Diana--A Closely Guarded Secret (28 page)

I wanted to disappear as all eyes in the room turned on me, the only male present. It was a ‘sister-act’ she would repeat time and again to make her point. She was a victim, and her erring estranged husband was to blame.

FOR DIANA, her sons always came first, and as the far-reaching implications of the dissolution of her marriage became clearer she began to focus on preparing them both, and William in particular, for what lay ahead. Cynics may say that she was using her eldest son as a pawn, as a means of securing her future status and position, but as someone who witnessed at first hand her close relationship with ‘her boys’, I can say categorically that this is simply untrue. The Princess believed that the preparation of William, and to a lesser extent, Harry, for their public roles was her primary duty. She told me repeatedly that she truly believed that both her sons should be fully aware of what would be expected of them, but that they should also be allowed to develop fully as young men, open to what life would throw at them. She showered them with love, but she listened to them, respected them, and tried to understand them.
She was very tactile, often reaching to hug them, to a point at which William, in particular, would become embarrassed and feign pushing her away.

Meanwhile, it seemed that the whole world was turning against her estranged husband. The Princess harboured a pipedream that Charles would effectively disappear. She genuinely believed that the country would be better off if he, Mrs Parker Bowles and their ‘cronies’, as she called them, were to decamp from Highgrove to an organic haven in Italy or France, leaving her to groom William for kingship. This was, of course, wishful thinking of the most fantastic kind. The Prince of Wales has prepared himself all his life to ascend the throne, as is his duty. At that moment in time, however, it was the Princess who was in the ascendancy, and there were already mutterings in some circles that Prince Charles should step out of the line of succession and allow William to take the throne on the death of the Queen.

At the end of March 1993 we set off once again for the ski slopes of Lech. Diana was determined that, despite all the emotional heartache of their parents’ separation, William and Harry should have every chance to enjoy themselves. The holiday followed the pattern of the previous year, which had ended so dramatically with the Princess learning of her father’s death. This time, of course, Prince Charles did not join the party, something that made the entire situation much less tense. It was not long, however, before the entire resort was swarming with press from all around the world. Sadly, the paparazzi were not remotely interested in Diana’s wish for a peaceful holiday with her sons. To them she was a cash cow, pure and simple.
As far as they were concerned she was outside Britain, on their turf, and she was fair game.

Initially, everything was going well. There was the morning photo call at the ski lift, which, although Diana did not like it, she tolerated, but what really irritated her was being followed as she walked around the small shopping area.

‘Ken, I want you to keep them away from me,’ she hissed as we walked into the Arlberg Hotel, illuminated by flashbulbs. I did my best, but there came a moment when my patience snapped. One photographer simply would not take no for an answer. He was within a few feet of the royal party, and the Princess became very upset at what she saw as a gross intrusion. Her reaction was affecting the boys, too, and the situation was in danger of getting out of hand. The pushy photographer told me he wanted an interview with William. I told him to move. He said that this was not my country and that I had no jurisdiction as a policeman in Austria. I asked him where he was from. ‘Italy,’ he replied.

‘Well, it’s not your country either. Now just back off!’ I thundered. I was rapidly losing my patience and continued to tell him in no uncertain terms to move away. He refused and, as more swarms of photographers moved in nearer, he got too close to the Princess for my liking and I took him down with one swift arm movement. Mayhem ensued, especially when another of his pals followed him down on to the snow when he attempted to punch me. William and Harry loved it.

‘Do it again, Ken,’ William said, beaming all over his tanned face. I shepherded them all safely inside the Arlberg and away from the problem. Outside reporters were scribbling in their
notebooks, photographers were gesticulating, and one appeared to be acting out a Muhammad Ali fight. I’ve got some bloody explaining to do, I thought.

I re-ran the incident in my mind. There was no doubt that Diana had been upset, distressed, even. As the paparazzi moved in for the kill she had started to panic, which was why I had had to act decisively. At one point she had screamed ‘Go away! Go away!’ which had astonished her boys who, until then, had found the whole thing quite amusing.

