Diana--A Closely Guarded Secret (7 page)

On one occasion, however, DI Rudd took this assignment rather too seriously. Instead of returning with the customary half-dozen pasties and a pot of cream, he sent a local distributor into a frenzy when he turned up brandishing his badge and telling the manager that the Princess loved Cornish pasties and clotted cream. He returned from his mission with several boxes, each containing two dozen pasties, and two giant vats of clotted cream. As we flew back to London on a BAe 146 of the Queen’s Flight, the aircrew looked a little surprised by our cargo – it looked as though we had just made a royal visit to the local supermarket. There were so many pasties that when we got back to Kensington Palace Diana decided to hand them out to the policemen on the gate, and thereafter we were rather more cautious about instructing police officers to gather local delicacies.

Most trips out of London took a day or less, but often enough we would travel farther afield, necessitating a stay away from Kensington Palace. When accompanying the Princess on an ‘awayday’ as she called regional visits, we would often use
the Royal Train, which, after HMY
Britannia
, is the grandest form of royal transport, its old Pullman carriages and opulent long dining room easily putting the Orient Express to shame. For long journeys the train would leave late in the evening and, at a suitably secure place en route, pull into a siding so the royal personage on board could eat and, more importantly, sleep in comfort before carrying out a day-long visit in whichever region of the country was being visited. I was stood down on those occasions, as the British Transport Police would surround the carriages and provide night security, while a static corridor man from our department kept watch inside the train.

We had just such a journey to Cheshire in July 1988, the train stopping short of our destination to allow the Princess a decent night’s sleep. Next morning, however, she came to breakfast looking haggard and somewhat dishevelled. She clearly had not slept well.

‘Are you all right, ma’am? You look a little out of sorts,’ I said, as I tucked into an enormous English breakfast in the elegant surroundings of the long dining car.

Well, not really, Ken, I didn’t sleep a wink.’ ‘Why not, ma’am?’

‘Well … there was a man outside my window marching up and down all night,’ she replied. There was an edge to her voice that boded ill for the nocturnal marcher.

Listening, I found I could indeed hear the sound of regular footsteps crunching past the window on the gravel bed of the permanent way. Curious, I went to find out what was going on. Outside, to my surprise, I spotted a uniformed constable of the British Transport Police pacing his way alongside the train.

‘Excuse me!’ I yelled. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’

The startled officer came to an abrupt halt mid-step and said; ‘Well … I’m engaged in security, sir.’

‘Fine, but why do you have to march on the bloody gravel? If you must march up and down, would you do it on the bloody grass – there’s a thousand acres of it out there to march about on,’ I replied sternly.

At this point the Princess, who had followed me to the carriage door, began to giggle as I continued to give the unfortunate chap a dressing down. Then, in typical Diana fashion, she decided to defend the man she had dispatched me to admonish.

‘Ken, don’t be too harsh – he’s got a job to do.’

ONLY A FEW WEEKS AFTER MY APPOINTMENT I had my first taste of life working alongside the Princess abroad. It proved to be a crucial, perhaps even a defining moment in our relationship. Fourteen summers [at the time of writing] and seemingly a lifetime ago on a cliff-top with breathtaking views of Palma, the principal city of Majorca, she and I sat talking beside a swimming pool in the heat of the mid-afternoon sun. The pool was in a courtyard within a magnificent palace complex and the Prince and Princess were there as the guests of King Juan Carlos of Spain. To an onlooker, our conversation must have appeared to be intense. Occasionally, I would try to lighten the mood, and our discussion would then be broken by her laughter. Within seconds, however, she would turn serious again.

‘After Harry was born our marriage just died,’ Diana said in
hushed, conspiratorial tones. There was genuine sadness in her brilliant blue eyes, but, although my heart went out to her, I simply nodded and said nothing.

‘What could I do?’ she continued. ‘I tried, I honestly tried, but he just did not want me. He just wanted her, always her. Do you know, I don’t think I
ever
stood a chance.’ It did not take a detective to understand that the ‘he’ referred to the Prince of Wales, and the ‘her’ to his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles.

Now and again, Diana, wearing a bright orange bikini, would lean back on her sunbed and run her fingers though her blonde hair as she soaked up the sun. Still new to this job, I was surprised at the informality. That hypothetical onlooker might easily have mistaken us for man and wife, or perhaps even people who had once been lovers. As fanciful as this may seem, it was not that far from the truth, for our burgeoning relationship was certainly destined to become very close. Indeed, together we would share more experiences than many people do in a lifetime.

She sighed, her eyes closed against the harsh light. ‘Do you know,’ she declared. ‘I really think it is time I spread my wings.’

Had this statement been made by any other woman struggling to come to terms with her failing marriage it would have been cause enough for concern, but that it was made by the Princess of Wales meant that it had far greater resonance, promising repercussions that would go to the core of the British Establishment.

