The Murder of Princess Diana by Noel Botham Page B

head of MI5, had set up an in-house investigation to identify the “rogue agents” who had secretly leaked the “Camillagate” tape. The results of her investigation were never released, and a government inquiry launched by prime minister John Major concluded a year later that the intelligence services had been cleared of spying on the royal parties. These results were, justifiably, met with virtually universal disbelief and derision by members of parliament and the general public alike. Charles, Camilla and Diana rejected the statement, and believed that they were still being spied upon.
    Of the three of them, Diana now had the least to lose. Free of Charles after, in her own words, “twelve fucking diabolical years,” she had rarely been in higher spirits, and the “Camillagate” revelations, in fully confirming her stories of Charles’s involvement with Mrs. Parker Bowles, which had been dismissed by most Establishment figures as paranoid hysteria, had made her ecstatically happy. There was a new bounce in her step, and a renewed sparkle in her brilliant blue eyes. Diana was at her best ever, and clearly planning to make the most of her hard-won freedom.
    She was absolutely convinced now that she could fulfill all her potential as Princess of Wales, naively believing that her split with Charles had not affected her formal position in the royal hierarchy and that it would remain equally unaffected by divorce, which at that time she would not openly admit to being an option. It certainly did not exist in Diana’s own somewhat blinkered version of her destiny. In her confused vision of the future, she would enjoy a solo role uncluttered by Prince Charles, all the while remaining married with her existing privileges intact. The confusion already existing in her mind was illustrated by her great joy at being free of Charles, which alternated with moments when she confided to friends that she still loved the prince as much as ever and still wanted her marriage to work.
    For his part, Charles had little time to dwell on the future of his marriage. His future in history was being threatened by the public debates raging in the media and among churchmen and politicians following publication of the “Camillagate” tape. There had even been the most amazing backlash among his most ardent supporters in the Establishment. Those who had sympathized with the prince after the Squidgy Tape was released now stood back appalled, and even questioned his suitability to become king. Even his hard-core supporters were devastated.
    In the first six days of March 1993, column inches in the British national press totalled 3,603 supporting Diana and just 275 for Charles. What frightened Charles’s supporters most was his apparent inability to fight back, for once again the prince was showing weakness in the face of adversity. In the spring of 1993, his official visit to Mexico was completely overshadowed by Diana’s five-day trip to Nepal, and at times it must have seemed to the beleaguered prince that the whole world was turning against him.
    According to her personal protection officer at the time, Ken Wharfe, Diana went through a period of secretly hoping that the unthinkable would happen and the monarchy skip a generation—the crown bypassing Charles and going directly to Prince William. This scenario, Wharfe believed, agreed with her slightly twisted idea of justice.
    Wharfe, and others close to the princess—who was now referred to by everyone as “the boss”—noticed a huge change in her following the separation. She had grown in confidence when coping with public events, but at the same time her confidence and trust in her inner circle of confidantes began to wane. It seemed that she felt she had been betrayed so many times in her life that it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to trust anyone. She became highly unpredictable, with spectacular mood swings, and it seemed to some of those in contact with her on a