Fall From Grace (24 page)

‘No,’ said Paul, ‘and if it did get out then it would become the story and it isn’t the story. The story is about what he went through in Afghanistan. You’ve got to act at a higher level to your average tabloid hack. This is not about the salacious side of Jake’s life even though nothing about our relationship was salacious. But it’s not about that, Marius. It’s not about that.’

‘Because I want the story to get out and you’re the only journalist I know. I’m now trusting you to make a principled stand on what you reveal to the public. That decision will mark you out as either a great journalist or just another arsehole.’

*

When Sara and Tim got to Ed Foster’s place in Blackpool, with the agreement of their Lancashire colleagues, any uncomfortable feelings they’d had about interviewing a dying man were amplified a thousand times. Ed Foster was clearly consumed with pain but they had to get a statement. This was one of the darker sides of police work and both of them would give it up if it didn’t give them some degree of conscience.

They sat either side of Ed Foster’s bed. Sara asked him to take as much time as he needed to give them his account of what happened on the now infamous night in October 1974. His voice was so weak and soft, they had to really concentrate to be able to hear him, but what they were able to discern was that he backed up everything that had been said by Leonid Sulkov and Lady Eleanor.

‘I’ve been ashamed since the day it happened,’ said Ed, his heart heavy with the weight of the past. ‘I used to be friends with Dieter Naumann, or Gerald Edwards, until he tried to perform an abortion on Clarissa when she was pregnant with our son.’

‘He did what?’ asked Sara.

‘Oh it was all at her ladyship’s instigation,’ said Ed. ‘Clarissa went up to the Hall one night to appeal to her parents and they drugged her. I managed to get there just in time to save both Clarissa and our unborn child.’

Good God, thought Tim. Once a Nazi, always a bloody Nazi. It seemed to him that there were no depths to which Dieter Naumann wouldn’t sink. The woman in the room with him had taken his baby away but that was of her own free will. He looked up at her. She looked away.

‘Mr. Foster, we will have to arrest you for the murders of Ronald Harding and Clarissa Harding,’ said Tim. ‘But there will be no further investigation into the matter.’

On the drive back to Manchester along the M61, Sara’s head was consumed with the latest ramifications of this most complicated case when a thought struck her.

‘Tim?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Naumann said that he couldn’t go back to Germany after his wife had been executed for treason because they would’ve executed him for the same thing, believing that he must’ve been in league with her?’

‘Yes? That bit of his story is probably the most plausible.’

‘But when the Nazi’s were defeated at the end of the war, what would’ve stopped him going back to Germany then? I mean, what would it have mattered? He could’ve been reunited with his family in Munich. He didn’t have to make himself a refugee.’

‘Let’s make a detour on the way back to the office,’ said Sara, ‘there’s a connection to be made between these two cases and we’re going to make it.’

When they arrived at Leonid Sulkov’s house they took him up on his offer of tea this time. They told him that the matter as far as Foster was concerned, the case was now closed. He’d been charged with the murder of Ronald Harding and Clarissa Harding but there’d be no trial, considering the circumstances of Foster’s health.

‘He will be relieved though,’ said Leonid. ‘I’m a few years older than Ed. I’ve been a bit of an older brother to him. Oh he has his own brother, Doug, but he’s younger. I’ve always looked out for Ed and I know this is what he wanted to do.’

‘Mr. Sulkov,’ said Sara, ‘we’ve come back to see you because…’

‘…oh indulge me and tell me it was my charm,’ said Leonid. ‘You’re an attractive young lady and if I was fifty years younger I’d take you out for a good time.’

Sara smiled. ‘Now there’s an offer I couldn’t refuse,’ she said, ‘if you were fifty years younger.’

‘Ah, there’s always a catch,’ said Leonid. ‘So what are you here about?’

‘Well the thing is, sir, what we would like to know is why Dieter Naumann stayed in England at the end of the Second World War and we thought you might be able to tell us. I mean, why didn’t he go back to Germany? The Nazis had been defeated so he would’ve been safe. He wasn’t in the same position as you. Do you know the reason?’

‘I think the police service should keep hold of you, young lady,’ said Leonid, ‘You have sharp and very accurate instincts.’

‘Go on?’

‘It was at the end of the war just after I’d started working for Lady Eleanor,’ began Leonid, ‘but again, I need to put things into context. Have you ever heard of the Lebensraum programme?’

‘Wasn’t that something to do with the Nazis?’ said Tim.

‘Oh yes,’ said Leonid. ‘They wanted to create the perfect Aryan race so they literally stole blond haired blue eyed kids from all across Europe, the countries they’d invaded and occupied that is, and took them back to Germany to the Lebensraum orphanages and then to be adopted by loyal Aryan German families. Their soldiers were also told to go out and multiply with any of the local blond haired girls who were willing to put it out for the German occupiers and collaborate.’

‘Detective, Lady Eleanor Harding was the British side of it. She and Dieter Naumann were responsible for the disappearance from this country of about three hundred children.’

Tim and Sara looked at each other in complete disbelief.

‘What?’ said Tim.

‘They paid poor impoverished folks across the North West for their blond, blue-eyed kids who were all then taken to Germany to join the rest in the Lebensraum programme.’

‘Well what happened to these kids? Didn’t anybody investigate?’

‘They were all poor kids from poor backgrounds. In a lot of cases nobody really missed them. There was a war on. One less mouth to feed was a blessing and none of the parents informed the police. How could they when they’d taken money for them?’

