The hawk is dead, p.1
The Hawk Is Dead, page 1
THE HAWK IS DEAD
PETER JAMES
Contents
Maps
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AFTERWORD
GLOSSARY
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE HAWK IS DEAD – READING GROUP QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
THE QUEEN’S READING ROOM
BOOK AID INTERNATIONAL
SAFELIVES
ST WILFRID’S HOSPICE EASTBOURNE
SOUTHERN HOSPICE GROUP
THIS NOVEL IS DEDICATED TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN’S READING ROOM BOOK CLUB AND LITERARY CHARITY, FOR ALL THE HARD WORK THEY DO IN CHAMPIONING LITERATURE.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
While Their Majesties feature in this novel as themselves, all the words they speak are entirely my own.
The roles of the Royal Household staff are real, but the characters themselves are totally fictitious and my creation.
1
Monday 20 November 2023
It was both the southern entrance to the railway tunnel and the southern exit, depending, like so much in life, on your perspective. At this moment, through the crosshairs of the scope of his rifle, it was very definitely the exit. In just under three hours and seven minutes’ time, the Royal Train was scheduled to emerge from it, travelling at a steady 70mph, en route south from London to the city of Brighton and Hove.
He smiled. It was the smile of a man who knows something no one else does. Well, just two other people, actually.
The train would be carrying Her Majesty Queen Camilla, and her entourage, on the first leg of a two-day official hospice tour along the south coast of England.
The weather gods had smiled on him. They’d delivered a dense early morning mist, enabling him to arrive unseen beneath its shroud and conceal his motorbike in undergrowth, then be in position by sunrise at 07.25. On his previous early morning recces here, he’d seen no one. No dog walkers or ramblers. This grassy hillock, a bundu of weeds and brambles, was well clear of any of the South Downs footpaths and, lying flat on his stomach on the mat he had brought with him, he was confident he was concealed from view.
As a man whose job involved constant risk assessment, he had calculated that the biggest risk facing him over the coming hours would be a pesky, inquisitive dog. But he had a pocketful of treats, just in case. Preparation was everything, always. As Abraham Lincoln said: Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening my axe.
The Sako TRG 42 rifle was steady on its bipod stand, the stock cradled into his shoulder. The magazine contained five .338 hollow-point – dum-dum – bullets, which would have a devastating effect on their target by expanding on impact. He would only need one round but he would fire two shots just to misdirect them. And the knowledge he had three spare had a calming effect; to be accurate over this distance of more than 300 metres he needed to be very calm. Very steady.
He peered through the scope again. The grimy red-brick surround to the void of the railway tunnel was cut into the side of the hill, like a scowl. There were steps up to a primitive platform service lift, which could carry maintenance workers up and down from a grassy knoll above, a short distance from the winding driveway to a farm.
He could see all of it through his scope. It was so powerful he could have read the time on anyone’s wristwatch.
The mist had risen completely now. He would love to stand and stretch his legs but that would be foolish, camouflage fatigues only concealed you so long as you didn’t move, and so much planning had gone into this it was a risk he could not take. He also needed a pee, and had to go through the awkward contortion of removing the empty two-litre bottle of Diet Coke from his rucksack, and directing his urine into it. When he had finished, he screwed the top back on and put it to one side. He would stow it in his rucksack later, along with the weapon that he would break down after he’d used it.
He unscrewed his thermos flask and took another swig of his carefully rationed coffee, as he watched a northbound express, the early train from Brighton carrying commuters to London Victoria, enter the tunnel. In a few minutes the stopping train from London Bridge, heading south towards Brighton, would emerge. He got comfortable and practised his aim with the rifle. He had a perfect view into the windows on the left side of each carriage. At the speed these trains were travelling, an accurate shot would be impossible.
But the Royal Train, due at 10.32, wasn’t going to be travelling at any speed at all.
The irony hadn’t escaped him that he was employed to protect The Queen. That was his day job.
But today was his day off.
2
Monday 20 November 2023
Camilla, casually dressed in a jumper over a blouse and jeans, sat a companionable distance from her smartly suited husband, at the long mahogany table in the breakfast room of Clarence House. Her two Jack Russells, waiting patiently at her feet, were looking at her expectantly while she finished her porridge.
The King, seemingly deep in concentration, had been mouthing words silently to himself throughout breakfast. Between intermittent mouthfuls of muesli, dried fruit and honey he kept jotting down notes, in what looked to her like Arabic, on a pad beside him.
She smiled down at the dogs and whispered, ‘Think I’ve forgotten you?’
Beth and Bluebell’s ears twitched. They looked at her even more expectantly.