The Princess immediately retired to her suite, and her sons followed her. I was furious. After a short phone call to Colin Trimming, I went to check on Diana. She was distraught and I told her to be calm and that everything would be fine. Leaving her again, I set off to confront some of the press pack, in the hope that I could make them see sense. I singled out a couple of senior newspaper photographers, whom I knew well, the
Daily Mirror’
s Kent Gavin and Arthur Edwards of
The Sun
, and told them uncompromisingly that all bets were off. The message had to get back to the foreign media, and the paparazzi in particular, that unless they played the game I would make it almost impossible for any of them – journalists or photographers, British or foreign – to find the royal party. There were no more such incidents, but in retrospect, the affair seems hauntingly prophetic, given what would happen to the Princess in the days leading up to her death.

Her near panic as the paparazzi closed in demonstrated that the Princess was on an emotional see-saw throughout the holiday. Her feelings about Hoare had unsettled her. She
was falling out with everyone, left, right and centre, seemingly unable to help herself. Even I found it difficult to reason with her. She had always been erratic, but in the past she had invariably pulled back from the brink. What was to happen next showed just how close she had come to the edge. She leapt off it – literally – and seemed not to care about the consequences.

The first I knew about this latest drama was when I was woken at 6 am by the night-duty officer from my team, PC Mark Jawkowski, who was there to provide on-site protection. Basically, that meant that he was acting as a glorified doorman, there in case of emergency, to ensure that there were no intruders. There was a loud knock on the door of my room. Startled awake, I instinctively jumped from my bed, calling ‘Come in!’ Mark entered, clearly rattled.

‘Mark? What’s up?’ I asked as he stood nervously at the foot of my bed. Growing impatient when he didn’t reply at once, I asked him again, ‘Is everything okay?’

‘The Princess is okay now, sir,’ was his response. By now wide awake, I turned to him and said, ‘Hang on, Mark, this sounds serious. Let me put a dressing gown on, then tell me exactly what’s happened.’

The young officer took a deep breath and began his account in best evidence-giving manner. At about 5.30 am the doorbell had sounded at the front of the Arlberg Hotel, our fortress against the press, who were scattered all around the resort in the less expensive hotels. Mark went to the door and, to his utter horror, there stood the Princess, dressed and wearing a scarf and a hat. She looked him straight in the eye, said ‘Good morning’ politely, and went straight to her suite.

‘Christ, Mark,’ I exclaimed, ‘how on earth did she get out? Where is she now?’

‘In her room,’ he replied, sheepishly. I calmed down. The most important point was that she was safe. Now I had to find out what she had been up to, and stop her doing it again. I made Mark a cup of tea in my room, and when he had drunk it told him to go and get some sleep. It wasn’t his fault, I assured him, and I would tackle the Princess when she awoke. As he sipped his tea, he gave me a breakdown of his precise movements, for the record. This was not simply an ass-covering exercise, although God alone knows we needed one: ‘Princess Evades Police Protection – Gone For Hours’ was not a headline that would enhance our career prospects.

‘Take me through it from the top, Mark,’ I said. ‘At 1 am, when I retired, all doors were locked, yes?’

He nodded.

‘So when I went to bed you were in place in the lobby to deal with knocks at the door?’ He nodded again, then blurted out, ‘I promise you, sir, she did not leave through the front door. I haven’t a clue how the hell she got out.’

Mark was becoming increasingly heated. ‘Sir, she couldn’t have done – I had the only set of keys.’ Since there was nothing more to be learned I sent him off to bed and told him not to worry, but added a warning ‘Don’t say anything to anyone about this.’ Thoroughly alarmed, I dressed in an old jacket and some slacks and headed from the room. I knew there was only one way the Princess could possibly have got out – she had bloody well jumped. We were staying on the first floor of the extension to the hotel, and there was a twenty-foot drop
from her balcony to the ground, but that was made less by the deeply drifted snow. I went to check. When I reached the point directly beneath her balcony I found a perfect impression of the Princess’s body in the deep snow below. From the hole in the snow, footprints led away into the town of Lech itself. ‘God, I hope the bloody paparazzi did not see this,’ I thought.

