Diana--A Closely Guarded Secret (18 page)

Hewitt was still in love with Diana, or so it seemed to me. Rather naively, during the Gulf Campaign he had kept in touch with her by using the
Daily Mail
satellite phone, courtesy of reporter Richard Kay, who had been sent to the front line to cover the war for his newspaper. What Hewitt did not know was that even while he was there, Diana confided to me that she felt he was getting ‘too serious’. He was, apparently, openly talking about them spending the rest of their lives together. This unnerved Diana, for the idea of giving up the trappings of royalty and her position to become an army wife was not a prospect that excited her at all.

She also told me that she had never been completely convinced that James’s declarations of love were entirely
genuine, perhaps believing that he was as attracted to the idea of snaring a princess – indeed, the most famous woman in the world – as he was to her for herself. In any event, not long after his return she told him over the phone that it would be best if they ‘cooled things’ for the time being.

And that was that. After a short leave Hewitt returned to Germany, a posting that would last for around six months. When he came back to London, stationed conveniently at Knightsbridge Barracks, on the edge of Hyde Park, Diana had moved on. He blamed publicity for killing their relationship; to me, she openly blamed his stupidity.

Within days of her ‘Dear John’ phone call, Diana began the process of self-justification.

‘Ken, do you know that when James was in the Gulf he even borrowed Richard Kay’s satellite phone so he could speak to me and let others listen? How ridiculous is that?’ she said. She had a point. From a security point of view, her decision to distance herself from Hewitt was a godsend. Blackmail was always a serious concern. I did not believe that James, as a Life Guards officer, would himself stoop so low, not least because he had too much to lose. None the less, I always feared that blackmail was a possibility, especially from someone who had seen them together or had taken photographs of them during one of their trysts.

After the affair ended, James seemed to lose all sense of perspective. His sense of honour as an officer did not prevent him from publishing his account of the affair during the Princess’s lifetime. Later, all the nonsense he wrote about MI6 plotting to kill him struck me as the rantings of a man desperate
to sell his story to the highest bidder. James knows the truth, as I do, and in my opinion he would do best to stick to it.

Diana found that ending her relationship with James Hewitt was far easier than she had anticipated. By the time she finally cut the cord she had lost her respect for him. On more than one occasion she told me of her concerns. She believed that, far from being in love with her, James was a maverick who may have been using her. She had also explained to him that she had to resolve the many problems in her life, and could not do so while conducting an adulterous affair. Typically, when James accepted this with good grace, she was slightly irritated, no doubt having hoped that he would beg her to reconsider, declaring yet again his undying love.

On my advice, she asked for the return of the love letters she had written to him while he was in the Gulf. He declined, however, insisting that he wanted to keep them as a memento of their deep love for each other, even though that love had not endured. I was suspicious of his motives, but the Princess accepted his explanation, albeit reluctantly. From that moment, however, she was always concerned that the letters would one day be published by her former lover and suffered more or less continual anxiety over leaving such incriminating evidence in Hewitt’s safekeeping. As events would prove, she was of course right to worry.

Several years later, after Diana’s death, Hewitt’s girlfriend of the time allegedly stole the letters from him and tried to sell them to the
Daily Mirror
. Fortunately, the paper’s editor, Piers Morgan, did the honourable thing and returned them to Diana’s estate. They are in fact Hewitt’s property (although
the copyright in them belongs to her estate) but, as Andrew Morton has pointed out, it is unlikely that he will ever see them again.

By the end of 1991 it was clear to many people, and not just those on the inside, that the Prince of Wales’s marriage was in desperate trouble. Ten years earlier, when he and Diana had married, the couple had seemed so full of happiness and hope that observers spoke of a new era in British royal life, less stuffy, more approachable, more in tune with the country in the last-but-one decade of the twentieth century. Now, it seemed, that dream would end, as would the marriage itself. The generally held view, however, was that divorce was not a possibility principally because the Queen would never sanction it – or so it was said. I did not agree; indeed, I saw divorce as the only possible conclusion. The ‘new’ Diana wanted to spread her wings, but she wanted to do so outside the confines of the royal family. I knew that she wanted above all to escape her marriage, and to live a life in which she could ‘be herself’, something that she had often confided to me. What I did not know, however, was the one secret, in the years that I was with her, that she kept from me. Without my knowledge or that of almost anyone else close to her, the Princess had laid secret plans which she hoped would prove the ‘no divorce’ pundits wrong. The project was eventually to evolve into a book called
Diana: Her True Story
, and its publication would effectively bring the marriage to an end.