She adored these two gorgeous creatures, both rescues from Battersea Dogs Home, and the adoration was entirely mutual, though The Queen well knew that was just so long as she remembered to give them their daily treats. She broke off two small pieces from a slice of toast and slipped them under the table. With two quick crunches they were devoured.
‘I saw that!’ The King chided, raising a faintly disapproving eyebrow, accompanied by a smile that was anything but disapproving.
‘It’s just a little bit!’ She grinned back. ‘What are you working on?’
‘I’m addressing a climate change conference at Lancaster House at lunch today. It’s a speech on biodiversity to a gathering of world and business leaders. I intend to speak in several languages and I want to do as much of it as possible without referring to my notes.’
She smiled. ‘That’s brave.’
He glanced up at the wall and seemed momentarily distracted by something. Then he turned back to his wife. ‘What’s your day looking like?’
‘I’m starting my south coast hospice tour. Off to Brighton on the train – visiting Martlets in the morning. Then in the afternoon a children’s hospice and in the evening I’m going to see Hugh Bonneville in a play at Chichester Theatre. I’ll be overnighting on the train, then on to more hospices tomorrow morning. Then I’m going by helicopter to Bristol to give a talk at a big event SafeLives are hosting.’
‘The domestic abuse charity?’
‘Yes. Their work is quite remarkable.’
He glanced up at the wall again, frowned and called out loudly, ‘Gordon!’
The butler, immaculately dressed as always in his blazer, strode in from the pantry. ‘Yes, Sir, Ma’am?’ he said.
The King pointed up at a blank space. ‘What’s happened to that Landseer? I love that picture – why isn’t it there any more?’
‘I think the Royal Collection may have taken it away for cleaning, but I’ll find out, Sir.’
‘I almost fell over someone from the Royal Collection as I came down to bre akfast,’ The Queen said. ‘He was lying on the floor at the base of the stairs doing something to the bottom of a picture frame.’
‘I’m very sorry, Ma’am, I’ll have a word with him.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m sure he was doing something important.’
As the butler retreated, King Charles said, ‘Peregrine’s going with you, isn’t he, darling?’
Sir Peregrine Greaves, as Private Secretary to Their Majesties, was seen as one of the most senior members of the Royal Household.
‘I know you want him on this trip to protect me, don’t you?’ She gave him a challenging smile.
‘Darling, he’s concerned about this protest lot – the Not-My-King anti-monarchists, republicans – whatever – threatening to disrupt your arrival in Brighton. He’s going along to keep you safe.’
‘Perhaps he could be armed with a sword? I’m sure that will be far more effective than the Glocks of the Royal Protection team.’
The King looked at his wife, unsure for a moment if she was joking. ‘Darling, you know that Peregrine always has our backs.’
She buttered the other half of the slice of toast she’d given to the dogs. ‘I do, but . . .’ She hesitated.
‘But what?’ he pressed.
‘Bless him, I know he means well, but sometimes I feel he’s over-protective. Yesterday he tried to persuade me to cancel the trip – tried really hard. I told him quite clearly I will not be cancelling. With my schedule as it is, it could take six months to rearrange this tour.’
‘I understand,’ he said.
‘I had a long chat with Tommy last night. He agreed I should stick to my guns. The protestors aren’t going away.’
‘Tommy’ was Major General Sir Tommy Magellan-Lacey, Master of The King’s Household, and another senior royal employee. He was someone both The King and Queen adored and trusted totally. The warning about what Queen Camilla might expect on arrival at Brighton Station had come from him, through intelligence from the RaSPs – the Royalty and Specialist Protection team – and from the Scotland Yard Counter Terrorism Command.
He nodded. ‘Whatever you decide, I always want you to be safe.’
She stood up, walked over to him and kissed him on the forehead. ‘I’ll be safe, I promise you. The train’s a lot safer than that damned helicopter.’
3
Monday 20 November 2023
Unlike some of his more sceptical colleagues in the police, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace had no delusions about the reality of global warming. Being a father had made him even more acutely aware of the responsibility of his generation, to be the caretakers of a planet that seemed increasingly endangered – and dangerous – by the day.
He was seated at his desk at 8 a.m. on this glorious, cold but sunny, Monday morning, after a happy weekend with his wife, Cleo, and their children, Noah and Molly. It had been a turbulent few years for his personal life, starting with hearing that his long-missing wife, Sandy, had taken her own life, in Munich, Germany, and that they had a son, Bruno, she had never told him about.
Bruno, a challenging boy of eleven, had come to live with him and Cleo. Then, just when Roy Grace felt he was starting to form a good relationship with the boy, Bruno was killed while crossing a road and looking at his phone.