Diana was asleep; after being out all night it was hardly surprising, but there was no point in waking her now to confront her about her leap to freedom. I decided to wait and pick my moment.

That moment came some hours later, after she had dressed and breakfasted. I found her in the sitting room of her suite, getting ready for the day ahead. After we had said our ‘good mornings’, I came to the point. ‘Ma’am,’ I said calmly, my face a blank, ‘it’s about last night. What on earth were you thinking?’ She flushed scarlet. She had been discovered, and she knew that she had been completely out of order. ‘I don’t have a problem with you going out, ma’am, you know that, but you have just got to tell me. What were you thinking when you jumped off the balcony? Anything could have happened.’ She stayed silent. She knew she had done wrong; she knew she had been foolhardy; she knew she had put herself at risk. She also knew that she had placed me in a deeply compromising position, for if something had happened I would have had to take the blame – and live with the guilt. I then told her that I could not stand too many of these disappearances. ‘You know that our relationship has to be based on mutual trust. This is a clear abuse of that.’

‘Ken, I just needed some air,’ she said at last, her speech
higher-pitched than usual, still hot with embarrassment. She continued, ‘Yes, I did jump from the balcony. I knew it was okay – it was deep, soft snow, and I knew it would be all right.’ I pointed out that anything could have happened. She could have landed on a rock and hurt herself badly. ‘It was a damned stupid thing to do,’ I added. At that point I knew I had said enough. Lecturing Diana about anything was never wise, even when she knew she had done wrong. I decided to change tack.

‘Do you want to tell me where you went?’ I asked, knowing perfectly well that she wouldn’t tell me.

‘I know what I am doing,’ was her only response to my question. By now I was thoroughly annoyed and replied, ‘No, ma’am, I really don’t think you do.’

What Diana actually did for some four or five hours that night remains a mystery, but the ‘leap of Lech’ gives a clear insight into her state of mind at the time – she wanted to be free of the trappings of her position. It was an act of independence, but also one of defiance. Two years later, when I was on a private visit to Lech, Hannes Schneider, the son of the Arlberg’s owner, confirmed that she had jumped from the balcony. Hannes, whom I had dubbed ‘Herr No Problem’, never seemed to sleep. That night, he said, a relation of his had actually seen her walk through the snow and away from the hotel after throwing herself from the balcony.

Diana’s leap marked the beginning of the end of my relationship with her. It was the first of a number of key incidents that, in the end, led to my leaving her service. It is understandable, I suppose, that as she began to break away from her former life, and despite the many years of mutual trust
and understanding between us, she began to see me, because of my position, as part of the Establishment against which she was rebelling. The leap from the balcony apart, the rift started subtly. At first she began to hide things from me, where before she had always been open with me no matter what she had been doing. Even so, I am convinced that she was not happy with this and that deep down she knew she could trust me as she always had. But the new circle of people she had gathered around her wanted complete control of her, and the power and influence she wielded, for their own reasons. I tried to nip the problem in the bud and repeatedly confronted her about her newfound secretiveness, but she fudged the issue on every occasion.

She had no intention of answering me, and by her silence made my questions pointless. After a few days the entire Lech incident, which had made me seriously reconsider my position as her Police Protection Officer, had seemingly been eradicated from her memory. She knew I was disappointed and she did her best to win me back by launching one of her unique charm offensives. This was a typical Diana tactic. If she had behaved badly or done something wrong and knew it, she would often simply ignore it, and pretend that it had never happened. A few years earlier I would have wiped it out of my mind too, but I was growing concerned.

On our return from Austria Diana proposed a treat for her sons, a day out at Thorpe Park, an amusement park not far from London. We had all been before, so I knew that covering a day there was a fairly simple security operation. All her troubles seemed to vanish as the Princess, William, Harry and I plunged through breathtaking water rides, the two princes squealing
with delight as we raced each other down a 30-foot water slide in wobbly rubber boats. Images of her, looking absolutely stunning in black jeans and a black leather jacket, her hair soaking wet from the water rides, appeared in the newspapers the next day. I also appeared beside her in the photographs, both of us dripping wet, laughing and joking. It is one of my favourite images of us together, and one that I cherish.