SEPTEMBER 1991 finally saw the Palace approve plans for the Princess’s first solo tour, an official visit to Pakistan. This was her big chance and she was anxious not to fail, for it provided a great opportunity to emerge from the shadow of her husband and be seen not only as a worthwhile member of the royal family, but as a person in her own right. Prince Charles, meanwhile, was undertaking a visit to Nepal, and would collect the Princess in Pakistan for the flight home.

At the end of August before I set off for the reconnaissance during which I hoped to pave the way for a safe and media-friendly tour, Diana asked me to do all that I could to ensure that her character was reflected in the working visit; she wanted to show the world what the Princess of Wales was all about. Her private secretary, Patrick Jephson, took directives from the Foreign Office about what they wanted
the Princess to do, as well as seemingly endless instructions and advice from the Palace. Formal directives were all very well, but despite the fact that I was her protection officer I knew exactly what type of schedule she wanted, something that went far beyond the issue of security. ‘I am a humanitarian, Ken,’ she said before I left. ‘I want to touch the people and I want them to touch me’. She had made it clear that she wanted to smash down old royal barriers and set a new and exciting agenda. Somehow I had to make sure that she was not put at risk.

In security terms, Diana had set me a tough task. The fact that she wanted the crowds to be able to get close to her meant that potentially she would be in danger from any disaffected or demented person intent on making a name or proving a point. The Princess’s instruction was not a request, however; it was an unequivocal order.

The Pakistani government and people could not have been more helpful or hospitable, and were clearly delighted – ‘honoured’ was the word they used – to be hosting such a high-profile tour. I quickly found that nothing was too much trouble for them. I was put up in the old Government House in Lahore, a fantastic building dating from the days of the British Raj, and immensely comfortable, and was assured that nothing was too difficult for them. At one point I asked if they could arrange a back-up car for security use, and emphasised that it had to be reliable. At this, the eyes of one of the local organisers lit up with excitement. ‘Don’t you worry, Inspector, don’t you worry. I have something very, very special for you.’ A few hours later I was taken to see it, and could barely contain
my laughter as I was proudly shown an old but classic pink Cadillac convertible. We used it.

On my return I gave the Princess a full briefing. She had received a formal outline of the visit from Patrick, but she wanted me to reassure her, not just that all the proper security measures were in place, but that the trip was going to be a huge success. I did my best to set her mind at rest on both points. From the snow-capped Himalayan setting of Chitral to the cauldron of Lahore, she was going to get her way. She would be a princess of the people.

Diana flew out to Muscat, in the Persian Gulf, on a scheduled British Airways plane, where the BAe 146 of the RAF’s Queen’s Flight was waiting to take her on the last leg to Islamabad. On landing she went straight to her first engagement, giving the world, and her detractors back at Buckingham Palace, a clear message that she meant business.

Her first stop was at a ceremony at the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Rawalpindi. This, Diana wanted to stress, was official business, sanctioned by and undertaken on behalf of the Queen. She ended this exhausting first day by flying the flag for Britain, and delivering a pretty competent speech at an official dinner hosted by the Prime Minister. She handled herself well, and certainly did not let anyone down, although there were many lurking in the corridors at the Palace who would have loved her to fall flat on her face, as she was well aware. Diana was not a timid girl, however, but a determined woman. She may not have had much in the way of formal education, but she was extremely canny, and had a highly developed instinct for other people and their expectations. Before she retired
after that first testing day, both elated and exhausted, she again sought reassurance from me.

‘Ken, how did I do?’ she asked, a little apprehensively. Sometimes I felt like a trusted uncle reassuring his precocious but nervous little niece.

