Chapter One: Friday 5 May 2023 – Monday 8 May 2023

The whole thing had begun in this way: by chance the coronation had fallen on his scheduled weekend off, so DI Richard Poole had put in for three days, excavated the sand from his luggage kit and taken himself back to London, purely in a tourist capacity, to witness the crowning of a new king.

Commissioner Patterson had been amused at the request; that was the only way Poole could describe the look on his boss's face as he granted the leave. Poole's mother-in-law Catherine Bordey was even less enthusiastic than that, being French and therefore a staunch republican. Poole's wife Camille was less dogmatic in her politics but even she was not too supportive. Of course, baby Amélie would hardly miss her father for one weekend, but big brother Jacob William was already toddling after his dad whenever he could manage to balance on two feet. He was going to be a handful when he began searching for the Suit and discovering he was not to be found.

The inconvenience of it all was plainly written on Catherine's face as she accepted her precious grandchildren from the Defender on the Friday morning. To be fair, it was a busy time for her, with all the ex-pats and tourists determined to show their indifference to the historic occasion by clamoring even now for service in the bar. Catherine kissed the children, smiled sweetly on her daughter, ignored her son-in-law, and from the driver's seat Camille watched her innocent, trusting babes being taken into the back of the restaurant. "I suppose all this is worth it, cher?" she asked her husband, with no enthusiasm at all.

Poole stiffened his shoulders and his jaw. "Yes," he snapped back. "Time spent in charge of the Honoré station will look very well on your CV, and I shall be back on the Monday." He himself was fully primed to go home and planned on bringing back some souvenir, something for his little ones at least. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and his children would not be raised with no knowledge of their heritage, even if it was only English.

...

London was teeming with people of all colors, ages and attitudes, as well as with rain. Poole had known he was unlikely to find accommodation and so had made no attempt to appear to be a civilian. With police coming from all over the UK to ensure maximum security for the event, the section houses and any other space the Met could find to stash them would be crowded, but if he was willing to sleep in shifts with the rest of his 11,000 fellow officers he would surely be accepted among them, and he was.

Having secured a timeshare bunk in the section house and dumped his carry-on in a corner of his crowded room, Poole headed straight for the nearest souvenir street vendors. The children were easy: a toy Coldstream Guard for Jacks and a Paddington Bear for Amélie from a little hole-in-the-wall tat shop, with a lower-end coronation tea mug for himself. Considering what he would be facing once he got back to Saint-Marie, however, his next stop had to be more upscale.

Accordingly, he hustled through the congested streets to the Piccadilly Fortnum & Mason's, to secure a modest box or two of coronation chocolates. (And to be honest, what he ended up with was the most modest selection he could find; little crowns in a turquoise box. Rather to his disgust, he had discovered in the hour or so he spent walking the aisles of the shop, that his budget couldn't stretch to even a single decorative tin, let alone two.) He paid for the boxes, borrowed a post-it pad and marked one of them for 'Catherine' and the other for 'Camille.' Then, rather than risk cramming them into a carry-on left in a section house, he had them put in the 'To be left until called for' area, wherever that was.

...

By the time he left the shop, darkness was descending. Poole headed south, intending to take his place in the section house. Flags and bunting floated above his head, spot-lit by the streetlamps, while below them the shadows of people melted away, into cars that vanished in traffic, off to train stations, out of St James' to the suburbs. He had supper in one of the pubs along the way, drawn by the warm light from the windows, and for the first time in years sat with his pint in the snug by a crackling fire.

When he got to the Mall, he found the regular empty midnight quiet of Central London had become extraordinary. Rehearsal was underway.

Little tents and groupings of camp chairs blocked Poole's way, held back from the pavement by double barriers of sectional fencing. People slept, or sat chattering softly, or strolled along outside the barriers, waiting. The backlit red, blue and white of the Union Jack alternated with every flag of the Commonwealth, each waving gently in the gloom from their poles over the heads of soldiers – life size copies of Jacob William's toy: Coldstream, Irish, Welsh, Scots, deployed in orderly fashion along the edges of the pavement. Nearby, two self-proclaimed internet promoters filmed their blog and squealed in admiration as line after line of mounted Blues and Royals passed, the rattle of hooves clear and yet somehow subdued in the dark. It was incredible. A ghostly foreshadowing of the splendor to be tomorrow.

Poole slipped along toward Whitehall and through Admiralty Arch where Marines stood guard, arms at the salute. More ghosts; motionless, facing streets empty for the moment, while always back behind the double barriers, on the white walks against pale looming buildings, moved dark, silent stalking shapes in yellow safety jackets. They were the same form of haunt as Poole had seen back in the Mall under the trees, but there they could only be picked out as reflective stripes and yellow jackets. The Met Police, the true guardian soldiers of London, were keeping watch.

It was as he was making his way down Whitehall to his borrowed bunk that he'd been accosted by a detective sergeant no less, who confirmed his identity and requested that he get in the car. Poole was driven through the darkness to New Scotland Yard in Westminster and bunged into the office of the harassed, auburn-haired woman in charge of staffing the event. She looked up from her papers, glanced at his warrant and said "Gosh, you're keen."

Before Poole could explain that he was here as a loyal Brit and not for the Job, the woman had ordered him into a uniform and instructed him to be on hand no later than 0600 to stand with the constables on the north end of Whitehall, his back to all the glorious pageantry, watching the jubilant, boisterous and some of them drunken crowds for signs of trouble leading to disruption of the event. A ten-hour shift in a driving rain and trousers that didn't fit. Fantastic.

Once that was over, Poole's position just south of Trafalgar Square had forced him to take notice of what became the Mixed-up Problem of the Two Protestors, an investigation which took up practically every minute he had left on his native soil. He barely had time to see the case to its conclusion and be told by his temporary super to keep it on the quiet, before it was Monday morning and he had to discard the uniform (with great relief), dash to the section house, throw his things into the battered carry-on and get to the train for Paris. It was only when he was halfway home over the Atlantic Ocean, exhausted and still damp around the edges, that he remembered the chocolates.

...

Meanwhile, one of the kind and efficient F&M clerks, in clearing away the displays on the Monday, had come across the two small boxes in the 'To be left until called for' storage, had seen the names on the post-its and thought How considerate. We must see to it that the wishes of this anonymous patron are fulfilled. And since Fortnum & Mason has a long history of patronage from the Crown, it was a simple matter to package and ship one of the boxes to Kensington Palace and the other to Clarence House.

...

Notes:

In 1962 Paul Gallico (1897-1976) wrote a book called Coronation, about the misfortunes of a middle-class British family who give up their vacation to get tickets to the crowning of Elizabeth II. Each family member has their expectations of the event, only to reap rewards they never anticipated from their adventure. Since Mr Gallico is no longer writing, I thought I'd do this.