This was perhaps the most crucial moment in my relationship with Diana. As that relationship evolved over the coming years such intimacy would become commonplace; but our
poolside conversation at the King of Spain’s summer home, the Marivent Palace in Majorca, proved to be a milestone. Its importance lay in the fact that this was the first time that the Princess had confided in me, revealing the dark clouds looming in her life. I admit that, at the time, I felt a little uncomfortable as she poured out her troubles, but such familiarity was soon to become part of my daily life. I realised, however, that this was no chance encounter. The Princess had contrived the meeting earlier that day, after Prince Charles had left the palace for an engagement. Once alone, she had picked up the phone in her private suite and called the hotel where I was staying, a few miles away in Palma.

‘Ken, can you come and see me, please? It is rather important,’ she said when I answered. There was an air of urgency to her voice, which immediately led me to ask if she was worried about her personal security, that being, after all, the reason for my presence on the island. She assured me that she was safe, but added that she would prefer to speak to me face to face, as what she wanted to discuss was a sensitive matter. Telling her that I would be there as soon as possible, I left the hotel and, a few minutes later, arrived at the gates of the palace where the Spanish sentry on guard, who had been told to expect me, gestured for me to proceed. A second or two later an immaculately attired royal official, clad in a dark uniform of heavy cloth clearly unsuited to the warm climate, escorted me to the pool area, where the Princess was waiting. She got up from the sunbed where she had been relaxing to greet me.

‘Hallo, Ken, it is so good of you to come,’ she said, adding, ‘I am so sorry I dragged you away.’ I said, ‘Good afternoon,
ma’am,’ and told her that I had not been busy, and so had not minded being ‘dragged away’.

I had not been her senior protection officer for long, and so I was a little uneasy about her reasons for asking me there; she was, after all, perfectly safe within the confines of the palace, with its numerous military and police guards. I sensed almost at once that she needed someone to talk to, and she did not feel that there was anyone in her entourage, or the Prince’s, in whom she could confide. Although her surroundings were luxurious, she felt trapped and friendless. I suppose that, under the circumstances, she felt that I was her best option.

‘It’s awful, Ken. Juan Carlos is frightfully charming but – you know – a little too attentive. He is very tactile. I told my husband, and he says I am just being silly.’ She paused for a moment, then added, ‘Do you know Ken, I think the King quite fancies me. I know it sounds absurd, but I’m sure it’s true,’ she declared, a mischievous smile dancing across her face.

For once, I was lost for words. Utterly confused as to how to respond, I made a pathetic attempt to appear unfazed by what the Princess had said. Was she really suggesting that I should have a quiet word with the King of Spain about being over-friendly? I was not sure then, or even now, whether she was joking, for her sense of humour could be wicked. Almost immediately, however, the conversation switched to matters that clearly troubled her more, and I began to realise the full extent of her personal unhappiness. Her tone was calm, and there was no malice in what she said, just a kind of weary acceptance. She explained that she had only agreed to accompany her husband to Majorca in an attempt to put on a ‘good show’ – she wanted,
she said, to show the world that she was happy to be on holiday with her husband, whom she still loved. Above all, she wanted happiness and security for her sons, and she knew that, to achieve them, the boys needed a stable life that included both their parents.

It struck me that she was speaking with complete honesty when she ruefully admitted, ‘You know, I don’t go out of my way to be awkward, Ken, but my husband just makes things impossible.

‘I used to blame myself, to hate myself. I used to think it was my fault, that I was not good enough. Nobody [I believe she meant no one in the royal family] ever praised me, can you believe that? After all I’ve done for that family.’

As she spoke, Diana began to paint an unsettling picture of isolation and rejection. I knew that the marriage was in a terrible state – no one in her ambit, or the Prince’s, could fail to know that – but I found it disturbing that she was prepared to talk so openly about it. I was not even employed by her, or the royal family, but by Scotland Yard; either she was desperately short of sympathetic listeners, or she felt that she simply had to confide in someone she trusted, however new to her circle. In the same quiet, almost emotionless voice, she went on to explain that the gulf between her and Prince Charles was now so wide that nothing could bridge it. For her, she told me, loving a man who did not love her in return – and worse, loved someone else – was tearing her apart. I sympathised, but felt helpless to advise or guide her. It would, in any case, have been presumptuous for me to do so, and besides, instinct told me that all she really wanted was someone to listen to her. I
had heard her dismissed in royal circles as a silly girl, but this was not the immature rambling of someone in love with the idea of being in love. I had only to hear her talking in this way to appreciate that this was a woman experiencing pain to her very core. Yet as she recounted her fears for the future – her own and her sons’ – the feeling of worthlessness that Charles’s unrepentant infidelity engendered in her, and her overwhelming sense of marital claustrophobia, I could sense the weight lifting from her. I realised that, just by letting me hear her wretched confession, she was finding a kind of solace.

I am not, I hope, a callous man, and I was genuinely shocked by her confidences, just as I was flattered by the trust she seemed to have placed in me. What she had told me was explosive, the kind of secret that could not be shared with even the closest of friends. Diana’s misery could not be said to affect her security, but if it were ever to become common knowledge the lid would be blown off the Prince of Wales’s marriage, with who knew what consequences for his wife, his children, the Queen and her family, even for the monarchy itself.