But Grace was beginning to come to terms with it – at least, as much as he ever would – and there seemed to be some equilibrium in his world right now. And Cleo had found some equilibrium in her world, too, after nearly quitting her job in the mortuary in the aftermath of Bruno’s death, finding it too hard to cope with any young children brought in. But now, in addition to Noah and Molly, plus two dogs, Humphrey and Kyla, she’d taken on charity work as well, as local coordinator for the international book donation charity Book Aid, and was loving it. And Grace was loving the satisfaction it was giving her and the total contrast to her grim days in the mortuary.
But although there might be a semblance of equilibrium in Roy’s domestic world, there wasn’t much in the world beyond the walls of the Sussex Police HQ campus.
Knife crime in the city of Brighton and Hove, and other key hotspots around the county of Sussex, especially Hastings and Crawley, was becoming an epidemic. Whereas a decade ago there’d been an average of twelve murders a year in this county, thanks to the culture of knives, which had begun in London and now spread throughout the nation – partly fuelled by the scourge of youngsters snared into so-called county lines drug dealing – the annual murder rate in Sussex was rising.
And way beyond what, in many ways, was the still relatively safe haven of his home county, there were increasingly dangerous trouble spots, both across England and in almost any direction in the world where you looked. Russia, China, Korea, Africa and even the once dependable USA. Sometimes he wished he had the ability to gather all the leaders of every country in the world, knock their heads together, and tell them to try to appreciate this amazing planet we all inhabited, rather than spreading war and hatred.
An optimist by nature, he always remembered something his late father, Jack, had quoted, stoically, soon after the diagnosis of the cancer that was to kill him. Life may not be the party we’d hoped for, but while we are here, we may as well dance.
Roy Grace always held onto that as a mantra for times of adversity. But it would be sorely tested, too often. Especially when in the middle of the night he would answer his job phone to news of yet another horrific crime, and after arriving at the scene would despair of human nature.
A recent case he had just finished working on was a prime example of this. Operation Spottiswood. A forty-eight-year-old woman, Lisa Dent, who had stabbed to death both her mother, aged seventy-eight, and her sister, Mary, aged fifty-one. She had entombed her dead mother in concrete and walled-up her sister’s body in an inglenook fireplace, which she had then plastered over. She told friends and neighbours that they had relocated to New Zealand, to live with Mary and her new husband. It was Financial Investigator Emily Denyer who led the discovery. Lisa Dent, who was employed as a supermarket cashier, had been living a lifestyle well beyond her earnings ever since the demise of her mother and her sister.
Grace sipped his coffee, and called a member of his team, DS Nicholl. When the detective answered, he said, ‘Nick, I need to talk to you about a couple of details on Op Spottiswood – can you pop in at some time when you’re free?’
‘When’s good, boss? I know you’re pretty tied up at the moment – I am too, I’ve been seconded to The Queen’s visit to Brighton and Hove today. I’m currently with the team sweeping Martlets Hospice – she’s due to arrive here at 11.15. You’re the Investigations lead for Operation Flagship, aren’t you?’
Operation Flagship was the name for the operation to guard The Queen while she was in Sussex.
‘I am. Is everything OK at Martlets? No sign of any protestors?’
‘Not so far, boss. Let’s hope it doesn’t all kick off when Her Maj arrives. Do you have any intel on the protestors?’
‘I’ve just come from a briefing with the Chief,’ Grace said. ‘The intel we have is there’ll be a small Not-My-King protest group at Brighton Station and they’ll be corralled. But generally it seems there’s a lot of positive excitement in the city.’ He smiled wryly. ‘However, hey, prepare for trouble, make it double.’
‘I never had you down as a Pokémon fan, boss.’
‘When you have young children, you start learning all kinds of stuff you never even knew existed.’
‘Tell me about it!’
‘So the Royal Train departs from Brighton at 12.30 for Arundel, then Her Majesty’s safety becomes the responsibility of the West Division police – do you have any more Royal Protection duties after that, Nick?’
‘No, I can come over then, if that works?’
‘That’s fine, I’m not going anywhere, assuming all goes to plan today.’
‘Yeah, and we know what they say about those who assume, don’t we, boss!’ the DS teased, knowing this was one of his boss’s most used phrases.
‘Yes, Nick, they make an ass out of U and ME. I’m impressed you remember this. You have clearly been listening and learning!’
‘I hang off every word you say!’ Nick Nicholl retorted.
4
Monday 20 November 2023
Stan Briggs was a proud man, with much to be genuinely proud about. Balding and bespectacled, he looked like everyone’s favourite uncle, but he was sad today. After thirty-seven years as a train driver – the last twenty on the London–Brighton line – he had finally and reluctantly made the decision to retire at Christmas, in just over a month’s time.
