rumored to have been a . . . well, rumored to be a close friend of the groom—is found dead a few yards from his future wife.”

 

Detective Chief Inspector Pelham cleared his throat. “You can thank your lucky stars that you and the princess were out all evening at the palace,” he said, “otherwise suspicion could have fallen upon the bride. Jealously is a powerful motive.”

 

“That is absurd,” I said angrily. “Have you met Princess Marina? She is not the type at all.”

 

“Oh, I think most women have a streak of jealousy running through them.” The DCI gave the hint of a smirk. “More deadly than the male, isn’t that what they say?”

 

“Then, as you say, it was lucky we both have a perfect alibi all evening,” I said calmly. “Has the time of death been established?”

 

“An autopsy is being performed at this moment,” Sir Jeremy said. “Presumably we’ll be able to know whether it was murder or suicide.”

 

“Suicide?” I said. “Why would anyone come to Kensington Palace to commit suicide?”

 

“Suicide or even accidental death,” Sir Jeremy went on, looking across me at the other men. “I understand you were not acquainted with the young woman. So let me tell you she was known in fashionable circles as ‘the girl with the silver syringe.’ She was a drug addict: cocaine and morphine. So it’s possible she took her own life.”

 

“And she came here to do it to punish Prince George for getting married,” Chief Inspector Pelham said, nodding agreement. “Killed herself while of unsound mind in a moment of despair.”

 

I realized, as I looked from one to the other, that they were writing a plausible scenario, just in case word ever got out. Unstable Young Woman, Known Drug Addict, Kills Self at Royal Palace. They were determined to make this a suicide.

 

“So you are not going to investigate this further?” I asked. “You’re already writing it off as a suicide?”

 

“Of course not,” Chief Inspector Pelham said. “If it is proven to be murder then naturally we will investigate to the fullest. But let’s just hope she died of a mixture of drugs and booze, shall we?”

 

And the three men nodded.

 

“So nothing was found at the scene to indicate that someone else had been there with her?” I asked.

 

“My men examined the scene thoroughly,” Chief Inspector Pelham said. “There was no sign of a struggle or of foul play. No obvious wounds on the body. The sequins on her dress were intact, so were the long strings of beads around her neck. They probably wouldn’t have lasted through any kind of assault. And surely someone in one of the apartments would have heard her scream if she had been attacked.”

 

“I believe it was suggested that maybe she was killed elsewhere and her body was dumped here,” I said.

 

“If she was murdered,” Chief Inspector Pelham said. “But then the sound of a motorcar in this private area behind the palace would have made somebody look out of a window.”

 

“All this speculation is worthless at the moment. Let’s just wait for the autopsy results, shall we?” Sir Jeremy said. “Because if the results indicate murder we have the most difficult of tasks ahead of us, keeping the investigation entirely out of the public eye.” He turned to me. “The newspapers have been remarkably cooperative about turning a blind eye to royal scandals, but I don’t think they could be persuaded to stay mum about a murder. This is where you can be of help to us, Lady Georgiana. You are one of their inner circle. You can ask seemingly innocent questions.”

 

“Their inner circle?” I asked in surprise. “Surely you don’t think that anyone connected with the royal family is involved?”

 

“Of course not, but given the young woman’s tenuous connection . . .” He left the rest of the sentence hanging. “And there are the servants. I don’t want to raise any alarms by questioning any of them officially yet. You could find out if anyone here saw anything strange last night.” He got to his feet. “I know we can count on you. You did a stellar job for us last time. Absolutely stellar.”

 

Detective Chief Inspector Pelham raised an eyebrow as if he found this hard to believe. “And we don’t need to impress upon you the complete need for discretion,” he said. “Not a word of this conversation is to go beyond these four walls. You do understand that, don’t you?”

 

“Of course,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll do anything I can to help you.”

 

Sir Jeremy smiled. “We’re most grateful, Lady Georgiana. I told them we could count on you.”