‘Well this is where it gets interesting,’ said Leonid. ‘You see, Lady Eleanor was as thick as thieves with the Duke of Windsor, the King who’d abdicated in 1936 so he could marry Wallis Simpson.’

‘The King who later became known as the traitor King because of his closeness to Hitler and the Reich.’

‘That’s it,’ said Leonid. ‘It’s fairly certain from what we now know that if Hitler had won the Battle of Britain then he’d have installed Edward back on the throne and deposed his brother, George VI, who’d ascended the throne after him.’

‘So what did the Duke of Windsor have to do with these kids?’

‘Nothing directly,’ said Leonid. ‘Or at least, nothing we know for sure. The thing is he was part of a network of British aristocrats that included Lady Eleanor and who all had Nazi connections. They were able to use that network to get the kids out of the country and into occupied France or Belgium from where they were then taken to Germany. Even after he’d been sent to the Bahamas to serve out the war there as governor, the British secret services kept a close eye on him and Mrs. Simpson. The couple maintained their contacts with their European friends as best they could.’

‘No wonder they call him the Traitor King,’ said Tim.

‘Yes,’ said Leonid. ‘You see it’s always been rumoured over the years but it is in fact true. The fortunes of many of the aristocracy had been built on investments in the countries of the empire and they were afraid that might all be cut off. That’s why they wanted the deal with Hitler.’

‘But I still don’t know why Naumann didn’t go back to Germany in 1945?’ said Sara. ‘Especially considering what he’d done here, I’d have thought he’d have wanted to escape. The Nazis had been defeated, so what was he afraid of?’

‘It was because of his involvement in the Polish massacre,’ said Leonid. ‘He would’ve been charged if he’d gone back and he’d have probably been executed. So he blackmailed the British authorities with a threat to expose all the secrets of the British state that he’d found out when he was originally negotiating the pact with Hitler. But as it happened the authorities found out about Dieter and Eleanor’s wartime activities and they narrowly escaped being charged with treason and going to the gallows. It was only Lady Eleanor’s connections with the royal family that saved her and Dieter.’

Sara was appalled at the very idea of hundreds of children being sold by local families to help the Nazi war effort. It made her feel sick. She’d wracked her brains to think of how they could be traced but what would be the point after all this time? Those who were still alive would be old now and probably wouldn’t even remember being a toddler in another land. They’d have children of their own; grandchildren, homes, lives. Then there’s the fact that the families of the children actually sold them. They wanted them to go. They never wanted them to be traced. But maybe a crime of the past could bring about the conclusion of a crime of the present. Sara had nursed a hunch all the way through these investigations that something would appear that would bind them together in some way. And now she was sure she’d found it. She called a squad meeting and laid it all out for the rest of the team.

‘Glenn Barber is someone the force have suspected for some time of being involved in other things besides just loan sharking.’

‘It’s a bit of a leap though, ma’am,’ said Steve, ‘to go from being a loan shark to abducting teenage girls?’

‘On the face of it, yes,’ said Sara, ‘but this investigation has thrown up many surprises. I believe very strongly that there’s a connection between these two cases and that the disappearance of the girls is what will lead us to it. Now, what do the families of all the missing girls have in common?’

‘They’re all on benefits?’ said Steve.

‘It’s not as simple as that, Steve,’ said Sara. ‘Suppose they all borrowed money from Glenn Barber but were struggling to pay it back? What if he took the girls as some form of human collateral?’

The rest of the team looked at her with a mixture of bewilderment and the usual coppers’ excitement when their noses could sniff something. She walked up to the white board and next to the picture of Glenn Barber she pinned one of Lady Eleanor.

‘Lady Eleanor Harding,’ said Sara, ‘a cold, ruthless killer. A woman so ruthless she bought children for the Reich and organised their passage to Germany.’

‘The reason for their arrest isn’t known,’ Sara explained. ‘No charges were subsequently brought. It all fits with what Sulkov claims about them being involved in the trafficking of children for the Reich but that somehow, through connections with the royal family, they were let off. I’ve been in touch with the Home Office and they’ll neither confirm nor deny Sulkov’s story - which means it’s true. If the royal family brokered a deal to get them off the hook then the palace wouldn’t want that getting out.’

‘I’m surprised they didn’t try to silence Sulkov and Ed Foster,’ said Joe.

‘Yeah, they appear to have left a flank open there,’ said Tim. ‘Until now. Let’s not forget that Sulkov and Foster kept it all to themselves for all this time. But who knows how those people work. They’ve always been a mystery to me.’

‘Who, the Home Office?’ Steve questioned.

‘No, the royals,’ said Tim, ‘…but also the Home Office.’

‘Well I think we should make a start by going back to the parents of the girls who’ve gone missing and see if they all owed money to Glenn Barber,’ said Joe. ‘Starting with Shona Higgins parents. Hit them with it and see how they react.’

‘Excellent,’ said Sara. ‘Thanks, Joe.’

‘We know that people sell their kids for money,’ said Joe. ‘Unfortunately, we’ve all dealt with such cases.’

‘Sadly that’s true, Joe,’ said Sara, ‘except that I don’t think these kids today were sold. I think they were taken. Although we know what happened to Shona Higgins, God only knows what’s happened to the rest of them but I’d bet my life that her Ladyship does.’