THE QUEEN WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD

EXTRACT: SANDRA POLE HAS SOMETHING TO TELL JOAN …

Joan woke with a start, unsure of where she was or why there was a wall beside her pillow. For a moment, she thought she was in a guest room in Pakistan or Gujarat, until she remembered it was a train in a sidings outside Warrington. It was still stationary, but the snores of Hattie Grayson in the lower bunk were fit to power the engine all by themselves.

Joan risked opening the curtain just enough to check her watch, which told her it was approaching 5 a.m. Technically, she had another hour of sleep, but she knew she wouldn’t find it again with Hattie’s symphonic breathing, so she grabbed her green silk kimono and slipped to the floor. Then she quietly padded down the corridor in search of a cup of tea.

At that time in the morning, she expected the staff din- ing compartment to be empty. But it wasn’t. One person sat alone at a table for four to the right of the aisle. Her head was bowed, her face lost in the gloom, but it was obvious from the blonde hair and the padded peach satin dressing gown that it was Sandra.

‘Hello,’ she said, warily.

Sandra looked up with a frown. ‘Damn. I was hoping you’d be Dominic.’

Joan saw how pale she was, even taking into account the dim light of early morning. ‘Sorry to disappoint you. Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘Has something happened?’

Sandra shook her head . ‘No, I’m not all right. I haven’t slept.’ She eyed Joan speculatively. ‘Perhaps you’ll do. I suppose I can trust you.’

‘You told me yesterday that I was the sort of person you couldn’t trust.’

‘Did I?’ Sandra asked disingenuously. ‘I might have said you didn’t look trustworthy. But I meant you look like someone who’ll always do the right thing, even when it’s wrong. You look . . .’ she searched for the right word ‘. . . unpersuadable. Right now, that’s what I need. People are going to tell you I’m mad, but you mustn’t believe them.’

‘What I need,’ Joan said firmly, ‘is tea. I’ll be back in a minute.’

‘Get me one,’ Sandra ordered. ‘With sugar. They say it’s good for shock.’

In the kitchen compartment, a sleepy chef did as requested. Joan came back with a linen-lined tray bearing a pot, silver strainer, milk, sugar pot, extra hot water, two crested tea- cups on saucers and a plate of home-made ginger biscuits. Even at 5 a.m., royal servants never did things by halves.

She watched as Sandra, thin as a beanpole, put three fat sugar lumps in her tea.

‘You said people are going to tell me you’re mad,’ Joan prompted.

Sandra stirred her tea, winced at the first sweet sip, then took another. ‘They are,’ she said at last.

‘Why would they do that?’

‘Because I saw a murder last night.’

There was silence. Joan was lost for words. Sandr drained her teacup and poured herself another.

‘A murder?’ Joan said eventually. ‘Here on the train? You don’t mean Conchita, do you? Did one of the Sealyhams get to her?’

‘No I don’t mean Conchita! I mean a man. And not on the train. Out there . . .’ Sandra waved a bony hand to indi- cate the shadows outside.

‘A murder?’

‘Yes! I told you!’

‘On the sidings? Is the body still there?

‘No, of course not!’ Sandra said crossly. ‘It was miles back. Before we stopped here for the night. I happened to be looking out of the window as we passed near a lake or some ponds or something like that, and the water was pink- ish in the sun, and then we went through a cutting, and as we came out the land fell away, and there was a gap in the trees and I saw two men at the far end of a field . . . No, three of them . . . And they had another man between them, one at his head and two at his feet. They were holding him by the arms and legs, and swinging him, like a skipping rope. They let go, and he sailed through the air, and dis- appeared towards a compost heap . . .’ She trailed off and stared at Joan defiantly.

‘When was this?’ Joan asked, caught between the vivid- ness of the skipping rope and the hallucinatory quality of the rest.

‘Last night, as I said. After dinner.’

‘Wasn’t it dark by then?’ Joan wondered. ‘We were at the table until nine, at least.’

‘I suppose we were.’ Sandra looked down and faltered a little. ‘But with the clocks going forward it was only eight, really. It was quite light, if you remember.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Joan said, frowning. ‘As we walked to the dining car, I remember thinking how gloomy it was outside already. I could hardly see anything. I don’t see how—’

‘Dammit!’ Sandra banged a fist on the table. Joan was surprised to see her eyes suddenly glistening with tears. ‘You have to believe me!’

