Your Royal Hostage

  But then Major Pat was well aware that for him personally this was the make or break of a so far modestly successful professional career. The retrieval of a twenty-two-year-old missing princess,

  not only that but the retrieval without such immediate attendant publicity, newspaper headlines, clarion screams, blaring shrieks of anguish and excitement as to make the most impassive courtier

  blench, and as for the Monarch

  Here Major Pat checked his thoughts. Had he been a Catholic like Monkey (whom in some ways he resembled) Major Pat would have surely crossed himself at the thought of the Monarch to whom his devotion was both awed and total.

  In short, the retrieval of Princess Amy without pre-publicity would place Major Pat in a strong position to be considered for yet higher office in a yet more august palace, when such a post should next become vacant.

  First catch your hare, in the words of Mrs Beeton. The twenty-two-year-old Princess had yet to be retrieved, and retrieved in one piece, what's more. Surely the police could be trusted to do that, he thought, almost irritably, his finger reaching towards the next highly private number of a Press magnate or an editor or some other person within the mysterious purlieus of the bbc or the iba ... or just one of those amazingly influential people who still, thank God - another sigh, the habit was catching - permeated English society. Many of them, thank God again, had been encountered at school or in the army or were even related to Major Pat, or possibly to his late wife, poor Louise.

  Throughout the night he worked.

  'Jumbo?' he began the next call, 'Paddles here.' The nicknames went back a long way; but there was nothing childish or frivolous about the total blanket which Major Pat, with the encouragement of the police and the agreement of certain august personages, was seeking to have imposed upon the news of Princess Amy's disappearance.

  The price? The price would have to be paid. Like Rumpelstiltskin in the fairy story, the Press would be back for their due and promised payment. The full or at any rate fullish story of the hideous events which had led up to that disappearance, the mental anguish of the Princess (if nothing worse: only guessed at at the present time), the mental anguish of her mother (well, he did know all about that, the wretched Duchess having retreated into what in any other woman would have been described as an alcoholic stupor at the news, and for once the Major hardly blamed her). Newspapers and television from the bbc to the Daily Exclusive, would all have to receive the full or fullish story. When she was found.

  That was the price of silence.

  Ironically enough, it helped, it helped very much indeed, that most of the papers of the Daily Clueless calibre (long might that nickname remain apt) were happily obsessed with what they innocently took to be the main drama of the evening.

  Pictures of Mirabella Prey, prettily outrageous in her white dress, wide questioning dark eyes fixed on Ferdel as he passed, were already being prepared for many a front page. As for Princess Amy's glance - a glance born in fact of sheer astonishment - that apparently icy expression, together with her jewels and upswept hair gave her quite a look of her ancestress Queen Victoria; at any rate the resemblance was sufficient for one newspaper, ignoring the rival claims of if looks could kill, to try out the well-worn we are not amused.

  Ione Quentin, lying in bed in a half-darkened room, gazed desperately at this particular paper, among those scattered on her white lace counterpane. Amused? To herself she said aloud: No, I should think not. Poor child, oh, poor child. Ione swung her legs over the edge of the bed and began slowly, methodically, as was her wont, to work out a plan of campaign.

  Another helpful factor lay in the particular circumstances of Princess Amy's disappearance, or rather her non-appearance, at the front door of the Royal Opera House, immediately following the Gala. The bewildered Committee of the charity for whom the evening was being held, still in the ground-floor foyer to bid her farewell, assumed after a short while that the smoke bombs and the demo had caused the Princess to be smuggled out of a side entrance (which was, as a matter of fact, perfectly true). Outside, Bow Street, a narrow, crowded, two-way street at the best of times, was totally packed after the performance. A section of this crowd was stationary, and prepared to behave in quite an aggressive manner towards any force which might try to move it on.

  These were the people, fervent monarchists or Amy-fanciers with i love amy buttons displayed, who waited by the royal car as, with Taplow at the wheel, it purred waiting for departure. But to be frank, at this hour of the night, the largest, most stationary - and most aggressive - portion of the crowd were milling round the Stage Door in adjacent Floral Street, or had somehow spilled over from the Stage Door crush on to the further pavements.

