The Murder of Princess Diana by Noel Botham Page A

cry all the time?”
    The official death-knell on the marriage was sounded by prime minister John Major on December 9, 1992. “It is announced from Buckingham Palace that, with regret, the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate.”
    Hardly had the shockwaves from this announcement subsided and the New Year been welcomed in that a new blockbuster royal scandal exploded in the press. This time it was Diana’s turn to grin and Charles and Camilla’s turn to squirm. It would make the Squidgy Tape revelations seem almost innocent by comparison.

SIX

    The excruciating embarrassment experienced by Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles on publication of their secretly taped late-night chat was no more than any other couple would feel if a private lovers’ exchange were transcribed and printed in a major national newspaper. But this was not just any other couple. This was the married heir to the throne of England and the wife of one of his closest friends, and their silly, slightly dirty and very explicit conversation showed that they were heavily involved in an adulterous relationship.
    Charles admits he needs her several times a week, and suggests it would be much easier if he just lived inside her trousers. But when she proposes that he turn into a pair of her knickers, he comes up with the idea of becoming a Tampax. Their talk is mainly about love-making and when they will meet again, and Charles tells her, “Your great achievement is to love me.” They then spend a couple of minutes telling each other “I love you” in the way lovers do when they want their partner to ring off first.
    Charles was staying at the home of Anne, Duchess of Westminster, and Camilla was at home in the country on December 17, 1989, when their telephone conversation was recorded by the intelligence services. It was done just two weeks before the Squidgy Tape was made, and almost certainly by the same team. As before, the eleven-minute conversation was electronically cleaned before being rebroadcast to be picked up by an amateur radio buff. It was originally sold to an Australian publication before being passed to the Sun in London where it was guaranteed to have the greatest impact.
    The most savage reaction was against Camilla Parker Bowles who received hate mail by the sack load and—after an extremely harrowing incident in a local supermarket where she was pelted with bread rolls by other shoppers—was forced to remain hidden in her home.
    Diana, on the other hand, was delighted. Having suffered so recently from the Squidgy Tape, she could fully appreciate just how much anguish and misery her rival was going through. A woman with Camilla’s sheltered upbringing was bound to suffer much more from the full attention of the press. Camilla was in a purgatory of her own making, and Diana reveled in her public humiliation and disgrace. In addition to this, Mrs. Parker Bowles was suffering dreadful guilt pangs from the equally devastating effect the publishing of the tape had had on her husband—who was besieged by the press on a daily basis. Andrew managed to preserve his unruffled graciousness and charm, and said nothing. Camilla remained stoical but was unable to cope in public and went to pieces, holed up in her house. In four short weeks she lost twenty-five pounds in weight and aged a decade.
    Camilla could only reveal her true feelings to one man—Prince Charles, whom she rightfully reasoned was the person most desperately in need of her reassurance and loving support. But she feared to tell him so on the telephone, for if one call could be bugged—the prince eventually learned that the secret service had twenty-eight highly intimate and revealing telephone conversations between himself and Camilla—then they figured, correctly, that they were still being monitored. However, they dared not meet face-to-face in case they were discovered by the press.
    It was no consolation to either of them that Stella Rimington, the