Fall From Grace (9 page)

‘I’m going to re-open the cases, sir,’ said Sara. ‘I’m convinced that justice has yet to be served on both of them and that a potentially innocent man went to the gallows. I’m also convinced that Dieter Naumann holds the key but first I want to speak to Lady Eleanor. She knows something that will lead us to make the right connections. She strikes me as being a born liar and manipulator.’

‘You’re taking on a lot here, DCI Hoyland,’ said Hargreaves, ‘what with this and the Shona Higgins case.’

‘I know, sir,’ said Sara, ‘but we can deal with it.’

*

It had been a long and pretty gruelling day at the centre and when Paul got home he poured himself a large scotch. He sat down and let his head lean back against the sofa. He closed his eyes. During the day he had so much to distract him from thinking about Jake. It was when he got home that it hit him like a ton of bricks. Every night was the same. He’d make himself something to eat, open some wine, watch some television and if his father wasn’t occupying his every thought right up until his head hit the pillow, then Jake was. He couldn’t do anything abut his father. He couldn’t take his pain away or rid him of the disease that was so cruelly savaging such a good man. But he could do something about his worry over Jake. He could do what Kelly had suggested. He could get hold of himself and do something about finding out why Jake had not been in touch for so long and he had to be prepared for any consequences.

He downed his scotch and then poured himself another. Then he picked up the phone and dialled Jake’s mobile. His hand was shaking and he told himself not to be so stupid. Then a young sounding woman with a broad Lancashire accent answered.

‘Afghanistan? No, he’s been back from there for nearly three months now. He’s just gone out to collect a pizza for us. Who’s calling please?’

Paul swallowed. Three months? He’s been back for three fucking months? He felt sick. ‘I’m… I’m Paul Foster. I’m a friend of Jake’s in Manchester.’

‘Ooh sorry, Paul, you must think I’m a bit rude but I just didn’t recognise your voice,’ she said, adding a touch of nervous laughter. ‘I don’t think you were at the wedding were you?’

‘Wedding?’

‘Mine and Jake’s. We got married a month ago. I’m Tiffany, his wife. Shall I tell him you called? I didn’t know he had a friend called Paul in Manchester. Have you known him long?’

SIX

Kelly found a lemon in her fridge so she did the only thing she could do in the circumstances and went out and bought a bottle of gin and some tonic water.

As she passed Paul’s place on her way back from the corner shop she noticed that the lights weren’t on but she could see him sitting there in the front room. She had a key so she let herself in.

‘You know what really pisses me off is that he didn’t even care enough about me to dump me by flaming text! At least that would have been something. I gave him everything, Kelly, all my heart, all my soul, all my devotion. And in the end he acts like none of it ever mattered to him.’

‘Well what will you say if he does contact you?’

‘Ask him if there’s a wedding list...’

‘I know what I’d like to give him for a wedding present,’ said Kelly, ‘but it’s not something you can buy in a shop. I’ll bloody kill him if I see him.’

Paul was aghast at Kelly’s apparent insensitivity. ‘Oh yeah, it’s all so easy to pick myself up, dust myself off and start all over again!’ he retorted. ‘If you and Lydia finished tomorrow could you do that as easily as you expect me to?’

‘No, I was…’

‘… and look, I know I never lived with him and that I didn’t see him as often as I would’ve liked. But that doesn’t give you the right to play down the value of what we had together.’

Kelly sat back and paused after receiving Paul’s onslaught. She knew that his heart had been beating for Jake since the day he met him. Of course it wasn’t going to be easy to just wipe all the hurt away and she hadn’t meant to say what she’d said in the way that she’d said it. It had just come out all wrong.

‘I think I’m going to stick to wine from now on,’ said Paul. ‘At least if you get a bad bottle of wine you can just open another one.’

Kelly laughed. ‘Look, why don’t you come round to ours and get seriously pissed?’

‘What, and have Lydia put Shirley Bassey on at full blast like she always does when she’s had one too many? No thanks. I think I’d lose the will to live if I had to watch her miming to Goldfinger tonight.’

‘Well anyway, she makes up for it in other ways and at least I don’t have to put up with man smells in the bathroom which is what you get when you invite cock into your life.’