  These were the expert fanciers of El Dorado, the would-be lovers, the aficionados, whom nothing, or nothing short of physical violence, seemed likely to budge from their stance. Not for a mild departure, deprived of their hero, had they raced down from the gallery 2nd the amphitheatre; as they ran, they had either ignored such pathetic un-operatic distractions as the Innoright poster or assumed it to be yet another demonstration of adulation for Him. Even the first smoke bomb left such fanatics singularly unmoved, and by the time of the second one members of Innoright, impressed by the poster, might have been surprised at their disdain or sheer inattention. On the other hand a member of Innoright who was also an opera-goer such as Chicken was well able to anticipate such a Gadarene rush at the end of the evening -had indeed anticipated it, nay counted upon it, during the planning meetings of the Innoright cell.

  In Floral Street, therefore, ordinary red programmes were there to be signed and there were also some of the elaborate Gala programmes to be seen. El Dorado was known to be generous towards his fans in this respect, and they would expect him to sign a fair amount before the time came to-commence that late night roistering with his comrades by which he normally relaxed. There were photographs also to be seen: the black eyes, white teeth and merry smile of the famous face, framed by a romantic white frilly shirt open at the neck (Rodolfo in Luisa Miller was another favourite role) flashed before the gaze, as fans respectfully harboured their copies in the crush. These El Dorado would normally sign as well, particularly after what was generally agreed to have been a superb performance.

  When an unexpected and quite violent irruption of police, followed by the speedy cordoning off of Floral Street, occurred, El Dorado's single-minded fans were still quite unmoved. Subsequent events - in any case getting late for the first editions of the morning newspapers - were literally chaotic.

  Princess Amy's followers at the front Bow Street entrance were left with two contrary impressions: the first was that the Princess had left by another entrance (true enough) in order to elude them (not true); the second impression given by the police was that they were determined to push the crowd around in order to prevent them witnessing the Princess's departure from this entrance.

  The continued presence of the royal car at the front, Taplow looking obviously bewildered at the wheel, did seem to militate against the first impression, but after a while even the royal car moved. Someone - a policeman - said something to Taplow: the cordon was lifted and the car departed, rapidly.

  As for El Dorado's fans, in time they were more courteously instructed to disband: 'Mr Dorati has left by another entrance.' (This was indeed true, or about to be true, no one wanting to risk losing yet another star, in so far as anybody backstage had a glimmering of what had actually happened.) This instruction was however greeted by the Dorati fans not with apathy or resignation but with outright and vociferous protest.

  In all this combined front-street and side-street drama, the noise of an ambulance which came to the side entrance, and to which a stretcher was rapidly and expertly carried, passed almost unnoticed. Stretchers and ambulances were not unknown at Covent Garden. Someone had fainted, a heart attack at worst -maybe the smoke was responsible - these things happened and were regrettable, none of this was particularly interesting to the pop
ulace at large since the person concerned was hardly likely to be Princess Amy or El Dorado. (Once again, true enough. The person concerned was the detective, Fitzgerald, shot in the chest in the line of duty, while trying vainly to protect his royal charges.)

  Then Little Mary, she of the Daily Exclusive and Jolly Joke, decided to run her own special version of events. This involved Princess Amy deliberately leaving the Gala early without saying goodbye to the Chairman, the Gala Committee (again, all too true) owing to her disgust at the presence of Mirabella Prey. As a matter of fact, informed by a stringer of the Princess's unscheduled private exit, Little Mary had no reason to believe this was the actual reason for it: but she was currently carrying on a vendetta with a member of the Gala Committee and this seemed a good way of suggesting that a successful evening had in fact ended in failure.

