Princess Diana’s Box (íà àíãëèéñêîì)

                      Paul Burrell, butler to the Princess of Wales, learned of Diana’s death from Fox News. The announcer’s sorrowful face reported of the car crash in Paris, and the TV showed photos of the crashed Mercedes C280 and archived photos of smiling Diana with the Eiffel Tower on the background.

Paul dropped the control and looking absent-mindedly at the screen, fell into an arm-chair. He groped for his cell phone under newspapers on a coffee table and dialed Her Majesty’s personal secretary Jack Colville.

"Jack!”, was all Paul said, when he heard "Yes, Paul, yes”.

Trying to get over the alarm Paul reached out a Havaii royal cigar with Cona coffee smell, looked at it for some time, and then threw it away. He went into Diana’s private room and took an empty card box with him.

The next morning he flew to Paris. There he watched Diana being dressed in the clothes he had brought. He asked them to put some make-up on her face, and only after that they admitted relatives and close friends.

After the magnificent funeral, Paul, shocked by the absurd death of Diana, resigned and retired to his cottage in Cheshire.

The Queen kindly said goodbye to him and in November rewarded him with a Queen Victoria Medal. Equally kind was Diana’s mother, Shand Kydd, who pinned a silver badge with blue enamel and a large sapphire in the middle on his chest, and then took off her golden chain with a cross and put it on Paul, saying "You’re a member of our family now. This cross will protect you from all evil”.

Some three years passed, and that friendship shattered: in the early November 2000 several London newspapers reported that the British police had a mind to interrogate Paul Burrell as to the disappearance of some of Diana’s possessions. Feeling uneasy, Paul called the Prince Charles. None replied for a long while, but then Michael Pitt, the Prince Charles’ secretary, informed Paul that he had been asked not to disturb anyone at the Buckingham palace, and the household had been given orders not to get him in contact with anyone of the Royal family.

In January 2001 the police unexpectedly searched Paul’s house and found over three hundred possessions, belonging to Diana. Burrell was arrested and sent to Scotland Yard in handcuffs for interrogation.

He was put into a solitary confinement, and the everyday interrogations, exhausting his nervous system, lasted for over a year. All that time the investigators asked him one and the same questions – "How did you come up with the Princess Diana’s possessions?” But they never received an intelligible reply. While the list of items was astonishing: some 310 thing of exclusive badges, clothes made by famous designers, all the private correspondence of Diana’s, photo albums, negatives of photos that have never before been published, jewelry.

And a box of red wood. They said, it contained personal belongings of Diana, memorable souvenirs and an audio recording, where the former Prince Charles servant George Smith, who took part in the Falklands War, said he had been present at a strange conversation between the Prince Charles and the Queen’s footman called Fawcett.

But the box happened to be empty: it contained only three anniversary badges made of plastics. While several badges of precious metals as well as two badges made especially for Lady Di’s tin wedding anniversary – golden with 2-2.5 diamonds – disappeared.

The police cared least of all for the absence of the badges and jewelry. They were after the audio recording. But Paul stubbornly denied the presence of any tape in the box. Nor did he say where the Charles and Diana wedding anniversary badges of no less cost had gone to.

The investigation lasted for 22 months and they finally came to a decision there was no more sense to search for them. A day of the trial was appointed, and everyone believed Paul would get a long term, if he would be set free at all.

On October 28^th, just three days before the trial, the chief warden came into Paul’s prison cell at 2 am, tapped him lightly on the shoulder and woke him up. The warden asked Paul to put on his clothes as noiselessly as possible. Without much understanding of what was happening, Paul looked for his trousers and jumper in the half light. He put on his trainers on his bare feet.

"Well, come on and be quiet”, said the warden. They left the cell and went down the corridor to the exit. They passed the prison yard and headed to a car that stood near the gates. Several policemen waited near the car. They put handcuffs on Paul and told him to sit on the back seat, with two officers on either side of him.

He came to himself a bit and with surprise and alarm watched as they drove out of the city and headed towards his native lands – Cheshire. When they drove to his own cottage, he almost lost his mind.

"I would like to explain to you what’s going on”, the officer on the front seat near the driver turned to him. "You would now meet a very important person. Your life depends on this meeting. Be sensible. We shall take off the handcuffs, but the cottage is surrounded, don’t be stupid. You have a chance to get your freedom back, try to take this opportunity”.

Paul listened to the police officer and it seemed to him as if everything was just a dream, and that if he pinched himself, he would wake up in his prison cell. But the shaking of his hands told him it was real.

"Yes, yes, of course”, Paul found himself muttering and left the car. He went to the cottage with uncertainty. He was not surprised to see the door open and a light in his living-room upstairs. Slowly he went upstairs, just to calm down. Several policemen stood in the hall of the first floor. One of them pointed towards the living-room. Paul went to the door and pulled it.

There, by the fireplace, surrounded by three unfamiliar men sat Her Majesty the Queen. The shocked Burrell froze where he stood.

"Come closer, Paul”, said the Queen and addressed one of the men: "Leave us alone”.

Paul’s legs bent under him, he held his breath and bowed his head in resignation.

The Queen addressed him again: "Come closer. Don’t make me say that again”.

Paul made a couple of steps and fell on his knees.

"That’s better”, said the Queen, when the men left the room. "My dear Paul, you’re a stubborn lad, none can deny this. But I think, you’re smart enough to imagine what is waiting for you. Even if you are sentenced just for one day, you should have no confidence in that you would survive that day”.

"Yes, of course”, babbled Paul and bowed even lower. He remembered all too well the fate of Barry Mannakee, a bodyguard, who was suspected by the Prince Charles of being too close to the Princess Diana, still the wife of the Prince at that time, and fired. Some time later he died in a road traffic accident.

"You will today, now, give back to me what is not yours, and all the charges against you will be exculpated. I need Diana’s box”.

"But it was taken from me”, started Paul.

"Don’t make me nervous, Paul. You gave them an empty box, and hid the contents, obviously. I don’t need the badges nor the jewelry, although the wedding badges… those two badges, you know, they are dear to us. I thought of giving them to William and Harry, my grandsons, but you disposed of them on your own. Yet I don’t need this junk. Give me the tape”.

"When would you like me to bring it to you?”, asked Paul.

"You didn’t understand me”, the Queen smiled. "I shall take it with me. That’s why I’m here”.

"I need to go to the store room next to my garage”.

"Go then, and you will hand it to me personally”.

Some ten minutes later Paul returned, bravely walked to the Queen and handed her a package with the tape, and then reached out two badges with large diamonds from his pocket.

The next morning the Queen made a statement to the press: she said she remembered that soon after Diana’s death Paul called her and said some of Diana’s belongings remained in his possession and asked a servant to be sent to pick them up.

Under such circumstances it was necessary to call Her Majesty to the court as a witness. That thought left the prosecutor William Boyce breathless. He decided to exculpate Paul Burrell saying "there were no more ways to reach conviction”.

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