‘Ma’am, you were bloody marvellous,’ I said, and meant it. She smiled, said goodnight, and went to her bed.

The Princess performed brilliantly the next day, carrying out her duties with energy and enthusiasm, but by the third day her sullen demeanour had returned. She did not want to attend some of the events planned for her, and was beginning to make things difficult for those around her, especially Patrick and her press secretary, Dickie Arbiter. Things came to the boil as we sat in the aircraft at Lahore airport, waiting to return to Islamabad for a dinner she was due to host at the High Commission. I tried, as diplomatically as I could, to snap her out of her petulant mood, but to no avail – everyone was out of step except Diana, it seemed. Then news reached us that a thunderstorm had hit Islamabad, which meant that we would have to stay on the ground for perhaps as long as another hour. She spoke to the High Commissioner who was accompanying her, and learned that the dinner had to be cancelled, at which she brightened visibly. ‘Oh dear, Nicholas, what a shame,’ I heard her say, just about concealing her delight.

After we had finally reached Islamabad, and as Sir Nicholas Barrington moped over the empty tables for the banquet that never was, I realised that with no formal engagements, we now had the evening to ourselves, since my back-up protection officer was looking after the Princess. I therefore suggested a
‘boys’ night out’ – after all, why waste the opportunity? Patrick Jephson agreed and so, with Dickie Arbiter in tow, the three of us embarked on what proved to be a riotous night. Next morning, a much brighter Diana could not wait to hear about our night on the tiles. ‘How’s your head, Ken? Did you boys get up to no good last night?’ Naturally, I admitted nothing, beyond a knowing smile.

A small incident of little significance, perhaps, but it signalled a sea change in the Princess’s manner and behaviour. From then until the end of the visit she performed her duties with good humour and considerable élan, and people flocked to see her. Above all, her natural sympathy shone through on even the most formal of occasions, making her countless new admirers. Back home the newspapers lapped it up. The headlines screamed that Diana had taken Pakistan by storm, that her visit had been a resounding success. The tabloids predictably hailed her vociferously as the jewel in the royal family’s crown, one of them claiming, employing a typically lame pun, that she was ‘All the Raj’. The Princess could barely contain her elation. As far as she was concerned, she had arrived as a public figure on the world stage.

Diana may have been buoyed by her solo success, but the triumph of her visit to Pakistan was inevitably regarded in a different light by traditionalists at the Palace as well as by those in Prince Charles’s camp. She undoubtedly had the private backing of the Queen, who had sanctioned the visit, as had the Foreign Office, but there were many in senior positions within the Palace who felt that it had been not only unwise, but foolhardy.

The Old Guard feared that once Diana’s free spirit had escaped the confines of the Palace there would be no stopping her, much less controlling her, as once they had. In this they were absolutely right. Diana had no intention of looking fearfully over her shoulder ever again. Convinced that her errant husband would never love her, she was determined to chart her own course in life. As usual, however (as was perhaps my policeman’s lot), I urged caution, extreme caution. As I knew only too well, she was prone to overexcitability, but on this issue there was no point in warning her to hold back. Her mind was made up, and I knew from the way she was speaking that life was never going to be the same from this moment on.

At one stage during the tour the Queen’s Flight BAe 146 arrived at Lahore to collect us, bringing Prince Charles with it. As we prepared to leave for Islamabad aboard the aircraft a curious incident happened that left the royal party vastly amused at my expense. The RAF group captain commanding the flight was ready for take-off and was going through his final checks when we heard a loud banging at the back of the jet. The noise was so alarming that the pilot aborted the take-off. But the banging on the fuselage continued. With the engines shut down, the steps were lowered so that the crew could investigate further. Suddenly the local Chief of Police, a large and imposing man with a huge handlebar moustache appeared at the door, clutching a furled umbrella, with which he had obviously been knocking on the aircraft’s metal skin. He was badly out of breath and seemed quite alarmed. Had he, just before we took off, uncovered some sinister plot to blow up the flight? No. Apparently oblivious of the fact that
he had halted the royal flight, he pantingly began to explain. ‘I had to stop you,’ he gasped, with all of us hanging on his every word, ‘You see, I forgot to let my wife say goodbye to Inspector Wharfe and she made me promise that I would do it.’ We all burst out laughing.