This was not what Joan had been expecting at five o’clock in the morning. It was quite an act. Had Sandra been watch- ing Hitchcock?

‘I’m sorry,’ she persisted gently. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

‘It wasn’t . . . it wasn’t exactly after dinner, you’re right,’ Sandra amended. ‘When I went back to get my wrap, after . . . After Prince Philip . . .’ She bit her lip and her eyes glistened harder. ‘After the tiger story . . . I’d been a bit, oh I don’t know . . . I said the wrong thing and I-I wasn’t feeling well. Once I got to my compartment, I went to rest my head against the window . . . And there they were.’ She blinked and her eyes bored into Joan’s. ‘You have to believe me.’

But even with the clocks changing and the slight change of time, the story didn’t hold water.

‘Did you have the light on in your compartment?’

Sandra hesitated fractionally. ‘No, no I didn’t.’

‘Why not?’ Joan asked.

‘Because . . . my head was hurting. I felt sick, I told you, I was unwell.’

At least that made sense. With the light on, it would have been impossible to see anything.

‘And how far away would you say the men were?’

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ Sandra waved a hand. ‘I’m terrible with distances. A hundred yards? Fifty? How long is a field? That long.’

‘And there were three of them? Men, I mean?’

‘Yes. With the body between them.’

‘Are you sure it was a body? It could have been, oh, I don’t know, a sack of potatoes. In that light . . .’

Sandra shook her head. ‘It was a human body! It was murder! I swear it!’

‘If you thought it was murder,’ Joan persisted, ‘then why didn’t you say something when you came back?’

Sandra looked panicked. She pressed her palms to her temples.

‘I should have. But I simply couldn’t believe it!’ She looked pleadingly at Joan. ‘I-I didn’t want to interrupt everyone at supper, so I tried to tell myself it hadn’t happened. But it did! I’ve been thinking about it all night. I feel as if the man is calling to me from wherever he is – the skipping rope man. He needs me. He needs me to be brave, d’you understand?

For the sake of his family, or something, I don’t know. And then I thought, they’ll never believe me. Me, of all people!’

Joan noticed that Sandra continued to hold her gaze. Up until now, she had glanced away briefly several times after she finished speaking. It was a common habit of liars to avoid watching the reception of the lie. Joan had learned this during her war service, where she had interrogated Nazi officers at a secret location called Trent Park. Sandra had been displaying classic behaviours of dissimulation, but not this time. She had seen something. Or thought she had.

‘So why tell me today?’

‘Because he’s lying there in that . . . that heap or hedge, or whatever it is, and he wants to be found. He needs it. He needs you.’ Sandra reached across the table and grabbed hold of Joan’s arm. ‘You believe me, don’t you?’

Joan gently prised Sandra’s fingers off her dressing gown sleeve.

The last part was true, but the rest was unconvincing. Sandra’s story had too many details, and they didn’t add up. Besides, it was as if she was starring in a West End play. If she had been, she’d have got a round of applause a few years ago, Joan decided. Nowadays, audiences tended to prefer more realism.

‘Let me see if I’ve got this right,’ she said. ‘You were in your compartment after feeling unwell at dinner . . .’

‘Getting my wrap,’ Sandra agreed.

‘Which you didn’t bring back,’ Joan pointed out.

‘Exactly! I-I was so distracted. The last thing I was thinking about was wraps.’

‘Which would make it eight o’clock, more or less,’ Joan continued. ‘Seven forty-five at the earliest. Despite the dark, after the train passed a pond of some sort and went through a cutting, you spotted these men a full field away, through a gap in the trees beside the track.’

‘It wasn’t that dark. And a rather large gap, yes,’ ‘They were swinging something between them . . .’ ‘Definitely a man.’

‘And just at that moment, they released him?’

‘I know! Isn’t it extraordinary? Maybe they saw the steam of the engine, or heard it, suddenly, as we came out of the cutting, and that sort of startled them.’

‘Did you see their faces? Would you recognise them again?’

Sandra frowned. ‘No-o. It was dark-ish,’ she admitted. ‘And they were quite far away. But anyway, I was thinking about the skipping rope man.’

‘And you think he was dead? How can you be sure?’

‘Because he was naked, and he was being thrown in the air, and he wasn’t trying to resist, and his face! Oh my God. His face!’ Sandra’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’. She stared at Joan one last time and collapsed forward with a groan. Her shoulders heaved.

The show was over. Joan went to get help.