  As for the smoke bombs and the Innoright demo, the mention of smoke bombs could have been amusing if Little Mary had known exactly at whom they had been directed; the subject of animal rights on the other hand was inclined to be a slight drag where her readers were concerned in Little Mary's knowledgeable 'opinion. Their way of life might be threatened by such tiresome shenanigans: besides, bitchery concerning a good friend (she of the Gala Committee) was so much more amusing to read first thing in the morning.

  It was all the more ironic that for once Little Mary by featuring the Mirabella Prey story earned the heartfelt gratitude of Major Pat Smylie-Porter and other loyal parties interested in the great cover-up. It was not that the news could, finally, be held for very long, for all Major Pat's heroic efforts, particularly in view of the enormous, if undercover, police operation now underway. It was just that by coincidence Little Mary did provide that titillating, if inaccurate, explanation for Amy's disappearance which the situation demanded for the more sophisticated. (For the rest, the Innoright demo and the smoke bombs were explanation enough.)

  palace mystery ran the headline of Little Mary's column. What was more, Little Mary, ever game to display a knowledge of the arts, managed to re-tell the plot of Otello in a way that linked Princess Amy, Prince Ferdinand and Mirabella Prey most satisfyingly if it might have outraged Boito and Verdi, let alone Shakespeare.

  'palace mystery,' repeated Major Pat, mopping his brow with his large white linen handkerchief. 'If only they knew.'

  'palace mystery,' echoed Jemima to Rick Vancy, with whom she was having (somewhat reluctantly) a working breakfast. At least she was allowed to stage it in her own flat and did not have to attend Rick's hotel. 'I do believe, Rick, that there was something odd about the way they went. Or does the demo explain it? I see the placard was awkward and not exactly conducive to the cause of Eastern Relief. Innoright strikes again! I must say that the smoke bomb or bombs were quite unpleasant: it says here there were at least two, and certainly we saw a second one in the Arabs' box, didn't we? After they'd left. But the Guardian only mentions one. It all happened so late: the Gala must have finished near to midnight.'

  'Arabs at the opera! I never did buy that one,' was Rick's comment. 'So they were animal freaks like the rest of the world.' He shook his head as though the Middle East had let him down personally.

  'palace mees-tery! So ridiculous. Why always this Palace, this Princess? The British are crazy about these things.' The voice today was husky as ever, but for once the effect was more cross than thrilling. The morning was never the best time for Mirabella Prey, who was woken at eight a.m. in her hotel suite by the Evening Exclusive (sometimes lovingly known as the Even-more Clueless), demanding her comment on the events of the previous night in general, and Little Mary's column in particular. Since Mirabella had recently taken much trouble to speak beguilingly to Little Mary, she was disconcerted to read a version of events in her column in which she featured most unflatteringly as Iago not Desdemona; worse still she was omitted altogether from the headline. Then other members of the Press began to ring too.

  'Dulling,' purred Mirabella to one of her favourites. 'How silly this paper is: to you I am telling the true story. It is Theodoros who is loving the opera -' Then Mirabella talked at length about her new Greek-ish friend.

  It was earlier that same morning that Pompey and Vaillant at Central Squad, still doggedly pursuing the solution to their own Palace Mystery (Death at the Palace Press Conference might have been a suitable title for that) had received a new and important piece of evidence. Thus the headline in the morning paper's gossip column passed more or less unnoticed, except for a brief appreciative chuckle from Pompey; which Vaillant thought it tactful to ignore.

  'She was threatening him,' said a new witness who had come forward in answer to repeated police appeals. 'The foreign-looking chap, the one in your photograph. I was at this Underground station, I shall never forget it, I sat down on the bench with them, gave me quite a fright. Very intense she was; I would say she had burning eyes, to be exact.' The witness, who was in fact a man who had been at the time on his way to a creative writing school in Oxford Street, paused expectantly as though in search of commendation. 'Burning eyes and dark hair,' repeated the witness more lamely, before continuing:

  ' "I'll kill you," she said. "See if I don't. You think I won't but I will. I'm quite capable of it whatever you think." Or words to that effect.'

