Murder Most Royal

But a bit of digging had quickly thrown up the fact that nobody who knew Ned well had seen him since he visited the hall for lunch with his much-hated family. Not only had he not left Abbottswood, there was no guarantee he’d even arrived home. Flora Osborne could easily have lied about seeing him wave goodbye. His cousin Valentine could have pretended to be him in London.

The ‘why’ was the hard part. If Ned had died at Ladybridge, who stood to gain? After all, he was the poor relation. It had taken hours of careful research to find evidence that Ned and Valentine might be related, based on the timing of Valentine’s birth.

If Ned was Valentine’s father . . . bombshell: no more legitimate male St Cyrs to carry on the title. If he was using this knowledge to blackmail them for money for his new project, for example, then there was your motive. One DNA test was all it would take. Maybe the police had already done it. Ollie didn’t have any proof of any of this, but as a theory it held water.

Yesterday, a police dog team had searched the hall from top to bottom, with no joy. But it didn’t take a genius to see where the body would be. It turned out there were a couple of ground-floor rooms with empty windows facing the moat. Ollie was stationed opposite them now. Presumably, the body had been weighted to ensure it sank to the bottom and stayed there, so without winds or tides to shift it around, it was unlikely to have moved from the spot.

So far, the hardest part had been getting the swans out of the way.

Ollie had done a bit of research on swans for the long-form magazine article he’d be writing later. According to what he’d read, they used to be a major delicacy at medieval banquets, as a result of which the Queen could claim ownership of all swans not owned by a couple of livery companies in open waters. Presumably moat-based swans didn’t count. More pertinently for a day like today, they could be vicious if they felt under threat. If you weren’t careful, they could break your arm.

The divers were taking forever to adjust their kit before getting into the water. Ollie trained his binoculars on the house while he waited. Was that a ghostly face at one of the windows? He sharpened the focus. He wouldn’t swear to it, but it looked like Flora Osborne. What would she be thinking now?

The last guests of the season at Sandringham were finishing their stay.