Free Fall From Grace by David Menon Page B

trace of tyre marks from a vehicle. There’s a farm two miles to the west and the nearest village is three miles to the north. The main A6 runs about five miles to the east and there are only narrow lanes and dirt tracks from there to the spot where Shona’s body was dumped. Our Derbyshire colleagues are making enquiries in the area.’
    ‘We’ve got to push harder on the parents,’ said DC Steve Osborne.
    ‘Well,’ said Sara, ‘as soon as it’s appropriate, sir, I’m going to visit Shona Higgins’ parents myself. See if I can get them to talk or at least to open up enough to give us something to go on.’
    ‘Ma’am, why isn’t it appropriate to do that now?’ chirped Steve Osborne again.
    ‘It’s not the job of the police to twist the knife of someone’s grief, DS Osborne,’ said Sara. ‘The officers who saw Mr and Mrs Higgins said they were genuinely distraught. This has clearly come as a huge shock to them and I’m only talking about leaving it for twenty-four hours. Any problem with that, DS Osborne?’
    Steve was suddenly self-conscious. ‘No, ma’am,’ he said, looking over at the Superintendent, ‘none at all. I was just asking a question.’
    ‘Good,’ said Sara, ‘well in the meantime, we’ve got an active investigation to be working on. DS Alexander has uncovered some information that leads me to believe that the extradition case of Dieter Naumann may not turn out to be as straightforward as we first thought. As you all know his bail conditions require him to stay at Gatley Hall as the guest of Lady Eleanor Harding. But we’ve found that this is not the first time he’s lived there and the hall itself has a macabre history that potentially places Dieter Naumann right at the centre of suspicion. Joe?’
    ‘Ma’am,’ said Joe who then cleared his throat. ‘A man called Peter Jenkins was murdered at the Hall on June 12 th , 1940, four days after Dieter Naumann arrived in the country on his secret mission to negotiate a deal between Britain and Germany. Peter Jenkins had been having an affair with Lady Eleanor at the time but according to Naumann he and Lady Eleanor began their affair almost as soon as they’d laid eyes on each other. Wilfred Jenkins, who was then Lady Eleanor’s head of household, and Peter Jenkins’ father, were hanged for the crime on the sole evidence of her ladyship. Now we know from the transcript of the trial that Wilfred Jenkins said he found Peter in the swimming pool of Gatley Hall lying face down with Lady Eleanor and one other gentleman present but he didn’t know who that gentleman was.’
    ‘And you think it was Naumann?’ said Tim.
    ‘Yes, we do, sir,’ said Joe. ‘Lady Eleanor’s version of events, given at the trial was that Wilfred Jenkins flew into a rage when he saw his son and her together because he totally disapproved of their affair. In the struggle that followed he killed his son and she categorically denied that anybody else was present.’
    ‘But you think she lied to protect Naumann?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Sara. ‘We suspect that Dieter Naumann may have been the real killer that night in a sort of crime of passion for Lady Eleanor. But she would’ve wanted to cover it up to protect Naumann’s anonymity and what better way to do that than to use Wilfred Jenkins so that Naumann could escape justice.’
    ‘It would’ve provided him with the perfect alibi,’ said Joe.
    ‘And what’s adding to our suspicious,’ said Sara, ‘is another murder that happened at the Hall in 1974.’
    ‘Christ, it’s turning into the house in Psycho,’ said Tim. ‘No wonder the place is on all those murder websites.’
    ‘Sir,’ said Joe. ‘On October 19 th , 1974, Lady Eleanor’s daughter Clarissa allegedly fatally shot her father before disappearing without trace. Lady Eleanor had told the police at the time that, once again, she’d been the sole witness to events.’
    ‘But you think that if she’d lied to protect her lover Dieter