  'We'd like to get the exact words, sir, if possible,' was Pompey's patient response. 'And a more detailed physical description. You see, burning eyes might mean a number of different things to different people.'

  In the shocked Eaton Square household, or what was left of it, Prince Ferdinand having been removed to Cumberland Palace for safety, 'burning eyes' might also have been a suitable description to apply to Mrs Taplow's expression as she sat facing her husband. Taplow's head was bowed on his arms; the large man was weeping uncontrollably, without pretence. In part these were the tears of sheer exhaustion: Taplow's ordeal, begun so shockingly with the instructions given to him outside the Opera, had continued most of the night with the organization of the Prince's belongings, and other duties. It had started again very early in the morning when Taplow, red-eyed from lack of sleep, had decided to communicate certain facts to the police.

  But there was a further hopelessness, beyond mere exhaustion, about Taplow, as he sat there weeping in front of his wife; her fiery gaze suggesting that she might pounce and devour him the moment he raised his head, like one of Mirabella Prey's favourite pumas. It was as though he wept not only for the frightful present but for decades of humiliating memories.

  'I shall never forgive you for this, Kenneth, no matter what happens.' Mrs Taplow's voice was the more menacing for remaining low as though they might be overheard.

  Taplow mumbled something.

  'What's that, Kenneth?'

  'Your fault, Lizzie,' and then more strongly: 'Your fault. All the dressing-up, encouraging him to be different. You dressed him up as a girl. That's where it started.'

  'Seeing as he didn't have a man for a father,' his wife hissed back.

  One way and another, neither Taplow had time to look at the morning paper. But a very senior policeman did, and exploded, as though in relief, to have something inanimate but actual to crush in his hand.

  'palace mystery indeed! Carefully planned from the beginning, the whole thing. So why was it a mystery to us? We knew about the threats to the wedding itself, so why didn't we know about all this?' He threw the paper aside and began ticking off on his fingers: 'Terrific timing throughout. The demo at the exact moment that singer was taking his bow. One smoke bomb set off up there to cause the maximum trouble and direct all the attention to that upper level, as distant as possible from the Royal Box. The next one set off in the box next door timed for the precise moment of the grab, so that the getaway is covered by the second wave of chaos.'

  'Someone knew their opera form all right!' (Chicken would have been proud to hear him.) 'Seats, no, boxes paid for in cash. The Indian women who unrolled the banner and set off the first smoke bomb must have been in the plot. If they were Indians,
which we doubt. Easy to escape down the stairs from the balcony level and saris only too easily disposed of. There's a pretty unused Ladies right there behind the balcony boxes.'

  His expression darkened to one of ferocity as he continued to tick off: 'And while we're on the subject of foreign dress, HRH bound, gagged, possibly drugged, we're not sure, and bundled into some Arab robe, yashmak, chador, whatever, face hidden, nose hidden in one of these sinister black jobs, and supported, carried rather, down the stairs and out of the Royal Box private entrance, deserted on the night of a Gala, out to a waiting car by two solicitous Arabs, supporting her! Important sheikhs,' he almost shouted. 'A car with a chauffeur, a chauffeur in cap, ready there waiting. Planned to the minute.'

  The very senior policeman looked round as though for something else to crush. 'How's Fitzgerald?' he concluded, the anger draining from his voice.

  It was only a short while later that his most trusted assistant returned and said: 'The good news is: we think we know where

  they're holding her. The bad news is that we've received their demands. And this time, with Fitzgerald in mind, we know they're serious.'

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Violence

  'I've lost one of my new Russian earrings, Ferdel will be so cross.' For the first time since her abduction, Princess Amy's face crumpled and she began to cry. Dishevelled, the blonde ringlets now a wreck of the formal lacquered hair style, her face dirty, and still the Rasputin sapphires gleaming at her throat and weighing down her creased white dress at the breast, Princess Amy looked like Cinderella just after midnight struck. Already the finery was disintegrating; rags and ashes would soon follow.