by Menon, David
‘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.’
‘I’m sorry, detectives,’ said Ed. ‘I’m sorry that I kept quiet all this time. It doesn’t make me much of a man, does it.’
‘Well I wouldn’t put it quite like that,’ said Tim, ‘but you understand that we have to follow a procedure?’
‘Of course I do,’ answered Ed, ‘I needed to come clean for the sake of my son Paul. He deserves to know the truth.’
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.’
‘Yeah, I see what you mean,’ said Tim.
‘I mean, he wasn’t trapped in a foreign country like poor old Leonid Sulkov.’
‘No,’ said Tim, ‘but Leonid Sulkov would probably know.’
‘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.’
‘But mainland Britain wasn’t occupied’ said Tim.
‘No, but the British side of it is what I need to explain.’
‘I didn’t know there was a British side of it’
‘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?’
‘But what happened to them at the end of the war?’
‘Presumably they were adopted by the German families they’d been given to,’ said Leonid. ‘But nobody ever found out.’
‘But wait a minute?’ said Tim. ‘How did they get them to Germany when there was a war on?’
‘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.’
‘What did you say about Lady Eleanor’s arrest back in 1945, Ma’am?’ asked Joe.
‘What does that matter now?’ Steve wanted to know.
‘It is significant because of what it leads to,’ said Tim.
‘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.’
‘But why though?’ said Steve. ‘If she was a Nazi sympathiser then I can square that with what she got up to in the war years…’
‘… I’m glad you can,’ said Sara.
‘Ma’am, only in respect of her wanting to do anything to help the cause back then,’ Steve explained. ‘But what would be her motivation for doing it now? I assume she must be making money out of it somewhere along the line but she doesn’t need it.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine on that one, Steve,’ said Sara.
‘That is what I’m struggling to get my head round, ma’am,’ said Steve.
‘And how could she do something so sick?’ said Joe.
‘How could a man keep his daughter and grandchildren in the cellar of his house for all those years without anybody finding out?’ said Sara. ‘How could a woman, who was also a mother, get herself involved with a paedophile ring? If a mind is that warped then the person it belongs to won’t see what the rest of us do.’
‘Good point, ma’am,’ said Steve.
‘We’re bringing her back in for questioning,’ said Sara. ‘Her days of getting away, literally, with murder, are well and truly numbered.’
FIFTEEN
Paul let himself into his parents’ house and knew straight away that he was too late. The air was still and cold but somehow peaceful. He went into his parents’ room where his mother was standing by the bed. His father had passed away.
‘He’s gone,’ she announced.
‘When?’ asked Paul, looking down at his father’s still face.
‘About seven this morning,’ his mother answered flatly. ‘The doctor’s just left. The undertaker will be here any minute. Your Uncle Leonid has just gone round to the shop.’
‘How come Uncle Leonid is here?’
‘I called him,’ said Mary. ‘He was your father’s best friend. He’d have wanted him here.’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’ he asked, not being able to read her emotions at all.
‘You were coming anyway so it wasn’t worth the cost of a phone call.’
Paul felt his heart break into little pieces. He rubbed his hand across his mouth and looked intensely at his father who was now free of the pain that had so wracked him these past months. He leaned down and kissed his father’s forehead.
‘Bye, Dad,’ he whispered, ‘I love you.’
‘There are things to be done,’ said Mary, bluntly, cutting across Paul’s emotions like a bullet cuts through someone’s skin.
‘They can wait.’
‘No, they can’t.’
‘Is our Denise on her way?’
Without looking at him she replied, ‘she’s very busy today.’
‘Oh so you rang her?’
‘She had a right to know.’
‘She’s not been near him throughout his illness!’
‘She couldn’t bear to see him in such pain,’ said Mary ‘Same as she couldn’t bear to see him lying here like this. She’s doesn’t like playing the hero like you do.’
‘You unspeakable bitch!’
Paul was exasperated with her. He walked out of the bedroom and stood in the hallway. He leaned against the wall to steady himself. He felt the most incredible loneliness, like there was a cold wind blowing all the way through his soul. Then his mother came out of the bedroom and brushed past him.
‘Mum?’
She carried on through to the kitchen and he followed her.
‘Mum, for God’s sake!’
‘He’s barely cold!’ she snapped, ‘don’t start anything now.’
‘Mum, can’t we be at peace just for one day. Is that really beyond you?’
‘Don’t talk to me like I’m one of those failures you spend your life looking after.’
‘Mum, for crying out loud will you stop s
ticking the knife into me!’ he pleaded desperately. ‘Please, just for today. I’m breaking up here.’
‘And I should care?’
Paul walked out of the kitchen and into the lounge where he sat down and put his head in his hands. He sensed when his mother came into the room but didn’t look up.
‘On second thoughts maybe today is the day to start something,’ said Mary.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘You’ve never belonged in my family,’ she snarled. ‘My Denise was only three when your father had his affair with your mother.’
Paul felt light-headed. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand up if he tried. ‘You’ve gone crazy. You’re talking nonsense.’
‘Your father, your big hero, left me for your mother but when you came along and her family rejected all three of you I, like the stupid fool I was, took him back and took you as my son too. I’ve regretted the decision since the day he walked up the path with you in his arms. I hated the sight of you then and I still do. If it hadn’t been for your mother getting her rotten claws in, we’d have been happy as a family of three. Denise would’ve wanted for nothing. But then you came into this house and ruined everything. Your mother destroyed my marriage. You destroyed the rest of my life.’
Paul drove home and went round immediately to Kelly and Lydia’s house.
