Chapter 16
At the end of the summer when she had fully recovered from her injuries, if not her failed love affair, it was decided quite unexpectedly by Crystal, that rather than resume her gap year she would enter university. This show of maturity pleased her grandparents who worked with her to choose a suitable course and college.
Strangely, she did not want to go away and chose to study in one of the city's many fine seats of learning. Her primary reason was loneliness. Crystal had needed a lot of support during her recovery and with the departure of Richard from her life she was feeling more than a little fragile. Coping with a strange city and a course as well wasn't something she wanted to do at the moment.
Security preparations began and more than one sigh of relief was heaved. Jeff for one was finding it easier to cope with all he had to do in a familiar environment. Moving Crystal out of town, or overseas to study for three or four years, was a nightmare.
As it had been for the gap year, the detail would have had to be increased for such a long stay away and it was well known that the guys and girls of Special Branch didn't like being away from their nearest and dearest for that long. Jeff didn't want to be in charge of an unhappy detail. With Crystal choosing to remain in the city everyone was happy.
Just as autumn set in and her starting date loomed Crystal received a telephone call she didn't want. Like the bad penny she was, Jade's hard voice came out of the mobile sounding more coarse and jarring than Crystal remembered.
'Of course I was stoned most of the time,' she frankly admitted to herself. 'No wonder that cockney whine didn't register.'
'Hey Crystal, how's tricks?'
Crystal didn't answer, she wanted to think. If she began a conversation with Jade she didn't know where it would end. Obviously Jade wanted to sell her something. But Crystal had been free of that particular habit for months and, to her surprise, had no wish to resume it. What else could she have to say to Jade? 'Nothing,' she decided and pressed ignore on the phone. She looked through the phone's address book, found Jade's number and blocked it.
'No more calls from that pest,' she thought. Crystal went back to what she was doing and forgot Jade.
But Jade didn't forget her. She was livid that Crystal had hung up. She swore and cursed so loudly there were bangs on the ceiling from the flat above. She didn't care. She wanted to vent, she wanted revenge. She wanted to kill something and continued to shout,
'That fucking bitch...' and further comments of an even more offensive nature.
As usual when she was angry she looked for something to kick, break or batter. This time a chair was the chosen victim. She picked it up and raised it over her head then slammed it through a window.
The glass shattered with a crack and jagged pieces of chair flew out, falling to the pavement many floors below Jade's tower block home. True to Jade's usual luck, a piece hit a passerby who was rendered unconscious. An ambulance and the police were called, the broken window quickly located, Jade was arrested again, etc, etc. Regrettably for her there was no-one else to blame this time. It looked as though her goose was well and truly cooked.
Archie and Terri were the first to notice the tremendous change that had come over Crystal. It had been gradual but in the autumn, when she was due to start university, Archie said to Terri,
'Do you think she's all right?'
'What do you mean Archie?'
'She seems so subdued; she does everything she's told for one thing. She's not as she was before ... well before him.'
'You mean selfish and wilful?'
'Yes.'
Terri considered this. Crystal had had much to deal with in recent months, particularly the abrupt end of her relationship with Richard Holland. Terri felt some diminishing of her spirits was to be expected, especially as it had been difficult to cushion the blow. Crystal had pressed the issue with her grandmother who, in the end, could only tell her the truth: Richard was a transvestite who, although he wanted to marry her because of her status and position, did not and would not love her.
Terri knew that a young woman experiencing a love affair for the first time places extraordinary importance upon romance, which is itself a fantasy. One aspect of the fantasy is being the centre of her lover's universe, the only one, the one that can't be lived without. Richard had done his bit: phone calls, romantic texts, flowers, letters. But his inability and in truth, unwillingness, to make her the epicentre of his world had been readily apparent to outsiders, but not to Crystal who had held nothing back: she'd gone into the affair with her arms open and her eyes closed.
Archie and Terri had talked about it more than once: the way Richard seemed to be performing, playing a role when he was in the room.
'He makes love to her as though she's a part he has to master,' Terri had said. 'He never loses control when he's with her; he is never lost in her. Do you know what I mean Archie?'
Archie did. For him being with Terri was all consuming. When they were able to be alone he could think of nothing but her. He wanted nothing but her. She not only filled his arms and his sight, Terri was the other half of his being. He'd seen how Richard behaved and it was more than obvious to Archie that he was not a man in love, except perhaps with his own reflection, alluding to Richard's prancing in front of Crystal's mirror.
'It's as though he's watching himself from somewhere else to see how it's going,' Archie said.
Terri nodded, that summed it up.
Another person was very worried about Crystal: Jeff. Since New Zealand he'd seen her withdrawing into herself, into the protocol that would sap her will, the events where she could perform like a robot, smile, shake hands, talk to the little kiddies, take the flowers, say a few words, smile, wave and leave.
She even did it at house parties with her friends: she appeared to be involved but part of her was just going through the motions; she was supposed to do these things so she did. But as far as Jeff could see she wasn't having any fun at all. Her attitude seemed to be, 'tell me what to do and I'll do it.'
'Why?' he asked himself. As far as Jeff was concerned Holland wasn't worth it. 'If she goes on like this she'll marry some chinless idiot and have kids whose eyes are too close together. What the fuck is the matter with her?' he asked himself. His uncharitable thoughts were interrupted by a phone call,
'Davis,' he answered.
'Jeff, bad news,' the duty officer said
'What's happened?'
'You'd better come to the courtyard and see for yourself.'
He hung up and started downstairs.
