“And the King will no doubt welcome this video between his Privy Council meetings and oncology ward visit. But I’m going to hold on to the mobile for the next half an hour while I establish whether the file has been uploaded anywhere, and then I’m going to return it to you, after you wash your face.”
“Wash my face!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Beauchamp, I am agrown man —”
“I’d never suggest otherwise, sir.”
In fifteen years of service, Beauchamp had never been struck by a principal. Vidal went very still, and his eyes darkened. Beauchamp saw, with the calm of a man watching a lorry come through a red light, that the streak was about to end. Then Vidal lunged for the mobile.
What followed was not a fight. It was an undignified grappling match between a man in a dressing gown and a man in a three-piece suit, conducted in near-silence on an extremely expensive rug — Beauchamp holding the mobile above his head,Vidal making three separate attempts to climb him, a lamp going over somewhere behind them, until Vidal got one hand on Beauchamp’s lapel and pulled hard enough that the seam popped.
“Sir, if you tear this jacket I am putting it on my expenses claim.”
Vidal laughed, and it was just the opening Beauchamp needed. He got one hand between them, slid sideways, and was out of the drawing room with the mobile in his pocket before Vidal’s face had finished rearranging itself.
“I am going to have youcourt-martialled.”
“Yes, sir.”
“By theKing.”
“I’ll look forward to it, sir.”
He took the service stairs down to the garden two at a time and let himself out into the cool April morning.
? ? ?
Thebuilding’s garden was tiny and invisible from the street. Beauchamp walked the length of it twice before his pulse came down. Then he found a bench pushed back against the far wall, sat on it, and held his head in his hands.
Three weeks ago he had stood in his CO’s office, and he had already decided to say yes before the briefing started based on what little he already knew of the assignment. An off-the-books posting. A VVIP royal. He’d been a personal recommendation from the Princess Royal herself.
You’d be doing us a favour, Beauchamp. The Principal is — well, he’s an interesting individual… His CO had let the wordinterestingsit in the air. He should have cottoned on then that this wasn’t just in reference to manageable, minor eccentricity.
Beauchamp lifted his head as he heard the garden door opening. A man stepped out carrying a green watering can. He was enormous, absolutely packed with muscle, all packaged in an impeccable, classically cut three-piece charcoal suit.
Beauchamp sat up straighter on the bench. The traitorous part of him that he’d been keeping muzzled for the eleven months since Julian had packed the last of his books into the back of a hire car outside their Marylebone flat and kissed him on the mouth like a friend, perked up.
Oh, said the traitor,that’s nice.
The man walked past him without a glance, went to the first of the terracotta pots lining the garden wall, and began watering a largely dead geranium.
Beauchamp watched him move to the second pot, which contained something that might once have been a lavender, and water it with the same careful attention, holding the spout close to the soil.
“They’re dead, mate,” Beauchamp heard himself say.
“Might not be.” The man didn’t look up. “Give it a week.”
The man’s accent didn’t come from anywhere near Mayfair. It was the kind of voice you heard on a building site in Plaistow at six in the morning, or in the front of a black cab at two. Beauchamp reassessed the suit, the watch, and the tie pin against it, and found his whole picture of this silver fox had shifted.
“You’re optimistic,” Beauchamp said.
“I like a project.” The man moved to the third pot. “I’m Connor, by the way. I’m in flat three.”
“Beauchamp.”
“D’you live here, Beauchamp?”