‘Jake used to leave the most wonderful man smells in my bathroom,’ said Paul, wistfully. ‘Real masculinity; sweat, strength. Just the sort of smells that really turn me on.’

‘Don’t,’ she warned, waving her finger at him, ‘you’ll have those man smells in your bathroom again. They just won’t come from that spineless bastard.’

*

‘But why are you so determined to implicate my poor Dieter in cases that were all over and done with years ago?’ Eleanor demanded as she sat in front of Sara and Joe Alexander in the drawing room of Gatley Hall. She was being interviewed under caution.

‘Well not quite, Lady Eleanor,’ said Joe, ‘your daughter is still missing.’

‘Is there no end to your vindictiveness against a defenceless old man?’

Sara could’ve laughed. Defenceless was one thing that Dieter Naumann wasn’t. She’d met some hardened criminals in her time but Naumann sent a shiver down her spine like no other.

‘As part of the extradition process we have to take a thorough look at Dieter Naumann’s life. Surely you can see that? Especially when two murders occurred at which Naumann could’ve been present. We’re not trying to implicate him, Lady Eleanor, we just want to find out the truth.’

Eleanor didn’t bother to reply. She was sick of it all. It was such a waste of time. No charges would ever be allowed to be made against her or Dieter. She knew that even though they didn’t.

‘Tell us about when you first met Dieter Naumann, Lady Eleanor?’ said Sara.

‘He landed his plane at an RAF base in Yorkshire that night in June 1940 and I went to meet him. I hadn’t been able to go to my sister’s wedding in Berlin and with the build-up to the war it meant that she and Dieter weren’t able to come over here. Everything was covered in great secrecy that night and the atmosphere was rather tense but we fell instantly in love with each other. I’d never known passion like it, nor had Dieter. When the deal he’d come to negotiate was scrapped and he was placed under house arrest here at the Hall, I suppose you could say it meant that he and I had the most glorious war. We were together day and night and it was like that until the end of the war when a different kind of reality stabbed us both straight through the heart. You see, my husband wouldn’t give me the divorce I wanted in order to marry Dieter, or Gerald Edwards as he’d then become. I wanted so badly for us to be together but my husband Ronald wouldn’t grant me a divorce under any circumstances.’

‘And how did you feel about that?’ Sara asked.

‘Well how do you think? It broke my bloody heart.’

‘And why wouldn’t your husband grant you a divorce?’ Sara asked. ‘He was the Conservative Member of Parliament for the area for many years, right up until his death. Was he afraid of a scandal?’

‘No, he simply insisted that I keep to my side of the agreement we’d made,’ said Eleanor. ‘He was a closet homosexual and in those days they had no choice but to stay hidden and keep their proclivity secret. Nowadays of course if a Conservative politician wants to do the same as Ronald did then, the multi-millionaire can claim he was saving money when he had his handsome researcher share his hotel room. That is rather pathetic given today’s more, shall we say, enlightened times, but for Ronald that kind of subterfuge was an absolute necessity. We’d grown up together and were great friends and the arrangement had suited us both when we first got together. Ronald had cover for his sexual activities and I could never see myself settling down with just one man and wanted to carry on playing the field.’

‘With men like Peter Jenkins?’

‘Oh Peter was such a deliciously handsome boy,’ said Eleanor, recalling every inch of him. ‘Like some Hollywood matinee idol. God only knows how his dull, ugly parents could’ve produced him but they did.’

‘Did Peter Jenkins get so angry about the way you’d treated him that he sought Naumann out and they fought? A fight that led to Jenkins’ death?’

Eleanor narrowed her eyes. ‘You really are full of fanciful notions,’ she spat.

‘But not even your head of household, Wilfred Jenkins, knew about the presence of Dieter Naumann,’ said Joe. ‘That kind of atmosphere must’ve led to a lot of game playing.’

‘He was here in secret!’ Eleanor raged, exasperated at all these ridiculous questions. ‘Nobody knew except for the government officials who he was negotiating with. My staff at the time knew someone was here but they didn’t know who or why. Then, when we weren’t able to make the agreement that Naumann came over for and he stayed, we were able to let go in the presence of the staff.’