Prince Charles, who was sitting in the royal apartment at the rear of the aircraft, turned to me and said, deadpan: ‘Do you know him, Ken?’

I thanked our visitor with as straight a face as I could manage, and he departed, his marital duty done, while the flight crew readied the aircraft for take-off once more. As we lifted off Diana turned and nudged me. ‘Ken,’ she whispered mischievously, ‘you obviously made an impression with the Chief of Police’s wife.’

Her success in Pakistan crystallised the Princess’s determination to ‘go solo’, a phrase she loved to use. Nobody, and especially not her husband, was going to stop her now. As she repeatedly told me, she was still in love with Charles, but she was not going to let him get the better of her. Her optimism was one of the most attractive features of her character, and when she was in one of these moods she was pure joy to be with.

After Pakistan, however, Diana realised that she had more cards to play. She had wooed and won the media. Cynics had written her off as nothing but an upper-class girl who had left school with no qualifications, a pretty accessory for the Prince of Wales and a useful mother to his heirs, but they had missed the point. She had become adept not merely at surviving, but at flourishing, in the world in which she found herself. She knew who to flatter and how, even if it was sometimes to deceive.
Above all, she knew how to get what she wanted. After the struggles and disputes of the previous months, she was primed and ready for the fight to come, in which she would take on not just her husband and his supporters and cronies, but the royal family and the Palace as well.

The Queen was suffering from a bad cold, and her voice, weary and hoarse, summed up the worst year in recent royal history when, in a speech she made at the Guildhall on 24 November 1992, she described that year as her ‘
annus horribilis
’. The Latin expression was her first public admission of failure, an acknowledgement that the state of affairs within the royal family was in many ways dire, and she knew it, although it was also a reference to the disastrous fire at Windsor Castle on 20 November.

At the beginning of the year, however, many in the Queen’s circle believed that the Prince of Wales’s marriage could be saved. There was a feeling that a working arrangement could be put in place that would suit both Charles and Diana. Yet those in Diana’s camp knew that nothing could have been further from the truth.

By early 1992 the couple were effectively separated in everything but name. Charles was living his preferred life as a bachelor. He rarely saw his sons or wife, and threw himself into his work. Camilla Parker Bowles, of course, was the soulmate who consoled him, and seemed to attend to his every need. Effectively, he had made it clear to Diana that although she was his wife, the mother of his sons, and Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales, she had no place in his heart, now or in the
future. Diana, although resigned to this way of life, had long since decided that she was not prepared to abide by the rules he had laid down. True, she had engaged in extramarital affairs, as he had done, but she was not willing to make life easy for him. I felt that she was, in some ways, still in love with the idea of being in love with her husband, and when we were alone together she would often ask me what she should do.

I continually urged her to try to win Charles back, or at least, for the sake of the sons they both loved, to come to some kind of amicable arrangement that would keep the marriage intact. But in my heart I knew that this was never going to happen. I believe that if the Prince had offered her even the smallest morsel of love she would have clung to it, and tried to rescue their dysfunctional marriage; but he did not. To this day, I remain convinced that Diana never wanted to divorce him. In a fit of pique she would fly off the handle and say that divorce was her only way out, but she knew from her own experience as a child, when her parents had divorced so publicly and bitterly, as well as from her work with Relate, that to end the marriage might have a catastrophic impact on their two sons. There was, too, another factor, namely that the actress in her, bolstered by her occasional descents into self-pity, also found the chance to play the wronged wife too compelling to miss. As I have said, it never seemed to occur to her that she was just as guilty as the Prince, that her own adultery was just as relevant to the breakdown of their marriage. We would talk for hours about that breakdown and the conversation always came back to the same question: should she stay, or go? My answer was invariably that she should stay and fight from within, because
it would be terribly cold on the outside. I knew, however, that the time would come when there would be no other option. More importantly, so did the Princess. To the outside world, the charade went on. Although their joint public appearances were rare, people essentially mistrusted what they read in the newspapers about the rifts in the marriage.