If you ask me...They're after me for the death of Diana. And with very good reason

Nothing and no one is safe from the conspiracy theorists' accusations apart from perhaps, Ben Fogle, as it’s just impossible to believe he could get up to such a thing

A statue of Diana, Princess of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed is unveiled at Harrods department store on 1 September, 2005 in London. (Getty Images)

You may well wonder where I’ve been for the past week and because we are close, you and I, I will tell you: I’ve been on the run. I’ve been on the run from Scotland Yard and I’ve been on the run from MI6 and I’ve been on the run from Mohamed Al-Fayed and I’ve been on the run from The Daily Express and, because I have come to trust you over the years, I will tell you for why: they’re after me for the death of Princess Diana. I just know it.

Conspiracy theorists have already tried to stick it on Prince Philip, the Queen, the paparazzi, the security services and, most recently, the SAS, so I know it is only a matter of time before my name came into the frame.

“I’m off,” I told my husband, “and if anyone asks for me, say you have absolutely no idea of my whereabouts.”

“Answer me straight,” he said. “Did you kill Princess Diana?”

“I did not,” I said, “but if there are groups of people hell-bent on proving the Paris car crash was an organised assassination rather than a tragic accident they are not going to be satisfied until every person has been pursued and investigated.”

As it is, Mr Fayed, on the anniversary of Diana and Dodi’s death each year, gives an all-night, 12-hour, candlelit reading from any random phone book of those he believes were involved in the conspiracy. One year, he even mistakenly took up a take-away menu and insisted a lamb jalfrezi did it, as well as an aloo gobi and a garlic nan! (“Nan Killed Diana,” ran the Daily Express headline). So nothing and no one is safe apart from perhaps, Ben Fogle, as it’s just impossible to believe he could get up to such a thing, or our cat, Basil, who wasn’t born at the time, although this may not rule him out in due course.

It may not, ultimately, even rule him out as the father of the unborn, non-existent baby Diana was carrying. Every premature death is a tragedy, but to die when you are carrying an unborn, non-existent baby? Heartbreaking.

My husband waved me off, sadly. I don’t know when, or even if, we’ll see each other again and, as I hide, waiting for the theorists to move on, I hope he’ll be all right. I think he will, as he has his hobbies, which include faking photographs of the 1969 moon landings, plus, when he has the time, writing blogs ridiculing the findings of climate change scientists. “It’s nothing anyone would ever take seriously,” he always says, “but it amuses me.”

Twitter: @deborahross