Jeff walked out into the small courtyard where a group of his officers and other staff were gathered around one of the black Range Rovers the family used. There was a lot of pointing and gesturing going on and, as he approached, some whispered comments were made which appeared to be directed at him. The group parted as he approached them revealing a black car turned technicolor: the once pristine Range Rover had been graffitied. That would have been bad enough but the artist had, with some skill, drawn Jeff in a number of pornographic poses with a woman he assumed was meant to be Crystal. However, the precisely drawn dagger between her eyes and blood pouring down her face made a positive identification difficult.
Simpson, who had called Jeff, said,
'We found it like this at the start of the day. The paint's very fresh. I'd say it was only done a few hours ago.'
Jeff was feeling sick to his stomach. He said nothing but knew this was personal, directed at him and at Crystal. He looked at the graffiti closely. It was professional stuff; a skilled artist had done this. Someone had taken time and a lot of trouble. He looked for the artist's tag, but if it was there it was well hidden.
'Nevertheless, he thought, 'it might be possible to identify the artist from the style. I think we have a big problem here,' Jeff said to himself. 'A very big problem.'
Personal attacks on the family happened, usually by poison pen in the media and through the post: some hate mail was delive
red to the Palace most days. Special Branch followed a protocol to deal with it and anything threatening was followed up. People had been charged in the past. But this was different; someone had got into the courtyard and spent time there, undetected.
'Entirely too close for comfort,' Jeff thought.
The further problem was, who knew he was in charge of Crystal's security and who had a big enough grudge to do this, or have it done? He'd find out, he was sure of that. In the meantime procedure meant Crystal would have to have additional protection and a full review of Palace security would be put in place.
'Christ,' he thought, 'Another bloody cock up,' the jetboat accident still fresh in his mind.
Jeff gave orders to cover the car immediately and send it to the Police lab for fingerprints and forensics. Then he got his team together and read them the riot act. Someone hadn't been doing their job, whether it was one of them or one of the Palace guard he wanted to know.
Then he called his boss and the wheels began to turn very fast. A threat of this kind to the family was taken very seriously. Jeff readied himself for a heavy workload but it didn't come. In a short phone call from his boss Jeff was suspended. He couldn't believe his ears,
'There's been a serious lapse in security,' he was told, 'You were in charge. You take the fall. I'll be in touch.'
Upstairs Archie and Terri heard Crystal say to Jessie,
'They can't do that to Jeff, how is it his fault?'
'I don't know Miss but he's gone, left the Palace.'
'We'll see about that,' Crystal said and left the room with a determination she hadn't shown for weeks. Archie and Terri looked at each other,
'That's our girl,' they said together.
However, Crystal's display of determination was short lived. She arrived at her grandmother's door ready to do battle and left even more deflated than she had been before Jeff was suspended. Why? Cold logic and some surprising good faith prevailed.
Her grandmother reasonably said there was no escaping the fact Special Branch had failed to detect the intruder who had violated Palace security and caused criminal damage. They were only grateful it hadn't been worse. When things like this happened they panicked and engaged in recriminations among themselves. After that there was a process they followed,
'We have to let them do their job,' she said.
Privately Her Majesty sympathised with Jeff's predicament but there was nothing she could do at the moment, Davis would have to take his lumps but if he was as smart as she believed he was, the lumps would dissolve. In the meantime she wanted to comfort Crystal who was crying,
'Please don't worry my darling,' she said, 'I'm sure it will all be sorted out very quickly. We just have to wait.'
Archie and Terri were unwitting observers of the next stage of the drama. All of the staff were being interviewed in turn, downstairs with Her Majesty's private secretary always present.
In a breach of procedure Jessie was cornered by a very severe woman protection officer as she tidied the bathroom one morning. The woman walked in unannounced, taking Jessie by surprise. Her arrival and the conversation she had with Jessie woke all the objects in the room: the woman had a grating, high pitched voice that reminded Terri of fingernails on a blackboard,
'You say you saw nothing that morning.'
'No I didn't. I wasn't gazing out the window, I was in here, preparing Miss Crystal's bath and things for the day. She had breakfast in her room, dressed and left. Then I tidied the room and went to the laundry with the washing.'
The woman knew all this already and had come to interview Jessie on a pretext. What she really wanted to talk to Jessie about was Crystal's relationship with Jade. She had a suspicion there had been more to it than anyone admitted and wanted to find out what had gone on. In truth, she wanted to catch Crystal out in a lie.
She was that type: clawing her way to the bottom of the pile by any available means. She intended to sell any bit of gossip or filth she could unearth to the tabloids and make some serious money, anonymously of course. She'd been at it for some time, tipping the gutter media off about Crystal's movements, just as Jeff had suspected. Jessie saw her for what she was and was on her guard: she would never betray Crystal.
'Her Royal Highness has had a rough patch of late, hasn't she?'
'What do you mean?' Jessie resented the woman and her ugly voice.
'I mean the covering up of her drug use.' The woman was fishing. She watched Jessie as the question bounced off her and hovered in the air between them.
Jessie only hesitated before she spoke because she was angry. The woman took it for weakness and an attempt by Jessie to make up a lie. She pumped herself up for the kill. But she was surprised and deflated when Jessie said in her best icy voice,
'I suggest Constable, is that what you are? I suggest you're quite out of order. If you have any further questions for me you can arrange to ask them through the Master of the Household. Now I'm busy and have no more time for you. Can you find the door? I noticed you had no trouble on the way in.'
The woman went to speak but Jessie held up a hand,
'Please don't make me press the panic button and say you threatened me, it will cause such a fuss.'