Then, for the first time in my hearing, she spoke what I would come to think of as one of her trademark expressions. ‘Nobody understands me, Ken,’ she said, although I felt I was beginning to. And, however self-pitying the remark, I was beginning to think she was right.

It is important to view our conversation in perspective. It preceded the publication of Andrew Morton’s ground-breaking book,
Diana: Her True Story
, by four years, and although, even then, in 1988, the national press was beginning to question the state of the Prince and Princess’s marriage, nobody had come
close to exposing the dark reality. That would come only when Morton’s exposé of the Waleses’ relationship, and of the less than creditable parts played in it by some members of the royal family and by the Palace apparatchiks, appeared in 1992.

Diana had not finished with me yet. ‘Do you know we have not slept in the same bed for years, Ken?’ she admitted, not without a touch of embarrassment. As she said this, I could not escape the feeling that, deep down, she believed that the estrangement was her fault. Then, long before the rest of the world was to learn how her depression had driven her to try to commit suicide (no matter how half-heartedly), she listed the occasions when she had tried to take her own life, and the reasons why: ‘It was a cry for help, Ken, but nobody ever wanted to listen,’ she whispered.

As she talked, I had become increasingly aware that this was a very unhappy young woman indeed. Yet I remained unsure as to her reasons for confiding in me. Was it a test, a way to see if she could trust me? Was it simply, as I had at first thought, that she needed to tell somebody or otherwise go mad under the emotional and psychological strain? Or did she so desperately need an ally, faced as she was with an indifferent husband, an inimical Palace hierarchy, and the hostile coterie that made up Prince Charles’s ‘Highgrove set’? Throughout the hour or so we sat and talked she repeatedly returned to the core problem – her husband’s relationship with Camilla. She believed that his flagrant, even brutal, disregard for her feelings was a betrayal, the greatest of her young life; and, I have come to believe, that it was one from which she never recovered. She was unable to contain her tears as she recounted
her story. There was no vindictiveness in what she said, just a pervading sense of misery. I felt terribly awkward, sitting next to a woman who should have had so much to live for, but who instead was quietly describing her personal despair. Despite her beauty, position and wealth it was clear that life had dealt her a cruel hand. I knew, of course, that there are always at least two sides to every story, but even so my heart went out to her and, perhaps against my better judgment, I told her so. I also gently reminded her that she had much to be thankful for, not least two sons of whom she could be immensely proud. At the very mention of their names her sadness seemed to lift and the smile returned, lighting up her face.

‘You are so right, Ken. I am so lucky. William and Harry are so precious, so very precious.’

Aware that, because of her confidences, I was on dangerous ground, I gently tried to move off the subject of her marriage, with all its problems. Perhaps selfishly, I felt that at this early stage in our professional relationship what the Princess was telling me was simply too hot to handle. I defy anyone, however – even those critics who now so clinically blame her difficulties on the state of her mental health, insisting that she was suffering from ‘Borderline Personality Disorder’ – to feel anything but sympathy for her. Even so, I had to tell her that I felt uneasy about being embroiled in her unravelling marriage. She was not used to people speaking to her with such frankness, and it may be that she appreciated my candour; in any event I managed to conveniently switch the topic to our mutual love of classical music. Clearly she understood perfectly what I was trying to do, as sensitive as she could be to other people, and responded accordingly.

Diana’s problems and her personal sadness were subjects the two of us would discuss time and again over the next few years. There would be moments of great happiness, too, for she was not given to wallowing in self-pity, or at least not for long. On that afternoon in Majorca I had answered her call for help (that I had little choice in the matter would not have occurred to her). From then on, she felt she could trust me; in time I hoped she would respect my advice. Our working relationship, as well as the friendship that developed subsequently, was rooted in the sense of mutual trust that brought us together in the Marivent Palace and I knew that, as a result, I would have a better chance of effectively protecting her from danger, and perhaps even from herself. For if the Princess knew that she could confide in me, no matter how great or how sensitive the secret, then there was no reason for her not to tell me exactly what she was doing or planned to do at all times.

Our private tête-a-tête came to an abrupt end when the Princess suddenly spotted the Queen of Spain’s sister walking towards us across the courtyard. I thought this the perfect opportunity to make my excuses and return to the safety and solitude of my hotel room. It proved a vain hope. In an instant Diana’s mood was transformed. Her despondency vanished (or at least, being the consummate actress she was, she was able to mask it) and she began making polite conversation as though she had no cares, no secrets, no sadness of her own. Moments later, without allowing me the hint of a warning, she repaid me for my attempts to switch our earlier conversation away from her troubles to my passion for music. Before I knew what was happening she suggested that I give an
impromptu singing performance for Queen Sophia’s sister, an elegant and refined woman who, I am sure, would have preferred not to have to endure what was to follow. I was flabbergasted when the giggling Princess suddenly leapt to her feet, turned to the unfortunate woman and announced, ‘Ken has a wonderful singing voice. He wants to sing us a song.’ Then to me, ‘Go on, Ken – it would be wonderful if you’d sing for us,’ she gushed.