The Murder of Princess Diana by Noel Botham Page B

herself. But this was only, it seemed to everyone in retrospect, so that she would have an available fall-guy foil for the arrival pictures she had so carefully choreographed. At Northolt Airport she snatched away all his hard-won PR points of the previous two days and made him look an insensitive oaf. She simply waited until he had descended the airplane steps and was deep in conversation with an aide, before making her dramatic appearance.
    Diana emerged from the doorway of the plane, carrying a heavy bag in one hand, took a couple of faltering paces, and paused at the top of the steps, looking grief-stricken, waiting for the flashbulbs to flare. It was, for the entire world to see, as though in her moment of personal tragedy the sad princess had no one to offer a helping hand—least of all her husband.
    For the funeral—which Diana had, quite unrealistically, asked him not to attend—Charles insisted on sending his own wreath. The princess, who had not been to Althorp since 1989 for her brother’s wedding, and who had avoided meeting with her father on several occasions when he called at Kensington Palace, sent her own wreath too. On the card she wrote of “missing her darling daddy.” “She hardly ever saw him,” said Sue Ingram, Raine Spencer’s tight-faced assistant pointedly.
    Unwanted by the Spencers, Charles flew to the funeral at Althorp alone in a Wessex helicopter of the Queen’s Flight. Diana traveled in a car driven by her personal detective Ken Wharfe, who recalled her telling him at the time, “He’s going to turn my father’s funeral into a charade, Ken. It’s so false.”
    Afterward, Prince Charles managed to upset his namesake—Charles, the new Earl Spencer—by telling him how lucky he was to have inherited so young. The earl, who had just buried his father, said that in making this observation the prince did not seem to appreciate how he felt about his loss. “I wish I had inherited so young,” Charles told him with a characteristic lack of sensitivity. While he obviously did not wish his mother, the Queen, any harm, least of all her death, it is a glaring example of his tactlessness.
    The prince left early by helicopter to return to Camilla in Gloucestershire, and sent Raine Spencer a handwritten five-page letter of condolence, while Diana, having agreed with her brother that Raine should perhaps consider alternative residential arrangements, returned to Kensington Palace with Ken Wharfe.
    The following month, Diana flew to Cairo for a series of solo public engagements in Egypt. Her Queen’s Flight aircraft—to her deep annoyance—made a detour to Ankara to drop off Charles who had arranged a further holiday in Turkey with Camilla. She was still seething with rage when she told her host, the British Ambassador, and his guests that she expected to be just Lady Di again by the time her husband was eventually crowned. This was seven months before the end of her marriage was officially announced, and proved a total conversation-stopper.
    Yet despite her emotionally charged state, Diana turned Egypt into another spectacular media triumph with a series of stunning photographs using the pyramids, the Sphinx and the great palace at Luxor as backdrops. The only downside for the princess was that, this time, the press had failed to spot Camilla alongside Charles during their Turkish holiday. It was hardly a very satisfying revenge, but on her way home she refused to collect him in Ankara, even though the pilot told her they would fly almost directly over the Turkish capital. Charles had to order that her aircraft do a fast turnaround when it reached England, and return to pick him up.
    The princess’s comments—usually fueled by anger or provoked by her husband’s boorishness, especially those like her bombshell in Cairo—continued to make headlines and constantly seemed to catch Charles and his aides by surprise. It is certain that none of their friends or the palace staff had the slightest