Crystal jumped into her first serious love affair with her arms open and eyes closed. Her paramour, the son of the New Zealand ambassador, was a non-rugby playing product of a culture which abhors people who do not play or worship rugby.
As a result, Richard, Richard Holland as it said on his place card at the state dinner, was a social pariah in his native land which he had fled at the first opportunity. His aim was to make a life in Europe as a musician. He played the piano seriously and was studying with a good teacher. As a result his father's current posting suited him very well.
Richard's relationship with Crystal developed very quickly after her grandparents departed the day after the dinner on an overseas tour. Then the texts and meetings stepped up until Crystal was spending every waking moment in Richard's company and her night time hours wanting to be. That was where a now apprehensive Jeff came in.
In Her Majesty's absence Jeff had been left to see to Crystal's care and he felt his role as in loco parentis required caution on his part and some restraint of Crystal's activities. She was living it up in numerous nightclubs and at private parties, always with Richard. Jeff and the rest of the detail spent their evenings whisking her into and out of clubs under the eyes of the ever vigilant paparazzi.
Now Crystal asked him to smuggle Richard into the Palace that night, late. She was leaving for New Zealand the following day. She pleaded,
'Please Jeff.' After some wrestling with competing principles Jeff did but said very seriously, Richard was to leave early before the day staff came on duty. Jeff suspected at least one of the staff of was earning a tidy living selling information about Crystal's movements to the press. He couldn't stop it but he could minimise the risk of the press becoming aware of her overnight guest.
In the morning she came downstairs with a glow on her face.
'So that's how it is,' Jeff said. 'Well good for them.' However, he did not stop the extensive background enquiry he had running on Richard.
Archie and Terri were of course at home in the bathroom during the night and had to adopt the attitude of the mirror and shut out what they saw and heard, particularly the young couple romping in the bathtub. Terri's only comment to Archie as they were packed in the morning was,
'He's very pretty.' Archie pinched her. Terri squealed.
Crystal and Richard, now very much a couple, were mature enough to know they could not change Crystal's plans, as much as they wished to do so. They were fixed by elaborate diplomatic arrangements made well in advance. Crystal was to have some time to play in Queenstown and then move onto a place working in a children's orphanage in Botswana. She was to stay there for a minimum of three months as retribution for the Jade affair.
The trouble was the meat market in Queenstown no longer appealed to Crystal: she'd found her man of the moment and wanted him with her. Her problem was Richard dug his heels in at returning to New Zealand even for a short time,
'I just can't, everything they do down there is bloody. I just don't fit in. I'll visit you in Botswana after you settle in.'
Lost in the first rapture of love Crystal could only agree and wish the time gone until she flew to Africa.
On their arrival in New Zealand Jeff turned on his phone and immediately received a number of messages, two of them were from his superior and marked 'high priority.'
He made sure all the luggage was accounted for and loaded in a couple of Range Rovers and waited while Crystal went through a meet and greet with an embassy representative. Finally they were able to leave.
As they drove to their accommodation Jeff read his messages with disbelief.
'It can't be,' was his reaction to the first and 'My God,' to the content of the second. He was entitled to be shocked, but what, if anything, he'd do about both he didn't as yet know.